Not only that, he can now link to your post and use it as a second source. We have confirmation!

Because you fail to understand that they are not being on trial for being a church (which they are not in Europe, but I digress). It's not an attempt to outlaw a religion (which, again, they are not in Europe), they are not on trial for being a "cult" or for "leading people astray" (which would, without any doubt, be a religious motivated move and hence shouldn't (and couldn't) stand in a Belgian court).

They are on trial for being an organization that uses its organized powers to harass those that dare to leave and ruin their lives. If anything, this trial is actually very positive towards the freedom of religion. Its aim is to stop an organization from taking this liberty away from someone who chooses to NOT be a member of them anymore.

It's one thing to pray to some god (or no god, or fear some god and try to become a "better" person to fight off those monsters under your bed).

It's another thing to harrass and prosecute people who dare to leave. And don't tell me it's an "individual" decision of some CoS members. In that case some mighty powerful indoctrination must have happened to give people all over the planet the same bright idea.

The language.

Kill my pet? Cause depression?

I dread the day WoW gets shut down. Or maybe I should be looking forward to it, a few flats might get on the market again.

If houses were like IP, those bricklayers would be rich, after all, they could charge everyone living in the house, even 70 years after they died.

Well, I guess we're heading into a new "dark age" when it comes to our culture and art. We will of course have all the documents and historians of the future will have no problem discovering what politicians ruled where, what wars were fought and why, but what music we listened to, what movies we saw, will be lost.

Lost due to incompatibility and formats that nobody can read anymore. How many items from earlier times do you have on VHS and Beta that you digitized so it won't be lost when that VCR dies? No such luck with BluRays. Once there is no player for it anymore, those discs are mighty shiny coasters, but that's pretty much it.

Creating a big "national archive" isn't really going to solve the issue either, at least if we don't think in decades but centuries. Remember the great library of Alexandria? It did contain pretty much all the knowledge of its time, and all of it was lost in the big fire. All it takes is some civil war or some religious nuts taking over and declaring the whole crap as "heretic" and we being better off if we just destroy it.

Though blaming just the religious nuts is maybe a bit short sighted, considering pretty much the same happened with a lot of religious iconography in Russia when the Soviets took over, so ... no matter what radical idea takes over, anything in government hands is prone to destruction.

Historians often have to rely on "private" archives that nobody but the original owner knew about, because such archives are usually much safer from deliberate destruction. But just these archives will not be available to future historians.

Actually, shortening it would reflect the changes in technology and society.

The original copyright (IIRC of 7 years) was adequate for the time when it was invented. It took a creator a long while to get his works into a format where it can be reproduced easily, reproduction took quite a bit of time and making the item known to create a stock of customers took even longer. Those 7 years was pretty much what it took to get the item produced and sold.

Today, creation, reproduction and advertising can be done in mere hours, maybe days. A copyright of about 7 months would reflect the reality of today.

True. It wasn't meant as an apology, I'm merely playing devil's advocate (no pun intended).

As I said a few comments above (or was it below?), when comparing the good and the bad things religion caused, mankind would have been better off without when looking at the totals.

Yeah, we are all so completely desensitized to the whole sex crap that we don't even turn around anymore if we see some boobs. I guess the average kid would go "tsk... fake!"

Why did I know that comment would come...

The perspective of course changed with times. But I still don't get much out of porn. It's a bit like sports, watching ain't feeling half as good as doing it yourself.

No, you don't forget it. But, honestly, did it "warp and twist" you? Did it "traumatize" you?

I tell you what it was for me. It was a source of a lot of giggling together with my friend looking at the porn stash of his (then 19 year old) brother, it was a naughty and kinda-sorta forbidden experience, it was exciting, but not for its sexual content but more 'cause we both knew that we weren't supposed to sneak into his brother's room and go through his "naughty" magazines, it was more a thrill of the forbidden than anything sexual at all. Thinking back, the "thrill level" was pretty much on par with sneaking into my grandpa's tool shed and touching (not even using, just being there and "handling") his "adult" tools that we were not allowed to touch (for good reason, acetylene welding torches sure ain't for kids!).

It was the thrill of the forbidden. But seriously, not the sexual content.

Hmmm... if hormones kick in and kids apparently "want" to have sex due to them, I guess nature's trying to tell you something.

If it happens before kids understand what they're doing, you failed as a parent.

All fine and dandy, but my thought would be "FU..! If I hadn't checked that thing before I hand it to my five year old, he'd have seen that crap!"

Not "FU..! How DARE they put this crap on the device I dump on my five year old without even taking half a look at it first to see if it's ok for him".

It may surprise you, but quite a few people are feeling "European" rather than German, French or Spanish. Even though it seems our politicians didn't quite get the idea of the European Union yet...