Just till the end of the ritual. Then take it outside and pour the libation onto the ground.
This is where we get into the eye of the beholder thing. My opinion that a thing is torture does not mean it meets the legal definition of torture, and because I believe certain treaties apply to these prisoners, does not mean they actually do. The question was do treaties apply to combatants without a country? We have situations every day where people get away with all sorts of things because there simply has yet to be an actual legal case. On the flip side, the government passes unconstitutional laws, and agree to unconstitutional treaties, and get away with it because there has yet to be a legal challenge. And the fact is that an action is legal or illegal, or constitutional or unconstitutional, is based only on opinion until the courts interpret the laws. The Bush Administration was working with a legal opinion that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to these individuals, and worked under that opinion until the Supreme Court said otherwise. I don't agree with what happened, but I don't really believe there would have been that much difference in what actually happened if Gore had been in the White House. We can only imagine what the world would look like today if they had been successful in the first World Trade Center attacks.
Here is the thing. What is and is not torture, like many things, is in the eye of the beholder. There are acts, like waterboarding, that most reasonable people will agree, without a doubt, is torture. There is also the catch-22 of living in a democracy. We are 8 years out from 9-11. If tomorrow a nuke went off in the middle of NYC, and it was found out the Obama Administration had a person with information that could have been used to stop it, and they did not use every method to extract it, the conversation on the acceptability of torture would quickly change in the country. It doesn't even have to be that drastic. If America started to experience regular suicide bombings, there will be an overwhelming call for extreme force.
cocoy , if I could add my uneducated opinion...
It would seem with this approach that the only way all individual farmers would prosper would be as part of a collective.
While I believe entrepreneurship and free-market capitalism brings the most prosperity to a people as a whole, there are always going to be people on the losing end. Many farmers will fail, and become absorbed into those who are successful.
I'm thinking the blogger should be talking to an attorney to see if his rights were in any way violated by this police officer. If it was, there may be grounds for taking civil action against not only the officer, but his chain of command, and the municipality.
You do know separation of church and state is a 'pagan' ideal? lol
I loved the blog. The one thing I wanted to mention was the statement about humans not being incurably religious. It may be that they are not incurably religious, but they do seem to be inherently religious... not to be confused with religiously Christian exclusively. Atheists do have a lot of theories why spiritual awareness spontaneously appeared all over the world, but (just as with spiritual belief) it is speculation.
I just installed IntenseDebate myself.
On your poll I picked "Bearing false witness." It has been my experience that Christians believe any deception in the name of their God is virtuous.
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Medley