TwelveToneMusic

360 is great, except for the red lights scam. How long has that been out now? And they STILL can't fix it. This is MICROSOFT. Hmm, wait a minute. Oh yeah, this is Microsoft. Nevermind. Yeah, my 360 broke, twice. I still love COD4.

the bible... originally based on hearsay and stories passed on via parchment among semi-literate people of their timesquote> Where did you get this from? Luke was a historian, for example. He is even referred to as a practitioner of medicine in his time. Paul was in extremely high standing within the Jewish community and was held as an expert regarding their history and traditions, where their texts were derived from, etc. He was regarded as a wise teacher, and people sought him for advice.

Christianity. Testable. Yeah. First it's beyond science, and now all of a sudden it's scientifically testable? Which is it? quote> Testable as in questioning its validity, testing that validity through true faith, and seeing results i.e. countless changed lives. Well, that depends on the Christian, I daresay. Some believe in predestination. Others believe admission to paradise is through faith and belief in Jesus. Others believe it is through good deeds. Still others beieve it's through a combination of those last two.quote> It might vary from person to person, but the bible clearly states one way that you get into heaven, which is not by works. If your interpretation of the Bible is incomplete, then it is in your best interest to not post.quote> Coming from someone with an incomplete understanding of all that science knows. I guess you shouldn't be here either. Interesting. So you actually think that a thief deserves death for stealing a Milky Way bar at the local convenience store? An adulterer, as sleazy as they are, should be killed? This says quite a lot about your psychology and your value for human life.quote> I believe that all sin is punishable by death, and the fact that we're all sinners, and the fact that Jesus took the punishment for all that we deserve is proof that God is not malicious, proof that he demonstrated what the meaning of love is, without compromising his holiness. If someone steals a Milky Way, do I think they should be shot on site, no. There's a difference. For one I don't decide judgment for sin, God does, and two he already has, and three I can't 'cast the first stone' in that respect. You've lowered yourself to cheap shots now. Like always? Fact is, you do not know me, nor do you know anything about me, so do not make assumptions, okay? Good, let's get that out of the way immediately. quote> And you also do not know me, yet you seem to be able to weigh how I value human life. I mean 'you' as in you are behaving and responding in the typical way that most people do to this situation who believe Christianity is a waste of time. You have no true desire to truthfully understand the Christian belief and make an honest decision about it. What you have to say about it is always cast with some sort of sarcasm and mockery. Such as this, not about Christianity specifically per se, but nonetheless That does not mean we automatically say "ugh, it is too complex... must be that god-thingy". quote> For one, this isn't addressing the situation. That's not what ID says. This is just a sarcastic statement that says you don't agree with them. It's not a real description of ID. What ID says is similar, but is not the result of being confounded by complexity. The complexity issue is brought up in direct correlation with the organizational and informational structures in life, which it states are too complex for *natural selection* to derive. It states that life is too complex for natural selection to have gotten us here. ID does not say that they simply can't understand the complexity. There are equally gifted scientific minds working with ID as with evolution. And if you want to think Freud set things in stone go right ahead.

Who do you think you are that your interpretation of the Bible is the right one?quote> I never said it was complete, but I have studied many biblical scholars and theologians. This isn't crap I just made up to make it up. It comes from studying the minds of great thinkers who have met these tough questions face to face. I would also comment that I do have a problem with the idea of all sin being punishable by death... that is quite an awful concept and hardly something I would associate with holiness.quote> That's because you have an incorrect understanding of what holiness is. I suggest you read some R.C. Sproul. ID is not based on scientific observation if the final result says "some things are just too complex to have developed on their own, so there must be a primal cause". That is opinion, not fact and not testable.quote> Now THIS is hilarious. Science never does this, right? What about dark matter? Lol. You mean I should just accept the implausible beliefs of a person because they read it in a book written by a bunch of old men who had a very limited view of the world, disregarding all the other implausible beliefs of other religions that also have ideas of their own about the world and the supernatural? quote> Your understanding of the bible is clearly skewed. A bunch of old men... lol. Again, you're speaking in typical generalized misconception based on lack of information, yet like always you claim to know things about which you propose false assumptions. Old men... consider that the first Christian church was started in reaction to the reappearance of Jesus, at a time when saying that you followed him was an offense punishable by death. Yet for some unknown reason ordinary people suddenly became radical advocates of the religion, with all of the disciples suffering deaths of intense torture after boldly setting out and preaching in dangerous cities, etc., Paul even asking to be crucified upside down, not worthy of the same death as his master. That means nothing to you, right? This is historical.

That interpretation of the Bible presents even more continuity errors than there are already.quote> Someone who doesn't believe in holiness thinks they understand how to interpret the bible. Well, first of all I do not believe that anything is "sacred" or "holy", or whatever you wish to call it. Also, your answer sidesteps the original point -- why would God have prescribed such harsh penalties for eating a fruit that was no more dangerous than any of the others (assuming everything the Serpent said was a lie), without being a sadist in the first place.quote> No, it addresses the situation firsthand. Before Adam and Eve, there was no sin on earth. They could eat other fruit because it was not deemed sinful to do so. They ate the fruit which was deemed sinful, and therefore were subject to the consequences of their actions, which were weighed against righteousness and holiness. They corrupted the nature of everything. You act as if this was a small thing which happened. You also act as if the bible does not say that all sin is punishable by death, it does. For someone who doesn't believe in holiness, I'm sure you have a problem with this. It may be "holy" of him to carry out his promises, but why did he give the order originally? That is what I want you to answer.quote> What order did he give? Carry out his promises? It wasn't about carrying out promises as much as judging with absolute truth, no compromises. This isn't court where jurors have to decide what they believe about OJ based on the evidence they have. God has all the evidence, and he judged in holiness. Promises had nothing to do with it. That is true. However, can you scientifically validate the existence of a deity or spirits or a spiritual connection? It is irrelevant to science if it cannot be proven or disproven.quote> I said this very thing, which is an incredibly limiting aspect of a view of life based upon scientific observation alone if in fact there are spiritual things that exist. It is not irrelevant to science because they do not exist, it is simply too limited to observe them. First of all, if you wish it to be accepted by science...quote> You make it sound like a club, where all the people who know everything get to hang out. Let me respond by saying that if you are ever going to be able to experience the unadulterated truth, you have to be willing to the possibility that there is much more to the truth than scientific matters. Secondly, I believe that empirical evidence is a better judge of the truth than blind faith. Which is better anywhere? Subjective or Objective findings? The answer is obvious to me.quote> It's about time we got to the cliche 'blind faith'. Most people make this assumption based on their outside look at Christianity, which is corrupted. For one, there should be no denominations, no separation in the church. Second, there are radicals. People who claim Christianity and act out of violence, sexual immorality, extreme behavior, etc. are not representing the truth of what Christianity is. They are representing the truth of their own weaknesses and struggles, which in fact IS part of what it's about, coming to God in your weaknesses. But ultimately the bible never teaches hate, sexual immorality, etc. Those things come out of people's OWN beings, and their own personal struggles with morality. But blind faith? A person who makes this statement has never seen the testable side of Christianity. You can test it like any other science, but that will never happen if you do not open a bible and read what it is about, and I don't mean picking out verses you don't like here and there, and stopping there to form an uneducated opinion. You can't test any scientific data on a subject without testing all matters pertaining to the true understanding of it. Christianity is no different. Read the whole of what the bible says, what it says about God, about the character of god, and observe the countless repeated test results: radically changed lives, opened eyes. These things occur from within oneself if they are true, not from some 'beating down' of personal ideas in a church. For one, those who believe in the bible's teachings will not stand for that because it is in conflict of what it says. If it is being allowed, the truth is being oppressed, not taught. Does it say that people won't fail? Never. It says the contrary. Just because some preacher commits a shameful sin, or any other believer does, that does nothing to affect the truth of who God is and the nature of what the bible says. Its like saying that because a prominent scientist taught something inappropriate, out of his own intentions, not that of science, or thus behaved inappropriately, that science itself is wrong or inaccurate. You wouldn't intelligently assess the validity of science through an outside perspective such as this. Yet, this is what people base their views of Christianity on every day. Intelligent Design is simply a rebranding of Creationism.quote> Intelligent design is a a postulation based upon scientific observation, in and of itself. If someone corrupts that, sorry. Creationism and Intelligent Design are radically different. Creationism is commonly associated with the biblical teaching of creation, Intelligent Design is not a Christian belief. Many non-believers subscribe to Intelligent Design and not Creationism. What you said about "Of Pandas and People"... a perfect example of discarding the truth of something by wrapping it up in a tangential matter for convenience. That was one book, by two authors Davis, and Kenyon. If they corrupted their book by imposing their personal views, so be it. They don't embody the theory of Intelligent Design or change the fact that it is based on science just because they acted the way they did. And Intelligent Design is not scientific, because it is not testable, and there is no evidence to back it up like Evolution has. As I said before, an untestable hypothesis is not scientific, as it is irrelevant to Science.quote> Watch the 3 videos I suggested. There are NO religious references in those movies. NOT ONE. 3 DVDs of scientific evidence, with questions associated with them. You are incorrect in believing that Intelligent Design does not base itself upon scientific information. Atheists, at least anecdotally, often do more that Christians approve of than the Christians do themselves. They do not believe that they have a supernatural moral responsibility punishable by eternal punishment, and they have many moral beliefs.quote> A classic example of ignorance about what it teaches. Christians do not believe that they will receive eternal punishment for not upholding supernatural moral responsibility. The bible does not teach this. The bible NEVER says that you go to heaven based on 'being good'. Never.

Lol. Unopposed? Wow. Okay, I'm done with this discussion. A bunch of 'science proves everything' guys who don't know how science even works to explain things, and who say that evolution is unopposed. That's the funniest thing I've heard in a while. Right, there's absolutely no opposition to evolution, never has been, because it's so sound and so complete. Too funny. And intelligent design, non-scientific? Lol. May I recommend a few videos to you... "The Privileged Planet", "Unlocking the Mysteries of Life", and "Icons of Evolution". You may not agree with everything they're arguing, but you'll be a little more informed about the error in your assessment regarding intelligent design as unscientific. There is not a single mention of religious advocation in any of those videos, just straight scientific opposition to scientific theories. Good luck to you. I don't have time to waste on people who mock others' beliefs while not even understanding where theirs comes from. If this is supposed to be a respectful and intelligent discussion area why bring up FSM or IPU which absolutely mock and degrade any sort of belief other than atheism... WITH links? Typical ego-based behavior, which is why I say that the separation between spiritual and physical is a good thing. People who are led by their egos are the least likely to open themselves up to learning or to spiritual truths and, are the most likely to deny moral obligation and responsibility in their spiritual selves. Egos and the truth don't mix. Egos and humbleness do not mix. "He who thinks he knows does not yet know as he ought to know." The person led by their ego never stops to consider the truth in this statement. Good day to you.

Ah, yes, but if they had knowledge of good and evil beforehand, they would not have been enticed to eat the fruit that gave it to them. Logicially, they would not have had knowledge of good and evil before they obtained it.quote> Logically... We're discussing the supernatural here in a logical sense, and NOT including that they were tempted by a fallen angel. Lol. Logic would take into consideration that had this not occurred, an event which corrupted the nature of everything, that they might not have been enticed to eat the fruit. They were deceived by something that was already fallen, and not of the nature they were created in. I am aware of that. However, if the fruit did not contain something of the nature the serpent described, then why (in the continuity of the Bible) would God have prescribed such harsh penalties for eating it? That reasoning only makes the Christian God more sadistic.quote> It doesn't make God sadistic, it makes God holy. Holiness cannot subject itself to compromise, otherwise it would cease to be holy. Holiness is without blame. God was not to blame in this case, we were. For God to 'let it slide' would be in conflict with the nature of His holiness. Humbug. Love is an emotion, that may manifest itself in different forms, but at the core, it is an emotion. Otherwise, as Barbarossa pointed out, what is it?quote> This doesn't prove anything. And you can't disprove the existence of a spiritual connection through a scientific argument anyway (one of its greatest limitations), and in fact it is contradictory TO the nature of science to argue the non-, or existence of supernatural things from this viewpoint. You can never backup a position on spirituality with a scientific reason because science will never address this, and for the same reason I cannot also support the existence of a spiritual existence with a scientific explanation, and I for one am glad the separation exists, it needs to. People need to humble themselves, they need to experience things in the truth, not through someone else's opinion. I'll tell you a scientific reasoning for the emotion of love -- reproduction. If early humans did not have the capacity to love each other (including one of the opposite sex) they would not have been attracted to each other to produce offspring, and thus the human species would have gone extinct. Whereas those who would produce offspring would transmit the capacity to love to their offspring. It is a product of natural selection, however spiritual it may seem.quote> Again, you're trying to argue where science cannot argue. This is opinion based upon a theory. It's also a theory which does not, which cannot allow room for supernatural invention. It can't. It doesn't omit that because it concludes there is no such thing, it simply cannot observe it through the processes by which it determines and observes things. Evolution is the 'best' theory we can come up with which cannot include the supernatural. Until there is a way to scientifically observe the supernatural, you have nothing more than theory, and stating it as truth is opinion, another area where science does not go.

Frozen burritos and hotdogs... Mmm.

lol

Love is a spiritual connection between people. That connection is affected and has weight upon various emotions regarding the relationship of those involved in that connection. I don't know what else to tell you if you don't believe in spirituality. Some things defy, and quite honestly, don't even need scientific reasoning to exist.

The opposite of knowledge is ignorance. If when they ate the fruit they obtained knowledge, then logically they must have been unknowledged (or ignorant) beforehand, therefore, if they had not eaten the fruit, they would be ignorant.quote> It says they ate the fruit of knowledge, and I believe many specify, the fruit of knowledge of good and evil. Neither says they didn't have knowledge prior. And your quote is coming from the serpent. It's a lie. The following sentence is showing that she was deceived. If someone bases their religion solely on evolution, then they are making a religion out of evolution, and therefore turning evolution into religion.quote> I understand your point. This is a semantics issue. I'm saying if people use the theory of evolution to make their religious decisions for them they are missing out, because it's not even close to the and all be all. Emotions are naturally compared to other emotions to discern what that emotion is.quote> I don't believe love is a mere emotion. Emotions are related to it, but they don't sum it up. However, in the context of a loving god, it would certainly be recognized as love since humans display other emotions than lovequote> But assuming 'the fall' changed everything, we can't determine what emotions humans displayed before it. I any case, it was different, and we don't know how different, that's my point.

You're making a false generalization here. Gold inherently has value. Paper money only has value because the government says it does. If people didn't accept the bills, you'd have mere paper in your pocket, worthless. If people didn't accept gold as payment... well, for one thing, that's ridiculous, since why wouldn't they? But even if they did, you'd still have something of value that you could exchange for something else they would accept.quote> "Gold inherently has value". That's just as false as what you're saying about the value of the dollar, because both have implied value based upon contextual situations. Gold has value when people have some degree of monetary surplus, and they can use it to make jewelry, even microchips, or shiny objects to look at all day. Now take 5 people, give only one of them a gold brick. Drop them off on an island that only has food enough for 4 people. Who's going to trade food for that gold brick? Lol. I realize this is extreme, but the value of gold is situational, just like money is. People make more microchips with money than they do with gold when you think about it. My point is that gold is not always valuable. To say it otherwise is just as brainwashed and delusional as saying money always has value.

Definitely a let down. What I'm wondering is, why does this story never appear in my 'top stories' or 'world news' columns?

I understand what you're saying. It makes sense to me how it works, but it's still nonsensical. Just because gold is shiny and malleable, and people like that, doesn't sound like a good reason to me to base a currency off of it. Anyway, I get it. Just sayin'.

Because gold is a solid, tangible commodity and money is a fictional thing that only has value because we all believe it does. Think about it. If everyone decided tomorrow that the dollar was worthless and they would only take payment in gravel, what good would the dollar be?quote> Lol. See, that's even MORE ridiculous. What good is gold? Jewelry? Lol. Money has no more fictional value than gold does, that's my point. I'm telling you right now that gold is not valuable to me. Money is physical in the same sense that gold is physical. It doesn't matter what you base it on, the value gets there the same. "Think about it, if everyone decided tomorrow that gold was worthless and they would only take payment in gravel, what good would gold be?"