Computer time or online time? They are two very different things as far as I am concerned. Yes, he can occasionally play a video game on his laptop but no, he is not allowed to go online at all. That's like letting him free at a sexual predator infested porn convention. Parents who allow their children unsupervised internet access are gigantic fools.

Oh that's good, Coco. You and I are on the same page. I would be terrifed of allowing my children unsupervised time on the Internet. I really don't know what goes thru people's minds (perhaps they wouldn't look at porn or something) but kids are naturally curious. And there is a world of difference between finding a Playboy in the alley trash with your friends and seeing hardcore stuff. And then the violence that you can look up.

"The homeschooling network here is very religious, they teach their kids creationism and G-d figures into most of the lessons on any subject whatsoever (they have their own curriculum they use, it is very religious. Very). I want my kids to learn about natural sciences, not that the world is 6000 years old and that they were born dirty sinners."
**************************

Too bad that "sin" is a morally loaded word. An evangelical Christian explained it to me: We aren't sinners because we sin; we sin because we are sinners,ie, it cannot be helped. We were born with an incompleteness, with something missing, which is why we cannot get anything right and why we don't always get rewarded on this earth for doing what is right, nor punished for being horrible (think Pol Pot and Lazar Kaganovich, only for starters); and why no matter what, every time we "solve" a problem we create another down the line for someone else. That is what is meant by "we are sinners". It doesn't mean we were born filthy and wicked and deserving of suffering. It means that this is a fallen world and we are doomed to act incorrectly for being unable to see that God's universal justice is always in place

Whoa, that is scary twisted. No offense but man, am I Ever glad my hippie parents didn't shove religion at me. What a depressing outlook.

Whatever happened to --

Religious Freedom and Tolerance:

The concepts of religious freedom and tolerance - allowing individuals to believe in, practice, and promote the religion of choice without repercussion.

KidRaw Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Whatever happened to --
>
> Religious Freedom and Tolerance:
>
> The concepts of religious freedom and tolerance -
> allowing individuals to believe in, practice, and
> promote the religion of choice without
> repercussion.


Where do you not see that happening?

then again, it's kinda nice not having money overtly involved in every little thing. so super permeation of micro-payments presence may not be the most prudent thing. social capital has a place too. or is that capitol... always get those mixed, maybe i should devise a trick...

Ive never heard Sin explained even close to that be4 O.o, that is an interesting way of putting things, but your friend did not get most of that from the bible horsea, sounds more like a personal philosophical belief loosely based on the bible, than what the bible actually says about it.

I would like to point out, to anyone interested at all, that often, christians are not indicative of christianity,LOL... Most I have met in my life have never even read fully through any version of the bible, let alone translated with the help of a friend who is fluent in hebrew so as to bypass many of the almost intentional mistranslations in many modern versions, so many interpretations that many "christians" will give you, are often based on what they heard somebody else say, their opinions are valid as their own beliefs, but are not indicative of what Christianity as a whole actually is.

Sin, as the bible describes it, is a capability we are all born with, almost a survival trait when one thinks about it, basically the selfish nature that leads to many damaging behaviors when taken to unhealthy extremes, to hurt others, and basically all that stuff that society in general tends to find destructive, it does not say anywhere that we are not capable of doing good because of this, just that the nature of man to begin with, is greed, but we can over come this... unlike many christians, i do not believe a person has to be a christian, to be a good person and do good things... It seems your friend, would disagree with me... oh well,lol.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Oh, mirror in the sky
What is love?
Can the child within my heart rise above?
Can I sail through the changing ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my life?

i think its funny how an original post about reducing debt turns into a discussion on christianity

we are so awesome at derailing threads here

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist

yeah,lol...I seldom post about my beliefs on here, because of the rules, until I see people lumping in all of christianity into the same boat with a few people who are not practicing/saying things that are anywhere near what the bible actually talks about... I do not want people to think that the things people who haven't even read the bible are saying, are indicative of whats actually in the bible.
Im sure others of varying beliefs on here would do the same if their religion was repeatedly spoken about in the negative terms mine often is on here, based on people who claim to, but obviously dont even follow the religion.

That being said, i also have some buddhist influences and if some one came in saying Buddhism proposes we should never do anything but sit around and wait to die... I would discuss what I believe to be the fallacies within that statement as well... not very buddhist of me, but nobody is perfect,LOL.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Oh, mirror in the sky
What is love?
Can the child within my heart rise above?
Can I sail through the changing ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my life?

So, jono, are you in favor of bartering as a micro-economic system? Like peer-to-peer lending? I am dying to try this, and I sort of do, in that my neighbor snow blows the bottom of my driveway and I pay him in cookies. But I would love to do this for other transactions, on a larger scale. I was reading in last month's ODE magazine that there are municipal currencies cropping up, based on Swiss complementary currency of the 1930s. The collateral is a local business or service, and the currency can be used at or traded with any participating merchant. Like Monopoly money, but with actual real world value; unlike our current concept of money, the world's greatest conspiracy, LOL! This would be an excellent way for not just an individual, but for an entire community to get debt free--if everyone agreed to exchange services for other services, or for goods, and when that wasn't possible, already payed-for currency for another exchange.

they are talking about that in ODE again? I could have sworn ode ran the same story early last year...

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Oh, mirror in the sky
What is love?
Can the child within my heart rise above?
Can I sail through the changing ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my life?

Curator,

This was in their e-edition from January 2011, as they retool their hard copy magazine. They have occasionally run something about alternative economies or investing and I have found it among the most useful of pieces of information in this information-rich publication. I'm gushing, I know, but if ODE were a person, I'd hug and hug him. Or her. No judgments

well, I did definitely enjoy that article when I first read it, I really like barter systems myself, but had always thought "what if they want something from you now, but they have nothing you need at this point?" so having a type of currency that more or less acts as a "voucher" for certain services, could be really useful, cause you could then trade these to other people who need their services for something you actually need... its really not much different than our current monetary system however if I remember right, just more local...

BTW, do they charge the same for the digital version? ive been really wanting to get ode again, but a normal subscription through them is just waaaay to expensive... (I originally got 2 years of ode through a free offer, so I had no idea how much it was till my two years where up and I wanted to renew, $50 a year just seems really outrageous to me for a magazine, nomatter how good...)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Oh, mirror in the sky
What is love?
Can the child within my heart rise above?
Can I sail through the changing ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my life?

Curator,

[secure.palmcoastd.com]

Their free online version is pretty comparable.

yay thanks
Edit:woh, their print version is considerably cheaper now too it looks like

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Oh, mirror in the sky
What is love?
Can the child within my heart rise above?
Can I sail through the changing ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my life?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/08/2011 03:23PM by Curator.

hmmm, this seems to only have the option to buy the magazine, maybe its like it used to be? where it was only free to subscribers?

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Oh, mirror in the sky
What is love?
Can the child within my heart rise above?
Can I sail through the changing ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my life?

Tamukha, I've heard of those currencies based around local exchange of services and such. It's all beyond my present level of research into the matter.

It seems to come down to organization, and how best to organize the exchange of energy among entities. Raw cold hard dollars flow smoothly throughout society... so smoothly that it often seems to fly away from pocket books and into the hands of the money-grabby savvy. Hmm, maybe if money flowed a little less smoothly, it could be distributed more evenly. I dunno. Fat cats like Gates and Buffet apparently are interested in giving back large portions of their acquired wealth. At some point, a super rich fella seems more like a caretaker for the money, and hopefully highest good for all is the mindset. The Rothschilds are what like trillionaires or just billionaires i don't even know, might be nice to know tho how the money mountains pile up and and who is sitting where.

jono,

I think of that last scene in "Citizen Kane," the warehouse congested with boxes of Kane's "stuff," piled one on top of another and arrayed in suffocatingly narrow rows, like a scale model of some fantastic city. And Rosebud going casually into the furnace built for burning the excess once new stuff was accumulated. That movie is decades old and we have learned nothing about purchasing and consumption in the intervening years!


If I were as wealthy as Gates or Buffet, and I never would be because one gets that kind of wealth by investing in vagaries, I'd use all my money for public works and social service projects. I'd become a sort of private shadow government, doing what governement and economic mechanisms should be doing, but don't. It is so distressing to me to think of all that wealth, most of it acquired not through creativity or even shrewdness, but through usury and geniture, just sitting there and not working for civilization . . .

My plan is to do something similar Tam, but a bit different, if I ever became super rich... I want to fight consumerism from the inside out, producing massively high quality products that are the best that can possibly be produces with the available technology, things that will last for a super super long time, so people buy one, and dont need another for a decade or longer, AND charge fair prices for these items, just enough to make enough profit to keep producing similar quality items... the consumer will start purchasing these products, knowing them to be far superior to the average disposable crap out there, forcing many other businesses to start trying to compete quality wise, that way if we are at least going to be consumers, we will be consuming more responsibly... of course this would only be the start... id basically want to transform the market first, then use that to transform society.

pit consumerism against itself...

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Oh, mirror in the sky
What is love?
Can the child within my heart rise above?
Can I sail through the changing ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my life?

This is an intriguing little video I just saw, pertaining to what I've mentioned here:

[www.youtube.com]

Here are some free e-book versions of How I Clobbered Every Bureaucratic Cash-Confiscatory Agency Known To Man: A Spiritual Economics Book on $$$ and Remembering Who You Are .

EPUB version—EPUB format for Nook, iPad, iPod Touch, iPhone, Android, with linked Table of Contents and cover. Can also be read on a PC/Mac/Linux using the EPubReader extension for Firefox, available for free at [www.epubread.com]. Can be read with free software FBReader for PC/Mac/Linux/Android from [fbreader.org]. On Mac, use Bookle available from the AppStore. On iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch, use iBooks, available for free at the AppStore.

Kindle version—MOBI format for the Amazon Kindle, Kindle for Android, Kindle for iOS, with linked Table of Contents and cover. Can also be read on a PC or Mac using Kindle For PC and Kindle For Mac available for free from [www.amazon.com]





Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/27/2013 08:08AM by Prana.

Has this book helped you or anyone you know, Prana? Looks interesting. Thanks for the links.