Posts by EnderX

This article needs somebody playing the violin in the background.

Now, now. Daniweb serves, if I understand correctly, as a medium of information exchange. And the last thing we need is more violins in the media.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled thread, already in progress.

'wohne illegal alien, twhoo illegal aliens, thuhree illegal aliens...'

I don't know what my planned dream would be, but can someone tell me the answer to my long awaited to ask question?

How can I start to remember my dreams again? I used to almost every night, now I never do!

I just wake up in the morning and never remember my dreams. It pisses me off so much.

Does anyone have any tips on how to remember dreams?

Set an alarm clock. I'm serious about this.

From my own experiences, as well as what others have written that I've read, it's a lot easier to remember a dream if you wake up during it, rather than after. Given the hour which I have to wake up for work, I'm more likely to remember my dreams on a weekday (alarm clock going off) than on a weekend (sleeping myself out).

You'll still have to focus on them a bit; waking up from a dream and immediately going into something else in reality will cause you to forget the dream more quickly.

how about promoting more battery powered cars that do a top speed of 70 mph.
That would be good for the ozone layer & less on speeding fines to pay out too.
Like most things in the world it is all found out that it is bad years down the line when the damage has been done allready , but we will be paying for it till we die.

Exactly what portion of the exhaust of a normal car is damaging to the ozone? I was under the impression the supposed problem was at a somewhat lower level of atmosphere.

And exactly how would the battery-car be any better? The exhaust would simply be factory-created rather than engine-created; you still have to provide power for those batteries.

I'm assuming this will not be done by connecting them with copper wire then flying a kite off the last one during a thunderstorm.

HIV/AIDS - this is not a 'gay' disease, was not started in the gay community, is not god's punishment for anything. Of the worlds populations that have HIV/AIDS, 80% is transmitted through heterosexual contact. If you are going to use the bible, remember "judge not lest ye be judged"

Would you please cite your proof for the numeric statistic? It was my understanding that, in the United States at least, ~90%+ of occurences did appear among the somewhat overlapping groups of homosexuals and shared-needle drug addicts, and I would like to know where you get your statistics from.

As to your bringing up the scriptures,

1Judge not, that ye be not judged.

2For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.

To my mind, this always meant not judging others by a standard other than the one you hold yourself accountable to.

Or perhaps you refer to the phrasing of the gospel of Luke:

37Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven:

38Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again.

As far as I can tell, same logic.

And the same One who …

What's the difference between a catfish and a lawyer?

One's a scum-sucking bottom dweller.
The other's a fish.

"Hello, McDonalds Corporation? I'd like to complain about that last batch of fuel I ordered from you...it seems my car has been gradually getting bigger ever since I started using it."

And the real trick is finding the question...

"How many ways can I stretch my body out of shape?"

From what I've seen, any discussion of any kind of scientific or pseudoscientific material on this board will nearly inevitably lead into a comparison with evolution. This is in addition to instances where the issue is brought up in terms of other beliefs, such as the depiction of Mike Huckabee given recently in the Presidential Poll thread by ZZucker.

I recognize that many people here believe in evolution. So, I would like to make a request of you. If you accept that the principles of evolution as generally taught in schools and universities now are true, would you please list the specific evidence that lead you to believe this?

Thank you,
-EnderX

In China a woman gives birth every 2 seconds.

Poor woman!

The average person falls asleep in seven minutes.

Who exactly is this 'average' person anyway, and how come they run so many tests on him? No wonder he fell asleep; he must be exhausted!

Currently sitting at Posting Shark.
What I want to know, however, is what kind of shark I'm supposed to be.

Dogfish?
Nurse?
Whale?
Hammerhead?
Land?
Goblin?

Wasn't the information superhighway a brainchild of Al Gore? Rest stops must be environmentally unfriendly to him.

Of course they are. They encourage people to travel long distances, because they provide the possibility of a temporary resting point between the two ends, breaking the longer distance into two (or more) shorter ones. And because they encourage travel, they encourage more use of various forms of automobile, which in turn means more usage of gasoline. And since gasoline seems to be anathema for the various environmental/preservationist groups, this makes rest stops a bad thing for them.

So what are your thoughts, should the government/groups step in and allow a ban on rap music (which degrading, illicit, voilent) and could decency ever return to the way it was decades ago?

No. While I personally find rap 'music' to be degrading and morally repugnant, allowing the government (in the form of any government agency) to step in and ban it would give the wrong message, especially should the ban be successful. Were this the case, a massive blow would have been given to true free speech, and the politicoes behind the ban would have an extra precedent should they choose to attempt a ban of some other form of speech...say, political dialog that shows them in a negative light.

US sold missiles to Iran shortly after they released the hostages (duh, does this seem suspicious?) and gave money to SA rebels

Don't know enough about the situation, please allow me to study it and get back to you.

US supported the Shah of Iran
US support Noriega
US supported Marcos

And what was their opposition, again?

US supported, you know, that guy who used to run Iraq

Or was it just perhaps a way of bleeding off another enemy...?

The US invaded Iraq looking for nuclear weapons but did not find them but did not even notice that syria, right next door, did have them (well, actually, was just getting close).

Would you mind specifying where your source for 'nuclear' in that sentance is? From the news reports at the time, I was under the impression that any Weapon of Mass Destruction, be it nuke, bio, or chem in nature, would qualify. And no, we didn't know whether or not he had them; that would have required that we be allowed to inspect, which we weren't. Thus, the possible threat had to be taken at full value.

France supported the US before it was a country

A favor for which we were duly grateful, and have returned (in modified form) a couple of times since then.

"Just another way in which France always immediately surrenders when threatened

I hear you ignorant twits repeat this lie so often I am beginning to think …

Nobody is saying that you should accomodate everyone. I'm saying just the opposite:

Why not help make some of these places better places to be? One poster said it himself; mexico is crap.

Don't think that the rest of the world doesn't care about immigration; people are leaving our soils for greener grass and in many cases never look back. I'm sure the respective countries will be glad to help you get them to the aforementioned point.

We have enough problems dealing with welfare in our own country. What you just described is putting entire other countries on some form of international welfare role.

Seriously, if the US is trying to make the place better, then the US will be doing the work, and the other countries are likely to (note: likely to, not guaranteed to) simply let the US do so, without attempting to aid our efforts. Why should they, if the US is doing it for them?

@JoshSCH:

You may be right. MidiMagic may be wrong. I neither know enough, nor (at this point in time) care enough to determine who is correct between the two of you on my own.

However, by presenting the arguments the two of you are in this forum, I find myself agreeing with MidiMagic. He tends to present arguments bolstered by at least some evidence. Once I find the time (and inclination; again, at the moment I really don't care about the topic itself) to look into it, I can attempt to verify, either for confirmation or denial, what MidiMagic has stated. You, on the other hand, seem to revolve around direct personal insults as your main mode of debate. This is not an attack on the credibility of the person, which would indeed be valid, it is an attack on the person. Calling someone an idiot does not decrease their credibility except among those who would be willing to accept any comment tossed out by any random individual.

And I'm sorry, Josh, but your style is the one that reminds me of a nine-year old child. The type of attacks (and they are attacks) you make against MidiMagic's person sound more like the tauntings of an elementary school child than any kind of reasoned response.

If you have hard facts to bolster your statements, Josh, please provide them for us to view ourselves. Otherwise, I'm afraid that I, at least, will view your own arguments (given …

Inference and assumption are not the same thing.

Admittedly, they are related. You are assuming that the logical statements being inferred from are true. However, the inference itself is the act of deriving the logical conclusion(s) of the statements. I believe Josh was using the correct term in his post. He is making the assumption that scru has been honestly giving his opinions in his posts, and coming to a conclusion based off of that.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled argument, most likely already in progress.

no offense, but this just sounds like some people who are very paranoid made this up...

It can't be made up! The I Ching verifies it! They said so right on the Television!

[Note: I do not acknowledge the I Ching or any other divinatory tool as a valid source of information. And these days, I also have serious doubts about televised broadcasts as a valid source of information as well...]

iamthwee, you are one cool likable fellow! At least you have a brain that works well!

Given the discussion, I am assuming that this statement translates across as nothing more than "I like what you said because it agrees with what I think".

And thus not the 1st...
IMO the 14th is restrictive of individual rights and therefore unconstitutional (as the constitution is designe to define the power of the federal government, not limit that of others).

I can't speak for 'unconstitutional', but I've seen enough written about the historical evidence for political foul play in its passing that I'm skeptical. As was mentioned elsewhere, many southern states were not counted for the purposes of its passing, because they refused to accept the 14th.

However, the Radical Republican Congress which imposed the 14th also imposed the 13th amendment, accepting the ratification of the southern states for it. There were no major changes in state governments between the two amendments. Logically, therefore, if the arguments given for the passage of the 14th amendment are valid (southern states aren't part of the union and therefore aren't needed to ratify the amendment), then the 13th amendment would seem to be invalid, as non-union governments were allowed to ratify it. And if the 13th is valid, then the 14th isn't.

I also recall reading about a state legislature (sorry, can't recall which state) which voted on the amendment while some seats were under contention. (Seats were held by Radical Republicans, but there was a question of whether or not they had actually won those seats.) After the amendment was ratified, it was discovered that those seats should have gone to the Democrats who opposed the Radical Republican seatholders. But the Radical Republicans refused to …

thanx ppl i am flattered and that english is called shortcutting ha ha ha excuse me for being realistic ha ha ha

What you are calling 'shortcutting' is an attempt to recreate the English language in a manner more preferable to you. The problem is, to those who are more used to the English language as it is now, you come across as either confused, or confusing. It becomes difficult to parse your writing, and the main result is that most people would rather make fun of you than attempt to understand what you are trying to say. Please make an attempt to respond in normal English, with proper grammar. I would appreciate this, and I believe that most of the other people who post on this site would appreciate it as well.

And Rashakil, shut up, you can't assume what I think or why I think it.

He can assume whatever he likes. Doesn't mean it's correct.

It may be fake on our side, but you forfeited the name when you allowed your version to be shortened from association football to assoc. After all, that's where we get the term 'soccer' for it from.

I suspect the point there is that most of us wish it had been us; we tend to feel that we could have stood firm where someone else fell. However, that does sidestep the facts that, had we been born into such a situation, we wouldn't have been who we are now, and it's that 'other' version of us that would be dealing with the situation. And on that grounds, I strongly suspect that you are correct, quint.

A few things to say about that one EnderX. For one, we all know the Da Vinci Code is a novel, but what are you referring to when you say "forged documents"?

I'm saying that the 'evidence' for the Priory of Sion, and the entire 'Merovingian = bloodline of Jesus' deal, were from forged documents that surfaced in France during the first half of the twentieth century. One of the best indications they were forged is that they seemed to name the guy who found them as the rightful heir to the French throne.

If you are saying that some books weren't included because they were written too long after the events took place then why are the first five books of the Bible included (thought to be written by Moses I believe)?

I may not have made my statements clearly enough. That particular requirement was for the Gospels; the Gospels had to have been of apostolic origin, meaning either they were written by one of the apostles, or were taken from the testimony of the apostles. (For example, the Gospel of Mark is the testimony of Simon Peter, as recorded by John Mark.) Books written 100+ years after the time of Christ (such as the Gnostic Gospels) would not have been valid based on this account. [This was not the only requirement for acceptance as valid; I simply bring it up as it was the one in question here.]

And the church actually did believe the Earth …

Sorry I'm late posting to this; I got busy doing other stuff the past couple of days.

DaVinci Code:
From what I've seen, this was written pretty much as an 'In your Face, Church!' slam against Christianity. The original data Brown used in compiling his 'theory' was a set of forged documents written during the early-mid twentieth century. And I'm not sure that Brown cares about his credibility; there are some people who'll believe anything, no matter how absurd or how little evidence is given for it. See for example the 'punctuated equilibrium' theory of evolution.

As to the rest:

I never heard much controversy about Opus dei.. People were just pissed off about the idea that Jesus had a kid.. Which is completely reasonable. Most jews got married and had kids.. it was looked down upon if such a thing did not happen. I would not be surprised if Jesus and Mary Magdeline had married.. The dead sea scrolls seem to represent this idea clearly.

As Christina said, Jesus of Nazareth, called the Christ, was most decidedly not 'most jews'.

That's absolutely true. It would seem that if Jesus didn't have a wife there would be an explanation for such a thing in the Bible but there isn't.

It would seem more likely to me that if He had taken a wife, that would have been more likely to be recorded. Even if you believe that only the 'teachings' of Jesus went into the Gospels, …

You, and your damn conspiracy theories.. What are the chances that the 7 year rule of the antichrist is in our lifetime? Why would there be clues as to when and where the antichrist is arriving? It is quite evident in the bible that your god wishes this to happen when no one is thinking about it.. its supposed to be a surprise.. and he obviously wants you to suffer for 7 years, as he doesn't send his son until after the antichrist's reign.. Seems to me that your god enjoys drama.. he likes to give up control of this planet to the antichrist so that he can stage a dramatic come back victory! You know what? I'm the antichrist.. I didn't want to tell you, but seeing as your so hot on my tail, I'm just going to tell you.. hopefully this puts an end to all your lame antichrist conspiracies.

Given that Josh seems to have abandoned this thread, I'm not sure he'll ever see this one, but...

The (presumed) seven-year reign of the Antichrist is a time of tribulation and destruction. The evidence I've seen in the scriptures indicates that those who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ will not be caught up in it the way the rest of the world will. Some people think that all believers will be miraculously protected during that time, others hold that all believers will be removed from the earth before that happens. (This event is the one usually …

Tolkein's original intention?

>The Hobbit was largely backstory for the LotR trilogy.

Thats why I said prequel

I hate stories with so much detail.. useless detail too.

Prequel doesn't automatically imply backstory. I can see where you're coming from; my point was simply that The Hobbit served to lay out vast amounts of information about the world where the series took place, moreso than a normal book would. I apologize if I did not make this clear enough.

As to Tolkien's original intention: J.R.R. Tolkien was a devout Roman Catholic, and he intentionally 'bled' some of that through to the world he was creating.

Yea.. Lord of the Rings books were so damn boring.. Actually, I only read the prequal, A hobbit's tale or something.. It's filled with way too much detail..

The Hobbit, or There and Back Again. And it's filled with detail because A) That's the kind of author that J.R.R. Tolkien was, and B) if I recall correctly, The Hobbit was largely backstory for the LotR trilogy.

But I suspect that the main reason you disliked them, Josh, would be because you were picking up on Tolkien's original intention and attempting to reject it.

I have serious reservations about harry potters' books. One could read it but for the depth of incantations and voodoo/magic involved.
Yes, Yes it is fiction, but one wonders whether those things written about in such detail are sincerely the figment of the writers imagination!

They're not. Rowling has admitted in interviews that she's done a great deal of research into historical beliefs about magic, and that a fair portion of that has ended up in her works. I think the minimum estimate was something like a third of the stuff in the books was believed to be real at some point...and how do we know it isn't?

Library?

A storehouse for books, usually accompanied by audio/video materials and magazine or similar materials. With rules regarding borrowing/returning of said materials. And you probably need to go to one; please look up those books I've listed elsewhere.

Complaint about the first picture. They wouldn't read about it...to much chance the information might be left lying around. They just explain it to each other...that's why you see large groups of pigeons on the ground, and then they all fly away whenever anyone gets close...they don't want to be overheard.

And if you thought even for a second that I was being serious in that, I pity you.

@JoshSCH:
If you ran into an antichrist, you'd agree with him. Your own position as an atheist is based on the spirit of antichrist.

If you ran into the Antichrist (the Beast of the book of Revelation), you'd probably accept him as a wonderful leader with many new ideas; he's not going to be the Hollywood Standard Demonic Monster. Instead, the Beast will appear to be an enlightened world leader.

The Book of Revelation clearly states that the number of the beast is the number of a man, and that the number is six hundred sixty six. (Six hundred and threescore and six in the KJV; a score ["Four score and seven years ago..."] is a fancy/archaic way of saying twenty.) It is in reference to the Beast, but it is not "the devil's number".

And why would a Christian need to kill Antichrist? He will have great power and authority, but he's still bounded about by the Lord. Antichrist will appear. He will rule for a time. And in the appointed end, the Lord will deal with him.

@WaltP and jbennet:
No, you're both wrong. 664 and 668 will be the neighbors; 665 and 667 will be across the street.

@Dave Sinkula:
I seriously doubt Hillary is the Beast...has she signed any treaties with Israel? I do agree she'll probably shoot for eight years, though...and pardon me for saying that I hope she's not the elected official chosen next year.

They're not high fantasy, but I've enjoyed the Thursday Next and Nursery Crimes books by Jasper Fforde. I'd say they're worth checking out.

Eh, might want to edit that just a bit...

Not in times of recession when unemployment is high. World War II helped end the Great Depression b/c of the high spending.

Actually, a case could be argued against that.

True, in WW2, some of the effects of the Depression were apparently negated. Wealth was produced, at least on paper, and goods were being produced. Unemployment shrank drastically. Sounds good, right?

Look again. The 'paper wealth' wasn't much good, because production of civilian goods wasn't really increasing. The vast amount of the increase was in military goods...and hummers and the like aside, when's the last time you saw the average working man go buy a piece of military ordinance, or a tank or helicopter, or...you get the idea. Things didn't really settle until after the war, when the production went back to civilian goods and there was finally something to spend all that accrued paper wealth on.

As to the unemployment issue, well, yeah. Unemployment went down. That's what happens when you suddenly swell the size of your armed services; people who weren't employed elsewhere can be employed by the military.

And don't get me started on the Great Depression. (Or do, if you want to take this thread on another tack. Alternately, yell at me, and I'll move it to the history thread.)

Monopolies are bad because they prevent small businesses from becoming involved in the industry. They also can charge whatever price they want but why would they? They have no competition so they can dramatically overprice their products and/or servieces and consumers will have no other choice.

No, they can't. If they tried to do so at a price high above the true market value, someone else would come in and undercut them. It might take time, but eventually they would have to do one of the following:
1. Get the other company put out of business somehow. (Usually by 'violation' of some absurd business law. For example, too much sand on the premises; at least at one point [don't know about today, sadly] sand was considered to be an OSHA hazardous material. No, I don't know why.)
2. Cut prices to a reasonable level in order to stay competitive. After all, if Company 'A' is selling, say, kumquats at $50.00/lb, and Company 'K' comes along and sells them for $17.00/lb, then people will buy from Company 'K' whenever they need kumquats. If 'A' doesn't meet or beat the $17.00/lb price, 'A' eventually will go out of business for lack of customers.
3. Attempt 'Predatory Pricing', the usual reason given that monopolistic corporations are bad. 'Oh, they'll sell for pennies on the dollar until nobody else can compete, then once everyone else is gone, they'll jack the prices sky-high!' For a bit of history on why that wouldn't …

It's not the fear of God that keeps us moral/humane, it's love for God. There is a difference.

And if someone's praying thinking they can control what's going to happen, either directly or indirectly as you stated, they've strayed away from faith and into magic. We cannot command God.

Do you know how arrogant, dogmatic, stupid, and misled you sound?

To one who has rejected that which my Lord has offered? I have a few ideas...

For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.

The Dark Ages are called so because it was a time when the church ruled.

The Catholic institution is not the Church. Catholicism did have great political power in that time, (and still does to a lesser extent even in this day,) but it is a counterfeit of the true Church. It looks close enough to match on the surface, for one who is unfamiliar with the real thing, as a well-made counterfeit bill will look like its legitimate counterpart, but that is all. The Roman Catholic system is basically the ancient Baal worship of Babylon with a nice 'churchy' cloth spread over it to hide the truth. The Catholic institution has always attempted to spread darkness in the guise of light. However, the Church itself has always fought to spread the freedom that comes from knowing God personally.

This Jesus Christ guy does not seem very compassionate. Isn't the devil supposed to do awful things? This Jesus Christ guy seems to be a lot more sadistic, cruel, twisted, insane, and evil things than the devil.

Please give me some examples of what you mean...I do not know of anything such as you describe in the scriptures, unless …

We are all destined for something. Nothing is random. Free will does not exist, only the illusion of it (still thats good enough for me ;-)

Do you actually think I am going to hell because I am an atheist?

I contend that you and I are both atheists. When you understand why you dismiss all other gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.

ONLY SHEEP NEED SHEPHERDS.

If free will does not exist, then you cannot posess it. If you do not posess free will, then I submit that your life is pointless.

Yes. If you are an atheist, then you will go to hell, and from there to the lake of fire. There is only one escape from that fate, and that is through the salvation offered by Jesus Christ. Without that, you have no hope.

An atheist is one who believes in no god. ('A', without; 'theos', god or deity.) I do not know for Christina>you, as I do not know her other than by this board, but for myself, I am not an atheist; I believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.

I do not believe in other deities because they are false; by your statement, you claim that my Lord is false as well. To me, all that states is that you refuse to test his word, and I sorrow for you over that.

Yes, sheep need shepards. I presume that, from the emphasis you placed on that, you would consider …

I'm not sure about that particular bill, but it's my understanding that bills in that denomination range do in fact exist. However, they aren't put into circulation; they're supposedly used for transferring funds between banks. Which means that, what with ebanking and the like, and instant access to other banks via the Internet, it's quite possible such denominations will be phased out. (Note: From the word Which on is speculation on my part.)

Edit: Also, please note the 'in gold' reference near the bottom of the bill; might have a point there. As I said, our currency really isn't metal-backed any more.

I found this little list on another forum while searching for some info earlier today. It doesn't have the info I needed, but I thought at least some of the inhabitants of Daniweb might get a kick out of it. Note: I've only worked with a few of these languages myself; I can't verify all of them, although I'm sure there are those here who can.

TASK: Shoot yourself in the foot.

C: You shoot yourself in the foot.

C++: You accidentally create a dozen instances of yourself and shoot them all in the foot. Providing emergency medical assistance is impossible since you can't tell which are bitwise copies and which are just pointing at others and saying,"That's me, over there."

FORTRAN: You shoot yourself in each toe until you run out of toes, then you read in the next foot and repeat. If you run out of bullets, you continue with the attempts to shoot yourself anyway because you have no exception-handling capability.

Pascal: The compiler won't let you shoot yourself in the foot, no matter how much you need to.

Ada: After correctly packing your foot, you attempt to concurrently load the gun, pull the trigger, scream, and shoot yourself in the foot. When you try, however, you discover you can't because your foot is of the wrong type.

COBOL: Using a COLT 45 HANDGUN, AIM gun at LEG.FOOT, THEN place ARM.HAND.FINGER on HANDGUN.TRIGGER and SQUEEZE. THEN return HANDGUN to HOLSTER. …

Lol interesting.
Do you believe aliens exist?

Of course! Just look, they're always sneaking across the border and

...

oh, wait. You meant the other kind, huh?

haha.. I was just joking.. I'm a realist.. So I've got to say that no, I do not believe we have made any contact with other life forms. However, there are probably other life forms out there... The universe is HUGE!

Also, I don't know what your religious views about this are.. but I think aliens would by contrary to Christianity (to some extent). Well, the bible never mentions anything about aliens. And why would god creat other species when humans are his perfect creation?

In regards to this:
As I've said elsewhere, I am a christian. Based on what I understand from the scriptures, I do not believe we will ever run into intelligent extraterrestrial life, no. I am willing to accept the idea that there might be non-intelligent life out there somewhere, though.

As to your last line about creating other species, if that were true, then why do we have everything from aardvarks to zebras on this planet?

It is hard to say whether or not the moon landing was faked, the blowing flag is too convincing tho.

Which blowing flag? The one where it was rocking a bit, or the one where they didn't manage to get the boom arm extended enough to stretch it all the way? http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/tv/foxapollo.html#flag

Um, It's not like he all of a sudden became Christian right before announcing his presidential candidacy. He never truly was a muslim anyways: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obama (Theres some evidence for you, walt;))

Obama apparently became Christian in his twenties.. So why do you consider him muslim? Are people not allowed to convert from one religion to another? I was born christian, but now I am atheist.. Do you still consider me a christian?

Well, according to some religions, no, you can't convert from one to another. (Or more precisely, you can't convert from that religion to another one.) I don't happen to buy that, but it's still part of their structure.

And no, I wouldn't consider you a christian. I would state that you probably never were a christian; choosing to follow Jesus Christ is a personal decision; it's not something you can be born into. I am a christian. I am so because I weighed the evidence I've seen, and chose to follow Him myself, not because my parents were, or my grandparents, or any other relative or friend. That my family and friends mostly are believers has certainly made it easier for me (as opposed to being killed for following Christ, as many believers are in Islamic countries, or in places like China), but they were not the ones that lead me to make that decision in the first place.

By myself I have a most delicate form,
in numbers I usher a fierce raging storm.

Though no color I bear, by day or by night,
everyone thinks that I'm pure, pristine white.

And finally, in one of my most famous tricks,
I'm always connected with the number six!

Who am I?

Exactly which popular media outlets are you referring to, Sharky? Most of the normal media outlets in the US (as opposed to weblogs or similar online, which don't tend to fall under the same banner) are decidedly liberal in their viewpoint. Any image of the Republican Party they paint will tend to show them in a bad light, above and beyond the actual crimes, problems, and errors which really exist. Historically, Democrats have been just as bad about the 'crime/problem/error' count, but those tend to get ignored by the media until they hit a critical threshold value. With Republicans, the media shows no such restraint, as far as I can tell.

And for the record, you do realize that calling yourself a 'Socialist-at-heart' means you're advocating the general package of Big Government and government constraints on private matters as the Liberals in the US, I hope. Liberalism in the US is quickly going the Socialist Route, same way it did in Europe, and it's just as destined to fail here as it was there. In all of history, as far as I can tell, there has been exactly one community which managed to live up to the ideals supposedly espoused by socialism. And it's not exactly a good example of socialism as it's normally understood.

EnderX

On what grounds?

The only reason evolution is considered more likely than special creation is because of a blind spot in science: Science is, by its very nature, limited to the material world. As a result, it cannot understand or make clear anything not purely rooted in the material. Evolution could, theoretically, be purely material, if it were real. Special creation, by definition, cannot be purely material. That is the only reason that evolution is considered to be more valid than special creation. On any of the rest of the evidence, evolution breaks.