Down to the Rapture

And what makes you think they don't? Because Daniel said so? All hail D.

As Tom eludes to, Christians don't make a habit of tooting their own horns as God instructs us not to. That does make it hard to see what is going on on the surface. There are sites out there that keep track, but you really have to dig if you want to.

 

Really?

Who said I was opposed to a better health-care system? I pointed out that the currently administration does not have a better solution. Thanks for caring so much about the US system though. How is the Aussie system BTW?

But of course you jump to conclusions before you have all the facts. Our church also does mission trips to bush Alaska. Let me tell you, some of those places are just every bit third world as places in Africa. Just last summer a group upgraded many cabins to be more energy efficient. But that doesn't matter to you all because it is done in the holy name of God. Right?

 

Faith-based or fact-based, take your pick. And you're suggesting it's the non-believers who are illogical and guilty of 'spin'?! Now, *that's* pathetic.

 

You know what PriusChat needs? "Fred's House of God" for all these threads.

 

Perfect.

We could call it "Fred's Unholy House." Or maybe "The House of the Living Fred."

 

I find it to be quite good.
I have private health insurance which I pay for out of my after tax pay myself, but if I didn't I know that if I needed urgent health care I would get it without cost to me and it would be provided by some of the best health professionals in the world. If like TJ I was in need of health care I wouldn't be turned awayfrom hospital because I couldn't afford it and ba accepting help from PriusChat friends around the world to pay for vital treatments.
My mum isn't in the best health but our system looks after her really well with free treatment. All this costs me is 1.5% of my wage for medicare and my private insurance is $150 a month for my son and I. It's a lot less than 10% and I am doing my bit locally. I also make donations to charity but never churches.

Facts? I'm not the person who believes the earth and everything else was made by a being with magical powers. You were the one who mentioned water filters in Sudan and Uganda.

but you don't want to pay a little more in tax to allow your government to expand its social programs, that would be socialism.

Why doesn't the government have a program to do this?

 

Pat (if you will allow me to call you that), your statement seems to imply, and forgive me if I've misinterpreted it, that you do not believe that a magical being (God) created our earth/universe. If that is correct, then I hope I am safe in in deducing that what you do believe is the other option, the big bang/evolution, in which case you believe that we, in a sense, magically (as in there is no explanation I know of for what started the universe to expand) came into existence without any magical being to start the whole process off. For me personally, that's even harder to believe, eg. if I told you a story about a magician producing a silver dollar out of apparently thin air or a story of a silver dollar that just appeared out of thin air without there being any such thing as a magician. Which would be easier to believe?
Tom
PS. please concider that Daniel and I have already agreed that neither view can be fully explained or proved.

 

What PriusChat really needs is a B-Ship.

(From the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy)

Tom

 

Sorry Daniel, I didn't mean to ignore your question. It is a question ask by millions and certainly deserves an answer. So if I may:
Once upon a time, there was a wise and loving horse ranch owner. The ranch owner had many ranch hands that helped him care for his beloved horses. The ranch owner was also a horse 'whisperer', (a way to 'break' or train horses without the use of force) and while he knew there were other ways to train horses, whispering horses was the only way he and his ranch hands had ever used.
One day, the ranch Foreman began to wonder if another way might not be a better way to train the horses. He began to question in his mind his bosses methods and convinced himself that his way would be a better way to train the horses. He then set about asking his co-workers how they felt about his ideas and convinced many of them that his way would be a better way of doing thing. His better way was by using force and discomfort and fear on a horse to train it and while none of the other hand had ever tried it, it seemed to make since to some of them.
When the ranch owner heard that the Foreman claimed to have a better way of doing things, he had to make a decision as to what to do. He could fire the Foreman, but then the other ranch hands that had remained loyal to the ranchers way of doing thing would always wonder if he had been unfair because he never gave the Foreman an opportunity to prove if his way of doing things was indeed a better way. The only solution then, was to allow Foreman the opportunity to do things his way, even if it meant that his beloved horse would suffer as a result,... and suffer they did.
Lucifer questioned God's way of running the universe and the only way that could prove the error of Lucifer's ways to the rest of the heavenly host was to allow Lucifer enough free reign in his experiment that all could decide which form of governing was the best. That is why God must allow, for a while, children to starve here in Lucifer's temporary experiment.
I hope you can now understand why there is suffering in our world. God did not create the suffering, but he must allow it, even though it gives him ultimate grief and sorrow.
Tom

 

Sounds very similar to my situation... guess we both have systems that are "quite good".

Spin.

Why should it?

 

You are the one who rejects logic and facts (science) and prefers fairy tales from a thousands of years old book written by people who thought you could have night and day without having the sun.

Tom doesn't toot his own horn, but you sure do! Constantly! (You and I have that in common. I toot my own horn at every opportunity. But then I don't claim to believe in a magic man in the sky who says not to. )

Good idea. Poor name.

Now THAT's PERFECT!!!

Again, you misrepresent science and draw invalid conclusions. What we have agreed on is that science has not YET figured out that part. We have not agreed that it was magic.

In fact, while science has not YET figured out how the big bang happened, there are plausible hypotheses in quantum mechanics that do not involve either god or magic.

You keep making the same mistake, and after a while it begins to seem dishonest: You keep repeating, in slightly different words, that if science doesn't YET understand something, it MUST be "magic" or god responsible.

To repeat an important point: The fact that science DOES NOT YET have an answer to a question, does not mean that it cannot be answered. I agreed that the supposed existence of god is unfalsifiable because it is defined in ways that cannot be tested, and therefore we cannot know or prove whether or not there is a god. But the big bang was a physical event which can be studied, and eventually may very well be understood as completely as we now understand the physics of lightning and thunder.

Regarding your long parable of the ranch owner, You claim that he had no alternatives but to fire the foreman or allow him to brutalize the horses. But there was a third alternative: He could have gathered together all the ranch hands and explained to them PERSONALLY why kindness was better. Not merely left obscure old letters lying around for them to find without having any good way to know where they came from.

You then go on to say that god has NO CHOICE, but that he MUST allow Lucifer to wreak havoc among humanity. If god is really all powerful, he could speak to humanity PERSONALLY, rather than just leave some old writings around that to all purposes contain evidence that they were written by people who knew little of what they were talking about. I keep hearing Christians insist that god CANNOT do this, because we must have faith. They keep saying faith is all important. Why is that? Why is this all-powerful man in the sky so neurotic that he needs for us to believe in him without evidence? Why won't he just open the sky once in every generation and say in every language of the world "I am god. You've heard of me, but now you see me so you know I'm real. Thus and such is what I want you to do. Thanks." What's so dad-blamed important about faith that he has to keep himself hidden?

Of course the truth is that he doesn't keep himself hidden. HE DOESN'T EXIST and all that crap about faith, and how it's better to believe without evidence, is made up by the priests and preachers and rabbis and mullahs and lamas to explain why people should give them money for no damn reason.

If god is all powerful, he can do what he wants. He does not HAVE to allow Lucifer to wreak havoc just to prove his way is better.

Religion is nothing but a bogus philosophical construct designed to get people to give money to churches, temples, mosques, etc. It is designed to be untestable, and yet every single TESTABLE assertion of religion has turned out to be false.

I repeat: EVERY SINGLE TESTABLE ASSERTION OF RELIGION HAS TURNED OUT TO BE FALSE. The only areas where religion manages to hang on are those that are not testable (such as whether or not there is a god) and areas that science has not yet penetrated. Keep in mind that religion has existed for many thousands of years, and science is a mere few hundred years old, and has already made a shambles of most of religion's claims.

 

Daniel, In your post, you in essence mis quoted me when you removed the connotation in parentheses following my use the word "magically" in reference to how the big bang begin. I admit that magic is a poor choice of words, but I used it because in Pats post, it was the word he chose to describe the God I believe in. That simple proves the old adage, two wrong don't make a right, and I apologize.
Your post contains so many things that I'd like to respond to, that I will simply insert, in italics. my thoughts and concerns into your post. I hope that's OK.
That didn't work, every thing was italisized when I sumitted the post.

It was not my intention to misrepresent science or to draw a conclusion. I simple wanted to draw what in my opinion were similar lines of reasoning and allow the reader to draw their own conclusion. In this case, is it easier to believe that God started us off or that some thing for which there is currently is no explanation I know of for (but that at some future time might YET (be) explained) is what started the universe to expand. And yes, you are correct that we have not agreed that the word magic describes either viewpoint. I was using the word Pat had used, my bad!

If I seem to you to be becoming dishonest, it was certainly not my intent. As I've already address and apologized for my using the word magic, 'nuf said. I do admit I can only think of 3 possibilities for unexplained phenomena, 1. yet unexplained, 2. magic, 3. miracle (implying something supernatural).

Because of our differing views, I would ask you to consider this wording, if the big bang was a physical event, we can study the effects of such an event. To say that we can study the actual event itself (my understanding of what you said), is to my simply mind equal to saying we can study God himself, and I am certainly not ready to make that claim.

I differ with that opinion. I do not believe you can adequately explain something that has never, ever happened. When Satan fell, a new concept was born into the universe that had never existed prior. Only by allowing this new concept to be tested, could an informed decision be made.

He has on several occasions, biblically speaking. But to argue that because he hasn't spoken to us in recent time, as he did from Mt. Sinai, is evidence that he can not is not a good argument in my opinion.
Again, in my opinion, any Christian that will argue God can not do this (speak directly to mankind), for any reason, is trying to argue something that is no biblical.
I will not second guess God or His possible reasons, but I do believe that for one generation, in the very near future, that every eye will behold and every ear hear Him.

I couldn't have said it better, though I do not agree, it total, with the rest of the paragraph.

Yes, He is all powerful in the sense that He can create a universe and the life within it. He can also (in my opinion) not only know the future, but show that future to whom He chooses. But if I choose to believe He can show the future, logically, He would also be able to show a distortion of the future. Had He just vaporized Lucifer and told the angelic host, Look, I zapped Lucifer and this is why, a question would still linger, is God telling the truth, or just covering up for His actions. Such an action would also have introduced fear into Paradise, fear that if another heavenly being crossed God, he would also be vaporized without what we would call due process. Then the angels would have served Him out of fear rather than love.

To a point I somewhat agree. Some churches, temples, mosque, etc. are indeed designed and constructed to get peoples money, but that's simply stealing and not religion and certainly not true Christianity.

You'll have to provide me with specifics instances before I can make any sort of comment or rebuttal.

Tom

 

This is an example of replying in the middle of someone elses quoted post

No kidding

Tom, if you want to reply to someone's post point by point, add quote end quote tags to sections of what they posted, then put you reply after the end quote.

Code:

End quote tag is  [/quote]
Quote tag is [quote]

Edit: I see you already figured it out

 

Thanks for the help, xs. After that posting fiasco, I really do feel like a nut job, particularly because (ready for a chuckle), I work on computers for a living.
But I guess most would agree, there is a vast difference in knowing how to diagnose a failing hard drive and being a web master (or master of the web).
OK, back on topic....

 

I'm starting to get tired of this thread. I think we are rehashing the same old stuff. I will comment however, that the big bang can indeed be studied because it is still going on. The big bang is not merely the infinitesimal instant when everything began. It's the whole process of expansion, which began roughly 14 billion years ago, and is still going on now. There are all sorts of remnants and continuing processes which astronomers study and physicists analyze and which are bringing us an ever deeper understanding of the past.

 

With that explanation of the big bang as a preface, I can agree with every thing in your post, but especially with your first 2 sentences. 'Nuf said!:rip:

 

Yes, he is a much better man than I.

 

you misquote Jesus, my friend. he said, "if you want to be perfect, sell everything you own and give to the poor". you are no expert on scripture, but you are an expert on twisting it to fit your argument.

 

Which translation?

Tom

 

Not that's a laugh!!! I'm the one twisting "scripture"??? Jesus also said it's easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of god.