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Yesterday Peshawar attack!!
           

 Please don`t kill innocent students they are juxt baby`s :( ??? ??? ??? ???

140 students were killed!! and many students are injured !!

now the sky is totally red in PAk !

GOD HELP US :

God doesn't help.  He only murders.   :-\

As long as there are two contradicting sides, there will always be violence just to prove who is righteous than the other. :(
Sad to hear that the safety of the innocent people are always compromised by these kind of attacks.

???   explanation?

Millions of people have been killed in god's name throughout the course of history.  

Understood, but millions of people have claimed to be helped by God as well and millions of people do good things in God's name. I guess I was more interested in the "God doesn't help" part?   I'm not sure its fair to blame God for humans doing something in his name, it shouldn't necessarily imply that God is the one to blame. I guess in the same token, I'm also not sure its fair to give God credit for the people doing good in God's name.

Millions of people have been killed by acts of god also ;) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Act_of_God

If I spent most of my days helping people but every once in a while I decided to set off explosives that killed thousands of people would you say I was a good person?

first of all how can u tell that GOD is HE/SHE? (gender?

Is God an idea that preys on our Existential Fear (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=365141.msg9873921#msg9873921)?

When belief systems are highly personal and diverse, they aren't dangerous movements. When they become commoditized, such as how the Roman emperor Constantine co-opted Christianity in order to raid the money of the popular movement (http://armstrongeconomics.com/2014/05/19/constantine-saint-or-just-another-political-fraud/), they are methods of mass mind control.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_Popular_Delusions_and_the_Madness_of_Crowds

We are talking about politicians. They are lining their personal pockets with green. That's all.

:)

really that attack was really harsh, no words  :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X

All people die. Some die as infants. Others live over 100.

If a person is a Jesus believer, he goes to Heaven where there is forgiveness and everlasting joy. If he is not a Jesus believer, he goes to Hell where there is everlasting punishment for the sins he committed while living here.

If God lets believers die young, they are in joy. If God lets unbelievers die young, they have fewer sins to be punished for in Hell = less everlasting punishment.

So, if God lets people die, it is for their benefit.

:)

Same answer as my previous post.  :)

That is life, those things happen time by time, what politicians can do with that - nothing - may be some stronger legislation  ;D

true yet hurts :(

they need to make people know that no one is safe, even children.

It is the goal of terrorism, create terror among people

You dont honestly believe all that do you? No really.....you dont right? No really....seriously tho?

hahahahaha, my reaction exactly... not sure if trolling....

As a person who was formerly interested in some of the astute logic of the Bible such as Matthew 7 where Jesus explains that judging is mutually destructive, i.e. teaching the value of mutual love and respect, I am coming to the realization that the logical basis for the Bible is archaic.

Wouldn't a God want to liberate us from our fear, not sustain our fear as a means of control?

So the Bible claims we have nothing to fear if we fear God and all humans follow the 10 Commandments, but not only does the Bible also admit that humans can't all follow the unrealistic 10 Commandments ("we are born sinners" and "we are filthy rags") but it even says we won't know our fate until after we die and our heart (and actions) are judged at the narrow gate. This unattainable perfection is the clever psychological ploy analogous to Lotto. Something you strive for but almost never achieve.

The 10 Commandments are about needing to trust each other, e.g. that your neighbor won't covet your wife. But we are now inventing technologies that enable us to trust the untrusted (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=365141.msg9883335#msg9883335).

Perhaps the entire logical basis of the Bible seems to become irrelevant? Humans need to be empowered as individuals, not corralled into collective dependence (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=365141.msg9874688#msg9874688). In this way, knowledge can be maximized (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=355212.msg9874634#msg9874634).

The Bible's solution to fraud is to tell you to let the thief keep it and to expect your wealth to grow wings and fly away. It tells us to seek not wealth but faith. But if our wealth is stored in knowledge as I visualize for the coming knowledge age (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=355212.msg9874634#msg9874634), then it can't be stolen and knowledge is less nebulous than (analogous to Lotto) faith. If everyone seeks faith and not wealth through knowledge, then production ceases. The Bible tells us not to worry about what we will eat, for if God can feed the birds then surely we will be given food. It tells us to walk with nothing from town to town and rely on the generosity of strangers, but if all strangers become faithful and everyone is walking with nothing, then who will produce?

How did this devolve into a discussion about religion?  ... This reminds me of my last Civ5 game and how ideology/faith points had no impact on my happiness, gold, resource, or productivity levels. 

Because government and religion are synonymous with collective dependence, psychological control, and thus enabling corruption by those are handed the power by these collectivized paradigms (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=365141.msg9874688#msg9874688).

Summarizing my prior post upthread, the Bible and the government are both centralized paradigms, where the collective depends on each other. We need decentralized paradigms where the individual is empowered.

Gold is not a decentralized paradigm (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=365141.msg9883335#msg9883335).

There is no win in this for the politicians, hence they are doing nothing.

What are you talking about? Politicians are always winning. Go look at their bank account statements.

That'll teach me not to skim posts! Silly reply with lighthearted intention aside, I acknowledge your astute observations. Problematically many people cannot perform basic functions without consulting someone else. 

And, the average person will just go along to get along and that's how we got where we are today. Very few would consider using violence to make right what should be right. Furthermore, the govt-media complex does a great job at turning off the boob americans to anyone else that is trying to do anything to help the situation. Not to mention, this alleged power is meaningless considering the amount of military hardware in local police's hands and all the hollow points that homeland security has when you compare all that to the small amount of actual militia types that would have the mindset to engage such a large occupying force. These politicians stacked up their legions to protect them from us in the end.

Please enlighten me, where is the instruction manual for shooting a paradigm shift (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=365141.msg9884094#msg9884094)?

things like that happen when your attention needs to be diverted..
- 'hey look over there!'

 we are being kept constantly distracted since invention of msm.

The picture and caption depicted that the guy that is selling people BS is imperil simply if the people realized they had more so-called power than they thought they did. That power could either be an organic grassroots campaign to unseat this politician and multiplied on a larger scale to affect the country/state/locality as a whole or the aggression route which I was hypothesizing about. There's so many low info voters and news viewers or lack thereof that this power of information utilization to exert change can easily be steered in one pre-determined direction or another. Hence, the recent election of republicans to leadership roles in the Congress yet the first thing the establishment overlords do from the right is ram through a god awful $trillion+ bill that funds pretty much everything they were elected to dismantle. So many people believed they were doing the right thing by voting republican and while overall it was a good thing, the den of leadership is still ran and defended by the establishment republicans. Meaning, even the good conservatives and libertarians that were elected are pretty much on the sidelines especially when the establishment of both parties collude with each other against the minority in each. Not saying we aren't trending toward more anti-establishment folks getting elected but the corporate machine that funds the establishment politicians who are the protectors of the banking, media and MIC syndicate, have shown how tough it is to overpower them. They swept every US Senate primary this last election despite deep and committed grassroots fights in many states. So, this is one large example that a paradigm shift of sorts was in play but the low info republicans were fooled and the corporate candidates won the day. I injected neither anarchism nor socialism here but merely was thinking out loud about the sand that the average person has and how corralled they can truly be despite thinking or proffering that they aren't. I wish it could be true and perhaps Bitcoin will help that happen.

Chef Ramsey, a paradigm shift is where the incentives have changed, and the shift is unavoidable. It doesn't require any education of the actors, because they implicitly grasp their self interest as evident by the recent example of the green line below.

Self Interest is THE incentive, that hasn't changed. What has changed is the means by which people can best serve their self interest.

I entirely agree and I explained how collectives create distorted self interest that is globally destructive (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=365141.msg9874688#msg9874688).

This is part of the equation. It isn't all. There are the reasons why God allows people to live. One of the big parts is so that they have time to convert to Christianity and be saved. Another is so that saved people may increase in goodness so that they have a more glorious resurrection. People who are saved are blessed with different positions of glory in Heaven, depending on their life on earth. God is the judge. We don't know all the things that go into His judgment.

The same is true for those that wind up in Hell. Depending on the general goodness (or badness) of their life, how many opportunities to be saved they turned down, and who knows what else, God will determine their level of punishment. The severity of punishment will not be the same for everyone. God is just.

:)

@BADecker Im just curious what structured religion you associate yourself with?

That's a good question. Tell you what. Bible.

Bible talks to each person slightly differently, but very similarly.

New Testament; Jesus says this that I have posted above, if you look. Not the same words, of course.

Words in a forum like seldom express the real meaning of what is trying to be said. Also, what is read is interpreted differently than what was originally meant.

:)

Saved from what? From punishment for being the imperfect humans that God created in the first place? Reminds me of torturing doodle bugs by creating a world in a Coke bottle experiment where they were outnumbered by fire ants.

Surely God knows that good can't be discerned without evil, just as light can't be seen without dark as contrast.

But there is something deeper going on here. If any entity creates a system of entropy, then that entity can not control it ALL OF IT, precisely because if there is a top-down controller, then all the entropy is destroyed because it is all deterministic (dependent on external control).

Thus God isn't doing any individualized punishing, sorry. Impossible. Either we exist or we don't and the serendipity (entropy) exists or it doesn't. You can't have it both ways. If God is meddling, then the Universe ceases to exist and he is all alone again. A God could be observing and then do a reset and destroy or reduce the entropy of our Universe to start over. A God could exert partial control, and leave some of the entropy to be free. But by doing this continually over time, the God's preference for certain outcomes would destroy all the entropy just the same and the Universe would be just a mirror of God. So what was the point of such a game? The God is alone all again with an exact or subset copy of himself.

Even if our soul was moved outside this Universe upon death, then it could not have any communication channel to this Universe, otherwise the entropy of this Universe would collapse. So what is the point if we have no connection to the being we were here in this Universe?

Sorry top-down systems don't sustain (and God must be eternal right?). They are temporary or partial Coasian barriers, lest existence doesn't exist.

My blog essays "The Universe" and "Information Is Alive!" provide more background.

P.S. we have a conscience because evil is a high risk activity, because it turns many forces against you. The best are technological advances which make it impossible to do evil, e.g. the decentralized block chain makes it impossible to direct debasement to corruption, the end-to-end principle puts the smarts at the edge of the network, so the intermediaries have no control, etc..

The answer to this isn't something that can easily be said in a handful of words. But "saved" is saved from our own self-destruction.

Possibly the top, major purpose that God made people for is to glorify Him. God made people with enough of Himself in them so that they could recognize His greatness, and praise and honor Him for that greatness... thanking Him for creating them.

One rule; one law; one order; don't eat the one fruit. Eat all the rest. Don't eat that one. Honor God by obeying that one rule. After all, honoring God, and thereby glorifying Him, is what man was created for.

People couldn't leave well enough alone back then, and they haven't ever since.

The result is entropy. There was no entropy before that. Man brought the entropy.

The universe is ONE. It all hangs together as one unit. The disobedience of man created the entropy that covers the whole universe.

God had a choice back there in the Beginning. Lose the glorification; lose humankind; or don't lose. God chose not to lose. He did it by promising a Savior, Who came in the God-man, Jesus Christ.

Now, God won't lose. The people who follow Him and believe in Him will be saved for everlasting life. There is glory for God in this, because these people will forever praise Him EXTRA because He didn't have to save them, yet did save them... from their own self-destruction.

The people who don't follow God, and proceed onward to their self-destruction, can only praise and glorify God, because they were given the chance, and used their own choice to reject Him. God was fair beyond beyond. He is glorified by those who are destroyed because they used their own choice which God gave them, and so they glorify Him.

What does it mean to be destroyed? What is this destruction that we need saving from?

God can exist outside of time and eternity. We cannot do so without Him. Our spirits are connected to eternity in such a way that their destruction, their dissolution (if it that's the route we take), will take forever. Will it be pleasant, our personal dissolution forever? Absolutely not! The forge fires of Hell, whereby God gets His power back from all those who do not turn from their own self-destruction, are something that will go on throughout eternity, because that is what the soul of man is... something eternal.

You want it? You get it! But it is your choice, even your opportunity. This is the way it is. Take your pick.

:)

So you believe in the "New Testament" but not the "Old Testament"?
In reference to your underlined statement: Are you implying that the "bible" is open to each individual readers interpretation?

If so, I will give you a softball to start....

What is your personal interpretation of Exodus 21- specifically the part about owning people as slaves and having the right to beat slaves as long as the beatings dont cause death.
Under what interpretation should a sane person accept these type of acts come from an all loving creator of the universe?

Im really not trying to derail the thread, but this could get pretty interesting...

Interesting like your avatar. I am not interested in bandying words for nothing. Didn't I say "Bible?" Is Bible only N.T.? Wanna play, huh?

Many of the words used in older translations are not accurate with today's language. What is often interpreted "slave" in the older English, would be interpreted "servant" or "indentured servant."

How does a person get into the position of servant or slave? You might have a day job - servant. You might have taken on debt to pay for a car - slave. If you were kidnapped and sold into slavery... there are words in Exodus and elsewhere in the O.T. that forbid the stealing of a person.

:)

Exactly. One boring nirvana with no diversity and very lonely.

Either God can't meddle or he will end up all alone again.

Sorry there is no mathematical way around this.


If we do evil, we increase our risk greatly of being destroyed within this life.

But the real issue here is the assertion of an after life and the claim that a God can punish us for eternity with fire, brimstone, repetitive disembowelment, and gnashing of teeth for eternity.

I do not see mathematically that assertion can be true. If there is any meaningful feedback loop between our Universe and the after life, then the entropy of our Universe collapses to the perfect will of God, meaning a copy of him and the loss of diversity.

On several levels, it appears to be story crafted from existential fear of darkness of night (can't grow crops without the sun) that morphed into a mechanism for mass mind control via propagation of fear of an after life that can't be falsified and doesn't make any sense from an entropic analysis.

I too fell into this psychological trap of believing Christianity because of my idealism and desire to belief in an order that protects good from evil. But my understanding has become refined and more astute (I believe although I am willing to entertain counter logic that is worthy).

The rebuttal is of course that to prove your faith it can't be certain, otherwise there would be no value to be faithful. I break down that logic (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=365141.msg9873921#msg9873921) in terms of the definition of love and mutual respect.

You don't understand what you are talking about. The people who live with God will have joys that are as diverse as necessary to please them. They will glorify God for His great goodness, and He will glorify them for their recognition of Him. Very un-boring.

Continue with your choice.

:)

You are missing the point that either they are perfect and thus a copy of God, or they are imperfect and thus God's will was not applied.

If you are speaking about the joys they have in this Universe while they are still imperfect, yeah they rejoice in thinking they are the few ones what won't be perpetually burned with fire (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=365141.msg9873921#msg9873921). Yet they forget, no such promise was made to them. We are not allowed to judge ourselves and must wait for the narrow gate ex post facto to receive our fate.

There is no way a promise could be made, because it would be impossible to define. Because no human is perfect, so there would have to some sort of way to describe the infinite ways a human's life was and which of those infinite ways is acceptable to enter heaven. In short, it is nonsense.


Exact copies of each other so nothing changes, nothing is alive, and nothing exists. Read my exposition of this in my blog essay, "Information Is Alive (http://unheresy.com/Information%20Is%20Alive.html#Algorithm_!=_Entropy)".

Good is not discernible if there is no contrast of evil. If everyone is equally good, then they are the same. A uniform distribution is the equivalent of no contrast, i.e. non-existence.

I am not advocating evil, rather I am saying that what some people call evil, is rather just diversity and disagreement. For example, did Albert Einstein cause the horrific deaths at Hiroshima? He knew his invention would eventually be used to kill, but he created it any way. Because to not create is to be dead.


You rejoice in superiority. Such a redeeming quality. Yet you forget, you've not been made such a promise.

P.S. I added to my prior post since you replied.

Do you have children (rhetorical)? We destroyed ourselves before we had the chance to grow up.



Was speaking about the joys of Heaven. Isn't the hereafter the thing you were talking about?



You seem to want to limit God. Math is a language of man, not of God.



What? Everyone has at least a touch of pride. Superiority? What does this section mean?

:)

There is the whole problem of mankind. We fall into the trap of believing that we can out-think God. It all starts questioning whether or not God even exists. The complexity of the universe in the face of entropy, combined with the cause and effect of everything, in the face of millions or billions of people formally believing in a god/God, shows that God exists.

:)

But you've not been made such a definitive promise. So why are you so happy about what you are not assured to receive? (Not to mention that nobody has every verified the promise is not a fable).

It is probably because you don't want your idealism to die. This probably inspires you to act ethically in this life. That was my reason for following Christianity for a while. But it reached a breaking point for me recently when someone told me most people will face Tribulations in 2019. I couldn't reconcile how a religion could make people feel so hopeless. I'd rather keep trying to help the world (in spite of dark clouds looming on the horizon of potential global collapse and maybe even a global pandemic, etc thus appearing like a Tribulation such as the Black Death that killed 60% of Europe's population), than hunker down into a binary mode of either delusion of my assurance or fear of my impending doom. I realized this religion weapon of mass delusion is all about spreading fear and false pride. When religion changed from love to fear and doom, I realized I was in the wrong place and I started to think about it logically. Should I really live in fear or false pride? I thought it over and I articulated these inconsistencies which have been fomenting in my mind and writings for some years now.

But I am still idealistic. I believe we can work for ethical technological innovation. So what is the difference in our motivation? I believe I must act proactively, whereas you likely believe it is sufficient to conform for as long as you don't do what you regard to be evil.

Yet collective religion and the religious have done evil too.

I don't see a difference.


If God can't talk to me in a language and logic I can appreciate, then what is the point?

If I just blindly and illogically accept delusion that suits me, then what sort of creature am I?


If I can't discern anything, then why not be a Muslim or Buddhist instead?

You are telling me that Christians shouldn't think.

Everything in life is done on faith. Nobody does anything with the absolute knowledge that there will be a certain, specific outcome. So, when God promises us in the Bible what the outcome will be, we accept the promise based on faith. Our faith is made stronger when we see the outcome of breaking His laws for us for this life. We have trouble and pain when we break the laws for this life. So, why ask for the big trouble by not accepting the salvation He provides?



Nothing wrong with that.



The motivation is likely the difference. I don't know what your motivation is. Mine is that God has given me this life to use in all the ways that I see fit to use it while I live it.



Collective religion is a fiction. All religion is people individually exercising their strength one way or another.

The difference is this. The universe and laws of nature work certain ways. If you point the gun at you foot and squeeze the trigger, you will wind up limping to the hospital. It is the laws of nature.

When God says, do not shoot yourself in the foot, He doesn't say it to limit your freedom, or to take joy away from you. He does it for exactly the opposite reason, even if you don't understand why. Just obey... or not.



Good point. Why did you stop listening to Him by reading the Bible no longer? The things you need for life are written in there. The things you can't understand, like things about the 156th dimension, were left out, because you can't fathom them anyway.

:)

Too bad you let someone distract you from the joys of Heaven by placing your focus on some tribulation time.

Everyone dies... or so it seems. That's a fact of this life... or so it seems. Will rejecting the truth change this? Personally, I think that it will at best make things worse.

Any ideals that people have should be greatly increased by the hope of an everlasting life of joy with God in Heaven. What distracted you? Or didn't you really believe it in the first place?

:)

I appreciate you trying to be cordial and even trying to inspire me. It will be very difficult for me to overcome the following.

I don't see logically nor mathematically how any evidence of outcomes in this life can be evidence of an afterlife.

Do you deny the scripture? It says only 144,000 will be saved (https://www.christiancourier.com/articles/604-who-are-the-144-000-of-revelation-7-and-14) during the Tribulation. Or if the 144,000 is not literal then the Bible is great ambiguous hogwash subject to any interpretation a person desires.

The lady in the desert is saved because she was blameless. Who amongst us is blameless?

Seems to me you like the filipinos where I am, think of all the good things they can get from God, but ignore the harsh realities of the punishment God will mete out to most people.

I am a person who can handle a fair amount of pain, but probably not as much pain as these natives in the Philippines can handle. I was a competitive long distance runner in high school (sub-35 for 10K, sub 4:30 mile), so I am accustomed to accepting pain over long period of time. I've always asked to be sewed without pain killers. I played American football competitively, even played without a helmet in pickup games and played through a game with a severely broken nose.

I know since late May 2012 what is feels like to be disemboweled without pain medication for 3 days nonstop. And I doubt my medical case was as severe as it can be. I suspect many have no comprehension what horror it would be to have that occur for perpetuity. The Bible makes no definitive statement as to how to classify precisely who will receive that punishment and who will not. You choose to feel all giddy about the part of the Bible you like, and I assume ignore the parts you don't like.

I make that assumption because it appears you are smiling about the tradeoff of an uncertain hope for better afterlife, for having to carry the risk of a horrific afterlife. Given that risk-reward offer, I'd rather no afterlife at all.

I think one of the theories about why collective religions turn so violent (hey the Inquisition is not fiction), is because their happy delusion turns to fear and disillusionment when the reality hits that their hope isn't unassailable.

People who are in happy delusion are perhaps the ones to fear the most when the shit hits the fan. Then again some Christians would work very selflessly during a crisis, so maybe those mass manias aren't representative of most of the religious.

I meant correlations.

God says, "Do not murder." If you listen, you have a peaceful life. If you don't listen, and you go out and murder, not only does your conscience get you, but the police catch you, the judge pronounces 20 years in the slammer. Your life isn't fun anymore.

The point? Since you can see that God is right about murder, why would you think He is wrong about the things He says about salvation? Up to you, though.



If you truly think that, you either haven't delved into the Revelation, or else you are just playing with me.



The lady in the desert is representative of the true church of God (not the Roman Catholic earthly church). The Child she bore is representative of Jesus. The true church of God IS blameless, because they believe in Jesus. The Revelation has a lot of picturesque language.



I don't like pain any more than anyone. I thank God that He has allowed me a reasonably pain-free life so far. God doesn't mete out punishment by desire. He allows it in the circumstances of this life at times. He will do it in the "afterdeath" because that is what those people chose for themselves.



God doesn't want that kind of pain for anyone. I sure hope my eternal salvation doesn't depend on that kind of pain. Because if it did, I would have to select the pain over missing out on salvation. And I don't like pain any more than anyone else.

:)

I feel so cheated with your short response... :(

Saying that servants in the OT someway equate to service workers today is pretty LOL.
How many "servants" does the OT say you can have?
How many days can you beat them without punishment from god?

In society today, can you beat your servants i mean service workers or employees or whatever else you want to equate them to?
Can you also sell or trade their offspring today, like you could when the original holy book was written?

Come on bud, you are either just messing around or....uhh hopefully just messing around.

*Thank you for complimenting my avatar, i wonder if its the only commonality we share  ;D

Because logic is my strong suite. I can see that it doesn't take Godly power to predict that murder leads to bad outcomes. That is not predictive of a God. Nearly any one could tell you that even if they never read the Bible.

Perhaps the "do not commit adultery" is a one that most people wouldn't get intuitively. If you are hurting your wife, you are probably also hurting your offspring if that matters to you. For some alphamales, they don't care, they want to procreate as wide as they can. Perhaps the Bible's wisdom rains down on them eventually, or perhaps the Bible is a tool to keep betamales locked in their sub-class (http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=3000) or a social control to keep women from expressing their hypergamy. I am still trying to determine the correct answer to that.

There is deeper wisdom in the Bible that is more convincing and is what held me for a while, e.g. the Proverbs do not be surety for another, 1 Samuel 8 and other scriptures against socialism and communism, Parable of the Talents, Jesus astute point in Mathew 7 about how judging others is mutually destructive, and Jesus's point in Mathew 6:5 about true faith is not showing it to anyone.

But I explained upthread why on balance overall the logic of the Bible fails IMO. It seems to be based on unfalsifiable hope and fear, which are not positive attributes.


There are lots of strawmen theories we can build by trying to build puzzles out of scriptures. I also know that Jesus explained why he spoke in parables. The Bible seems to make a prize if you can build a strawmen that fits your desired delusion. I am leaning now towards the Bible is a cleverly constructed psychological weapon. I even fell for it, because it preys on our weakness.


I am aware of the abstract descriptions of churches in Revelation and what will happen to each one.

But there is no way to know which church you belong to. The definitions are not precise. Belief in Jesus alone is not sufficient.

To the Church in Philadelphia
7 “To the angel of the church in Philadelphia write:

These are the words of him who is holy and true, who holds the key of David. What he opens no one can shut, and what he shuts no one can open. 8 I know your deeds. See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut. I know that you have little strength, yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name.

Where is the precise definition? Who has kept all his words with their deeds, i.e. who is blameless?

And note again the reference to needing to suffer so much in this life and trying to hold you from thinking for yourself. Always giving yourself to this mind control weapon.



How are you so sure that "those" isn't you?

When you have felt this indescribable pain, you will may suddenly take this question much more seriously and literally.

It is very difficult for a human to walk in another's shoes until they have.

I see you only focus on the great hope and you don't think any of the risk applies to you. That to me is delusion.




Ha. When you feel such pain, I will see if you still say that after some years to reflect on it.

When I first came through the pain, I told myself I had some idea what Hell is, and it reaffirmed my desire to avoid hell.

But now I looked rationally the offer the Bible has given me, and there is no way to know which church I would be in and what outcome would come to me.

See? Just what I don't want to do. Play word games. Your avatar seems to suggest that you like to do it.

:)

SLVR4ME, the point about slavery in the Bible is afaics actually astute. It says that people enslave themselves by for example being lazy and going into great debt. The Bible clearly says the slave owner is to set the slave free after 7 years and to attempt rehabilitate the slave. And yes, the slave owner is entitled to some rewards, after all they are rescuing the slave from the slave's own self destruction. If the slave is misbehaving the slave owner is a position to discipline them. The slave (or his/her parents) put themself in that predicament.

I think denial of reality and nature is one of the worst delusions we can do to ourselves, e.g. denial that collectively forced unnatural equality for women via legislation results in societal collapse (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=365141.msg9883335#msg9883335).

The Bible is kind of cruelly frank when it points out astutely in the 10 Commandments that children suffer from their parents' mistakes.

http://blog.jim.com/economics/the-future-belongs-to-those-that-show-up/
http://blog.jim.com/images/JapanFert4.png (http://blog.jim.com/economics/the-future-belongs-to-those-that-show-up/)

at least you can get your ears cleaned... /sarc what you fail to see in this chart is the accessibility of young woman for those corrupts enough to destroy a society for their sexual pleasure. In China, It's called those of coming from the setting sun in arms where all the corrupts have no choice but surrenders their ways and weapons, because they realize that like in all thing corruption can't stand the test of the Path, and that once the time to die has come better leave in peace so that mercy can be found in death. I start to feel that trough Japan history some men have taken a little bit of knowledge from China and imposed their will on others in Japan until someone more knowledgeable came and repeat the same circus. Empire building is boring, all paths have been seen, love, kindness, harmony and prosperity are harder, there is no fog of war to hide in. We will know 01.

Say, I'm not trying to tear you away from what you believe in. Even God doesn't do that. So, why would I?



Do you mean that you haven't figured out why the "Bible is a cleverly constructed psychological weapon" yet? The reason is that the devil placed a bit of himself into us, genetically, at the time the first two people succumbed to his temptations in the Garden. The Bible has to be cleverly constructed, so that it can root out the devil in us while saving us, hopefully.



Avoid the bad parts of all the churches. Embrace the good parts of all the churches.



If I were absolutely doubt free, then I could be sure. Since I am not, I can only work the best that I can in the ways that will increase my faith, while hoping that God will take care of the rest.



What does anyone having pain change in the truth of God and the universe?

The churches listed in the beginning of the Revelation were earthly churches, earthly churches that Jesus chose to be examples of areas where churches can succeed or fail. Be a part of the woman in the desert church, the only church that counts.

:)

And I can work as best as I can at being good so my life and legacy is not too horrible, yet I don't have to risk some horrendous eternal pain afterlife.

Heaven has never been described in a way that sounded appealing to me. Nothing that was different from this Universe could be interesting. A world with no evil, well then there can't be any discernable good. A world with no competition, risk of failure and change? Then there is no point of doing a darn thing. Just sit around on my arse all day eating grapes and smoking cigars.

At least the Koran promises virgins.

No evil. Only various levels of glory and joy.  :)

EDIT: Why not be joyful for someone else who has a greater level of glory and joy than I do?

What glory and joy comes from a lack of risk and competition?

Do I have to have sex all day with the same woman for the rest of eternity? What else can I do with my time, if there is no competition and risk any more? Become an alcoholic?

The Bible is correct, there is time for everything. A time to live and a time to die. A man who can't compete might as well be dead. That is what we are here for. We get old and our loves one take care of us as we prepare to go back to the dirt and give way to the young guys.

Who says that there won't be risk or competition? If God makes it so that there will be glory and joy in everything, then there will be joy and glory in everything.



We don't know what it will be like, but it will be glorious and joyful.



Then comes the resurrection.

:)

Can anyone translate this to comprehensible English? Sorry I can't understand what he is saying. Reads like gibberish to me.


nebulous warm fuzzies.

Thanks for the discussion. I appreciate you sharing the effort and time.

I am not gloating thinking all Christians are fools. I think your personal belief system is yours. It is not my place to judge it for you. I was sharing the logic I have thus far about my belief system.

I think he is trying to say that while we few Bible people argue about the Bible, there are great groups of orientals that have something entirely different to say.

:)

Very interesting discussion.
I don't mean to interrupt, but have a few questions.


You seem to be defining God's love based on condition of not doing something. Wouldn't God be even greater if God's love was unconditional? Something like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3i3rMnvyXgQ

Also experiencing one aspect of existence (a perceived Hell) for eternity would only last for as long as you believe in it. Instead of one law, one rule, there seem to be actually four universal fundamental laws: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiotqFbgonM
There is a good chance that all of them can be well explained with mathematics (except first one which is empirical), but I won't go into that here.

I do believe there is an overseeing entity of our planet and our "species", and I am hoping its not a bunch of fucked up humans trying to control the decency of humanity. Although, currently, I haven't come to a conclusion one way or the other as to who or what that entity may be.

I will say I am beginning to think the Bible was created or evolved into a control mechanism for people. Although, I am struggling with whether or not its a necessary control to have a somewhat functioning & pleasant society. Trust me, I am not one to want any regulation or control over anyone but there are certain groups of people that I know would do evil things if they didn't have some type of spiritual accountability hanging over their head.

My fear is if God disappears from societies, and there is no personal fear or accountability for ones actions outside of law enforcement, I think the society may break down or at least turn into a society I may not want to be a part of.

I still continue to not be able to understand the arguments of most of the religious groups out there that read the Bible as if it is some type of manual for life. Some of my concerns with the Bible stem from the fear that the people, at the time of Jesus, were not intelligent enough to determine whether or not they were being tricked into seeing or believing things that weren't actually happening. However, I do believe some were intelligent enough to deceive and manipulate.

Also earlier in time, how do I know Moses didn't fall and whack his head on a rock and get some type of brain damage that made him delusional before he, or whoever, wrote those first set of books?     

The earliest accounts of the Bible apparently came from songs, poetry and other hand-me down stories that had been passed down verbally through multiple generations. We have those hand-me down stories all the time, even today, and what worries me is they can lose their original value or meaning even within a few generations of being passed down, lyrics and stories change slightly as they are passed along through generations. 
I wonder if the Itsy Bitsy Spider song is related to the great flood???  Is the spider resembling human kind going into the gutter (sinning) and then being washed away with water??  only to repeat the process after the sun comes back up??  :o  :o

The Bible seems to have been started around 1500BC. The creation stories date back to 4000BC (I will note here that the Bible technically doesn't say when the creation stories come from). It is worrisome to think that these stories were verbally passed down through at least 1500 years before being written into the first books of the Bible. Could we not be worshiping twisted versions of old tales that parents told their children, or their people, to keep them in line before the great flood?  And after the great flood, those stories then became real to the survivors who believed a naturally occurring event was caused by God?

I also fear our ancestors may have reached a point in mental/psychological evolution where they needed a God and an explanation of their existence and thus mentally created one through these stories. Maybe Moses picks up on these stories after the flood and starts writing about them?

I feel there IS some truth in the Bible, but it also appears to be a cluster-fuck of books that seem to sometimes contradict prior books and the values the books preach about.

Here are a few more questions for any overly religious folks out there :)

1) Why are their human fossils and other evidence being found that predate the creation week?  Including underwater volcanoes and other things that have erupted, supposedly before water or land ever existed.

2) Why would Jesus question Cain as to where his brother is when he speaks to Cain in the field?  Shouldn't Jesus know Abel is dead???   Also, why the hell would Cain get to walk away from a murder and be allowed to go build a city? 
---It sounds like some guy killed his Brother and then made a deal with Jesus to build a city and Jesus would allow him to live by telling people they would be punished seven times worse.

Also...... a note for any religious health folks out there:  Jesus accepted the fat from a sheep and rejected the fruit.  ;)

There are unfortunately plenty of murderers who have not been caught, and plenty of people around that have caused the death of many people. Look at some of the dictators in the world who live long luxurious lives while breaking almost every commandment. We seem to be taught that all things will be justified in death, and that those sinners won't make it to the promise land but that's a hard pill to swallow with some of the tragedies I have personally seen in my own life and in others. 

3) Why would a God create an Earth in the fashion that its laid out in the Bible, what is the motive??

I'm done ranting.

This was also interesting to look at, hopefully its all accurate!   :-X

http://www.irreligion.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/bible_timeline.gif

While I'm by no means an expert in the Bible (I haven't read it), seeing it in every hotel room I stayed made me quite suspicious of it as it screamed propaganda. My suspicions were later reaffirmed in the sources I found all by myself and learned to pay attention to over time. While some parts of the Bible might be true, other were manipulated, because lie is harder to discern when mixed with the truth.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZLPkvz6G_M

The idea of outside God (as my creator) is inherently flawed. Because empirically everything I experience stems from me and therefore is already contained within me. I cannot experience the idea of God without me being there in the first place. Only I know what it's like to be me (thus only I can "create" myself) and any God I will ever experience will just be a reflection of God within me. God and its Creation are inseparable the same way a dancer and her dance are.

To summarize my upthread posts, I can't imagine a God who punishes to eternity in horrific (gnashing of teeth), burning (fire and brimstone) pain, for sins that the God admits we are born with and can't entirely avoid. Wouldn't a God that loves us want to rehabilitate us instead? I could understand banishing us temporarily in loneliness or something like that, but this eternal disembowelment crap is very Nazi-like. Sounds like the Bible was written by callously (no heart, no forgiveness) deviant minds.

Also God offers us this incredible fear, while for the carrot he only offers us a nebulous warm fuzzy navel of perfection that sounds very boring compared to the diverse life of risks and challenges we have in this imperfect Universe, and doesn't even define precisely (e.g. in the discussion of the church of Philadelphia) what we have to do to be assured of passing through the narrow gate and avoiding the horrific eternal outcome.

The Bible has turned the concept of a soul and an eternal existence into a psychological weapon couched in a nebulous warm fuzzy for those who aren't thinking clearly, because eternity is a long time. The eternal, non-forgiving punishment is for everyone else so let's sweep that aspect under the rug, except when we need to batter non-believers with it.

To top it off, it is entropically impossible for there to be a feedback loop between perfection and this life of incredible diversity, otherwise our diverse entropy here in this Universe can not exist.

The breaking point for me was recently someone I've known since 2007 telling me that Tribulations will begin Sept 23, 2015 and massive death and suffering globally by 2019, which corresponds to Armstrong's (non-religious) computer model of massive global implosion and global pandemic by 2019. I just can't fathom a God that will save 144,000 (or even 144 million) and send the rest of the humanity into eternal excruciating pain with open sores on their body. It sounds too similar to CNN's Ted Turner's Georgia Guidestones' inscription proclaiming to reduce the population to 500 million totalitarian eugenics. I was forced by that challenge to think clearly and make a decision. No more standing with one leg on each side of the fence.

The Bible's psychological profile will appeal to people who do not want to think clearly. Typically they have some psychological handicap which causes them to need this delusion. In my case, I think I was drawn to it because of love of and loyalty to those who subscribed to Christianity, the failure of my marriage, death of my relationship with my father, murder of my only full blooded sibling sister, the loss of vision in my right eye, and then being infected with incurable high strain HPV which lead to the decline in my health. I guess I wanted to believe there was still something to feel positive about in spite of all the failures in my life. But falling into that delusion actually made my behavior worse. Rather than dealing with my depression, I covered it up with a nebulous mayonnaise. It is very important to be proactive about depression and attack it by accomplishing happy and positive actions using clear thinking so we don't just haphazardly wander into self destruction.

Sister and I in 1971 and 1969:
http://www.coolpage.com/commentary/economic/shelby/Shannon_Shelby_Nov_1971.jpghttp://www.coolpage.com/commentary/economic/shelby/Shannon_newborn_Shelby_in_bed_Aug_1969.jpg

(note the lack of smile in 1971 may be because my Dad had left my mom and the USA in 1970 when I was 5 years old)

The underlying psychological need that the Bible fulfills in the need for control. This is why religious groupthink is so dangerous. The believers have turned their minds over and are ready to be manipulated by the right cause, such as the lynchings in the Inquisition. I notice that Bible believers are typically very strongly invested in an order to things and very much against serendipity. Whereas, my grandfather who was the most unselfish man I ever met (the dude would take off his pants in the mall and give them to you if you asked him to), and probably the main reason I tried to accept the Bible because of my admiration of what a better man he was than I am (I love that man, he was my best friend ever), said that Jesus was the rock he stands on when all other things are sinking sand. The concept is so beautiful. After his death, when I got back to the Philippines, I put that "Jesus is my rock" pamphlet from his funeral up on the wall above my computer monitor. Note I did not subscribe to Christianity during his life, and we often discussed my theory that morality was orthogonal to the question of our existence. But a few hours before he died, I thanked him so much for the wonderful times and he asked me to make good my relationship with my father and he said I could never go wrong with Jesus. For the man you love to tell you that on his death bed, how can it not leave an indelible mark.

I think he never thought about the aspects of the Bible I mentioned above. He was pure love. His parents used to give groceries to poor families. He father was a Baptist minister.

There is a lot of truth to the Bible, such as every time I see a poor person begging I am reminded of the verse of the rich man who couldn't enter the narrow gate because he always ignored the beggar. I guess all of us hate that human nature can be so narrow minded and selfish, so we idealistically fall into the trap of an order that promises to punish such. But again no rehabilitation, makes it clear the Bible is totalitarian which is a deviant psychology.

What made it so difficult to let go of Christianity because I love my grandfather so much.

But maybe that is just luck. We get lucky to know people like that.

Grandad at sister's college graduation:
http://www.coolpage.com/commentary/economic/shelby/Shannon_graduation_and_Granddad.jpg

Nice post! +1

Not everyone needs an organized religion to find God within, but we can thank all of the distractions and obstacles out there as our great teachers. It is always a constraint that we push against in order to propel ourselves onto the next level in our infinite evolution.


By the way, I liked the blog, though I haven't read all of the links inside yet.
Maybe absolute perfection is only possible when there is a choice for something less perfect?
It's a paradox then, but that's why we are still here, still breathing.

so you want to say that for everything politicians are responsible, they are not

(apologies continuing the religious topic which was only on topic to the extent that political and religious collectives are argued to be self-serving delusions that can be manipulated by those entrusted with leadership or controlling roles, e.g. the ministers and politicians)


Helping Christians not to be so dogmatic that they throw out the baby with the bathwater might help many billions of people.

Perhaps you will write or minister again in future.

God bless and thank you.

Anonymous wrote to me in email:
> Universal reconciliation - Wikipedia

Atlast i m happy now !!

2 of em hanged !

Upside down.  :)

---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: RE: My flirtation with Christianity is done; analysis follows...
From:    contagion
Date:    Thu, December 25, 2014 12:19 am
To:      anonymous
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Scientifically everything is connected[1]:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=365141.msg9910747#msg9910747

[1]	http://unheresy.com/The%20Universe.html#Matter_as_a_continuum http://unheresy.com/Information%20Is%20Alive.html#Knowledge_Anneals

> Take heart, your grandpa saw the majestic and timeless nuggets of
> wisdom in Christianity.  It's there and like pretty much everything else,
> it's a matter of sorting the wheat from the chaff.  I've come to better
> appreciate metaphors and allegories in the bible, of course, never falling
> into the trap of taking it literally.  Far too many Christians fail to
> recognize the importance of a broader perspective that embraces timeless
> precepts while allowing for refinement and growth.  IMO, that's the
> problem with all of the major organized religions and this groupthink is
> greatly exacerbated by the situation of the power elites seizing control
> of organized religion for their own ends rather than allowing religion and
> philosophy to organically evolve and refine itself.
> Recall the insightful letters between Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine
> wherein they strongly made case that of all the world's religions,
> Christianity afforded the most freedom and dignity for mankind.  Jefferson
> was a closet agnostic and Paine went further in his skepticism.  Paine
> made an important contribution to the concept of inherent rights with his
> Rights of Man.
> In our own era, champions of freedom and critical thinking such as Aaron
> Russo and Bill Cooper made it clear they believed in God (a Divine force)
> yet they wholly rejected organized religion recognizing it as a tool used
> to control the masses.    As an intense NWO researcher, I fully recognize
> that a segment of US Christian patriots have been the most astute NWO
> researchers and the most tenaciously opposed to elite enslavement
> irregardless of its seductive qualities.  This is why this group has been
> in the power elites' cross hairs more than any other large group.  In the
> last year I saw official Agenda 21 documents for the United States and in
> these papers there was a long list of things that were deemed "Not
> Sustainable", on that list was Christianity, this was a fairly recent
> publication.   The group of Christians exposing the NWO while also
> rejecting the elites' dark Occult paradigm of the "end justifies the
> means" are the natural allies of truth and freedom activists everywhere.
> Divide and conquer mechanisms make it difficult for us to form a united
> front.
> I believe I once told you I often think about something Steve Jobs once
> said (as you may know, Jobs spent much time studying Buddhism).  He said
> he thought the various religions were doors to the same building.   An
> excerpt of his biography where I read this is below.  I also often think
> about the story of the blind men and the elephant.  You know what I mean,
> ?  Take heart, your grandpa was onto something.   It could very well
> be the men who wrote the bible were inspired by divine wisdom and somehow
> gained insight from a connection to an infinite consciousness.  They were
> still blind men, trying to describe something they would never fully
> understand, stymied by the smallness of their minds and the culturally
> rigid eras that formed their culture and knowledge base.
> "He never went back to church. He did, however, spend years studying and
> trying to practice the tenets of Zen Buddhism. Reflecting years later on
> his spiritual feelings, he said that religion was at its best when it
> emphasized spiritual experiences rather than received dogma. "The juice
> goes out of Christianity when it becomes too based on faith rather than on
> living like Jesus or seeing the world as Jesus saw it," he told me. "I
> think different religions are different doors to the same house. Sometimes
> I think the house exists, and sometimes I don't. It's the great mystery."

According to the evidence, random does not exist. Random is an idea that people have invented because cause and effect is way to complex and detailed for people to see except in a very small way. This is why it is taking modern science so long to find a method for us to live lives longer than a couple hundred years. The ideas of evolution and the age of the universe are things we don't have a clue about, because the cause and effect behind this stuff is way too complex for us to accurately put together.

Since we understand that there is cause and effect behind everything, and since we understand that there is no random, we can also understand that whatever started the cause and effect, also programmed into us that we would understand cause and effect without random.

Of course, the above is only effective regarding the basic ideas of science methodology. When you consider that science hasn't found the answers to connecting body, life, and conscience, yet, maybe there is some slight randomness in the spirits of man.

:)

politician can't solve everything.

Yes. But they have so many of us believing their crap that they are solving their dilemma of how best to enslave us.

:)

Because everything has to be a flame war.

very few solve anything.

What are the politicians doing? Everything that they can to make slaves of us all and to keep us that way.   >:(

Hey kiddies, games are not real life (sorry to inform you since I know you grew up living in games). And there was no flaming in the upthread religious discussion.

I am not overly religious but I am Christian and ill try to addresses these issues you put up the best I can.

1. If you read Genesis it is written a lot like a poem more than a history book and some Christian philosophers believe it was written as a peom not an actual account and you can tell this because the rest of genesis doesn't talk in such a manor. I myself believe in evolution and still believe in god.

2.  Jesus wasn't around yet it was god not the son of god. He didn't get to walk away he was cursed and couldn't be murdered by anyone so he became nomadic. God was testing him to see if he would tell him what he had done but he didn't so god punished him. also about the health folks part Historically being fat was good because in times of famine the extra fat would help you but nowadays that isn't the case also Cain offered the fruits in a disrespectful manner while abel gave his best sheep in a very gracious way. So it doesn't have anything to do with weight just about respect.

Yes it is true that many bad things happen and that many bad people get away with it sometimes people let other people get away with it such as U.S supporting a country with oil that has a dictator and as long as the dictator is giving oil he will stay in power. and this is a hard pill to swallow but eternity is a lot longer than you or I could imagine.

3. As I have said before it appears in more of a poem fashion than an actual account. also god created the world to benefit humanity but when humans broke gods word they were sent out of Eden.

All you have to do is repent and you will be saved so don't act like god wants you to burn in hell. he created us with opinions and brains so we could choose are own way and so if your going to not do something as simple as asking for forgiveness ( which you don't have to read the bible to be able to) then yeah you can burn in hell then.

I think that if people are saying that just because you believe in something you are narrow minded and that the bible is for people that don't want to think clearly you are trying to start something.

You did not address the logical problem I enumerated. Specifically the Bible does not say all you need to do is repent and you are 100% insured to pass through the narrow gate. It couldn't possibly state that, because then everyone could do evil their entire life then suddenly repent on their death bed. There isn't any enumeration of precise requirements for 100% surety to pass the narrow gate the Bible could do to be precise that couldn't be gamed due to the unbounded entropy of the Universe at stated by the Second Law of Thermodynamics (that the entropy trends to maximum). Thus it is logically impossible for a religion to provide surety. This is why for example there is a Proverb, "never be surety to another" because it binds you to promises you can't guarantee because the future is unbounded.

You are making things up that are not written, because you want to ignore the risk and only think about the part that makes you happy. You have invented your own religion, but it isn't the one written literally in the Bible.


I guess the flaming must begin now, because you did not address the logic. You ignored it or didn't grasp it.

A person's repentance must always be real.

Consider the bank robber who is always successful. Somewhere along the line he finds God and repents. He even pays back whatever of the money he stole, that he can afford. He goes out and gets a job and starts making payments to the banks he robbed just to pay it all back.

Then his mother becomes terminally ill. She doesn't have insurance, and she can't afford the doctors. The hospital is about to put her out on the street. So the former bank robber figures that this is enough of an excuse to start robbing banks again. Somewhere along the line he quits stealing again. He repents the second time.

The point is, how many times can he do this while maintaining the repentance as sincere repentance? Each time that he falls back into his sin, when he repents, the repentance is a little less sincere than the previous time. If this continues, somewhere along the line he will repent no longer. He might be ashamed, but he will stop repenting. He will simply give in to his "bad habit."

Second Law of Thermodynamics doesn't have anything to do with the things that God works. If the guy is sincere, and if he repents and believes God for Jesus salvation, he will be saved, even though he repents of his repentance and then back a gain a thousand times. The important thing is, each subsequent repentance brings him closer to never repenting again. Each subsequent repentance is done in weaker faith than the previous one.

:)

As Kryon once put it: "You are here to love God. It's a wonderful system"

I'll just leave it here:
"The Shift & Discovery of Self"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxbmO3AUPlg

God and the Bible are against channeling. Don't kryon my shoulder.

:)

Yes that is true it doesn't guarantee it 100%( a good start is to repent I didn't say it was all just a major part) but if you have read or listened to some of Jesus teachings you would see what I am talking about . I didn't create my own religion all I did was talk about what you could do if you want me to go into the part about what will happen to you in more detail then just burning in hell we can have a discussion about it then.

Can we be any less precise. My response is the same as it was upthread:

---

Then please inform God to disprove the most fundamental theorem of the Universe, because he/she/it/thing hasn't done so yet.

All I see is nebulous delusion unsubstantiated neither by the literal scripture nor any falsifiable methodology.

---

And what can purportedly happen to you too, because you have no absolute assurance you are not going to hell. Absolutely no absolute assurance.

 Matthew 7 New International Version (NIV)
Judging Others

[Jesus said]

7 “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2 For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

3 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4 How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

Because God is going to step down and operate according to your logic?

Since people constantly fight what God tells them, sometimes in as simple little ways as you are doing, why would God go against people? Let them have what they are asking for... entropy and then destruction.

We, especially those of us who have the Bible, can pick up the choice to be with God in the New Heavens and the New Earth... or not. You like destruction? Go ahead. Keep on fighting God. God doesn't take your choice away from you. I certainly can't.

:)

Are there so many believers in this forum?
Or are they just a vocal minority?

Lol, life is a lot like civilization 5 I guess.

Or they are all the same person with many accounts and nothing better to do lol.
I don't know if there are more than 5 different people in this thread xD

Re: WTF are the politicians doing ?

Enriching themselves with our tax dollars ..

Triff ..

I liked the pun, thank you!

I wonder why Bible (and God) would be against channelling?
Does it really matter how information comes through?
Did you know that composing music or writing poetry is a form of channelling too?

What I understand by now is that all truths are true.
If someone believes in God who judges and punishes, that's the God they will face after death. If a person doesn't believe in afterlife at all, he/she won't wake up until the next reincarnation (of course Bible is against that as well).

Beliefs matter. They are the axes of a powerful gyroscope that defines your reality/experience and might not be so easy to change. Wanting or saying that you believe does not equate to believing. That's why the correct order is "Believing is Seeing", not the other way around:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtRQXOcn7oI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfDLEiwLwQE

Glad you liked the pun.

I don't know all the reasons why God is against channeling, but here is what I can say simply.

-     Is the information that comes through true?
-     Will the "channel" always be truthful if I get into the habit of listening?
-     In some things we should take God at face value, and listen to Him directly. The snake in the Garden was reasonably truthful. But listening to him brought about the truth in ways that we rather would not have had.



However, God's faith (believing) is way stronger than man's. Believe yourself into having an extra pair of arms, one growing out of each side of your body, about half way between your shoulders and your belly button. If you can believe this into happening, you got the power. God believed the whole universe into being from a standing start of nothing. The point? If God believes it this way or that, you and I don't stand a chance believing it some other way. Check out what God says, and believe it His way.

:)

In addition to the unattractive risk versus reward offer of the Christianity faith which I explained upthread, the other major ontological problem with the Christian religion is that it promotes apathy, because heck it doesn't really matter what I do in this life because it is only the after life that is eternal. And since as I explained upthread it is impossible for any religion to precisely define which actions get you to the heaven of it, one could very likely end up in a mental zone of apathy towards their own insufficiently positive actions since this life doesn't really matter any way and the believer can repent later.

Fact is that our genetics and offspring live on for a long time, and the 80 or so years we are on the earth is a lot of time to make a lasting positive mark on the world, e.g. the writings of Adam Smith.

I thus reject Christianity as a mental disease that seems to afflict and prey on the depressed, by offering the drug of elated delusion cum procrastination and sticking head in the "I am holier than thou" sand.

As an example of this apathy, do you know the almost universal response of filipinos when I detailed the coming global economic collapse or even when I explain how their backstabbing or selfish attitudes will bring bad karma to themselves? They don't care because God will always protect them. Did God protect them during WW2 when the Japanese ravaged their islands? Did God protect them from massive poverty?

I used to think that due being not falsifiable that religion was at worst a tautology, but now I realize it is much more devastating.

God give us free will and consciousness. No other involvement until the final account holding :).

This is entirely acceptable for you - especially the emphasized part ^^. Why? Because as you have explained elsewhere, you were once a Christian. God says through the writer to the Hebrews in the Bible, that once a Christian falls away like you have, there is no chance that he can turn back to God.

I knew this all along. In everything that I have responded and explained to you, I was doing it so that it might provoke questions and ideas in the minds of others who might happen to read this thread. I knew you were lost from the moment you said you are a former Christian.

:)

BADecker I don't disagree. Which is probably another reason it took me such a long time to stop standing with one leg on each side of the fence. I think it would be impossible to come back. The only counter-balancing thought I had is that I can't experience all dimensions of the Universe, thus my claim against falsifiability is a decision to base my values in the near-term collective reality of the scientific method (i.e. the reality humans have thus far perceived and communicated). I have decided this is the most sane direction for me, because I want to not do the "detached from reality" life I've been doing since I picked up Christianity in 2006.

The reality for me when I have spoken about you above^^, is that I don't really know that you were a Christian. You may have been in name. You may have thought you were. But perhaps you never quite made it. In that case, there is still hope for you.

:)

I think God created Snake, so that he could play with it :)
That was the only way to start knowing itself - life is a game and God is no exception.


What if God believed the whole Universe into being for just one reason - to forget that he is God and live a life of a man. What if God got bored (by Alan Watts): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckiNNgfMKcQ

This is close to accurate. The snake was created as part of nature. The particular Snake in question was a channeler, allowing itself to be used by the devil, Satan. Satan, like other angels, and people, was among those created to be a friend and partner with God. Satan used his free will gift that God gave him, to attempt to overcome God's plan for man.



If God got bored, it wouldn't be in any sense that we understand.

A man and a woman are stranded together on a deserted island. They have enough food, water, clothing, etc., to take care of all their needs. They are young and healthy in every way except for one thing. They have no sexual urge whatsoever.

How long will it take them to get bored with each other and island living? How long will it take them to decide to get together sexually, simply so that they have some kids to get rid of the boredom?

Makes sense about God being bored. But God is dynamic, as we can see from the variety in the universe. We are His children if we want. That's why He made us. Let's start acting the part.

:)

yup  :-\

Sodomizing each other while people are suffering.

Maybe a more important question is what are YOU doing about it?  A post about it here is just fine but there's so much more to be done.  Engage in politics yourself if you think politics can actually do anything about it.  Find out what makes things work.  

Understand that the problem is largely rooted in poverty and that poverty is the breeding grounds of extremist terrorists.  There are large scale and largely politicized organizations that try to make a difference.  The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund actually work to reduce poverty across the globe and have a tremendous record for success in the past few decades.

The world is becoming more and more aware of itself.  Times are better now then they ever have been and yet evil remains.  

Money is a finite resource so when it goes to glutinous reservoirs we have a HUGE problem.  This is what causes poverty and cyclical economic crises.  There have been volumes written about this and 3 economists even won the Nobel prize for economics for their work in zero sum game theory as it applies to economics.  Their work was used to structure executive pay bonuses after the bail out of various American companies.  It's simple, things should cost what their worth and people should get what they pay for.  We have huge examples where this is still not the case.  I'll pick a simple one: mortgage interest.  

Maybe that seems to go astray from hundreds of students that died in Pakistan or hundreds more killed by drug lords in Mexico but really, it's not.  Remember: Finite Resource.  Allll that wasted money going to some business (and ultimately executives) is way more than the land and structure are worth and is money that could be spent on medicine for the sick, food for the hungry, and countless other humanitarian missions around the world.

they do what they do best.
they argue endlessly until the time to make decision is just a second away, sparing no time to make an evaluation.

Christianity and Islam may be the most popular religions other than government, and the three thus are responsible for the most deaths.

http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=4289&cpage=1#comment-379180


http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=4289&cpage=1#comment-379194

All the politicians are doing is sitting pretty and oblivious to what is going on around them. They are charismatic, but have no idea how to get something done.

http://goldwetrust.up-with.com/t124-theory-of-everthing#3583

@iamback, me too :)

I guess, a deeper meaning of God has something to do with trinity.
I'm now thinking of mathematics-consciousness-matter kind of trinity.
Those three are all inter-dependent in a non-resolvable loop.

Another interesting thing is a Langlands program:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langlands_program
about some bizarre interconnections between different fields of mathematics.

And of course some nice music and visuals for peace of mind:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsjzfpSOQV0

So much knowledge I want to delve into and so little time...

Music back at you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2e7dpVDX54


I took that from my idol (http://keepingscore.blogs.time.com/2009/09/11/top-10-michael-jordan-moments/slide/im-back/).

Idol him because "maybe I lead you to believe...or maybe you are just making excuses (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PH8nTfxwByY)" he is the most fierce competitor, trained like crazy, and sparred no herculean effort (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxXoHRwhD24). Who else could play 1 against 5 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LOVTGjXahw).

Thanks! :)


Nice one!

Sometimes Armstrong writes blog posts which basically say exactly what I would say.

http://armstrongeconomics.com/2015/01/07/the-fools-game/

As soon as the people succumb to the stupidity of socialistic ignorance, there will be no private property any longer... because there will be no freedom for the masses any longer. There will only be entire slavery, maintained by the few elite who are attempting to run the whole world.

Get past the voting for government people. The Electoral College is the one that places the votes that elect, not you or I, peons who vote.

Rather, check out what is here https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=916456.msg10079836#msg10079836 to see that the whole government operation process is part of the smokescreen that the elite are using to pull the wool over your eyes.

:)

If God became bored, it wouldn't happen in any way that people could understand.

The way of God is so far beyond people that microbes are multitudes of times closer to understanding us than we are to understanding the inner workings of God.

:)

If God murdered, you'd have been dead long ago.

:)

There is no win in this for the politicians, hence they are doing nothing.