yes. . the inherent philosophies are mismashes of old wives' tales
and old husbands' tales blended with politics and fear of the
physiological unknown (banning pork, for example),, etc. . my take
is that Christianity is relatively good and sometimes
innocuous when the perpetrators stay away from the
intimidation and guilt stuff, focusing instead on the do-good stuff.
in the long run, we will all know if there's an afterlife,
for example;;; in the meantime, how about being responsible
for your actions??? . that, I can live with. -- j
.

I think all "religions" have some really bad ideas and some really good ideas. I dont know whether its christianity that espouses this, but I like the idea of treating other people like you want to be treated by other people. Seems reasonable, but in my case its based on practicality, not because its written in some book a thousand years ago.

I confronted my family pastor in a private meeting,
years ago, by saying that I thought that Jesus was
socialist and I did not like socialists. . since this pastor
was himself a socialist, he started arguing for the social
value of socialism. . we got nowhere.

I was wrong, by the way. . Jesus -- according to reports --
did the "give to caesar" thing and depended on personal
choice for charity and support of family, church, etc.
the point of view appears to be this::: take control
of your life and be faithful to your brothers and sisters
in humanity. . separate your finances from the government
to the extent that you can, and manage your life by making
good personal choices.

that I agree with;;; let's do it!!! -- j
.

If you look to the Pope, you'll certainly see a socialist. But he doesn't represent me any more than he represents Christianity or Christ. For any more than this, I'd suggest a private thread.

look to the pope- he is the leader of christianity. he is a socialist. I dont have personal knowledge of Jesus, if there was one.

Just a note, but if you think Christ was a socialist, you don't understand Christianity.

Anything is better than Hillary. With that painting of Carson next to Jesus that hangs in his house- is he going to be an American pope? Jesus was a pacifist socialist ( if he existed at all). Is Carson going to take us down that road? Do we want the image if Jesus as president? I dint

He is very talented, self confident, thoughtful,and a great surgeon. Probably a waste for him to be president. When I saw the painting of him next to Jesus on a wall in his house, it was a bit much. He is a real religious zealot who would rule I suspect as a modern day Jesus- IE as a socialist in many ways. Makes me nervous. Better than Hillary or sanders- absolutely. As a president I think trump would be a better

It's just a different kind of Control Of Others...

.... still looking for the "Disagree Button."

Same for me, but add Deist, too. I don't trust people who look 'only to God' for the Ultimate Right Answers...

I prefer people who Think. Trump is too un-atheistic for me, too, but he does seem to have successes and business management skill that resulted, at least in part, from Thinking.

Obama certainly doesn't/didn't, and the Democrats speak with a united voice of Bigger, More-Intrusive Government (and Socialism as The Solution.) Just another cult.

So, Socialism or Theocracy, AGAIN. I voted for Obama 1 to try to keep a Theocrat out of the WH. I voted against him the second time in an attempt to keep a socialist/economic-asshole out of the WH.
Unfortunately, by that time, the American Masses preferred the theory of Tax The 1% Is The Solution.

Very sad. I may have to write in John Galt next year..

with people like Dr Carson, you need to run a simultaneous
translator for the god statements. . it is a process of demurring
and calm, quiet confidence when he gives credit to God.
those who receive 67 honorary M.D. degrees need to
have a way to show humility, else others will think him
to be a haughty stuffed shirt. . don't you think? -- j
.

I see no evidence that he uses it to control others;; do you?
how would he compare with Hillary? -- j
.

so, he would be a worse choice than Hillary? -- j
.

Is it true that Dr. Carson wants more gun control? I have not seen it in what I read of his writing.
I think that his claim of no political experience is a response to widespread loathing of politicians as a class. Voters seem to crave for "non-politician politician". In my experience, you cannot spend a lifetime in a large organization, business or other without being exposed to a lot of politicking. There are differences, of course. But politics and politicking are part of human nature. Ask Socrates or Aristoteles.
EDIT: Added voters craving sentence.

The "science of government" (politics) is flawed. However, it's all about nasty and whom is best at making it stick, who can twist the narrative to their advantage and in essence, who can lie the best.

Can an Honest inter-lectual (integrated) thinker with a fast healthy mind beat the best manipulator?
Theo-electrically... he should.

I was help-desk support for a mainframe with about 1,000 users. Most of them went to PCs because they didn't care about reliability -- what counted was "new features now!" This is a genuine failure of the market and made me question how one could go about preventing such losses. While it doesn't make me even consider command-economy solutions, it does make me curious about third alternatives such as subtle marketing strategies.

The problem with mainframes was Moore's law. Because of the long lead time for design of a mainframe project by the time it hit the marketplace the PC's were competitive because the design cycle was so much shorter.

It's one of the reasons that the Space Shuttle carried laptops rather than upgrading the integrated computer system.

bellringer of a new word, sir;;; Thank You!!! -- j
.

Moronocracy!! Beautiful!! LOL!

I think we're only a Moronocracy at present. We'll know by the 1st few months of 2017 if we've devolved into a complete Idiocracy.

I'm thinking ourselves vs. most of Europe or Japan.

For what it's worth, it wasn't just HP. All the mainframe makers were collapsing then (indeed, Digital Equipment got swallowed by Compaq before the HP merger).

To this day, this series of collapses is my biggest source of doubt against trusting the marketplace. Mainframes (especially DEC's) were secure against hacking and viruses, and businesses that used them can be trusted with our personal data. The PC craze was built partly on discarding all that safety -- and we're all regretting it now. Maybe in another 50 years the marketplace will recreate the provable safety we had in 1970 -- thus reinventing the mainframe.

Don't mind me, I'm just a bitter, obsolete mainframe programmer.

I don't believe Carson ever said he'd gone to West Point. That's something politico.com made up!
http://voxday.blogspot.com/2015/11/po...

Do we have any two cultures where the only difference was "tastes"? I'm unaware of any, but if you've got some I'm interested. I don't view tastes as a cultural aspect but an individual one.