i am interested to know what you know about jesus and what you really think of his teachings.. the bible says there is only one way to heaven.. jesus said: "i am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the father but by me.
" (john 14:6) .
the lord jesus was crucified and shed his precious blood to wipe away our sins (revelation 1:5).
Yeah sure, this was several pages back, but eh, what the heck...
(Poster asking about a DVD)
Which is the reality ? Watchting it, or holding it all in your hand ?
Er...the reality bit came in right about the time they were filiming the car chase you talked about being on the DVD....
The DVD...is just a film of the reality encoded on some metal and plastic...
OK, bye now...
the following is meant to be entertaining as well as informative.
i realize that this may not be of much interest to most folks but humor me.
let me ramble for a bit.. as some may know, i have a tendency to play with leds (light emitting diodes).
That is really neat!
One of our favorite gadgets is a LED flashlight that doesn't take batteries.
You shake it a few times (there's a magnet, coil, etc. in the handle) and because it uses an LED instead of a regular bulb it will stay lit for a very long time.
It isn't very bright, but is great for emergencies because you don't have to ever worry about batteries.
Our christmas tree lights are also LED. We love them because they don't take much juice and don't even get warm, so we leave them on 24/7 when the tree is up.
okay i felt a bit sick typing out that title but having been a wee bit 'prickly' in my last few threads i thought i might try this on for size - not sure how well it's going to suit me.. what makes you feel content?
at peace and restful?.
i just spent the last couple of hours reading in my recliner.
Walking in nature and being there with company that can play guitars, sing beautiful songs and dance while other members of the group prepare barbecues and all sorts of other food.
Sounds good. You also just described every elf scene from a Tolkien book. Heh.
appreciate everyones responses.
...thanks for putting up with my question and for your time.
and allowing me to learn from you ......in jesus name amen...lol.
fedorE
I think that it has to be taken back down to the basics.
What did evolution produce in humanity that is different than other animals? An animal that is aware of its own existence. Sentience - self-awareness. Other animals do not poses this trait (or if they do, not to any degree that we can measure).
Therefore, we should ponder over and study how this sentience makes us different.
Setting aside for a minute the possibility that gods exist, we get back to the questions: How did it (religion) all start? Where did our gods come from?
Here is one possible and fictional scenario:
Og and his domesticated wolf are out hunting one day (this is back in the far reaches of human history.)
The wolf doesn't care about gods, he just wants to eat and sniff stuff and not die. That is his world.
But, Og is different than his wolf companion. He is human. He takes time to look at the stars at night and wonder what those fires are that hang so high. He wonders why the sky becomes dark and angry and why when it does so, that the voice of the sky shouts at him and blinds him with light. He doesn't understand the things like lightning and thunder that we understand today.
He wonders what the person in the sky wants from him. Og doesn't want that powerful sky person to kill him. He gives Sky Father gifts to see if that will make him happy. He does so by giving up some of his precious meat to the sky father. A God is born....a religion is born.
I believe that the natural course for evolution is that once a species has become sentient, they will begin to explain their world in any ways that they can. For humans, this most often takes the form of the supernatural. As time goes on, the species evolves to realize that these things we thought were gods (lightning for example) are just natural phenomenon. As more time goes on, the species will evolve to believe that we no longer have a need for the "god explanations" for things of the world.
The species that created god in its childhoold will kill god in its maturity.
In fact, we are living in that time right now (and the pace of evolution for the first time in history is being artifcially influenced through technology). When I was young, in my area it was expected that I would go to church. It was unheard of to not go to church. I didn't hear the word atheist or agnostic for many years. But now, it is completely common for people to not go to church. What will it be like in 100 years? Or 500? Churchgoers will be in the minority, I think. Religion will eventually die a slow, wimpering death as we evolve as a species to no longer need our "binky". We won't be afraind of Sky Father any longer.
appreciate everyones responses.
...thanks for putting up with my question and for your time.
and allowing me to learn from you ......in jesus name amen...lol.
Hi fedorE,
Although I'm not an expert on proper apllication of debating tactics, the invalid "argument by numbers" approach applies to any circumstance where one debator attempts to point to a percentage or other "large number of the population" instead of actual evidence because this is talking about people's beliefs, not facts.
Going back to my black cat example, it doesn't matter if we talk about only the people of Europe or if we speak of all humans on the planet. If we attempt to say that 75% of people believe that black cats are more evil, therefore they must be more evil, that is an invalid argument. Only by objectively observing whether or not black cats are more or less evil than other colors of cats can we say for sure.
while on vacation, we drove through amarillo.
the smell of cattle was everywhere.
for the citizens of amarillo, texas, that is the smell of money.. in my town, we have the nearby paper mill, weyerhaeuser.
Our city can at times take on the smells of the various stages of corn syrup production because of the processing plant. It can randomly smell like french fries, pop corn, vomit, or a very bad cat's litter box. I feel bad for the hundreds of people who live in the trailor park right accross the street.
appreciate everyones responses.
...thanks for putting up with my question and for your time.
and allowing me to learn from you ......in jesus name amen...lol.
the evolutionists say they could come about by chance
I'm an evolutionist, and I don't say that.
In fact, I don't know any who do.
Or did you mean Abiogenesis?
Different subject entirely.
the subject line got your attention, huh!
this site generates money with google ads as you know.
i clicked on one which took us to the jw dating website.
Try it. Im not going to bother downloading FF to test it.
You have got to be about the only computer guy I know (besides me) that doesn't use FireFox.
Everybody I work with thinks I'm a total dips**t because I won't use FF unless I have to. I'm a dips**t for other, perfectly valid reasons sure...but anyway...
I just don't see the point. I mean, any comp I sit down at already has IE installed. Why the hell do I want to make my life harder trying to remember another program? I've got other stuff on my mind. Like what burger joint I want to go to for lunch. Important stuff like that.
Heh.
appreciate everyones responses.
...thanks for putting up with my question and for your time.
and allowing me to learn from you ......in jesus name amen...lol.
Interesting, fedorE, but I think that falls under a category called "argument by number". I can't remember exactly what it is called (I'm not a debater by any means ), but I think that is the name of it. Basically, it just means that, just because a large number of people think something is correct, doen't make it so. It also doesn't make it not so, it is just that it isn't a valid position to argue from.
For instance, many, many people have (and still do) thought that black cats are evil. Just because many people have felt that way over the years doesn't make it true. Although, come to think of it, our black cat is kinda more evil than the other ones. Hah!
I wish I knew the answers!
Oh well, the journey to find out is kinda fun though too.
somebody is always insisting they have an invisible and mysterious source of divine information and selling it like hotcakes and syrup.
but, why are you still buying?
when will you ever learn that this is a scam among many scams.
Right AuldSoul, I agree with you, I wasn't clear in what I was trying to say.
When I said explain vs. describe, I should have been more descriptive.
I meant explain as in "God, explain to me how to do something usefull that I didn't figure out on my own." Obviously it would have done no good for God to explain the actual process of converting water into wine if they did not have the technology to do it themselves and could not have grasped it anyway. It would make sense given the context of the bible (assuming for a moment that the water to wine story happened and a God or other advanced being exists that did it) that it would just be stated "He turned water into wine, poof".
I meant by explained, something along the lines of "God spoke unto me and did explain to me that when I wish to know a certain quantity x, which I do not as yet know, and I have two of them, and together they are four, that I may calculate this by stating it as 2x=4. He did speak to me in his wisdom and show me that, if I divide the 2 sides of what God has called an 'equation', by the number proceeding the x, then I will find the answer."
See, that would be useful information given by God and would not be hard for ancient man to grasp.
So, did God do that or anything similar?
I dunno, but that is what I imagined Terry was talking about, not the stuff that wouldn't actually help early man (like how some woman suppossedly got knocked up without a guy around).
