Poll #1148168 Sin and Virtue
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 52

What is your favorite deadly sin?

What is your favorite holy virtue?

Today marks 2 years since I was released from Cahill 3, the last time I was on a locked psych unit.

For years, I was constantly in and out of hospitals. Throughout that time I was put on various medications: prozac, geodon, seroquel, zyprexa, depakote, lithium, ativan, klonopin, celexa, zoloft, and too many others to list here.

At times, the medications seemed like it was helping, but what it was really dong was preventing me from getting better. It wasn't until I stopped taking the medications that I started truly improving. It wasn't until I stopped taking the medication that I was able to stay out of the hospital.

Mental problems need a mental solution. Mental "illness" is not like diabetes or cancer. The speculation that mental "diseases" are biologically based is just that — speculation. There is no evidence to back it up, but the idea is treated as gospel. It is more religion than science.

Without the medications obscuring my real issues or slowing my brain down to the point that thinking was a labourious activity, I was able to directly address my problems and I was able to make myself better. I've been out of the hospital for 2 years and I'm sure that if I had continued to take their drugs, I wouldn't be able to say that.

In the United States, the Republicans often complain that sex scandals involving Democrats don't tend to have the same level of fallout as ones involving Republicans. In fact, sex scandals involving Democrats sometimes end up burning Republicans who make political hay out of it. Liberals, on the other hand, dislike the joy right wingers find in accusing the left of being intolerant of Christianity, even though many members of the right have no problem being intolerant of religions outside their own.

Pro-abstinence Republicans are more vulnerable to sexual misconduct scandals because it directly contradicts their message of morality, liberals are far more vulnerable to accusations of intolerance because it contradicts their message. For the most part, the hardline right makes little claim of tolerance and the hardline left makes little claim of sexual chastity. The double standard in both of those cases is due to a general dislike of hypocrisy throughout the political spectrum.

The message is: keep true to your message or adapt your message to what you really mean.

Poll #1034678 hymms
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 10

What is your favorite hymm?

Sol, lifebringer and lightgiver, our star, the one which holds us tight and keeps at bay the outer darkness. Sol, thank you. Your winds dance in our sky and your breath allows our existence. There is nothing more powerful, nothing greater, nothing more brilliant or amazing in this system than Sol. While there may be bigger things out there, that effect our existence here and now than does Sol. While today we may look to Sol, truly everyday is Sol's day, for without Sol there are no days.

Poll #989414
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 29

Due to it's graphic content, should sales of the Bible to those under 18 be banned or restricted?

More than 2,300 Hong Kong residents have lodged complaints about indecent and sexually explicit material in the Bible in a bizarre campaign to restrict sales of the Christian holy book. Hong Kong's publications watchdog has received an avalanche of complaints about tales of incest, rape, cannibalism and violence in the Bible since the website truthbible.net began urging people to file complaints. ... Now the website says it may raise the issue with Hong Kong's public ombudsman on the grounds that the "abnormal sex and violence" described in the Bible is at odds with the moral standards of people in the former British colony. If the campaign succeeds, the Bible could technically have its sales restricted in Hong Kong in the same way that pornographic magazines must be sold in sealed packages and to only those over age 18. The motive for the campaign is unclear. full article

I obviously don't believe the Bible should be censored, but it will be interesting to see how this plays out. At the very least it might be a lesson to the pro-censorship faction of Christians that their own words and logic can be used against them.

The abortion debate is something I've wrestled with for some time. I've finally developed a philosophy surrounding it that I feel comfortable with.

First, a fetus, embryo, or zygote is as a life. Period. It is not just a random clump of cells, it is a growing and developing life. Its dependence on another life does not make it any less of a life itself — all animal life is dependant on other life.

More that that — a human fetus, human embryo, or human zygote is a human life.

At this point, many of you might be assuming I'm pro-life. This is not the case, I am still pro-choice. Why? Because we still have the right to make choices about our bodies. The analogy I draw is this: Person X needs a kidney transplant or they will die. The only matching potential donor is Person Y. Person Y has the right to choose not to donate a kidney to Person X. There are plenty of reasons Person Y might choose not to donate their kidney, such as fear of medical complications, religious beliefs, or even worry about the impact having surgery could potentially have on their future productivity. While Person Y may or may not come to regret their decision themself, what Person Y chooses to do with their body is their choice and it is not for other's to judge their reasoning or morality in that regard.

Essentially, a pregnant woman should not be required to sacrifice the control of her body in favor of another (in this case the unborn child). To do so is to deprive the woman of her rights to control her body.

From a post by jeywolf in without_meds:

For each person or category of person, please indicate how ethical they are (on average) in you opinion. 0 indicates completely unethical scumbags, 10 indicates saintly perfections of ethics. For the purposes of this poll, "ethical" means whatever you view as ethical.

Poll #892485
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 25

yourself

me

your parents

the average person

the average man

the average woman

the average administrative assistant

the average corporate leaders

the average inmate in prison

the average marketing professional

the average police officer

the average political leader

the average psychiatrist

the average religious leader

the average shoplifter

the average small business owner

the average social worker

the average soldier

the average teacher

the average welfare recipient

The current incarnation of neitherday.com is tired. I want to move on to something new. I'm think of moving the site away from the decentralized splatter that is the current content to something more vertical. I'm thinking of a spirituality/religious focus. I have a couple cool ideas. Hopefully sometime in the next few weeks I can start making the transition.

found through recoiling:

When radio host Jerry Klein suggested that all Muslims in the United States should be identified with a crescent-shape tattoo or a distinctive arm band, the phone lines jammed instantly. The first caller to the station in Washington said that Klein must be "off his rocker." The second congratulated him and added: "Not only do you tattoo them in the middle of their forehead but you ship them out of this country ... they are here to kill us." Another said that tattoos, armbands and other identifying markers such as crescent marks on driver's licenses, passports and birth certificates did not go far enough. "What good is identifying them?" he asked. "You have to set up encampments like during World War Two with the Japanese and Germans." At the end of the one-hour show, rich with arguments on why visual identification of "the threat in our midst" would alleviate the public's fears, Klein revealed that he had staged a hoax. It drew out reactions that are not uncommon in post-9/11 America. "I can't believe any of you are sick enough to have agreed for one second with anything I said," he told his audience on the AM station 630 WMAL, which covers Washington, Northern Virginia and Maryland ... "Because basically what you just did was show me how the German people allowed what happened to the Jews to happen ... We need to separate them, we need to tattoo their arms, we need to make them wear the yellow Star of David, we need to put them in concentration camps, we basically just need to kill them all because they are dangerous." ... Those in agreement are not a fringe minority: A Gallup poll this summer of more than 1,000 Americans showed that 39 percent were in favor of requiring Muslims in the United States, including American citizens, to carry special identification. full article

39% percent is a scary number. The Nazi Party never got 39% of the German vote before Hitler became Chancellor. In fact, in the election just prior to his becoming Chancellor, the Nazi Party received only 31% of the vote. The 39% of the American public supporting the marking and separation of Muslims does not necessarily mean we will have a repeat of the Nazi atrocities, but it does mean that we are closer to the edge of that precipice than we'd like to believe.

To Dennis Prager:

If you can't swear on the bible, you have no business being in American politics. You have no business being part of America. Ditto for taking the pledge of allegiance. Hell, if you can't be bothered to put up a Christmas tree this season, why don't you just leave.

If you can't or won't follow the religious customs of the country you're living in, you have no business being part of it. Take for example the Roman Empire. If the Christians of Rome couldn't offer the traditional Roman sacrifices, they had no business being part of the Empire. The Christians were not unduly persecuted or "oppressed" by the Romans: Emperors like Decius were merely working to preserve traditional values.

</sarcasm>

We did not venture out for most of my visit, however Friday we did go down to the capital. My sister (ellynx) gave me and Maddie a staff-led tour of the capital building. While we were were still limited to the public areas of the building, we didn't have to tag along with a tour group and were free to go at our own pace. A few of the statues in the statue gallery of the capital building surprised me, I was not expecting to see Robert E. Lee or Brigham Young.

After seeing the capital building, Christian picked us up and we all had tea at the Ritz Carlton in Pentagon City. I felt a little less Jack Dawson than I have in such settings in the past. The cakes, sandwiches and scones were delightful and the tea was great. Christian complained that the service was sub-par, however I did not notice that myself as I have no real idea of what par at the Ritz Carlton is. I enjoyed it nonetheless, and am glad I got to experience it.

After tea, we went back to the house where later in the evening Maddie made me a wonderful ice cream soup. It's been a long time since I've had ice cream soup, and I must say Maddie's was excellent.