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Hey awesome, I forgot I had that signature.

... The Noodles Taste Bland? So the puzzle is to spice them up? Cool:) I make a mean pasta sauce.

In one word: TNTB.

Enough said.

P.s. I think I'm back.

I've been thinking about this lately, and it's dawning on me that maybe it's not very healthy, mentally, to let the norms dictate our behaviour. Of course there's a limit to how far we can go, but where is it drawn? Society today accepts certain things while deeming others as insane, completely unacceptable. Sure, we can't do whatever we want, but so many people seem to live a life they aren't happy with just because they limit themselves. Maybe it's the people's fault, really. I'm still thinking about it .

Just thought I'd share.

Thanks:)
Good point on the whole fiction thing - I think porn is indeed fiction, be it in form of a movie, a picture, or even a written text. Indeed violence is depicted more than most things in movies today, and I have nothing against these movies. If we can depict violence, why not depict sex? And if we can't depict violence or sex or anything controversial at all, it's an insult to us as humans with different interests and ideas. Creativity isn't always in the form of nice and pretty things and ideas.
And I'm not that sure, really, but do christians* have a problem with depicting of violence as much as the depicting of sex? After all each is considered as much a sin as the other. If so, are christians against "The Passion of the Christ"? It depicts plenty of violence.
It was boycotted here in israel because of some antisemitic messages I believe, but I got it by other means and have heard a great deal about it. I think they'll eventually give up and show it on television or somewhere, as they did with "Jenine Jenine".
An enourmous percent of movies, books and tv shows are, at least in part, about something that is considered wrong or immoral. Some even show a different perspective of it.

*Again, sorry for generalising, I am referring the conventional christian belief.

A lesson before that we were asked to write on paper what we'd like to hear about in the sex ed classes, and after a long thought I wrote down "sexual preference". I'm not yet sure of my preferences myself, and they say most teenagers go through a phase of pondering this subject. Should be very interesting if we get to the subject.
I was positively surprised that the lesson worked more like a discussion between everyone in the class than a lecture. Also, sounds like we'll be doing some "relationship" roleplaying in future lessonss.

"Is it possible to love the personality of a pornographic image?"
I don't think so, no. Porn, however, is more an equivalent of casual sex than of love. That doesn't mean that when someone views porn, they immedeately forget that the people in the video/image are human beings. I wouldn't say they use the person, they use the porn itself.

"Okay, then, I think that porn that reduces a human to a thing used by others is wrong."
If by reduce to a thing used by others you mean that the porn somehow sends a message that the person is nothing but a sexual tool, then I agree completely. Otherwise, I don't see exactly how porn in itself can reduce a human to anything. In the end, it's up to the viewer how they interpret the people starring in porn. This is all assuming the participating people do so by choice, of course.

Also, as Kinoko mentioned, pornography can be used to relieve whatever sexual tension is built up inside us, to replace the actual sexual act.

Kinoko - I partially agree, but I may not have been entirely clear before:
These 5 approaches to the "body and soul mystery" are basically about how you should study the human being. Suppose all the cool stuff we think, do, feel are all a result of an immensely complex system in which our brain works. Should we, then, only study the brain as a physical organ, and claim there is no "soul", and no need to study it? I don't mean the soul in a spiritual sense, but more the psyche, the human mind.
The 1st approach indeed states that we should study only the brain, and not, for example, psychology. There is, according to this, no need to understand the soul, as there is only the physical brain.
The 5th is the mirror opposite, studying only the soul, but it also says we can't grasp what was never brought to our mind. If there's a world outside our soul, we can only grasp it in the way our soul limits us, and thus everything we see and everything we know is subjective. It's like being born with green subglasses that you can't remove - everything is green. This approach, I think, does not says that we think everything is green, that it seems green, but rather that things are what they are to us, to our soul. (You might replace the word soul with "mind".)
The other approaches deal with the same issue - the 2nd says we should study the brain in order to understand the soul, and the 4th is the mirror opposite of 2. And the 3rd approach says that both things should be studied, but that if they are studied together, the scientists from each field will only confuse each other.

When he asked us what approach we thought was more correct, I most connected with the 4th. The 3rd has much truth in it but it seperated the physical world and the mental world too much in my opinion. To every opinoon given though, the lecturer could give a counter argument, serving as the "Devil's advocate". It just goes to show that scientists, all of whom might be intelligent people, have different approaches to brain science, and any and each of these approaches can be true.

After some more thoughts, I actually think I'd like a 6th approach - a combination of 2 and 4. The brain must be studied, and through it we can understand the soul mind, and at the same time the soul mind must be studied and through it we can understand the brain.

EDIT:
From wikipedia(Psyche): "In psychology and related fields, the psyche is the entirety of the non-physical aspects of a person." and "A Greek word (also spelled Psykhē or Psukhē) which means either "soul" or "butterfly". psycho-, and psyche- are common English prefixes for mind or soul-related concepts."

EDIT: I completely forgot the first part of my post which I copied to notepad earlier.

2.) I think taking the Lord's name in vain is wrong. But saying "fuck" or "shit" is just naughty, but not Hell-inducing foolery. Swearing is just a sign of unoriginality and un-intelligence. If one has to reduce to using swear words, they really don't have anything important to say in the first place.

Why do you always have to have something important to say? I can just be in a bad mood or angry at someone and express my feelings about them by swearing. I don't mean any harm by it and it generally depends on my mood more than anything. But I disagree about curse words being uncreative. They are a great outlet for frustration, sometimes a cause for a good laugh (I think we can all agree that laughing is a healthy and enjoyable acitivity, no?), and can sometimes be rather imaginative.

As long as whatever you do (I'm including thinking in that statement) doesn't hurt anyone, I think that's still a beautiful thing. To be able to enjoy our minds and bodies, be it on our own or with a loved one or a complete stranger. If everyone's happy, it's ultimately just enriching your life more, really.
...
Passion is what keeps me going in life, and I think most people get depressed or sad when they go for long periods without it.

I think I agree completely with your take on porn and, in general, taking pleasure in life's beauty. If I see someone and find them attractive (btw, I don't neccessarily mean good physical appearance, it has something to do with personality, with what ther person projects outside), and perhaps fantasize about them, is this objectifying? I could find this person attractive for the very reason that they are a human being who is intelligent, rational and spiritual.

I'm odd. I'll admit it. I never get hot and bothered over just looking at someone. I see millions of guys every day, many of whom can be construed as good-looking. I don't notice any of them unless I know something about them. If I actually meet a guy and can hold an interesting conversation with him, and he seems to be the type I'd have something in common with, that's when attraction starts to happen. I'm dead serious.

I can see where you stand here - I have a friend who, I observed, notices looks first of all when she meets someone. I think my mind actually blocks this out, and all the people I've had a crush on in my life weren't always physically attracting. Not only were they not what is considered ideal good looking, I myself noticed that they weren't good-looking, to my taste. Still, I was attracted because of their personality, their sense of humour, etc. I like it this way because it means I don't get a crush on someone just because of how they look, only to find out they are a complete idiot later.
For myself, though, in contrast, I like to feel attractive to other people, though eventually I want to be considered for my intelligence, rather than my looks.

Hey, a lot of adults act like teenagers. And a lot of teenagers think they're mature enough to be considered consenting adults. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that the line between maturity and immaturity is quite blurry. Where would you say it's drawn?

Maybe I'm not in the place to judge, as I'm a teenager, but I find myself more mature than most teenagers. I don't think people having sex before the legal age of consent is wrong, if both partners are sure that they are ready for sex, and it doesn't have to be because they love each other, they might be ready physically and emotionally without being in love.
As a personal choice, I want my first time to be from love, and I also believe that it's much more enjoyable, mentally, if there is strong "mental" attraction to the other person- i.e. good chemistry and a loving relationship. I have no problem with people who, if they so choose, have casual sex (yes, I believe that's possible) or one night stands.

It's funny, we had our first sex ed. class today, one of 6-7 classes we'll have once a week, and we discussed a bit about one night stands and such. It's more a class about relationships, love, and such things, than it is about sex, since there really isn't anything new they can tell us about sex, save for demonstrations . It was interesting to have a discussion about sexual relations and in what context they are right, with people in my class who I don't usually talk to about that.

4) Do you think jealousy (coveting what another person has or does) is wrong, and should someone be punished for it if it's impossible to control? Do you think it can be controlled?

4) Eh, just try to make the best of what you have.

That's very true, but doesn't solve the fact that just about everyone covets something, even if not openly, at some point in life. You know someone who has an awesome job you'd like to have. I'm not talking about having their job specifically, but suppose you envy their occupation. Or suppose you envy someones nice handwriting. None of this neccesarily shows that you aren't happy with what you have, it's the human nature, and it's part of what causes us to make progress, because we are, though happy, not fully content with what we have or what we know. This can lead the power hunger and other bad things, and it can lead to progress, both personal and general.

A better question might be, though, do you think that a person should be punished for doing something they don't have control over?
A rather heavy moral question really, and I'd like to adress it to rharpe aswell.
It raises a problem - what can we consider uncontrollable? Some people can't control things that other people can. And anyway, I've always wondered how the bible interprets this issue - are thoughts considered a sin? Apparantly, god can read our thoughts, otherwise how could he know if we are coveting something etc. Somewhere I think I read god sees into our hearts, our intentions. So, is lying or stealing for a good cause ok? (See Eric's and esper's questions) If a person doesn't think what they're doing is wrong, is he still punished? And all sorts of moral questions like that? These don't just apply to religion,  I'm actually thinking of the law and the court system in regards to some of them.

On the subject of lying, I believe lies, or even sometimes false tales can be useful in certain cases. I might lie to avoid a conflict that would only (to my knowledge) result in bad consequences for both sides, though I tend to prefer the honest approach. I might tell a lie that will later cause a person to be happy, or otherwise to prevent someones disappointment. I'm sure most people have at least one secret that they would lie about if asked by some people. They might tell the truth to one person and a lie to someone else, for numerous reasons. Finally, I would certainly lie in the situation esper brought up, though you have to consider it's also a risk to your life if you lie and the Nazis find out you lied. But I'm not exactly objective on this particular subject, being jewish I know what I'd like someone to do in such a situation, and so that's what I'd do. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.* It could just as well have been other people, not Jews, in the situation, but I still think I'd do the same. In the end, such decisions are made in a moment, and depend on many details of the situation.

*I quote the bible more than usual in this thread, because I feel it's appropriate to the discussion.
Funny, when I'm given bible homework I'm too lazy to bother with them, but when a religious discussion interests me I actually opened my bible and looked through some verses.

big brother:
I think I've heard of those 613 laws of the Torah. They're called "Tarya"g Mitzvot" which means 613 commandments (nothing to do with the 10 commandments). As a side note, it's said that every Pommegranate (which is traditional to eat at the start of the Jewish year) has exactly 613 seeds. But I digress.

Anyway, if we're talking about morals, why not ask a few more questions (these are for anyone who wants to answer, and I'm interested in what any of you think on the subject):

1) Do you think abortion is wrong?
[I recall a certain thread where someone said a child growing up without a father or in another "abnormal" family would be doomed. This person was a christian. As far as I know, abortion is considered wrong by orthodox or fundamental (sorry if the wording is inaccurate) christians. But then, what is right, to let a child be born into a situation in which they'd be "doomed"?]
2) Do you think swearing is wrong?
3) Do you think physical violence is wrong?
4) Do you think jealousy (coveting what another person has or does) is wrong, and should someone be punished for it if it's impossible to control? Do you think it can be controlled?
5) Do you think lying for your personal gain is wrong? What about lying to help someone else? What if the lie will prevent the person you are lying to from being hurt, physically?
6) Do you believe people should be allowed to express their beliefs and thoughts freely (free speech) ?

I can't think of more at the moment, maybe later.
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P.S. I just found a quote somewhere that says it's forbidden (That's right, forbidden), in some holy text, i don't think it's the bible, but some other holy text, to teach a goy (non jew) the torah. So, unlike in chritstianity, it's wrong to pass on your beliefs to someone who is not already jewish, even if they want them. I don't think it's a very good rule, personally, but it also means you shouldn't force your beliefs on someone.

http://www.freewebtown.com/natalye/index.html
There you go, I'll probably update the text a bit with some additions later, but it's uploaded.

Sure, electric impulses might be what goes through the nervous system and what is responsible for "how we are wired" (a fitting expression here). But, it's very hard for me to believe that the human mind (and I'm referring now to the vastness of our thoughts, feelings and awareness of the world around us) can be so complex and yet be nothing but electric signals sent through cells. I think that even if we took two peoplepbeings with completely identical brains (not twins, clones perhaps), they would, even without being affected by surroundings, behave, or at least think, differently. I can't be sure as such an experiment hasn't been conducted, and it would be very difficult to avoid affecting either of the beings. Any difference in behavious between clones or twins can easily be associated with them being affected by the outside world. This just shows how ever-changing and impressionable the mind is.

I do find it rather odd how, when christian morals are brought into the discussion, the ones mentioned more than anything are the morals about sex. What about murder and stealing and other such things?
And what about war? War=killing people, after all, kinda goes against "Thou shall not murder". And yet people go to war because of religion all the time. In the bible, wars were often if not always about defending your god, and the pride of your god. Wait, pride? Is that all it's really about? Isn't god supposed to be for modesty and against pride? Does he have a big ego that needs defending through war?* Doesn't sound too moral to me.

I asked my ex bible teacher yesterday, out of curiosity, if the Old Testament, our bible, mentions anywhere that homosexuality is wrong. I wasn't sure if it was from the new testament. Turns out, it is in our bible, and what I found interesting is the verse: "If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them." (Leviticus 20:13). So, lesbians are allowed? I'm aware that the bible never really showed the woman as capable of independant decisions, women are always presented as belonging to man and hardly ever on their own. Still, though, you can't deny that this verse only speaks of male homosexuals. I am mildly amused by this .

My teacher also confirmed that to her knowledge, there isn't a bible figure who hasn't sinned, in the Old Testament.

* Don't mean to offend anyone, just making a point.

[P.S.]

Tuomas - yeah, that sounds familiar. He wrote a prologue to his book, by the way, in which he apologizes for the chapter about God's existance, and says that he proves it in the end. Basically covering his ass before the church.

What do you think, which of the five approaches to studying the brain and soul is most correct? Or perhaps, which is most efficient?

P.S. Tuomas- about your question on IRC (I have a feeling roger won't give you the message) - go ahead and refer to this if you like, yeah. And if there's anything you'd like me to elaborate on that I might have forgotten to mention, just ask.

Articles was another thing I forgot to mention. If I find anything I'll link, and if anyone knows of any interesting articles then please do post them.
InC: Somewhere along the line we'll have a lecture on dreams and the brain, I can raise the question there about the brain's ability to process a lot of information in a very short timespan. Too bad the lectures are about 2-3 weeks apart each time.

There was the article esper posted in another thread (deja-vu): http://www.crystalinks.com/holographic.html
It's a new approach I find very interesting.

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Anyway, so here's a summary of the first lecture:

A little about the brain: The brain has about 1,000,000,000,000 cells, called neurons. Each neuron can make connections with 1000 or so other neurons. This forms the nervous system. Obviosly, with so many neurons and connections, and if we assume that a different nerve structure is what affects personality, thoughts, knowledge, then it's easy to see why people are so different - the number of possible nervous system structures of the brain is huge.

One of the main subjects that Brain Studies delves into is the "mystery of body and spirit". People are all made of the same kind of matter, the same basic building blocks, as the rest of the universe, including inanimate objects. There is an important difference between them however - since the objects follow the strict rules of physics in our universe, if we know the state of an object at the current moment, we can succesfully predict precisely where this object will be in a minute. If you hold a pen up and drop it, you can predict it will be on the floor a few seconds later. Humans, however, are unpredicatble. If a person suddenly makes a decision to do something, they can. We are limited by the laws of physics, obviously, but we have free will, and this allows us a lot of control over where we will be and what we will be doing a minute from now.

So, where does this free will come from? Supposedly, it's this part of our body, this spongey organ inside the skull that lets us THINK, excercise free will and make decisions.
The problem here is understanding how an organ made of matter like anything else gives us this ability to think. At the base of this "body and spirit" problem lies the contradiction between the brain as a part of the body, and the soul, the spiritual part of our minds - conciousness, thoughts, personality and feelings.

There are 5 approaches to this problem:
1. Materialistic approach - Matter is everything, everything is matter. The soul is an illusion.
2. The soul lies within the brain - In order to understand the soul, you must only understand the brain.
3. The soul and the brain are seperate studies that can't be described using the same set of and terms. It's best not to combine study of the two things.
4. The brain lies in the soul - Understanding the soul will allow us to understand the brain.
5. Idealism - Everything is the soul. It's impossible for us to think about what we don't think about (kinda like the beatles song, now that I think about it. There's nothing you can do that can't be done, nothing you can know that isn't known). Basically, we are trapped inside our soul, we can't conceive of anything outside it.

An idea was raised that the soul does not neccesarily lie in the brain, but in other parts of the body (I believe the person who said it was implying genitals. which, actually, isn't that far fetched), or perhaps in the body as a whole. I once read about a heart implant that was said to have changed the person's personality. It could have been the trauma from the organ transfer that caused the change, but it could be that some of the "soul" is in other organs.

Notice how a lot of things "could be". This is where philosophy was brought into the discussion officially. As I was in a philosophy course last summer, in the same university (Tel Aviv) the points were familiar to me. He presented it like this:
A long time ago there was a man named René Descartes, who said "I think therefore I am" (cogito ergo sum). In his book Meditations, he proved, using logical reasoning alone, that everything can be doubted, except for one thing. As mentioned in another thread, questioning our beliefs is a sure way to make them stronger, or find things we believe in more.
But doubting beliefs is obvious. Now, it may seem trivial to you, for example, that you are sitting in front of a computer screen right now. You don't have a reason to doubt that. But some hours ago, I dreamt that I was sitting at the computer looking at the screen. I was completely certain that the screen was there in front of me, very real. But in fact, this was only a dream. Ok, so I can doubt that the screen in front of me is there. But at least I'm sure that this is my body, my hands and my feet. Right? But then, an hour before that dream, I was dreaming that I was a unicorn with wings, flying over purple lakes. What if I really am that unicorn, and right now I'm dreaming that I'm a human with hands and feet?
So I can doubt my body. What about maths? If I ask you how much is 2+2, you'll say with full certainty 4. And how much is 367*452? Not so sure now? What is the square root of 205,067? If you try to work it out, do you agree that you stand the chance to make a mistake? What if when you say that 2+2=4, you're making a mistake? It's possible. *

What is there left that is undountable? And Descartes came to the conclusion that "I doubt everything, but I can't doubt the fact that I doubt." A paradox led him to the only certain thing. If you doubt, then you must think. And, cogito ergo sum, I think, therefore I am, I exist.
Later he goes on to prove the existence of god using logic, but I don't know the details as to how he does it. The book is supoosed to be a fairly easy read.

Some ways to study the brain and the different parts - studying people who have hurt a part of their brain and how this affects them, brain scans, psychological study (the movie "Rain Man" was mentioned, I haven't seen it but I know it's about a guy with some psychological disorders including OCD).

Moving on to some of the parts of the brain, there is the Central nervous system (the brain in the skull and the spinal brain), and the Peripheral nervous system (nerves in the rest of the body, such as around the intestines). The brainstem is responsible for all the basic functions needed for survival - breathing, the heart pumping blood through the body and our conciousness. The Lmbic system is respinsible for our feelings, personality and thought. The passing of information and the effects of hormones are also part of that system. There's the large brain, Cerebrum, and the small brain, Cerebelum. The small brain is connected with small things like the way we stand. Reflexes, like the famous knee-hit-causes-leg-to-jump thing, are handled in the level of the nerves that are around that area, so unlike insticnts, they do not come directly from the brain.

On the second lecture, which was less about brain and more about addiction and the different effects that drugs have on people, both physical and psychological, a thing called "satisfaction cicrcles" was brought up. Apparantly, when we experience something that causes us pleasure, from hearing a complement, through running into an old friend, to taking a drug, an actual, physical circle is created in a part of the brain. After one experience, we will seek the same experience to fulfill the existing circle's needs. This is an addiction to satisfaction (dopamine is produced when we do or experience anything positive, and that causes the feeling of satisfaction or even euphoria). An interesting notion, since this means that we might be addicted to anything we take pleasure in and would like to experience again. The difference, of course, is the ease of stopping, and in the feeling that you can't survive without what you're addicted to. Withdrawal symtoms aren't severe when stopping an addiction to, for example, swimming.

* A note on doubt: Sure, we can doubt anything and everything, all that we were sure was true could be a lie. As the lecturer so nicely put it (though I think it was accidental), 3000 years ago or so, the world was flat. Now, the world is round. Why is it so? We say we can prove it, we have photographs. But isn't there the possibility that we are wrong? So the world, round or flat, is what we make it, what we decide it is.
If we decide to doubt everything, though, we cannot make any kind of progress. It is equivalent to walking into a dark room and trying to understand, from nothing, what is there. In order to make some kind of progress, we need to build on things we now consider facts, even if it is to discover later that they are false.
Brain study is a relatively new field that is quite "in" right now, and no surprise since now we have the tools to study it, and the desire to understand ourselves better draws us to this subject. There is so much we don't know yet, which makes this field somewhat philosophical in nature.

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Here's a little experiment I'd like to do, not directly related to this lecture but I read about it somewhere:
Try, for one whole minute, not to think about white polar bears. Think about anything you like, just not polar bears. 2..1.. Go!

How'd it go? When I tried I managed to block them out part of the time but the fact that they needed blocking out was in iteself counted as thinking about them. When I did this to a friend I gave her 10 seconds, and she managed pretty much not to think about polar bears, but she kept laughing all through the experiment because of how hard they were trying to get into her thoughts.

Yesterday I had the first 2 lectures of an 8-lecture course about the brain. There'll be courses from different areas of science, like psychology and biology. When I got home, I felt flooded with so many ideas that I couldn't contain them all.
Has anyone ever studied this subject? Personally I find it very interesting.
So, would any of you be interested in hearing what we're told during the lectures? I can post a summary of each one and discuss it. It's one of those things I can talk for hours about.

The first lecture, by the way, was like a prologue to the subject, and the different ways of looking at "the body and soul problem", the seperation between the physical body (the brain) and the feelings, thoughts, conciousness. Then we had a lecture about drugs and addictions.

So, any interest?

I've been reading this thread for some time, feeling a bit too flooded with opinions and so it was difficult for me to form a proper post. It still is, as my mind is swarming with thoughts, but here's my bit:

I'm a Jew, but not religious. I suppose you could call me "spiritual but not religious" as I believe in some paranormal phenomena and, in general, in ghosts or souls. I admit fully that my belief in life after death is based largely on the need to feel like there is something else. I am not currently in the point in life when I can accept that at some point it will stop entirely, I won't think, won't remember, won't feel. It's a scary thought, and a few years ago I was rather terrified by it. I find comfort in the thought that maybe there is something else out there, that it doesn't just end.
One reason I'm so scared of that thought is that I really love my life, I've noticed lately that I love every minute, good or bad, joyful or depressing.

Now, I consider myself a good person. I also know that most people think I'm a good person aswell. I believe in having morals, and in principles, and it's not always principles that follow the rules of the system I live in (school for example). I comply with the system, but feel a need to fight for my beliefs when it's really important. And, I'm not religious, and I don't believe in god. I've had points in life where I did believe, in my own way, and points where I didn't, but if true belief in god has to be unocditional and absolute, then obviously I don't truly believe.

That said, I'm begining to think that I believe in fate, not, perhaps, in the form of a plan, but in small things that were meant or not meant to happen. For example, today I was hoping to meet someone I havn't seen for half a year and it didn't work out, and although it seems coincidential I have this nagging feeling that that's how it was supposed to be today.

Anyway, a little about Jewish religion (I don't know every detail so I'll only write what I'm pretty sure about) - Jews, as far as I know, don't believe in Hell. There is also the notion that because we are "the chosen people", converting many people was never an issue, and it's actually quite difficult, or was in past times, to convert. It required studying the bible, and all of the jewish laws and accepting them. There is even a story about three people who wanted to convert, and each of them came to a person and asked to be converted for this-and-that reason. One I recall, only wanted to study the written "bible", and not the spoken one. All three were refused the conversion, at least at first.
As some of you know, bible studies are mandatory in israeli schools, and we even have final tests (for the high school diploma) on the subject. Mine is this year. It's nothing about forced religion, it's actually studying the bible as a historic text, and understanding the different tools used to help pass the messages. For example, often we learn about the bible writer (the one writing the part we are learning at that point obviously, as the bible was written by many people) having a certain belief that caused him to descibe the events the way he did. If he believed that the king of that time was sinning because of the way he sacrificed to god, the written chapter would show this through his description of the king and such. So, in schools at least, we don't take the bible as god'd word, we accept that it was written, after all, by man, and man cannot be completely objective, and isn't garaunteed to be right.
Another thing I've noticed is that sin is never associated to anyone but man. No mention of the devil making people do bad things, it's always the same pattern (god gives man a chance, man sins, god is angry, god punishes man, time passes, and the cycle restarts). Man is given free will and is expected to use it to do good. By the way, there hasn't been one king or religious figure in the bible who hadn't sinned. King David, who is considered the best king the jews ever had, never sinned against god, but he coveted another man's wife, and more than that, he sent that man to battle in the front to ensure his death in battle, which worked, and he took his wife. King Solomon, who was considered very wise, had a thousand wives, many of them not jewish, and at some point was affected by their beliefs and worshipped other gods.

I choose to live my life according to morals I consider right. I don't hate anyone, and don't wish ill upon anyone. More importantly, I don't judge people because of what they believe or who they are. I don't need religion, and I don't even need the law, to tell me what is right and what is wrong.
Of course, one might argue that the surrounding in which I grow up forms my beliefs about right and wrong, and my morals, meaning that because I live in israel the laws here are part of my concept of good and evil. But that's a whole other discussion I guess. Still, there are laws I agree with, and laws, however large or however small in scope, that I disagree with. Free thought and free will allow me to consider for myself which laws I find correct, and often the issue is raised in classes or lectures, wether we agree with a certain law or not. Today we had a lecture about drugs, and he asked us, with all seriousness, if we believe that drugs like marijuana should be legal in israel, and controlled by the government (there is a group in the government that one of the their suggestions for if they are elected is making drugs legal). I can see many bad sides to it, and I can see some good sides too.
Perhaps, if I was born in an african tribe with a completely different moral system, my beliefs on many matters would be different. But I would still have the ability to question those beliefs that surround me and decide, with myself, if I agree with them or not.

If anyone wants to discuss the old testament and talmud etc, feel free to PM. I'm starting to find that I remember a lot of the material from last year's talmud lessons, considering I tried my best not to be present at as many as possible, and not to listen in those I was present at. I'm enjoying this debate very much, it's a great read!

Wow, that was a really great read esper, thanks for linking. I'm very much into brain research and surrounding subjects (going to a lecture on the subject on sunday, yay!) and this sure is an intriguing approach to the whole thing.

Oh yeah, the thread:
I have deja-vu a lot, it's something that's always intrigued me. Deja-vu of having a deja-vu also happened a few times. Sometimes, during a deja-vu, I don't just feel like something has happened before, I feel like I know what's going to happen, but only just a couple of seconds before the event. This includes small details like what someone is going to say and their way of forming the sentence, but again, a brief moment before it happens.

If you notice, she tends to show teeth when she smiles, like Jerry, but not as much. She also has a different hairdo in most scenes than the sprite.

I got right away where they were from, good job!
I definitely like Seleceus's edit for Jerry. Elaine needs some work I think though, she doesn't look like herself exactly.
Is it my imagination, or do they all have the same hair and eye color in your version? I don't remeber the details but I think there was at least some variation in the series.

Would be really interesting, to see a game about nothing .

[Best Idea]

Best Idea - LilBlueSmurf
Best Design - LilBlueSmurf
Best Functionality - buloght
Best Technique - ProgZmax

Lots of awesome entries!