If God made a mistake would he tell us?

Why do all these Christians who live in a democratic country percieve no problem at all with God coming down and eliminating two hundred years of steady political progress with a wave of his hand? We've been without kings for a while now (in any effective sense), and honestly, I don't want any more. The idea of a ruling monarch is simply old-fashioned. Jesus should get with the times and run for office like anybody else if he wants to be in charge so bad.I'd need to see some qualifications for putting Jesus in charge. If his dad's been running the world these past thousands of years then I hope hands-off management doesn't run in the family. Heck I'd vote for the other guy simply based on how much god has let things go to seed.

But that's such a crappy movie! You probably like Lord of the Rings, though? (I know I did.)You'd really like the Seamus Heaney translation of Beowulf. I reccomend you pick it up. I found it lyrical, epic, and moving - generally translated epics bore me to tears.

I too loved the books. Honestly, though, I think a lot of the changes in the movie so far have made it a better story. Fantasy literature was a nascent genre when Tolkien was writing (he more or less invented the genre, in fact); I think a lot of the changes for the movies represent positive developments in the genre that didn't exist at the time of writing.At this point I'll take the movies over the book. They take a lot less time to finish. (A nearly heretical thing for a book-lover to say, but...) Sorry to heap books onto your reading list. If it's anything like mine it stretches to the end of linear time... Well, happy hunting, anyway.

Sorry about that. Why don't we move this to a new thread, probably in the coffeehouse forum?

Would you say that 98% of Australians take the requisite interest in politics and research the position and history of each candidate? Because that's what it takes to vote responsibly. Somehow I doubt 98% of Australians really do all that work. But, I could be wrong.I'd rather that people who couldn't be bothered to learn about the issues and history simply didn't bother to vote. An uninformed vote is worthless - or worse, is harmful, because it offsets the vote of an intelligent, informed voter.

That's not what I propose. What I propose is an ad campaign reminding people that if they don't know anything about the issues, they're just voting for a face. So they should either get informed or not bother.Honestly I don't think there needs to be a test involved, or anything like that. I'm just saying that really high voter turn-out may not be a universally good thing.[This message has been edited by crashfrog, 07-02-2003]

You may not be aware that anarchy is the least stable of governments - it falls apart at a touch. All it takes is one person with some money or a big stick and your anarchy is over.If nobody votes, then the one guy who decides to vote has all the power. Then we're no better than a monarchy.It's called participatory government for a reason. I'm not sure you should vote, but that's no reason to try to get others not to do so.