Comments
Please wait...
Comments are closed.
Commenting on this item is available only to members of the site. You can sign in here or create an account here.
is a proud member of the
network
network
All contents © Noisy Creek, Inc.
800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
the Texas of Canada.
BUT - they also help large numbers of desperate people who can't get help anyplace else. For a lot of destitute, homeless people, the SA is the only group around that can get them food and shelter.
So they're a very mixed bag. But they probably do more good than harm.
That said, you forgot zombies.
Which is extra hilarious since his mother has tried to shield him from "war toys" since he was in an infant. Boys, what can you do?
Dan, you should start a HomoLiberal Humanist Heathen charity and distribute Harry and Twilight but not M16s....
That would teach the muthurfuckers.
(ps, taxing Real America to fund your HomoLiberal Humanist Heathen social policies doesn't count....)
The woman at the Edmonton Headquarters switchboard hadn't heard about this (!), but patched me through to Karen Deiper (sp? sounded like "diaper"), where I left a voice mail. You know, I don't ever donate to specifically Christian charities during the year for just this reason, but I always throw coins in those kettle pots. No more.
Here's the contact info, for what it's worth:
Alberta & Northern Territories
Divisional Headquarters
9618-101A Avenue
Edmonton, AB T5H 0C7
Phone: 780-423-2111
Fax: 780-425-9081
e-mail: info_ab@can.salvationarmy.org
@2 Too true, unfortunately.
oh well
now you can toss those coins up your tight sanctimonious ass.....
what (!)
we're shocked everyone in Can'tada hasn't heard about this!!
i thought the whole thing was very strange.
Someone should tell the Salvation Army that they're not a real "Army."
Oh, and fuck the Salvation Army, @4 hit the nail on the head.
No, I really don't think they do.
@5:
An M-16 isn't going to do shit against vampires and sorcerers - or rather, it wouldn't IF they really existed, that is...
But in general, yeah, take your donations to Goodwill or smaller, local charity stores, like St. Vincent in Chicago.
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/artic…
"So they're a very mixed bag. But they probably do more good than harm."
That's a big assumption to make. I'd want you to back it up before I accepted it as a truth.
@23- When loaded with special silver/holy water bullets they do. Just as Kris Kristofferson, who fights vampires and used to sleep with Janis Joplin, so you know he's legit.
Nothing can help with the Twilight series. Nothing.
What we really need to do is outlaw dishonest solicitations by religious charities and force them to tell donors up front that their money will be used first and foremost to proselytize.
yummy......
If you have "endless athiest rage," you shouldn't have much trouble finding a much easier target.
And 5280 @ 19: I believe Calgary is in Canada, not [the United States of] America, at least for the time being.
You made me laugh. I wouldn't know how to give the gift of religion if it bit me in the ass. What a person chooses to believe is up to them to decide. And, that word "person" applies to all, which includes our two children.
Back to my Stratocaster.
I don't think that I have the be-all or end-all. And, I am wary of any person who thinks that they do, to be honest. I'm fairly convinced that we humans are very capable of self-delusion and retaining beliefs in spite of contravening facts, as a protective measure. Which makes me rather doubtful that any person's intense personal religious experience, though they may have genuinely felt it, reveals anything about the actual existence of God. I don't doubt that people have those experiences or even wish to deny anyone their claim of their own "reality", I'm just prone to think that those experiences belong only to the mind of the person having them, and an examination of the neuronal correlates in the medial temporal lobe of their brain as one had a transcendental experience would be fascinating. I guess that I'm just cynical enough to think that we all interpret any event we experience in the light of what our mind already wants to believe. How does one do a double blind experiment upon one's claim of having an intense religious experience or the knowledge one claims to have gained concerning the existence or will of God from a transcendental experience? One can't and therefore it seems unwise to rule out the idea that a personal, perhaps non-conscious, bias exists. Maybe, that is why I'm stubborn about people telling what I should or should not believe, or what I should or should not know, or that they are the keepers of the be-all and end-all? I prefer to allow people to have their own opinions, and expect that they allow me my opinions.
and things that are not.
when one finds the truth, they realize it.
True.
True.
False.
If an encounter with a true concept caused someone to become instantly aware of its truth, we would have discovered that the Earth is round much earlier than we did. Contrary to your proselytizing comment, we humans do not have the innate capability to differentiate between truth and falsehood; to gain this, we must teach ourselves how to think. You, and most of the world with you, are sadly remiss in that regard.
Capt. Pam Goodyear says the Salvation Army won’t give children Harry Potter or Twilight toys because “the Salvation Army doesn’t support witchcraft, witchery, and black magic.” These are toys that are inspired by books which are works of fantasy, not fact. I hate to be the one to tell you, Ms. Goodyear, but wizards, werewolves and vampires are pretend creatures, they don’t actually exist, just as fairies, dragons, and mermaids are make-believe as well. By your definition, if a book about wizards “supports” wizardry and black magic, then a book about fairies like Tinkerbell “supports” Paganism, as fairies are part of Pagan storytelling. What about the evil queen in Sleeping Beauty? Should she be outlawed because she casts a spell? Surely this is an example of “black magic”? The point is, children’s literature, and children’s toys, are full of make-believe creatures, and they help tell stories. Harry Potter doesn’t promote the practice of “black magic” any more than Sleeping Beauty or Snow White does, they are simply stories with good and bad make-believe characters. The important thing to remember, Ms. Goodyear, is that witches, wizards and black magic are pretend things, just like mermaids and dragons, you don’t need to worry about “supporting” things that don’t actually exist."
"proselytizing"?
you seem a bit defensive.
or insecure...
You must worship a very uncaring god.
Most people who worship a God believes He has planted in them the ability to judge right from wrong.
The god you worship doesn't speak to your people for millennia,
hasn't updated the dietary code or rules for social interaction for even longer;
gives them no way to judge the Truth when they hear it,
leaves you to figure it out all by yourself (good luck with that- ditch here you come....)
it makes one sad to contemplate.
One wonders how your god is better than having no god at all.
Sorry, bud, but the Bible's not too big on the idea of God doing everything for people. God's unlikely to be following anyone around cleaning up their messes and giving them all the cheat codes. Not because He can't, but because it is His will that we learn to do things on our own. Quite the infantile attitude you've got there, expecting God to do everything for you!
One thing in particular bemuses me. You think that laws are good if they're constantly being revised, and shitty if they're good enough to be left as is? Have you ever heard the phrase "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"?
I'm not seeing how using the word "proselytizing" makes me defensive or insecure. ("Proselytize: To attempt to convert another person to your beliefs.") I'm just telling it like it is.
Finally, the worst sort of ignorance is that which does not recognize itself. Because you think you know it all, you're incapable of expanding your base of knowledge to a less pitiful size. I know that truth is a slippery beast, and hard to distinguish from falsehood, and so I keep my eyes open, constantly reevaluate what I know, and don't pretend to know more than I do. Thus, I am able to learn. Learning is fun. You should try it sometime.
Do you eat shellfish?
Do you wear polyester?
Because those are shitty irrelevant laws?
Or because you are a min meshumad?
Your god was quite helpful once upon a time.
Lot and that little jam at Sodom?
Remember Joseph and the famine?
The plagues?
Blood of the Lamb on the doorjamb?
(Blood of the Lamb.....why does that sound familiar?)
Red Sea?
Jericho?
Gideon's 300?
Goliath?
the wonders of the Return?
your god got you through quite a few predicaments.
but that all ended.
did He change?
or did you......
that little voice?
if you ignore it it goes away.
And no, I do not eat pork or shellfish. Ever. I say the Sh'ma before going to sleep, I observe the Sabbath, and I keep the Torah always in my heart. I follow the law which you people don't even pretend to follow anymore.
If you think that God's will is a voice in your head, you should get yourself sectioned. God speaks subtly, and only those who truly listen will hear.
Also, you're equally ignorant in the realm of science as in theology. Sour and bitter tastes are processed at entirely different taste bud receptors. In fact, since alkaline foods taste bitter and acidic foods taste sour, bitter and sour are opposites.
Well, Wealth is really what it all comes down to, is that it?
Who needs god if you've got money.....
You seem a little more arrogant than usual, we must say,
though typically ignorant and dismissive of history.
The Holocaust, was that an example of 'doing just fine'?
And the Christian Western democracies that defeated Hitler
and made the return to Eretz Yisrael possible-
reestablishing for the first time in almost 2000 years a Jewish State and homeland;
and America's generous support that makes the existence of Israel possible-
you feel not even a speak of gratitude in your cold black heart?
(you have said the State of Israel doesn't mean anything to you-
evidently the Conservative American Christians
you are so much richer than and superior to
have a more keen interest in Biblical promises to Israel
than an educated Jew such as yourself)
'you' christians?
feeling defensive again?
the troll isn't defending 'christians'.
you were telling us about your beliefs.
we must admit, we have learned something-
we were unaware Jews did not believe in a conscious.
interesting.
.
Bitter. it has several definitions.
see 3-7:
1.-having a harsh, disagreeably acrid taste.
2.-producing one of the four basic taste sensations; not sour, sweet, or salt.
3.-hard to bear; grievous; distressful: 'a bitter sorrow'.
4.-causing pain; piercing; stinging: 'a bitter chill'.
5.-characterized by intense antagonism or hostility: 'bitter hatred'.
6.-hard to admit or accept: 'a bitter lesson'.
7.-resentful or cynical: 'bitter words'.
It is possible to be very educated but not very wise.
"Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!"
Who was it who won World War II? I wouldn't credit Christians too much. The Manhattan Project, originator of the nuclear age, was what gave the Allies the quick and decisive victory over Japan, and you can thank notable Jewish scientists Einstein and Oppenheimer for that. Who cracked German radio encryption? Alan Turing, an atheist homosexual. And if God had so turned away from us, we would have been destroyed. You Christians have grown soft and decadent, and have forgotten that you were once strangers in a strange land. You have become the oppressors of others, while we remember our centuries of oppression and do not inflict such on others.
You have an uncanny tendency to make up blatantly false statements for the purposes of furthering your argument. I have never said, nor do I believe, that "the State of Israel doesn't mean anything to [me]".
Pardon me for asking, but what is "a conscious"? And why do you think we don't believe in it?
Mentioning "bitter" in the same clause as "sour", in the absence of other key words, implies the taste-related definition of "bitter". You're a bit slow on the uptake here.
It is funny that you quote the phrase from Isaiah that you do. I am conscious that what I do not know greatly exceeds that which I do know. You, however, believe that you hold the key to instantly discerning truth and falsehood. If that's not arrogant, nothing is; mastery of knowledge in its entirety is God's alone.
darn if the Jews were the ones who won WW2 seems they would have done it before hitler killed 6 million.
oh well
better late than never?
and had we known the Jews had it all in hand 10 million Americans could have stayed home instead of serving in the military and a quarter million of them could have avoided being killed.
"Contrary to your proselytizing comment, we humans do not have the innate capability to differentiate between truth and falsehood"
From the point of the view of the Salvation Army I'd imagine that Stephenie Meyer being a Mormon would make it worse. Fundamentalist Christians of that type tend to regard Mormons as heretical pseudo-Christians.
wow
two swings and nothing but air-
how about:
C- satirising all-talk-but-no-action Slog HomoLiberalism.....
.
71
sorry to be so convoluted
let's make it easy...
"Dear Dan,
it's easy (and worthless) to sit on your ASS criticizing the charitable works of others.
The world is full of lazy worthless sacks of shit critiquing those who actually DO something.
Get off your ASS and do your own charity and match the efforts of the Salvation Army.
or STFU."
ps
the truly charitable wouldn't criticize the efforts of others even if they found them lacking, they quietly diligently work (outside the limelight....) to do good themselves.
pss
it is typical of Dan, who from IGNORANCE or intentional DECEPTION, ignores the great amounts of good that religious organizations and people do in the world.
What do you think, venomlast- is he a BITTER spiteful hateful shell of a human?
Or an evil lying hatemongering asshole?
do your people have a parable comparable to the splinter/beam-in-the-eye one?
something pithy you could share with Dan?
You do realize Dan has nothing but contempt for your beliefs, scripture, practices...
We wonder at the insecurity and self loathing that prompts 'religious' people to come on Slog and cravenly beg for approval and acceptance from of QueerInc.
And to pervert their scripture to satisfy the deviant beliefs of those who revel in their godless heathenism.
We assume it is some kind of worshipful-fan cult of personality thing.
Re-fill the Prozac prescription. Quickly.
re 40
Ditto.
Re 58
It's about the message, not the content per se. The Narnia books had sorcery, as did Tolkeins series. In both there was a clear moral law in effect, where good was in conflict with evil. Quite apart from the appallingly poor writing in either the Twilight series or the Potter series no such message is present. (I won't give books to children, mine or other peoples, without reading them. My children wanted both series, so I performed the ultimate sacrifice and read one book from each set of drivel, hours of my life I won't ever get back. In both cases I purchased similar books by authors who could actually write, which my kids loved.) From an atheist or a liberal perspective no moral or ethical value is important ever, or really anything but the immediate satisfaction of whatever urge you might feel that instant. From that of a Christian charity values and morality are and should be important and upheld.
Now, you can disagree with and withhold donations to such charities, expressing your own moral convictions. But the Salvation Army is acting entirely within what they see as their obligations to God and their mission. Castigating them for that is just silly, particularly from the kind of person who routinely accuses Christians of hypocrisy when they don't draw such lines.
You know, some people just want to watch the world PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI PUDDI GIGA PUDDI!
Yep. As I wrote, in the love I bear for my son I endured the first book of Ms. Rowlings display to the entire world of her entire incapacity to write well from its first insipid sentence to its last worthless one. He owes me. Big time. Faustian deals with the devil are the only possible explanation for her success, (see for additional evidence the incomparably incompetent author Dan Brown.) Or maybe it's mass delusion as to what constitutes good writing. Given the mostly liberal educators in schools more interested in diversity and feeling good than reading writing and arithmetic I'd guess the latter.
As for the PUDDI ad nauseum, are you okay? You do know that doesn't actually mean anything, right? Did someone feed you pork or something?
"Intolerance of intolerance is the only acceptable form of intolerance." Ever hear the word 'tautology'? You probably were educated at a public school, therefore a brainwashing factory for little liberals. Logic, classical writing, mathematics and so on aren't important there, so you must have missed this term.
And, like I wrote, my quarrel with Rowlings, Brown and really 95 percent of anything published the in the last 2 decades is twofold. First, the quality of writing is ridiculously poor. Second, the moral sense is backwards or absent. Primarily, being a lover of good writing, the first condition bothers me most. Still, of any 100 books or songs published in 1810, 1910 or 2010 the vast majority are deservedly forgotten. There is some consolation in knowing that while Cervantes and Dante and Milton and Mark Twain will till be read in a hundred years, Harry Potter will not be even a distant memorsy. There is some consolation in knowing that the lemming like rush to bigoted hatred of Christianity on the left is a passing fad, and the morals and ethics of that faith will outlast the childish fad.
You really don't know what you are talking about, do you? There are a wide range of moral and ethical codes that can and do exist in secular and liberal frameworks, including pre-Christian and non-Christian societies.
It is amusing to see you refer to public schools as "brainwashing facilities for little liberals" in your post @80, given how clearly you yourself seem to have been brainwashed into a narrow, blinkered perception of reality in which the only values of any, well, value, are those derived from Christianity.
And really, "consolation in knowing that while Cervantes and Dante and Milton and Mark Twain will till be read in a hundred years"? You do know technically poor writers of dubious moral standing, like Mary Shelley, Alexandre Dumas, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Charles Dickens are all still read more than a hundred years on, and even celebrated for their literary heft? Who can say if Joanne Rowling will be read down the generations, but everyone who grew up with Harry Potter will certainly be passing it to their children. It certainly seems possible that Rowling has a shot at lasting posterity.
Wrapping up, comments like "Did someone feed you pork or something?" directed at a Jew are inherently anti-semitic. Venomlash's fitting mockery of your idiocy does not give you permission to break out the religio-ethnic based sarcasm. I am so sorry you feels so oppressed as a member of the christian majority. It really is so faddish that we don't like having to live by your medieval rules. I suppose one day we'll just have to give up the golden rule and return to the fold. We really are immature. I'm so glad you are consoled by this knowledge.
The first half of what I wrote in my post at #77 was attacking your absurd argument. The second half I only posted because I don't much like or respect you.
I'm fully in agreement with assessment of Twilight (well, not the bullshit Christian tint on your view of if), but J. K. Rowling actually does have a good amount of literary talent. The plots of her books are convincing and well-thought-out, her characters are complex and realistic, and her sense of timing is impeccable. Her greatest weakness is that her wording in the later books is in many places overwrought, waxing overly dramatic in such a way that it clutters the heart of the story. But hell, Hawthorne and Joyce had that problem too.
@80: I'm familiar with the definitions of "tautology" (yes, there are two), but I looked them up again just to be sure. You should have done the same, because "intolerance of intolerance is the only acceptable form of intolerance" is in no way a tautology. It is not necessarily true in every possible way of interpretation, and it does not consist of repeating the same idea using different rhetoric. I've got a strengthening suspicion that you are, in the manner of many hipsters, feigning knowledge through the incorrect usage of big words.
Indeed, a truth that will live on through the ages.
This should probably be engraved on the Lincoln Monument if there's room for it, since it's really so much better than that silly Gettysburg Address.
Obviously here you were attempting to follow the teaching of St. Paul in his letter to the Ephesians:
Well done!