>I'm stuck dead center of the road.

One thing that amazed me is your confidence - you are neither right nor left but a middle. You are a very liberal person who pretend to be a bit conservative. From my impressions, of course.

Karma; Neutral. Still a lot of mysteries in /. world.

Bible is written by prophets who was inspired by God. Pentateuch was written around the middle of 6 century BC, still Jewish people were under Babylonian captivity.

Bible is very human centric, but the fact is many spieces live together on the glove.

I bought New International Version in Manila. Expression is easy to understand, I like it.

Yes, changed a lot.

United States is no more a country for only European descendents. African offsprings, Hispanics, and some Asians. Their birth rate is more than that of European origins.

Mr Barack Obama is the first US president who's from other than white people. This is a reflection of current population portions.

The role internet performed isn't ignorable in overwhelming racist feeling. There's no colour in the net. We can exchange our thought from inside our heart not from outside appearances.

I myself want to be humans before being anything other than humans.

             

Racism -it's a very poisonous idea.

Racists descriminate people not because there's a difference in skin colours among people. Absolutely not. They descriminate people because they just want to do so.

Even if there's no African, Asian on the globe, even if all people are white Caucasian, racists descriminate people because of some particular linege from white Caucasians. Look at the history in Europe.

There's nothing constructive out of the mind of descrimination. Difference is trivial. Race is illusion.

I read many books including Bible. My impression is yes, yes. Perhaps it is based on my biased idea. Bible is a religious book, but it is a precious human record from historical point of view, too. It is unnecessary for us to exclude all the descriptions as myth or fairy tale judging from just simply the book has been performed mainly a religious role.

I don't know whether you are Christian, I am not a Christian.

Probably thousands of years ago a guy called Noah made an Ark and collected some animal spieces before flood comes. His family as well as animals survived, but he didn't start eating animals he collected. He must have thought how to increase the number of animals in the first place.

Pork was prohibited to eat ancient times, because hogs ate many dirty matters as well then pork is believed to cause many disease in human body. Today there's no fear like that, as a result we eat pork.

I think we'd better try to learn lessons from the descriptions in Pentateuch that would be applicable to today's world.

Thanks! Zog!! I had no idea how to reply to his question. I sent him a letter as follows.

Hi, ..

I had thought about it for a while...
My interpretation is secular one, allow me to express it!

I think people wouldn't start eating meat until it reached a sustainable numbers. Today we don't normally eat meat as a result of casual hunting, but through domestication. Animal meat is served through planned slaughtering from a stored pool of livestock evading extinction of precious source of protein.

The point is God gave us permission to make the most of animal as the source of nutrition, so we have to manage the privilege carefully enough.

My reply was not secular!

Mer

Today we take it for granted that we eat animal meat in our daily dietary, but there's a history for everything.

Still three years to come till age half century.

20 years old.. that was a turning point in my life. The first twenty years is as good as the years for the rest of my life after 20 years old. I had felt as if I did almost everything in my minor days what I would do after twenty years old.

That does not mean I had sex, drunk, and smoked. Or rather I had never done these as adults usually do. On the contrary I hadn't done almost anything that ordinary youngsters usually do. I didn't watch TV from age 12 till 25, etc. The reason I felt I lived almost all my life in my minors is due to my psychological factors. There's scarce meaning in the length of life. What we did matters a lot more.

In a sense all our life is illusory. Happy are those who are able to hold illusions in their life.

>You speak of subjective emotions connected to specific points in time.

Probably, so.

Mrs and Mr Mer have been in love for many years, I have stopped seeking for another love like so many years as well. If I lost her or if she said goodbye to me for unknown reasons, I'm sure I will be at a loss so sometimes I've got half a mind that love has been giving me an illusion -this happiness lasts for good, and will deprive me of everything if I rely on it too much.

As to Tillich's word, >Mankind is existentially estranged from the essential goodness of creation in God's image.

A woman was created from a man's rib, so we men seek for a woman to reclaim. Mankind is born to be perfect, but it is estranged because of the original sin they made. I understand these idea stand for Christian world view. But from scientific viewpoint all lives are originally only female and my viewpoint is humans are perfect because they made a mistake properly.

>essentially singular, but existentially plural.

Existence is prior to being.. Existentialism had been a fashion for a while after the war and also it was hard to understand. There were a number of atheistic existentialists as well as theistic ones, but their point was common - subjective judgement matters more than objective ones. I understand the phrase 'esentially singular, but existentially plural' means people are basically alone but they are happy when they are together in love.