(V): so you've looked into it?

(V): You're cracking me up dude... you could've just stopped after saying "No", because the rest of your message is essentially just one long "No".

You said [ Do you believe in a literal end of the world. Holy war.. all non believers will die... If you do, you've failed. ]

Where do you get this stuff?

If I asked you, "Do you really believe leprechauns don't play basketball because they are too small?" as though I'm implying it IS something you believe, would you defend your belief in leprechauns playing basketball?

No, of course you wouldn't. Because you are not stupid. You would recognise the question is flawed, and that it is only an attempt to distract you from a discussion about what you really believe. But here's my point, if you are not stupid enough to fall for such an obvious ruse, then why... I'll let you finish that thought. You're no dummy, you can figure it out.

Seriously V, that kind of end of the world argument is a cartoonish idea, invented by athiests to discredit the Bible and make Christians look foolish. I'm having trouble believing you came to that conclusion after an independent reading of the Bible. And by "independent" I mean without the help of commentaries. It's easier for me to believe you got this idea from an invented "interpretation" for reasons which should be obvious... to discredit something they (the anti-religionists) adamantly oppose... because it contracts their own world view.

But then I have to wonder how valid that world view could be, if they have to lie about a world view that opposes theirs? This is an example of why, even if I never came to believe in God, that I could no longer run with the athiests. They talk a lot about truth and logic and science, and then prove those things are only secondary to what (without question) they actually believe. Truth is usually the best tool for proving or disproving something, unless reality itself is false... then nothing you say or do would actually matter.

Where in the Bible do you see it saying the world (our physical earth) will no longer continue to exist? It will undergo a big change, so of course an old way of doing things will end, but the earth itself will still be here. And it doesn't say God will destroy the earth, it says that if He doesn't intercede we will manage to destroy ourselves, along with every other living thing. So, how does that line up with what you've been saying Christians believe? Did I misunderstand the point you intended to make?

By the way, it is possible... we literally have, or soon will have, the capacity to end all life on earth. If not all, then certainly most of it. It was a crazy idea for hundreds of years, and probably something for athiests to laugh about, because how could it be possible for mere mean to destroy all life on earth?

But things have changed, haven't they. So I wonder, how many athiests today still think this is an utterly ridiculous impossibility? Any?

The Col: Because it's all tied in to the adrenal system. Your body cannot function without that system.

(V): I wonder why they can't just find the part of the brain that controls the urge to smoke and perform a partial lobotomy to erase it

The Col: ... a nicotine fluid that is flavoured... e liquid I think it's called. I'm not sure if they do a carrot flavoured one though!! ;P

(V): Is that the one that gives off stream?
I guess it beats sucking on a carrot

The Col: I'd go for a replacement like the electronic cigs then if I were you. It's what I want to try this year... not quite giving up, but just to cut down.

Iamon lyme: I usually tune out once I hear a half, or pack a day smoker give advice on how hard it is/was quitting, though I am aware they are trying to help.I was actually down to less than a pack over the holidays while staying in a home where the balcony was the only option.I have been smoking for about 30 years at an increasing rate, I've got to stop

Iamon lyme: I still do roll my own. The Duty (tax) on cigs is bad in the UK. I'm use to roll ups from having worked in an office before the smoking laws all came in. If I smoked a normal fag, It would be gone by the time I return to it.. burnt away.

Roll ups don't have that problem. :) Sometimes it's an hour before I get to relighting a roll up again.

Iamon lyme: No.

"None of us can afford to waste our time indefinitely, because someday the testing and searching will stop and all of this will come to a conclusion."

Time is an illusion, lunch time doubly so. This is stated clearly in the Bible... First and Last.. all else means nothing. You are and are not. But hey.. Me like everyone being unique.. positioning is everything.

Do you believe in a literal end of the world. Holy war.. all non believers will die... If you do, you've failed.

"same simple (childlike, if you will) tenets."

Now you are mocking what Jesus said... Shame on you!!

btw.. Genesis 3:21
The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. 22 And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” 23 So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. 24 After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side[e] of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.

Without the fall, would such still be possible?

rod03801: So you got helped!! Gave you some extra life to play with and enjoy. :P

The Col: I started smoking a little over 40 years ago. I stopped trying to quit smoking a little over 30 years ago... I'm trying to keep from laughing about this, but it's hard to stop doing that too. If you haven't done something for over 30 years, it takes a while to get back into it... like the art of quiting smoking.

I started off as a heavy smoker, went from one to two to three and then four packs a day. Four packs a day for almost a year nearly killed me. I would wake up 2 or 3 times a night because the addiction was so strong I couldn't sleep through the whole night without waking up to smoke... it was that bad.

So anyway, the smoking tapered off more or less naturally (because it had to, or I wouldn't be here today talking about it) to about two packs a day. All of this happened within a year of starting to smoke. After about 10 to 15 years of two packs a day I switched over to hand rolled cigarettes, and that's where I am today... I'm an expert at rolling cigs, even people who do the same are impressed with how I can roll a nearly perfectly shaped cig in only a few seconds.

(V): Don't take this as a critcism, because it's not... I've fallen into the same trap, and even after I learned to recognise the trap I still find myself falling into it.

I believe you are equating the core tenets of Judaism and Christianity with institutional (organized) religion, which itself has deviated from those same simple (childlike, if you will) tenets.

So now you've found an alternative (or alternatives) to a mismanaged and corrupt system of belief that became corrupt due to abandoning those same tenets. Switching over for another system that doesn't even pretend to adhere to those tenets is a waste of time and effort... it accomplishes less than nothing, because abandoning a system that only pretends to adhere to its tenets for one that wholesale rejects them is like jumping off a cliff to avoid falling into a hole. None of us can afford to waste our time indefinitely, because someday the testing and searching will stop and all of this will come to a conclusion.

rod03801: Okay, good, so the first thing I might try will be the patches, because I shouldn't have a problem finding them in local stores. But if it's only half the cost of tobacco, then it sounds like the price will be about the same as using an electronic cigarette. I was a two pack a day smoker, but I think today it's the equivalent of one pack per day. I roll my own, so it's hard to compared that to packs of smokes. I don't inhale added chemicals, but I think the tobacco itself is a bit stronger than most packaged cigarettes... I'm thinking out loud now, so I should probably stop talking about this...

rod03801: How many years did you smoke?
1 pack a day? I consider that pretty lightweight , I smoke 2 1/2 per day

The Col: I know the answer to this, because I've heard some stories about people using them in restaurants and other smoke free zones. You can and will be hassled, and for no other reason than because it looks like you are smoking a cigarette. There's not enough nictone in the expelled water vapor for anyone to be concerned about. If they didn't know there were a few parts per million of nictone in the air that weren't there before, they wouldn't know it was there... they wouldn't be able to smell or feel it.

Even if you put a candy cigarette in your mouth and pretend to smoke it, I think there's a good chance you would be hassled for doing that as well. I know this sounds bizarre, but over the years I've been amazed at how some people will react to perceived threats or violations of law even after they've discovered no threat or violation exists. Perception has the power to trump reality... it has always had that power, but only with people who don't bother to think about what it is they are seeing and believing. And I think perception drives politics more today than it ever used to... so between my own experiences with mindless reactionaries and what I'm seeing with national politics, I'm pretty sure I'm not just imagining all of this.

Iamon lyme: No doctor needed for the patches now. (When they first came out, years ago, you did need a prescription)
I don't recommend the cheaper "no name" ones. Maybe it was all in my head, but they didn't seem to work as well.
I recommend the NicoDerm ones They have 3 sizes. Start at the big and work down. They have a recommended amount of time for each size, but I found I needed to follow MY OWN path, and decide when I was ready for the next size down. (Because I failed when following THEIR plan, and dropped sizes quicker than was appropriate for ME)

They have finally gone down in price. I think 3 years ago, I found I was spending about half on the patches than I was on cigs. I was smoking 1 pack per day.

Iamon lyme: Ronny Wood of the Stones uses electronic ciggs, I wonder if you would still get hassled on an airplane regardless

rod03801: Nicotine patches or an electronic cigarette that delivers only nictotine (no tars and no carcinogens) in water vapor is something I might try. I've heard either of those can work if I stick with them. Do I need to see a doctor to get the patches, or are they sold over the counter?

I like the idea of an electronic cigarette. It's supposed to be half as expensive as buying regular cigarettes, but I stopped buying cartons of smokes years ago when they only cost a fraction of what they do now, so to me it would be much more expensive than continuing to smoke. The cost of a product like patches or a fake cigarette is something I have to consider, especially if I'm not sure it will without question lead to becoming smoke free.

I've tried quiting before, in fact so many times that I gave up quiting because it was becoming a ridiculous exercise in good intentions... they were 'feel good' efforts with no results. LOL That sounds familiar, kind of like how politics is practiced today in contrast to 30 or 40 years ago.

I know this is the politics board, but most of time I can't stand politics, and if I play politics with myself when trying to give up smoking I'll lose everytime. The real battle will be mental. I have to want something enough to put up with any discomfort that may discourage me... so a lot my focus will have to be less on the mechanics of stopping and more on what my mind is doing. I know that if I continue to "hold out" between smokes, and immediately stop puffiing on each one when the discomfort abaits, I'll become less addicted as time goes by. This can work, but it means practicing self discipline and not giving up on it for a long time... it could several months or even years to get to the same point you were able to get to when you got to the smallest patch.

Iamon lyme: Have you tried the 3 step program on one brand of Nicotine patches? It can be very good. First it helps stop that habit of picking one up, getting a large amount of nicotine in the first stage. Then gradually you lower the amount you are getting.

They helped me finally quit. Of course it took major surgery (unrelated, of course) and almost a full month in the hospital to get over that final hurdle. I was on the smallest patch, and was not going to stop using it until I was positive I would be successful. However, being in the hospital and having NO choice, helped me to take off that final one.
I haven't had a cigarette now since July 2009. I had tried many many many times before that and failed. (Even WITH the patch - it was that final small patch that I couldn't let go of, so when I stopped, I'd start back up to smoking)

I still miss it though lol. I just don't NEED it. I often think I'd like to have JUST ONE - but after being unsuccessful too many times, I don't dare to ruin it.

Iamon lyme: No, you are not a purist... far from it.

"but finding both God and man in one vessel (a man) would be unique. According to the Bible it only happened once."

No, that's a distortion thanks to some rather old semi pagan conceptualisations that have existed ever since the Nicene creed was made. The RCC used the same speech in order to define who was a heretic or not.

The Bible actually says we, the people, aka the children of God.... ... ALL have God in us, and we are part of the 'Christ'... there is also OT passages that talk of the LORD being visible to the likes of the discoverers that Elohim was ONE. Even Jesus says we can activate that God'ness in us and enjoy the 'kingdom of heaven' while we are still not dead.

God himself at the end of the Eden incident says we can become like God himself, and only after we started to ask one simple question..... """"why?""".

. If you are a purist.. you'd have to recognise God himself has no religion, Jesus was born as a Jew, the Christ in him was a pure virgin soul born with God alive when we guys have to 'purify' ourselves. .... .... even Jesus had to face a period of testing and purification, as denoted by the 40 days and nights he spent in the desert.

40 being a known figure referring to the purification of an object/soul/souls described in the OT.

... If you are a purist then you'll know that all OT text was written told from a knowledge that included PaRDeS, which Christ was of course aware of.

.... back to.....

"I'm not sure what your point is."

I can see that, I can also see that the fight/flight automatic response that interpretates much of the sense information that enters our brain is active in your reply.

ie..... "I don't know, so I'll fear and hate it".. There is no God in this and never can be. Everyone that holds onto such denies his/her God given spirit, just to be 'right' rather than face the inner storm and heal the 'world'.

why?? It's easy to do... blame the world rather than the way you see it.

Which brings us back to philosophy, and relativity. That one can be everything and unique in it's own right.One can understand without knowing no-thing.

If you were a purist, you'd not be looking for people to agree with you on every spiritual question.... But then again, you are here. Part of you wants to be as a child again in the pure form Christ talks of... It's a point we all face and many back down on.

...because we fear being childlike.

Artful Dodger: Sometimes such clear messages are clouded by 'dreams' of being a exalted '''noble'''. Ego takes over from sanity lol

put the lyme in the coconut: To be (a virus) or not to be (a virus)...

Ahha! I know what it is! My computer has the same problem I do... it thinks too much!

Artful Dodger: Do you mean the cure for smoking?

I've thought about that... the withdrawl symptoms are nothing, it's the emotions I feel as I'm going through withdrawl that keep me coming back for relief. The best I've been able to do after 3 days is to smoke less, by putting off the relief for as long as I can tollerate it. I didn't think this would be easy, that's why I've given myself a full 4 months to keep working at it.

I didn't have to work at quiting alcohol. In fact, I had no intention of stopping, but the desire for it diminished over time until I didn't want it any more. I wasn't even aware that I had stopped until a few months had passed. I was hoping maybe the same thing could happen with the smoking. I think I could be making too big a deal out this, that may be the reason for most of the anxiety.


I clicked on the second link and got a message about finding and isolating a virus. I was told (my computer talks to me) that I needed to reboot to have the virus deleted. I came back after rebooting and clicked on the same link, but got the same message... so I knew it wasn't just a fluke, it had to be the link. It could be my computer is being over protective and too sensitive to anything it thinks may be a virus, but I thought I should pass this along just in case it really is a problem and could end up being a problem for someone else.

I doubt it though, because I assume you were able to see the link without experiencing a problem... so do you know why my virus protection might identify something as a virus if it isn't actually a virus?

Iamon lyme:<b>Iamon lyme</b>:  Well here's the cure for that:

Worth listening to:

">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DC1AOtznXsI

(V): I'm not sure what your point is. When you say [ But no... it's an explanation of the duality of human being. Even Jesus said he was the Son of man... while Christ said he was the son of God.. ] is that supposed to mean all of us are sons of men and sons of God in the same way Jesus is? Having two titles to illustrate two different aspects of the same person is commonplace, but finding both God and man in one vessel (a man) would be unique. According to the Bible it only happened once, and it happened for a specific purpose known only at the time by God. If Satan had known what God's purpose was he might have felt the need to constrain himself, but probably not because for Satan it was a lose/lose scenario... inspire people to reject Gods son results in victory for God, and not inspiring people to reject His son results in another kind of victory for God. So Satan losing is a given, but we are in the position of having to make a choice whether we want to or not. And claiming we didn't know or believe in this choice to be made is no excuse. Ignorance or disbelief (or both) is not something Judge Judy would approve of and see as grounds for dismissal, so there's no reason to believe God would. That's how I see it.

Maybe I'm being too much of a purist, but I was only commenting on branches that deviate so far from a root premise that it can no longer be called a 'true' branch. If I saw an apple growing from a cherry tree, I would have to assume the branch holding the apple did not originate from that tree. I might assume that branch was grafted onto the tree, but it's a safe guess that the apple branch didn't naturally grow out of the cherry tree.


But I think we are deviating from ADs original question. At least we agree on one point, that consciousness is a given. Physicalists say that consciousness is a natural result of matter becoming living tissue, and then later on it developed consciousness. But there is evidence (no kidding, actual scientific evidence along with philosophical proofs) that point to the mind and brain being two distinct entities. The mind inhabits the brain, but the mind is not the brain. I skipped to that chapter of the book I mentioned before, where it talks about the evidence of consciousness. The physicalist argument for consciousness is almost identical to the "something from nothing" argument offered to explain the Big Bang. They claim that consciousness naturally arises from physical matter, even thoug physical matter doesn't contain anything that can generate that attribute.

Oddly enough, free will is only mentioned once or twice in that chapter, as though free will is automatically conditional to being a conscious entity. Like I said before, although the book I'm reading doesn't automatically reject theism, it is mostly focused on science, logic, and practical philosophy. Most books don't hold my interest all the way through, but this one does.

(V): He should have realized that with just 3% of the vote he was not going to make it in politics and leave it at that. Then after he popped a few tires, he should have left it there. He's never have been caught. He proved he is dumb, dumber, and dumbest! He continues to pop tires! Did he think he could do that without being seen? He has no tech sense.

And yes, Judge Judy rocks.

Iamon lyme: Try an official Jewish site... much more in depth clearer and for some hard to stomach.

"it being less of Gods doing and more for us to do for attaining salvation."

If you don't listen to God, how can you expect salvation? Even Jesus said this in the seed and the sower parable.

But no... it's an explanation of the duality of human being. Even Jesus said he was the Son of man... while Christ said he was the son of God..

.. get the difference??

Judaism101 is pretty good as a basic level... you could try AISH.COM but that can require some softening of the old grey matter before hand. ;P

Artful Dodger: [ I've not heard of Yetzer Hatoz before so I'll have to "Bing" it ]

I binged it, er, I mean winged it with google. The branch of Judaism V is referring to is very involved and complicated, but if I can believe the source (Wikipedia... okay I admit it, I'm often lazy with sources, but I didn't want to spend a lot of time with this) what I gleaned from it was the idea that perfection is earned, and sin is something we are somehow able to deal with on our own, with Gods help of course... it you take God out of the equation it could no longer be considered a branch or outgrowth of Judaism. Anyway, the idea of being completely dependent on God for our salvation morphs into it being less of Gods doing and more for us to do for attaining salvation.

My impression of this 'branch' of Judaism is the same with how some sects of Christianity have branched out in a way that appear to contradict the core tenets of Christian belief. It's like starting at the base of a cherry tree and moving up until you come to a branch, and then begin following the branch out towards the tips of it. If you find pine needles growing out from the tips of those branches you may not notice anything out of the ordinary if you forgot what kind of tree you originally started to examine.

By the way, I'm not claiming to do anything more than a cursory overview based on a few minutes of looking at what I personally believe is a biased and questionable source. The source is used often by people who want to argue with me, so I can't go wrong using it in my own arguments... less grounds for accusing me of bias.

Silvery Moon: She's half betazoid, I swear!!

... She's a good teacher as well as a judge!! <<nods>>

Artful Dodger: Yep..... he forgot his hoodie/balaclava!!

It's pretty good that he failed to win if he's that dumb.

Artful Dodger: Tell me about it, that was a major issue for me for years, until I found a few ways of accepting "I don't know" as a choice that can exist regarding working out questions. I thank Robert Heinlein and Judge Judy for that... The LORD appears in mysterious ways!! ;P

The Col: Not that heavy Dude.... well... compared to other instances. I'm just glad I had good teachers who prepared me somewhat for what can lay behind the clouds of thinking.

(V): Like most things I'm exploring, it answers one question and raises three more.

I've not heard of Yetzer Hatoz before so I'll have to "Bing" it ;)

(V): Heavy man

I remember nearly 20 years ago I entered a deep state of meditation while watching my breath. At one point... I stopped breathing, at least relatively. I have no idea of how much time passed, but I was fully aware that the decision to breath or not was my choice in that state/moment.

Life/death were immaterial, I was aware that if I did not breath I would die.... yet the ability to decide was all that existed.

I've heard of others who've been through this state/in this state of conciousness/meditation.

Artful Dodger: That I can only truthfully answer by stating... it depends on how aware you are. Classic Judaism talks about Yetzer Hara(ra) and the Yetzer Hatoz(toz). The two impulses that drive us through life. Yetzer Hara being a force that exists from birth, it gives us the drive to have children, to build, to engage in business. Unchecked, it can lead to rape, murder and other sinful activities. In itself it is not evil, but without conciousness it can be. lamon's example of the salmon would be of this force, not concious, just doing what is best for the survival of the species.

Yetzer Hatoz is the good inclination, the awareness that only begins to develop when a person reaches their teens. it is supposed to allow us to be able to rise above the physical and give us a choice to be able to control ourselves and practice free will.

...this guy explains it well.
Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, wrote in Derech Hashem ("The Way of God") that "Man is the creature created for the purpose of being drawn close to God. He is placed between perfection and deficiency, with the power to earn perfection. Man must earn this perfection, however, through his own free will...Man's inclinations are therefore balanced between good (Yetzer HaTov) and evil (Yetzer HaRa), and he is not compelled toward either of them. He has the power of choice and is able to choose either side knowingly and willingly..."

...... You'll find similar in the Chakra system that comes from Buddhism regarding this, or again going back to Judaism the 10 Sefirot. Such as the Desert Fathers practised something called Hesychasm to bring themselves into 'stillness and silence', to go beyond the realm of physical ruling ones actions.

Make any sense?? :P

Artful Dodger: I'm reading The Case For A Creator by Lee Strobel. It's one of the best sources I've seen for a scientific, philosophical and mathematical approach to questions I personally find interesting. I don't think it gets into free will, but I haven't gotten to the part about consciousness yet... I just looked, it's the second to the last chapter.

The book is not about theism. Theism isn't automatically rejected or ruled out, but I doubt there is anything in there about free will. It's technical enough to be interesting but not so technical to be mind numbingly boring or hard to understand. Anyway, reading this book has me all primed and ready to think about questions like free will... how's that for a happy coincidence?

You're right, the question of free will is probably taken more seriously by thiests than by atheists. A purely materalistic approach to the mind is that it is nothing more than an advanced thinking machine, and so the concept of a "mind" would be an illusion. And if the conscious mind is only an illusion, then any thoughts about free will would also necessarily be an illusion. However, the people who say this are the same people who think you can get something from nothing, or that time is only an illusion. I read an article in Scientific American a few years ago that said time was an illusion. I have no idea what that meant, and after reading it I still didn't know what it meant. Just because time is an abstract (is not a physical thing) it doesn't mean that time does not exist... I'm not even sure if that was supposed to be the point of the article.


I'm trying to quit smoking, so if I seem unusually gabby that's why... and sitting here typing away makes me want to have a cigarette. I type because I want to smoke, and I want to smoke because I type...
AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH crap, I'll roll one anyway, just in case I can't hold out... any... longer...

(V): to what extent do we have free will and in what cases do we not ( if any)?

Iamon lyme: interesting. I wonder what the atheists think of this question? Theists would probably answer in the affirmative but not all atheists would. Hmmmmm

Artful Dodger: "Does man have free will or do you believe it's an illusion."


Wow, I didn't realise how loaded that question could be until you framed it in that way.

I think there could be more than one answer, depending on how broadly you want to define what "free will" means.

Here's one way to look at it... If you wanted to divide the entire universe into only two parts, things that have free will and things that don't, I think an obvious division would be living things vs inanimate matter. Inanimate matter cannot make free will choices, it can only act on and react to its environment in accordance with the physical laws of nature. On the other hand living things can act in ways inanimate matter cannot. For example, a salmon can defy a law of nature when it swims upstream to spawn. No piece of inanimate matter which is able to be pushed by a stream (like a small piece of wood) will naturally move in the opposite direction the water is flowing. So, you COULD say that some internal purpose of the salmon is exercising free will by the act of opposing a natural flow of nature. By this (admittedly broad) definition you could say that all living things are able to exercise free will (to varying degrees) and inanimate matter is not. Men are living things, and so therefore men are able to exercise free will.

Then there's free will as pertaining to beliefs, such as what we choose to believe about the nature of reality, and how much of that is based on personal desire as opposed to natural evidence. Whether consciously or not I think we choose what that ratio will be... it's a free will choice whether we are aware of it or not.

Whenever people talk about free will, the idea of predestination usually shows up in contrast to it. I don't believe there is any real conflict between free will and predestination... predestination is pretty much a given when talking about inanimate matter, but not so obviously a given when talking about living things. But that's only because living things exponentially ramp up the complexity of physical objects... it's one thing to have a pile of tinker toys strewn about on the floor, but quite another to have them assembled into machines with co-dependant and interdependant functioning parts and that are able to achieve a self directed purpose.

"The most recent major report on these costs come from Brown University in the form of the Costs of War project,[1] which said the total for wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan is at least $3.2-4 trillion.[2] The report disavowed previous estimates of the Iraq War's cost as being under $1 trillion, saying the Department of Defense's direct spending on Iraq totaled at least $757.8 billion, but also highlighting the complementary costs at home, such as interest paid on the funds borrowed to finance the wars and a potential nearly $1 trillion in extra spending to care for veterans returning from combat through 2050."

"According to a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report published in October 2007, the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could cost taxpayers a total of $2.4 trillion dollars by 2017 when counting the huge interest costs because combat is being financed with borrowed money."


"WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — The nine-year-old Iraq war came to an official end on Thursday, but paying for it will continue for decades until U.S. taxpayers have shelled out an estimated $4 trillion.

Over a 50-year period, that comes to $80 billion annually.

"“The direct costs for the war were about $800 billion, but the indirect costs, the costs you can’t easily see, that payoff will outlast you and me,” said Lawrence Korb, a senior fellow at American Progress, a Washington, D.C. think tank, and a former assistant secretary of defense under Ronald Reagan.

Those costs include interest payments on the billions borrowed to fund the war; the cost of maintaining military bases in Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain to defend Iraq or reoccupy the country if the Baghdad government unravels; and the expense of using private security contractors to protect U.S. property in the country and to train Iraqi forces.

Caring for veterans, more than 2 million of them, could alone reach $1 trillion, according to Paul Rieckhoff, executive director of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, in Congressional testimony in July.Although that only represents about 1% of nation’s gross domestic product, it’s more than half of the national budget deficit. It’s also roughly equal to what the U.S. spends on the Department of Justice, Homeland Security and the Environmental Protection Agency combined each year.

Artful Dodger: A case of I think therefore I am, or I am therefore I think.

Yes man has freewill, just... it's not many a person that can free themselves to exercise such. Many people are taught they do not.

Certain religious groups, governments, the press, the police and political parties all rely on illusions of no free will to intimidate. Yet here... the common law revolution is teaching people they have more free will than they have been taught we do.

Artful Dodger: Or do both. Shame the USA does not have a universal VAT system. Then, non essentials such as a $200,000 car can have a little extra added on that.

Things like food get no VAT added... just luxury items that no-one has to buy unless they want to.

rod03801: Nope I have a vote here. Where spending cuts and some tax rises have reduced the UK's deficit. Shameful to you maybe.. but it is working.

This is more a philosophical question but I'm interested in the responses.

Does man have free will or do you believe it's an illusion. Expand on your answer if you want. ;)

Taxes will go up this year for everyone anyway. The Republicans are sissies. Watch them give on the debt ceiling too. I'm gonna be a libertarian.

(V): They don't want taxes raised on anyone. And taxing the wealthiest only runs the government for 8 days. Better to cut spending.

rod03801: Oh, please... everyone who is anyone (or anyone who is everyone) knows that government is not affected or ruled by the same economic principles the rest of us have to deal with. Governement is a magical entity that can spend more than it takes in because, uh, because they are the ones in charge... yeah, that's why. And it's only by sucking up to the ones in charge that any of us can hope for change in our fortunes... like the alternative energy companies, who knew their government funded ventures would eventually fold before too long. Why else would some of them receive parts for manufacture that would go directly into the dumpsters? Did they expect the random forces of magical evolution could take parts intended for human assembly and they would self assemble (by themselves) in those dumpters? And on top of that it should be noted... Uh oh, wait a sec... I'm starting to sound like a conservative again. No wonder I could never make it as a liberal, because as V has already noted (if he can remember back that far) I tend to think too much. Too much thinking leads to too many thoughts, and too many thoughts lead to too many other thoughts... and so on and so forth. After a while too many thoughts can crowd out memories of wild college parties and... Actually, I'd rather forget about all that.


Anywho, never expect a liberal to explain how deficit spending (or anything for that matter) is able to work. You'll almost always get an explanation that has nothing to do with it. For instance, paying off a war or two is a ridiculous argument, because those wars didn't put us into hock for the extra trillions of dollars we will soon be accountable for... since when has any war the US has fought cost more than the currently upcoming taxation that will be levied to pay for excessive spending on non essentials? And they are able to do this (as if by magic) by simply redefining what the word "essential" means.


I haven't spouted off for a few weeks, so I wanted to do something to help usher in the new year. heh heh heh heh heh heh...

By the way, if the world can end just because a Mayan 'calander' reaches the end of its cycle (the end of a very long cycle), then why doesn't the world come to an end every year when our calanders run out?