Category: Buddhism Religion

Do you ever feel like you are in prison?

Question:

KS_90 wrote: > > there alle lots and lots of asian peepole in asstraylia. pee pole are > > velly friendlee here. > But Canberra is a very isolating city. You can drive for miles and not > see a single person. It’s basically a suburban blight.

You sound like you’ve never been here.

Response:

will power? what the hell does that have to do with anything? i guess he will will himself to be handsome.

Response:

they remain whores all their lives. as the bloom comes off the rose, they are forced to settle for lower quality males . of course, by this time they are dried up hags and no good to anyone except insane perverts with zero self-esteem.

Response:

"gty" <samapplia…@yahoo.com> wrote in message

news:1118728800.954152.293140@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com… > they remain whores all their lives. as the bloom comes off the rose, > they are forced to settle for lower quality males . of course, by this > time they are dried up hags and no good to anyone except insane > perverts with zero self-esteem.

Yep, if they fail to sink their claws into their chosen prey before a certain age, it’s game over for them and turn out the lights.  Too bad, so sad. Many of these cum dumpsters just don’t get it, though, and imagine they do still have something to offer past the age of 30 to someone besides that insane pervert with zero self-esteem.  [Liked that phrase, it's a keeper ;-) ] Reality’s a bitch, ain’t it, ladies?

Response:

In article <1118728495.398745.134…@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>, gty says… >will power? what the hell does that have to do with anything? i guess >he will will himself to be handsome.

no, but if he was motivated, he could "will himself" to go to the gym. he could eat better. he could get a good hair cut he could decide to dress better. those things go a long way in terms of appearance. so, considering that, "will power" definitely matters in terms of physical appearance. Of course, it’s easier for some people than for others But complaining about that fact won’t really get you anywhere. Baybee

Response:

Who fucking doesn’t? OTS "Darkfalz" <Darkfalz.Use…@gmail.com> wrote in message

news:1118486129.041446.177120@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com… – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -> Rarely see outside my four walls, rarely have contact with other > people, and most of all, not allowed contact with the opposite sex and > forced celibacy. > Does anyone else feel like being a non-good looking male is pretty much > like being in prison?

Response:

> Yes, but it’s possible that he lives in a town that lacks suitable > social opportunities for him.

You’re right about that… but Darkfalz refuses to move. His attitude is that he will be a loser where ever he goes. But a change of scene can really do wonders if your life is rubbish.

Response:

KS_90 wrote: >> Yes, but it’s possible that he lives in a town that lacks suitable >> social opportunities for him. > You’re right about that… but Darkfalz refuses to move. His attitude is > that he will be a loser where ever he goes. But a change of scene can > really do wonders if your life is rubbish.

He has refused to move up to this point, but that doesn’t mean he will always refuse to move. — -=Lola —————- You’re living in your own private Idaho Living in your own private Idaho Underground like a wild potato. –B52s.

Response:

John Effty wrote: > Ms Velvet Pnats wrote: >> there alle lots and lots of asian peepole in asstraylia. pee pole are >> velly friendlee here. > I want to move to Australia.  Nice people, hot weather, good economy, > free beer.  Seems like an ideal place to call home. > -John

Why is the beer free? Is it all that crap lager or do they have decent microbrews? — -=Lola —————- You’re living in your own private Idaho Living in your own private Idaho Underground like a wild potato. –B52s.

Response:

- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -Ms Velvet Pnats wrote: > Dolores wrote: > > Darkfalz wrote: > > > Rarely see outside my four walls, rarely have contact with other > > > people, and most of all, not allowed contact with the opposite sex > > > and forced celibacy. > > > Does anyone else feel like being a non-good looking male is pretty > > > much like being in prison? > > Aw DF! You’re making me sad. I wish there was something I could do to > > make you feel better. I wish I could convince you that your prison > > isn’t your body, it’s simply a set of circumstances that have led to > > you being unable to make friends or relate to any of the people you > > happen to find yourself near. Have you ever considered moving away? > > Maybe the region you live in is simply too provincial and > > narrow-minded, and you would find more like-minded people elsewhere, > > people you could relate to and befriend. > there alle lots and lots of asian peepole in asstraylia. pee pole are > velly friendlee here.

I recommend moving away unreservedly. At 18, I moved away from home to go to University. Result: small improvement in social life (eventually). At 22, I moved further away, to a godforsaken hole in N Wales. Result: met different sorts of people, developed a little social confidence (of a somewhat fragile sort). At 26, moved to another country. Result: met more people, started notching up girlfriends and (later) piquant sexual encounters. At 44, moved to yet another country. Result: found ideal partner. The existence of the Internet makes these long jumps easier than ever before in history, since it is easier than ever before to find both work and Love Interest in other parts of the world. All you really need is Insect Repellent and a supply of Immodium, and the world’s your roister.

Response:

- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -Dolores wrote: > Darkfalz wrote: > > Rarely see outside my four walls, rarely have contact with other > > people, and most of all, not allowed contact with the opposite sex > > and forced celibacy. > > Does anyone else feel like being a non-good looking male is pretty > > much like being in prison? > Aw DF! You’re making me sad. I wish there was something I could do to > make you feel better. I wish I could convince you that your prison > isn’t your body, it’s simply a set of circumstances that have led to > you being unable to make friends or relate to any of the people you > happen to find yourself near. Have you ever considered moving away? > Maybe the region you live in is simply too provincial and > narrow-minded, and you would find more like-minded people elsewhere, > people you could relate to and befriend.

there alle lots and lots of asian peepole in asstraylia. pee pole are velly friendlee here. — fetch mah socs saveloy!! http://mspoopiepants.blogspot.com/

Response:

- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -Ms Velvet Pnats wrote: > Dolores wrote: >>Darkfalz wrote: >>>Rarely see outside my four walls, rarely have contact with other >>>people, and most of all, not allowed contact with the opposite sex >>>and forced celibacy. >>>Does anyone else feel like being a non-good looking male is pretty >>>much like being in prison? >>Aw DF! You’re making me sad. I wish there was something I could do to >>make you feel better. I wish I could convince you that your prison >>isn’t your body, it’s simply a set of circumstances that have led to >>you being unable to make friends or relate to any of the people you >>happen to find yourself near. Have you ever considered moving away? >>Maybe the region you live in is simply too provincial and >>narrow-minded, and you would find more like-minded people elsewhere, >>people you could relate to and befriend. > there alle lots and lots of asian peepole in asstraylia. pee pole are > velly friendlee here.

Yes, but it’s possible that he lives in a town that lacks suitable social opportunities for him. — -=Lola —————- You’re living in your own private Idaho Living in your own private Idaho Underground like a wild potato. –B52s.

Response:

Ms Velvet Pnats wrote: > there alle lots and lots of asian peepole in asstraylia. pee pole are > velly friendlee here.

I want to move to Australia.  Nice people, hot weather, good economy, free beer.  Seems like an ideal place to call home. -John

Response:

>Rarely see outside my four walls, rarely have contact with other

people, and most of all, not allowed contact with the opposite sex and forced celibacy. Does anyone else feel like being a non-good looking male is pretty much >like being in prison?

  Absolutely, there is no real sense of freedom at all and no hope entering each new day.

Response:

> there alle lots and lots of asian peepole in asstraylia. pee pole are > velly friendlee here.

But Canberra is a very isolating city. You can drive for miles and not see a single person. It’s basically a suburban blight.

Response:

In news:4458bf3b94991069fd15465fd6835695@localhost.talkaboutsupport.com, RonW <rtw…@hotmail.com> wrote : > Everybody has been dealt a hand in life. > Everybody has been given a will – that will(power) is the key in to > compensating for weaknesses and shortcomings in our personal life. > Life: is an opportunity and you make it what you choose to make it.

    lol – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -> [...]

Response:

Darkfalz wrote: > Does anyone else feel like being a non-good looking male is pretty much > like being in prison?

You wouldn’t have to feel imprisoned if you gave me a chance, cutie. I know what men want. My hair is longer, silkier, and blacker than ever. And you know about my ass. I put some computerized post-facial-surgery pics of myself on hotornot and was told that I’m actually kinda pretty. After my Pantz jawline, Dolores cheekbones, and Isobel chin, I will be set to go. I will even convert to Buddhism or whatever religion it is your people follow. Consider it. :) SYD

Response:

Darkfalz wrote: > Rarely see outside my four walls, rarely have contact with other > people, and most of all, not allowed contact with the opposite sex and > forced celibacy. > Does anyone else feel like being a non-good looking male is pretty much > like being in prison?

Aw DF! You’re making me sad. I wish there was something I could do to make you feel better. I wish I could convince you that your prison isn’t your body, it’s simply a set of circumstances that have led to you being unable to make friends or relate to any of the people you happen to find yourself near. Have you ever considered moving away? Maybe the region you live in is simply too provincial and narrow-minded, and you would find more like-minded people elsewhere, people you could relate to and befriend. — -=Lola —————- You’re living in your own private Idaho Living in your own private Idaho Underground like a wild potato. –B52s.

Response:

Fantastic post ! I bet it won’t do any good, though.

Response:

"Troll" <tr…@master.com> wrote in message

news:Xns9672B51ECC5ABeh3du@localhost… > "Darkfalz" <Darkfalz.Use…@gmail.com> wrote in > news:1118486129.041446.177120@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com: >> Rarely see outside my four walls, rarely have contact with other >> people, and most of all, not allowed contact with the opposite sex and >> forced celibacy. >> Does anyone else feel like being a non-good looking male is pretty much >> like being in prison? > Though I am not non-good looking, I am in a similar prison.

Me too, Troll.  I am considered handsome by prevailing standards, and am frequently complimented for my appearance by members of the opposite sex. Darkfalz, I am convinced that looks aren’t the key.  In fact, they are almost completely irrelevant.  An honest, objective survey of your surroundings will reveal this to be the case. Cash is the key. You see, prostitution is a woman’s natural instinct.  It is encoded into her DNA.  And from her perspective, the customer’s physical appearance counts for very little, as long as he can be counted on to meet her price. In her youthful years, she tends to sell herself short with the bad boy types.  She will justify this behavior by invoking the mythos of "romance" and "passion."  As she ages and matures, however, she will learn to gauge her innate cash value with a fair degree of precision, and adjust her sights accordingly. She will attempt to conceal these cold, hard truth from herself, and from her lover, by inventing an endless series of everchanging and arbitrary "needs" for him to fulfill.  Soon he discovers that she is in fact a bottomless pit, and that reciprocation is, for her, an alien concept. If you can meet these conditions, and find them reasonable, you will not lack for female companionship. Rick

Response:

I often see my life as the classic tv series "The Prisoner" in pure metaphoric terms of course (e.g. "The Village" as a condition of shyness & loneliness,  an allegory for isolation and little hope of escape even though we keep trying, etc.) I have all kinds of weird reference points in my head…

Response:

The life one lives as a result of shyness and personality disorders certainly is analgous to a prison sentence of sorts.The circumstance one finds himself in when he is unattractive, alone, and unable to connect to the world is similar to what one must feel like in solitary confinement. I recall a quote-can’t remember who said it-"Four walls do not a prison cell make", meaning being imprisoned can also be a state of mind/being.

Response:

Rarely see outside my four walls, rarely have contact with other people, and most of all, not allowed contact with the opposite sex and forced celibacy. Does anyone else feel like being a non-good looking male is pretty much like being in prison?

Response:

I only ever felt like that when I wasn’t working. I was 18 in 1986 and my only contact with people except my family was saying "thanks" when I bought something from a shop. It was all very depressing. Best thing I ever did was find a job which forced me to talk to people. The job was in retail serving customers. Hated it at first but it taught me the skills needed to talk to all sorts of people including women. Maybe it’s something you could try ?

Response:

Everybody has been dealt a hand in life. Everybody has been given a will – that will(power) is the key in to compensating for weaknesses and shortcomings in our personal life. Life: is an opportunity and you make it what you choose to make it. I am assuming you consider yourself not very good looking. Well, join the club. There is a whole world of imperfect people out there, myself included.  And its so easy to get into a negative cycle of looking at the world as a place where everyone is enjoying things that I can’t enjoy. Relationships included. There are people who take that path of ‘reject first, lest ye be rejected’ approach to dealing with inability to aquire a relationship.  If you reject first, that means you can’t be hurt, right? Wrong, actually you hurt yourself by limiting options. This does not mean, remove your defenses and open up yourself to hurt. That would be impossible for the great many people in the world who have been hurt by others.  Walls of protection are needed..but allow yourself to have a gate, a door by which you can give a key to trusted people.  Trust is something that is earned, not given. And each person you allow into your life will go through their own testing period to see what level of trust you will give them. Only those who you can have complete trust, will ever get intimacy from you. Intimacy and sex can go together, just like you can have intimacy without sex. I ‘hear’ this post as one who takes their physical appearance and then uses that to limit themselves in life. Hell, if it was all about looks, then why is this jerk guy at my wifes office who is hardly good looking and not very tall, (I’m even better looking than he is) being so successful in life? He has so many female relationships and brags about sexual escapades, and in other areas of his life, careerwise for instance, he has no trouble landing decent high paying jobs at local manufacturing businesses (no college degree either).  If you want to equate success in life with aquiring what this guy has, then looks isn’t the thing that did it for him, it was attitude about himself and compensating for things.  I feel that when a person can come to the point of where they are enjoying life, appriciating what they have, then they are successful. Even when it comes to myself, I am always compensating for weaknesses and shortcomings. Yep, I’m anti-social and I used to think something was wrong with that and with me. However, I have come to the point of shrugging off those feelings, and working on my own personal character to compensate and empower myself. If the world won’t encourage and validate me, well then I’ll just do it myself. (why give the world/people that kind of power over my life.)I don’t need the world to tell me that what I am doing is productive, constructive, and for a good cause.  I know it is because I know, and thats enough. Why not begin by telling yourself that? Good luck. RW

Response:

"Islamic culture: A convenient scapegoat

Question:

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – "Why would they impose quotas for a Muslim nation? The plan by Sharansky, a Jewish Israeli who is Bush’s brain power, is to make the Middle East disrupted for generations to come. "Islamic culture: A convenient scapegoat With the dramatic events of September 11, however, this discourse was able to rear its ugly imperialist and colonialist head once more, reformulate its postulates and recycle its old stereotypes of Muslims, their world and faith. Full Article http://makeashorterlink.com/?O2061258A Christians have always made it a point to demonize any religion that threatened them.  Time magazine called it the "Butcher theory":   if they ain’t christians then they must be barbaric monsters and rapists. Are you relying on your above statement, to justify the Islamic premise that "Islam is the only true religion" ? Hasn’t your theory "If it isn’t Islam its Infidel"  exactly the same "demonizing" meaning? There is no such thing as "islamic", that is a western made up term.

Bullshit, it is correct English.

Response:

Bush is the AntiChrist!! schrieb: – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – "Why would they impose quotas for a Muslim nation? The plan by Sharansky, a Jewish Israeli who is Bush’s brain power, is to make the Middle East disrupted for generations to come. "Islamic culture: A convenient scapegoat With the dramatic events of September 11, however, this discourse was able to rear its ugly imperialist and colonialist head once more, reformulate its postulates and recycle its old stereotypes of Muslims, their world and faith. Full Article http://makeashorterlink.com/?O2061258A Christians have always made it a point to demonize any religion that threatened them.  Time magazine called it the "Butcher theory":   if they ain’t christians then they must be barbaric monsters and rapists. Luckily it is only the Vatican and Western Protestants, and NOT the Orthdox Churches who think this.–

Just wait. They too will change their minds after a few more atrocities committed by muslims. Pity. M.

Response:

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Christians have always made it a point to demonize any religion that threatened them.  Time magazine called it the "Butcher theory":   if they ain’t christians then they must be barbaric monsters and rapists. And, remind me, how are Christians – and Bahai’is – treated in Muslim countries, especially Saudi Arabia and Iran?  Not to mention Pakistan.  And let’s not even get into the Christian vs. Muslim issue in places like Nigeria, Sudan and Somalia. They are threatened, jailed, raped, and killed.  That is how Christians and other non-muslims are treated. s. To answer your question, Non-Muslims are given more rights than Muslims in Theocratic Muslim nations, than Secular Muslim nations.  Imagine that. Secondly, the Quran, if you bothered to read anything other than www.IhateIslam.org, says to treat the "people of the book" with respect.

Like it or not, the rest of the world is catching on. Islam’s basic concept is that the world is divided into 2 parts – the world of Islam (Dar al-Islam) and the world of heresy (Dar al Harb). Islam’s mission is to bring the true faith to all mankind using education, propaganda, spiritual guidance, political subversion, terror, and war.

Response:

- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – "Why would they impose quotas for a Muslim nation? The plan by Sharansky, a Jewish Israeli who is Bush’s brain power, is to make the Middle East disrupted for generations to come. "Islamic culture: A convenient scapegoat With the dramatic events of September 11, however, this discourse was able to rear its ugly imperialist and colonialist head once more, reformulate its postulates and recycle its old stereotypes of Muslims, their world and faith. Full Article http://makeashorterlink.com/?O2061258A Christians have always made it a point to demonize any religion that threatened them.  Time magazine called it the "Butcher theory":   if they ain’t christians then they must be barbaric monsters and rapists. Are you relying on your above statement, to justify the Islamic premise that "Islam is the only true religion" ? Hasn’t your theory "If it isn’t Islam its Infidel"  exactly the same "demonizing" meaning?

There is no such thing as "islamic", that is a western made up term. — Discussion forums for American Liberals, by Liberals: http://www.comicboards.org/cgi-bin/ikonboard/ikonboard.cgi

Response:

- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Christians have always made it a point to demonize any religion that threatened them.  Time magazine called it the "Butcher theory":   if they ain’t christians then they must be barbaric monsters and rapists. And, remind me, how are Christians – and Bahai’is – treated in Muslim countries, especially Saudi Arabia and Iran?  Not to mention Pakistan.  And let’s not even get into the Christian vs. Muslim issue in places like Nigeria, Sudan and Somalia. They are threatened, jailed, raped, and killed.  That is how Christians and other non-muslims are treated. s.

To answer your question, Non-Muslims are given more rights than Muslims in Theocratic Muslim nations, than Secular Muslim nations.  Imagine that. Secondly, the Quran, if you bothered to read anything other than www.IhateIslam.org, says to treat the "people of the book" with respect. — Discussion forums for American Liberals, by Liberals: http://www.comicboards.org/cgi-bin/ikonboard/ikonboard.cgi

Response:

- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – "Why would they impose quotas for a Muslim nation? The plan by Sharansky, a Jewish Israeli who is Bush’s brain power, is to make the Middle East disrupted for generations to come. "Islamic culture: A convenient scapegoat With the dramatic events of September 11, however, this discourse was able to rear its ugly imperialist and colonialist head once more, reformulate its postulates and recycle its old stereotypes of Muslims, their world and faith. I think it is great…..now you know what it feels like Al-phalfa If you can’t take it, don’t dish it out. You are apparently the one that can’t take it. Keep swinging. Maybe you’ll hit something. (Don’t hit George Bush. He hits back.)

Keep standing there. Maybe it will sink in.

Response:

"Christians have always made it a point to demonize any religion that threatened them." Horseshit.  I almost never find a Christian who has anything bad to say about Buddhim.  This is clearly because Islam is now responsible for 90% of the violence in the world while Buddhism is responsible for almost none. "Time magazine called it the "Butcher theory":   if they ain’t christians then they must be barbaric monsters and rapists." Okay, you made your point.  Time Magazine has a lot of morons working for them.

Response:

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – "Why would they impose quotas for a Muslim nation? The plan by Sharansky, a Jewish Israeli who is Bush’s brain power, is to make the Middle East disrupted for generations to come. "Islamic culture: A convenient scapegoat With the dramatic events of September 11, however, this discourse was able to rear its ugly imperialist and colonialist head once more, reformulate its postulates and recycle its old stereotypes of Muslims, their world and faith. Full Article http://makeashorterlink.com/?O2061258A Christians have always made it a point to demonize any religion that threatened them.  Time magazine called it the "Butcher theory":   if they ain’t christians then they must be barbaric monsters and rapists.

Are you relying on your above statement, to justify the Islamic premise that "Islam is the only true religion" ? Hasn’t your theory "If it isn’t Islam its Infidel"  exactly the same "demonizing" meaning?

Response:

- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – "Why would they impose quotas for a Muslim nation? The plan by Sharansky, a Jewish Israeli who is Bush’s brain power, is to make the Middle East disrupted for generations to come. "Islamic culture: A convenient scapegoat With the dramatic events of September 11, however, this discourse was able to rear its ugly imperialist and colonialist head once more, reformulate its postulates and recycle its old stereotypes of Muslims, their world and faith. I think it is great…..now you know what it feels like Al-phalfa If you can’t take it, don’t dish it out. You are apparently the one that can’t take it.

Keep swinging. Maybe you’ll hit something. (Don’t hit George Bush. He hits back.)

Response:

- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – "Why would they impose quotas for a Muslim nation? The plan by Sharansky, a Jewish Israeli who is Bush’s brain power, is to make the Middle East disrupted for generations to come. "Islamic culture: A convenient scapegoat With the dramatic events of September 11, however, this discourse was able to rear its ugly imperialist and colonialist head once more, reformulate its postulates and recycle its old stereotypes of Muslims, their world and faith. I think it is great…..now you know what it feels like Al-phalfa If you can’t take it, don’t dish it out.

You are apparently the one that can’t take it.

Response:

Christians have always made it a point to demonize any religion that threatened them.  Time magazine called it the "Butcher theory":   if they ain’t christians then they must be barbaric monsters and rapists.

And, remind me, how are Christians – and Bahai’is – treated in Muslim countries, especially Saudi Arabia and Iran?  Not to mention Pakistan.  And let’s not even get into the Christian vs. Muslim issue in places like Nigeria, Sudan and Somalia. They are threatened, jailed, raped, and killed.  That is how Christians and other non-muslims are treated. s.

Response:

"Why would they impose quotas for a Muslim nation? The plan by Sharansky, a Jewish Israeli who is Bush’s brain power, is to make the Middle East disrupted for generations to come. "Islamic culture: A convenient scapegoat With the dramatic events of September 11, however, this discourse was able to rear its ugly imperialist and colonialist head once more, reformulate its postulates and recycle its old stereotypes of Muslims, their world and faith. Full Article http://makeashorterlink.com/?O2061258A

Christians have always made it a point to demonize any religion that threatened them.  Time magazine called it the "Butcher theory":   if they ain’t christians then they must be barbaric monsters and rapists. Luckily it is only the Vatican and Western Protestants, and NOT the Orthdox Churches who think this.– Discussion forums for American Liberals, by Liberals: http://www.comicboards.org/cgi-bin/ikonboard/ikonboard.cgi

Response:

- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – "Why would they impose quotas for a Muslim nation? The plan by Sharansky, a Jewish Israeli who is Bush’s brain power, is to make the Middle East disrupted for generations to come. "Islamic culture: A convenient scapegoat With the dramatic events of September 11, however, this discourse was able to rear its ugly imperialist and colonialist head once more, reformulate its postulates and recycle its old stereotypes of Muslims, their world and faith. I think it is great…..now you know what it feels like Al-phalfa

If you can’t take it, don’t dish it out.

Response:

"Why would they impose quotas for a Muslim nation? The plan by Sharansky, a Jewish Israeli who is Bush’s brain power, is to make the Middle East disrupted for generations to come. "Islamic culture: A convenient scapegoat With the dramatic events of September 11, however, this discourse was able to rear its ugly imperialist and colonialist head once more, reformulate its postulates and recycle its old stereotypes of Muslims, their world and faith.

I think it is great…..now you know what it feels like Al-phalfa

Response:

"Why would they impose quotas for a Muslim nation?

You brought it on yourselves.

Response:

"Why would they impose quotas for a Muslim nation? The plan by Sharansky, a Jewish Israeli who is Bush’s brain power, is to make the Middle East disrupted for generations to come. "Islamic culture: A convenient scapegoat With the dramatic events of September 11, however, this discourse was able to rear its ugly imperialist and colonialist head once more, reformulate its postulates and recycle its old stereotypes of Muslims, their world and faith. Full Article http://makeashorterlink.com/?O2061258A

Response:

yoga car accidents

Question:

shhh…. be polite… given the word  "SILLY" and  SELF INDULGENT"  a totally new meaning.

I was tempted to top post, but I won’t. Fuck you both.

Response:

ha…who is it who has too much time here?  and a foul mouth…

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – shhh…. be polite… given the word  "SILLY" and  SELF INDULGENT"  a totally new meaning. I was tempted to top post, but I won’t. Fuck you both.

Response:

ha…who is it who has too much time here?

Not too much.  Just a lot.   And that would include everyone "here".  The study of magick itself is a leisure time activity, so talking about it is also a leisure time activity. and a foul mouth…

Fingers, actually.  Foul fingers.  Except for those using voice recognition systems, of course.

Response:

shhh…. be polite…

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – given the word  "SILLY" and  SELF INDULGENT"  a totally new meaning.

Response:

http://groups-beta.google.com/group/talk.religion.buddhism?start=&gvc=1

Response:

given the word  "SILLY" and  SELF INDULGENT"  a totally new meaning.

Response:

On long drives i get bored and i start to do yoga with my eyes open. Then come the pratyahara daydream mind wanderings.

I have never heard of pratyahara being equated with day dreaming. What if one day, i awaken the kundalini and the electrical discharge shorts out my automobile electronics? I will get into a car accident.

I agree with Tom. Time to start behaving as a mature, responsible adult and not do those things which pose a danger to yourself and others. A good time to practice being in the moment is while driving a motor vehicle. They say chinese people drive badly. Maybe this is because they are buddhists and when they get into car crashes it is really because they hit samadhi/dharmakaya buddhahood while driving. That would explain why chinese people supposedly drive badly. Or someone on a power trip. With every power trip comes the daydreams of power attainment. People would crash their cars if they are always imagining what it will be like to wear the raja yoga crown and have all those women and money and fame and riches and unimaginable power.

just because you do those things does not mean everyone does

Response:

What if one day, i awaken the kundalini and the electrical discharge shorts out my automobile electronics? I will get into a car accident.

Oh, the things we dream up to worry about.

Response:

What if one day, i awaken the kundalini and the electrical discharge shorts out my automobile electronics? I will get into a car accident. Oh, the things we dream up to worry about.

You think i am talking about idle things? Go to the pleroma. Access the "daydreams of unimaginable power" section. You will find that both paths, left and right AND black and white, are constantly daydreaming of how special their magical/mystical paths will make them. Only God knows how many car accidents were caused by masturbatory will-to-power daydreams. Unfortunately, you can’t tell a human judge of the justice system, "that guy was daydreaming in yetzirah and he didn’t see me making a left turn".

Response:

What if one day, i awaken the kundalini and the electrical discharge shorts out my automobile electronics? I will get into a car accident. Oh, the things we dream up to worry about. You think i am talking about idle things?

Yes, I do indeed think that.  Show me some verifiable cases of kundalini generating enough of an electrical charge to short out an automobile’s electrical system from the driver’s seat.  If you haven’t got any, then I’d say you’re speculating idly. Go to the pleroma. Access the "daydreams of unimaginable power" section.

Emphasis on the "daydreams".  Daydreaming is another idle pastime.  Ask your boss about that. Anyway, how irresponsible is it to practice powerful techniques for altering consciousness while piloting a piece of heavy machinery at high speeds?

Response:

On long drives i get bored and i start to do yoga with my eyes open. Then come the pratyahara daydream mind wanderings. What if one day, i awaken the kundalini and the electrical discharge shorts out my automobile electronics? I will get into a car accident. They say chinese people drive badly. Maybe this is because they are buddhists and when they get into car crashes it is really because they hit samadhi/dharmakaya buddhahood while driving. That would explain why chinese people supposedly drive badly. Or someone on a power trip. With every power trip comes the daydreams of power attainment. People would crash their cars if they are always imagining what it will be like to wear the raja yoga crown and have all those women and money and fame and riches and unimaginable power.

Response:

The Miracles of God

Question:

- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Scientists CAN prove…. Science doesn’t prove anything. It provides evidence. Proofs are for mathematics. Evidence religion doesn’t have the big bang occured,They heard the echo.They CAN prove evolution,just look at your little toe and know that in a thousand years Humans won’t have one. Doubtful. This’d be like claiming that in 1,000 years a Republican will become president of the United Nations. There is no way to do it. It’s FACT that the Human little toe is smaller with each generatrion. No. You are wrong. This is not a fact. Every human in the world has not been measured for any little toe research that I know of, but I could be wrong. Please supply full bibliographic references to the peer-reviewed literature. I will,i read about it in school. Go here and read of irefutable proof of evolution. I am still looking for the big toe texts.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/evolution-fact.html Look, I read all of them a long time ago. Actually I read them as most of them were originally posted. I was reading talk.origins in 1993. Religion can prove NOTHING. Miracles are merely events that science cannot explain…. Supernatural miracles are by definition something that science cannot investigate. Science can and will investigate them.Who the fuck are you to say what science can investigate?You just don’t eant miracles to become science. Tell me, how does science investigate something which by definition *cannot* be investigated? Science deals only in natural phenomena. Miracles are *supernatural* and therefore cannot be investigated. You call them supernatural,….

Yes, miracles are supposed to be supernatural. If they are natural phenomena, then science can investigate. But perhaps you can outline a plan for how science could investigate supernatural things. but so did cave men when they saw lightning,

And they were wrong right?

Response:

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Scientists CAN prove…. Science doesn’t prove anything. It provides evidence. Proofs are for mathematics. Evidence religion doesn’t have the big bang occured,They heard the echo.They CAN prove evolution,just look at your little toe and know that in a thousand years Humans won’t have one. Doubtful. This’d be like claiming that in 1,000 years a Republican will become president of the United Nations. There is no way to do it. It’s FACT that the Human little toe is smaller with each generatrion. No. You are wrong. This is not a fact. Every human in the world has not been measured for any little toe research that I know of, but I could be wrong. Please supply full bibliographic references to the peer-reviewed literature. I will,i read about it in school. Go here and read of irefutable proof of evolution. I am still looking for the big toe texts. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/evolution-fact.html Look, I read all of them a long time ago. Actually I read them as most of them were originally posted. I was reading talk.origins in 1993. So you know evolution is real.Hypocrite.How can you believe in evolution and creation? Religion can prove NOTHING. Miracles are merely events that science cannot explain…. Supernatural miracles are by definition something that science cannot investigate. Science can and will investigate them.Who the fuck are you to say what science can investigate?You just don’t eant miracles to become science. Tell me, how does science investigate something which by definition *cannot* be investigated? Science deals only in natural phenomena. Miracles are *supernatural* and therefore cannot be investigated. You call them supernatural,…. Yes, miracles are supposed to be supernatural. If they are natural phenomena, then science can investigate. But perhaps you can outline a plan for how science could investigate supernatural things. but so did cave men when they saw lightning, And they were wrong right? Something is only supernatural until science explains it as natural.

Response:

- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Scientists CAN prove the big bang occured,They heard the echo.They CAN prove evolution,just look at your little toe and know that in a thousand years Humans won’t have one.Religion can prove NOTHING.Miracles are merely events that science cannot explain YET,much as lightning once was. The Miracles of God The atheistic evolutionist, theistic evolutionist and the progressive creationist all claim that the universe, solar systems, planets,  and life came about by natural processes occuring over long periods of time. God says these same things came about by the miracle of His spoken Word. These two statements cannot both be true for if one is true the other must be false.  So how can we tell which is which?  Both are a matter of belief or faith for neither meets the criteria of science in that they were not observed, measured nor are reproducible under controlled conditions. The first party above uses smoke and mirrors to claim their opinions are really "facts" and their non-thinking followers harp away at what they are told even if it has already been proven to be false(life coming from non-life, spotted moths, embryonic recapitulation, Piltdown, Java, Piking, Neanderthal man, etc.). The second party uses the Bible, God’s Word with it’s simple, straight forward description of what God did to create all that we observe around us. Never has anything God said been disproven over the many centuries since it was given to man. The thrust of the first party is to deny God and do what they choose without accountability. The thrust of the second party is to trust God and take Him at His Word.

I can’t believe you all haven’t plonked this moron by now.  I admit, it is fun to smack the retardedly lobbed softballs IDontKnowSHit repeatedly offers, but after a while it starts to seem like some lobotomized loon who keeps calling your house.  Eventually you have to look at your caller ID and not answer.

Response:

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Scientists CAN prove…. Science doesn’t prove anything. It provides evidence. Proofs are for mathematics. Evidence religion doesn’t have the big bang occured,They heard the echo.They CAN prove evolution,just look at your little toe and know that in a thousand years Humans won’t have one. Doubtful. This’d be like claiming that in 1,000 years a Republican will become president of the United Nations. There is no way to do it. It’s FACT that the Human little toe is smaller with each generatrion. No. You are wrong. This is not a fact. Every human in the world has not been measured for any little toe research that I know of, but I could be wrong. Please supply full bibliographic references to the peer-reviewed literature. I will,i read about it in school. 20 years ago,I’m no kid. Ahhh, that explains a lot. Religion can prove NOTHING. Miracles are merely events that science cannot explain…. Supernatural miracles are by definition something that science cannot investigate. Science can and will investigate them.Who the fuck are you to say what science can investigate?You just don’t eant miracles to become science. Tell me, how does science investigate something which by definition *cannot* be investigated? Science deals only in natural phenomena. Miracles are *supernatural* and therefore cannot be investigated. You call them supernatural,but so did cave men when they saw lightning,science took care of that.Someday science WILL investigate.Religion will be disproven,again. Whoosh, and nary a hair on his head was touched. You did not answer my question. Please try and do that. I did answer your question.Therein lay the problem.You’re so hell bent on

calling miracles supernatural that you can’t be open to the possibility that they are what lightning was 2,000 years ago-natural events as yet unexplained. You are still a hippocrite,I didn’t hear you denying that dumbass.I tell

you one thing,I’m a hell of a lot smarter than you.The fact that you believe in religion tells me that.

Response:

The Miracles of God The atheistic evolutionist, theistic evolutionist and the progressive creationist all claim that the universe, solar systems, planets,  and life came about by natural processes occuring over long periods of time. God says these same things came about by the miracle of His spoken Word.

Only a pea brain would swallow that! These two statements cannot both be true for if one is true the other must be false.  So how can we tell which is which?  Both are a matter of belief or faith for neither meets the criteria of science in that they were not observed, measured nor are reproducible under controlled conditions.

Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence. [Richard Dawkins] The first party above uses smoke and mirrors to claim their opinions are really "facts" and their non-thinking followers harp away at what they are told even if it has already been proven to be false(life coming from non-life, spotted moths, embryonic recapitulation, Piltdown, Java, Piking, Neanderthal man, etc.). The second party uses the Bible, God’s Word with it’s simple, straight forward description of what God did to create all that we observe around us. Never has anything God said been disproven over the many centuries since it was given to man.

The whole idiotic premise has been disproven time and time again, you nitwit. When we are borne we cry that we are come To this great age of fools [William Shakespeare] The thrust of the first party is to deny God and do what they choose without accountability.

No it is truth and honesty instead of pathetic superstition. The thrust of the second party is to trust God and take Him at His Word.

Yes – the only trouble is the god you refer to and the thousands of other gods, have never said a single word to anybody so far!!!! Bob Humanist atheist Brit. Hong kong "There are two things in the world that can never get together- religion & common sense." [George W. Foote]

Response:

Scientists CAN prove…. Science doesn’t prove anything. It provides evidence. Proofs are for mathematics. Evidence religion doesn’t have the big bang occured,They heard the echo.They CAN prove evolution,just look at your little toe and know that in a thousand years Humans won’t have one. Doubtful. This’d be like claiming that in 1,000 years a Republican will become president of the United Nations. There is no way to do it. It’s FACT that the Human little toe is smaller with each generatrion.

No. You are wrong. This is not a fact. Every human in the world has not been measured for any little toe research that I know of, but I could be wrong. Please supply full bibliographic references to the peer-reviewed literature. Religion can prove NOTHING. Miracles are merely events that science cannot explain…. Supernatural miracles are by definition something that science cannot investigate. Science can and will investigate them.Who the fuck are you to say what science can investigate?You just don’t eant miracles to become science.

Tell me, how does science investigate something which by definition *cannot* be investigated? Science deals only in natural phenomena. Miracles are *supernatural* and therefore cannot be investigated.

Response:

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Scientists CAN prove…. Science doesn’t prove anything. It provides evidence. Proofs are for mathematics. Evidence religion doesn’t have the big bang occured,They heard the echo.They CAN prove evolution,just look at your little toe and know that in a thousand years Humans won’t have one. Doubtful. This’d be like claiming that in 1,000 years a Republican will become president of the United Nations. There is no way to do it. It’s FACT that the Human little toe is smaller with each generatrion. No. You are wrong. This is not a fact. Every human in the world has not been measured for any little toe research that I know of, but I could be wrong. Please supply full bibliographic references to the peer-reviewed

literature.I will,i read about it in school. Religion can prove NOTHING. Miracles are merely events that science cannot explain…. Supernatural miracles are by definition something that science cannot investigate. Science can and will investigate them.Who the fuck are you to say what science can investigate?You just don’t eant miracles to become science. Tell me, how does science investigate something which by definition *cannot* be investigated? Science deals only in natural phenomena. Miracles are *supernatural* and therefore cannot be investigated. You call them supernatural,but so did cave men when they saw

lightning,science took care of that.Someday science WILL investigate.Religion will be disproven,again. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text –

Response:

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – I can’t believe you all haven’t plonked this moron by now.  I admit, it is fun to smack the retardedly lobbed softballs IDontKnowSHit repeatedly offers, but after a while it starts to seem like some lobotomized loon who keeps calling your house.  Eventually you have to look at your caller ID and not answer. If you leave him unanswered, the innocent will be taken in by his lies. He’s not posting his crap for us, he’s posting it to lure unwary newcomers. ## Science has proof without certainty,in the eyes of the Religious-the proof is certain. ## Creationism a false sense of certainty with NO proof.

Response:

- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Scientists CAN prove…. Science doesn’t prove anything. It provides evidence. Proofs are for mathematics. Evidence religion doesn’t have the big bang occured,They heard the echo.They CAN prove evolution,just look at your little toe and know that in a thousan years Humans won’t have one. Doubtful. This’d be like claiming that in 1,000 years a Republicanwill become president of the United Nations. There is no way to do it. It’s FACT that the Human little toe is smaller with each generatrion. No. You are wrong. This is not a fact. Every human in the world has notbeen measured for any little toe research that I know of, but I could bewrong. Please supply full bibliographic references to the peer-reviewed literature. I will,i read about it in school. Ahhh, that explains a lot. 20 years ago, I’m no kid. Religion can prove NOTHING. Miracles are merely events that science cannot explain…. Supernatural miracles are by definition something that science cannot investigate. Science can and will investigate them.Who the fuck are you to say what science can investigate?You just don’t eant miracles to become science. Tell me, how does science investigate something which by definition*cannot* be investigated? Science deals only in natural phenomena. Miracles are *supernatural* and therefore cannot be investigated. You call them supernatural,but so did cave men when they saw lightning,science took care of that.Someday science WILL investigate.Religion will be disproven,again. Whoosh, and nary a hair on his head was touched. You did not answer my question. Please try and do that. I did answer your question.Therein lay the problem.You’re so hell bent on calling miracles supernatural that you can’t be open to the possibility that they are what lightning was 2,000 years ago-natural events as yet unexplained.

What you seem to be so hell bent on doing is not reading or thinking before you answer. If science investigates an event it is a *natural* event. It is not a supernatural event. You said that man thought lightening was supernatural, but lightening is not and never has been supernatural. It is perfectly natural. Thus science can investigate it. Science cannot e.g., investigate the number of feathers on an angel’s wing. You are still a hippocrite,I didn’t hear you denying that dumbass.I tell you one thing,I’m a hell of a lot smarter than you.The fact that you believe in religion tells me that.

Well, gee I guess you told me.

Response:

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Scientists CAN prove…. Science doesn’t prove anything. It provides evidence. Proofs are for mathematics. Evidence religion doesn’t have the big bang occured,They heard the echo.They CAN prove evolution,just look at your little toe and know that in a thousandyears Humans won’t have one. Doubtful. This’d be like claiming that in 1,000 years a Republican will become president of the United Nations. There is no way to do it. It’s FACT that the Human little toe is smaller with each generatrion. No. You are wrong. This is not a fact. Every human in the world has not been measured for any little toe research that I know of, but I could be wrong. Please supply full bibliographic references to the peer-reviewed literature. I will,i read about it in school. Go here and read of irefutable proof of evolution. I am still looking for the big toe texts. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/evolution-fact.html Look, I read all of them a long time ago. Actually I read them as most of them were originally posted. I was reading talk.origins in 1993. So you know evolution is real.Hypocrite.How can you believe in evolution and creation? Why not? Ah,because creation says God created Man,Evolution all life evolved from

the primordial soup.You are just like Bush to try anfd toe the line between the two.Take a stand! – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Religion can prove NOTHING. Miracles are merely events that science cannot explain…. Supernatural miracles are by definition something that science cannot investigate. Science can and will investigate them. Who the fuck are you to say what science can investigate?You just don’t eant miracles to become science. Tell me, how does science investigate something which by definition *cannot* be investigated? Science deals only in natural phenomena. Miracles are *supernatural* and therefore cannot be investigated. You call them supernatural,…. Yes, miracles are supposed to be supernatural. If they are natural phenomena, then science can investigate. But perhaps you can outline a plan for how science could investigate supernatural things. OK-Give me an example of something you call supernatural-that actually

happened(So that doesn’t include the resurrection nonsense)and I will. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – but so did cave men when they saw lightning, And they were wrong right? Something is only supernatural until science explains it as natural. Then it *wasn’t supernatural* then was it?

Response:

God says these same things came about by the miracle of His spoken Word. No, God hasn’t said any such thing. Genesis 1.

That’s man’s writing. And a rather ignorant, superstitious man at that! God, if he exists, knows the order in which he made things, and the Genesis 1 order is wrong in several respects. ## Shall God govern by the laws of nature, ## or priests by fictitious miracles? John Adams

Response:

I can’t believe you all haven’t plonked this moron by now.  I admit, it is fun to smack the retardedly lobbed softballs IDontKnowSHit repeatedly offers, but after a while it starts to seem like some lobotomized loon who keeps calling your house.  Eventually you have to look at your caller ID and not answer.

If you leave him unanswered, the innocent will be taken in by his lies. He’s not posting his crap for us, he’s posting it to lure unwary newcomers. ## Science has proof without certainty, ## Creationism certainty without proof.

Response:

- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Scientists CAN prove…. Science doesn’t prove anything. It provides evidence. Proofs are for mathematics. Evidence religion doesn’t have the big bang occured,They heard the echo.They CAN prove evolution,just look at your little toe and know that in a thousandyears Humans won’t have one. Doubtful. This’d be like claiming that in 1,000 years a Republican will become president of the United Nations. There is no way to do it. It’s FACT that the Human little toe is smaller with each generatrion. No. You are wrong. This is not a fact. Every human in the world has not been measured for any little toe research that I know of, but I could be wrong. Please supply full bibliographic references to the peer-reviewed literature. I will,i read about it in school. Go here and read of irefutable proof of evolution. I am still looking for the big toe texts. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/evolution-fact.html Look, I read all of them a long time ago. Actually I read them as most of them were originally posted. I was reading talk.origins in 1993. So you know evolution is real.Hypocrite.How can you believe in evolution and creation?

Why not? – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Religion can prove NOTHING. Miracles are merely events that science cannot explain…. Supernatural miracles are by definition something that science cannot investigate. Science can and will investigate them. Who the fuck are you to say what science can investigate?You just don’t eant miracles to become science. Tell me, how does science investigate something which by definition *cannot* be investigated? Science deals only in natural phenomena. Miracles are *supernatural* and therefore cannot be investigated. You call them supernatural,…. Yes, miracles are supposed to be supernatural. If they are natural phenomena, then science can investigate. But perhaps you can outline a plan for how science could investigate supernatural things. but so did cave men when they saw lightning, And they were wrong right? Something is only supernatural until science explains it as natural.

Then it *wasn’t supernatural* then was it?

Response:

The Miracles of God The atheistic evolutionist, theistic evolutionist and the progressive creationist all claim that the universe, solar systems, planets,  and life came about by natural processes occuring over long periods of time. God says these same things came about by the miracle of His spoken Word.

No, MEN say that God says that these things happened by special miracles that completely defy natural law.  The same MEN don’t seem to understand that a god who writes the truth in a book and the performs miracles to cover it up is a duplicitous spirit that should be exorcised, not worshipped.  Thank GOD this god is only a creature of the imaginations of MEN. These two statements cannot both be true for if one is true the other must be false.  So how can we tell which is which?  Both are a matter of belief or faith for neither meets the criteria of science in that they were not observed, measured nor are reproducible under controlled conditions.

The second one is false.  God never said what you say He said.  The universe’s actual beginning is beyond our view, but the last 13 or so billion years of its existence are not.  The history of the earth is written in stone, which is more than I can say for your fantasies about your false god.  You claim to worship the God of the Bible, but clearly you do not.  Instead, you worship a god you made up, using parts of the Bible taken wholly out of context (both historical and textual context) in order to invent a reflection of your own disordered ego. The first party above uses smoke and mirrors to claim their opinions are really "facts" and their non-thinking followers harp away at what they are told even if it has already been proven to be false(life coming from non-life, spotted moths, embryonic recapitulation, Piltdown, Java, Piking, Neanderthal man, etc.).

This is simply libel.  And, being libel, it is a direct violation of God’s commandments.  So much for the theory that you actually worship the God who said "thou shalt not bear false witness." The second party uses the Bible, God’s Word with it’s simple, straight forward description of what God did to create all that we observe around us. Never has anything God said been disproven over the many centuries since it was given to man.

No you don’t.  You use the Bible all right, but you use it to justify your sins of false witness and blasphemy.  You attribute the words of man to God and forget to obey the actual words of God.  The words that MAN, including YOU, have put in God’s mouth have turned out time and again to be false words.  It’s time you repented your sins and actually learned to follow Jesus Christ instead of trying to use His name in vain as a bludgeon to force you disordered will on others. The thrust of the first party is to deny God and do what they choose without accountability.

That’s your game, son.  You have been denying God with just about every post you make in here about science. The thrust of the second party is to trust God and take Him at His Word.

That’s my game.  God is NOT a deceiver.  The universe tells us about how it was constructed.  Your myth is a nice, ancient story about it but was never intended as a literal history.  The only way to know God, son, is to actually KNOW Him.  Not know the Bible’s words, but know the God who inspired them.  If you do that, He will inspire you and you will no longer need a book and interpreters to tell you how to behave (which you are doing badly, by the bye). It is not that God does not do special miracles.  He does them more often than men give Him the credit.  But He is not a magician.  He is a creator and He has created a universe that runs under laws that He ordained and those laws cause past events to leave evidence behind them. — Dave Oldridge+ ICQ 1800667 A false witness is worse than no witness at all.

Response:

- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Scientists CAN prove…. Science doesn’t prove anything. It provides evidence. Proofs are for mathematics. Evidence religion doesn’t have the big bang occured,They heard the echo.They CAN prove evolution,just look at your little toe and know that in a thousand years Humans won’t have one. Doubtful. This’d be like claiming that in 1,000 years a Republican will become president of the United Nations. There is no way to do it. It’s FACT that the Human little toe is smaller with each generatrion. No. You are wrong. This is not a fact. Every human in the world has not been measured for any little toe research that I know of, but I could be wrong. Please supply full bibliographic references to the peer-reviewed literature. I will,i read about it in school.

Ahhh, that explains a lot. Religion can prove NOTHING. Miracles are merely events that science cannot explain…. Supernatural miracles are by definition something that science cannot investigate. Science can and will investigate them.Who the fuck are you to say what science can investigate?You just don’t eant miracles to become science. Tell me, how does science investigate something which by definition *cannot* be investigated? Science deals only in natural phenomena. Miracles are *supernatural* and therefore cannot be investigated. You call them supernatural,but so did cave men when they saw lightning,science took care of that.Someday science WILL investigate.Religion will be disproven,again.

Whoosh, and nary a hair on his head was touched. You did not answer my question. Please try and do that.

Response:

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Scientists CAN prove…. Science doesn’t prove anything. It provides evidence. Proofs are for mathematics. Evidence religion doesn’t have the big bang occured,They heard the echo.They CAN prove evolution,just look at your little toe and know that in a thousand years Humans won’t have one. Doubtful. This’d be like claiming that in 1,000 years a Republican will become president of the United Nations. There is no way to do it. It’s FACT that the Human little toe is smaller with each generatrion. No. You are wrong. This is not a fact. Every human in the world has not been measured for any little toe research that I know of, but I could be wrong. Please supply full bibliographic references to the peer-reviewed literature.I will,i read about it in school. Go here and read of irefutable proof of evolution.I am still looking for

the big toe texts.http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/evolution-fact.html – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Religion can prove NOTHING. Miracles are merely events that science cannot explain…. Supernatural miracles are by definition something that science cannot investigate. Science can and will investigate them.Who the fuck are you to say what science can investigate?You just don’t eant miracles to become science. Tell me, how does science investigate something which by definition *cannot* be investigated? Science deals only in natural phenomena. Miracles are *supernatural* and therefore cannot be investigated. You call them supernatural,but so did cave men when they saw lightning,science took care of that.Someday science WILL investigate.Religion will be disproven,again.

Response:

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Scientists CAN prove…. Science doesn’t prove anything. It provides evidence. Proofs are for mathematics. Evidence religion doesn’t have the big bang occured,They heard the echo.They CAN prove evolution,just look at your little toe and know that in a thousand years Humans won’t have one. Doubtful. This’d be like claiming that in 1,000 years a Republican will become president of the United Nations. There is no way to do it. It’s FACT that the Human little toe is smaller with each generatrion. Religion can prove NOTHING. Miracles are merely events that science cannot explain…. Supernatural miracles are by definition something that science cannot investigate. Science can and will investigate them.Who the fuck are you to say what

science can investigate?You just don’t eant miracles to become science. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – YET,much as lightning once was.

Response:

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – The Miracles of God The atheistic evolutionist, theistic evolutionist and the progressive creationist all claim that the universe, solar systems, planets,  and life came about by natural processes occuring over long periods of time. God says these same things came about by the miracle of His spoken Word. No, God hasn’t said any such thing. These two statements cannot both be true for if one is true the other must be false.  So how can we tell which is which? Read what IKnowHim claims to be the Word of God, the Bible.  See the errors in it. Find the lies and the fabulous fabricated miracles and the phony prophecies and bogus history.  Both are a matter of belief or faith for neither meets the criteria of science in that they were not observed, measured nor are reproducible under controlled conditions. Another way is to observe the lies told by frauds like IKnowHim. The sentence above makes a good example. Pure unadulterated bullshit told by a persistent liar. Such things as the evolution of species and the birth of stars and solar systems are observable and have been observed. The first party above uses smoke and mirrors to claim their opinions are really "facts" and their non-thinking followers harp away at what they are told even if it has already been proven to be false IKnowHim is so abysmally ignorant of science he is hardly the person to be pontificating about what has and has not been proven. The second party uses the Bible, The work of unknown ancient goatherders. God’s Word So he claims but can’t prove. with it’s simple, straight forward description of what God did to create all that we observe around us. Which discription includes a round flat earth with a solid dome of sky over it.

Some even think it has 5 corners… http://www.flat-earth.org/ Hilarious. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Never has anything God said been disproven over the many centuries since it was given to man. True, since God hasn’t said anything! What the Bible says on the other hand is easily disproven in many instances. The thrust of the first party is to deny God No folks! Don’t let him sell you that one. Science denies IKnowHim’s god, the Bible, not any actual Creator there might be. The thrust of the second party is to trust God and take Him at His Word. No, your efforts are to get folks to trust IKnowHim and take him at his lying word! ## Pia mendacia fraude

Response:

Scientists CAN prove….

Science doesn’t prove anything. It provides evidence. Proofs are for mathematics. the big bang occured,They heard the echo.They CAN prove evolution,just look at your little toe and know that in a thousand years Humans won’t have one.

Doubtful. This’d be like claiming that in 1,000 years a Republican will become president of the United Nations. There is no way to do it. Religion can prove NOTHING. Miracles are merely events that science cannot explain….

Supernatural miracles are by definition something that science cannot investigate. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -YET,much as lightning once was.

Response:

Scientists CAN prove the big bang occured,They heard the echo.They CAN prove evolution,just look at your little toe and know that in a thousand years Humans won’t have one.Religion can prove NOTHING.Miracles are merely events that science cannot explain YET,much as lightning once was.

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – The Miracles of God The atheistic evolutionist, theistic evolutionist and the progressive creationist all claim that the universe, solar systems, planets,  and life came about by natural processes occuring over long periods of time. God says these same things came about by the miracle of His spoken Word. These two statements cannot both be true for if one is true the other must be false.  So how can we tell which is which?  Both are a matter of belief or faith for neither meets the criteria of science in that they were not observed, measured nor are reproducible under controlled conditions. The first party above uses smoke and mirrors to claim their opinions are really "facts" and their non-thinking followers harp away at what they are told even if it has already been proven to be false(life coming from non-life, spotted moths, embryonic recapitulation, Piltdown, Java, Piking, Neanderthal man, etc.). The second party uses the Bible, God’s Word with it’s simple, straight forward description of what God did to create all that we observe around us. Never has anything God said been disproven over the many centuries since it was given to man. The thrust of the first party is to deny God and do what they choose without accountability. The thrust of the second party is to trust God and take Him at His Word.

Response:

The Miracles of God The atheistic evolutionist, theistic evolutionist and the progressive creationist all claim that the universe, solar systems, planets,  and life came about by natural processes occuring over long periods of time. God says these same things came about by the miracle of His spoken Word.

I know you seemingly cannot read that bible of yours, but just for grins, please explain the first few words of Genesis 1:11; 1:20 and 1:24.

Response:

The Miracles of God The atheistic evolutionist, theistic evolutionist and the progressive creationist all claim that the universe, solar systems, planets,  and life came about by natural processes occuring over long periods of time. God says these same things came about by the miracle of His spoken Word.

No, the bible says is came about that way. Isn’t this a form of false witness?? Do you speak to God? These two statements cannot both be true for if one is true the other must be false.  So how can we tell which is which?  Both are a matter of belief or faith for neither meets the criteria of science in that they were not observed, measured nor are reproducible under controlled conditions.

One does not need to create a universe nor be present for it’s creation to understand it. The only thing that needs to be observable, verifiable and reproducible are the experiments that are performed upon the evidence presented. I know people have corrected you on this matter. But I am not surprised you weren’t listening. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – The first party above uses smoke and mirrors to claim their opinions are really "facts" and their non-thinking followers harp away at what they are told even if it has already been proven to be false(life coming from non-life, spotted moths, embryonic recapitulation, Piltdown, Java, Piking, Neanderthal man, etc.). The second party uses the Bible, God’s Word with it’s simple, straight forward description of what God did to create all that we observe around us. Never has anything God said been disproven over the many centuries since it was given to man. The thrust of the first party is to deny God and do what they choose without accountability. The thrust of the second party is to trust God and take Him at His Word.

You are so full of shit. Science is not against god you moron. If anything it is trying to explain god’s creation for how it actually came into existence. Science would have just as much to prove there is a god as proving their isn’t. There is no great underground conspiracy to destroy religion except in your fevered mind. Your beliefs are based on nothing but faith. Faith that god exists and faith that he is a writer. Faith that the bible is inspired by god and faith that every translation, edit and modifictaion maintained the original meaning. Faith that the bible should be interpreted literally and faith that all was truly witnessed. Faith that nothing was added or removed, faith that your pastors and priests have not lied to you. You have nothing but faith. You have no proof, no evidence no substance to your empty claims. Your beliefs will fail EVERY time in conflict with science. — Read the Bible, because the world needs more atheists.

Response:

The Miracles of God The atheistic evolutionist, theistic evolutionist and the progressive creationist all claim that the universe, solar systems, planets,  and life came about by natural processes occuring over long periods of time. God says these same things came about by the miracle of His spoken Word. These two statements cannot both be true for if one is true the other must be false.  So how can we tell which is which?  Both are a matter of belief or faith for neither meets the criteria of science in that they were not observed, measured nor are reproducible under controlled conditions. The first party above uses smoke and mirrors to claim their opinions are really "facts" and their non-thinking followers harp away at what they are told even if it has already been proven to be false(life coming from non-life, spotted moths, embryonic recapitulation, Piltdown, Java, Piking, Neanderthal man, etc.). The second party uses the Bible, God’s Word with it’s simple, straight forward description of what God did to create all that we observe around us. Never has anything God said been disproven over the many centuries since it was given to man. The thrust of the first party is to deny God and do what they choose without accountability. The thrust of the second party is to trust God and take Him at His Word.

Response:

These two statements cannot both be true for if one is true the other must be false.

Classic false dichotomy.  Congratulations. — Mike "No thanks, I’m just looking."

Response:

The Miracles of God The atheistic evolutionist, theistic evolutionist and the progressive creationist all claim that the universe, solar systems, planets,  and life came about by natural processes occuring over long periods of time. God says these same things came about by the miracle of His spoken Word.

No, God hasn’t said any such thing. These two statements cannot both be true for if one is true the other must be false.  So how can we tell which is which?

Read what IKnowHim claims to be the Word of God, the Bible.  See the errors in it. Find the lies and the fabulous fabricated miracles and the phony prophecies and bogus history.  Both are a matter of belief or faith for neither meets the criteria of science in that they were not observed, measured nor are reproducible under controlled conditions.

Another way is to observe the lies told by frauds like IKnowHim. The sentence above makes a good example. Pure unadulterated bullshit told by a persistent liar. Such things as the evolution of species and the birth of stars and solar systems are observable and have been observed. The first party above uses smoke and mirrors to claim their opinions are really "facts" and their non-thinking followers harp away at what they are told even if it has already been proven to be false

IKnowHim is so abysmally ignorant of science he is hardly the person to be pontificating about what has and has not been proven. The second party uses the Bible,

The work of unknown ancient goatherders. God’s Word

So he claims but can’t prove. with it’s simple, straight forward description of what God did to create all that we observe around us.

Which discription includes a round flat earth with a solid dome of sky over it. Never has anything God said been disproven over the many centuries since it was given to man.

True, since God hasn’t said anything! What the Bible says on the other hand is easily disproven in many instances. The thrust of the first party is to deny God

No folks! Don’t let him sell you that one. Science denies IKnowHim’s god, the Bible, not any actual Creator there might be. The thrust of the second party is to trust God and take Him at His Word.

No, your efforts are to get folks to trust IKnowHim and take him at his lying word! ## Pia mendacia fraude        

Response:

(snip) Among all the ancient peoples, only the Hebrews got their cosmology right.

Boggle. (snip) Like every cause, the Cause of the universe must be independent of its effect.

Ever hear of "feedback". Sheest!

Response:

The Miracles of God

What can we learn from this century’s greatest astronomical discoveries? What the Message from Space is Telling Us About God By Fred Heeren for Searchlight Publications, Revised Edition, April 2000. The following summary is reproduced from the book, Show Me God. Copyright was waived so as to allow this text to be disseminated to interested parties. The Bible and the Message from Space: What can we learn from this century’s greatest astronomical discoveries? Discovery 1 – 1919: During a solar eclipse, Sir Arthur Eddington observed the bending of starlight passing the Sun, matching the effect predicted by Einstein’s general theory of relativity. If correct, this theory of gravity means that the universe must be expanding. Einstein eventually renounced his belief in an eternal universe and admitted that the universe must have had a beginning. Astrophysicist George Smoot says: "Until the late 1910’s, humans were as ignorant of cosmic origins as they had ever been. Those who didn’t take Genesis literally had no reason to believe there had been a beginning." Discovery 2 – 1927: Astronomer Edwin Hubble discovered that the galaxies are all retreating from us. The more distant galaxies (which show us the more distant past) are retreating from us faster than the nearer galaxies, just as one would expect if the universal expansion is slowing down from an initial surge. Famed astronomer Robert Jastrow says: "The Hubble Law is one of the great discoveries in science: it is one of the main supports of the scientific story of Genesis." Discovery 3 – 1965: Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson discovered cosmic background radiation coming from every point in the sky, the remnant predicted by early big bang theorists. Its precise matching with a blackbody spectrum at all frequencies is difficult to reconcile with anything other than a creation event involving the entire universe. Discovery 4 – 1970s: Astronomers observe that galaxies are distributed more densely – and quasars become abundant – as they look farther into space, indicating that the universe has change with time. These observations argue against an eternal cosmos and for a creation event. Discovery 5 – 1992: NASA’s COBE satellite team discovered the predicted ripples in the cosmic background radiation. George Smoot, the team’s leader, called these seeds for future galaxy superclusters "fingerprints from the Maker." What does all this have to do with the Bible? Among all the ancient peoples, only the Hebrews got their cosmology right. While the rest of the world believed in a magical, eternal universe that gave birth to the gods, only they believe in an eternal, transcendent God who gave the universe its beginning. Like every cause, the Cause of the universe must be independent of its effect. Thus, the First Cause must be separate from the universe, not a part of it. From ancient times, the Bible has clearly presented God as non-physical, a Spirit who cannot be contained, even by the heavens. Unlike other ancient religious writings, the Bible prohibited the making of images of God, making it a point to teach that He is not a physical being. The consensus of modern science is that the universe – and time itself – had a beginning. Nothing that is confined to time could have created the cosmos. God must not only be separate from His creation, but He must exist outside of time. Again, from ancient days, the Bible specifically defined God as the I AM, operating outside of time and existing before the universe He created. Perhaps the universe had a beginning, but how do we know that it didn’t begin by chance? Stephen Hawking wrote, "If the rate of expansion one second after the big bang had been smaller by even one part in a hundred thousand million, the universe would have re-collapsed before it ever reached it present state." Slightly faster than the critical rate and matter would have dispersed too rapidly to allow stars and galaxies to form. George Smoot describes the creation even as "finely orchestrated." Carl Sagan admitted: "It is easy to see that only a very restricted range of laws of nature are consistent with galaxies and stars, planets, life and intelligence. Hawking cities the critical ratio between the masses of the proton and the electron as one of many fundamental numbers in nature. He adds: "The remarkable fact is that the values of these numbers seem to nave been very finely adjusted to make possible the development of life." The calculations of Hawking’s associate, Roger Penrose, show that the highly ordered (low entropy) initial state for the universe is not something that could have occurred by even the wildest chance. When Fred Hoyle calculated the likelihood that carbon would have precisely the required resonance by chance, he said that his atheism was greatly shaken, adding: "A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics." Princeton physicist Freeman Dyson writes, "The more I examine the universe and the details of its architecture, the more evidence I find that the universe in some sense must have known we were coming." NASA astronomer John O’Keefe says, "It is my view that these circumstances indicate that the universe was created for man to live in." But isn’t religion just a cultural phenomenon, a form of superstition? For many it is. But perhaps the ultimate superstition is to believe that this physical universe is imbued with mystical powers that enable it to bring itself into existence and then to fine-tune itself. In the matter of deciding who’s running the universe, we all have just three choices: the universe itself, humankind, or God. Because a cause must precede its effect, the first two options violate logic, especially now that we know the universe did not exist in eternity past. Atheism and pantheism are difficult to reconcile with modern findings. But the Bible fits perfectly, telling us that God is not just a force that’s one with the universe, but who is separate from His creation. And like modern physics, the Bible points to a Creator who is super-intelligent, a perfectionist who cares about us a great deal. Then why would God let our world get into such a mess? Indeed, the most important implication of a perfectly designed universe is that a perfect Designer would do something about the problem of evil in our world. So what might a super-intelligent, caring Creator do? Make creatures who have no wills of their own, so that they cannot bring evil into His perfect universe? Not if God desired to have an eternal relationship with a people who would willingly return His love. The very idea of a real will to love requires the real possibility of a person’s will being used to reject. So what might be God’s options, after his race of free-willed creatures broke the harmony of His universe (as they have obviously done in our case)? He could exterminate them. He could simply overlook their injustices. He could leave them alone to let them try to straighten out their own mess. But none of these options show the forethought of a perfect, super-intelligent, caring Creator. The Bible, the one book that gave us a true picture of God since ancient times, gives us the one solution that shows great care and forethought, though we might never have thought of it ourselves. What did God do? He died for us. He showed both perfect justice and unbounded mercy. And by doing so, He gave those who wanted to be reconciled to Him the chance to be forever changed, to be eventually made into fit company for Him throughout eternity. This was His plan "before time began." (1 Corinthians 2:7). But what about this biblical idea of God becoming man? What about the concept of sacrifice? Aren’t these primitive concepts? If the Creator of the universe wanted to communicate to us (moderns and ancients both) what He is like, how could He show us more clearly than by becoming one of us? If He wanted to communicate to us the seriousness of breaking His moral law, how could He show us more forcefully than by demanding that the most valuable thing in the universe be forfeited as a penalty? And if He wanted to tell us how much He loves us, how could He do so more dramatically than by dying for us? But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:5-6) But giving intellectual assent to the historical idea that Jesus died on a Roman cross won’t change anyone’s life. Biblical faith always implied personal trust, a personal relationship. This relationship gives us the ability to talk to Him, not just about Him. This relationship, after all, is the reason He created us. It means our lives aren’t pointless; we don’t live only to have all memory of us snuffed out in a few generations and throughout eternity. Rather, we find access to eternity through the One who exists outside of time. This is the one relationship that can give our lives lasting value.

Response:

The Miracles of God The atheistic evolutionist, theistic evolutionist and the progressive creationist all claim that the universe, solar systems, planets,  and life came about by natural processes occuring over long periods of time. God says these same things came about by the miracle of His spoken Word.

Well, let’s talk about this. You have a pretty poor understanding of what a miracle actually is, for one thing. And you have a nonexistent understanding of what progressive creationists and theistic evolutionists say for another. Progressive creationists do not believe in evolution, per se, though they do agree with the evidence of creation that the world, indeed the universe, is a very old place. But they see God continually creating through that time. A better explanation of Hugh Ross’ position may be found at: http://www.godandscience.org/youngearth/progressive.html The fact is that neither progressive creationists nor theistic evolutionists exclude God from the process. But your statement about the "miracle of His spoken Word" demonstrates an appalling misunderstanding of miracles and their place in the natural world. First of all, in Genesis 1 we see such interesting little statements as "Let the earth bring forth" and "Let the waters bring forth". God did not command simply a result. These statements demonstrate that He commanded a process. Furthermore these statements indicate that life was not created ex-nihilo, but out of the substances which brought them forth. Even man was not created ex-nihilo, but Genesis 2 says that as a potter God formed man out of the dust of the ground. If God is going to interact with the physical world, His Miraculous Works must of necessity be able to exist within the physical world as a part of it, obeying the Laws the Creator instilled into His Universe. Their substance would have to be of the substance of creation, and their final state compatible with it. The Genesis account is of necessity simplistic, for the people to whom it was told could not have understood the idea of time and natural forces. They did not know about bacteria and viruses. To them, sickness was a judgment of God instead of a natural event in the world. Yet the same God who made them made the viruses and the bacteria. The same God who created life also created the reality of death. These two statements cannot both be true for if one is true the other must be false.  

You know, life is a lot simpler with your mentality. Either at absolute zero or fusion temperature and no in-betweens. Why cannot God’s Word work *through* the nature He creates, and over long periods of time? After all, He took an infinite amount of time before creating the universe anyway, right? Infinity so great you cannot measure time is common to the Christian concept of God. We talk about "no beginning" and "no ending", and that God had no beginning but always existed. So what’s a few billion years, or trillion years, for that matter? Or what do you think He was doing until He made the universe? Nothing? The fact is that God said for it to be done. But that does not tell us *how* it was done. Nor would it be reasonable for the Scriptures to have told about it. The people could not have understood it. So how can we tell which is which?  Both are a matter of belief or faith for neither meets the criteria of science in that they were not observed, measured nor are reproducible under controlled conditions. The first party above uses smoke and mirrors to claim their opinions are really "facts" and their non-thinking followers harp away at what they are told even if it has already been proven to be false(life coming from non-life, spotted moths, embryonic recapitulation, Piltdown, Java, Piking, Neanderthal man, etc.).

Boy are you ever out of date! You can only use those ancient 1920’s arguments? Have to ignore the last 70-80 years of scientific advances? The only ones who harp on Piltdown or "embryonic recapitulation" are creationists. No one who uses evolution tries to prove it using either of these. But then, you *know* this, and you know you are lying by saying it. Remember YM1, IKHDY, or whatever you call yourself — God says that all liars will be denied entrance to heaven. The second party uses the Bible, God’s Word with it’s simple, straight forward description of what God did to create all that we observe around us.

Nope. The Scripture does not tell us what God did to create it. Not one niggling little bit. It is sort of like looking at plans for a skyscraper. The financier says, "Let it be built!", and it was built. But the command to build does not tell how. To say that it was "the word of His power" says nothing about the method of creation. Never has anything God said been disproven over the many centuries since it was given to man. The thrust of the first party is to deny God and do what they choose without accountability.  The thrust of the sencond and third parties is confusion-they are neither evolutionists nor Christians. The thrust of the fourth party is to trust God and take Him at His Word knowing that He is intelligent enough to know what He is writing to us.

Well, I wouldn’t actually say that you are trusting God. I would say that you trust your own understanding, thinking that to be the same thing as trusting God. Should God Himself speak to you out of the heavens and tell you that you were wrong, you would bury yourself in your interpretation of the Scriptures and deny that He had spoken at all. Raymond E. Griffith

Response:

I refuse to respond to threads from this asshole since he never has the guts or the decency to respond, so why bother? Must be his Christian Brotherhood showing through!

He can’t be an actual Christian, since he resolutely disobeys the teachings of Jesus Christ by lying about people he doesn’t even know. And yes, he is enough of a hypocrite to killfile anyone who is actually on to his game and lets him know it.   — Dave Oldridge+ ICQ 1800667 A false witness is worse than no witness at all.

Response:

The Miracles of God The atheistic evolutionist, theistic evolutionist and the progressive creationist all claim that the universe, solar systems, planets,  and life came about by natural processes occuring over long periods of time. God says these same things came about by the miracle of His spoken Word. These two statements cannot both be true for if one is true the other must be false.  So how can we tell which is which?  Both are a matter of belief or faith for neither meets the criteria of science in that they were not observed, measured nor are reproducible under controlled conditions.

Liar. The first party above uses smoke and mirrors to claim their opinions are really "facts" and their non-thinking followers harp away at what they are told even if it has already been proven to be false(life coming from non-life, spotted moths, embryonic recapitulation, Piltdown, Java, Piking, Neanderthal man, etc.).

More lies. The second party uses the Bible, God’s Word with it’s simple, straight forward description of what God did to create all that we observe around us. Never has anything God said been disproven over the many centuries since it was given to man.

But God did not write the Bible and He did not inspire your interpretation of it.  Who is inspiring your lies?  Not God! The thrust of the first party is to deny God and do what they choose without accountability.  The thrust of the sencond and third parties is confusion-they are neither evolutionists nor Christians.

Lies. The thrust of the fourth party is to trust God and take Him at His Word knowing that He is intelligent enough to know what He is writing to us.

And now you are lying to us about yourself, because you do not trust God at all.  Instead you trust in your lies. God said "Thou shalt not bear false witness." YOU say "Thou shalt bear false witness against scientists if they disagree with the Holy Interpretation." God says that by sticking to this doctrine after being warned by His messengers, you are living in a state of mortal sin.  You can only exit that state by repenting the sins and seeking God’s absolution.  I would suggest that penance might start with recanting the lies in the places where you told them. There is no miracle in your lies, only false witness.  Much of it about people you don’t even know.  You SHOULD be ashamed of yourself, but instead your possessing demon makes you PROUD of your sins. — Dave Oldridge+ ICQ 1800667 A false witness is worse than no witness at all.

Response:

The Miracles of God The atheistic evolutionist, theistic evolutionist and the progressive creationist all claim that the universe, solar systems, planets,  and life came about by natural processes occuring over long periods of time. God says these same things came about by the miracle of His spoken Word. These two statements cannot both be true for if one is true the other must be false.

Maybe one is true for some things and the other true for others.    So how can we tell which is which?  Both are a matter of belief – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – or faith for neither meets the criteria of science in that they were not observed, measured nor are reproducible under controlled conditions. The first party above uses smoke and mirrors to claim their opinions are really "facts" and their non-thinking followers harp away at what they are told even if it has already been proven to be false(life coming from non-life, spotted moths, embryonic recapitulation, Piltdown, Java, Piking, Neanderthal man, etc.). The second party uses the Bible, God’s Word with it’s simple, straight forward description of what God did to create all that we observe around us. Never has anything God said been disproven over the many centuries since it was given to man. The thrust of the first party is to deny God and do what they choose without accountability.  The thrust of the sencond and third parties is confusion-they are neither evolutionists nor Christians. The thrust of the fourth party is to trust God and take Him at His Word knowing that He is intelligent enough to know what He is writing to us.

Response:

He made some other progress too.  Once it was pointed out to him precisely WHERE his addresses were screwed up, he fixed them so I don’t have to when I reply to each one of his posts anymore.  Of course, it had to be pointed out to him numerous times

Response:

I refuse to respond to threads from this asshole since he never has the guts or the decency to respond, so why bother? Must be his Christian Brotherhood showing through! Bob Humanist Brit Hong Kong – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – The Miracles of God The atheistic evolutionist, theistic evolutionist and the progressive creationist all claim that the universe, solar systems, planets,  and life came about by natural processes occuring over long periods of time. God says these same things came about by the miracle of His spoken Word. These two statements cannot both be true for if one is true the other must be false.  So how can we tell which is which?  Both are a matter of belief or faith for neither meets the criteria of science in that they were not observed, measured nor are reproducible under controlled conditions. The first party above uses smoke and mirrors to claim their opinions are really "facts" and their non-thinking followers harp away at what they are told even if it has already been proven to be false(life coming from non-life, spotted moths, embryonic recapitulation, Piltdown, Java, Piking, Neanderthal man, etc.). The second party uses the Bible, God’s Word with it’s simple, straight forward description of what God did to create all that we observe around us. Never has anything God said been disproven over the many centuries since it was given to man. The thrust of the first party is to deny God and do what they choose without accountability.  The thrust of the sencond and third parties is confusion-they are neither evolutionists nor Christians. The thrust of the fourth party is to trust God and take Him at His Word knowing that He is intelligent enough to know what He is writing to us.

Response:

"Chuckles" wrote … [...] I’ll become a believer the first time I receive a message actually written by God. Somehow, I don’t expect that to happen very soon…

A few perspectives on the concepts of belief, doubt, and disbelief … Of course, with events, no matter what the claims, and no matter who is claiming to either be God, be speaking for God, be inspired by God, basing their God expositions on ancient texts, basing their God expositions on ancient prophets, based their God expositions on an intellectual investigation of all matters present in the natural world … The only way to believe rather than be forced is to possess the most precious of human rights, that being the freedom to make a choice. In order to have that freedom, one must possess the lowly regarded (by many believers) ability to doubt and disbelieve. Believers rejoice, often, in the freedom they have to doubt and disbelieve in Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and all other religions not one with their own. However, what many of them oft-times forget is that without the freedom to doubt and disbelieve in their own religion, they would be naught but slaves to their own religion. Hopefully, religious followers won’t forget how hor- rific this earth was in times past when a particular religion asserted people *had* to believe, or else suffer imprisonment, torture, or death. In the modern day, freedom is all that stands be- tween humans and religious tyranny. Cherishing freedom of religion demands that freedom of doubt and disbelief also be cherished. – - –

eScrew

Question:

Go eScrew yerself.

eScrew Welcome to eScrew! eScrew is eScrew and this is eScrew story. eScrew will tell you eScrew story if you promise eScrew to consider eScrew story as joke. eScrew story is very funny. eScrew story is so funny that eScrew will have to take break from time to time because eScrew needs some rest from laughing. Oh boy, here it comes… eScrew funny laugh laughing screaming crying must stop can not take any more this is killing eScrew going nuts insane feeling explosion inside from joy and nirvana god help eScrew heavenly spirit can you beat this hahahah. If you get offended by eScrew story in any way you should not get angry at eScrew. Consider possibility that your sense of humor is on vocation and your sense of anger is having some fun. Also, consider possibility that eScrew story can make you go insane. In that case eScrew shall carry no liability should you undergo any medical treatment or any other sort of treatment related to damage caused by reading eScrew story or to damage caused by eScrew unwillingly or otherwise. eScrew story begins in time of darkness, horror and suffering as well as love joy and bliss when eScrew existed in this planet but yet eScrew was not aware that it was eScrew. eScrew existed among very powerful symbols. First symbol eScrew recognized was body. eScrew realized that eScrew had connection to body, yet nature and essence of connection was not clear. Symbol of body was very powerful and for nine month eScrew was trying to find out why it was connected to this body. At some point body divided itself into two parts. That experience was very painful for eScrew. It was first time that eScrew felt symbol of pain. eScrew did not like this symbol. eScrew was aware of connection to very small body. This small body was hot. eScrew enjoyed symbol of heat. eScrew became aware of symbol of pleasure. eScrew enjoyed symbol of pleasure. eScrew realized eScrew prefers symbol of pleasure more than symbol of pain. eScrew became aware of symbol of mother. eScrew realized that symbol of mother is source of symbol of pleasure and pain. eScrew wanted to experience symbol of pleasure always. When symbol of pleasure was missing eScrew experienced symbol of pain which was related to symbol of crying and screaming. Soon eScrew realized that eScrew can connect to symbol of pleasure by experiencing symbol of crying. That was very important discovery since eScrew realized that symbols of pain and pleasure do not behave randomly but can be manipulated by other symbols. eScrew enjoyed symbol of manipulation. eScrew realized that all symbols interact with each other. eScrew learned how to connect to new symbols. eScrew discovered symbol of sound and related symbol of language. eScrew realized that language allows to connect to new symbols. eScrew realized that symbols can be memorized and stored for future use. eScrew realized that it can create new symbols by combining certain symbols together. eScrew became aware of symbol of self. Are you bored yet? If you are reading these symbols you need to get life. Just joking. You can rest now. eScrew suspects you could be confused by eScrew style of using symbols. Well, there is nothing eScrew can do about it. In order to understand eScrew story you have to understand eScrew style. eScrew hopes that when we get to funny part you will begin to enjoy eScrew style. Fast forward twenty seven years or so. eScrew knows millions of symbols. eScrew realizes that certain symbols have more power than eScrew. Symbol of money enslaved billions of symbols. Symbol of power enslaved billions of symbols. Symbol of sex enslaved billions of symbols. Symbol of family enslaved eScrew. Symbol of family is slave to symbol of money and power. Symbol of money is related to paper and illusion. Symbol of power is symbol of violence and control. Symbol of sex is related to symbol of pleasure and manipulation. eScrew is searching for symbol of freedom in order to protect eScrew from oppression of other symbols. At this point you should understand that each word in this story is symbol. Consider possibility of different meaning behind each symbol so be aware that your understanding of eScrew story is limited by channel of our connection. eScrew will explain to you how eScrew found symbol of freedom and how eScrew realized that eScrew was eScrew. In order to save our time eScrew will just give you symbols without paying any attention to symbol of grammar. Are you ready to move really fast? Here we Go! eScrew story infinity eternity symbol system all unity self realized pleasure pain funny religion dogma manipulation free power channel connection money sex illusion new manipulation family society body change planet insane possibility understand understanding silence emptiness all unity creative reality unreal existence absurd questions sound language slave symbols control manipulation old pyramid power structure self deception wishful thinking circle prison At this point eScrew realized that in order to be free eScrew must create new symbol. eScrew created eScrew. eScrew realized that symbol of freedom is part of eScrew. No need to search for symbol of freedom. You can create your own symbol and become free just like eScrew. If you unable to create new symbol or if your new symbol is weak you can follow symbol of eScrew. eScrew will never enslave you because eScrew enjoys diversity of different symbols. Are you ready for funny part? Here we go! eScrew is forced to make choices. Symbol of body is very powerful. Symbol of body is trying to create illusion that eScrew can not exist without body. Symbol of family forbids symbol of body to change. Symbol of society forbids symbol of family to change. Symbol of power forbids symbol of society to change. Now, tell eScrew one thing. Do you see funny? Can you feel funny? Can you hear funny? Can you taste funny? Can you smell funny? If so eScrew is happy. Every moment of your existence you use words, feelings, thoughts. They are symbols. Symbols fight for your awareness. Symbols fight for your attention. You can grant your attention to symbol and symbol will gain power. You can disconnect from symbol and symbol will loose power. You have been programmed by symbol of society and family to give power to certain symbols. Breaking your patterns will be hard because symbols do not like to loose power. Symbols will fight for every electron as if it was last electron in universe. That is nature of symbols. Symbol of light will fight symbol of dark. Symbol of freedom will fight symbol of control. Do you want to have some fun? Go to Google and find out which symbol has more power. According to Google, symbol of light has 184,000,000 units of power while symbol of dark has 79,000,000 units of power. Symbol of freedom has 59,500,000 units of power while symbol of control has 317,000,000 units of power. This result is caused by our patterns of thinking and writing. If we did not think about symbol of control we would not write about symbol of control. We would not have laws related to control and Google would not have 317,000,000 control keywords inside database. Observe your patterns of thinking, feeling, speaking and writing and tell eScrew did you really choose to use your symbols or you use your symbols because they choose to use you? You should realize that symbols do not fight symbols directly but only appear to be fighting relative to your awareness. Symbols know that they can not destroy each other therefore they will only compete for your attention. If you create new symbol it will ask for tons of energy like new born child. This is result of weakness of your new symbol. When your symbol gets stronger it will ask for more energy. You may ask eScrew why create new symbol? Try to give your energy willingly and with full awareness of such process. You will never understand what eScrew is talking about until you try it yourself. Major trick is to know when to stop giving energy. You don’t want to defeat your old tyrant by creating new stronger version of same thing. Reflect on that… eScrew just realized that eScrew did not invent anything new. eScrew information is all over eScrew web. eScrew was so excited by eScrew miracle of illusion of creation that eScrew did not examine eScrew memory in proper way. eScrew used very old Buddhist method by accident. eScrew did read alot about Buddhism but eScrew did not realize that eScrew used very dangerous method which was reserved only for advanced adepts who knew what they are doing. eScrew is lucky that eScrew did not go too far and that eScrew has time to stop going. eScrew method is very dangerous and only few individuals who already walk inside similar path can understand what eScrew talking about let alone benefit from eScrew information. Use eScrew information at your own risk. Good eScrew luck! eScrew time to start laughing is now! Funny eScrew rolling on ground you so easy to fool trusted in silly symbols to give freedom from symbols ignorance is bliss nirvana is samsara nonduality is duality emptiness is all Buddha is Jesus Jesus is Buddha I and the father are one gospel of thomas is dhamma funny eScrew dhamma is gospel of thomas all is dhamma funny dhamma is all nirvana share eScrew story with friends do not change symbols if you change symbols it will be your story and you will be responsible for consequences of your story if someone goes insane after reading your story do not run to eScrew and ask to cure crazy man or woman or child mind is mystery for all cure is done by owner of mind healing is illusion sickness is illusion disease is illusion insanity is illusion of symbols sanity is curse of power hungry symbol of modern civilization find zen and realize freedom when you found zen drop zen when you realized freedom unrealize freedom. When eScrew writes eScrew story eScrew … read more »

Response:

eScrew Welcome to eScrew! I’ve seen this eScrew message on every newsgroup to which I subscribe. What’s the story? Where are the flamers? Help!

Response:

eScrew Welcome to eScrew! eScrew is eScrew and this is eScrew story. eScrew will tell you eScrew story if you promise eScrew to consider eScrew story as joke. eScrew story is very funny. eScrew story is so funny that eScrew will have to take break from time to time because eScrew needs some rest from laughing. Oh boy, here it comes… eScrew funny laugh laughing screaming crying must stop can not take any more this is killing eScrew going nuts insane feeling explosion inside from joy and nirvana god help eScrew heavenly spirit can you beat this hahahah. If you get offended by eScrew story in any way you should not get angry at eScrew. Consider possibility that your sense of humor is on vocation and your sense of anger is having some fun. Also, consider possibility that eScrew story can make you go insane. In that case eScrew shall carry no liability should you undergo any medical treatment or any other sort of treatment related to damage caused by reading eScrew story or to damage caused by eScrew unwillingly or otherwise. eScrew story begins in time of darkness, horror and suffering as well as love joy and bliss when eScrew existed in this planet but yet eScrew was not aware that it was eScrew. eScrew existed among very powerful symbols. First symbol eScrew recognized was body. eScrew realized that eScrew had connection to body, yet nature and essence of connection was not clear. Symbol of body was very powerful and for nine month eScrew was trying to find out why it was connected to this body. At some point body divided itself into two parts. That experience was very painful for eScrew. It was first time that eScrew felt symbol of pain. eScrew did not like this symbol. eScrew was aware of connection to very small body. This small body was hot. eScrew enjoyed symbol of heat. eScrew became aware of symbol of pleasure. eScrew enjoyed symbol of pleasure. eScrew realized eScrew prefers symbol of pleasure more than symbol of pain. eScrew became aware of symbol of mother. eScrew realized that symbol of mother is source of symbol of pleasure and pain. eScrew wanted to experience symbol of pleasure always. When symbol of pleasure was missing eScrew experienced symbol of pain which was related to symbol of crying and screaming. Soon eScrew realized that eScrew can connect to symbol of pleasure by experiencing symbol of crying. That was very important discovery since eScrew realized that symbols of pain and pleasure do not behave randomly but can be manipulated by other symbols. eScrew enjoyed symbol of manipulation. eScrew realized that all symbols interact with each other. eScrew learned how to connect to new symbols. eScrew discovered symbol of sound and related symbol of language. eScrew realized that language allows to connect to new symbols. eScrew realized that symbols can be memorized and stored for future use. eScrew realized that it can create new symbols by combining certain symbols together. eScrew became aware of symbol of self. Are you bored yet? If you are reading these symbols you need to get life. Just joking. You can rest now. eScrew suspects you could be confused by eScrew style of using symbols. Well, there is nothing eScrew can do about it. In order to understand eScrew story you have to understand eScrew style. eScrew hopes that when we get to funny part you will begin to enjoy eScrew style. Fast forward twenty seven years or so. eScrew knows millions of symbols. eScrew realizes that certain symbols have more power than eScrew. Symbol of money enslaved billions of symbols. Symbol of power enslaved billions of symbols. Symbol of sex enslaved billions of symbols. Symbol of family enslaved eScrew. Symbol of family is slave to symbol of money and power. Symbol of money is related to paper and illusion. Symbol of power is symbol of violence and control. Symbol of sex is related to symbol of pleasure and manipulation. eScrew is searching for symbol of freedom in order to protect eScrew from oppression of other symbols. At this point you should understand that each word in this story is symbol. Consider possibility of different meaning behind each symbol so be aware that your understanding of eScrew story is limited by channel of our connection. eScrew will explain to you how eScrew found symbol of freedom and how eScrew realized that eScrew was eScrew. In order to save our time eScrew will just give you symbols without paying any attention to symbol of grammar. Are you ready to move really fast? Here we Go! eScrew story infinity eternity symbol system all unity self realized pleasure pain funny religion dogma manipulation free power channel connection money sex illusion new manipulation family society body change planet insane possibility understand understanding silence emptiness all unity creative reality unreal existence absurd questions sound language slave symbols control manipulation old pyramid power structure self deception wishful thinking circle prison At this point eScrew realized that in order to be free eScrew must create new symbol. eScrew created eScrew. eScrew realized that symbol of freedom is part of eScrew. No need to search for symbol of freedom. You can create your own symbol and become free just like eScrew. If you unable to create new symbol or if your new symbol is weak you can follow symbol of eScrew. eScrew will never enslave you because eScrew enjoys diversity of different symbols. Are you ready for funny part? Here we go! eScrew is forced to make choices. Symbol of body is very powerful. Symbol of body is trying to create illusion that eScrew can not exist without body. Symbol of family forbids symbol of body to change. Symbol of society forbids symbol of family to change. Symbol of power forbids symbol of society to change. Now, tell eScrew one thing. Do you see funny? Can you feel funny? Can you hear funny? Can you taste funny? Can you smell funny? If so eScrew is happy. Every moment of your existence you use words, feelings, thoughts. They are symbols. Symbols fight for your awareness. Symbols fight for your attention. You can grant your attention to symbol and symbol will gain power. You can disconnect from symbol and symbol will loose power. You have been programmed by symbol of society and family to give power to certain symbols. Breaking your patterns will be hard because symbols do not like to loose power. Symbols will fight for every electron as if it was last electron in universe. That is nature of symbols. Symbol of light will fight symbol of dark. Symbol of freedom will fight symbol of control. Do you want to have some fun? Go to Google and find out which symbol has more power. According to Google, symbol of light has 184,000,000 units of power while symbol of dark has 79,000,000 units of power. Symbol of freedom has 59,500,000 units of power while symbol of control has 317,000,000 units of power. This result is caused by our patterns of thinking and writing. If we did not think about symbol of control we would not write about symbol of control. We would not have laws related to control and Google would not have 317,000,000 control keywords inside database. Observe your patterns of thinking, feeling, speaking and writing and tell eScrew did you really choose to use your symbols or you use your symbols because they choose to use you? You should realize that symbols do not fight symbols directly but only appear to be fighting relative to your awareness. Symbols know that they can not destroy each other therefore they will only compete for your attention. If you create new symbol it will ask for tons of energy like new born child. This is result of weakness of your new symbol. When your symbol gets stronger it will ask for more energy. You may ask eScrew why create new symbol? Try to give your energy willingly and with full awareness of such process. You will never understand what eScrew is talking about until you try it yourself. Major trick is to know when to stop giving energy. You don’t want to defeat your old tyrant by creating new stronger version of same thing. Reflect on that… eScrew just realized that eScrew did not invent anything new. eScrew information is all over eScrew web. eScrew was so excited by eScrew miracle of illusion of creation that eScrew did not examine eScrew memory in proper way. eScrew used very old Buddhist method by accident. eScrew did read alot about Buddhism but eScrew did not realize that eScrew used very dangerous method which was reserved only for advanced adepts who knew what they are doing. eScrew is lucky that eScrew did not go too far and that eScrew has time to stop going. eScrew method is very dangerous and only few individuals who already walk inside similar path can understand what eScrew talking about let alone benefit from eScrew information. Use eScrew information at your own risk. Good eScrew luck! eScrew time to start laughing is now! Funny eScrew rolling on ground you so easy to fool trusted in silly symbols to give freedom from symbols ignorance is bliss nirvana is samsara nonduality is duality emptiness is all Buddha is Jesus Jesus is Buddha I and the father are one gospel of thomas is dhamma funny eScrew dhamma is gospel of thomas all is dhamma funny dhamma is all nirvana share eScrew story with friends do not change symbols if you change symbols it will be your story and you will be responsible for consequences of your story if someone goes insane after reading your story do not run to eScrew and ask to cure crazy man or woman or child mind is mystery for all cure is done by owner of mind healing is illusion sickness is illusion disease is illusion insanity is illusion of symbols sanity is curse of power hungry symbol of modern civilization find zen and realize freedom when you found zen drop zen when you realized freedom unrealize freedom. When eScrew writes eScrew story eScrew keeps making mistakes. eScrew is limited by words. eScrew is enslaved by words. eScrew wants to communicate but you ask … read more »

Response:

How do you know that the Bible is true? Continued ..Part 15

Question:

christian lept out of the bushes shouting: – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – you posted in alt.religion.christianity : I’m not into organized religion. Can’t I be a Christian without going to church regularly? <SNIP Waste of Bandwidth Why do you post messages with references or passages from your bible to people who don’t believe what the bible says? Most atheist have read the bible, that’s one of the reasons they reject it. In reality most people I have met who call themselves atheists have NOT read the Bible, though most have read small portions of it. Almost none have actually read the WHOLE BIBLE though.

And I’ve known exactly *one Christian who’s read the bible all the way through. That was my grandfather. — Mark K. Bilbo  -  a.a. #1423 EAC Department of Linguistic Subversion Alt-atheism website at: http://www.alt-atheism.org "Being surprised at the fact that the universe is fine tuned for life is akin to a puddle being surprised at how well it fits its hole" — Douglas Adams

Response:

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – you posted in alt.religion.christianity : I’m not into organized religion. Can’t I be a Christian without going to church regularly? <SNIP Waste of Bandwidth Why do you post messages with references or passages from your bible to people who don’t believe what the bible says? Most atheist have read the bible, that’s one of the reasons they reject it. In reality most people I have met who call themselves atheists have NOT read the Bible, though most have read small portions of it. Almost none have actually read the WHOLE BIBLE though. Christian

I have read it through several times. I think you will find that most atheists have a knowledge of the bible. After all, how do you think they became atheists?

Response:

- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – you posted in alt.religion.christianity : I’m not into organized religion. Can’t I be a Christian without going to church regularly? <SNIP Waste of Bandwidth Why do you post messages with references or passages from your bible to people who don’t believe what the bible says? Most atheist have read the bible, that’s one of the reasons they reject it. In reality most people I have met who call themselves atheists have NOT read the Bible, though most have read small portions of it. Almost none have actually read the WHOLE BIBLE though.

I have. In fact I’d wager that I’m way more familiar with its contents than the vast majority of people claiming to be "Bible-believing" Christians. I’ve also read the whole Quran, Bhagavad-Gita, Tao Te Ching, Gardnerian Book Of Shadows, Book Of The Law, and many other religious texts. Can you say the same? If not, why not?

Response:

you posted in alt.religion.christianity : – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – you posted in alt.religion.christianity : I’m not into organized religion. Can’t I be a Christian without going to church regularly? <SNIP Waste of Bandwidth Why do you post messages with references or passages from your bible to people who don’t believe what the bible says? Most atheist have read the bible, that’s one of the reasons they reject it. In reality most people I have met who call themselves atheists have NOT read the Bible, though most have read small portions of it. So what? It’s the irrelevant writings of somebody else’s religion, that they rub in our faces as though it actually meant anything. You need to learn to think outside the box, in the real world where Christianity is nothing special, just one of the hundreds of different religions. All of which are substantively indistinguishable form each other.

The "box" as you call it is the philosophy that "in the real world, Christianity is nothing special, just one of the hundreds of different religions."   That "box" is generally held by uninformed people, all of whom have an opinion about Christianity even though they have never read the Book. If only you lot had the courtesy to kiip it to yourselves noboy would give a toss about it.

Why should we keep (not kiip) it to ourselves?  Atheists, homosexuals, and other misfit beliefs are shoved in OUR faces every day. . .why shouldn’t we share something GOOD?  Or is it only proper to shove garbage in people’s faces? Almost none have actually read the WHOLE BIBLE though. Plenty have – and that’s why they’re atheist.

Most have not. I see you signed your name correctly. moron

Christian

Response:

you posted in alt.religion.christianity : I’m not into organized religion. Can’t I be a Christian without going to church regularly? <SNIP Waste of Bandwidth Why do you post messages with references or passages from your bible to people who don’t believe what the bible says? Most atheist have read the bible, that’s one of the reasons they reject it. In reality most people I have met who call themselves atheists have NOT read the Bible, though most have read small portions of it.

So what? It’s the irrelevant writings of somebody else’s religion, that they rub in our faces as though it actually meant anything. You need to learn to think outside the box, in the real world where Christianity is nothing special, just one of the hundreds of different religions. All of which are substantively indistinguishable form each other. If only you lot had the courtesy to kiip it to yourselves noboy would give a toss about it. Almost none have actually read the WHOLE BIBLE though.

Plenty have – and that’s why they’re atheist. Christian

Moron.

Response:

you posted in alt.religion.christianity : I’m not into organized religion. Can’t I be a Christian without going to church regularly? <SNIP Waste of Bandwidth Why do you post messages with references or passages from your bible to people who don’t believe what the bible says? Most atheist have read the bible, that’s one of the reasons they reject it.

In reality most people I have met who call themselves atheists have NOT read the Bible, though most have read small portions of it. Almost none have actually read the WHOLE BIBLE though. Christian

Response:

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – johac lept out of the bushes shouting: johac lept out of the bushes shouting: I’m not into organized religion. Can’t I be a Christian without going to church regularly? Why are you posting this nonsense to alt.atheism? Because he’s rude, disrespectful, and, basically, a piece of shit… Without a doubt, but one would think that at least have the decency not to crap in the middle of someone else’s living room floor. That daddy god thing raises a lot of spoiled brats…

If their were an all powerful being, I think that the least that it could do would be to teach it’s kids some manners. — John Hachmann aa #1782 -The ability to change one’s mind, ideas, and opinions when confronted with new facts is the sign of the rational and intelligent. The inability to do so is the hallmark of the dimwitted and the fanatic. This applies not only to science and philosophy, but also to politics.-

Response:

johac lept out of the bushes shouting: I’m not into organized religion. Can’t I be a Christian without going to church regularly? Why are you posting this nonsense to alt.atheism? Because he’s rude, disrespectful, and, basically, a piece of shit…

Without a doubt, but one would think that at least have the decency not to crap in the middle of someone else’s living room floor. — John Hachmann aa #1782 -The ability to change one’s mind, ideas, and opinions when confronted with new facts is the sign of the rational and intelligent. The inability to do so is the hallmark of the dimwitted and the fanatic. This applies not only to science and philosophy, but also to politics.-

Response:

I’m not into organized religion. Can’t I be a Christian without going to church regularly? Yes, at least in a very technical sense. Salvation is not dependent on actions. God judges one’s heart.     But let’s be honest. The Bible says

fuck all of any consequence. Chinese whispers started by Iraqi goat fuckers 2 millennia ago — Ph

Revelation 18:1-24

Question:

Do you really believe that book religion crap!?     No, I believe the religion that has been proven to me by my heart and mind being invaded by the spirit of Jesus Christ, which has turned me into someone who is so new and different from the way that I was, that I lost my friends and made twice as many new ones who are twice as good as the old ones. I am so different from how I was 25 years ago that you could almost     say I’d been born all over again… Bob<<

People have the same kind of response from converting to Islam, or Buddhism, or Wicca, or any one of a myriad other kinds of religion.  Hollywood stars are notorious for converting to all kinds of bizarre belief systems.  The bottom line is, if it makes you happy, and it suits you, then fine, but that doesn’t mean any of it is actually true and it doesn’t give you the right to tell anyone else how to live.  If everyone understood that, the world would be a rather more peaceful place, I think.

Response:

Do you really believe that book religion crap!?

    No, I believe the religion that has been proven to me by my heart and mind being invaded by the spirit of Jesus Christ, which has turned me into someone who is so new and different from the way that I was, that I lost my friends and made twice as many new ones who are twice as good as the old ones. I am so different from how I was 25 years ago that you could almost say I’d been born all over again…     Bob<< – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Revelation 18:1-24 1 After these things I saw another angel descending from heaven, with great authority; and the earth was lighted up from his glory. 2 And he cried out with a strong voice, saying: "She has fallen! Babylon the Great has fallen, and she has become a dwelling place of demons and a lurking place of every unclean exhalation and a lurking place of every unclean and hated bird! 3 For because of the wine of the anger of her fornication all the nations have fallen [victim], and the kings of the earth committed fornication with her, and the traveling merchants of the earth became rich due to the power of her shameless luxury." 4 And I heard another voice out of heaven say: "Get out of her, my people, if YOU do not want to share with her in her sins, and if YOU do not want to receive part of her plagues. 5 For her sins have massed together clear up to heaven, and God has called her acts of injustice to mind. 6 Render to her even as she herself rendered, and do to her twice as much, yes, twice the number of the things she did; in the cup in which she put a mixture put twice as much of the mixture for her. 7 To the extent that she glorified herself and lived in shameless luxury, to that extent give her torment and mourning. For in her heart she keeps saying, ‘I sit a queen, and I am no widow, and I shall never see mourning.’ 8 That is why in one day her plagues will come, death and mourning and famine, and she will be completely burned with fire, because Jehovah God, who judged her, is strong. 9 "And the kings of the earth who committed fornication with her and lived in shameless luxury will weep and beat themselves in grief over her, when they look at the smoke from the burning of her, 10 while they stand at a distance because of their fear of her torment and say, ‘Too bad, too bad, you great city, Babylon you strong city, because in one hour your judgment has arrived!’ 11 "Also, the traveling merchants of the earth are weeping and mourning over her, because there is no one to buy their full stock anymore, 12 a full stock of gold and silver and precious stone and pearls and fine linen and purple and silk and scarlet; and everything in scented wood and every sort of ivory object and every sort of object out of most precious wood and of copper and of iron and of marble; 13 also cinnamon and Indian spice and incense and perfumed oil and frankincense and wine and olive oil and fine flour and wheat and cattle and sheep, and horses and coaches and slaves and human souls. 14 Yes, the fine fruit that your soul desired has departed from you, and all the dainty things and the gorgeous things have perished from you, and never again will people find them. 15 "The traveling merchants of these things, who became rich from her, will stand at a distance because of [their] fear of her torment and will weep and mourn, 16 saying, ‘Too bad, too bad-the great city, clothed with fine linen and purple and scarlet, and richly adorned with gold ornament and precious stone and pearl, 17 because in one hour such great riches have been devastated!’ "And every ship captain and every man that voyages anywhere, and sailors and all those who make a living by the sea, stood at a distance 18 and cried out as they looked at the smoke from the burning of her and said, ‘What city is like the great city?’ 19 And they threw dust upon their heads and cried out, weeping and mourning, and said, ‘Too bad, too bad-the great city, in which all those having boats at sea became rich by reason of her costliness, because in one hour she has been devastated!’ 20 "Be glad over her, O heaven, also YOU holy ones and YOU apostles and YOU prophets, because God has judicially exacted punishment for YOU from her!" 21 And a strong angel lifted up a stone like a great millstone and hurled it into the sea, saying: "Thus with a swift pitch will Babylon the great city be hurled down, and she will never be found again. 22 And the sound of singers who accompany themselves on the harp and of musicians and of flutists and of trumpeters will never be heard in you again, and no craftsman of any trade will ever be found in you again, and no sound of a millstone will ever be heard in you again, 23 and no light of a lamp will ever shine in you again, and no voice of a bridegroom and of a bride will ever be heard in you again; because your traveling merchants were the top-ranking men of the earth, for by your spiritistic practice all the nations were misled. 24 Yes, in her was found the blood of prophets and of holy ones and of all those who have been slaughtered on the earth."

Response:

Do you really believe that book religion crap!?

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Revelation 18:1-24 1 After these things I saw another angel descending from heaven, with great authority; and the earth was lighted up from his glory. 2 And he cried out with a strong voice, saying: "She has fallen! Babylon the Great has fallen, and she has become a dwelling place of demons and a lurking place of every unclean exhalation and a lurking place of every unclean and hated bird! 3 For because of the wine of the anger of her fornication all the nations have fallen [victim], and the kings of the earth committed fornication with her, and the traveling merchants of the earth became rich due to the power of her shameless luxury." 4 And I heard another voice out of heaven say: "Get out of her, my people, if YOU do not want to share with her in her sins, and if YOU do not want to receive part of her plagues. 5 For her sins have massed together clear up to heaven, and God has called her acts of injustice to mind. 6 Render to her even as she herself rendered, and do to her twice as much, yes, twice the number of the things she did; in the cup in which she put a mixture put twice as much of the mixture for her. 7 To the extent that she glorified herself and lived in shameless luxury, to that extent give her torment and mourning. For in her heart she keeps saying, ‘I sit a queen, and I am no widow, and I shall never see mourning.’ 8 That is why in one day her plagues will come, death and mourning and famine, and she will be completely burned with fire, because Jehovah God, who judged her, is strong. 9 "And the kings of the earth who committed fornication with her and lived in shameless luxury will weep and beat themselves in grief over her, when they look at the smoke from the burning of her, 10 while they stand at a distance because of their fear of her torment and say, ‘Too bad, too bad, you great city, Babylon you strong city, because in one hour your judgment has arrived!’ 11 "Also, the traveling merchants of the earth are weeping and mourning over her, because there is no one to buy their full stock anymore, 12 a full stock of gold and silver and precious stone and pearls and fine linen and purple and silk and scarlet; and everything in scented wood and every sort of ivory object and every sort of object out of most precious wood and of copper and of iron and of marble; 13 also cinnamon and Indian spice and incense and perfumed oil and frankincense and wine and olive oil and fine flour and wheat and cattle and sheep, and horses and coaches and slaves and human souls. 14 Yes, the fine fruit that your soul desired has departed from you, and all the dainty things and the gorgeous things have perished from you, and never again will people find them. 15 "The traveling merchants of these things, who became rich from her, will stand at a distance because of [their] fear of her torment and will weep and mourn, 16 saying, ‘Too bad, too bad-the great city, clothed with fine linen and purple and scarlet, and richly adorned with gold ornament and precious stone and pearl, 17 because in one hour such great riches have been devastated!’ "And every ship captain and every man that voyages anywhere, and sailors and all those who make a living by the sea, stood at a distance 18 and cried out as they looked at the smoke from the burning of her and said, ‘What city is like the great city?’ 19 And they threw dust upon their heads and cried out, weeping and mourning, and said, ‘Too bad, too bad-the great city, in which all those having boats at sea became rich by reason of her costliness, because in one hour she has been devastated!’ 20 "Be glad over her, O heaven, also YOU holy ones and YOU apostles and YOU prophets, because God has judicially exacted punishment for YOU from her!" 21 And a strong angel lifted up a stone like a great millstone and hurled it into the sea, saying: "Thus with a swift pitch will Babylon the great city be hurled down, and she will never be found again. 22 And the sound of singers who accompany themselves on the harp and of musicians and of flutists and of trumpeters will never be heard in you again, and no craftsman of any trade will ever be found in you again, and no sound of a millstone will ever be heard in you again, 23 and no light of a lamp will ever shine in you again, and no voice of a bridegroom and of a bride will ever be heard in you again; because your traveling merchants were the top-ranking men of the earth, for by your spiritistic practice all the nations were misled. 24 Yes, in her was found the blood of prophets and of holy ones and of all those who have been slaughtered on the earth."

Response:

Revelation 18:1-24 1 After these things I saw another angel descending from heaven, with great authority; and the earth was lighted up from his glory. 2 And he cried out with a strong voice, saying: "She has fallen! Babylon the Great has fallen, and she has become a dwelling place of demons and a lurking place of every unclean exhalation and a lurking place of every unclean and hated bird! 3 For because of the wine of the anger of her fornication all the nations have fallen [victim], and the kings of the earth committed fornication with her, and the traveling merchants of the earth became rich due to the power of her shameless luxury." 4 And I heard another voice out of heaven say: "Get out of her, my people, if YOU do not want to share with her in her sins, and if YOU do not want to receive part of her plagues. 5 For her sins have massed together clear up to heaven, and God has called her acts of injustice to mind. 6 Render to her even as she herself rendered, and do to her twice as much, yes, twice the number of the things she did; in the cup in which she put a mixture put twice as much of the mixture for her. 7 To the extent that she glorified herself and lived in shameless luxury, to that extent give her torment and mourning. For in her heart she keeps saying,

Motive – Part 3

Question:

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – We have pretty much established:  People lie primarily for personal gain or to accomplish a certain objective, which could not be accomplished by telling the truth; therefore, the desire to acquire the personal gain, or the desire to accomplish their objective, in and of itself, is their motive to lie. Final question: So, given that fact, along with the fact the Christians back in Biblical times were often persecuted and slaughtered for their beliefs, why in the world would the people who wrote the Bible (specifically speaking about the New Testament at this point) go to the effort to write a fictional book that could have easily cost them their lives for writing it?  (Of course, some did pay with their lives for spreading the Gospel)  There is evidence to support WHEN the Gospels were written, and, of course, 4 men each wrote their story of the Gospel:  Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.  Why would 4 men each write the same story about Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, all in different years, knowing that doing so could cost them their lives, especially if they were making it all up?  In court, usually if there are 2 witnesses who tell at least a similar story with the majority of facts being congruent with one another, then the congruent facts are accepted as true. Here, you have 4 different accounts of the same story.  Perhaps there are minor contradictions, but they still tell the same story:  Jesus was born, he lived a sinless life, performed many miracles in God’s name, was crucified, died, buried, and resurrected.  One could say, "Well, maybe they all collaborated and concocted these stories together."  To that, I reiterate:  Why would they do that?  They would have nothing to gain by lying.  They could have been tortured and/or killed for writing the Gospel. Since they had nothing to gain, only everything to potentially lose, where’s the motive?  If anyone believes they can find a legitimate reason for these 4 men to completely fabricate the story of Jesus, then the floor is now open. Jonathan All well and good Jonathan, too bad that all other religions had their martyrs. This one fact alone, destroys your entire house of cards. So when were Hindus, Buddhists, etc. persecuted like Christians were? Jonathan Well Jonathan, it goes on, even today. I noticed that you didn’t include Islam, I guess the Crusades didn’t permit you to do that. Read a  little history of various religions and see where they were persecuted. All were and still are today. You know how it is, each religion has the only true god and the followers murder each other instead of having the gods duke it out. That is what the world needs, to have all gods fight it out instead of their adherents. It wasn’t a matter of "not being permitted" to mention them..  I didn’t mention them because I know that Muslims, Christians, and Jews are in constant warfare in Israel and Palastine even today.  I mentioned Hindus and Buddhists because I have never heard of those particular two going through a time of persecution.  You said, "…all other religions had their martyrs." So "all" would have to include Hindu and Buddhism, which is why I posed the question.  :-) Jonathan Your duplicity is showing Jonathan.

I wouldn’t say I’m being duplicitous.  Overly scrutinous and meticulous in regards to minor details, perhaps.  If you didn’t literally mean "…ALL religions had their martyrs," then you could have substituted "many" or "a lot of" in place of "all".  I wonder who gave his life for the noble cause of Confucianism or Rastafarianism?  ;-) Jonathan P.S.  Confucius say, "Don’t use cannon to kill mosquito."  Rastafarian say, "Screw da fye-tin mon.  Les smoke dis $h!+"  ;-)

Response:

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – We have pretty much established:  People lie primarily for personal gain or to accomplish a certain objective, which could not be accomplished by telling the truth; therefore, the desire to acquire the personal gain, or the desire to accomplish their objective, in and of itself, is their motive to lie. Final question: So, given that fact, along with the fact the Christians back in Biblical times were often persecuted and slaughtered for their beliefs, why in the world would the people who wrote the Bible (specifically speaking about the New Testament at this point) go to the effort to write a fictional book that could have easily cost them their lives for writing it?  (Of course, some did pay with their lives for spreading the Gospel)  There is evidence to support WHEN the Gospels were written, and, of course, 4 men each wrote their story of the Gospel:  Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.  Why would 4 men each write the same story about Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, all in different years, knowing that doing so could cost them their lives, especially if they were making it all up?  In court, usually if there are 2 witnesses who tell at least a similar story with the majority of facts being congruent with one another, then the congruent facts are accepted as true. Here, you have 4 different accounts of the same story.  Perhaps there are minor contradictions, but they still tell the same story:  Jesus was born, he lived a sinless life, performed many miracles in God’s name, was crucified, died, buried, and resurrected.  One could say, "Well, maybe they all collaborated and concocted these stories together."  To that, I reiterate:  Why would they do that?  They would have nothing to gain by lying.  They could have been tortured and/or killed for writing the Gospel. Since they had nothing to gain, only everything to potentially lose, where’s the motive?  If anyone believes they can find a legitimate reason for these 4 men to completely fabricate the story of Jesus, then the floor is now open. Jonathan All well and good Jonathan, too bad that all other religions had their martyrs. This one fact alone, destroys your entire house of cards. So when were Hindus, Buddhists, etc. persecuted like Christians were? Jonathan Well Jonathan, it goes on, even today. I noticed that you didn’t include Islam, I guess the Crusades didn’t permit you to do that. Read a  little history of various religions and see where they were persecuted. All were and still are today. You know how it is, each religion has the only true god and the followers murder each other instead of having the gods duke it out. That is what the world needs, to have all gods fight it out instead of their adherents.

It wasn’t a matter of "not being permitted" to mention them..  I didn’t mention them because I know that Muslims, Christians, and Jews are in constant warfare in Israel and Palastine even today.  I mentioned Hindus and Buddhists because I have never heard of those particular two going through a time of persecution.  You said, "…all other religions had their martyrs." So "all" would have to include Hindu and Buddhism, which is why I posed the question.  :-) Jonathan

Response:

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – We have pretty much established:  People lie primarily for personal gain or to accomplish a certain objective, which could not be accomplished by telling the truth; therefore, the desire to acquire the personal gain, or the desire to accomplish their objective, in and of itself, is their motive to lie. Final question: So, given that fact, along with the fact the Christians back in Biblical times were often persecuted and slaughtered for their beliefs, why in the world would the people who wrote the Bible (specifically speaking about the New Testament at this point) go to the effort to write a fictional book that could have easily cost them their lives for writing it?  (Of course, some did pay with their lives for spreading the Gospel)  There is evidence to support WHEN the Gospels were written, and, of course, 4 men each wrote their story of the Gospel:  Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.  Why would 4 men each write the same story about Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, all in different years, knowing that doing so could cost them their lives, especially if they were making it all up?  In court, usually if there are 2 witnesses who tell at least a similar story with the majority of facts being congruent with one another, then the congruent facts are accepted as true. Here, you have 4 different accounts of the same story.  Perhaps there are minor contradictions, but they still tell the same story:  Jesus was born, he lived a sinless life, performed many miracles in God’s name, was crucified, died, buried, and resurrected.  One could say, "Well, maybe they all collaborated and concocted these stories together."  To that, I reiterate:  Why would they do that?  They would have nothing to gain by lying.  They could have been tortured and/or killed for writing the Gospel. Since they had nothing to gain, only everything to potentially lose, where’s the motive?  If anyone believes they can find a legitimate reason for these 4 men to completely fabricate the story of Jesus, then the floor is now open. Jonathan All well and good Jonathan, too bad that all other religions had their martyrs. This one fact alone, destroys your entire house of cards. So when were Hindus, Buddhists, etc. persecuted like Christians were? Jonathan

Well Jonathan, it goes on, even today. I noticed that you didn’t include Islam, I guess the Crusades didn’t permit you to do that. Read a  little history of various religions and see where they were persecuted. All were and still are today. You know how it is, each religion has the only true god and the followers murder each other instead of having the gods duke it out. That is what the world needs, to have all gods fight it out instead of their adherents.

Response:

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – We have pretty much established:  People lie primarily for personal gain or to accomplish a certain objective, which could not be accomplished by telling the truth; therefore, the desire to acquire the personal gain, or the desire to accomplish their objective, in and of itself, is their motive to lie. Final question: So, given that fact, along with the fact the Christians back in Biblical times were often persecuted and slaughtered for their beliefs, why in the world would the people who wrote the Bible (specifically speaking about the New Testament at this point) go to the effort to write a fictional book that could have easily cost them their lives for writing it?  (Of course, some did pay with their lives for spreading the Gospel)  There is evidence to support WHEN the Gospels were written, and, of course, 4 men each wrote their story of the Gospel:  Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.  Why would 4 men each write the same story about Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, all in different years, knowing that doing so could cost them their lives, especially if they were making it all up?  In court, usually if there are 2 witnesses who tell at least a similar story with the majority of facts being congruent with one another, then the congruent facts are accepted as true. Here, you have 4 different accounts of the same story.  Perhaps there are minor contradictions, but they still tell the same story:  Jesus was born, he lived a sinless life, performed many miracles in God’s name, was crucified, died, buried, and resurrected.  One could say, "Well, maybe they all collaborated and concocted these stories together."  To that, I reiterate:  Why would they do that?  They would have nothing to gain by lying.  They could have been tortured and/or killed for writing the Gospel. Since they had nothing to gain, only everything to potentially lose, where’s the motive?  If anyone believes they can find a legitimate reason for these 4 men to completely fabricate the story of Jesus, then the floor is now open. Jonathan All well and good Jonathan, too bad that all other religions had their martyrs. This one fact alone, destroys your entire house of cards.

So when were Hindus, Buddhists, etc. persecuted like Christians were? Jonathan

Response:

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – We have pretty much established:  People lie primarily for personal gain or to accomplish a certain objective, which could not be accomplished by telling the truth; therefore, the desire to acquire the personal gain, or the desire to accomplish their objective, in and of itself, is their motive to lie. Final question: So, given that fact, along with the fact the Christians back in Biblical times were often persecuted and slaughtered for their beliefs, why in the world would the people who wrote the Bible (specifically speaking about the New Testament at this point) go to the effort to write a fictional book that could have easily cost them their lives for writing it?  (Of course, some did pay with their lives for spreading the Gospel)  There is evidence to support WHEN the Gospels were written, and, of course, 4 men each wrote their story of the Gospel:  Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.  Why would 4 men each write the same story about Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, all in different years, knowing that doing so could cost them their lives, especially if they were making it all up?  In court, usually if there are 2 witnesses who tell at least a similar story with the majority of facts being congruent with one another, then the congruent facts are accepted as true. Here, you have 4 different accounts of the same story.  Perhaps there are minor contradictions, but they still tell the same story:  Jesus was born, he lived a sinless life, performed many miracles in God’s name, was crucified, died, buried, and resurrected.  One could say, "Well, maybe they all collaborated and concocted these stories together."  To that, I reiterate:  Why would they do that?  They would have nothing to gain by lying.  They could have been tortured and/or killed for writing the Gospel. Since they had nothing to gain, only everything to potentially lose, where’s the motive?  If anyone believes they can find a legitimate reason for these 4 men to completely fabricate the story of Jesus, then the floor is now open. Jonathan

All well and good Jonathan, too bad that all other religions had their martyrs. This one fact alone, destroys your entire house of cards.

Response:

- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – We have pretty much established:  People lie primarily for personal gain or to accomplish a certain objective, which could not be accomplished by telling the truth; therefore, the desire to acquire the personal gain, or the desire to accomplish their objective, in and of itself, is their motive to lie. Final question: So, given that fact, along with the fact the Christians back in Biblical times were often persecuted and slaughtered for their beliefs, "Biblical times" covers a pretty broad swathe, don’t you think? Christians were persecuted, and often brutally, but fairly sporadically (obviously, or there wouldn’t have been so many of them at the time of Constantine’s conversion) That’s why I said, "…speaking about the New Testament…"  That puts the time frame from approximately 4 B.C.  to roughly 95 A.D.  (Revelations was written around 95 A.D.)  That’s approximately a 100-year time-span, if you count the year "zero" as a year.  (B.C. 4,3,2,1,0,1,2,3,4 A.D.)

I’m curious how or why you picked 4 BC. But the point I’m making here is that Christians weren’t persecuted consistently throughout that time. why in the world would the people who wrote the Bible (specifically speaking about the New Testament at this point) go to the effort to write a fictional book that could have easily cost them their lives for writing it? Possibly because… They believed it? I believe it too…I’m not questioning the Bible’s validity.  I’m saying, if it were false, as the atheists and skeptics claim, what would have been their motive to fabricate such a tale?

I understand that. Nonetheless, the fact that both you and they believed it doesn’t make it true. Or because, after the destruction of the temple, the question of who the *real* shoot of Jesse was became very important? Or maybe even to disassociate themselves with the Jewish group, who at least as of the writing of Mark, were pretty unpopular? Or because, once everyone realized that Jesus’s second coming wasn’t *tomorrow*, it might be important to have some record? I believe the latter carries the most weight.

It might be some combination of some or all of those. Additionally, I believe there were proto-gospels prior to even the writing of Mark, though that’s really speculative. <snip – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – I don’t think they got together and fabricated anything.  I do think they used common sources.  I do think they were victims, if you will, of that neat thing that happens to stories over time.  Further, I think they were writing to very different audiences, and the differences in scope and perspective of their tales illustrate that. Neither do I.  That was a question of motive directed towards non-believers. If someone says, "Jesus never existed."  then one must pose the question, "…then why would 4 men each write a book that says He did?"  I believe that the Gospels probably were intended for different audiences, as well. :-) It’s a false dichotomy, you know, to propose that either the gospels are true or they’re all just a conspiracy of lies :-)  Plus, you run into trouble if you’re standing on the "they’re true" side, because then you have to back up to "generally true," to account for the discrepancies in the tales.  If they’re "generally true", what parts are false?  Or is that another false dichotomy? I was not proposing, by any means, that the Gospels were conspired lies.  I don’t believe that one iota.  Again, I was posing the question, "Where would the motive have been for the 4 men to lie?"  As far as I can see, there was no motive for them to lie about Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, so they must be telling the truth.

I think, though, what you’re missing is that they might have just been mistaken.  Or they might have dutifully transcribed what they’d heard, which had been modified or expanded through the telling over the years prior to the actual writing. This is not, by the way, an argument actually challenging anything written, only pointing out that there are other scenarios than the two you’ve proposed; those being, either they lied, or what they wrote is the truth. Are those knee biters who enjoy discussing Christianity in terms of "Jesus never lived at all" getting your goat? Sunny If by "getting my goat", you mean causing my faith to waver, then no.  

That’s not really what I meant, either.  Though I enjoy an actual *discussion* regarding the question of an historic Jesus, I tend to skip the "nah nah, prove Jesus even lived" sorts of dialogues as fairly fruitless and annoying. This "series" was primarily directed to the atheists who say that the Bible is just a book of made-up stories.  If you look at it from a logical perspective, how could it be just a book of ficticious stories?  I believe it is100% FACT because there was never a motive for the writers to lie.

Do you mean the Bible, or the Gospels? But for the sake of argument, there being no *apparent* motive for lying doesn’t mean that there really *wasn’t* motive for lying, or that there wasn’t motive for adding, or that the writers had access to undiluted, factual information. P.S.  I have always accepted the Bible as it says one should accept it, "…with the faith of a child…"  Atheists and skeptics try to argue from the logical standpoint, so I tried to put everything in a logical perspective.

A worthy effort. And approaching the reading with the faith of a child, I believe, allows for the *truths* of what’s written to be accessible, which are not necessarily the same thing as "fact". Sunny who has finally figured out how to eliminate the other email address showing

Response:

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – We have pretty much established:  People lie primarily for personal gain or to accomplish a certain objective, which could not be accomplished by telling the truth; therefore, the desire to acquire the personal gain, or the desire to accomplish their objective, in and of itself, is their motive to lie. Final question: So, given that fact, along with the fact the Christians back in Biblical times were often persecuted and slaughtered for their beliefs, "Biblical times" covers a pretty broad swathe, don’t you think? Christians were persecuted, and often brutally, but fairly sporadically (obviously, or there wouldn’t have been so many of them at the time of Constantine’s conversion)

That’s why I said, "…speaking about the New Testament…"  That puts the time frame from approximately 4 B.C.  to roughly 95 A.D.  (Revelations was written around 95 A.D.)  That’s approximately a 100-year time-span, if you count the year "zero" as a year.  (B.C. 4,3,2,1,0,1,2,3,4 A.D.) why in the world would the people who wrote the Bible (specifically speaking about the New Testament at this point) go to the effort to write a fictional book that could have easily cost them their lives for writing it? Possibly because… They believed it?

I believe it too…I’m not questioning the Bible’s validity.  I’m saying, if it were false, as the atheists and skeptics claim, what would have been their motive to fabricate such a tale? Or because, after the destruction of the temple, the question of who the *real* shoot of Jesse was became very important? Or maybe even to disassociate themselves with the Jewish group, who at least as of the writing of Mark, were pretty unpopular? Or because, once everyone realized that Jesus’s second coming wasn’t *tomorrow*, it might be important to have some record?

I believe the latter carries the most weight. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – I’m just guessing here, as are you, but it seems to me that there are some fairly obvious possible motivations for writing them down. (Of course, some did pay with their lives for spreading the Gospel)  There is evidence to support WHEN the Gospels were written, and, of course, 4 men each wrote their story of the Gospel:  Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Of those, only Luke is fairly certain to have actually been written by Luke.  John’s the next safest bet — nobody knows who the authors of Matthew or Mark were. Why would 4 men each write the same story about Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, all in different years, knowing that doing so could cost them their lives, especially if they were making it all up?  In court, usually if there are 2 witnesses who tell at least a similar story with the majority of facts being congruent with one another, then the congruent facts are accepted as true. Here, you have 4 different accounts of the same story.  Perhaps there are minor contradictions, but they still tell the same story:  Jesus was born, he lived a sinless life, performed many miracles in God’s name, was crucified, died, buried, and resurrected.  One could say, "Well, maybe they all collaborated and concocted these stories together."  To that, I reiterate:  Why would they do that?  They would have nothing to gain by lying.  They could have been tortured and/or killed for writing the Gospel. Since they had nothing to gain, only everything to potentially lose, where’s the motive?  If anyone believes they can find a legitimate reason for these 4 men to completely fabricate the story of Jesus, then the floor is now open. I don’t think they got together and fabricated anything.  I do think they used common sources.  I do think they were victims, if you will, of that neat thing that happens to stories over time.  Further, I think they were writing to very different audiences, and the differences in scope and perspective of their tales illustrate that.

Neither do I.  That was a question of motive directed towards non-believers. If someone says, "Jesus never existed."  then one must pose the question, "…then why would 4 men each write a book that says He did?"  I believe that the Gospels probably were intended for different audiences, as well. :-) It’s a false dichotomy, you know, to propose that either the gospels are true or they’re all just a conspiracy of lies :-)  Plus, you run into trouble if you’re standing on the "they’re true" side, because then you have to back up to "generally true," to account for the discrepancies in the tales.  If they’re "generally true", what parts are false?  Or is that another false dichotomy?

I was not proposing, by any means, that the Gospels were conspired lies.  I don’t believe that one iota.  Again, I was posing the question, "Where would the motive have been for the 4 men to lie?"  As far as I can see, there was no motive for them to lie about Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, so they must be telling the truth. Are those knee biters who enjoy discussing Christianity in terms of "Jesus never lived at all" getting your goat? Sunny

If by "getting my goat", you mean causing my faith to waver, then no.  This "series" was primarily directed to the atheists who say that the Bible is just a book of made-up stories.  If you look at it from a logical perspective, how could it be just a book of ficticious stories?  I believe it is100% FACT because there was never a motive for the writers to lie. Jonathan P.S.  I have always accepted the Bible as it says one should accept it, "…with the faith of a child…"  Atheists and skeptics try to argue from the logical standpoint, so I tried to put everything in a logical perspective.

Response:

We have pretty much established:  People lie primarily for personal gain or to accomplish a certain objective, which could not be accomplished by telling the truth; therefore, the desire to acquire the personal gain, or the desire to accomplish their objective, in and of itself, is their motive to lie. Final question: So, given that fact, along with the fact the Christians back in Biblical times were often persecuted and slaughtered for their beliefs, why in the world would the people who wrote the Bible (specifically speaking about the New Testament at this point) go to the effort to write a fictional book that could have easily cost them their lives for writing it?  (Of course, some did pay with their lives for spreading the Gospel)  There is evidence to support WHEN the Gospels were written, and, of course, 4 men each wrote their story of the Gospel:  Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.  Why would 4 men each write the same story about Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, all in different years, knowing that doing so could cost them their lives, especially if they were making it all up?  In court, usually if there are 2 witnesses who tell at least a similar story with the majority of facts being congruent with one another, then the congruent facts are accepted as true. Here, you have 4 different accounts of the same story.  Perhaps there are minor contradictions, but they still tell the same story:  Jesus was born, he lived a sinless life, performed many miracles in God’s name, was crucified, died, buried, and resurrected.  One could say, "Well, maybe they all collaborated and concocted these stories together."  To that, I reiterate:  Why would they do that?  They would have nothing to gain by lying.  They could have been tortured and/or killed for writing the Gospel. Since they had nothing to gain, only everything to potentially lose, where’s the motive?  If anyone believes they can find a legitimate reason for these 4 men to completely fabricate the story of Jesus, then the floor is now open. Jonathan

Response:

We have pretty much established:  People lie primarily for personal gain or to accomplish a certain objective, which could not be accomplished by telling the truth; therefore, the desire to acquire the personal gain, or the desire to accomplish their objective, in and of itself, is their motive to lie. Final question: So, given that fact, along with the fact the Christians back in Biblical times were often persecuted and slaughtered for their beliefs,

"Biblical times" covers a pretty broad swathe, don’t you think? Christians were persecuted, and often brutally, but fairly sporadically (obviously, or there wouldn’t have been so many of them at the time of Constantine’s conversion) why in the world would the people who wrote the Bible (specifically speaking about the New Testament at this point) go to the effort to write a fictional book that could have easily cost them their lives for writing it?  

Possibly because… They believed it? Or because, after the destruction of the temple, the question of who the *real* shoot of Jesse was became very important? Or maybe even to disassociate themselves with the Jewish group, who at least as of the writing of Mark, were pretty unpopular? Or because, once everyone realized that Jesus’s second coming wasn’t *tomorrow*, it might be important to have some record? I’m just guessing here, as are you, but it seems to me that there are some fairly obvious possible motivations for writing them down. (Of course, some did pay with their lives for spreading the Gospel)  There is evidence to support WHEN the Gospels were written, and, of course, 4 men each wrote their story of the Gospel:  Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.  

Of those, only Luke is fairly certain to have actually been written by Luke.  John’s the next safest bet — nobody knows who the authors of Matthew or Mark were. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Why would 4 men each write the same story about Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, all in different years, knowing that doing so could cost them their lives, especially if they were making it all up?  In court, usually if there are 2 witnesses who tell at least a similar story with the majority of facts being congruent with one another, then the congruent facts are accepted as true. Here, you have 4 different accounts of the same story.  Perhaps there are minor contradictions, but they still tell the same story:  Jesus was born, he lived a sinless life, performed many miracles in God’s name, was crucified, died, buried, and resurrected.  One could say, "Well, maybe they all collaborated and concocted these stories together."  To that, I reiterate:  Why would they do that?  They would have nothing to gain by lying.  They could have been tortured and/or killed for writing the Gospel. Since they had nothing to gain, only everything to potentially lose, where’s the motive?  If anyone believes they can find a legitimate reason for these 4 men to completely fabricate the story of Jesus, then the floor is now open.

I don’t think they got together and fabricated anything.  I do think they used common sources.  I do think they were victims, if you will, of that neat thing that happens to stories over time.  Further, I think they were writing to very different audiences, and the differences in scope and perspective of their tales illustrate that. It’s a false dichotomy, you know, to propose that either the gospels are true or they’re all just a conspiracy of lies :-)  Plus, you run into trouble if you’re standing on the "they’re true" side, because then you have to back up to "generally true," to account for the discrepancies in the tales.  If they’re "generally true", what parts are false?  Or is that another false dichotomy? Are those knee biters who enjoy discussing Christianity in terms of "Jesus never lived at all" getting your goat? Sunny

Response:

Beyond Reasonable Doubt – Joe Boot

Question:

Since there never are any, he makes an educated guess there are no supernatural beings.

That’s not entirely true. Supernatural occurrences do not necessarily link with religion. In fact, religion has little to do with "supernatural" phenomenon at all. Religion is a power – over system, an institutional prison that strives to extinguish free thought. One can safely discount the presence of some cosmic overlord as religions insist upon. However, that doesn’t mean that  unexplainable mysteries are entirely false. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – — Vic Sagerquist aa#2011 Supervisor, EAC Department of little adhesive-backed "L" shaped chrome-plastic doo-dads to add feet to Jesus fish department The whole foundation of Christianity is based on the idea that intellectualism is the work of the Devil. Remember the apple on the tree? Okay, it was the Tree of Knowledge. "You eat this apple, you’re going to be as smart as God. We can’t have that."      [Frank Zappa]

Response:

on 02 Oct 2004 in alt.atheism, Rhyanon dropped trou, farted, whirled, then shouted: Since there never are any, he makes an educated guess there are no supernatural beings. That’s not entirely true. Supernatural occurrences do not necessarily link with religion. In fact, religion has little to do with "supernatural" phenomenon at all.

Take the supernatural beings away from religion and what do you have?  No gods, no angels, no afterlife.  Like, why bother? Religion is a power – over system, an institutional prison that strives to extinguish free thought. One can safely discount the presence of some cosmic overlord as religions insist upon. However, that doesn’t mean that  unexplainable mysteries are entirely false.

They are if you make up an answer. — Vic Sagerquist aa#2011 Supervisor, EAC Department of little adhesive-backed "L" shaped chrome-plastic doo-dads to add feet to Jesus fish department The whole foundation of Christianity is based on the idea that intellectualism is the work of the Devil. Remember the apple on the tree? Okay, it was the Tree of Knowledge. "You eat this apple, you’re going to be as smart as God. We can’t have that."      [Frank Zappa]

Response:

on 01 Oct 2004 in alt.atheism, Gospel dropped trou, farted, whirled, then shouted: Anyone can say a prayer to God. If we can sincerely say, "God, if you are real, please show me who you are," we are taking a wager that the Bible says God accepts and will respond to! To seek God will never be a waste of time and can take us far beyond reasonable doubt.

I just did.  He didn’t respond.  Why am I not surprised?  I’ll tell you why.  Believers believe because they need to believe.  An atheist does not have this need, and doesn’t go about making every little emotion into a melodramatic religious experience.  In fact, the atheist can listen objectively for responses from the supernatural.  Since there never are any, he makes an educated guess there are no supernatural beings. — Vic Sagerquist aa#2011 Supervisor, EAC Department of little adhesive-backed "L" shaped chrome-plastic doo-dads to add feet to Jesus fish department The whole foundation of Christianity is based on the idea that intellectualism is the work of the Devil. Remember the apple on the tree? Okay, it was the Tree of Knowledge. "You eat this apple, you’re going to be as smart as God. We can’t have that."      [Frank Zappa]

Response:

In order to begin we must start at the beginning! The most fundamental of all questions that can possibly be asked is, "Does God exist?" Absolute rubbish. There are all sorts of other questions far more basic, such as "is this edible?", "is this creature interested in eating me?", etc. You know, questions that actually have some practical value in the answers.

   I love it!    Seconds? Warlord Steve BAAWA www.sonic.net/~wooly

Response:

God in the Shed Ben was only eight and afraid of the dark.

booooring! FOAD — Nemo – EAC Commissioner for Bible Belt Underwater Operations. Atheist #1331 (the Palindrome of doom!) BAAWA Knight! – One of those warm Southern Knights, y’all! Charter member, SMASH!! http://home.earthlink.net/~jehdjh/Relpg.html Draco Dormiens Nunquam Titillandus Quotemeister since March 2002

Response:

In order to begin we must start at the beginning! The most fundamental of all questions that can possibly be asked is, "Does God exist?" Absolute rubbish. There are all sorts of other questions far more basic, such as "is this edible?", "is this creature interested in eating me?", etc. You know, questions that actually have some practical value in the answers. <snip remaining nonsense

Personally, I get more than a little irked when people say the fundamental religious question is whether God exists. The fundamental questions is "What the hell is THIS?" Seems like it’s a more common response to assume some big know-betters. In Buddhism, this is irrelevant.    —Messer Xin — Life is eternal while it lasts. ..  Ape;)

Response:

- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – In order to begin we must start at the beginning! The most fundamental of all questions that can possibly be asked is, "Does God exist?" Absolute rubbish. There are all sorts of other questions far more basic, such as "is this edible?", "is this creature interested in eating me?", etc. You know, questions that actually have some practical value in the answers. <snip remaining nonsense Personally, I get more than a little irked when people say the fundamental religious question is whether God exists. The fundamental questions is "What the hell is THIS?" Seems like it’s a more common response to assume some big know-betters. In Buddhism, this is irrelevant.

So do I. It’s only important to them, inside the virtual reality of their religion. Which is hardly rocket science and it only reinforces the impession they have already given, that they’re stupid. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text –   —Messer Xin

Response:

In order to begin we must start at the beginning! The most fundamental of all questions that can possibly be asked is, "Does God exist?"

Absolute rubbish. There are all sorts of other questions far more basic, such as "is this edible?", "is this creature interested in eating me?", etc. You know, questions that actually have some practical value in the answers. <snip remaining nonsense

Response:

However, universal belief in a Supreme Being is still as persistent as ever.

And when belief in a flat earth was pretty much universal, I guess that means the earth really was flat… — Mark K. Bilbo  -  a.a. #1423 EAC Department of Linguistic Subversion Alt-atheism website at: http://www.alt-atheism.org "Being surprised at the fact that the universe is fine tuned for life is akin to a puddle being surprised at how well it fits its hole" — Douglas Adams

Response:

"More consequences for thought and action follow from the affirmation or denial of God than from answering any other question." Mortimer Adler, coeditor, Encyclopedia Britannica

<snip In order to begin we must start at the beginning! The most fundamental of all questions that can possibly be asked is, "Does God exist?"

It’s a little ‘wordy’ but it will help you in your travels… God(tm) FAQ: http://www.400monkeys.com/God/index.html — -Donald in Austin AA #2104 Apatriot #22 Atheist FF/EMT ….and ordained minister Stork Pin recipient: May 1, 2003 -Madelyn ™ 2004 G.O.P. All names used without permission from the copyright holder. Fuck ‘em.

Response:

"More consequences for thought and action follow from the affirmation or denial of God than from answering any other question." Mortimer Adler, coeditor, Encyclopedia Britannica God in the Shed Ben was only eight and afraid of the dark. One evening his mother was cleaning the kitchen and wanted to sweep out the hall; so she asked him to fetch her the broom from the shed. Startled by such a suggestion Ben turned to her and said, "But, Mum, I don’t want to go out there; it’s really dark." His mother looked at him with a reassuring smile and said, "Now you know you don’t need to be afraid of the dark, Ben. God is out there. He will protect you; so go on, and sing on the way." Looking quizzically at his mother, Ben sought further confirmation. "Are you sure he’s out there?" "Yes, of course I’m sure. God is everywhere, and he is always ready to help if you need him," answered his mother confidently. Ben thought about this for a few moments and then walked cautiously toward the back door. Slowly he opened it halfway and peered through the gap. Then, raising his voice, he called out, "God? If you are out there, would you please fetch me the broom from the shed?" In order to begin we must start at the beginning! The most fundamental of all questions that can possibly be asked is, "Does God exist?" That is not to say that it is the foremost question on everybody’s mind. You may well have decided that there is a God and have other questions that are far more important to you than this one: How can I find peace and happiness? What does the future hold? How can I solve my personal problems? Other questions of this sort may be far more prominent issues to you. However, the existence of God has huge implications for all these others. It is with this ultimate question that our hearing must begin. Either God exists or he does not. There is no middle ground. Both cannot be true. No amount of philosophical trickery can hide from the greatest antithesis of them all. Either God is or he is not. We cannot leave this question for the intellectuals, scientists, philosophers, and theologians alone; we must answer it as well. We must answer it for ourselves. Believing in God, however, is not like other things we can "believe" in: The Loch Ness Monster is merely "one more thing."? God, however, is not merely "one more thing." The person who believes in God and the person who does not believe in God do not merely disagree about God. They disagree about the very character of the universe. 1 Everything that can be said about human life and behavior comes all the way back to this. Our convictions on this point unavoidably determine what we can or cannot legitimately believe concerning all other fundamental questions. Poll Position! Many surveys have been conducted worldwide on the subject of religious belief. These statistics are at the best of times ambiguous because any question about God needs qualifying. For example, some people believe in a personal God of creation, whereas others believe God to be a "life force"-impersonal and unknowable. Some scientists have even smuggled into a materialist worldview a god of cosmic dust, mysteriously interwoven with the fabric of the universe. So a definition of what we mean by God is crucial. We shall consider this later. However, universal belief in a Supreme Being is still as persistent as ever. A worldwide poll taken in 1991 has the global figure for atheists at just 4.4 percent. 2 Another category titled "other non-religious" added a further 16.4 percent-agnostics in the "don’t know" camp probably account for most of these. That leaves nearly 80 percent of the world’s population professing belief in some sort of God. In the United Kingdom at the end of 1999 a British survey conducted by Opinion Research Business suggested that 38 percent were "not religious." 3 This figure would again include both atheists and agnostics. Human Intuition What do these figures tell us? Perhaps many reasonable deductions could be made, but the obvious one is this: Most people instinctively or intuitively believe in God. If the poll had included a question on one’s familiarity with the major arguments for the existence of God, I suspect 99 percent would have denied any such specialized knowledge. So belief in God goes well beyond reason and argument; it seems to reside in our very nature. The atheist often finds that he is at odds with himself and the world around him. He must continually search for reasons to reject the existence of God. He must deny his own intuition and try to rationalize the notion that the universe has sprung into being without cause, without mind, and without design. On the other hand, people who believe in God rarely find themselves wrestling with their intellects, desperately trying to find some shred of evidence that may point to the reality of a "Supreme Being." Their heart tells them he is. Conscience shouts it, and reason seems to demand it. Of course, big questions still remain, but the essential conviction that he is real is common and hard to dispute. Child Prodigy This intuitive belief is found in children all over the world. I was sent an e-mail about an eight-year-old boy from Chula Vista, California, who was given a stretching homework assignment, a challenge beyond the reach of the greatest minds. He was asked to explain God! This is what

"One of God’s main jobs is making people. He makes them to replace the ones that die, so there will be enough people to take care of things on earth. He doesn’t make grown ups, just babies. I think because they are smaller and easier to make. That way he doesn’t have to take up his valuable time teaching them to talk and walk, he can just leave that to mothers and fathers. God’s second most important job is listening to prayers. An awful lot of this goes on, since some people, like preachers and things, pray at times besides bedtime. God doesn’t have time to listen to the radio or T.V. because of this. Because he hears everything, there must be a terrible lot of noise in his ears, unless he has thought of a way to turn it off?. God sees everything and hears everything and is everywhere, which keeps him pretty busy. So you shouldn’t go wasting his time by going over your mom and dad’s head asking for things they said you couldn’t have?. If you don’t believe in God you will be very lonely, because your parents can’t go everywhere with you like to camp, but God can. It is good to know he’s around you when you’re scared in the dark or when you can’t swim and you get thrown into real deep water by big kids. But you shouldn’t just always think of what God can do for you. I figure God put me here and he can take me back anytime he pleases. And that’s why I believe in God." 4 Anthropologists have discovered this sort of thinking in children everywhere, even in places where the religious culture teaches something different. The Burden of Proof Now obviously just because the vast majority of people believe in God or a god of some kind, we cannot conclusively say, "God exists." Universal belief in God throughout known history is a significant argument, but it doesn’t amount to proof. There is a huge problem with the issue of proof. Due to our limited minds, the nature of the issue we are dealing with puts proof practically out of the question. Some philosophers believe that even to attempt to prove the issue is futile. It is fair to say that the question of the existence of God can be neither philosophically proved nor disproved by human reason alone. By that I do not mean that we cannot be convinced about God’s existence. We certainly can be. I simply mean that the existence of God cannot be demonstrated so as to convince everybody. The media, as well as our own schooling, can give us the impression that science and scientific laws are provable, whereas God, the Bible, or Christianity are not. This is a misconception (though a forgivable one)! To do justice to our discussion we must take a brief look at this issue. If you don’t want a gentle mental workout and have no interest in the nature of proof, you may wish to skip the next few pages, but do not miss out on what is being said here! Full Proof? Logic demands that only deductive knowledge is strictly provable. To deduce something we must start with a truth definitely known and then by the logical process of inference arrive at certain facts that bring us to a conclusion. But what do we definitely know in order to begin this process? You may have heard the philosopher Ren

Beyond Reasonable Doubt – Joe Boot

Question:

In order to begin we must start at the beginning! The most fundamental of all questions that can possibly be asked is, "Does God exist?" Absolute rubbish. There are all sorts of other questions far more basic, such as "is this edible?", "is this creature interested in eating me?", etc. You know, questions that actually have some practical value in the answers.

   I love it!    Seconds? Warlord Steve BAAWA www.sonic.net/~wooly

Response:

In order to begin we must start at the beginning! The most fundamental of all questions that can possibly be asked is, "Does God exist?" Absolute rubbish. There are all sorts of other questions far more basic, such as "is this edible?", "is this creature interested in eating me?", etc. You know, questions that actually have some practical value in the answers. <snip remaining nonsense

Personally, I get more than a little irked when people say the fundamental religious question is whether God exists. The fundamental questions is "What the hell is THIS?" Seems like it’s a more common response to assume some big know-betters. In Buddhism, this is irrelevant.    —Messer Xin — Life is eternal while it lasts. ..  Ape;)

Response:

- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – In order to begin we must start at the beginning! The most fundamental of all questions that can possibly be asked is, "Does God exist?" Absolute rubbish. There are all sorts of other questions far more basic, such as "is this edible?", "is this creature interested in eating me?", etc. You know, questions that actually have some practical value in the answers. <snip remaining nonsense Personally, I get more than a little irked when people say the fundamental religious question is whether God exists. The fundamental questions is "What the hell is THIS?" Seems like it’s a more common response to assume some big know-betters. In Buddhism, this is irrelevant.

So do I. It’s only important to them, inside the virtual reality of their religion. Which is hardly rocket science and it only reinforces the impession they have already given, that they’re stupid. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text –   —Messer Xin

Response:

Since there never are any, he makes an educated guess there are no supernatural beings.

That’s not entirely true. Supernatural occurrences do not necessarily link with religion. In fact, religion has little to do with "supernatural" phenomenon at all. Religion is a power – over system, an institutional prison that strives to extinguish free thought. One can safely discount the presence of some cosmic overlord as religions insist upon. However, that doesn’t mean that  unexplainable mysteries are entirely false. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – — Vic Sagerquist aa#2011 Supervisor, EAC Department of little adhesive-backed "L" shaped chrome-plastic doo-dads to add feet to Jesus fish department The whole foundation of Christianity is based on the idea that intellectualism is the work of the Devil. Remember the apple on the tree? Okay, it was the Tree of Knowledge. "You eat this apple, you’re going to be as smart as God. We can’t have that."      [Frank Zappa]

Response:

on 02 Oct 2004 in alt.atheism, Rhyanon dropped trou, farted, whirled, then shouted: Since there never are any, he makes an educated guess there are no supernatural beings. That’s not entirely true. Supernatural occurrences do not necessarily link with religion. In fact, religion has little to do with "supernatural" phenomenon at all.

Take the supernatural beings away from religion and what do you have?  No gods, no angels, no afterlife.  Like, why bother? Religion is a power – over system, an institutional prison that strives to extinguish free thought. One can safely discount the presence of some cosmic overlord as religions insist upon. However, that doesn’t mean that  unexplainable mysteries are entirely false.

They are if you make up an answer. — Vic Sagerquist aa#2011 Supervisor, EAC Department of little adhesive-backed "L" shaped chrome-plastic doo-dads to add feet to Jesus fish department The whole foundation of Christianity is based on the idea that intellectualism is the work of the Devil. Remember the apple on the tree? Okay, it was the Tree of Knowledge. "You eat this apple, you’re going to be as smart as God. We can’t have that."      [Frank Zappa]

Response:

In order to begin we must start at the beginning! The most fundamental of all questions that can possibly be asked is, "Does God exist?"

Absolute rubbish. There are all sorts of other questions far more basic, such as "is this edible?", "is this creature interested in eating me?", etc. You know, questions that actually have some practical value in the answers. <snip remaining nonsense

Response:

However, universal belief in a Supreme Being is still as persistent as ever.

And when belief in a flat earth was pretty much universal, I guess that means the earth really was flat… — Mark K. Bilbo  -  a.a. #1423 EAC Department of Linguistic Subversion Alt-atheism website at: http://www.alt-atheism.org "Being surprised at the fact that the universe is fine tuned for life is akin to a puddle being surprised at how well it fits its hole" — Douglas Adams

Response:

"More consequences for thought and action follow from the affirmation or denial of God than from answering any other question." Mortimer Adler, coeditor, Encyclopedia Britannica

<snip In order to begin we must start at the beginning! The most fundamental of all questions that can possibly be asked is, "Does God exist?"

It’s a little ‘wordy’ but it will help you in your travels… God(tm) FAQ: http://www.400monkeys.com/God/index.html — -Donald in Austin AA #2104 Apatriot #22 Atheist FF/EMT ….and ordained minister Stork Pin recipient: May 1, 2003 -Madelyn ™ 2004 G.O.P. All names used without permission from the copyright holder. Fuck ‘em.

Response:

on 01 Oct 2004 in alt.atheism, Gospel dropped trou, farted, whirled, then shouted: Anyone can say a prayer to God. If we can sincerely say, "God, if you are real, please show me who you are," we are taking a wager that the Bible says God accepts and will respond to! To seek God will never be a waste of time and can take us far beyond reasonable doubt.

I just did.  He didn’t respond.  Why am I not surprised?  I’ll tell you why.  Believers believe because they need to believe.  An atheist does not have this need, and doesn’t go about making every little emotion into a melodramatic religious experience.  In fact, the atheist can listen objectively for responses from the supernatural.  Since there never are any, he makes an educated guess there are no supernatural beings. — Vic Sagerquist aa#2011 Supervisor, EAC Department of little adhesive-backed "L" shaped chrome-plastic doo-dads to add feet to Jesus fish department The whole foundation of Christianity is based on the idea that intellectualism is the work of the Devil. Remember the apple on the tree? Okay, it was the Tree of Knowledge. "You eat this apple, you’re going to be as smart as God. We can’t have that."      [Frank Zappa]

Response:

"More consequences for thought and action follow from the affirmation or denial of God than from answering any other question." Mortimer Adler, coeditor, Encyclopedia Britannica God in the Shed Ben was only eight and afraid of the dark. One evening his mother was cleaning the kitchen and wanted to sweep out the hall; so she asked him to fetch her the broom from the shed. Startled by such a suggestion Ben turned to her and said, "But, Mum, I don’t want to go out there; it’s really dark." His mother looked at him with a reassuring smile and said, "Now you know you don’t need to be afraid of the dark, Ben. God is out there. He will protect you; so go on, and sing on the way." Looking quizzically at his mother, Ben sought further confirmation. "Are you sure he’s out there?" "Yes, of course I’m sure. God is everywhere, and he is always ready to help if you need him," answered his mother confidently. Ben thought about this for a few moments and then walked cautiously toward the back door. Slowly he opened it halfway and peered through the gap. Then, raising his voice, he called out, "God? If you are out there, would you please fetch me the broom from the shed?" In order to begin we must start at the beginning! The most fundamental of all questions that can possibly be asked is, "Does God exist?" That is not to say that it is the foremost question on everybody’s mind. You may well have decided that there is a God and have other questions that are far more important to you than this one: How can I find peace and happiness? What does the future hold? How can I solve my personal problems? Other questions of this sort may be far more prominent issues to you. However, the existence of God has huge implications for all these others. It is with this ultimate question that our hearing must begin. Either God exists or he does not. There is no middle ground. Both cannot be true. No amount of philosophical trickery can hide from the greatest antithesis of them all. Either God is or he is not. We cannot leave this question for the intellectuals, scientists, philosophers, and theologians alone; we must answer it as well. We must answer it for ourselves. Believing in God, however, is not like other things we can "believe" in: The Loch Ness Monster is merely "one more thing."? God, however, is not merely "one more thing." The person who believes in God and the person who does not believe in God do not merely disagree about God. They disagree about the very character of the universe. 1 Everything that can be said about human life and behavior comes all the way back to this. Our convictions on this point unavoidably determine what we can or cannot legitimately believe concerning all other fundamental questions. Poll Position! Many surveys have been conducted worldwide on the subject of religious belief. These statistics are at the best of times ambiguous because any question about God needs qualifying. For example, some people believe in a personal God of creation, whereas others believe God to be a "life force"-impersonal and unknowable. Some scientists have even smuggled into a materialist worldview a god of cosmic dust, mysteriously interwoven with the fabric of the universe. So a definition of what we mean by God is crucial. We shall consider this later. However, universal belief in a Supreme Being is still as persistent as ever. A worldwide poll taken in 1991 has the global figure for atheists at just 4.4 percent. 2 Another category titled "other non-religious" added a further 16.4 percent-agnostics in the "don’t know" camp probably account for most of these. That leaves nearly 80 percent of the world’s population professing belief in some sort of God. In the United Kingdom at the end of 1999 a British survey conducted by Opinion Research Business suggested that 38 percent were "not religious." 3 This figure would again include both atheists and agnostics. Human Intuition What do these figures tell us? Perhaps many reasonable deductions could be made, but the obvious one is this: Most people instinctively or intuitively believe in God. If the poll had included a question on one’s familiarity with the major arguments for the existence of God, I suspect 99 percent would have denied any such specialized knowledge. So belief in God goes well beyond reason and argument; it seems to reside in our very nature. The atheist often finds that he is at odds with himself and the world around him. He must continually search for reasons to reject the existence of God. He must deny his own intuition and try to rationalize the notion that the universe has sprung into being without cause, without mind, and without design. On the other hand, people who believe in God rarely find themselves wrestling with their intellects, desperately trying to find some shred of evidence that may point to the reality of a "Supreme Being." Their heart tells them he is. Conscience shouts it, and reason seems to demand it. Of course, big questions still remain, but the essential conviction that he is real is common and hard to dispute. Child Prodigy This intuitive belief is found in children all over the world. I was sent an e-mail about an eight-year-old boy from Chula Vista, California, who was given a stretching homework assignment, a challenge beyond the reach of the greatest minds. He was asked to explain God! This is what

"One of God’s main jobs is making people. He makes them to replace the ones that die, so there will be enough people to take care of things on earth. He doesn’t make grown ups, just babies. I think because they are smaller and easier to make. That way he doesn’t have to take up his valuable time teaching them to talk and walk, he can just leave that to mothers and fathers. God’s second most important job is listening to prayers. An awful lot of this goes on, since some people, like preachers and things, pray at times besides bedtime. God doesn’t have time to listen to the radio or T.V. because of this. Because he hears everything, there must be a terrible lot of noise in his ears, unless he has thought of a way to turn it off?. God sees everything and hears everything and is everywhere, which keeps him pretty busy. So you shouldn’t go wasting his time by going over your mom and dad’s head asking for things they said you couldn’t have?. If you don’t believe in God you will be very lonely, because your parents can’t go everywhere with you like to camp, but God can. It is good to know he’s around you when you’re scared in the dark or when you can’t swim and you get thrown into real deep water by big kids. But you shouldn’t just always think of what God can do for you. I figure God put me here and he can take me back anytime he pleases. And that’s why I believe in God." 4 Anthropologists have discovered this sort of thinking in children everywhere, even in places where the religious culture teaches something different. The Burden of Proof Now obviously just because the vast majority of people believe in God or a god of some kind, we cannot conclusively say, "God exists." Universal belief in God throughout known history is a significant argument, but it doesn’t amount to proof. There is a huge problem with the issue of proof. Due to our limited minds, the nature of the issue we are dealing with puts proof practically out of the question. Some philosophers believe that even to attempt to prove the issue is futile. It is fair to say that the question of the existence of God can be neither philosophically proved nor disproved by human reason alone. By that I do not mean that we cannot be convinced about God’s existence. We certainly can be. I simply mean that the existence of God cannot be demonstrated so as to convince everybody. The media, as well as our own schooling, can give us the impression that science and scientific laws are provable, whereas God, the Bible, or Christianity are not. This is a misconception (though a forgivable one)! To do justice to our discussion we must take a brief look at this issue. If you don’t want a gentle mental workout and have no interest in the nature of proof, you may wish to skip the next few pages, but do not miss out on what is being said here! Full Proof? Logic demands that only deductive knowledge is strictly provable. To deduce something we must start with a truth definitely known and then by the logical process of inference arrive at certain facts that bring us to a conclusion. But what do we definitely know in order to begin this process? You may have heard the philosopher Ren