Hey, if you're that intent on making God the bad guy, go for it. You'd just be lying to yourself in that case. It's almost like you think God either did everything or He did nothing. Believe it or not, there are possibilities between the extremes.

No, but He might have helped. If not, He might have helped the surgeon to become a surgeon. He might have helped in that the bullets weren't fatal in the first place. The list goes on and on. There's a lot that goes on and a lot to be grateful for.

No kidding. This kid needs to have his phone taken away until he learns to communicate respectfully. :P

One of the problems we have is that we tend to look at the things we don't like about life more often than we look at the positives. We only think of God when we think we need His help, and because He doesn't always do what we think He should do, we choose to believe that He doesn't exist. It's really just a bias problem. But in reality God isn't just some repair man that we can call in an emergency then ignore the rest of the time.

If you were to go back a hundred years you would see people ranting about legs and midsections. In fact a lot of people today still think bikinis are immodest. Personally I do think that, in general, guys should keep their shirts on too.
But reality is that the female body is usually more arousing to a male than the male body is to a female. That's just how our brains evolved. We could either deny reality because it doesn't seem fair, or we could accept it and work with it.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks it's dumb to throw away practicality in the name of romance.

Nah, that shouldn't be too hard. Emotionally stable and intelligent often come together anyway. And good looking is in the eye of the beholder in a lot of ways. I've never dated anyone that I didn't think was all three.

I woule also add that if you see someone engaging in behavior that you know is risky or harmful, and you don't say anything, you're being selfish. That's it. It's not "respect", it's apathy.

I disagree, I think it teaches the opposite. Granted, I didn't watch her VMA performance, and I don't plan to, but from what I've seen/heard about it, I don't see how that has anything to do with "loving your body." To me, it sounds more like "my body is a sex toy." To me, loving your body means respecting it.
Besides, I don't think "a bit" is an accurate description of how much she has "shown herself."
But you're right that just because people don't like it doesn't make it wrong. There are plenty of other reasons why it's wrong. :P

Some psychologist probably died laughing.

Hooray for over generalization to protect our sheltered and very convenient fallacies......?

I'm like pebbleinthepond, except different. Although I would partially agree that God doesn't "intervene," but only because "intervene" implies that, prior to intervening, he was not involved. I believe God can't really intervene because, most of the time, He is already thoroughly involved. I believe Him to be dynamic and constantly active in the lives of His children. Like a good father would be.

I've always wondered if maybe the dragon concept just came from the discovery of dinosaur fossils by people who had no way of knowing how old they were. But that's just an idea.

Except that she doesn't think they are mistakes. That's where the real problem is.

So if they're starving themselves because they want to be as thin as possible, you won't care because it's "their health and their body"?

I kinda wonder sometimes if the victimization has gone too far. I mean, yes people do get discriminated against, and there are examples of bullying and even violence, all of which is completely unacceptable. But pop culture is overwhelmingly gay-friendly. On the flip side, I can't tell you all the nasty names I've been called simply because I said I don't agree with homosexual behavior. asdf1234 has a point. Maybe it's a mark of bravery to be openly gay, but try defending traditional marriage in an internet forum, and see how thick your skin really is. :P

Yeah, I suppose. We just have to understand what it actually is, and how both sides of it are true.

Because just seeing it as a chemistry thing makes us think that the solution is in medicine. Maybe pills can help, but we'd be a lot better off if we work to fix the social ills that contribute to it. Like, if a person is depressed partly because he has been abused, we don't just throw a prescription his way and call it good. We try to fix the actual problem.