Actually, I'd say that the enlightened used those stickers. :)

With apologies to the AA among us...

With regard to the AA comic, I want to point out that the person in the program who stops using no longer makes his friends and family miserable. He/she now has a sense that they are not the most important thing in the world and are not the victims they thought they were when they used in their former nihilistic, dead-end (and most likely secular) mindset.

Now, to you they may be re-adopting childish things, and playing a mental trick on themselves in putting what is beyond their control in the hands of a higher power (God). But it works in making life better for them and us.

As for the Africans with AIDS, they also have two ways of viewing their situation: a) the physical world is all there is, and I got shafted, or b) there is part of me with a purpose that transcends my physical death.

Since we can't prove or disprove either scenario, they are both in their way mental tricks. Which one will be more uplifting, and which will be more of a drag?

That's a false choice you've set up. Let me try:

a) The physical world is all there is, and I got shafted. But I'm going to definitely die soon if I just lie here instead of working hard to stay healthy and getting the most out of what I have left

b) there is part of me with a purpose that transcends my physical health so I'm just going to lie here and die. If given the opportunity, I will give the gift of such transcendent purpose to that cutie over there by having unprotected sex. If god doesn't want her to die, he'll protect her. If he doesn't, she's just experiencing her purpose. Oh the joy of giving that to her.

I am glad that the content of Ahmadinejad's speech was benign as you pointed out. But it has little bearing on who he really is and what he represents. Even a stopped clock is right two times a day.

My point was not about him anyway, but about how the media intelligencia has no moral clue. Why can't a tradition like their own country's Christmas message stand on its own instead of being deconstructed and countered? I've been to the Ch 4 HQ in London and it's an architectural masterpiece. These guys are literally some of the most well off and privileged in the history of the world but they must not appreciate that fact; they ignore the culture that made so much possible for them, as they seek in so many ways to counter and downgrade it.

Come on, believing in an afterlife doesn't mean you don't do what you can to sustain yourself physically. You do have a body and have incarnated for a reason after all. It's real impact is in alleviating the mental burden of the things you CAN'T change.

And I never meant that non-believers all have a bad attitude, only that it is more likely for them to, and for logical reasons.

I think most of us are arguing it's less likely, for logical reasons.

I know you are coming from a good place on this and you want to be objective with regard to both sides (as do I), and that there are two sides to every story. But the reality in this case is that the two sides are very different:

The Israelis repeatedly say they want peace and a two state solution. They have put their money where their mouth is and have done various "land for peace" deals including the Gaza pull-out of 2005 where their army forcibly removed Jewish settlers.

Hamas repeatedly has said it does not want a two state solution and that they want Israel gone completely. They have also put their money where their mouth is.

I have to believe what the two parties themselves say since their actions back them up.

It's easy for Israel to sit there and say, "Hey, we're offering peace" because they know it won't be accepted. If they thought for a moment that offering these cease fires and two state solutions would actually result in a peaceful recognition of a Palestinian state, you'd see a far different voice from Israel.

You spend enough time talking to Israeli Jews, or Jews who've spent time in Israel and they'll tell you the same thing. Neither side will consider the fighting over until the other side is dead.

And the pull-out from Gaza lasted how many hours until the blockade began?


I've finally come to the conclusion I want Hamas to win, and Israel to be blown from the face of the earth. They are an insult to Jews everywhere, and a disgraceful example of becoming that which you hate. They are today's Nazi's.

And there: I've Godwined this thread about God. I win(ed)!