If most people are predestined to go to hell, shouldn't they try to have as much fun as possible while alive?

Does anyone here believe in predestination?

You guys need to work on your theories a little more.

This report I checked out, searched for a copy of the original quote. I found a link http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/pelosi.asp
which highlights this comment as a rumor and labels it as false.
Originally posted somewhere October 22, 2006

Now personally I dislike Pelosi's politics, and it would trouble me, shock me and make me want to be critical of her, if this were true. But I just don't think it is. I'll add the final word, fortunately. It would be hard to imagine someone wanting to crush the market, even her. The logic is just too screwy.

Certainly an interesting article though. Made me stop and shake my head. If you can find anything to substantiate it further I'd share it with some of my economist friends just for a laugh.

Curious,
There is more to it than mutual assured destruction. If Iran were to say, do this or do that or else I'll launch a nuke at you, things get a lot more complicated. Do you do whatever they say, or attack them or call their bluff? So first they might say, get all your ships out of the gulf, then they might say get the Jews out of Israel, then they might say take all your aircraft carriers all the way back to Massachusetts. Whatever they want is on the table. If the worst comes to pass and they insist on extreme terrorism, which they appear to be doing now, its better to fight them before they have nukes. Letting Iran bully you all over the world with terroristic threats would be very unpleasant. Their terroristic threats now have less teeth.

Another thing, since their bombs have been exploded in terroristic acts in Iraq, Israel, Lebanon and Afghanistan, and since they propose destruction of the US and Israel you might have a little more incentive to take proactive steps to keep things from getting worse.

So you're saying you support going to war with Iran? I'm surprised at you.

Bush and Cheney would prefer going to war against them.

Those guys in Iran are trying to keep the peace so well, only pursuing nuclear technology at breakneck speed, restricting shaped explosive charge shipments to Iragi insurgents and Afghanistani Taliban groups. Cutting way back on support to Hesbollah and Fatah by the extreme method of keeping it secret. Limiting cooperation with North Korea by only purchasing larger missiles and maybe a little additional nuclear technology and well, maybe a little more nuclear help with devices. Hardly seems like there is a problem there at all.

You should have so much more of a warm feeling to know that Russia, North Korea and Syria are in your camp. That always makes things seem so nice and neat.

Insanity is what insanity does, to misquote Forrest.

At some point you have to have a little backbone and stand up against aggressive forces bent on your destruction. If you don't do so there is the possibility they will prevail.

I think the Bible is better than anything Shakespeare wrote. I think the work is quite inspirational. The Bible was written by men however, and however inspired they may have been they also had their own thoughts and feelings to influence their words.

I'm going with a no and no on this one.

I think people can learn some good things and get some very good advice about living, and that many of us would benefit from some remedial guidance, but these are the basics. Some of the ideas of prophesy are dark, misleading and potentially dangerous in the hands of a fundamentalist.

Interpretation of many things in the Bible are vague, in some cases this can be beneficial, in some it might not be.

I like the book, its worth a read, but read the history of the Bible as well for some balance.

Hardly seems like this topic is about islam anymore. I really didn't mean to change the subject. This is too far off topic to be reasonable.

Right, well I had a friend from Alabama, a white guy, who told me things like that 15 years ago. I had a hard time believing him then because I never see it. But at the time he said that KKK was still a problem in the area. I lived in Mississippi at the time and still never saw it. I remain a skeptic. Mostly whites and blacks I have known work to get along with one another.

In the city, in Texas, we do not have that. I might not know as much about it as some others.

I hardly think its a big problem in Colorado though. I seem to recall your profile pointing to you living there. Yeah, Denver. That's hardly the south. Do you see the KKK actively harassing blacks there and terrorizing them? Maybe you have a new terrorist movement there that the news has not discovered? Maybe since you live in Colorado you just prefer to believe the worst about the South, without bothering to experiencing it for yourself.

Sorry if I'm responsible for thread-jacking. I probably should have stayed out of this one. I simply don't see any value in the culture of mohamed.

Dragoness, you seem to have issues about the racial situation here in the US. I don't know what this has to do with islam, or why you personally wear your feelings about it on your sleeve, but I do know many people, like you, feel it their personal responsibility to appease the racial tension with their personal intervention and sacrifice. Good luck with that. With that approach the safest position is to ignore any racial bias from blacks in this country. It simplifies your position so well. Good luck with that.

Personally I would like the racial situation to improve, and I think it will, but I actually think your position stirs it up worse rather than helping. Fair and balanced, repeat that, fair and balanced.

I really disagree with this. I think that in most areas blacks are treated very well, including equal opportunities in employment, housing, and in some cases even special status, such as in university entrance requirements. Obviously there will always be bigots, on both sides of the equation, blacks and whites. Recent surveys suggest that blacks treatment towards whites however is much worse than whites treatment towards blacks. Most reporting is such as you suggest though, that the problem only goes one way.

Institutional harassment of blacks is against the law in this country. Whenever it is detected it is punished by the legal system. This has nothing resembling terrorism towards blacks and it has nothing to do with comments regarding violence in the islamic religion.

Are you suggesting that mistreatment of blacks during periods of slavery and ongoing discrimination justify islamic terrorism?

I have issues with islam for its other shortfalls, but the mistreatment of women is not limited to islam at all. Many countries have extremely repressive laws regarding women's rights, particularly in marriage. Abuse of women in such countries is often overlooked or even permitted.

I don't go to the original link, sorry, I don't like clicking video links.

So you are suggesting that current race relations in the US amounts to terrorism against blacks?

Looks like it is certain segments of islam, large sections unfortunately.

So you're blaming slavery, which has existed for thousands of years, on christianity, interesting. Are you also suggesting that all the sellers of slaves in Africa during the 1600s and 1700s were white christians, that they went out and captured them without help from the locals?

Are you suggesting that the crusades occurred before the islamic militant expansion throughout the Middle East, and Africa and eventually Europe?

Christianity has a nice history with the inquisition, hard to be proud of that. Currently there is no ongoing inquisition however as there is an ongoing islamic radical movement. That makes the problems displaced several centuries from one another.

Blacks in the South are invited to participate in the American society. Slavery has been abolished in this country since President Lincoln. Since that time people have been working to make things better in this country for civil rights. No person living now was ever a slave in this country. There is no organized religious effort to enslave the blacks.

So, no, there is not equal bad and ugly in other religions, not in this century.

I'm not one-side educated. I support civil liberties for everyone, so throwing slavery into the mix is misguided.

Budhism does not have a violent past. They aren't all violent.

Bloody past and bloody current are not the same. I didn't enter this discussion to defend all the worlds religions or actions. I'm not of such a mind anyway. I entered it to point out that islam is an opinion based on the teachings of one man, which might in fact be wrong, even though he has many followers.

When you claim that islam is no worse than any other religions you ignore the violent nature of its history and present, as well as its tenets which support violence. To brush that aside with claims of equal bad in christianity is appeasement which perpetuates tolerance of evil. Oh well.

Dragoness, there was one example of bombing of one abortion clinic by some guy named Rudolph, while there are hundreds or even thousands every year for decades in the name of islam. How can you consider the eqalitarian view that they are all the same to be reasonable in light of that?

Moreover the widespread suppression of women's rights even to simple medical care or employment speaks to the nature of those in authoritative positions of the religion if not to the religion itself.

Clearly in Pakistan and Afghanistan the clerics have been teaching a doctrine of hate for a very long time. Such methodology and indoctrination should be illegal everywhere.

History of mohamed is not so stellar. Banishment from the city, inciting robbery of caravans, with complicit murder of traveling merchants and theft of their property. In this country those are capital offenses and you can be hung for them. Trips up into the mountainside for discussions with a deity that nobody else can see, returning with self-serving prophesy regarding submission of the masses and multiple wives.

Since mohamed never wrote anything and the quran was produced many years after his death, any words in it are only as accurate as the memory and the integrity of the writers. Whether the writers had personal agendas such as has been claimed about some of the writers of the new testament of the bible should be considered as a possibility.

The claim as to islam being a perfect religion is belied by the fact that the Shia and Sunni can not agree on a basic fundamental of the religion. The notion that it would be any more perfect than any other religion is hype, put in place at the time of mohamed.

The claim that islam is a religion of peace is smoke and mirrors it seems. In one sect they favor all variety of violence without regard for life of innocents, in another they support the rights and actions of the suicide bombers while at the same time claiming Islam is peaceful, justifying it by their own personal lack of commitment to actually bombing themselves.

Mohamed was a man in a certain time, centuries ago. His message is not relevant to people of today. People would be better off with some version of secular humanism. Certainly the world would be better off if islam were disbanded in favor of such.

Good luck with that PJ. No offense, but I've read the history and I disagree. Checking back to make sure I left caps off in the appropriate places.

One more thing on the consideration that islam is a perfect religion and sent to fix christianity. How can you fix a religion promoting peace and love by robbing caravans and promoting murderous expansion in the name of your version of perfection? Not to suggest christianity is perfect, just to point out the flaw in the logic.

Watching for the welfare of the children in their care makes them an even better organization.

Since when is denying access to young boys by gays bigotry.

Red, I never said I oppose gays in the military. That was quite a leap there. Personally I don't care one way or another about gays in the military.

As to your comment "Because If I was sending an 11 or 12 year old out to camp, I certainly wouldn’t want them out of shouting distance from help. Get real."

Get real yourself. As a scout kids are exploring countryside, camping and hiking and a number of other activities. Any possibility that they would be within shouting distance of help would be pretty remote. Specifically it would be small parts of the day, and during meals.

I guarantee you that those kids are out of shouting distance huge portions of the day. With luck they may have one or several other kids with them. But its a wonder that large numbers of them aren't lost wandering remote areas by themselves.

The issue is not gay danger, the issue is unsupervised access to children, particularly by older children.

Sorry Kid, I disagree here. Having my 11 year old in the hands of a 17 year old gay boy is not an option. There is definitely a difference.

No hate here, just love for my kid.

Invisible, I don't mind if you want to hand your young boy off to gays for care. That's your choice entirely.

It is hardly delusion for me to have a different opinion in this regard. I'm surprised by your intolerance.

Massage, you've really hit upon the crux of the matter.