marzipan elf

Sorry G0d Is Teh Su)(or 111!

I find a lot of the time acts done in the cause of a religion can actually be contrary to the religion. Northern Ireland situation and Terrorist attacks by extremist islamic groups both claim to be doing it for their religion though most outside of that situation would say that doesnt fit with the religion. I think a lot of things have been done in the name of religion purely to try and justify it' date=' not from a true belief.

Suggesting it is a commandment from god could also increase a dictators control over a group.

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this is exactly what i meant when i said "There is an important difference between the spirit of christian teachings and the way in which different practicing christians use that spirit as a justification for their behaiviour"

yes there may be parrallels in some teachings between religions, but that doesnt explain the fundemental differences in the core beliefs.

i think the core beliefs are different interpretations of an absolute truth

Then after the creation of the earth there are huge gaps i knowledge of where species came/evolved? from.

i suppose i'm saying we have no way of approaching a decision, all we have is a choice in which model we use to shape our perceptions. Evolution is the current consensus, i'm sure it will change.

Hindu beliefs do incoorporate that thinking.

Whereas christians beleive that faith in jesus christ is the ONLY way to heaven.

(an utter contrast in beliefs)

buhdism (correct me if im wrong) want to achieve a state or nirvana' date=' which actually means nothingness (compared to other religions wanting to go to a paradise).

These three believes alone are utterly different and would make it hard to believe they all came from a central source.[/quote']

Many christians believe that loving christ is the only way into heaven. the issue at stake is what jesus represents (seeing as we can probably agree that the idea of christ is a story or an exaggerated mythological version of some kernal of historical fact) If we see jesus as an allegory for some aspect of the human experience (unconditional love?) we can see his parralels in other religions. There is an important difference between the spirit of christian teachings and the way in which different practicing christians use that spirit as a justification for their behaiviour and i think that is something you haven't defined very well

Although you aree stating that those three examples cannot be reconsiliated i think they can. Jesus was the son of god and so his teachings could be seen as promoting the union of the spiritual and the material. this idea of union is also shown in buddism which is not about nothingness in the way that you state: buddism concerns the reconsiliation of the dualities of human existence including the spiritual and the material, the spirit and the body. or more fundamentally, reconsiling the self with the universe, resulting in the 'nothingness' of the non-self (bigger self?)

i'm rambling on, sorry. what i'm trying to say is religion is about studying aspects of the human mind through a ctructured system of investigation, parts of the mind that are best accessed through metaphor.

about evolution: of course it's a belief, it's a model for interpreting the universe its impossible for darwin to have been Right (capital R) but his theory usefully progressed our understanding beyond creationism, which, in my opinion, is pretty outmoded.

bordering on the lines of breaking rules of religious hatred or whatever.

What if only one religion was right.

Just because people worship things it does not make it a god' date=' people worship money, even rock bands and you cant suggest these things are gods.[/quote']

What of all religions were talking about aspects of the same god but just giving it different names and clothes?

Yes!

Dinosaur bones are neither proof for or against a god.

But i challenge people to find proof that the human race evolved from a 'lower' species.

surely every form of life on the planet evolved from the same single celled organism that first split into 2 parts?

See/hear Bill Hicks routine on religious types saying God put dinosaur bones there 'to test our Faith'' date=' after being asked to explain why dinosaur bones are found if evolution never happened.

'Oh, a prankster God'

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lol"let me ask you a one word question: Dinosaur."

its interesting because in terms of evolution dinosaurs had progressed as far as they could i.e. become extremely specialised to occupy certain niches made available by the environment.

The fact that the human race has only increased its adaptability and not specialised into occupying a niche suggests that we are not fully developed as a species.

personally, i think that technology is the manifestation of our current evolution: we evolve our adaptability by evolving our tools. (therefore evolution has not stopped, in fact, it's getting faster) evolution takes place in the form of the evolution of our ideas/conscioussness.

having said that there is probably some kind of humanrace ending catastrophe on its way.

Ah' date=' there is a subtle difference - I think he means that Lucas made some decisions about the prequels in order to appease the mighty army of supergeeks that has arisen since 1976.[/quote']

exactly. bless the supergeeks but if they had their way we would have had 45 minutes of darth maul and darth vader engaged in a fight with boba fett and then 45 minutes of natalie portman progressively getting her clothes ripped off....

....

hang on...

....

anyone got lucas' address?

even the new ones have saving graces(i won't bother waxing lyrical about the awesomeness of sith again). clones has some of the finest battle sequences in the franchise and yoda kicking ass! menace has the pod race and the coolest baddy apart from vader himself(and even then' date=' it's close).[/quote']

I thought that this was the problem with these films; they attempt to appeal to the fans i.e. they do the things that they think the fans want; 2 edged light sabre, massive cgi fights, kung fu yoda etc.

i thought the entirely cgi fights in phantom were unconvincing and not in the feel of the original films. the double sided lightsabre was cool i have to admit but i thought the palpatine/yoda fight was so massive in magnitude with so much matrixesque kung fu that it made the powerful, emotional battle between luke and vader in jedi pale in comparison. to me that fight is the culmination of the entire series.

i wentg to a 24 hour shop in a duvet once.

it is true to say tho that sometimes you can get "political correctness gone bloody mental"

hmm i think i would put it something like this;

return of the jedi (only wins over empire cos of luke/vader fight)

empire strikes back

a new hope

sith

clones

menace

funny-it seems to be in reverse numerical order.

and it was purely a hero' date=' side-kick sort of relationship thank you very much[/quote']

precisely.

i think the point i was trying to make was the part lucas played in the originals was less and they were better. whereas ep.1-3 he had more input and they were worse. then he retconned the originals and they were worse. ergo: lucas=bad.

i don't just like the originals *because* they're the originals i like them cause they're much better films, engaging, mythical, significant, exciting. not just toy adverts.

funny new edition return of the jedi story;

my mate hadn't realised that christianson boy had been cgi'd into the end ghost scene- and when he saw it he was very close to snapping the disc out of fury.

essay question;

"what parallels can be drawn between the ministry of information in George Orwell's 1984 and George Lucas' reedit of Star Wars ?"

i believe they now shoot 'at the same time'. still shit though.

to be honest i don't buy into this whole "lucas has ruined the greatness of the original trilogy" crap. they're still awesome and sith is amazing. frankly the guy can do whatever the hell he wants' date=' they're his films. it's just the same as say gang of four re-recording the songs from 'entertainment' just to cash in on the current hipness of their sound. actually what gang of four have done is worse as it's such a blatant cash in, lucas just wanted to reassess his films. though he is obviously guilty of cashing in elsewhere.

i agree lucas ain't the director he thinks he is but the guy conceived, wrote and directed the greatest movie franchise of all time. he's also done it almost entirely off his own back(i.e without being part of a studio), redesigned the way we hear movies, created one of the most advanced visual effects companies in the known universe, created a company which has produced some damn fine computer games and made a mint off millions of toys that make grown men think they are frickin space wizards. fair play to him.[/quote']

Lucas was not responsible for creating the original 3 films off his own back. There was a serious influence on those films from Joseph campell, who is probably responsible for the fact that they were more mythological in tone (not to mention the massive amounts of visual designers). when lucas had free reign the films were clearly poor. The scripts weren't so bad its just Lucas' direction. e.g those scenes where anakin leaves his mother- they were just totally devoid of any emotion. I put this down to the fact that lucas cannot work with actors. and don't start me on the merchandise.

saddam is guilty but there are plent other dubious fellows with personal armies around the globe. i think it would be valuable to question why saddam and iraq is getting so much attention. Is there an alterior motive?

i suspect erase today was aiming to make some kind of provocative statement that would, in some way, force us to pay him the attention he so desperately seeks. quite sad really. no doubt soon he will tell us all to "lighten up"

greedo shooting first. i mean, come on.

sorry to bring this up but don't you think that all of george lucas' actions since 1997 have only served to further ruin the brilliance of the original star wars films?

The fact that the original versions are not available on dvd for purists like me is jhust salt in an already smarting wound. All in the name of george's "artistic vision". Pah.

my sides are, in fact, splitting.

Hmm' date=' i think my favourite was probably "simon and the witch". But the two mad serials ("dark season" and "century falls") were also ace though quite recent in the scheme of things. Maybe also "alfonzo bonzo" and "archer's goon"? Anyone else remember these then?

After some research i should also mention "moondial", "the way to satin shore", "the moomins" and "bertha". Whatever happened to creepy serials on the bbc after newsround anyway? I pity the poor kids nowadays with all the shite they have to sit through.

[url']http://www.thechestnut.com/ (Good site for nostagic folks who want to see images of them old programmes)

aye i remember century falls it was quite spooky IIRC. anyone remember earthfasts?

jayce and the wheeled warriors, paw paw bears, mysterious cities of gold.

gobots? the gobots were utter pish. poor man's transformers

of course the best will always be the ubiquitous thundercats.

That's the impression I'm getting. There seems to be quite a few statements being made that are bordering on offensive.

Still' date=' i need to lighten up apparently - it's ok to laugh at the Irish & I should be able to do it over the Chinese as well, it would seem. Can't understand that logic personally.[/quote']

take the scottish for example; we are often made fun of the world over in accordance with a certain series of stereotypes- we even take part in this process ourselves.

the problem is it's an extremely fine line between jokey and just plain ignorant. espescially if the people you are taking the piss out of are a minority from a different culture. In this context such jokes can be seen to be a bit "go back to your own fucking country"etc.

But i still don't see much point in pushing the politically correct option i.e. saying "you are a rascist bastard fuck off you morally corrupt shit" i think it is more constructive to educate rather than castigate. getting on a high horse isn't going to adddress the wider issue of racial discrimination in our society.

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