I know in this thread this counts as digging up a very old post, but I do have a friend who has money, is shopping for land and is perfectly happy to let me squat. It's not that expensive though and pride may force me to buy a share.

Eh, Buddhism isn't founded on intolerance and hate. There are others with redeeming qualities. Certainly the Judeo-Christian Islamic stuff is chock full of glaring problems rooted to their cores.

While I don't want to get into a debate about semantics, I believe "religion" is basically any belief into some spiritual entity that has preternatural powers. While I respect nonviolent religions more than violent ones, it doesn't change the fact that they are all symptoms of a basic human desire to forgo critical reasoning and recuse oneself of viewing one's own actions in a critical light.

Religion is a coping mechanism. Trump is just the new ****ing coming of Jesus for the people who need that mechanism.

lol k

Can you not really see a link between religiosity and Trump getting elected?

Actually - let me ask you a different question:

Do you think it is possible to be a person who thinks rationally and is able to evaluate evidence presented to him or her, and simultaneously believe in god?

Some people itching to get excised and shipped to RGT ITT.

First Q: Yes I see a clear link between religiosity and basically any GOPer getting elected.

Second Q: Yes I think faith is a weird enough/strong enough thing to the point where some of the smartest people I know who are mathematicians/engineers/scientists still apparently believe in god. Funny how they can rationally evaluate numbers/statistics/scientific evidence in some circumstances, but not in others! Still not gonna hold it against them personally instead of holding it against whatever church they were raised in!

But hey, keep playing Thought-policeman. Definitely suits you.

I just don't understand how in 17k posts nobody has mentioned this. Is it banned?

The guy got elected by being a demagogue who appealed to a bunch of Christian rednecks. Is this not worthy of a little attention over 17k posts?

I think the topic of religion is entirely appropriate in political discussion, especially in our current times. It was white Evangelicals that put Donald "grab em by the pussy" Trump in office. Whether "grab em by the pussy" is in line, or not in line with Christian values, is up to individual interpretation. I personally think it's quite Christian, because it's a very sexist and patriarchal religion, imo.

That said, hail Satan!

Lindsay Graham says that if Obama legally got a wiretap on Trump it is the biggest scandal since Watergate?

Well I think this whole affair with Russia is probably the biggest scandal since Watergate. The intercepted communications, much like the DNC hack/leak, are just single facets of the whole affair, but I think a lot of people are mistaking them for being the entirety of the scandal, when they're just facets.

Does anyonr have an opinion on whether thr FBI, NSA, etc was monitoring high level Trump Campaign people before election day? There are conflicting reports on this.

Buddhist genocide against the Rohingya is not exactly supertolerant.

I guess he's right in the sense that, like Watergate, it would be a politician straight up gathering intel on an opponent. I mean, it would've been done through legal channels, but what GOPer ever cared to make that distinction? OTOH, it ignores Russia tampering with out elections. Kinda liked the dude after the cell phone video but gonna have to stamp this one with a big fat DUMBASS label.

"Thought-policeman" is a little ironic, don't you think, in the Trump era?

I think in your PC bubble of respecting everyone of all genders, sexual orientations, nationalities and religions, you forgot that one of those is a really pernicious thing - and that is religion. The rest are harmless(-ish). There have been a lot of wars about the religion thing...

When grown men start arguing about whose imaginary friend is better, or whose fairy tale book is better, there is always going to be an opening for a man of Trump's boundless resource and bounded integrity.

Before election day? Yes.


https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/14/u...rump.html?_r=0


What reports are you referring to as conflicting?

Clapper saying yesterday that no one was monitoring Trump Tower, not just that the White House didn't order it. Also, the quoted portion is discussing the monitoring of Russians.

TRUMP reminds me of Major Fambrough but dumber.

Well I think Trump Tower is a distinction from Trump associate's/advisors. The article I just linked mentions nothing about Trump Tower. Also, James Clapper is on record as committing perjury, so I think he can't be taken at face value, whatever he says.


Edit:


From the piece,


The NSA generally captures SIGINT (signals intelligence), which usually indicates metadata. Metadata itself is necessarily two-way, as it indicates person X communicated with person Y, so in this case it would include Americans and Russians. But metadata is not content, and this report is stating content was collected as well, meaning the actual content of the discussions, not just person X communicated with person Y on Z date.

lol k

I thought the point of Lindsay Graham's statement was that if someone had convinced a judge that there was probable cause for a crime to have occurred or will occur in the future then that would've been the scandal. The crime that Trump had/would commit, not the fact that someone had been doing surveillance on him.

Thank you for your thoughtful response.

yes and yours.

http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2017/03...nspiracy-trap/

Good points here--it really doesn't look like russia is gonna bring down trump and worse **** is gonna happen and get about no coverage because of it.

On the plus side, he's almost certainly not a putin puppet anymore at least politically for now.

fyp