High Court Probes Shadowy World of Computer-Generated Child Pornography

Associated Press ^ | October 30, 2001 | Anne Gearan Associated Press Writer

[FreeTally]

You don't want freedom, you want a religious state enforcing what YOU percieve to be morality.

No, what I want is a vast majority of people to be more concerned with doing what is morally right, than whether or not they can see and do and experience all the debauchery they can cram into one life.

Uh, Illbay, you do realize that, although your reply starts with a "No," you confirmed what tpaine said?

[Double Tap]

The Supreme Court must decide if it violates the First Amendment for government to ban something that appears to be one thing but is really another.

Federal and State courts have already done this very thing to the Second Amendment. I'm sure it would be no stretch to cut the First Amendment up to.

[woollyone]

I did hesitate there for a minute. I had to count up the negative additions to see if it came out at I desired.
I almost used "nonantiundisirregardless" by mistake. Close one!

If it were scrabble, I'd have tried to use both Z's at the end because of their letter value. lol

[Illbay]

Do you realize that the picking of nits adds absolutely nothing to the discussion?

[The KG9 Kid]

I suppose that if someone uses a 3D modeling program to create 'kiddy porn', then does it also logically follow that a 5th grade boy who draws a picture of a US soldier bayoneting a Taliban terrorist has just created a 'snuff picture'?

Oh yes, we REALLY need to be worrying about this stupid $#!7 right now.

[BikerNYC]

We never create any such thing. Rather, we choose to RECOGNIZE what has been there all along.

One does not recognize value, one creates it. That paper clip over there has absolutely no value to me, unless it fits into a project of my choosing so that I make it valuable.

God has value to you becuase you have determined, have chosen, that he fits into your aims, desires and goals in life. You have created the value of God for you by deciding that he is valuable to you.

You have decided that God is worth worshipping. There is nothing in God in-and-of-himself that requires that to be so. No. You made it so...you chose to make God worth worshipping by giving him value.

Don't run away from your own choices and decisions by claiming that the value is "out there," rather than determined by your own free will.

[Illbay]

One does not recognize value, one creates it.

That isn't so, except in a fleeting, ephemeral sense. There are many things we embue with value, material things that are actually of no real worth to us.

The things that bear true worth are eternal.

[BikerNYC]

The things that bear true worth are eternal.

You beg the question. The things you deem as bearing "true worth" are made so by you. You have deemed that they will have lasting value to you in any conceivable project of yours. Indeed, you have chosen to make such a thing of such value that you cannot imagine the thing having no worth to you. You imbue something with "eternal value" because you have chosen it to be important yesterday, today and tomorrow.

Those who view God as valueless to them have chosen a course such that God has little meaning to them. God simply does not enter their radar as something that gives their lives meaning. They do not create the value of God. You do.

[tpaine]

You don't want freedom, you want a religious state enforcing what YOU percieve to be morality.

No, what I want is a vast majority of people to be more concerned with doing what is morally right,

--- Thank you for your agreement. - Despite your knee jerk 'no', you had a rare moment of lucidity.

than whether or not they can see and do and experience all the debauchery they can cram into one life. And my perception of morality is irrelevant. As is yours.

-- Nit picking.

[Illbay]

The things you deem as bearing "true worth" are made so by you.

No. I do not believe that I am God. I do not believe my universe resides in my head. I do not believe there are no absolutes.

My major point is that you can play at Supreme Being all you want but in the end the real and the eternal will always confound you.

[BikerNYC]

I do not believe my universe resides in my head.

Who said that it does? Your values, however, are created by you, "in your head" as you say it, just as your likes, dislikes, loves, hates, emotions and a lot of other things are.

[Illbay]

Your values, however, are created by you,...

My values were learned from my parents and others, who taught me of what they knew from sources like the Holy Scriptures. Later, when I was able to understand on my own, I was able to glean further from those sources.

As I said: I have accepted the things that were already there. Whether consciously or not, so do we all.

[BikerNYC]

Wait a second. If you do not create your values now, are you saying your parents brainwashed you when you were younger and that you do not have the power to reject what they taught? Are you saying you have no choice in what your values are because your parents made you be this way?

Wouldn't you agree that you have freely chosen to accept the Holy Scriptures and make them valuable in your life? Don't you think that you are completely free to reject Scripture and God anytime you want to and that, indeed, others have done just that?

Where does free will come into all of this? Are you some sort of machine of your parents making? You know, many criminal defendants make that argument to juries, that the only reason they are the way they are is because their parents made them that way, and that they really have no control of what they think is valuable or right or important. Do you think that way too?