Alghol

Hi, I just signed up for the boards. I'm going to sign up for a Posting Standard plan for Heliohost webspace, but in the mean time I want to develop my website over this week, since it's Spring break and I have a lot of free time. I don't know PHP/MySQL but I'm trying to learn, and a lot of the programs I've downloaded to help make PHP pages require me to have active, actual webspace to work from. I guess then I have two questions: 1) Are there any free, easy-to-use (a nice browser GUI would be nice, streams of code make my eyes and brain hurt if I can't see what it will look like) programs that let me create pages that use PHP without having live webspace? What are they and where can I find them? 2) Is there a way I can get instant, free, temporary webspace for the week, so I can build my site, and then transfer the site to a Heliohost account in a week? I'll keep looking, but I'd love it if anybody who knows more than me (which is probably everybody, lol) could help me out. Thanks so much!

I thought it was interesting how he was almost a religious Messiah figure in the years post-9/11. I wonder how the Christian community as a whole thinks of him now, and I also wonder if he'll become a religious leader after his presidency. That's what I'm most worried about, because at sizeable segment of Christians in the U.S. believe the world is going to end soon, and I don't want to live in a world in which the people who have cultural and political power are preparing for the end of existence, rather than for our children's and grandchildren's future.

I like them both; Hillary Clinton is such an intense figure, whereas Barack Obama is more naturally bipartisan and open - extremely liberal, yet able to talk to anyone. I don't know who the country needs more, or who would be more likely to win. I think they'd both be stellar presidents, and I'm looking forward to hearing their debates/discussions.

I'm only as real as other people perceive me to be. I'm working with the definition of "real" as "able to affect reality." I don't know what reality is, but my reality is so tied up in other people so often... I don't know. I find it hard to talk philosophy without relating it to my own experiences, because there's so, so much mystery that I feel like I could never even find the words to question.

Gay marriage from a Christian standpoint calls [bleeped!] into question - because it's thought that relationships (and in particular, sexuality) only work with Male-Female interaction, mostly because of the fact that the genitalia naturally _fit_ together. Since Christianity is so prevalent in the U.S. this viewpoint is ingrained in people's minds. There's a sense, "well...how does it WORK?" - just a sense that gay/lesbian relationships are wrong, somehow, because only one kind of sexual experience is possible (or morally acceptable? natural? I don't know specifics, I'm not a Christian). That's one view, anyway. As long as we live in a country that presumes to have a government divorced from religion (a democracy not a christian theocracy), I think gay marriage should be legal. Any two people should be able to have the rights that married couples have. And if not, then I wish the politicians would stop bullshitting the country and make it clear that this is a Christian government.

I don't think the important question is, "Is there a God," I think the important question is, "what are the consequences of experiencing God in your life?" There are positives and negatives, I think. Positively a sense of all-encompassing love and being able to tap into that power, to help you through trying times. Negatively a sort of rigidness and closed-mindedness and overreliance upon God, a reluctance to listen to people who don't tap into the samely-defined-God as you "because they couldn't possibly understand." That's oversimplifying things way too much - for instance, some people find more power in not believing in God (their own power feels unlocked somehow), and atheists can be just as closed-minded as devout followers of religion or spirituality. As far as my own beliefs? I think people are innately Godly. I don't know if that means we're able to _connect_ to some outer source (God) or if it's all in our hearts. But I have experienced something special, deep and beautiful in the universe - whether it's "out there" or "in here," I couldn't say.

Hello! Marlon. I'm a writer in college and I have plans for a website, but they're secret. I'm poor and a student, so I'm paying for webhosting for my site like this, with words. Okay. Nice to meet you all!