"A related aspect is that some people don't have a good grasp on math and probability. A die has a 1 in 6 chance of rolling each number. Roll it 6 times and some people think you should get one of each number. Wrong - it isn't a perfect…"

"It is things like this that make me worry about a police state future. I am reminded of the scene in Star Wars where Paplatine names himself emperor for the good of everyone and gets cheers. I'd quote Amidala but I don't remember it…"

"When writing up a "future history" for some fiction I looked at how we were headed in America and figured we'd have a second civil war/revolution by 2025 (2030 at the latest). Sadly we are still on track for that although I do see…"

"The wafers come in several flavors: long pork, white meat, dark meat and – for the kids – tubesteak. If they do not have a meat flavor they are faulty and should be returned. Although there are no refunds.     :)"

"I think it very likely that ancient people found dinosaur skeletons and tried to figure out what they were. Given their size and the jaws full of teeth they imagined something sort of like the dinosaurs but gave them the names we now attribute to…"

"1) Announce that for penance there will no longer be "hail Marys" or "Our Fathers" but instead all will be instructed to make restitution or apologize or otherwise make right what they did wrong - stating that no other penance…"

"In the USA a higher percentage of gay men are infected with HIV than straight men and women. Worldwide, it is just a disease and could be called a straight disease in Africa. IIRC the same could be said of HIV in southeast…"

"He is spouting new age mysticism to hang onto his belief in the soul. Whenever I've seen someone use the word "qualia", they are spewing newage mysticism. Where some people embrace the "god of the gaps" to hang onto god, he…"

"The religion is socially acceptable, the cult is not."

"What do you call a leper in a hot tub? Stu   Why did they stop the leper hockey game? There was a face off on the ice.   What did the leper say to the hooker? Keep the tip."

"The real problem is that child safety has little to do with it. Prosecuting someone for possession of child porn does not rescue the child nor punish the producer of the porn. Another problem is that teen porn is also called…"

"I'm pretty sure Christian Mingle doesn't really pay attention to where their ads go. The strangest place I saw one of their commercials was during the first airing of the movie "Deadgirl" on Chiller (cable channel). The…"

"I don't care for the religious aspects but, having grown up celebrating it, I like it. Now, I keep certain things in mind: The trees are from pagan solstice celebrations adopted by Xians to subvert the pagans. I sort of succeeded but almost no…"

"Justin, you say "But without the structure I had before, and hte sense that my life is on some level in God's hands, I've really struggled to find a consistent and potent motivation for sustaining the progress I made in these…"

"But accurately protraying Wicca or realizing that the Harry Potter books aren't really about magic but about growing up and standing up and doing what's right, well, that would be rational. As you point out, these people are steeped in…"