泰禅京 (TaizenKyo)

Coming from a Christian upbringing, I'm disgusted with how children are taught that they're imperfect, sinful, unworthy, and weak because of something a "relative" did in the past and are doomed to burn in hell unless they accept Jesus. Do other religions use this or a similar method of self-shaming that convinces the people of these religions that they're essentially scum unless they accept these teachings?

As a young man who was more concerned about toys and video games before the tragedy of 9/11 occurred, I'm ignorant of how the public viewed soldiers, military, and fighting wars overall before the tragedy. Nowadays of course public support is overwhelming, to the point that we deify them and almost revere soldiers as demigods. It's almost taboo for anyone to give any sort of criticism of the soldiers or military. Did this level of patriotism and support exist before the tragedy, or is the surge of support much greater than it use to be pre-9/11?

1. It being the religion of your parents, and/or

2. It being the religion of the culture you grew up in.

In no way am I saying these are the the only two reasons, but family and geography -is- the most common factor when it comes to the religion people profess to as adults. I'm just curious if you're aware of these factors.

Having lived in both small, rural towns and big cities, I've noticed a trend where my friends, acquaintances, and neighbors that live in the rural areas have a far more positive look when it comes to guns and seem far more likely be gun advocates. Conversely, I know and see many people that live in the city seem to have a much more negative opinion regarding guns and are far more likely to support gun control.

Just today I loaded up my Far Cry 3 game after having not played it in a while and it loaded an old save (about 15 hours into the game), one that takes me back about 10 hours, with no trace of the newest save (about 25 hours into the game). Last time I played it was last weekend for a few minutes and it was fine.

Is the newest save gone for good? I have the older model 360 with the hard drive attached to the top. As far as I can tell, this hasn't happened with any of my other games.

Dog knocked over my system and I heard some sort of scratching/screeching sound. After I turned it off and ejected the disc, a perfect ring scratch was left on it. Now the game freezes on the loading screen and is unplayable.

Here's what it looks like: http://i45.tinypic.com/zmxd2c.jpg

Is there any way to fix it at all? I just bought it today and I don't want to have to pay another $60 to get a new copy.

I own a Dell Inspiron and recently have been having issues with my webcam not working. When I open Dell Webcam Central which came with the program, it says in the lower left hand corner "No supported webcam connected." Sometimes it works, but most of the time it doesn't. The only way I've been able to get it to work is by shutting off the laptop and turning it back on, but that can take a lot of shutting off and on.

"I am not part of a religion."

"I do not practice a religion."

"I am not a religious person, I am a follower of Jesus."

"Christianity is not a religion."

Etc... I'm sure you get what I mean.

Most, if not, all of my friends are some form of Christian, so I usually have to keep my opinions and thoughts on religion to myself. I also live in a small town in Northern Illinois with the nearest cities 30 minutes away. It has been difficult fot me to even know where to start looking for people that are free-thinkers that I can finally chat with freely and openly.

Also, unfortunately, another problem I have is that I'm a rather shy and quiet person, so it can be difficult for me to even begin a conversation with people I don't know.

The religious angle won't work either, because said person is an atheist.

After becoming an atheist two years ago, my best friend started getting more involved with the church and slowly became more devout. Now he practically surrounds himself with Christianity, reading Christian books, buying Christian posters, listening mostly to Christian bands, and so on. He has also started to look down on and even demonize things like sexuality (sex before marriage, homosexuality, etc) and violence in media (even though he watches and greatly enjoys wrestling).

Recently, we both have come to realize the only things we ever have to talk about anymore is video games, movies, tv, and sometimes family. Plus, we don't get to talk to each other as much because we live 30 minutes away and are too busy to text or email much. I don't care if he's a Christian, but there are more limits on what we can talk about than before. I feel like our friendship may hit a dead end soon if something doesn't change.

My thoughts are that there are only two options. Either we try to bring our friendship to a new level, an intellectual level where the taboo on the subject of religion is removed and we can openly express our findings and feelings on it maturely, or putting an end to a 10+ year long friendship.

I certainly would like to try the former, but I don't know how well it would do in maintaining the friendship. Advice?