New Pope, yoh

[James S]

[Blade Runner]

[Caesar]

[James S]

It's not a list of names, but short phrases that describe the pope or his reign. Here's a list of the phrases side by side with the popes:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-rel ... 5395/posts

And I was wrong, St. Malachi made the prophecy in 1130, but they were hidden in the papal archives until the 15th century.

[Andy]

Think of a group of people as a marketplace of ideas. Information and ideas are exchanged, and those people eventually 'buy' into an idea. This is a neat structure because most of the time, the majority will pick the best idea proposed.

This is the basis for democracy; get 100 people to vote on something, and go with the majority decision. It's a pretty good system. It generally does a good job.

So, lets take a look at the 'democracy' in the United States. Where is it failing? And why?

Take the issue of homosexuality -- just recently in Washington state, an anti-discrimination bill (HB1515 ) was shot down in their senate. Microsoft is in a bit of hot-water over it because they supported the bill, but backed down after some pressure from a certain religious group.

Why is this happening? Why are a bunch of rednecks in Washington jubilant because gays aren't entitled to discrimination protection? Christianity is introducing irrational expectations into people's minds (God is gonna punish dem queers).

This market of ideas can handle errors quite well; that's the beauty of the system. Some people will be wrong, but most people will be right (in general). Irrationality on this level, however, affects too many of the agents. And even worse in Christianity's case, it does so consistantly.

In short, it introduces market failure into this idea economy.

[Jaybot]

Back on the not-eating-meat and-wou'll-get-less-protein-and-will-be-weak lie... you can get plenty of protein from Peanut Butter. You don't need to eat meat or fat or.. pretty much anything to live. You pretty much need glucose, and your body will create most of the chemicals/nutrients/whatever you need to survive.

Of course, you'll be miserable as hell. I think Carson put it best when he said something like, 'There was a man who stopped drinking, smoking, and eating tasty foods; and the doctors found him to be perfectly healthy when he killed himself.'

It's okay to be human.

Oh, and to entertain lots of crazy ideas about the Pope, the end of the world, globalization or other crazy conspiracies, I find http://superkaratedeathmonkey.com/ to be very entertaining

[James S]

Thank you John Locke, but where does the invisible hand come in? So first of all you praise democracy, going wildly off on something I'm wary of even refering to as a tangent because it implies a connection at all, but later you claim that it fails. Why does it fail? Because it runs outside of your myopic viewpoint. Democracy can never fail, because democracy is the will of the people. The will of the majority of the people are a certain way, so the politics are simply run that way. It is its own 'invisible grass-roots' in this mixed bag of metaphors you've presented. There is no irrationality. There's always someone that thinks democracy 'fails' because by it's nature it doesn't make everyone happy, but it makes the majority happy. That's the idea. Just because your ideas diverge from the majority of a localized group doesn't make your ideas or their ideas wrong in a democracy. Again, this is why you can't claim to be educated.

I am of course for equal rights for everyone. Because of my Christian background I believe that no one can be the judge of another and that we should appreciate everyone as much as we revel in our own ego.

Christianity does not equal anti-equal rights. That's CONSERVATIVISM, not religion.

Democracy is 'failing', to continue to use your phrasing, because people don't look past their own views. People want things their way from their point of view, not for the sake of others.

Culture is not a money market, it is a library. One in which anyone can check out any piece of information, absorb it, and interpret it however they want to interpret it. That's what makes culture what it is, and that is what makes it so diverse, and that's what makes it grow.

You seem to have shied away from the topic of St. Malachi's Prophecy in favor of bashing stereotypes. I guess the argument has ended.

[Lukas44]

[James S]

[Andy]

[David Horn]

[Lukas44]

[Jaybot]

[refractor]

[Lukas44]