Merry Christmas

  • Thread starter Thread starter Alan Browne
  • Start date Start date
Reading Stranger on Valentine's day would be highly appropriate, given
the name of the main character...
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Which is why I chose that day. I wasn't born on Friday, ya know!

(but I wouldn't complain too much if I had been . . .)
 
If I thought you would take it seriously, I'd explain why I believe
otherwise.
But even I'm not a glutton for that much punishment...
NGs are perhaps the crappiest of places to discuss religion...
That's not to say I haven't had my doubts, though, William. There have
been
plenty of times that I've questioned whether it's all imaginary, etc. I
don't claim to have it all figured out.
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Well, If you ever come up with any concrete evidence, I will be very
interested.....I would love to have something to believe in other than an
eternity with a mouthful of dust.....Unfortunately, I can't turn my beliefs
on and off like a water faucet.....I only believe in things that I estimate
as having some probability greater than 50%. So far, the Christians haven't
been able to give me that.....As a matter of fact, my estimate is way less
than 1%......
 
An excellent post!

They forgot one thing - atheists have never started a war, or crashed an
airliner into a building, or did the Spanish inquisition!
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They've started as many wars as any other group...


Peter
 
Mark² said:
There are indeed some misguided folks out there, and I think you've named
two.
Oral Roberts more so, but both are indeed misguided, IMO.
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If God did talk to people, he'd tell them to buy Windows machines
instead of Macs.

Oops, wrong thread.
 
Cynicor said:
If God did talk to people, he'd tell them to buy Windows machines instead
of Macs.
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But that's what Bill Gates does tell you, and he's got more money than
God.......
 
William said:
But that's what Bill Gates does tell you, and he's got more money than
God.......
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God doesn't need money, and when Bill Gates comes to the "Pearly Gates" his
money won't matter.
But as George Bailey said to his guardian angel about money, "It comes in
pretty handy down here, bub."
 
An excellent post!

They forgot one thing - atheists have never started a war, or crashed
an airliner into a building, or did the Spanish inquisition!
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Oh? Tell that to those killed by communist/atheists...
 
Mark² said:
I say it with confidence only because I know that that statement is
not consistent with his beliefs.
The White House specifically addressed such a question after it came
up due to a triple translation gaff where an arabic man took notes
in
arabic regarding words Bush spoke in english...after the arabic
notes
of an english speech were again translated back into
english...reandering the word "through" instead of "to."

This was widely covered some time ago.
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Wholly shit! Holy shit? Wholly shit.
 
Frank said:
Wholly shit! Holy shit? Wholly shit.
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Exactly.
The English language is incredibly prone to misinterpretation. I feel sorry
for anyone who has to learn it...

Look up the word "run" in a complete dictionary sometime... It's pretty
ridiculous...
Two, too, to...
Threw, Through, tough rough trough...
What a mess.
 
Stalin == atheist
Mao == atheist
Pohl Pot (sp?) == atheist
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Unfair! - these guys may have been atheists, but it had nothing to do with
their wars....that's like me blaming Hitler's holocaust on his
religion.....Sure, he might have believed in God, but it had nothing to do
with his murdering 6 million Jews.....He didn't kill them for religious
reasons. And Stalin didn't murder religious people because he was an
atheist, either.....He was just a paranoid megalomaniac, and his atheism had
nothing to do with it......
 
Mark² said:
Exactly.
The English language is incredibly prone to misinterpretation. I feel sorry
for anyone who has to learn it...

Look up the word "run" in a complete dictionary sometime... It's pretty
ridiculous...
Two, too, to...
Threw, Through, tough rough trough...
What a mess.
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Yes. And to complicate things, in US schools, spelling seems to be
taught by sound of the word, and such things as 'there' 'they're', and
'their', 'know' and 'no', 'knew' and 'new', 'allowed' and 'aloud' are
all used interchangeably. It makes reading VERY difficult for those of
us who didn't learn to read that way.
I have a long list compiled from reading fanfiction of such spelling
irregularities. Yes, English is a VERY hard language to learn to use
well, and spelling is very important if meaning is to be maintained.
One can cause great confusion by using 'meat', rather than 'meet', for
instance.
 
Ron said:
Yes. And to complicate things, in US schools, spelling seems to be
taught by sound of the word, and such things as 'there' 'they're', and
'their', 'know' and 'no', 'knew' and 'new', 'allowed' and 'aloud' are
all used interchangeably. It makes reading VERY difficult for those
of us who didn't learn to read that way.
I have a long list compiled from reading fanfiction of such spelling
irregularities. Yes, English is a VERY hard language to learn to use
well, and spelling is very important if meaning is to be maintained.
One can cause great confusion by using 'meat', rather than 'meet', for
instance.
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Not only all of that...but many people forget how dependant we are upon
voice inflection for full understanding.
One can say the phrase, "I can't believe that" and depending on the
emphasized word, it could be a question, a statement, a mere exclamation of
surprise...or any number of versions with emphasis on different
words...meant to evoke a different impression or response. There are
zillions of examples of this in English. Heck, just the single word, "good"
can be said in countless ways to mean all sorts of things. This is why I
still don't have such a problem with adding the dreaded smiley to NG
posts...because it really CAN be hard to interpret the sentiment behind
statements that are restricted to print alone--especially in "conversation."
 
Mark² said:
God doesn't need money, and when Bill Gates comes to the "Pearly Gates" his
money won't matter.
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And God will be looking at the enormous good that Gates has done for
third-world countries through his charities. Meanwhile you have people
like Larry Ellison giving money to try and counteract Gates's charities.
One's getting in, one isn't.
 
Cynicor said:
And God will be looking at the enormous good that Gates has done for
third-world countries through his charities. Meanwhile you have people
like Larry Ellison giving money to try and counteract Gates's
charities. One's getting in, one isn't.
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Actually, according to the Bible, God won't be looking at his deeds at all.
He'll be looking at his relationship with God (or lack of). Deeds are
great, but apparently not the end-all, be-all in God's view. I should add,
of course, that deeds often reflect the heart and the relationship...but
even a complete ass can perform "good deeds." Heck, even T.O. of the Dallas
Cowboys has shown up at charity events... :)
 
Mark² said:
Actually, according to the Bible, God won't be looking at his deeds at all.
He'll be looking at his relationship with God (or lack of).
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So it's better to be a nasty person who prays than a good person who
helps thousands of people.
Heck, even T.O. of the Dallas
Cowboys has shown up at charity events... :)
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Yeah, I saw them play the Saints!
 
Cynicor said:
So it's better to be a nasty person who prays than a good person who
helps thousands of people.
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Of course not, but you knew that... The Bible notes what the "fruits of the
spirit are," (meaning the result of the relationship with Jesus Christ/God)
and they are: "...love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness,
faithfulness, gentleness, self-control." (Galations 5:22-23)
Yeah, I saw them play the Saints!
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:)
 
Mark² said:
Of course not, but you knew that... The Bible notes what the "fruits of the
spirit are," (meaning the result of the relationship with Jesus Christ/God)
and they are: "...love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness,
faithfulness, gentleness, self-control." (Galations 5:22-23)
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So back to Bush... I don't see any of those traits in the man. Is it
possible that he's just giving lip service to faith?
 
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