20000_Posts

I'd extend it and say that not only is it a tool used by religion to deter people from immoral activities, but a tool used to obtain more followers (while preventing people from leaving). But for the most part I agree that it's an obvious adaptation, pointing to the fact that God, and religion, were made in Man's image.

^^ lol on saving the link by quoting it

Those are not the only two possible beliefs though. I (and other fellow Calvinists) believe something different (or at least significantly more nuanced), for example. Apologies if I get this wrong, but then for a Calvinist, this whole topic is irrelevant because you're going to heaven or hell regardless. You need not worry about the choice of believing in God. You're already a child of God and get there regardless. The only thing I get confused about there is that you still had to make that choice to become a Calvanist, therefore you chose a religious path. By becoming a Calvanist you're fate is predestined. Was it always predestined that you would follow that path or simply upon becoming a Calvanist. I think I'm missing something there, as a Calvanist you're predestined for the afterlife, but if you have an afterlife in your religion, no matter which one, doesn't that mean you're pre-destined anyway? I apologise, I haven't exactly read enough there. I'm quite happy with this from 2013 I just found though, it's good to know: As a Calvinist, I/we believe that we are in fact, unable to choose to believe in God by our own volition due to our sinful nature and that God has chosen those He will save - the predestined. (and in fact, anybody could be predestined and if they are, they will be drawn to the faith by God) So you are predestined to believe, and then you will eventually believe. That doesn't necessarily mean you're a Calvinist, but it does mean that you're probably going to be some form of Christian. This as opposed to those that believe that you come to the faith of your own volition. There may be some element of predestination there but in a less strict sense. And you have to keep in mind (though you may realise this) that while Jesus death on the cross was enough to save everybody, the pope has not suddenly become a universalist :P How is predestination compatible with free will? our nature doesn't allow us to do that by our own choice. Pretty big claim, any supporting evidence to show that's the case?

The Bahamas. Some nice beaches there.

Is there any example of anything that has no beginning and no end? If there are no examples of this then I don't see why it's worth too much thought. It's like thinking how can a bird fly without wings, maybe a fun brain teaser, but ultimately fruitless.

Lol somebody dropped out.

waddup peeps

The Constitution has been amended 27 times, so that's a pretty poor example on your part. That's the difference between the United States Constitution and the Bible/Quran. One is open to review and edits, the others are the final word of God and are infallible. If the Constitution told you to do something immoral, we can change it to not allow that. This is not an option with religious texts and as a result you see people commit acts that nobody else would (unless God told them to).

I can see you're still active in getting mad good kitty!.

If you look at it from a purely cost/reward perspective (which you really shouldn't), eternal praise seems to me like an acceptable trade in exchange for eternal bliss/happiness x infinity. It's infinity man. With that sideways 8 thing. Don't knock it till you try it. :P Worship songs are hard enough to get through. Literally anything is better than being forced to do something for eternity. But that's another debate,

This is a complete misunderstanding of the Christian view of God. If you think that Hell is some sort of torture pit that God sends people in for the lolz then you're operating at a Elementary school theology. The reason hell hurts so much is because you are separated from the ultimate source of good, meaning and nourishment in the universe which is God and God alone. That ultimately is what hell is after all; a total separation from God. It's not "obey or perish" but rather, "obey or go your own way" To find oneself in hell would mean one exhibited such an extreme act of hubris equivalent to a man refusing to drink water because he has the freedom to do so. Yes, he does have every right and power to do such a thing but he has no one to blame but himself for the consequences. I never mentioned Hell, I was only talking with respect to what Heaven or an afterlife under that leader would be. Though, ironically perhaps, a Heaven that is composed of eternal praise would be Hell to me. :P

If God is infinitely merciful, why is he damning anyone? Phoenix will likely disagree with some or all of what I say, but that's because I'm a Calvinist. The Heidelberg Catechism has this to say about it: For a more complete picture, see Q&A 6 - 20 here http://www.crcna.org...berg-catechism. Again though, this tends to be a contentious issue (and in fact is part of the reason the Christian reformation started) so Phoenix will probably have a different response. "Praise the all powerful totalitarian leader. He gives us life and he can take it away." It's the cosmic North Korea. God's justice is strikingly similar to Kim's. This isn't a very interesting discussion to go into because this comes down entirely to what you believe God is. You don't take the bible to be true so we'd just be arguing opinions. Even if it were true, it would be a totalitarian dictatorship. I'm glad it isn't, but Pascal's wager would claim that it's better to believe in it than not. Well I disagree with that as I am against that form of governing and 'justice'. That's a silly comparison, because if it were true, the God in this dictatorship is perfect as opposed to the imperfect humans that have power in any current governments. Lord Kim is seen as perfect to his followers, I don't see how it's a silly comparison at all. From your and I perspective, of course Kim is flawed. But I also think that the god of both old and new testament is flawed and would make a poor totalitarian leader (demanding praise all the time, similar to Kim, isn't my cup of tea). So when confronted with Paschal's wager and I see my two options (for Christianity), I choose to ignore it as even if it were true I want no part under the dictatorship.

If God is infinitely merciful, why is he damning anyone? Phoenix will likely disagree with some or all of what I say, but that's because I'm a Calvinist. The Heidelberg Catechism has this to say about it: For a more complete picture, see Q&A 6 - 20 here http://www.crcna.org...berg-catechism. Again though, this tends to be a contentious issue (and in fact is part of the reason the Christian reformation started) so Phoenix will probably have a different response. "Praise the all powerful totalitarian leader. He gives us life and he can take it away." It's the cosmic North Korea. God's justice is strikingly similar to Kim's. This isn't a very interesting discussion to go into because this comes down entirely to what you believe God is. You don't take the bible to be true so we'd just be arguing opinions. Even if it were true, it would be a totalitarian dictatorship. I'm glad it isn't, but Pascal's wager would claim that it's better to believe in it than not. Well I disagree with that as I am against that form of governing and 'justice'.

If God is infinitely merciful, why is he damning anyone? Phoenix will likely disagree with some or all of what I say, but that's because I'm a Calvinist. The Heidelberg Catechism has this to say about it: For a more complete picture, see Q&A 6 - 20 here http://www.crcna.org...berg-catechism. Again though, this tends to be a contentious issue (and in fact is part of the reason the Christian reformation started) so Phoenix will probably have a different response. "Praise the all powerful totalitarian leader. He gives us life and he can take it away." It's the cosmic North Korea. God's justice is strikingly similar to Kim's.

Reason impels you to believe? Belief, that is blind faith, is the opposite of what separates us from the other primates, which is intelligent reasoning. "Seek and you will find", similar and just as sinister. Of course you will find an answer to any question, but that doesn't make it true. Why are there volcanoes? Because we angered or God (never mind plate tectonics). Why are they sick but I'm not? Because they were unfaithful (never mind germ theory). Imagine if we stopped here, where the human species would be. Paschal is advocating to give up the one thing that makes us distinctively human, our desire for understanding to absolute certainty. Faith is not a virtue and should not be seen as a strength.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. Plenty of Catholics use birth control regardless of the official rules. Do they think they are going to hell for it? I don't know enough to answer that question. The Catholics I know follow it. Don't know why, they try using the woman's cycle as a form of natural birth control. Doesn't work out well lol. At the end of the day, it's your choice if you want to follow the rules or not. But if you're not going to follow them, why even bother being given them? And for those smart enough to partake in birth control regardless of Catholicism, that's good for them. But it's not fair to uneducated Africans who don't know better. The spread of poverty, at the result of women being unable to control their family planning, and AIDS have both been contributed by the Catholic's declaring of birth control to be immoral. I'm pretty sure that's true for everyone, not just Catholics... Lol I'll fix that.

This comment arises quite a few problems. There's the initial reaction to throw all these other ridiculous things religions request and how you don't have to follow a religious code down to the letter, but then that would seem as if we are "picking and choosing" our beliefs. In reality, that's what happens, people of all faith tend to believe the parts they want and simply ignore the others. So, while it may seem hypocritical, I would argue your comment is one of those irrelevant, over-used bashes at religion and how it supposedly "dictates" people's lives. Speaking for myself and those I know who follow the same practice as I, and based on the lack of reports of individuals following the Bible word for word, I would say Catholicism, or Christianity to an extension, does not dictate how to live, but rather attempts to positively (in my opinion) influence lives. Now, the argument here can be made that "well that is the word of God and if you don't follow it not only are you a hypocrite but by the "holy word" you won't be given access to Heaven. I again disagree with this point as the theme above all others is that God is just and loving, making me believe that he would accept those who didn't take the word of religious men writing "from the holy spirit" literally. You're lucky that you're not homosexual, otherwise it would definitely dictate how you live. Assuming you're Catholic, be glad that you weren't in Northern Ireland 50 years ago. Catholics can't wear condoms or use birth control, that's not controlling their lives? Expect to have children EVERY time you have sex. I don't know if you're lying to yourself or actually deluded by your beliefs that you don't think it's set up boundaries for what you can and cannot do. If you want to stay inside them, go ahead that's more power to you, but they're not universal and should not be advocated as the ultimate way to live to nonbelievers. The last two sentences weren't very articulate and I couldn't see your point.

Sweet, keep it up. Yea the future can be scary who knows what's gonna happen. Pretty exciting though.

You have no way of knowing, so just pick one. Even if there are a thousand gods, a 1/1000 chance is infinitely better than a 0/1000 chance. Maybe I'll start buying lottery tickets. 1/100,000 is infinitely better than 0/100,000. Or not because dividing by such large numbers gives you ~0 anyway. The difference here though is that the lottery ticket is free. It's like you're getting offered a free lottery ticket and turning it down. Not defending Pascal's Wager by the way. The lottery ticket also doesn't tell me who to have sex with in and in what position. A religion isn't free when it tells you how to live. Well that only works for the first ticket you buy. If you don't buy a lottery ticket at all, you have zero chance of winning. Buying one ticket increases your payoff chances by a factor of infinity, no matter how small those payoff chances might still be. Buying a second lottery ticket only doubles your chances. My main point though was that if you use Pascal's Wager as a way of looking at religion (even though it's actually a really stupid way of looking at religion because religion is not an investment and generally requires you to, you know... believe), the payoff for subscribing to a religion, any religion, and having a 1-in-whatever chance at avoiding eternal damnation, is infinitely greater than that for not subscribing to one at all and having 0 chance at avoiding eternal damnation. But this is a really cynical and mathematical way of looking at it. Lol yea sure it doubles your chances from 0.00000000001% to 0.00000000002% which sure is technically better than 0.00000000000%. If someone is willing to base their life on those odds then hey more power to them, but I wouldn't make a monetary investment with those odds and I especially wouldn't base my life off them.

Shooting blanks. Easy cleanup, those were the days.

Is the microwave a bad idea? I heard it works for the new iPhone. I mean it dried off my cat, don't see why it wouldn't work for a battery too.

You have no way of knowing, so just pick one. Even if there are a thousand gods, a 1/1000 chance is infinitely better than a 0/1000 chance. Maybe I'll start buying lottery tickets. 1/100,000 is infinitely better than 0/100,000. Or not because dividing by such large numbers gives you ~0 anyway.

4 years is about the life of a battery these days. If you originally got like 5 hours of battery life, after 4 years you're looking more like 1 tops. The software may not be super accurate, but yea if you're noticing a degraded battery after 4 years that's not uncommon at all. You can find a new one on ebay by typing in your model number followed by battery.

So here's what's happening. This chick was in a long term relationship and broke up, meaning she wants to mess around to forget about the old dude. So you donate yourself, that's cool, but while you're thinking you're building a relationship, she's just in the recovery process of her old one. Eventually she's going to be recovered and will want to move on, but it won't be with you since you're not associated with a new real relationship. Take it from a guy with 20,000 posts on a runescape fansite forum.

Start drinking.