Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> So the devil is more powerful than God?

no. But his influence persists, given his free will.

> >> A religion where no baby of religious parents is born with birth defects.
> > see original sin.
>
> OK, we've established that baptism and acceptance of Jesus compensates
> for original sin. Which means this is a bogus answer.

religious parents are not without sin just because they accepted Christ, were
counsciously baptized or whatever.  They are just as much sinners as the pagans
or satanists.  The difference is that they'll seek forgiveness and compassion
from God.  Still, the Lord is the final judge for men's acts.  He's the only
one to truly know what is there in men's hearts, so judging why shit happens is
not our task, just deal with it.

> They asked Jesus "Hey,
> how can *I* do miracles?"  Jesus answered untruthfully that all you had
> to do was believe in him and you could move mountains.

don't play dumb.  It doesn't fit a skeptic like you.

> Secondly, let's say that Jesus was trying to impart subtle wisdom rather
> than answering the question. What wisdom exactly do you think Jesus was
> trying to impart?  You say it wasn't "you can move mountains with
> belief." Also clearly, it wasn't simply "You can't do miracles, period."
> So what in between do you think he meant, precisely?

He meant what he meant:  that you can move mountains of problems by faith.  When
you're into deep trouble, getting out of it as if by magic is a lot more
impressive than seeing mountains floating abound...

Do you also believe in the exact wording of the famous quote:  "It's easier for
a camel to go through a needle hole than a rich man to enter Heaven?"

The eye of a needle was how a narrow passageway was known at those times.  The
camel had to be unloaded of his goods and knee in order to pass.  A rich man
unloading of his goods and kneeling is a very unlikely thought.

Christ used parables and other figures of speech to get his point across.

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nemesis wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>> So the devil is more powerful than God?
> 
> no. But his influence persists, given his free will.

I thought he was an angel. I also thought he didn't have free will.

Otherwise, why did God make Man?

>>>> A religion where no baby of religious parents is born with birth defects.
>>> see original sin.
>> OK, we've established that baptism and acceptance of Jesus compensates
>> for original sin. Which means this is a bogus answer.
> 
> religious parents are not without sin just because they accepted Christ, were
> counsciously baptized or whatever. 

Sure. But what has that to do with *original* sin? Or are you saying 
that nobody would be sinful except that Adam ate the fruit? (In which 
case, how can that be a sin before he eats the fruit?)

> Still, the Lord is the final judge for men's acts.  He's the only
> one to truly know what is there in men's hearts, so judging why shit happens is
> not our task, just deal with it.

Let me ask - do you think I can or cannot recognise the difference 
between good and evil?

If the former, why don't I get to judge events and people based on 
whether they seem good or evil?

If the latter, why do you keep going on about original sin?

>> They asked Jesus "Hey,
>> how can *I* do miracles?"  Jesus answered untruthfully that all you had
>> to do was believe in him and you could move mountains.
> 
> don't play dumb.  It doesn't fit a skeptic like you.

I'm not. It's exactly what he said. Given that, not all untruthful 
answers are bad.

> He meant what he meant:  that you can move mountains of problems by faith.

Oddly enough, it doesn't say anything about problems.

> When
> you're into deep trouble, getting out of it as if by magic is a lot more
> impressive than seeing mountains floating abound...

Funky. That never worked for me. Maybe that's the difference.

> Do you also believe in the exact wording of the famous quote:  "It's easier for
> a camel to go through a needle hole than a rich man to enter Heaven?"

No, because in context, it made sense that it was a metaphor.

> Christ used parables and other figures of speech to get his point across.

Parable: You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think 
it means.  Indeed, I think you mean "metaphor", not "parable". Similar, 
but different. The Good Samaritan story is a parable. Moving mountains 
is a metaphor.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     It's not feature creep if you put it
     at the end and adjust the release date.

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Sabrina Kilian <"ykgp at vtSPAM.edu"> wrote:
> Tell me how, in any way shape or form, a 2 year old getting cancer and
> dying painfully fits into any plan to make the rest of the world a
> better place.

A painful departure always creates a change of heart to those who stay.  It may
also happen to those truly faithful, in which case I see it as provation.

> Can God stop it if he wanted to?

yes, He's God Almighty.

> Why doesn't he?

Maybe he wants to interfere as little in actions resulted from free will as
possible.  Who am I to answer?

> Why should I worship some one/thing that wouldn't stop these things from
> happening?

Because regardless of evil I have respect for the being that created all.

> Show me an actual miracle.

A miracle is born everyday.  Are you expecting something extraordinaire and of a
big scale?

is this good enough?:
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap061024.html

thing of how many souls will die and suffer in the collision!  Of course, it may
be that such events are so slow that the intelligent beings there already
fled...

> They were so common in the OT days, and Jesus
> performed them on street corners.

Those were the days of the covenant and God was more actively influencing the
world.  Please, respect Jesus by not comparing him to some sort of David
Blaine.

> Why, all these years later, are we
> asked to take it on faith that one book tells the truth and other books
> tell lies?

Because it is the Word of God.  Can it be all just a bunch of poems, folk tales,
outright lies and hopes from schizoids or downright liars?  Yes.  How can I be
sure it is true?  I can't.

I don't base my judgement on logic or evidence, but on faith alone.  Why do I
have faith then?  Because the History of God's people as described by the Bible
makes sense to me.  Because I've been witness of God's subtle way into the
world.

> And my reason for not believing in the healing power of prayer is that,
> simply, it never worked from where I saw it. I haven't seen cancer
> disappear from prayer alone. I never saw limbs grow back, scars
> disappear, or painful injuries simple go away.

Man is not a reptile to have his limbs grown back.  Praying that much won't
change God's laws ruling over physical matters, unless you're Jesus or another
anointed one.

BTW, it reminded me of a joke:
A Father and a Rabbi were out to watch some boxing.
Before the fight, the boxer in blue shorts made the sign of the cross.
The Rabbi asked the Father:  "What does that mean anyway?"
The Father retorted:  "Nothing, if he doesn't know how to fight."

> while I disagree with your belief and simply don't agree with it, the
> few quirky statements offering to pray for the 'non-believers' shows
> that you don't really respect those who don't share your belief.

sorry about the offer for pray.  It clearly generated more evil than good.
fucked up world...

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In article <475f8835$1@news.povray.org>, nos### [at] nospamcom says...
> On Tue, 11 Dec 2007 18:48:26 -0800, Darren New wrote:
> 
> > Jim Henderson wrote:
> >> Irrational to you - that's part of what I'm saying, if I say "God told
> >> me x", you might see it as irrational because it wasn't God who was
> >> talking to you, but to me it's entirely rational because God talked to
> >> me.
> > 
> > That's not the meaning of the word "rational" I was using.
> 
> I wasn't aware of a different meaning in that context...
> 
> >> Even if they did happen, they wouldn't be proof of the existence of
> >> God. Even if modern science had no rational explanation for them, they
> >> still wouldn't prove the existence of God.
> > 
> > Yes, I know.
> 
> So I guess I still don't see how those miracles you listed would prove to
 
> you that God exists rather than just proving to you that we don't know 
> enough to understand why they occurred (assuming that one or more of them
 
> did).
> 
I think there is a basic presumption that there are no more material 
explanations for them. And I think such things are a joke myself anyway, 
since its a damn site more *miraculous* if say a volcano opened up in 
Las Vegas and began spewing ice, than the silly sort of miracles that 
involve, "God decided to perform a miracle, but was too lazy to do 
something that breaks the laws of physics, or contravenes reasonable 
expectations." One doesn't expect an ice volcano to pop up in the middle 
of a major city. Not even a Hollywood producer would try to pass that 
one off as making sense. But, its almost impossible to find any place on 
the planet that hasn't had a normal volcano on it, at some point.

Same with most other things that believers would try to imply meant 
something. Just as no known case exists of someone having missing limbs 
spontaneously regrow from *any* sort of healing, so to one at least 
expects that real miracles would be of a quality that rises above 
natural phenomena and magic tricks.

-- 
void main () {

    if version = "Vista" {
      call slow_by_half();
      call DRM_everything();
    }
    call functional_code();
  }
  else
    call crash_windows();
}

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In article <475f8973$1@news.povray.org>, nos### [at] nospamcom says...
> On Sun, 09 Dec 2007 21:20:00 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> 
> > So, the questions really are: 1. Does it have to be human readable? 
> 
> That would be a "watch" by definition.  The usage that I have seen this
 
> is in the context of the book "The Invisible Watchmaker", and the premise
 
> (at least from the debates I've had with people who have read it; I have
 
> not) seems to be flawed as the idea is that a watch has to imply a 
> watchmaker because a watch must be made by a maker.  Therefore, there 
> must be a watchmaker or there'd be no watch.
> 
Actually, it just implies that a maker can sometimes come up with things 
that "personally" benefit him/her/it-self, which wouldn't otherwise 
result. The reason I said "human readable" is precisely because of that 
basic conceit, that because its useful to them in some fashion, and its 
too complicated for them to bother (not attempt, just bother) to figure 
out, this implies that a maker had to do it. My point was that you could 
decide that some flower, which had the odd tendency of gripping your 
wrist, would look nice to wear, and never realize that it was so synced 
to the 24 hour cycle of the planet that it also did something that made 
it 100% like a watch. Or maybe there could be a leech that when through 
clear 24 hour cycles, which only appear in its *chemistry*, in which 
case you would still be wearing a good watch, you just wouldn't be able 
to read it at all. And so on. The initial presumption is that you would 
*recognize* it as a watch in the first place. I.e., that it would 
display the information in a way that the moron looking for a watch 
would "recognize" as watch like.

-- 
void main () {

    if version = "Vista" {
      call slow_by_half();
      call DRM_everything();
    }
    call functional_code();
  }
  else
    call crash_windows();
}

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In article <47600c7d$1@news.povray.org>, nos### [at] nospamcom says...
> On Wed, 12 Dec 2007 06:16:53 -0500, nemesis wrote:
> 
> > Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> >> nemesis wrote:
> >> > God is not hiding under X or Y, it's everywhere for people with eyes
> >> > to see and ears to hear.
> >>
> >> And if you disagree, you're stupid, ignorant, and about to be punished
> > 
> > actually, you're just blind. :)
> 
> See, there's that hubris of which Darren referred....
> 
Not to mention he contradicts himself. It is not ***possible*** for us 
to be blind to a thing, if it can't be seen in the first place. You 
don't get to have it both ways. God cannot be some intangible thing that 
only existing outside the universe, and apparently in the heads of 
people who think this argument makes any sense, and then insist that all 
the people that don't believe it just can't see, or hear, or recognize 
the truth, all words that imply he **must** be tangible to at least some 
sort of sense.

Hubris doesn't even begin to describe how unbelievably ridiculous this 
is, though, since he is also trying to claim that only pharisee and 
bigots claim to be the ultimate authorities on what God is, yet is doing 
it himself with us.. One should add Hypocracy to the claim, since he not 
only thinks he knows better than we do about it all, he can't grasp the 
fact that claiming such makes him the same as the people he previously 
agreed where dangerous, delusional and unChristian, for making the same 
exact claims.

-- 
void main () {

    if version = "Vista" {
      call slow_by_half();
      call DRM_everything();
    }
    call functional_code();
  }
  else
    call crash_windows();
}

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In article <web.475fca66922777eb5e2636760@news.povray.org>, 
nam### [at] gmailcom says...
> > There are still traces from all Roman census. Aparently, Jesus don't fi
gure in
> > those census...
> 
> there are *traces* of it?  and Jesus, who was born hidden from the Empire
,
> doesn't figure in them?  alright...
> 
What the @#$@#$@# part of, "Joseph was traveling, **according to** the 
Bible for the sole purpose of participating 'in' the Census did you miss 
exactly?" He would hardly have needed to be born hidden from the Empire. 
And, more to the point, as Alain already pointed out, its impossible for 
the claim that Joseph was traveling for that purpose to be true, since 
neither of the censuses that happened where *during* the time he opted 
to travel, in contradiction to the reason he was supposed to be doing 
so.

Your own Bible says why he traveled, it says when he was supposed to be 
doing so, etc. There are only two explanations - 1. It didn't happen at 
all, or 2. Jesus wasn't the true messiah *at all*, since one of the 
reasons that he *had* to be born when it claims was to make his birth 
and other actions line up with Old Testament prophecy about the coming 
messiah (never mind that *that* prophecy insisted that a warlord would 
be born, not a peace maker). But, heh, why worry about one silly 
contradiction with regard to the *type* of leader his was supposed to 
be, when nothing else matches either. Lets just ignore all of them, then 
claim it happened as prophesied anyway. lol

-- 
void main () {

    if version = "Vista" {
      call slow_by_half();
      call DRM_everything();
    }
    call functional_code();
  }
  else
    call crash_windows();
}

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In article <475ff4d8$1@news.povray.org>, ele### [at] netscapenet 
says...
> nemesis nous apporta ses lumieres en ce 2007/12/12 07:04:
> > Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> >> Then I'll ask the Goddess to enlighten you so that you may understand.
> > 
> > God or Goddess, it's just a human term for a being beyond the physical,
 sexual
> > world...
> > 
> > 
> A God is male.
> A Goddess is female.
> 
> They may be placed beyong the physical world by the men who invented them
, but 
> they definitely are NOT beyong the sexual world!
> 
> In my view, ALL Gods are human inventions. The Jewish god is human invent
ion.
> The Christian god is human invention.
> The Muslim god is human invention.
> All the other gods we can find in human History and histories are all hum
an 
> inventions, every last one, bar none.
> 
To misquote an ancient Pagan version of creation:

"The goddess grew lonely in her endless wanderings, so broke off a bit 
of herself, which became male, yet it was insane, ran from her, and thus 
formed our universe."

It certainly makes at least as much sense as Genesis, perhaps more, and 
the "yet it was insane" part I added would certainly explain the crazy 
and irrational arguments used by his followers. And it doesn't even 
contradict the Big Bang, while the Bible's version does. lol

Or, as you said, its all just a mess of human inventions.

-- 
void main () {

    if version = "Vista" {
      call slow_by_half();
      call DRM_everything();
    }
    call functional_code();
  }
  else
    call crash_windows();
}

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In article <web.47606f6f922777eb2067189c0@news.povray.org>, 
nam### [at] gmailcom says...
> Mike Raiford <mra### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:
> > If someone is doing something they
> > genuinely think is helpful to others, how is it determined that it's a
> > ticket to heaven or hell?
> 
> It's determined by who you ask help to.  Offering a chicken to Satan for 
him to
> "help" me is not helpful at all
> 
Only if you presume the very old religion that started out claiming that 
Satan was God's helper, then later blamed everything on him and made up 
a silly, and over time increasingly complicated and bloody explanation, 
for what he did and where he was sent, instead of the Satanists, who 
would argue that Satan was the one that **never** deceived anyone, and 
thus its your God that is evil. And only if you presume that your god 
did create everything, including heaven and hell, and that he "is" thus 
more powerful. And it only gets worse when dealing with all those other, 
according to you, same god worshiping religions that insist that there 
are multiple hells and heavens, and that you can traverse between them, 
or worse, can, even as an innocent, be tricked into them, by spirits in 
"both" realms, that only care about who meets their quotas, not where 
you are supposed to be sent.

The only grounds you have for thinking is not useful is that you 
*believe* its not useful. The fact that we both agree on that matter 
doesn't help your case one bit, of course, since I consider it all 
useless.

-- 
void main () {

    if version = "Vista" {
      call slow_by_half();
      call DRM_everything();
    }
    call functional_code();
  }
  else
    call crash_windows();
}

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In article <op.t2791mncc3xi7v@news.povray.org>, 
phi### [at] nospamrocainfreeservecouk says...
> And lo on Wed, 12 Dec 2007 11:51:07 -0000, nemesis  
> <nam### [at] gmailcom> did spake, saying:
> 
> > Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> >> On Mon, 10 Dec 2007 10:07:12 -0500, nemesis wrote:
> >> >  the pagans just didn't know any better.
> >>
> >> Um, excuse me, used to be a practicing Pagan here.  Raised Lutheran
> >> first, opted for Paganism, now closer to atheism.
> >>
> >> Don't presume to tell me I don't know any better, please.
> >
> > That's your problem.  I was talking about the pagan peoples from before
  
> > the covenant and the Word being spread:  they couldn't know it better.
> 
> Wasn't that the same argument that the Christians used against the Jews? 
 
> Oh and the same one used by Muslims against Christians (and Jews)?
> 
Yeah. Pretty much. Understanding of the word of the magic sky fairy 
grows, but only through ***our*** belief system, so all you other rag 
heads, beany tops, and tree huggers are now going to burn in hell, 
because, well... you wouldn't listen when we told you about these great 
improvements in understanding.

Or, as one American Indian was supposed to have said, more or less, "So, 
before you told me about your great god, his word and all the rules I am 
supposed to follow, I would have been saved anyway, but now that I do 
know, if I make the slightest mistake I am doomed? Why did you tell me 
then!?"

-- 
void main () {

    if version = "Vista" {
      call slow_by_half();
      call DRM_everything();
    }
    call functional_code();
  }
  else
    call crash_windows();
}

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