Too unclear. Certainly should depend upon how freedom is defined. Freedom to do what? No one should be free to do whatever he pleases. Certain acts should never be permitted.

Ernest Hemingway obviously was never locked in a cage with Hannibal Lecter. If everyone had a healthy conscience, the world would be astonishingly and pleasantly unrecognizable.

Perhaps it is not harder to find intelligent people who can express themselves clearly. Perhaps it is simply so easy to find so many who reason erroneously and like to express themselves. In any case, although I do agree to a great extent with the quote, it would be very nice if people would find more civil language and manners with which to criticize others. One thing is to be easily offended by an opposing opinion, but it is something else to be offended because you have been belittled or harassed in an agressive and obscene manner. We have the right to be secure in our persons, which includes our inner persons, who should not without reason be harassed, mistreated, or persecuted, even verbally. Actually, certain types of offensive speech are actionable in court, and should be. If you do not agree with me, @#%&!.

...only until everything is known.

Freedom couple with responsibility is excellent. Unfortunately, abused freedom too often serves as a pretext for excessive corruption or unjustifiable domination, which is clearly evident.

Should be, in any case.

Nevertheless, those whose errors lead to misdeeds, atrocities, crimes, or tragedy must bear whatever degree of blame properly belongs to them. "I am sorry" does not erase terrible consequences of error. Scientists have the same obligations as the rest of us to avoid doing harm.

Sodomy laws have been replaced by hate crime laws. People are arrested for making public statements that correctly classify homosexual practice as perversion. Good is called evil and evil is called good. Gays are proud, of what? Of inserting a reproductive organ into the excretory canal, over and over? That is something to be proud of? And perverts push for laws that would allow men to have sex with boys. I support censorship.

Evolution is a series of theories that do not agree, and are unproven. Isaiah 40:22.

It was learned, not long ago, that fossils can form in just a few short years, when a fossilied foot was found in a modern leather boot. Other discoveries have also been made that refute old assumptions about the natural world. Scientists accumulate large bodies of truth, inflated with large portions of myth. And don't forget that coffee and wine are good for you, or bad for you, depending on which scientists you listen to.

Bold invention is, in itself, neither good nor bad. Each person will be happy and fulfilled, not alone by having freedom, but when freedom is accompanied by people doing what people were meant to do.

And what is the good of rebellion, when it is carried on simply for its own sake, to the detriment of what is good and useful, against what is right and just? Rebellion for its own sake is perversion. And rebelling as to upset what is right is nothing less than criminal. Freedom is not a license to do anything at all at any time. Blaspheming and going beyond the pale are not synonymous. We are free to do so many good things; why abuse freedom to do what is bad, just because we can? It is senseless, sado-masochistic, and perverse. A vibrant society should censure those who wish to cause strife for no reason.

The condition described by Jefferson is so dissimilar to the condition we face in our society that I suppose that, If Jefferson were here now, he would soon drop dead of something. Our free society has sunk to the depths of corruprtion, in every sector, and lack of controls on behavior demonstrate how little virtue means to so many. And science, that great whore that harrows modern society and ruins the earth? What has that got to do with virtue today?

Striving to obtain something is not of itself to covet. To have a great car or a big house or a yacht is not the same as wanting the great car or the big house or the yacht that happens to belong to someone else. There are enough cars, house, and yachts to go around. Of course, we tend to feel that if only we obtained certain things that life would improve, which is generally falacious. But wanting to have something is not automatically to covet. Neither is being rightly concerned with fairness the exclusive realm of socialists; in fact the opposite tends to be true. There is nothing fair about paying an equal share to a workman who does little or nothing to earn it. Property is finite, so all must have access to land to produce crops, and other concerns related to survival, but all are equally responsible for producing what they need. If land is hoarded to the point that people cannot use it to produce food, then then capitalists must realize the inhumanity of hoarding. But equal distribution of what property there is, for its own sake, is senseless. Now, if we really all cared equally about all people, we would all be clamoring to always divide property equally, which is not equitably, but we all would also clamor for each person to to a fair amount of work. But since we generally do not care, we just complain about what we do not have, and not about what we should be responsible for. Socialists are great for claiming rights, but not for fulfilling responsibilities.

EGL: I think that it is not the effects of the duality to which you refer that poisons human relationships, but merely the baser human qualities and behaviors that does so. Mike: You are on the mark, sadly, regarding Reston and Robert. Haven't you noticed the lack of intellectual honesty demonstrated by perhaps half of those who comment in this forum? It makes me sad to see people so closed-minded and narrow in their range of considerations. But I was an atheist when young. May God bless them with insight.

Jack, You make yourself look very small minded and obnoxious by refuting something just because I write it. I read about the Babylonians and Persians believing the Earth was round, and you challenge me to show references as though my goal in life must be to find references for you or prove the point. Anyone interested in this can spend time resear ching it with the Internet, just like you do. Jack, you are proving only that you are a good little antichrist, nothing more, when you so firmly oppose the Bible. It is your loss. As for the Earth being an orb, you read what I wrote about my error, did you not? Are you in an abusive relationship? Get out of it. I am not the one abusing you, Jack.

Read what you wrote, Jack. You put the challenge in your own words: "In fact, I challenge you to find any historical reference to a sperical earth before about 500 BC..." Actually, in reading, I saw references to all three with regard to the subject at hand. I did not write that you said it. I said that I had read it. Your reading comprehension is very poor lately. And Joe, a delusional liberal? How do you arrive at that conclusion. Liberal, me? You must be ultra-right to think so.

A fine way of expressing an all too common misconception that mistakes those claiming to be Christians with those who obey Christ. One cannot BE something merely by claiming to be the thing. A man is what he is, not what he pretends to be.

Jack: I did a little reading and found that it is not universally accepted that Copernicus or Aristotle or Columbus "discovered" the roundness of Earth. It is believed that the Persians and Babylonians knew of it long before. What else would you like to challenge?

I did not write that Job made these observations. I wrote that observations were made, before men flew, but in a separate sentence I wrote that Job knew that the Earth was round. Once you made your challenge, I looked up the reference I had been thinking of and found that you are right. The reference is not to the Earth being round, but only that it hangs on nothing, in the emptiness of space. I do not know how I got confused on that point. It has been many years since I found anyone who wanted to make an issue of it, so I should thank you for making me realize the reference in Job 26:7 is to the Earth hanging on nothing. I think it was my brother who told me that the Orientals realized centuroes before the Europeans that the Earth was round. He was a Buddhist, did a lot of reading on the Orientals. Now, I am sure you are not insinuating, or expect anyone to accept, that scientists do not latch on to untruths and teach them as though they were facts. For we know that science is constantly changing the facts to suit new discoveries that disprove old assumptions made by scientists. So try and be a little less obnoxious, as though preachers were the only ones who are not completely in touch with absolute reality. It makes you seem, oh, disingenuous.

Archer: Thank you for clarifying, but it would help if you could specify a given instance of "proselytizing," specifying what I believe without evidence, what I speak without knowledge, et cetera. When I speak of things related to God, I prefer that they be of use to the hearer, but in fact a follower of God is bound to warn others for the sake of his own salvation; this concept is found in the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures, and is connected to love of one's neighbor, not thast warm fuzzy feeling, necessarily, which I somehow have not quite developed in your case, but the simple intention of helping the other understand God's will and conform to what God sees as right, to please God, and to receive eternal life in optimal conditions. I know, sometimes I get angry. Just one more imperfection. But despite all our imperfections, the focus is not on damnation but on salvation.

Archer has had a terrible experience with respect to religion that has led to his throwing the baby out with the bathwater. This happens very often, and is an understandable reaction to hypocrisy in religious contexts. But eventually, all men come to the knowlegde that God is a powerful living spirit, nothing at all like the invention of any religion, and that He is the ruoler of the universe. Unfortunately, some learn this too late. If someone warns you about Hell, do not blame them for the possibility that YOU could end up there....it depends on your actions, not those of another.

Archer and Someone: What exactly about this quote do you find worthy of 5 stars? Or is it just for the pleasure you derive from being perversely contradictory about an issue of such consequence?

Interesting, Archer, that you should say I am perfect. ;-) I was not aware of it. So, are you saying that I persecute unbelievers, or that I do not have knowledge. What exactly are you saying, Archer?

The common mistake of many is that they believe that the person of faith lacks evidence. In fact, some experiences are so personal, subjective, that the evidence is not immediately perceptible to others. When they said the Earth was round, before men flew, they could prove it by certain calculations, but those who could not see were sure that they were wrong, that the Earth must be flat. In the book of Job, however, it is mentioned that the Earth is an orb, round, which was written about 1500 BC. People of faith knew that the Earth was round long before people of science did. Faith and science are not mutually exclusive, except in the minds of people with closed minds. But neither is science the great infallible system as many regard it. Scientific "knowledge" develops, or transforms, with new discoveries that contradict old assumptions, over and over again.