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The sad part is that Pat’s made a relatively safe bet. If the storm does turn and head back out over the ocean then Pat can claim victory for the power of prayer. If the storm hits, but does only light to moderate damage then Pat can claim that the effects were lessened because of his prayer. Hell, even if it does major damage and loss of life Pat can always lay claim that it would have been much worse if he hadn’t prayed to God about it.

One of the many advantages to invisible beings is it makes it hard to argue against those who claim to have their favor.

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Agnostics are just atheists without balls. - Stephen Colbert

Wow, a politician mislead people, that has never happened before. I have been following this closely, and while I may have missed something, at no time did I ever hear the President say that Saddam was responsible for 9/11. He definitely gave the public that impression (clearly shown by the fact 69% of them think so), but he didn’t say it outright. If I was one of the people that was duped into thinking it was so, I may be pissed at the President (only for revealing my own gullibility). But, I think it is more appropriate to be pissed at the media for not questioning the implications of his statements at the time, and also at the majority of dopes that came to a conclusion that wasn’t supported by facts.

Am I the only one that this pisses off! He Lied, and he knew he was lying when he said it. People are just to lazy, or too damn stupid, or both, To do anything about it. If more people gave a damn, maybe this Nation wouldnt be soo shity.

Seriously, I don’t even know why those eggheads at the National Hurricane Center even bother when you have a hurricane path trump card like Pat Robertson lingering around.

OHHH Does that mean I can put all my yard crap back out???
And I can return all the bottled water that I had to wait a half hour to buy???
LMAO

And people wonder why I find Christianity to be a joke…

Hilarious - except that my daughter’s only 10 - what’s in store?  They’ll probably have it all spelled out by then.  I never had a school bus.

now this is a cool site

Been there…I used to have insomnia bad!  Sometimes I wouldn’t sleep for days!  It wasn’t like I was worrying about anything; my brain just wouldn’t shut down!  I think in my case it was a lack of stress that led to the stress…or something like that :?

Clear case of God’s vengeance.  Is it a coincidence that Pat’s hometown is in the path of Isabel?  Another of the great Christian paradoxes…I guess the guys whose prayers are not up to snuff will get hit by the storm, while the righteous fellas will be saved from it

I wonder what the mom’s brother, Uncle Dad, thinks about it.

I like it, I think it’ll work out for you.  I especially like the adult retreat :wink:

Ugh, I meant god, not good. Sorry about that.

And when the storm hits we can assume that good either isn’t listening or is being evil?

Hey Les! Enjoyed the entire discussion. Now my eyes are ready to fall out.

HUH?!

Grimoires hell. When I was in Jr. High I was going straight to hell because I owned the Dungeon Masters Guide, Monster Manual, and Players Handbook for Dungeons and Dragons. Going to hell over a game? Give me a twenty sided die, I hack at the zealot with my two handed bastard sword of sillyness…

David: 

There’s a lot of text above, so I don’t see the point where I say you are judging. If I did, I didn’t mean to imply you were judgmental.

The test of Christian belief is affirmation of the Nicene Creed (ignoring the filoque controversy, which is a tempest in a tea pot, IMO.)  There is also a standardized canon, though the Catholics re-order the psalms and add some wisdom books that they themselves state are non-canonical but nonetheless useful.  And finally there is the spirit of God, that is, the Holy Spirit. 

My experience is that all Christians are members of the Body of Christ are united by the same Spirit of God and the same fundamental set of beliefs. 

JW, Unitarians, Mormons, some individual parishes, Muslims (which is a Christian heresy, too) have either different spirits or no spirit at all. Mormons have a completely different set of Scriptures, and the Muslims re-wrote the Bible entirely. Unitarians hold to a non-triune God, so they’re out as Christians. 

Baptists may consider themselves the new church of the Apostolic Age, but isn’t that pretty much the definition of evangelical Protestantism.  They hold the same beliefs that are stated in the Nicene Creed.  And they have the same Spirit as other Christians, in my experience. 

I don’t know if God leaves pictures of Mary all over.  Somehow I doubt it.  YMMV.

You seem to be saying, as many Protestants do, that the RC Church is not Christian because it holds to the necessity of works, not just faith.  This is a very old controversy, very deep philosophically, and Scriptures back both points of view.  As it says in James, paraphrasing here, show me your faith without works.  The Book of Revelations specifically says Christ will judge people by their deeds on Judgment Day. Jesus says, many people will say, Lord, Lord, but only those who do the will of the Father in Heaven will be saved.  St. Paul says by faith ye are saved.  John says whosoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved. 

You straighten all that out, which at a certain point converges philosophically, anyway.

I don’t think the show has a prayer without Ritter, but I think the upcoming two or three episodes dealing with his character’s death and the family’s efforts to cope will most likely go over OK.  However, after those 2-3 episodes, I think the show will die.  But what do I know?  I’ve only watched partial episodes a few times.

I hope they can do it well. I’ll most likely watch to see how it’s done.

I used to battle insomnia when I lived in Manhattan. Taxi-cab Horn Sonata in D Minor was never a pleasant thing at 3 AM…

We started watching it this summer after one or two tries last year, and it grew on us. Ritter was very likeable, and I could easily see myself becoming his character.

Kudos to ABC for giving it a go, as the cast is decent.

I totally can relate. I have many sleepless nights where I’m lucky if I get an hour. It’s stress related I tell ya. Same for you. A lot on your mind and stuff. Take it easy today.

IB Bill,
Just reread you latest post… So when I say Catholics aren’t Christian, I’m judging, but it’s OK for you to say JWs and Mormons aren’t really Christian?

Your comment about the Unitarians still has me laughing (it’s so true). But I know a couple of Unitarians that say they’re Christian too.

Les, please take things in context. Are you trying to get my goat? You know the quotes you’re taking from me about baiting you are in the context of my writing about my less than perfect behavior. Sheesh, a guy can’t even be self-effacing without getting beat-up for it! Surely you’re not writing that if someone has ever been guilty, then they can never point out the faults in others? How could any society hope to hold the individual members accountable? We are all fallible. I expect you to keep me accountable for my faults, and I expect to be able to hold you likewise accountable. I think I’ve been pretty fair about that to date: owning up to when I’ve mis-spoken or been wrong. I’ve given this a great deal of thought, and I realize that you may decide this is the height of arrogance, but I’m just not going to respond to this type of stuff anymore. It’s primarily baseless, and responding to it detracts from the real point of the conversation, which I may have been the intention all along. I will continue to use metaphors to explain complex ideas. It generally works better than the rigorous approach. You’re the only one I know who takes them so literally, maybe it’s you that should loosen up a little.

I don’t keep every rule in the Bible. No-one could. This is why Jesus came. Do I think the Law of the old testament is a good idea? Yes. Do I hold myself accountable to it? No, It doesn’t apply to you and I. Do I try my best to follow the teachings of Christ and concepts of Bible? Yes, absolutely. Do I fail at that? Yes, all the time.

As you’ve pointed out repeatedly, I don’t understand the way you think. So no, it’s not obvious what your intentions were as far as posting. I’ve seen you take a number of things deliberately out of context to make a point, why wouldn’t you post a response in one place and expect the reply in another? Tell you what, you stop taking things wildly out of context and I will preface my remarks more carefully so it is clearer who they are intended for.

Evangelical is a type of church, as well as a denomination (kind of like Protestants and protestants). The type of church I go to of the evangelical type, not denomination. As in: an evangelical, Bible based church. I’ve yet to see any Christian Church of any denomination that I’d compare to the Taliban. Next you’ll be calling me a Nazi, or some such other rubbish. But if by all that you mean that I am a fundamentalist, well then, in the strictest sense of the word, yes I am. I’d love to start a whole new conversation on this topic, because I’m pretty sure most folks have no idea what that all means, but probably think they do. I don’t think it’s any accident that the connotation of that word has been maligned.

Serai: I think you are correct. I heard a stat recently that there are more Muslims in the UK than any other faith.

IB Bill: I think our real problem is one of semantics. I say “this is Christian” you say “that is Christian”, but neither of us has defined what we mean be the word Christian. My simple definition: Anyone who believes that Jesus the Christ died as the perfect and only possible eternal atonement for our fallen nature. My main difficulty is that Catholicism believes that is not enough.

And BTW, Baptist ARE NOT protestants (please note small p, cap P is a denomintation). They claim to be from the Anabaptists which existed BEFORE the Roman Catholic Church. Another fly in the ointment, since they had the Bible before the RC church. Hey, maybe they think they wrote it…

Both you and Les now write that the Catholics “wrote the Bible”. This is nonsense! If any group could claim authorship, it would be the Jews. I personally believe it was all God inspired, since that is what Jesus taught (so who put the pen to paper doesn’t matter much). Again, it’s either the Holy Scripture, or it is not. It’s not a contextual issue, Christ taught that the Bible was The Word of God. You can decide not to believe him, but then that puts you in quite the spot calling yourself a Christian.

Since they deliberately didn’t translate the RC Bible into common languages until the 1960’s, I’d have a tough time saying that RCs know what’s in it. Most Bibles don’t have the apocrypha, which is only in the RC Bible, so it’s not even it’s not even “the current form”. Maybe you could claim authorship in one sense, I may have my history a bit messed up, but didn’t King James re-write, errr… translate, the Bible when he split from the Roman Catholics, creating the Anglican Church? And since then, haven’t most churches dumped he KJV in favor of other translations (once they were available) because of the skew James made his scholars put on certain passages that are not there in the original texts?

And of course: I believe there are that many Catholics like I believe the US is 90 something percent Christian. I know very few practicing Catholics (in fact, other than my best friend, none). I know hundreds of people who call themselves Catholic. As in: my parents are Catholic, but I haven’t been to church other than a wedding since my first communion. Or as Les so aptly put it:

The reality is that most “believers” are practicing the same faith their parents practiced. In other words, the decision to believe isn’t based on any time spent reasoning out why they believe or developing a logical thought process as to why their religion is the right one, but because they “inherited” their religion from their parents and were raised in it. My observation isn’t an insult, it’s a statement based on reality.

Enough appetizers: Let’s get to the main course:

My first two arguments are weak? Perhaps, but I note you haven’t bothered to address them.

Interesting, then the following part where you rebut those arguments is a figment of my imagination? I should have known something was amiss when you started making sense. And really, that’s not just a backhanded compliment, you were eloquent.

Your argument hinges on foreknowledge being the same as predestination. However: Foreknowledge is not the same as predestination. This is the best part of this to me: the main failure of your argument is the same failure I find with most predestinationist. In fact, you sound just like one of them. In essence then, you’re saying, “I don’t believe in God, because he must fit this narrow view of who I think he should be, which is impossible.” I agree: He does not fit that form, expand your view.

When I release a fork, I know it’s going to fall. I don’t cause it to fall: gravity does. I could make a random number generator, and although I designed it, and know everything about how it works, I still couldn’t tell you what number it’s going to generate next. Now the reality of our limitation is that that generator would require a seed, an outside random influence really, that would make the future outcomes apparently random. But God is more clever than I am, and he created this thing we call free will. And then He imbued us all with it. Now, He knows the future, so he knows the outcome, but He didn’t predetermine the outcome. Without free will we would be the automons that you describe. And I agree that the universe would be completely pointless.

I do like the comment about leaving drawings of his Mom, though.

Because I am limited to experiencing my life on a moment to moment basis, in the “here and now” as it were, I cannot know what the future will bring and thus I have the illusion of free will, but the reality is that those decisions are the only choices I can possibly make because the end result is already a known conclusion.

No, it’s not an illusion, from our perspective, the outcome really is in the future. It would only seem like an illusion if you were witnessing your own life from God’s perspective. And it would still only be an illusion in appearance, as you actually have free will. I suppose if you could do that, then there would be a paradox, but you can’t, at least as far as I know.

Again, an all-knowing and all-powerful God who’s responsible for everything that exists is also responsible for all that is wrong with everything that exists.

No doubt, and since he took the sin of the world with him to the cross, then one might say he paid that price. However, I say that with free will comes responsibility. Part of this issue is that if you start with the assumption of free will, your arguments don’t work well. But if you begin with the assumption of predestination, we suddenly have this problem. I say, since I believe in free will, then the responsibility for my choice lies with me.

What purpose, then, does giving us time to decide have if he already knows what our decision will be?

Have you never presented your child with a question, that you already knew the answer to? Do you desire love from your child? Would that love mean anything to you if you gave her no choice in the matter? And those are just reasons I can come up with. Again, I expect that God may have motivations that I can’t begin to fathom.

Yes, it does matter. By not having knowledge of what the future holds you don’t impact on the concept of free will. There is no paradox simply because you can’t know for certain what your kids will ultimately decide to do with regards to your hopes and plans. Trying to argue a point such as this by contrasting your relationship with your children to God’s relationship with his creation isn’t a very good comparison.

I have no new argument here. If you want to assume that fore-knowledge equals pre-destination, then your argument holds. I simply don’t agree with that assumption. Actually, I think it’s an excellent comparison, there is a great deal to that particular parallel. Considering I have a relationship with God and you don’t, I think it’s pretty funny that you should tell me what a good example of what that relationship is like.

Of course they have an agenda. You have an agenda or you wouldn’t be here. And, yes, I do feel the Bible has more than it’s share of contradictions. It also has some questionable precepts in my mind as well.

I have to ask this: What questionable precepts, and by what standard are they questionable?

Of course I realize quotes from the Bible can be taken out of context much the same way you took quotes from Carl Sagan and Albert Einstein out of context to support your points, something you didn’t seem to think was a bad thing to do at the time. I believe your exact response to that was along the lines of “I admit that I only used the part of the quote from Albert that supported my point. That may have been somewhat less than fully honest.” At which point you then went on to defend the practice as being acceptable for a couple of reasons. Now you seem to be suggesting that taking quotes out of context is a bad thing. Make up your fucking mind.

*Boggle* You pointed out that I was abusing the quote. I admitted that what I did was less than fair, and I stopped doing it: I agreed to play by your standard. Then you do it, so I point out that you are guilty: holding you accountable to your own idea of right/wrong. And you now have a problem with that. Who’s the one that’s confused here? I’m only holding you up to your own standard. Letsee, how’d that go? Oh yeah: Pot, Kettle… there was something else…

This is exactly my problem with this relativistic human secularism nonsense. There are no standards, you just make them up as you go along, and if one is suddenly inconvenient to have to live by, you just forget you ever had it.

Indeed, acts like that are one of the big problems I have with the God described in the Bible. If he did exist, he has condoned and authorized acts that make him unworthy of worship in my mind. No God that condones and even demands genocide is a “loving and caring” God.

Perhaps the toughest argument to answer you made in the whole response. I don’t have a great answer, even though I knew when I made the statement that generated it, it was coming. Hmmm, did my foreknowledge cause it to happen? The best I can do is this: 1) I do not comprehend all of God’s motivations. When I take in the overall picture of who He is and what else He’s done there are a few items I’m willing to let slide until I can talk it over in person with Him. I’d have a lot tougher time with something like this if this was His standard operating procedure, as it is in some faiths. 2) From the perspective that the end of life on earth is not the end of existence, death is not such a bad thing. I’m rather looking forward to Heaven. 3) If God uses one group of people to wipe out another group of people is that so very different from him limiting our life span in any other form? If he is the giver of life, then is it not up to His discretion to decide how and when He’ll take that life?

 

 

 

No, actually, it wouldn’t. Unlike you, I do like people in general and I don’t need an outside agent to command me to love others before being able to do so. Your comparison between Dentistry and being able to love others may be apt for you, but I don’t think it applies to most folks. It certainly doesn’t apply well to me. How then do you explain your need for a God to be able to care about others whereas I have no belief in such a being yet find it easy to care about others? Based on your explanation I should be a completely self-centered, inconsiderate, uncompassionate individual. Perhaps that’s how you view me, but there are others who would disagree.

I think it’s terrific that you find it so easy to love me, and here I thought you didn’t care. Is it possible that you’ve confused a love of some with the love of all? Certainly, we all find some people in our life that we love, at least hopefully. I’m writing there about loving people that you might find difficult to love, like me and you. And I’ve never said that no-one ever cares about anyone if they don’t believe in God. I do believe though, that God uses people who don’t believe in him all the time. And you wouldn’t see anyone caring for anyone if He didn’t. Just as He is the author of Life, He is the author of Love. If He didn’t create it, you haven’t seen it.

No, that’s not what I would do. Even if my daughter were to decide she doesn’t love me and decades were to pass, I would never sever all ties with her. She would always be my daughter and I would always be there if she wanted me to. Perhaps that’s what you would do, but don’t assume everyone else would as well.

I am happy for you, and pray that you never will have to eat those words. Lots of folks have to do this everyday. It’s called tough love, but I suppose you’d just call it heartless. As I said, hope it never happens to you and yours. No, I don’t know what everyone would do, I don’t even know for sure what I’d do. But I know that the survivors do it all the time.

# Mark 15:25 “And it was the third hour, and they crucified him.”
vs.
# John 19:14-15 “And about the sixth hour: and he saith unto the Jews, Behold your King! But they cried out . . . crucify him.”

Surely you can explain the three hour difference?

I think IB Bill did a fine job on this already. But I want to add here that if all of the Gospels described each of the events in the exact same fashion, you’d likely accuse them of collusion. It’s the minor differences that in fact make them more reliable. If you’ve ever performed any kind of investigation with eyewitnesses, you’ll know what I mean. Or as I like to say: You’re not really a parent until you have your second kid. Until then, you KNOW who did it.

Believing you are right and stating unequivocally that you are right are two different things. You have made statements that seem to indicate that you believe that anyone who disagrees with you is either stupid or dishonest (read: avoiding the truth).

Wow, you really beat this to death. This must be the 5th or so time you repeat that phrase. It must have really struck a nerve. Guilty conscience?

There are 33,800 Christian denominations around the world according to the year 2000 World Christian Encyclopedia. What makes you the final authority on which ones are and which ones aren’t “truly” Christian? Why should I accept your claim of being the one-true version over the claims of the Catholics or the Jehovah Witnesses claim of being the one-true version? I’m sure I could find more than a few Catholics and JW’s, along with many other denominations, who’d tell me you’re full of shit.

If you read the definition I have for being a Christian above, I think you’ll see that my “one-true version” takes in a pretty broad sweep. I’ll take my stand with it, but it’s simply my opinion. Having debated JWs and Catholics in the past, I find they often have a very tough time even defining their own religions. Most of them when presented with the facts of what their denomination preaches, change their minds about how solid they are in their denomination. There are simply some really bad inconsistencies in them, and I point out that I am not with them because I don’t want to have to defend that stuff. For instance: I don’t think God left images of His Mom scattered throughout the universe, and I’m not going to waste my time defending such nonsense.

Seems to me you’re doing just that by categorically stating that Catholics and JW’s are not “true” Christians. So tell me again how you are not being prideful?

Point of fact: I do not claim to be the final arbiter. I claim God is, and He provided us with His Word to help settle exactly this kind of misunderstanding. Otherwise, anyone could just say “God told me to murder my friends as an act of worship” and we’d just have to take him at his word. So I am not judging these faiths by some standard I just made up, but by the standard God gave us. Since these religions claim to have this same book as their Holy Scripture, I think that’s a fair deal.

Obviously you’ve never studied up on Secular Humanism. Belief in a God or any kind of “higher authority” is not necessary for morality or for a functioning society. Many of the Founding Fathers valued reason over faith when establishing a new country:
(John Adams quote)

Sounds like John Adams felt there was no need to go higher than man himself in the process of launching this great nation known as America. In many respects, the United States of America is a perfect example of a society founded in part by men with no higher authority than themselves. Do you consider the USA to be in total anarchy and therefore a “bad thing” by any standards?

I sicken at the revisionist history that has been foisted on America. Yes John Adams was one of very few of the Founding Fathers that disavowed Christianity to some extent. Of course, the document you quote is in ’87. Seems that John once claimed to be a Christian, and it so happens this document was sometime after the revolution. So it’s a least questionable that this was his frame of mind at the time of the revolution. And the fact remains that most of the other Founding Fathers were Christian and brought those beliefs to the table at the time.

Or as one Founding Father put it:
“It is to be regretted, but so I believe the fact to be, that except the Bible there is not a true history in the world. Whatever may be the virtue, discernment, and industry of the writers, I am persuaded that truth and error (though in different degrees) will imperceptibly become and remain mixed and blended until they shall be separated forever by the great and last refining fire.”
- John Jay to Jedidiah Morse, 28 Feb 1797

I think you quoted me accurately: Anarchy is a bad thing by any standard. Last I checked, we still vaguely resemble a Republic. I happen to think that’s the next best thing a benevolent dictatorship.

I’d like to close with this: the biggest problem I have with atheism is the reverse of the point you made about Christianity. People that want to sound intellectual say they are atheist. But most of them really mean they don’t believe what their parents believe. They’ve never really explored what they believe at all. When I listen to their understanding of Christianity, I agree with them: I wouldn’t want to be that religion either. When I first came to this board, I thought you were like that, and you’ve proven me wrong. I don’t have time to read your whole blog, I’ve hardly time to keep up with this thread. If you’d like to suggest a thread where you’ve already stated your belief system, I’d love to read it.

This raises a couple of questions for me, firstly why do these nuts always read from the bible?

Secondly was it reading the bible that drove them nuts, or were they nuts who just took a shine to the bible?

It’s funny really because although I personally don’t think the bible is the word of God, I have to admit more people have died over it than any other book I can think of.

And people say Grimoires are dangerous?!?!?

okey Bubba when I nod my head you hit it!

Hmm I have to say I would imagine that those figures would plummet rather drastically if you used actual regular church attenders and not just people baptised or christened.

I know that’s most certainly the case here in the UK, we say we are a country with a christian majority, but to tell the truth there are more full mosques than churches here these days.

Hehe there’s still hope for us pagans as yet!

Baptists are Protestants, and so are included in the above figures.  The other you mentioned aren’t really Christians; they’re their own religions, like Islam.  The Unitarians are a club of very nice people. No real threat from any of the above groups.

You said most likely to be true, not me.  But no less likely to be true, either.

No affront taken; sarcasm noted.  Have a good night.

Well,IB Bill, with your earlier numbers considered, that leaves only about a dozen Christians left as Baptist, Mormon, Jehovah’s Witness, Unitarian Universalist and all the rest of the {are-they-really} Christian religions. Their meager numbers don’t seem so threatening to me now. Thanks for cluing me in on the most popular and therefore most likely to be correct religion. Excuse me now, I’ve got to go see how many Hail Marys I’m responsible for.*

*Post edited to contain nothing but sarcasm, though not to be taken as a personal affront.

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“At six I was left an orphan.  What the hell is a six year old supposed to do with an orphan?“
Unknown

Yes, one-third of the world is Christian ... you didn’t know that? Another 1.2 billion are Muslim; nearly another billion are either Hindus or Buddhists.  About two billion are everything else.

It’s a fact; you can look it up. Here’s a link to information please almanac listing 1.9 billion adherents.

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0904108.html

Amazing, huh?

The mother sounds like she’d be fun at parties.

It’s always sad to see a young person make a fatal mistake.  I can understand the guy hitting him; I knew many people back in the day who simply accepted any challenge.  It was just a matter of principle.  But the guy getting hit.  Huh?  Very sad.  And I refuse to say anything about Darwin here.

I heard that

Thanks JethricOne… kinda…

I guess those charges weren’t completely unfounded… (J/K)

It varies state to state and the severity of the crime to be charged as an adult also differs… but to be LEGALLY Considered a Pedophile? What must the age difference between the two people be?

IB Bill, are you really saying that one-fifth of the world’s population is Roman Catholic and another nearly one-fifth are Eastern Orthodox or Protestant? Sorry, but I think you are fudging the numbers a bit (actually a great bit). This means well over one-third of the worlds population agrees with one general definition of Christianity. Where did you get your figures? No wonder their political machinations bear so much fruit and their priests get away with so much wickedness, even if the true numbers were only half that. (I seem to be constantly talking to guys named “Bill”) (grin).

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“At six I was left an orphan.  What the hell is a six year old supposed to do with an orphan?“
Unknown

To paraphrase David Hannum, “There’s a jackass born every minute.“

That story just restored my lost faith in humanity.  That people would take that risk, and rise up to duct-tape some dillhole, well, that just brings a tear to my eye.

I wonder if they also duct taped his mouth shut.  If so, ouch!  That’s definitely gonna leave a mark!

Surreal.

Which is to say: I prefer Christians who don’t point out the silliness of my view point.

No, it’s to say that I prefer Christians who don’t claim they’re not perfect, but then try to act like they are anyway. You know, in the way that you tend to do?

There seems to be a trend of late in the posts, that I am shoving my viewpoint on you and being arrogant. Nobody is making anyone read anything I write, and I’ll be glad to stop anytime Les asks me to. Indeed, I have stopped on certain points at exactly such a simple request. I’ve admitted openly, multiple times that I could be wrong, that not all Christians agree with certain points I’m making, that I’m far less than perfect, etc. Yes, I think I’m right, yes there are some aspects of my faith I do not fully understand. And Les, not everything I write is aimed at you. Many of the points I made were clearly meant as direct responses at others that you took personally.

I’m aware that not everything you write is aimed at me, though you could do a better job of making it clear just whom you are addressing. You keep protesting that people are misreading your intent, that you’re not really being arrogant. Perhaps you should re-read some of your replies and see if you can’t figure out why some of us are viewing those responses as being arrogant. I suggest concentrating on your tendency to assume to know how people will react in given situations and then drawing your conclusions about our intentions based on your assumptions. That’s arrogant.

If you take exception to being portrayed as self-righteous then try not acting as such. Again, you admit to trying to “bait” us with your comments, I’m sure that’s a tactic Jesus would approve of. You like to try to tell others whether or not they are a “true” Christian, nothing self-righteous in that. You also tend to dip into the old hypocrisy pool on a regular basis by doing things such as name-calling and then getting all upset when you perceive others are name-calling. Been taking lessons from Billy Grahm have we?

And lastly, sorry to offend you, IB Bill, but I think Martin Luther covered the problem with the Catholic Church calling itself Christian sometime ago, about 400 years. I’d be happy to go over some of the salient points with you though. To be sure, I’ve met Catholics that are Christian, but the religion as practiced by the Catholic Church has some rather serious issues. Since I would define Christian religions as those that follow the Bible accurately, then the idea that most Christian religions don’t believe in the inerrancy of scripture creates a problem. Is it the Holy Scripture or not? BTW, this is rather the root of the problem ol’ Martin had with Catholicism, it didn’t follow the book it purported to be most Holy.

So tell me David, you follow every rule in the Bible without question then? Or are you like any of the rest of the Christians I know who tend to be selective over which aspects you pay attention to. Surely if you feel the Catholics, who wrote the Bible in it’s current form after all, aren’t “true” Christians then you’re following all of the rules the Catholics aren’t, right? Keeping the Sabbath holy are we? Not doing any kind of work at all such as carrying anything around in your hands and such, right?

Somehow I’m willing to bet you’re as selective as most folks in that regard. Hardly puts you in a position to declare who is and isn’t a Christian.

I’d surely like to see the source of your statistic. My personal experience is that almost every evangelical church I’ve ever been to, and I’ve checked out a few, has it right in their constitution that they believe the Scriptures are inerrant, infallible, and God-breathed (or verbally and plenarily inspired of God, if you prefer). And even I take askance at that.

Why am I not surprised that you’re an Evangelist? Nothing quite like the Christian version of the Taliban to liven up a party. This explains soooo much.

I’m going to do a full response to later Les, but I’m not sure whether to post it here or in the other thread. Got a preference?

Considering I started this thread because the other one was getting so long I would’ve thought it obvious that I’d expect it to continue here. Then again, I am supposedly inexplicably stupid so I guess I wouldn’t see the infallible logic of responding to it in the other thread thus forcing people to jump back and forth to keep up with the conversation…

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Agnostics are just atheists without balls. - Stephen Colbert

Yeah, but the other penalty is that you have to live in North Dakota!

Seriously, it probably wouldn’t be so bad here if I didn’t have my daughter. We want to make sure she ends up in a good school district and can’t afford to put her into private school. If it were just my wife and I then we’d consider living in one of the cheaper communities to get started. It’ll all work out in the end, though.

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Agnostics are just atheists without balls. - Stephen Colbert

This is just further proof that you should have to get a license before you’re allowed to breed.

Thank you for reminding me why I prefer living in North Dakota. In the small town in which I live, the average home costs are roughly one tenth what you are mentioning, and I am not exaggerating. The main penalty is I have to drive about an hour to do major shopping, but it is well worth it for me (in MN I commuted almost that far everyday). I only have one option for high speed service, but it is quite reasonable at $34.95 for 512k DSL.

Yes, actually.

Minors can be considered pedophiles.

And to make things even more interesting, they can charge 16 year olds as adults for the crime.

Welcome to Michigan.

It probably doesn’t say not to take a crap on the bus either, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t get in trouble for it.

And to think I wasted my entire 7th grade year sleeping while on the bus… jeez… and my pastey white ass could have rounded third base before first hour.

And to the mother… unconstitutional??? Okay… I’ll give her a freebee on that one… (let the other posters rip her a new one) but the fact the bus rules above and to the right of the driver didn’t state her and his acts as inappropriate doesn’t make them legal or at the very least tolerable…

I can see it now… rule #11…
NO BLOW JOBS OR MUFF DIVING!!!

 

One note… a question that has been bothering me… Can a minor be a pedophile?

Oh brother!  Looks like some mother needs a smackdown!

The concept, pay a few bucks a month and get free downloads is nice. If it could ever be implemented, would be wonderful.

And when Napster was operating but under fire, there were polls..would you pay $5 a month for legal download privileges on Napster? Sure, said most people.

What did we actually get? $20 a month, every month, which includes all the internet radio station listening you want (woot), and fixed number of downloads out of their collection, a small percentage of which can be burned to CD. (The others stop playing when you cancel.)

Or $10 a month for download rights, and $0.99 cents per song, again from a fixed library.

And as long as we’re opening the coffers, you KNOW that RIAA isn’t losting 2.5B per year. It’s $14B a year, with losses expected to double every year between now and 2015.

And of course, with the huge amount of additional bandwidth this would take (over illegal downloading) you could expect the price of your internet service to undergo some periodic reviews.

Honestly, given the consumer-mindedness of our congress, and their tech knowledge, I think the deal the Germans apparently got would be the BEST we could hope for. I’d be thrilled if we escaped with only a new $6-10 tax and a revalidating that downloading files is illegal.

You mean the Balducci Levitation illusion, Marcia? It’s pretty easy to do with a little practice and if you think about it carefully, you’ll figure it out on your own. Done properly it makes you appear to float about 2 to 3 inches off the ground for a moment or two before suddenly touching back down again. You probably saw Blaine perform that trick in his TV special titled David Blaine: Street Magic. Word has it Blaine cheated a little by using some slight-of-hand on the editing process with that special to make it look like he was levitating several feet off the ground instead of just a couple of inches.

Still, done properly the Balducci Levitation can be quite startling to those who witness it. Especially if they don’t expect to be shown an illusion as is often the case in street magic. If you really want to know the secret behind the trick you can get a full explanation of it, along with an explanation of how Blaine cheated at it, by clicking here. You can also purchase a video showing how to perform the illusion by clicking here.

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Agnostics are just atheists without balls. - Stephen Colbert

Before finding several websites pertaining to John Edward being a fake, I really believed in him. Now I am not so sure. I am one of those people who tend to believe or not believe things at first and then research it further to “validate” if my feelings are right or not. I would still attend a taping just to see what it is like and to decide for myself. I have watched Sylvia Brown and I think she is a loon. The first sign of a liar is touching of the face or hair and she is constantly doing this on every show I have seen her on plus some of her answers to peoples questions are implorable. As far as John Edward goes. I would love to believe in him, especially since my Dad just passed away three weeks ago and I am having a hard time with it. I used to try and convince my Dad that John Edward was for real but he was not convinced and my Dad had also mentioned how Houdini wanted these people to also be for real but managed to debunk them all. I really hope our loved ones are watching over us and part of me will always believe this but my mind is always open and sometimes I think it is better not to know things for certain. Afterall, it is only after you die that you will know for certain. I love a good debate though and this topic will always remain a heated one Pertaining to David Blaine, how does he pull off his levitation trick anyway? This has me boggled.