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mvassilev
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posted September 28, 2008 10:14 PM |
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I think there are more atheists among scientists than among the general population. And the scientists who are theists are not the kind of theists that ignore everything and just continue with their dogma.
And, anyway, I don't like this theist vs. atheist thing. I view it as more of a scale:
atheist - agnostic - ingnostic - deist - moderate religious - Giant Spaghetti-monster-style Young Earth Creationist
I don't have anything against any of these except for the last - who are often annoying.
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Eccentric Opinion
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Asheera
Honorable
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posted September 28, 2008 10:15 PM |
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I'm not an atheist but I agree with mvass
People like GoW (at CH) are annoying
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Doomforge
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posted September 28, 2008 10:28 PM |
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I have to agree with mvass, too
Myself, I am a realist and a fan of science.. trying to think reasonable.. and believing in God. Why? I have my reasons. If you excuse me, I won't share them with you, sorry..
As for scientists.. no, they are not all-religious, there are more atheists than theists there.. but.. the fact that the most brilliant of them are sometimes theists.. proves that religion should NOT be associated with intelligence or the lack of it. Which many atheists try to include in their line of thinking.
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mvassilev
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posted September 28, 2008 10:36 PM |
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It is true that there are both smart and dumb people among both theists and atheists, but it is in the nature of dumb people to swallow more dogma, and guess which of the two - theism or atheism - is more closely associated with dogma? Theism - just look at Scientology.
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Eccentric Opinion
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Nebdar
Promising
Supreme Hero
Generation N
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posted September 28, 2008 10:37 PM |
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Edited by Nebdar at 23:48, 28 Sep 2008.
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Maybe the reason why some scientis are theists because they know that there is no proof of god existence(it is just an idea in our brains) they belive that can find it by science .
All Gods have the same begining and the end.
No one belives in Greek god's or Egypthian for example because the majority of human kind understands the world better now and knows that those belief were wrong.(knowledge is always better than faith or hope).
So when Christian god will die
When we will discover what happens with us after death or we discover how to revive dead humans or implement longevity imortality or consciousness transfering.
And if you think that's impossible ask you grandfolks what they belive will be impossible and now is common thing.
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del_diablo
Legendary Hero
Manifest
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posted September 28, 2008 11:45 PM |
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Quote:
Maybe the reason why some scientis are theists because they know that there is no proof of god existence(it is just an idea in our brains) they belive that can find it by science
Or they went like: "Instead of waiting for the supreme being(s), lets move on ourself."
Unless you belong to a panteistic religion or stuff
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DagothGares
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No gods or kings
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posted September 28, 2008 11:56 PM |
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Quote:
No one belives in Greek god's or Egypthian for example because the majority of human kind understands the world better now and knows that those belief were wrong.
Tell it to the wiccans...
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(knowledge is always better than faith or hope).
I see you don't like any mystery in live. It's good for you that you found certainty. 
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If you have any more questions, go to Dagoth Cares.
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Nebdar
Promising
Supreme Hero
Generation N
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posted September 29, 2008 12:28 AM |
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What is god
god is an idea a thought and can be anything you want. It is human nature that when we feel allpowerful kings of the world, we think to highly about ourself so make stories, ideologies(or ideal logic where every thing is perfect)that suites our needs desires and opinions. We feel that we are "chosen ones", and because we feel it we don't need more proofs.
Feelings as so faith, hope or love, desires are fragile and most of all individual, and sharing them with others won't make them stronger it just comes to the situation that many people can be wrong or right about something. Sharing the same feeling, hopes, loves, faith, desires dosen't mean that they are good and right it only meangs that you are very similar to each other.
Thats why knowledge is better then feelings, premonitions. It's better to know that there is a god, heaven, hell, that you win in on lotery, that there will be an quiz tommorrow, the stock market will end at + or -. We can't know everything, in fact we don't have to but don't say that some thing exist(knowledge) without proof, any knowledge can be proven so it reliable. You can only say that you feel, belive so you are not shure about your beliefs.
All is needed is logic:
If something exist then there is a proof of it existence = 1
If there is no proof it doesn't exist = 0
There can't be middle answer it is 1 or 0, Yes or no.
Thats mine opinion. And forgive me my English. I didn't mean to offend any one with any words i just use the ones i know with limitied possibilities.
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OmegaDestroyer
Hero of Order
Fox or Chicken?
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posted September 29, 2008 12:31 AM |
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Your argument fails. Applying your logic, since we haven't actually discovered a planet with living organisms on it, there simply isn't any alien life in the universe.
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The giant has awakened
You drink my blood and drown
Wrath and raving I will not stop
You'll never take me down
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Nebdar
Promising
Supreme Hero
Generation N
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posted September 29, 2008 12:39 AM |
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Edited by Nebdar at 00:41, 29 Sep 2008.
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Your logic fails. Applying your logic, since we haven't actually discovered a planet with living organisms on it, then there simply isn't any alien life in the universe.
Logic never fails only feeling can be wrong or proofs.
I heard that scientis discovered bacteria in metorites and in the Marsian soil
That what religion is a middle answer. theory answer or simply a guess
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OmegaDestroyer
Hero of Order
Fox or Chicken?
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posted September 29, 2008 12:42 AM |
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Apparently logic does fail because yours did. You say if it can't be seen--if we have no proof--then it can't be real. So before they discovered that bacteria on Mars, there was no alien life in the universe right because there was no proof it existed?
____________
The giant has awakened
You drink my blood and drown
Wrath and raving I will not stop
You'll never take me down
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Nebdar
Promising
Supreme Hero
Generation N
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posted September 29, 2008 12:52 AM |
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Edited by Nebdar at 01:06, 29 Sep 2008.
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Only proofs are faulty. There is always possiblity that proof is wrong.
And if we have no proof it doesn't result that can be proven in future, but at this time we say that is 1 or 0. There rest is speculation.
Some question are unanswered or must be unaswered.
Hmmm is an unanswering an aswer
No Because it meanigles like adding 0(zeroes) to anny number won't change anything.
Some questions are waiting to get 1 or 0.(Yes or No)
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TitaniumAlloy
Honorable
Legendary Hero
Professional
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posted September 29, 2008 03:32 AM |
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Lord Almighty, Death, you and your objectivity
Quote:
No why would I answer a question that makes no sense?
"What has sense got to do with anything?"
-The Death
@Doom:
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This is, whether you like it or not, old laws of Jews, written entirely by men, and God is just used to strengthen the meaning.
Does that prove anything? Well.. no? ;p
This means that you don't follow the bible, hence the question is not directed to you.
A huge number of people worldwide to take the bible literally and these questions are here for them, not people like you who believe in a creator, make their own rules and still claim to be Christian (not sure if you do but this is a popular form of religion).
Quote:
Heck, they don't even know that the top scientists often are theists.
uhh.... for example?
And you can't reference Newton or anyone who lived like 400 years ago, because things were very different back then.
(Newton was also an occultist )
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the fact that the most brilliant of them are sometimes theists.. proves that religion should NOT be associated with intelligence or the lack of it.
Nice turnaround
But you have to remember faith and belief are different to religion.
Mvass put it nicely.
There are people who believe that there is a creator (such as deists or even low-key theists) who do not follow religion. There are atheists who do follow religion (Buddhism).
Despite the thread name (which I wrote when I was alot younger), I don't really care if some scientists want to believe that there is a creator, because it doesn't affect their research or their scientific lives at all. They approach science in the same way that an atheist would, because they are not dogmatic Christian, hence they are not strongly religious.
It is religion that I am inclined to reject, rather than non-invasive belief.
@OD:
Quote:
Apparently logic does fail because yours did. You say if it can't be seen--if we have no proof--then it can't be real. So before they discoverd that bacteria on Mars, there was no alien life in the universe right because there was no proof it existed?
Rather than seen I think he means detected.
Things can only be determined to be detectable if you try to detect them. If we had never tried to detect life on Mars then we could not claim that life on Mars is undetectable, only that we don't know.
Not saying that I agree with what he is saying but you are approaching it wrong.
I would, however, say that if there is no evidence to suggest something, and nothing to detect it's existence, and it has no influence on our lives, then there is no reason to believe in it.
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John says to live above hell.
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angelito
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posted September 29, 2008 09:52 AM |
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Edited by angelito at 09:55, 29 Sep 2008.
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...proves that religion should NOT be associated with intelligence or the lack of it.
Of course not. You shouldn't associate anything which is nearly impossible to explain. Why are serial killers often very intelligent persons for example?
I'm sure intelligence has nothing to do with being religious or not. It has to do with your own education (parents etc...) and experiences you have made in your life.
But, as sarcastic as it may sound, this counts for alcoholism aswell. Just compare....
What I find interesting about some people here in this thread is, no one had the only correct answer to those 10 questions as of yet: I don't know!
No one can know why something happens or does not happen if it is done by a "God", coz I am sure "God" won't appear in someone's house between "Friends" and "Oprah" and have a small talk where he explains his ideas and motivations. So please stop to explain why God fails to help amputees, fails to eleminate starvation, fails to explain all the flaws in the bible, listens only to prayers spoken from a specific kind of people etc... You all do NOT know, if you are honest to yourself. Am I right?
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Better judged by 12 than carried by 6.
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Doomforge
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posted September 29, 2008 11:28 AM |
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TA: I don't try to set my own rules, that wouldn't make any sense As a Christian, I (should) follow Christ. That doesn't mean I can dismiss the Old Testament, but.. There were many things based on dreams, visions there. There is some history and old law there. Why should we assume all of it are God's words? That doesn't mean Bible is worthless, but I think that you should be rather careful with the Old part. The New is substantially less ambiguous. I know certain people found some contradictions in it and I know them, but it's nothing serious. It's the Old one that gets most of the anti-Christian hype
As for scientists.. well, there are few, most of them don't follow particular religion though but never negate that God is perfectly possible and makes a lot of sense. Hawking and his cosmology for example, or Einstein and his famous "hearing the music of the spheres" They aren't exactly what you would call theist, but they are far from atheism, too. This doesn't mean there aren't 100% theists around them, as well as 100% atheists. What I'm trying to prove is that one should say that some things are outdated or plainly illogical going by science (like Xerox implies 100% of the time) because it's not like that.
Angelito: Why should I say "I don't know" when the answer is simple logic to me? I say "I don't know" pretty often, but not in such ridiculous cases. I don't know why God doesn't like gay sex, for example - why does it bother a divine being where lower being put their organs!? Well I can always say that it's Paul's personal point of view, but..
But in those cases, or questions like "How can God be omniscient and blah blah blah or how can God be all-powerful and blah blah blah" I simply know the answer because it's really simple That's because it's not God we question, but the flaws of our logical system.
See omniscience. The controversy in it is based on our lack of understanding. We don't have any omniscient beings or anything close to it in our world, the term is strictly abstract. And thus, we can't really apply common logic to it and expect it to work. If we define omniscience by "knowing the outcome of every possible situation", though.. it makes a lot of sense, has no contradictions in it and fits our human logic perfectly while retaining its divine meaning. See? It's all about how we humans see it, it doesn't necessarily prove anything.
One question bothers me. Why do anti-religious people use Zeitgeist and "Creation revisited" as their sort of holy Bible? They so blindly believe in everything there. Even though Zeitgeist isn't exactly very accurate about Horus (many stupid ideas, actually. Try "zeitgeists lies" on YT or simply read about Horus.. >_> and creation revisited is just an interpretation of author's logic, that is not necessarily true or correct. Extreme theists and extreme atheists have a lot in common.. they all believe blindly in their "holy books" without a second of thinking.
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Moonlith
Bad-mannered
Supreme Hero
If all else fails, use Fiyah!
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posted September 29, 2008 12:46 PM |
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Well Zeitgeist has one thing going for it Logic. By taking Zeitgeist as truth, pretty much anything you see happening these days, from 2000 till now, all falls into the picture Zeitgeist describes. Even this financial cricis makes sense.
Wether it all is very accurate or not I do not know, but I consider those details - the broad picture it paints is accurate and logical.
Zeitgeist - Addendum airs 2th of October, online at the 3th I'm quite curious.
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baklava
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posted September 29, 2008 01:10 PM |
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10 questions?
Well that was fun.
Let me try. From a mostly agnostic point of view, of course, but having moderate Christian views in mind.
1) Why won't God heal amputees?
This entire question rests on the basis that God heals anyone who prays to be healed.
However, I don't think anyone but the most fanatical people and/or children actually firmly believe that prayers work that way. If something happened to you, there's a reason why it happened, and you can't change God's mind so easily. Prayers are there to ease your soul, to share your burden, to channel positive energy, and they may help - but by mental (and sometimes physical) enlightenment rather than mutation.
That's not an excuse, that's just the way things work, from the Christian point of life. Cause Christians prefer to believe that something good will come out from all that, and that they didn't just randomly lose an arm, instead of getting more and more depressed. Whether that's a correct point of view remains to be discussed.
2) Why are there so many starving people in our world?
Because of us.
Humans are created free, and God, by definition, does not go around telling people what to do. Commandments in the Bible are simply advice for mankind to prosper and be happier, and if everyone followed them, there wouldn't be so many dying people around. Note: several passages in the Bible might seem otherwise, I'll answer that in the next question.
God lets us learn by our own mistakes, and yes, that may sound cruel, but it's the only way mankind will ever be able to learn anything. We may or may not learn, but he gives us the option. The starving children are a direct product of the constant wars and battles that go on over there - among those free humans - and the rest of the world who does not intervene as much as it can, and prefers to squabble among itself. Whatever we do is our choice - and those children are starving because of our choices.
Yes, we'd love to blame someone else, like God or Satan or aliens, but the truth is that we are to blame, and that doesn't mean that God does not exist. It just means that he parents us on a level we cannot fully comprehend. It could perhaps be described (though it perhaps wouldn't be appropriate for our minds) as letting your child drive a bicycle. He'll fall and falter, but will eventually learn to drive it.
3) Why does God demand the death of so many innocent people in the bible?
This is one of the most ancient and overused arguments atheists have ever used. Apparently, by denying the Bible, they are convinced that no God exists. And it's simply easiest to deny the Old Testament, cause it's been written several thousands of years ago.
See, the bible may have something to do with God, or may have nothing to do with him at all. But let's assume it does, to some point.
If the Old Testament was perfect, and the world functioned in complete harmony and understanding, then Jesus wouldn't have been nailed to a cross, would he? Jesus was sent to correct people's mistakes and wrong opinions. To be a beacon of everything good and pure. And just like the New Testament of today was modified and changed to fit the Church in the last 2000 years, so the Old Testament was modified back then. In those times, the interests and traditions of the society reflected themselves in teenagers being obedient, girls being virgins when they marry, everyone being straight, etc. And it was perhaps easiest to do it if they said God wants it to be so. Different times demand different measures, and back then, a lot of humane ideas wasn't really born yet. People learned them later. And we're still learning.
Note that all that doesn't mean that the Old Testament is wrong. It's a philosophical work written thousands of years ago - some parts are universally applicable as metaphors, and make sense, but some are simply outdated. That's why there's the New Testament - the official bible patch 1.5.
4) Why does the bible contain so much scientific nonsense?
Does it?
As an educated person, you ought to know what a metaphor is. The bible is overwhelming with metaphors, which to today's standards may seem rational or not.
The "dust" that Adam was created from refers to the materials of the Earth. Not to mention the theory of panspermia, exogenesis and some others (they may be true or not, but possibilities remain).
As to the rest of the creation, you can find a long and detailed answer here. You can always find an answer if you simply google it.
5) Why is God such a huge proponent of slavery in the bible?
See answer to question 3.
Running out of time for today. It's so much easier to ask questions than to try to answer them from some people's point of view...
Will continue tomorrow if I find time.
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TheDeath
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with serious business
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posted September 29, 2008 01:32 PM |
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Quote:
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Lord Almighty, Death, you and your objectivity
Quote:
No why would I answer a question that makes no sense?
"What has sense got to do with anything?"
-The Death
Yet again you ignored what I said. Don't worry I got used to it already.
The question itself was "xyz? Does that make any sense?" and I said "what has sense got to do with xyz?" so to speak (answering the second question). Therefore the question itself makes no sense, to quote the guy (I like to use people's arguments against them)
Quote:
4) Why does the bible contain so much scientific nonsense?
Apparently also people that oppose religion will also always find "excuses" for example, to this article as well (I have pointed it out many times already), saying that it takes a "modern" look at religion or whatever -- as if in today's world we can take other looks! If we were to take other looks, you wouldn't even consider it "reasonable" lol.
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TitaniumAlloy
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Professional
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posted September 29, 2008 02:16 PM |
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@Death
I'm going to be honest with you I have no idea what you are talking about.
I'm sorry.
@Bak:
Remember that these questions are meant for people who take the bible literally.
The bible states NUMEROUS times that whatever you pray for, god will answer.
Many many people believe in the healing capacity of prayer and many christians cite anecdotally evidence of healing for things that may have been healed by prayer, but also may have been healed coincidentally.
Amputees are just an example of a situation where it CANNOT be healed coincidentally, therefore it removes ambiguity.
If you believe that god does not answer prayers and sometimes heal people, then the question doesn't really apply to you because you are already more logical than the question gives you merit
As for the Old Testament: the New Testament states that all of the bible is the word of god. That means that if some of the old testament is fales or misleading or confusing or downright ridiculous, then either it is god being confusing and whatnot and causing all the trouble that he sent his son down for in the FIRST PLACE, or the New Testament is false as well.
Why does he have to have such ridiculous metaphors? Isn't it supposed to benefit the general public and stop the confusion that has cost tens of thousands of lives?
And if Adam and Eve is a metaphor, that means that Jesus died for a metaphorical sin committed by a non-existant person... 
And there are plently of examples littered throughout this thread where it's just completely absurd. Like when the guy cuts up his concubine or whatever
Metaphor for... what?
Don't snow out your daughter to the townspeople to "humble her"?
Also.. if God is the one and only.. why is there so much in the bible about other gods and idols? It's the number one and two commandments pretty much and God's anger throughout the bible can only be described as like that of a jealous lover. So many people are killed, so many daughters raped and children beheaded on God's command just because of other religions and idols etc.
Relax, god! Like eternity in hell isn't enough?
____________
John says to live above hell.
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TheDeath
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
with serious business
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posted September 29, 2008 02:33 PM |
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Quote:
@Death
I'm going to be honest with you I have no idea what you are talking about.
I'm sorry.
Ok let me try one stupid example
"Why does that guy play Counter-Strike, it doesn't make any sense, does it?" (supposing people like this don't know what fun is!!!)
yeah I know stupid example...
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