Games and Music, the New Book Burning 218
It seems that a Newport News, VA pastor finally got around to reading Fahrenheit 451 and has decided that it was a good idea. Despite several studies claiming the contrary, Rev. Richard Patrick is blaming violent video games and music for crimes that he say has affected 90% of his congregation in one way or another.
read the interview (Score:5, Informative)
Q: How significant a problem do you believe violent video games and violent rap music is?
A: It has a tremendous influence on young people and violence. That's basically all they see. Most of them try to emulate what they see, when in reality, the people they see don't even live in those communities. Some of the rappers they see on TV portraying crime don't live in the urban areas - they live in the suburbs somewhere. It's all a facade.
It sounds to me like he is responding to the rap music part of the question and never deals directly with the video game part. But ultimately that doesn't even matter. If people want to voluntarily burn their own property - more power to them. Where I live we call that freedom of speach.
Re:read the interview (Score:5, Insightful)
All these people getting their panties in a twist about some kids being influenced should spend more time educating individuals, not attacking the availability of role models, no matter where you go you'll find good ones and bad ones.
If parents can't educate their kids to the point where the kids are so easily influenced then the solution is not to attack the people that are being followed.
It's not like these rappers have mind control or anything like that.
Re:read the interview (Score:5, Insightful)
It's all the same thing, some conservative nitwit gets scared of something new, and they try to ban it instead of understanding it. It's a real shame we keep falling for it.
Re:read the interview (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:read the interview (Score:4, Insightful)
If you look at the electoral votes in all the states in the various elections, the majority of most are between 51% and 55%.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2004#Election_results [wikipedia.org]
In 21 states the difference was less than 10%, and its this red state/blue state electoral college delineation that I believe is a huge polarizing factor on the country and isn't good for our political system.
Re:read the interview (Score:5, Funny)
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When are we going to realize that prohibition really doesn't work and onl
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Once they take off the "PSA" ads and allow a little open discussion. Unfortunately, it's a nice little feedback loop once you get the "drugs are bad" message repeated over and over sans opposition for a generation or two.
Even as someone who would like sane permission-- or even a start toward open, fair study and debate-- on less harmful recreational drugs, the constant anti-marijuana sentiment f
Re:read the interview (Score:4, Insightful)
Most of the very successful people I know use drugs, among them marijuana. Such people are usually operating at a very high level where they are expected to take risks, and sometimes even fail. I can speculate that these people are prone to use drugs (including party-pills, cigarettes, coffee and alcohol as well as illicit substances) to stay awake, enhance their confidence, and de-stress after a hard day, and of course because they have the disposable income to afford them - but it could be that their drug use or the corresponding cost of it is what caused them to be so successful. I can't say for sure what part drugs played in their success...
In the same way, you can't possibly know whether your friend was drawn to drugs as a way to self-medicate and mitigate the symptoms of her condition. Your friend may have been borderline schizophrenic before she started smoking pot, and delayed the inevitable by smoking constantly, or her marijuana use may simply be absolutely unrelated.
I know many people who smoke pot (whereas you profess to only know one), and not a single person I know of has behaved in a way that would suggest, or been diagnosed with a mental illness - therefore I deduce that pot-smoking can protect you from mental illness using a far more convincing sample size than yours - it doesn't mean my conclusion is any less baseless than yours.
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I wasn't trying to "push pills" but to point out that it's completely invalid to correlate their success or lack of mental illness to their drug use. Equally as invalid as trying to correlate schizophrenia and marijuana.
If marijuana were go
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Works both ways (Score:3, Interesting)
Okay, for the purpose of argument, let's allow as how that's true. Given that, what sort of influence is thereby exerted when children watch adults burn video games, books, or any other "bad" stuff??
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Misogynism and general hate [washblade.com], "Sisters making more money than brothers and it's creating problems in families ... that's one of the reasons many of our women are becoming lesbians," Wilson said. One might attribute such hate to the women being raped and killed in video games rather than the Baptist church. I wonder where the game developers learned to treat women as objects, in church, as kids?
Bling Bling [lakewood.cc]. God wants yo
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Oh absolutely not. But disciplining other adults, and forcing them to follow your faith and your convictions does make one a nut bag. Live and let live.
The difference is the context (Score:4, Interesting)
Now rap music is radical - compared to society - but society has lost those controls that it had. Extreme now != extreme then.
In the 50s very, very few kids would have taken "Kill the fucking cop" songs to heart.
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And if that's not what you're suggesting I don't understand the point of the last line of your post, other a somewhat more topical (though no more useful) "kids these days" complaint.
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Likewise, in 2008, very, very few kids would take the "kill the fucking cop" song to heart. It's just a performance, not a command or statement of intent.
What's a shepperd without sheep? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:read the interview (Score:5, Interesting)
The only conclusion I can draw: parents and preachers are less involved in their kids lives than music and videogames. Either that, or they are less interactive than Nico Bellic.
Re:read the interview (Score:5, Insightful)
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This is europe, I'm not sure where you are though, and I can imagine that depending on the cultural background individuality is harder to maintain.
Re:read the interview (Score:4, Insightful)
Go away until you do.
Re:read the interview (Score:5, Interesting)
Bold words from someone who has "chosen not to have them until I'm in a position to raise them in a way that they deserve." I'm sure you'd also freak if this guy tried to ban his 16-year-old from playing GTA.
It's been shown over and over again that once children enter school, their peers have greater influence over their personality and decisions than their parents do. You've got genetics plus about 5-6 years to instill your values, then do what you can and hope for the best. Both the genetics and the first few years can be very strong influences, but they're both often rebelled against during the teen years and their true influence might not be seen til after college.
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The key here is the word GREATER, where you and a lot of parents seem to perceive that word to mean ALL. Just because you have dimished influence, doesn't mean you can not control your kids, and change the way they behave, but a lot of people seem to give up. It sounds like you are one of them. You hoping for the best strategy is not going to work.
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then do what you can
And this part of the statement I was replying to:
What your kid does is entirely within your control.
Read the entire thread. All I was trying to say was that even for a good parent, your child's every move is not entirely within your control (maybe ESPECIALLY for a good parent) and that even good kids with good parents will listen to a bad outside influence now and then - it's part of growing up. The person I was replying to seemed to think
Re:read the interview (Score:4, Insightful)
It's also amazing to me how you make the leap to assume I don't do any of these things. Believe me, I try - but when your kids spend 7 hours in school and several more hours doing homework and being online, you're competing against a lot.
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and several more hours doing homework and being online,
So what the hell are you doing during these times? Watching TV? Get of the couch, and start doing stuff with your kids, you lazy bum. Kick them of the computer, take them somewhere.
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Re:read the interview (Score:5, Insightful)
Spoken like someone who has no f-ing idea what they are talking about. Have you ever raised a child??? Wait, I see further down in your post that you haven't -- so I would recommend a little less high-and-mighty preaching to someone who *has* been there and done that.
Yeah, you can be a Nazi in your own home if you want, but all that will do is push the child farther away. It's a fact of life: when kids hit their teenage years, they will interact more with their peers than their parents (unless you live on a homestead a bajillion miles from anywhere and homeschool your kids). The teenage years are when your kids begin to act like individuals, and stop taking advice from their parents. Overall, this is a good thing -- it's when adult traits like responsibility and the highly touted "ability to think for yourself" begin to develop, but like most learning processes, much of that development comes from screwing up and dealing with the aftermath. A parent's job at this point is to let kids make the mistakes that will help them learn while trying to prevent the mistakes that will cause them serious (i.e. legal/safety/etc.) problems.
The parent post is correct -- your kids will spend a lot more time talking to their friends and being on-line. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it's a simple fact of life that this is a delicate time in the relationship between parent and child, and as such, it requires a lot of wisdom and judgment from the parent. You can stop them from interacting so much with their friends, but the result will most likely be worse than the problem you are trying to solve. Parents will be in competition with other influences -- many of which aren't so good for their childrens' well-being -- but taking your advice and being an absolute authoritarian is probably the worst thing you can do.
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Well, y'see, that's because the kids have been going to Sunday School, where they were introduced to the Bible. That book is well known as one of the most violent, vicious, racist, misogynist, things ever produced. After all that biblica
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It appears I was using an incorrect definition of free will. It was just a funny thought I had when I read it. The rest of the column wasn't bad, and if you read the rest of my post you will see that I wasn't so flippant about the actual content of the study (well, at least the part the column shared), nor the rest of the column. I brought it up as a point of interest, in response to a slashdotter who was bu
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But of course, you'd also have to read the article to know that.
The Fahrenheit 451 reference in the Slashdot summary is a bit over top since he's not advocating making either games or music illegal. He's just saying, "Hey, these things are
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Re:read the interview (Score:5, Informative)
search Wickham Ave [spotcrime.com]
Some more interesting data, the average income in this area is less than half the states average income. Income and home value tables [city-data.com]
With numbers like these the problem is not video games or violent music, the true problem is socio-economical.
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You raise a very good point about incomes, but, video games and violent music make up some of the "socio" part of socio-economical.
Your point raises the deeper question, which is what causes violence to be such a large part of poor culture in that area? Why is violence glorified?
I know, it's a big question for a Monday afternoon, but a lot of people think that glorification of violence in music a
Re:read the interview (Score:4, Insightful)
Why do people only ever seem to mention the glorification of violence when it comes to music or video games? the other day I saw the new "Indiana Jones" film - and it had parts where grisly deaths were actual comedic elements, and the entire cinema laughed out loud.
On the other hand, even in very violent video games or rap music, the violence is usually portrayed as something dark and sinister - not as a punch-line to a joke.
Personally, I find the use of violence as comedy in Tv and films to be much more disturbing that its use in video games and rap music. It's much more contextualized in the music and video games, while in the film/TV mediums it often appears to be entirely gratuitous. Yet the moral crusaders appear to be more concerned about showing boobies or saying "fuck" than they are about the consequence-free violence.
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still its in bad taste Re:read the interview (Score:4, Insightful)
furthermore i doubt he was thinking of this in terms of a clever free speech statement, rather he made a poorly thought out statement using unnecessarily loaded words.
Re:read the interview (Score:4, Funny)
If you disapprove of a particular book (or video game, etc.), don't burn it: rather, just don't buy it in the first place.
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If people want to voluntarily burn their own property - more power to them. Where I live we call that freedom of speach.
Exactly the point that most people seem to be missing.
Being unable to see the difference is plains stupid.
There are plenty of Farenheit 451 situations around: The British law banning possession of certain books (with a very vague definition of what is banned) is a good example. This is not.
He'll be starting with the Bible then? (Score:4, Insightful)
He is not the government... (Score:5, Insightful)
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I recall seeing a documentary once (too lazy to look it up now to verify the story) that claimed William Tyndale's production of bibles in the 1
Books, games, music - not the only things ablaze (Score:3, Funny)
Nevermind the politics... (Score:3, Funny)
They should be burning... (Score:2)
*shrugs* Although that might be IP infrigment, fire may be a DMCA'ble circumvention tool.
Individual responsibility (Score:4, Insightful)
Slashdot made me do it!
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As far as my credentials helping people, I certainly do not need to wave my resume at an anonymous coward.
Crime is new (Score:4, Insightful)
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Cool - so since people died before guns were invented, guns aren't dangerous? Or since people got cancer before radium was discovered, it's OK to stand in the reaction chamber of a nuclear reactor? I don't agree that video games and music are the source of all of society's problems - I'm not even sure I'm convinced that they are the source of any of society's problems. However, just because th
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someone needs to read the original article (Score:5, Informative)
The closest he comes to bringing games to violence is when he answeres the question "How significant a problem do you believe violent video games and violent rap music is" with "It has a tremendous influence on young people and violence. That's basically all they see. Most of them try to emulate what they see, when in reality, the people they see don't even live in those communities. Some of the rappers they see on TV portraying crime don't live in the urban areas -- they live in the suburbs somewhere. It's all a facade."
Where I think, to a point, he's straight on. Note, he never says "games cause violence". Rather he says the same thing most parents will tell you about kids, and most computer scientists will tell you about comptuers - garbage in, garbage out. What you surround yourself with is what you become familiar with. And the sad part is, like he says, it's all a facade.
Please, RTFA before blowing it out of proportions.
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I think this whole things laughable. Its just the same old 'them versus us' thing, only this time its the pro game people trying to perpetuate the argument.
Next up, some psycho kid will go on a rampage and try to get his sentence reduced by claiming it was all because of the games he played, and then it'll be the anti game peoples turn.
Sigh......
Re:someone needs to read the original article (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyone want to claim that the Turner Diaries or Mein Komf never influenced anybody to act in a less than pleasant way?
Who hasn't heard someone say that this or that book has changed their life?
There is nothing wrong with saying "I don't think kids should play violent video games"
Just as there is nothing wrong saying that "I don't think people should eat meat".
This is only a problem when people try and make them illegal.
There is a huge difference between dislike and censorship. I don't want my kids reading the Turner diaries but I don't want them outlawed.
Saying that music and video games can not effect people is the same as saying that no form of art can effect anybody for good or evil.
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Just keep your facts to yourself Sir. We've got a few houses to burn down in the area
All you need to know (Score:5, Informative)
The rise of exceptionally violent and explicit media, starting in the early to mid 90's, is actually inversely related to the violent crime rates. That's right - as media has gotten more violent, actual violent crime has provably gone down.
Anybody trying to claim that violent media is responsible for any objective worsening of American society doesn't have a single iota of evidence in their favor.
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Anybody trying to claim that violent media is responsible for any objective worsening of American society doesn't have a single iota of evidence in their favor.
Violence statistics aren't just a reflection of music or video games, it's the result of too many factors to count. You can't correlate the two, good or bad. Saying violent video games are good because crime has gone down is like saying apples are unhealthy because a rise in eating apples correlates with a rise of obesity in the US. There's no correlation if you don't eliminate external factors.
As far as evidence for video games causing violent behavior, there have been a couple of studies now that show
No, there's rally not (Score:3, Insightful)
The one that sticks out the best in my mind was one that found just that: People got more hyped up and "aggressive" (thought that wasn't well defined) after playing a violent game. Ok... Except the test was garbage. For the violent game they chose the original Unreal Tournament (keep in mind this study was done just a few years ago) and for the non-violent gam
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You think media has gotten more violent? I was around during the 80s and 90s, and I remember TV shows in the 80s being a lot more violent than those in the 90s.
Fact: Violence is Actually Decreasing. (Score:2)
Burning the games may not make crime go back up (as I don't think the games are soley responsible for the decrease), but I like video games. Just give them to me instead of burning them.
Another Bonfire of the Vanities (Score:2)
Cool! A Minnie Driver/Anne Hathaway love scene! (Score:2, Interesting)
> has affected 90% of his congregation in one way or another.
What about fraudulent theories of cosmology that have affected 100% of your congregetion in one way or another, almost certainly detrimentally, and even more certainly far worse than video games' effects?
Shameful (Score:3, Interesting)
Young people are being influenced by what they see and what they hear. They are being influenced by television
How sad is that? Kids have all kinds of games that bask in sex and violence, and if you ask most of them, they'll tell you it's just a game and that's what they're like. Then you have people like him, inciting grown adults to go out and do this empty, ignorant, exercise in hating a common enemy so they can feel like they've made a difference. The adults are behaving more foolishly and suggestibly than the children!
If these crimes have effected 90% of his congregation, maybe the common factor to the crimes is not gaming but... his congregation?
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
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Whereas the violent, misogynist garbage in the bible has vitamin C in it.
Since it is passive, not active, your brain is probably not actively engaging and analyzing the input the way it would with a book or video game.
I note with some interest you say "passive" entertainment is more corruptive than "active" entertainment, for precisely t
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Some of today's works will one da
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Rev. Patrick is the Devil (Score:3, Funny)
So 90% of his congregation is involved in violent crimes (as perp or victim). Why doesn't he blame himself? He's the one responsible for protecting their souls. 90% is a high correlation. Maybe Rev. Patrick is the common factor that's responsible for these crimes.
At the very least, he's insulting god by saying that rappers and videogame devs are stronger than god. But maybe god just doesn't have nearly as good an agent in Rev. Patrick as does the devil.
This material has been rated EC-10, for excessive (Score:2)
Wait. A Cleric stating that emotional content is bad?
AH SHIT SHOOT HIM SHOOT HIM!
For those people who have never seen Equilibrium...
http://youtube.com/watch?v=lcTft47wsDg [youtube.com]
Fun starts at 1:45.
Also if you have not seen this movie, it is a must, a picture is worth a thousand words, sometimes a movie can be worth a million (though as of late, not often.)
oh yeah (Score:2)
I believe violence breeds agression. (Score:2)
The majority of these forms are presented on simple broadcast television.
I certainly don't want the government to start regulating. I also don't want some "reverend" to start preaching about it.
I've read enough studies to know that a steady diet of violence does breed aggressive behavior. It certainly doesn't promote peaceful problem solving skills.
That being said, I want my fucking games. I am 32
The truth (Score:2)
No I haven't read the article, nor the interview, so what do I know about anything? Well, we've been over this theme before, and as always what is being made the main point of the story is the conflict, not what this or that guy has actually said; so I choose to skip all that and go straight to the point: people's anxiety concerning games, music and youth culture in general.
It is not true of course, that violent games or rap music create violence whe
Which is Worse? (Score:2)
My point;People are much less likely to solve their interrelational problems with violence as 500 or even 100 years ago.Anything outside of a church pew that stirs the emotions of people is a potential target for "rock star"preachers.Just turn on your T.V. some Sunday morning and see if this is
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I'M SHOCKED! Meh, you get the idea.
Re:Environmental neurotoxicity increases crime rat (Score:2)
Re:Environmental neurotoxicity increases crime rat (Score:2, Informative)
Fluoride? As in, "Precious bodily fluids" fluoride?
"the theory that lead poisoning causes crime is hard science."
I think you need to look up what "hard science" really means - physics, chemistry, and the like. The "soft sciences" are biology, sociology, medicine, economics (oops - that's the dismal science). Basically, anything where results are largely expressed statistica
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Flouride definitely has a toxicity level, and it is neurotoxic (it binds calcium, which your nervous system needs) among other things (formation of hydroflouric acid in the stomach is
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Water has a toxicity level too and can cause death by brain swelling [about.com]. I'm also assuming it would be very uncomfortable to get to the point where one's ingested too much water as with fluoride.
And I believe that if one died from fluoride toxicity before dying of water toxicity, there's something else wrong.
Your comment about hydrofluoric acid in the stomach [nih.gov] was interesting, so I looked it up. Since the stomach naturally uses hydrochloric acid in digestion, I
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Of course flouride in the water (which at least half the time is naturally occurring) isn't going to kill you, but there are flouride rinses and good old toothpaste that have it in much higher concentrations. No one's banning it, but concentrations of fluoride above a certain level do require a prescription, at least in the USA.
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From the articles you linked to, lead levels are associated with aggressive behavior - not crimes in and of themselves. It is how the individual, families, and institutions deal with those tendencies that make criminals.
You're being incredibly obtuse if you agree that lead levels cause brain damage, learning disabilities, and increased aggression, but somehow these side affects DON'T lead to (on average) increased criminal behavior. That's a crock. As the OP pointed out, it's easily proven that groups with increased lead levels commit street crime more frequently than groups who do not.
And yes, brain damage due to lead poisoning SHOULD be a legitimate insanity defense. The idea that brain damaged people are equally culpab
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On average, YES, it leads to crime, via a multi step process in which there are other factors. ... Is there no personal responsibility involved at all here?
Brain damage is fundamentally different from peer pressure. Brain damage REMOVES the ability to think independently, therefore decreases personal responsibility. While we're delving into philosophy a bit, the simple reality is that humans DO NOT have free will. At all. As a society we choose to cling to the illusion of free will and that fine, right up to the point where innocent people are punished/tortured/killed due to dogmatic (aka RELIGIOUS) insistence on absolute free will that does not exist.
... are you willing to say that being black leads to increased criminal behavior?
In th
Re:Environmental neurotoxicity increases crime rat (Score:5, Informative)
I'm guessing you're one of those that didn't vaccinate your children and avoid fluorinated water, even though all the peer reviewed research shows you're just putting your children at greater risk of disease and tooth decay, rather than decreasing any risk of autism. But while it's a guess, I'm basing it on your trying to link lead research to mercury and fluoride without proof.
I also suspect that you'll next say "but mercury is toxic!" and show a bunch of links about mercury toxicity as a red herring. Fine. But you can't come up with one reputable peer-reviewed link against fluoride in drinking water. And don't you dare try to say MMR vaccinations caused autism, because the long-term results are in.
ADHA on Fluoride [adha.org]
ADA on Fluoride [ada.org]
23 studies refuting MMR and autism link [immunize.org]
CDC's website on MMR and autism [cdc.gov]
If I've gotten you all wrong (which I doubt, based on your anti-fluoride stance), then you have my apologies. Next time, support your argument.
He should blame his precious 'god'. (Score:2)
Besides, wasn't 'the devil' once an angel that the christian god tossed out of heaven? Wow, so many opportunities for that god to make life better for his people, but he passed them up.
Silly religionists! You worship out of fear, because your god is clearly not ethical.
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Actually... my interpretation of the Christian, Moslem and the Jewish 'deities' is that they are, in fact, one and the same entity and that this entity, if it does actually exist, is thoroughly evil.
It *is* the deciever that it keeps warning people about. Its the old strategy of misdirection; it pretends that theres a *seperate* being thats evil and that it is actually the 'good guy'.
But it doesn't stand up to analysis or c
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Government is force (Score:2)