The stuff you see in the media does not represent Islam

At the end of the day the greatest weapon the suicide terrorist possesses is not explosives, incendiary devices or hijacked planes but the belief in an afterlife (and rewards in that afterlife for advancing the "cause" of Islam).
Islam directly engenders that belief (as do other religions as has been discussed).
Lack of wealth, oppression, empire, resentment of the west, America's foreign policy etc etc doesn't convince people of an afterlife.
So while the 9/11 terrorists (for example) may well have committed horrendous acts (as people are saying) without religious belief (and almost certainly had various reasons for doing what they did) it was PRECISELY those religious beliefs that enabled them to commit quite the flavour of crime that they did.

Belief in an afterlife is a mainstream Islamic teaching. Not extremist, "Islamist" or confined to nut-jobs.
Without that belief we wouldn't have suicide bombers.

 

So, God is a point of physics where membranes in the eleventh dimension collide to produce a universe? Not exactly the traditional view, is it?

Really, rather than continue to think that physicists have no idea how the universe came in to being, you should read some on M Theory.

Well, what you're actually saying is that humans are bad, and without a God figure we'd do nought but evil. What others are saying in response is that apes are generally social animals, and our social nature is a fundamental aspect of us, regardless of whether there is a big god or not.

Your philosophy is fundamentally anti-human, based on a principle of original spin - that human is bad.

Well, like they say, the devil is in the detail. It's not the major issues that divide - such as murder, rape, etc., it's other issues, like, are you allowed to be gay, or to believe what you want, or to change your beliefs, or to marry who you want, or not believe if you want, or criticise if you want.

Really, what you're saying is a very clever be-fuddlement strategy, because very few people argue about "the biggies" - it's not like Richard Dawkins is saying yeah, let's go rape and murder. The arguments are about other issues, usually relating to enforced belief.

There's no way, really, to defend religion on the grounds of "Well we're the ones saying don't murder" because you aren't actually the only ones saying that. You're the ones saying you're evil if you do this or that - not just murder, but have a threesome or have drink, or, funniest of all, think for themselves - or, whatever people want to do within the law that some set of other humans has decided is "bad".

But the religious argument constantly seeks to pretend that it's really only talking about murder, rape, theft etc. Whereas. you for example, consistently talk of drinking alcohol, taking drugs, believing in qi, recreational sex, being your own guide and moral compass, reading tea leaves, thinking for yourself, as evil.

Well, evil is an idea from within your conceptual structure. I'm not saying it is evil - I'm just saying ti is possible to understand how and why we invneted it. Seeing that, there's no way to ever un-know that it is artificial.

Thing is, me personally, I see wisdom in all those paths, and in many others - I see wisdom everywhere... but wherever I see it, I see it in people.

 

And if We ALL believed she was going to marry you, lol... maybe we could convince her too!

It's a good point - and the important thing to see is that people who do have a belief tend to feel more comfortable the more people who share it - it actually makes it seem more real- and most of all, we don't have to think aboutit any more; the world is explained and that is that!

 

Lol - it's the revisionist history of crusades. That's crusade apologists writing - not the same as exactly, but similar to Holocaust apologists. They can always find reasons why shocking, horrendous acts were justified. Usually by melting parts of their brain.

Just so you know, Europe was run by tyrants too - the Middle East, on the other hand, was the most advanced civilisation on Earth, preserving the Hellenic traditions of science, philosophy, engineering, architecture, medicine and in many cases tolerance. We were barbarians by comparison.

But, what is really relevant, is that despite Jesus saying don't, religious types will always find a reason to.

 

Actually I believe we might... consider the Tamil Tigers for instance. I think the religious justification makes it a much more appealing method however.

 

I always considered extremism's greatest weapon to be the complete lack of hope for this current life. If you really don't think that your life will change for the better, then you are much more likely to give it up. Which explains why extremists tend to be so interested in preventing aide workers from coming into the area.

 

Like the saying goes: You can't make someone love you, all you can do is stalk them and hope they give in...

(can we lock this thread now? or burn it and destroy the evidence?)

 

That's a very interesting point Wry! I'd never thought of that before! Which, given that Islam in particular is very unwavering about the obligation to help the poor and needy, shows a clear disparity between the extremist/political arms and the fundementals of the faith itself.

 

Actually there are Christians who don't believe in the virgin birth; Christians who don't believe that Jesus was, or ever claimed to be God; Christians who don't believe that Jesus was, or ever claimed to be the Messiah (along with some Jews who think he was)...

Being a Christian means trying to live life by the example set by Jesus - it's about being inspired by him and his teachings. There are even atheist Christians who view Jesus chiefly as a political radical. There are Liberation Theologians who advocate Christian communism and so on. Not all of these elements are within the Protestant tradition - Catholicism also has its various branches (including the aforementioned Liberation Theologians), so you see, Christianity is a lot more diverse than many people would have us believe.

Belief in God is not irrational.

No, I'm saying people are flawed. You could see us as neutral and capable of either good or bad actions. It is certainly true to say that we struggle to be good and can easily slip into selfishness. None of us is ever perfect - none of us just does good things all the time. Our survival instincts - our selfishness - our ego - our "haumen" - the thing that has helped us get to the top of the food chain is also our greatest obstacle to all getting along, because with no lions and tigers to fight, we turn on each other. Grrr.

If that's the case, I'm sure you'll be able to go off and find lots of quotes where I've said that. I'm quite curious to see where I said those things.

Let's set things straight, shall we? I do not consider alcohol consumption, recreational drug use or recreational sex to be very useful. In fact I think that feeding selfish sensory gratification only makes your cravings get stronger and you then become a servant of your body's desires, which is why such things can lead to addiction. This makes a person more selfish and less selfless, which is a bad thing.

I've never described belief in qi as "evil" either. I've never mentioned the reading of tea leaves at all, but as it is a form of divination I'm against it. Being your own moral compass is not a good idea, but I don't think I've ever described it as evil. Thinking for yourself is something I don't have a problem with. What I have said is that I would personally like to wipe your beliefs off the face of the earth - this is an entirely personal matter. If I was in charge of a forum or magazine of something, I would censor your opinions. (Please note that this is not the same as wanting to send you to a death camp - that accusation was your own embellishment). My reason for wanting to censor your beliefs is this. You wish to destroy all ideologies, beliefs and religions. You wish to change peoples' perceptions of what good and evil mean.

Now you have also declared that you do not believe in truth or honour. These are things that I consider morally important. I think that benevolent actions, words and thoughts are important. One's words can influence other people and that is why it is important to promote the right kind of moral message. You have said that you are prepared to use trickery and deception and will never admit that you're wrong as it would only draw attention to your mistakes. You have stated that you think that everyone is totally responsible for everything that happens to them, including rape victims and laboratory rats. You take every opportunity you can to insult and belittle anyone who disagrees with you. With those values and attitudes it is little wonder you wish to re-write the rule book we all live by, and precisely why I do not trust you with the job.

It is entirely possible that the Catholic church is absolutely right about some things, most things or just about everything. So the view on limbo has changed, so what? Scientists change their minds all the time and it is seen as a good thing then. But we still always get taught the latest theories as facts.

There may be a double standard at play here. Both religion and science are in the business of trying to understand the truth. We may have to accept that we'll never fully understand, however hard we try. We might just have to settle for workable systems. The Dao that can be explained in words is not the complete Dao.

 

Well, i thought it was an interesting idea as well, but when i thought it about it more deeply, again, there's a lot more involved. Aid workers are very often religious - or have been and are percived to be. By which I mean Christian aid workers in non-Christian areas; which is a very good reason to check who you give money to, IF you give money to charity.

Another insight from that is that maybe the charity is secondary to the spreading fo the religion for these people - I heard someone give a lecture on that on the Christian ministry channel maybe a month ago. This pastor was saying that what people need is Jesus first, everythign else second.

I don't really think there is a disparity - it's one of those foggy things; difficult to unravel. Muslims give to charity, but they don't want to encourage diversion from Islam.

 

You are making assumptions. The aide workers I was speaking about are from NATO, WHO and other well known and secular aide programs.

 

There's evan an "atheists for Jesus" group. No, seriously, there is.

I'd be interested to hear why you think that, as in, do you rationally work out that is more likely that God exists than he doesn't? It's not that "how did the universe get here then?" thing again, surely?

I've told you, that's the same as "Well how do babies get here, hm? If there's no fertility god?"

Hmmm..... I can never quite get that. You see, behaviour has no opposite - we just do stuff. It's not divided up in to good and bad, except in our minds, in our artificial conceptual structures.

People are people, we do what we do. I wonder, see, where this flaw is? You've implied that you don't see a handicap as a physical flaw - neither do I - my mother excretes pity over the handicapped - I never do, because I see them as unique, just as any person is.

Well if you can see why it's artificial to see handicap as a flaw, well why can't you see that it's artificial to see other kinds of flaws?

Ever considered that maybe each unique life is learning exactly what it needs to learn? That each mistake is another lesson, and another experience that leads up to not making that mistake again? You know, "mis-take" just means that you didn't look at it correctly. So maybe people's mis-takes are just events that they didn't see clearly, hence they repeat them and caise themselves suffering.

We are not sinners, JK, just people, exploring what it means to be who we are. Sure, there's a lot of guidance form those great religions that is worth listening to - but we aren't really flawed - and it's people making us feel that we are that is the root cause of most of the things you want to prevent. JK, work towards taking the monkey off people's backs, if you really want to achieve your aim. Humans are amazing, magical beings - our flaws are what defines us as perfectly human. Wanting us to be anythign else is just a kind of torture, because we can't be anythign but human. When are you ever going to get that people are tortured in to being evil?

Good and bad are ideas within the reality that we built - a world of words and judgments and ideas - not features of the universe. You know, it's like maths - at one time people thought mathematics were a natural feature of the universe - now we realise the obvious - that mathematics exists only within our conceptual structures; it's a map that we apply to the world, not the territory. Our morals are the same.

Good and bad shift depending on the view point. The real secret is that maybe we are capable of IMMENSELY more than we are led to believe when afflicted by belief systems. What if we stopped beleiving in it all? Will we fall to our deaths? I don't believe in any of it - really - I don't think any of this is real. But I'm still here.

That's "perfect" according to the psyhcological torture device that other torturers set up to torture us with. That kind of perfect means a state that we can never achieve - like a Jesus state - because it means a state that isn't human. Humans have foibles. JK, I tell you, again, but I know you won't listen, lol, "selfishness" means focus on the self - and one of the primary ways to do that is to suffer; suffering makes the self seem real, so we torture our selves in hundreds of different ways. One is your live up to impossible perfection device - a torture device.

In fact, it's the mirror world trick - without our foibles we wouldn't BE human. If you're prepared to let go of being human - which may be possible, as a "human" is the intellect, the ego, in my view - then you let go of any needs of self, either to be selfish, or selfless. In fact, ever considered that what is meant be "self-less" doesn't mean altruism, it might mean extermination of self in the Buddhist sense?

Yeah, but lions and tigers get on all right for the most part. So do apes.

JK, our ego IS us. It is true - it is our greatest gift and our greatest obstacle - but that's the way these things work sometimes.

You know, funnily enough, our "instinct" is to work together. Even now, people here in argument, even dislike, still are connecting. It doesn't matter whethe rit is in anger, dislike, freindship, whether we learn or not - we all choose still to connect. Connection is a powerful need for apes.

Well, i think you're clever in the way you approach that stuff - you leave it clearly implied that you think those things evil, or gateways to evil. I mean, we could argue about your dissemination strategies - well, i could - I could dissect them if I wanted to - but, is it the real issue? More important is to see how you need those things, how they are actually all a part of you - you need them to be your enemy. A fighter without an opponent is alone in the ring. Really, it is just another expression of a need for connection.

Well that's interesting - see, that's not a reason why you want to censor me, it's a re-statement of what you want to censor me about. Why don't you explain why you want to censor me, see where that takes us. You know, in my beilefs, I'm bringing myself to you for a reason - there is something I need to learn from you.

Why are they true or honourable?
You knwo why I don't have any honour? I don't have any desire to do anything bad. So I don't need honour. Can you see the depth of that?

Well, I guess we're like arch-enemas, lol - flushing each others crap out in to the open...

Thing is, even if we set up here as arch-enemies, you still only further prove what I am telling you; that we generate these artificial binary stand-offs as a means to define ourselves. And yes, I am only playing - but so what - so are you.

Well, Limbo wasn't actually part of the Catholic creed. Problem though is that the word of the Church is said to be the word of God when pronounced as such. You know, God is either right or wrong.

Besides, my point it to you is not that. It's that the vast majority of monotheistic people actively don't back your monotheism. You don't speak for them, you don't represent them. The Catholic Church doesn't acknowledge that "all good peple go to Heaven", or that all faiths are roughly equal. The present Pope specifically challenges that idea.

So, who knows better, you or the Pope? If anyone speaks for God, is it you, or the Pope, or the chief Imams? If you all contradict each other, this facade of b'hai type unity is false, and doesn't make sense. If the Catholic church is right, then you're wrong - so if your beliefs say they are right, then you're saying that you're wrong. But if you're saying that thy're right on some things, maybe, and you just pick and choose which bits, then you acknowledge that actually, your belief system is made up by you, not God. Christ - don't you get it? ALL these old belief systems know this - they've evolved specifically to get round these problems. JK, that's WHY theyy say they are the word of God - specifically to get around the problem that I have highlighted. Without it, the whole thing is just man made. YOu don't know it, but they reject your stance specifically because it undermines monotheism. Ask the Pope, if you ge tthe chance - he specifically understands this and is actively working to prevent your kind of monotheism from destroying all monotheism.

And really, everything you say contrary, or about me, is irrelevant to that core problem in your thinking. You could spend years bluffing your way around it, or you could stop dead in your tracks and dare to consider the implications. I dare you.

Lol - that's not true. Why is religion in the business of understandign the truth? What you need to get is that "claiming the truth" is an ideological mechanism.

Well, you have to understand that Lao Tzu did name it Tao; but what he meant was that words only take you to the threshold - you have to dare to cross. Only, you can't get a camel through the eye of a needle - you can't cross that threshold carrying the baggage of beleifs.

 

You're completely incorrigible.

I neither want nor need enemies - I actually want everyone to start getting along by realizing that we are all basically the same and no one is special or everyone is and we all have slightly or radically different views but we don't need to abolish anything like religion or science. Come on - you're the one who keeps saying we are all fine as we are, well we develop ideologies and beliefs and religions because we find them useful. Science helps us to understand the physical world and religion helps us to understand the metaphysical world. One deals with the hows and the other the whys. We don't need to abolish politics either - come on it is not that simple, if it was we perfect beings would have realized it and done away with them by now but we don't, we keep honing and reforming and revolutionizing our belief systems and between us all we arrive at some kind of balance. If you'd get off my back for once and stop reacting to what I'm saying you might notice that some of what we say is the same, except that you want to destroy it all and I want to conserve what works. Both elements are essential.

Yes, but we have no one left to fear or hide from apart from each other.

Not really because I think you do bad things.

I'm not playing. I sincerely believe what I say and I'd rather not have to say it, but I think your opinions need to be opposed. Can you see the depth of that? I don't have time for this and I dread logging on and having to spend hours writing responses to your posts. But you are clever too and when I say I need to take some time off you carry on replying to my points and start twisting my words just that bit more than usual to provoke me to come back and argue because you are an idea parasite. I used to get picked on because I believed in turning the other cheek. Do you know how much I was tortured for that? You couldn't even imagine. You know I feel a sense of duty to argue with you. People find your weakness and exploit it.

I just wish you'd either go away or stop writing because you are deliberately obnoxious. I don't see the need for it. You even resort to defamatory lies, libelous accusations and belittling put downs in the hope that some of it will stick.

How is this consistent with your rejection of the existence of truth?

No - that would be:

Now - how might you put this? "Boy did you pick the wrong person to start misquoting the Bible at!" No - I'm going to have to work on that - that sounded way too reasonable.

 

So you are claiming that my idea that the universe was made by the Flying Spaghetti Monster and giant pink space bats is a perfectly reasoned one, based on logical deductions and rationalisation of the facts? interesting...

At least the majority of theists I know admit that belief is irrational - in fact, most of them agree that that is the entire point of fiath.

 

Well they're wrong.

 

So you agree that my beliefs as outlined above are perfectly rational then?

 

I'm not a big assumer - you'll find, as you play with me, that I have a wide capacity for encompassed thought - that's thinking deep in to implications, by the by.

NATO and WHO aren't neutral organisations - nor is the UN. That being by the by, it's the history of Western influence in Islamic countries in Africa and the middle east that informs peoples attitudes. Really, that is obvious. The grandsons of the Mahdi still live, rememberign the days of General Gordon - a devout Christian. Aid is not neutral - and to think that aid fron NATO is neutral really buggers belief.

 

Thank you.

Well that's a lie - wverythign you stand for is designed to produce conflict - your stance on religion, taiji, everything - it all produces conflict, and that is a psychological strategy you have developed specifically so to shore up your own position - without enemies you can't be asoldier of God; without sin, you can't be moral; without the dreadful humans, you can't be righteous. It's all a game. It's no different to the teen age Marxist who needs his parents to be capitalist pigs.

Nonsense - it's all about how god people are more special than others. And as for getting along and all jolly well accepting one another's faith - well, the great irony is that people like you with that simple and reasonable faith are the first ot be burned by the religious powers - simply because you undermine them; The Church doesn't want you saying that Islam is just as valid because that highlights, to the people who can see it, that it must therefore all be man made. That's why the Catholic church will never back your view. Even now itis starting to "fight back" against Islam - check some of the stuff that is going on in Africa.

JK, some of these people will murder each other till the end of time - which just tells you that there's nothing in their faiths strong enough to stop it. Religion will always be a force for evil.

Yes, that is true. But consider, it is useful to tell a child that if they stray from the path int he woods that trolls will eat them. You grow up and believe that if you stray from the path devils will eat you, or God won't reward you.. it's the same thing.

No, it doesn't. What helps us understand "that which is beyond the physical" is the study of thinking - the studt of psychology, ideology, conceptualisation. "Religion" is already a constructed "map", and what it "explains" is internal elements of its own artificial construction. Only the study and understanding of language, anthropolgy, ideology, psychology, can genuienly begin to help us understand the hows and why's of why we create ideas like God, and then why we desire to feel like servants of God, special to God etc.

Rubbish. Even the idea tgat there MUST BE a why is ideological; why must there be a why? Because if there isn't a why your existence will be pointless? Well that's self pity talking. Religion doesn't explain "why" we are here, it just constructs a drug to feed the habit of self pity.

Politics is a natural thing - even natural apes have it. "Perfect" in your sense means without mistake. In my sense it just means that things arw what they are - every human is perfectly themselves, perfectly human.. the world is perfectly the world... it's a language game, just like the idea that we are "flawed" is a language game.

I don't want to abolish anything. The ideas I work with will never be mainstream - only very smart people ever work through this stuff. The smartest of the smart.

You are not my victim - I may respond to any point raised by anyone. You represent some of the ideas that enjoy challenging - if there was soemone else with such views, I'd have a go at them as well, lol.

As for where our beliefs are similar - you don't even know what I believe - nothing, actually. Tell you what I "percieve" - that the "truth" i.e. what is "really going on" is so beyond our language and every day perceptions that it doesn't really matter what we call it, how we phrase or see it - it is so beyond our little ideologies and bleief systmes it is truly off the scale. Doesn't matter one jot whether you approach it through Judaism or shamanism or maths or philosophy - they are just vehicles that allow us to move step by step towards the realisation of "it". And it doesn't evenmatter whether you move to get it or not - who cares? We all want different things.

All that matters then is whether you have stopped moving or not.

Well, I'm not afraid of anyone, or in hiding from anyone.

You know zero about me, lol. Do you think challenging God-nonsense is evil? Funny - wherever did you start believing that challenging what you believe can be evil? It is worth understanding that that is an element of ideological infection.

You don't really know my opinions - I just provide you with an opposite to demonstrate that you need one to define yourself.

You play all the time - we all do - personal propoganda - the personal mythology of the self "I'm this, I'm that...." But what we really need is an enemy, to define ourself against. What I'm actually "in" to has never been discussed between us... It's a technique of deprogramming.

Well don't then - and don't ever blame your choices on me. You don't have to respond - you choose to. I may respond to what i want. You have all the power. You are not my victim - funny, clear example of how you choose to do something, then use it to claim being my victim.

I prefer the term brilliant.

I am not responsible for your choice to return. I can walk away from any thread that I want - I've neve rlooked at the last responses to the taiji threads - I have no interest in what people say about me. But that's because I have a powerful control of self. You are not the victim of me posting- I am not making you respond; I have no power over you at all - and if you do feel that I am manipulating you, then you are allowing yourself to be manipulated.

Look - it's just a demonstration - not even for you, for some other people reading. I am demonstrating that like magnets we are drawn to an opposing view in order to define ourselves. We are so unaware of it that we will even blame the other person for us being attracted to conflict with them. Like you are doing here. Understanding that we actually choose to do that- like you choose to post - is a massive point of empowerment. Stop posting repies to me. Put me on ignore. The "feeling" that makes you not want to is the addiction to defining the self via opposition that cripples human awareness.

I am not here to exploit your weakness. What I say to you is a source of personal empowerment. First stage is awareness of it. I know - I know your past - and I know your future - it's not divination, it's understanding how core personality types design their lives. Has not my onemessage to you, consistently been that you have all the power? I have not sought to exploit your weakness, but to make it a power in you. Mirror, mirror, Joanna - great straightness seems twisted.

You are not honour bound to argue with me - you are ego bound.

You have the power. You step away from me. Ignore list - don't reply. When you do that, my messageis half way there - you have, and always had, all the power. You are no one's victim. JK, people have tried to kill me twice, almost succeeding once - I am no one's victim - I didn't feel the slightest anger with those people. I am no one's victim.

I have no interest in putting you down. I wind you up a bit to try to crack the frame, to show how structured our thought-prisons are. You are not my victim - you are an immensely powerful, magical being. You can't just say "Well that person's arguements are too good, I don't think he should be allowed to make them..." Lol

Well, youneed to consider it more deeply - "existence" is not applicable to the concept "truth" - concepts are not the kinds of things that "have" existence. Truth is a function, not a thing. IS there an elephant outside or not, is a truth function. "Truth" evolved as a concept, to become absorbed in more abstract considerations, such as "does truth exist" - but those abstractions are meaningless. If God exists, and is always right, then he's right - ask him a question and his answer is right. You can't be right and the Church wrong, or vice versa and yet both be right if you both claim source from God - it puts God ina difficult position.

Besides, the "dillema" is for the Church - not for me - I was speaking from withint heir conceptual frame.

I know what the quote was - as ever, I am ascribing a different possible interpretation. Have you heard the one that says the eye of the needle is actually a narrow gate in Palestine?

 

Well religion is man made just as science is man made - they are human attempts to understand the truth. That doesn't mean that a scientist cannot make discoveries or that a believer cannot have religious experiences or revelations inspired by the divine or that God cannot communicate ideas to people.

Why is why any different to how? Why is it reasonable to ask how but not why? How's that then?

Ooh you liar - the number or times you've stated that you want to destroy ideologies, beliefs and religions...

I think I'm going to be sick.

Why bother communicating at all then? It seems like a great cop out, incidentally, and a belittling one - great value for money.

I'm still moving and grabbing a quick sandwich and typing. Well I'd hate to be impolite and not reply at all.

I know what you tell me. I can't help it if you are not telling the truth. But I was referring chiefly to what you do here on MAP - I think the way you talk to people is very bad - exceptionally arrogant and rude, and even quite aggressive at times.

No you don't - you say the same rubbish to everyone and even start threads on it.

I can do anything I like. What is it you'd say "I have all the power."? I can respond and complain about it just as you can choose to keep arguing with me. It's all your fault.

Yup - it's wrong, as is the one about it really being harder for a ROPE to pass through the eye of a needle. They're just rumours designed to soften the blow regarding how you're not allowed to be wealthy. It really is a camel and a needle.

EDIT - here's something about it:
http://www.edburrell.com/eye_of_the_needle33.html

I could if I wanted, but they're not good they're just irritating. They are an internally consistent construct, but only because you make up the rules as you go along. You couldn't put up a shelf with them though.

I don't need to do anything you tell me to do. I don't like your ideas or how you present them and I think they are untrue. I can argue with them if I want and it's all your fault.

Now, phone up about my internet connection, assemble the hoover, finish those shelves and make some back-up disc images... ooh sorry - thinking aloud (or is that allowed?!)

 

Yeah, but what if you work out that God was part of the man made structure also? Who are you getting messages from then?

It isn't any different. But that's from the over view of someone who sees science and religion as both being artificial maps. How is just as much the subject of ideology as why.

In me. Sometimes I play, pretending I'm on a crusdade to wipe out religion - I only do that to be a direct mirror of your crusade to spread religion.

I'll pass you a bag. Sorry to say, philosophy, as it stands now, is an incredibly complex area, requiring a lot of smarts. I don't even care - I'm really, really, really smart. Why should I care about that, lol?

Those kinds of questions you need to find your own answer to. One thing we hear too little of is "Well you work out your own answer."

You know, you could try Fire Quan anonymous - to help with your addiction.

Yeah? And?

Well, I'm just playing the one character here. People lie constantly - it's what people do, only, they get upset if their particular kind of lying isn't adhered to. Almost everythign anyone ever says is personal propoganda, designed to make someone believe somethign about them. Doing it deliberately, if anything, is better than doing it subconsciously.

Sure it is. Let me put it another way, then - I am not responsible for your choices. You may say that I am, but I'm not. "FQ, you're so mean, why do you keep forcing me to respond to you?" Lol. About that signed photo you asked for...

Well, i figure that too.

*Sticks tongue in cheek..." I could beat you if I wanted to... I just don't want to... heh...

No, but I'm not trying to.

Sure it is. Thanks for giving me power over you - I promise to use it compassionately.

You want me to do all those things for you? Is this like a servant fetish thing? *shrugs...*