In news:Xns985CBAEACC52Akiwilovesomewherenz@203.109.252.31,
Harvey@NZ <kiwilove@co.nz> typed:

"Amanda Angelika" <manic_mandy@hotmail.com> wrote in
news:T2ZXg.16528$L.13436@newsfe4-gui.ntli.net:

In news:Xns985C833F466ABkiwilovesomewherenz@203.109.252.31,
Harvey@NZ <kiwilove@co.nz> typed:

Hilary <hilary.crabtree@hotline.com> wrote in
news:r4kli2p6fe45fqhcmpes1u2f5etgtp49dl@4ax.com:

On Mon, 09 Oct 2006 22:08:58 GMT, "Amanda Angelika"
<manic_mandy@hotmail.com> wrote:

In news:1158545070.850102.68990@e3g2000cwe.googlegroups.com,
Noah's Dove <noahdove7@lightspeed.ca> typed:

Who defines good or evil?
If man is one with the cosmos or some impersonal concept of God
there cannot be a basis for truth or ethics. The impersonal, as
such, is silent about such things. There is no basis for saying
anything is right or wrong if all is one with God. What you are
left with is total relativism or the arbitrary absolutes of the
controllers who ever they may be. "If All is One , good and evil
are reconciled, then one can can do nothing bad; thus Manson was
only acting logically....the fact that Manson's followers knew
him as both Satan and Christ highlights the collapse of
distinctions between good and evil under moral relativity".13

That's total bunk. There are pleasant experiences and there are
bad experiences, there is creation and there is destruction.
There is night and there is day, there's darkness and there is
light. You can be nasty to others or one can be nice, you can
love or you can hate. There are universal absolutes in our
Universe on which to base a conception of good and evil.

That remains true whether the individual gets their sense of
morality second hand from organised religion or from their direct
experience as a child and aspect of the Universe itself. The only
difference is whilst the member of an organised religion may be
lulled into some sense of false security by the concept of
redemption, and feel he she has a licence to perpetrate evil in
the name of his or her religion a god has to take full
responsibility for all his or her actions knowing there is no
redemption and that as a god you can create your own Heaven or
you can create your own Hell. You cannot be a higher being
without taking on the full responsibility of godhood :)

Tony Blair took the UK to war with a fairy tale. People will
believe anything dear, it's a fact.

Politicians speak the same language, no matter what country, no
matter what party. They avoid responsibility and claim anything
they can get away with. We don't need them at all - they need us.
How much of what we are told, is actually true at all?

It's odd that most acts of terrorism and indeed war are against the
ordinary civilian population or involve territorial invasion. When
logically rather than go to war, it would seem to make more sense to
kill the politicians and leaders.

I wouldn't go as far as killing the politicians - but they should
be made an example of, for sure.

Well I'm not suggesting we kill our own leaders and politicians. Although
obviosly under certain curcumstances like for example if 911 were really
found to be perpetrated by elements in the US government itself that would
be an act of treason and with a crime of that magnatude the death penalty
would have to be considered.

The invasion by the US of Iraq - shows how inadequate they did their
homework? It was simple minded of the US government to ever think that
removing Saddam and installing Democracy would bring peace and
prosperity to that country.

It might have worked better IMO if it had been done in a more covert way.
Instead of as a highly dramatic show of strength for the benefit of
television. The results certainly could'n't have been any worse and in terms
of minimising civilian casualties and indeed military casualties to it would
have seemed a better strategy IMO.

Or that the Russians could outfight the Afghans (did they know that
the Afghans loved fighting - it was their hobby) when they invaded.

Of course the scary thing about the Russian Afghanistan war is it was a
major factor in the collapse of the Soviet Union. The other thing is
attempting to impose Western style democracy on these countries seems a
contradiction in terms because imposing something regardless and against the
will of the people is not democracy it's a form of oppression. If the people
of a county want to live in a way that we in the West would see as little
more than savagery that should be their right.

The fact that the Afghanistan economy practically runs on supplying the
world with the raw materials to make Heroin is only a problem because we
have made drugs illegal and therefore removed a freedom of choice from our
own citizens and thereby created a whole black-market.

I'm not saying people should take heroin, it's a kind of poison. But I think
in a free society the individual should have the freedom to decide whether
or not to poison themselves and prohibition doesn't stop people getting
addicted to heroin or any other drug, in fact most people who get addicted
to drugs are doing something against their own will.  The fact that
governments remove the validity of that free will in the first place and
legislate against the freedom of choice of the individual is the very thing
that creates the drug problem and the whole sub culture surrounding drug
abuse.

However if we removed all restrictions on drugs. We would remove a major
source of funding for terrorism at the stroke of a pen and there wouldn't
actually be any need to kill people.
-- 
Amanda