georgerussia

If you're referring to Sep 1938, I would rather say you didn't. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

I checked the original Interfax article here (in Russian). It seems to be the only article, and here's the direct translation: Moscow, Aug 15. INTERFAX.RU - If Poland allows to place an American missile-defense base on Polish territory, it might become (some would say "it will become" as the language is not clear) a target of strike by the opposite forces, said Colonel General Anatoly Nogovitsyn, the deputy of the Army Headquarters chief. "The United States establish the anti-missile defense to protect the United States, not Poland. And when Poland allows the base to set up, they're placing themselves as a target for a potential strike. It's 100%. Such targets are destroyed as the first priority" - said Nogovitsyn, quoting the agreement between USA and Poland. In my opinion what Nogovitsyn said is very reasonable. The place you set up your first line of defense will be attacked first. Poland authorities said exactly the same long time ago, and that's the reason why they have been insisting the USA provide them new weapons (esp. anti-missile and anti-aircraft) as a part of this agreement. I also fail to see any "anger", "cannot go unpunished" statement or any reference to Russian military doctrine. All I see is that he mentioned there are obvious risks in this decision. But every political decision is risky, and often making no decision is even more risky. It is also obvious that U.S. paid a hefty price to compensate Poland for this risk, and they considered it acceptable. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

I acknowledge my lack of English, but could you please elaborate your point? I fail to see it. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

According to 2007 statistics, 60 people will be killed in Russia, which anti-weapon laws are very similar to those in D.C. (one could only own a long-barrel rifle, it must be stored in a special locked weapon safe, it must be discharged and the bullets must be stored separately, the police must approve you to buy it, and so on). As you see, people easily manage to kill other people without having to use pistols. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Depending on the reason he wants to rewrite history. If he found something which supports such a change, then I wouldn't. But if he wants to cross out the crusades so the young souls wouldn't get bad picture of Christianity, then yes, I'd call him full of shit. It is OK as well. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Well, that was your example :) The original post I replied to talked about one meaning of the word "respect", which was "honour, have respect for". You're now talking about different meaning of the same word, which is "abide, follow". Of course if you bring those two together, it just doesn't match since there are people who do not respect the law (in terms of "do not hold this law in respect" - and even actually working on getting it struck down), but at the same time those people respect the law (in terms of they abide the law even though the law in question might be stupid). * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

I'd rather say I abide the law. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

I personally might not. But there is the law for that. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Respect is for someone, not for something. Things itself do not deserve respect. As I said, respect is for people, not for things. So yet, it's fine to say that the Bible is full of shit, and it's fine to say the Bible is the Word Of God Everyone Must Follow. It is, however, not fine to call someone a stupid idiot just because he believes in what's written in the Bible. And it's not fine to call someone an immoral asshole because he does not. Discussing the subject is usually more productive than discussing a person. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

It is very easy to "prove" it the same way: is there any proof that this God does NOT want us to do anything? If we assume he does not and we did, there is no harm done. But if we assume he does, and we did not do anything? Then you have a problem. Similar to Pascal Wager. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

The cheating of your spouse is wrong. But it looks strange when someone who is cheating on their spouse tells another person who is also cheating that cheating is wrong. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

I got 16.99% interest rate last year when I bought my Ford Expedition with 20% down. Had a good credit score (was qualified for $0 down 0% financing), but wasn't even interested in any financing as the plan was to buy this car without any financing. Still got this loan, and we agreed that I will keep this loan for three months, and then pay it off, and that's what I did. You know why? Because I've got a really good price for this car, and the dealership makes some money and gets "points" from Ford Credit when such a loan is signed. It might not be exactly the case with your guy, but he might get something else out of it (for example, he might have got it with zero down and allowed to keep the $2000 cash rebate). Also the financing is getting tough now; recently I helped my friend to buy a car, and it was very hard to find anything less than 17.99% for the people with no credit, even though a couple of years ago 11.99 in the same situation was a highway robbery. Things change. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-flumenbaum/scandal-of-the-ages-docum_b_118842.html * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Technically you don't. But the next obvious step is - if we assume there is God, could we prove he doesn't want us to do something? No. This means the God wants us to do something. However another God might want us to do something else; thus we need to understand who is the boss there. Looks like he kinda went to a wrong scientist. If someone has a psychological problem, he should go to a psychologist, not to a serologyst. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

As I have said before, it does not fix the problem. It only makes it worse. Using exactly the same theory you now need to accept the possibility of existence of Odin, Zeus and zillions of other Gods. Now if you accept it, you need to guess the relationship they have with each other, the hierarchy between them, who wants what and all other stuff. However this is useless from the scientific point of view, and provides no benefits for humankind. Just imagine the plague some time ago. You ask for cure. Such a "scientist" might guess there is God, he punishes those who sins or prays little, and we all need to pray more. But a real scientist would study the bacteria, the immune system, and it will lead to antibiotics. And another thing is that you now should extend this theory to anything and everything, and say that although you have not personally seen scientific proof that praying the Ikea chair will bring your soul to Heaven, you have not seen scientific proof that praying the Ikea chair will NOT bring your soul to Heaven. Therefore I could not claim that either theory is correct, and if someone wants to Heaven, they might need to pray Ikea chair as well. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

So did you just check them and disregard everything they said in favor of Russian news when there is conflict? This is called cherry-picking. It is easy to gather facts to support your opinion when you already made it. You just need to disregard everything which does not follow your opinion. You could find even stronger messages if you listen to clowns like Zhyrinovsky or "idiot news" like oper.ru. Why? He somehow avoided the comparison with Chechnya just less than ten years ago. I wonder how would Churkin and Co react if China started giving their citizenship to Chechnya population, and then when Russia "invaded" Chechnya in 1999 they would "protect their citizens" the way Russia did. At least I hope the Russian peacekeeping forces will be now thrown out of Pridnestrovye (or will not be considered a peacekeepers) at least. This is important. And this is completely not important. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

It's useless because if person already believes in God, they do not need any revelations or proofs of his existence. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

I wonder if there was an applicability problem for 1st law of thermo, how the introduction of God solves it? * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Same way you must believe there are triple-headed men with one eye and 18ft height. Right? Unless you check every human being, how could you be sure that there is no such person? * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

But then it's useless. If the person already believes in God, he tends to treat everything as 'private revelation', like "the flowers around me is a proof God exist". However I do not know anyone who would believe in God _after_ experiencing this 'private revelation'. It always happens in opposite order. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

The term "the most supreme intelligence" does not make any sense to me, same as "the most powerful thing in the universe". Those are religious terms which seems to have no applicable value outside the religion value system. This is the old argument, which has been already explained multiple times. Let me quote John A. Paulos' "Irreligion": How is it that modern free-market economies are complex as they are, boasting amazingly elaborate production, distribution, and communication systems? Go into almost every drug store, and you can find your favorite candy bar. Every supermarket has your brand of spaghetti sauce, or the store down the block does. Your size and style of jeans are in every neighborhood. And what is true on personal level is true at the industrial level. Somehow there is enough ball bearings and computer chips in the right places in factories all over the country. Oil and gas supplies are, by and large, where they're needed . Your e-mail reaches you in Miami as well as in Milwaukee, not to mention Barcelona and Bangkok. The natural question, discussed first by Adam Smith and later by Friedrich Hayek and Karl Popper, among others, is, Who designed this marvel of complexity? Which commissar decreed the number of dental flosses for each retail outlet? The answer is that, of course, no economical god designed this system. It emerged and grew by itself, a stunningly obvious example of spontaneously evolving order. No one argues that ALL the components of the candy bar production and distribution system must have been put in place at once, or else there would be no Snickers at the corner store. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

It doesn't make any sense since it doesn't pass Occam razor test. Introducing a "higher power that creates things" does not simplify the theory. In fact it only makes it worse, since the next question is obvious - where did this "higher power that creates things" come from then? To make it simpler for you: apparently there are a lot of Gods - Zeus, Odin, Beelzebub, Aji-Suki-Taka-Hi-Kone, Allah Almighty, Buddha, Perun and so on. Christians easily dismiss all of them, leaving just one. Atheists just dismiss one more. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

Do you happen to have the link to the alleged law? I don't remember the law like that. There was a similar one, but the difference with what you quote was significant enough. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

When you compare the numbers, please do not forget that U.S. Army is paid (both in terms of salary and future benefits). In a lot of other countries (like China and Russia) there is a mandatory draft, and the soldiers are paid close to nothing in terms of salary, and there are no future benefits for those who served their term in the draft. * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *

You are describing the situation like you have seen it yourself. While, in fact, you're just quoting Russian news web sites (yeah, I read them too). It's funny that you consider "ABCBBSCNN" news (from the countries who are not directly involved in conflict) biased, but consider news from the country which IS involved into conflict as "the only true". Even though you definitely know that there is no more independent news agencies in Russia. BTW, have you ever checked Georgian news? * Don't pray for me if you wanna help - just send me a check. *