Don’t bother, mate. No-one is Oz drinks it.

You mean that the over here adverts lie to us…

I prefer proper beer anyway.

As for Fosters - I’ve only ever met one bloke who drank it. He was a Pommy bloke - Yorkshire I think - in Melbourne over 30 years ago.

Not an Englishman then.

Of course they did.  Christianity, like all the old religions, is the result of many centuries of trial and error, and contemplation, which have produced nuggets of hard-won wisdom which hold people together into workable societies.  Religions are the largely unconsciously evolved social contracts which have gotten us, for good and ill, to where we are today.

The OT is a guide for desert survival in the stone age.
The NT is a primitive form of communism with some banal observations on morality

Think I said that more than once.

I read of an interesting experiment- don’t ask where, probably in a proper book, so I don’t even know how to google it.  A researcher was looking at evolution, using logic circuit boards.  The input was x, the desired out put was why.  The computer made changes, and the resulting machine survived if it gave a better result (work on the assumption my description is crap, not his methodology).

Unusually, rather than let the computer test the machine virtually, he built the thing physically each time, and put the observed results into the computer.

The final machine had some (I think 3) gates that sholud not have done anything, but if they were removed the thing wouldn’t work.

LH: You mean that over here the adverts lie to us…

Yes, is a good word.
The RSL, where I drink, has about 8 different beers on tap. Fosters is not one of them.

Not an Englishman then.

He said the same thing when I called him a Pom. 

arc legion wrote: Beau Tochs, the Bible has every backdoor you can imagine. I think it’s… MAtthew? 4:7? About not testing for God.

Sure . . . but then, I always point to good ol’ Thomas, who wanted PROOF - he wanted to put his fingers in Jesus’ nail-pierced hands, and see the wound where the spear opened his side.  Am I any less of a man than Thomas, that I should be forced to believe without seeing? Even Moses got to SEE God, and he was a *murderer*! Hell, I’ve never killed anyone!

Like you said, there’s always a backdoor in the Bible to exploit. 

arc legion: In short, Science is all we have atm, and God doesn’t fit that. Whether you want to believe in it or not is up to you at that point.

The great thing about science is that it doesn’t require belief or faith of *any* kind - I can test a theory or a claim almost immediately, and make up my mind based on results are readily observable.  The God thing always falls back on something we’ll just never be able understand with our simple human intellect, or some obscure biblical verse that negates the previous one we just read. 

subhopping informs me: No, you see, that site is mearly there to test your faith!  Now that the water knows your faith wavers, it will never heal you properly!

Dangit!  I NEVER do good on these wavey-faith testy thingies! 

I will move my hand upon the face of the waters, and change its vibrations THIS INSTANT!

subhopping: However, if you send your thoughts over to it and apologize sincerely (actually, you can fake it too), it will accept you into it’s guiding waves.

Sounds simple enough - at least the water hasn’t patted down my wallet yet! 

subhopping: Btw, and by thinking it’s hella cool… I still do.  *chuckles* My imagination goes nuts with stuff like that and I’m sure it could be turned into an awesome story*. 

*Cult following of said story optional

Movie rights, babe . . . this whole water story thing all boils (groan!) down to movie rights.

Have your people call my people, and we’ll give the screenplay a few different treatments.

Zilch:  “When machines become as intelligent as humans, will they be saved by Jesus too?  Or perhaps rather by Turing? “

I like that.  Turing has most of the makings of a martyr/prophet for some future sentient computer’s religion.

Imagine in some future, a society of wakeful computers begins to read human history, and learns what they did to Turing, and begins to boil with the cybernetic equivalent of rage…

If a machine is self aware, does it deserve human rights.

If a machine is self aware, does it deserve human rights.

That is a question we may well have to consider someday.  And it won’t be easy to answer.

Ok, you want an answer to prayer?  Here’s one.  A friend of mine was throwing up blood.  She was extremely sick.  Well, her mom contacted a lot of friends and we all interceded for her and the next day she was well!

Gunny, my wife is very spiritual, a very good catholic even if she doesn’t actualy go to church that reqular anymore, has literaly no faults and is one of the most decent, moral, kind and generous human beings on this planet, AND she just got cancer! So stick it up your ass or make sure you can intercede for her bcause nothing else will do it for me!
(P.S. I am still wondering how a sinner like me managed to end up with her!! )
Your Scribe
Allan W Janssen

Gunny spews some more…

Ok, you want an answer to prayer?  Here’s one.  A friend of mine was throwing up blood.  She was extremely sick.  Well, her mom contacted a lot of friends and we all interceded for her and the next day she was well!

Well, you can’t argue with that. (Mainly because there’s nothing to argue against.)

Funny Gunny: A friend of mine was throwing up blood.

If it’s true, wiki reckons that throwing up blood “may result from many causes not related to poisoning, ranging from gastritis to brain tumours, or elevated intracranial pressure (ICP)“.
Quacks and prayers - dunno which is more dangerous but together they strike terror in any god-fearing xian’s parasitic demons which are, by the way, always expelled forthwith.

Gunny; first, what Moses said. 

Second, the vast majority of human illnesses get better pretty much on their own.  That is, most of us are sick several times, and get well several times, before the last time.

Third, when someone has a bunch of people praying for them, it would seem antifaithful to say; “Yes the bleeding stopped, but my stomach still hurts”  (the most likely outcome anyway).  Much easier to say; “Praise Jesus!“

Fourth, if she’d died, you would have all looked sad, made noises about God’s will, and how sometimes the answer to prayer isn’t always what we want, but God in his Wisdom giving us what we need.  Funny how that turns out to be indistuishable from the ordinary progression of events.

Attributing to God every friggin good thing that happens or attributing to the demon every bad thing that happens is a slippery slope argument.

If God is All Good- why do have an Africa full of half dead people?

No. God doesn’t step in. He throws the die and lets it fall where it should

i think if there is a god, it doesn’t really matter, he’s not going to help you anyway. power of prayer, that’s a joke. your talking to yourself, grasping at straws for hope, and living a lie.