It's getting late but I wanted to put down a quick thought. Various organizations and individuals are already (as expected) speaking of S.H.'s trial/execution, and there is little doubt that he is guilty of some incredibly heinous acts. But in serious terms would those same individuals give themselves up for similar scrutiny. Sharon for instance is not far behind if not ahead of Sadaam's heinous acts meter. Yet he has been dodging he UN war crimes tribunal for 30 years. Also G. B.'s actions in starting a war with Iraq and what is occuring at Guantamino Bay should lead to some level of reprucussion, if all was done equally. I have no particular standpoint, I am only interested in justice being met out evenly. Capital punishment will probably result for S.H. which is interesting in that there are many countries that have banned it in an attempt to move society forward, and now they will have to reaffirm their postion or justify this exception (slippery slope). I am also against capital punishment for similar reasons. A society cannot progress forward that holds barbaric traditions in current practice.

The Deputy Minister of Iraq compared Bush to Hitler. I think this is the second public comment. The first one was the one in Germany which wasn't intended to be public but hit the newstands. I've been waiting for more of these to come out. Although it is difficult to sympathize with Aziz, he seems to fully grasp Bush's horrid nature as a powerful political individual. George Bush's recent comment that the UN either face Iraq or "fade into history as an ineffective, irrelevant, debating society" illustrates Aziz's point clearly. Bush represents the worst type of individual, the hypocrite. He backs out of missile pacts and claims they are out-dated, he backed out of the Kyoto Protocol for the "best interests of the US". Now, he states that the UN is worthless because it does not follow his bidding. What types of men throughout history (what neighbors) have only taken and not given, and how do we remember them? He is truly the man of double standards, a man of ambition but virtueless incompotence. With regard to the UN: the minority should be commended for they are the few that look to the future with a clear head.

You can never have everything; it is often the case that to get one thing you will have to sacrifice the other. You want that new toy but you also want to save your dough. There's something else you want but it will trigger an avalanche of suffering. So you choose and if you choose well your gains cover your loss. It is all in your will to choose...

Ahhh, My first entry. I've been on slashdot for somwhere over a year, or 1/5 of its existence. Happy Birthday /.. I figure that since I'm here I might as well start a book or do something useful. Though I should note now that I may end up changing course somewhere along the way since that's that way life is. So, onto my backgroun...
Okay I have a B.A. in Philosophy and a Master's certificate in programming, I'm hoping to start a full Master's in the Spring but time will tell.
Politically, I am much further to the left than most left wingers. I'll get into more later though...
The book that begins here is just stuff on religion that I've picked up over the years and would like to pass on, and what better way than in an open forum. Please bear with me as I muddle may way through life the univers and everything else.... ::Deconstructing Everything::
Usually when a person begins to think about whether there is or isn't a God, they start with a bias. Either a person initially believes, or is leaning toward the belief, that there is a higher power of some sort or there is not. In some cases this may be only a slight bias in others it may be quite strong; in most cases it is persistent. It is a position that is very difficult to change; people are usually happier when their beliefs aren't challenged. Regardless of one's previous position we should attempt to get to the bottom of this for the correct reasons, that is, we should take a path that follows good reason and not dawdle in the irrationale. (I wonder if this is written for the right generation, sometimes works are written too far in advance to be of any use to but a few people. Let's see then, shall we.) The conclusion of this entire work is that there is no such thing as God, or anything that fits those characteristics even in the slightest degree. Also, that whether or not life has meaning for humans is based soley on us, survival and time. I currently think that although life is periodically meaningful it is in the end meaningless, I am hoping that science proves me wrong in this, but I have some doubts. And when I say that I hope science proves me wrong, I mean that I hope that science succeeds beyond what is reasonably possible. I could simply relate to you my particular journey, however I think that might be too easy and it also might lead to various arguments which could otherwise be avoided. I will attempt to write this so that it can actually be read, I have often read books which don't seem like they were actually meant to be read, they were just written so that the author could either make some quick cash or see how many unnitelligable or random words they could string together in a row. So without any further rambling lets move on to the subject matter...
As I have just stated and I will now reiterate this article will be less anecdotal and more a simple explanation.
A rough outline of my thoughts runs as follows. Any concepts of a God that people hold have to be thrown out the window. These concepts must be gotten rid of because they make no sense. For example: calling God a he or a she, or attributing to God a body is irrational because if it was the case that God created the earth then God would have first had to have created the Universe.(Unless you hold the claim that aliens are God, which we'll cover later.) Here I must ask a question: how can something with limited form create something as large as the universe? This, flat out, cannot be done in the way that people would like to think that it might be possible. So now God has to have an alterable form, Which is a little more realistio and has been substantiated in the Bible in that no-one ever sees God they just refer to God as he and in some places she although it's stated that Adam was made in God's image (which can be dealt with later). This usefullness of this excercise was simply to deconstruct the idea that God has some sort of identifiable form. Some individuals like to argue that the Bible is the word of God and as such anything in the Bible is irrifutable. I would like to simply contrast this to the idea the this book was written by people about their idea of what they think God should or would be like, and also as a book of fables to be used by people as a guideline for living. It also leads to circular reasoning which is as far as I can tell self-evidently false. ::more later::