And lo on Wed, 12 Dec 2007 16:34:54 -0000, nemesis  
<nam### [at] gmailcom> did spake, saying:

> "Phil Cook" <phi### [at] nospamrocainfreeservecouk> wrote:
>> So either God's a 'Worship Me or I'll beat you up' bully or a 'I'll help
>> the tribe who showers Me with the most faith' mercenary (or both)?
>
> Faith, love, respect and fear are to be expected from those who devote  
> their lifes to God's will.

Except I'd put faith and love, and respect and fear in two entirely  
seperate categories otherwise we end up with the conclusions that...

>  Fear not of God, but of His mighty.  Those who have no fear, respect,  
> love of faith for God may view it under any light they want.

Ah so God's a wife-beater and we're the wife. 'We' still love Him despite  
the fact He sometimes goes off his head and smacks us around for our  
transgressions  from His rules, but that's okay because He's doing it out  
of love for us.

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

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And lo on Thu, 13 Dec 2007 04:54:35 -0000, Patrick Elliott  
<sel### [at] rraznet> did spake, saying:

> 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!?"

Ah no see that's one of the best bits of religion it can be retrospective.  
So all those American Indians were already doomed because they didn't know  
the 'true' way. Don't argue that there was no way they could know, if they  
were worth saving they'd have come to the same conclusions as the correct  
religion and thus not require converting; you know through a vision of  
Jesus or something.

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

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And lo on Wed, 12 Dec 2007 18:56:32 -0000, Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom>  
did spake, saying:

> Phil Cook wrote:
>> Therefore there is no Hell.
>
> Yep. And all the carvings on the cathedral where Jesus is guesturing to  
> Satan (who surprisingly looks *just* like Loki, Pan, and Bacchus) to  
> drag the unbelievers off in chains to hell?  That's just decoration.

Who are you going to believe - God or a bunch of artists? ;-)

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

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And lo on Thu, 13 Dec 2007 01:57:16 -0000, nemesis  
<nam### [at] gmailcom> did spake, saying:


> 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.

I think you'll find that's a retrospective explantion. Firstly if it was  
an actual place it would have one name yet Mark and Luke use a different  
term for 'needle'. Secondly if this gate was so well-known for that  
particular propensity the phrase would have stuck yet it occurs later in  
the Babylonian Talmud with elephant replacing camel, thirdly "eye of a  
needle" is used minus camel or elephant to describe a very small place  
later. Forthly you're pointing out that it is possible for the camel to  
pass whereas the rest of the text continues "The things which are  
impossible with men are possible with God", but it wasn't impossible for  
the camel to pass through the "eye of the needle" from your explanation.

Sometimes a needle is just a needle, and a camel just a camel.

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

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And lo on Thu, 13 Dec 2007 04:54:36 -0000, Patrick Elliott  
<sel### [at] rraznet> did spake, saying:

> In article <web.4760733a922777eb2067189c0@news.povray.org>,
> nam### [at] gmailcom says...
>> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>> >  
>> http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article1072638.ece
>>
>> So, prayers were comissioned to pray for people they did not know and  
>> patients
>> were not told they were being prayed for and participating in a study  
>> by a
>> bunch of skeptics in a campaign to ridicule religion?
>>
> "This $2.4 million study, funded in large part by the John Templeton
> Foundation, which seeks "insights at the boundary between theology and
> science", was intended to cast some clear light on the matter."

To put it more concisely  
http://russellsteapot.com/comics/2007/omni-impotence.html

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

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nemesis wrote:
> 
> It's determined by who you ask help to.  Offering a chicken to Satan for him to
> "help" me is not helpful at all
> 

Why not? The person offering to sacrifice the chicken obviously believes 
that it will help, in their mind just as you believe praying to God will 
help, the same as a Catholic's belief that asking the saints to pray on 
someone's behalf will help.

>> For some reason I all the sudden have the urge to play the song "Highway
>> to hell" ... ;)
> 
> just play "Stairway to Heaven" backwards...
> 

Nah, when I get that I just get gibberish... :)

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Darren New wrote:
> nemesis wrote:
>> Sabrina Kilian <"ykgp at vtSPAM.edu"> wrote:
>>> JHVH never asked anyone to bring their own child up to a mountain top
>>> and sacrifice them. No, something that important and sadistic would have
>>> been written down.
>>
>> JHVH was testing Abraham. 
> 
> Because, you know, he's omnipotent.
> 
>> The sacrifice did not occur.
> 
> So I guess it's OK to threaten to kill someone, too, as long as you 
> don't do it. :-)
> 

Y'know in modern times if someone were within an inch of sacrificing 
their child and claimed God told them to do it, they'd be placed in a 
mental health facility quicker than you could blink.

Makes me think perhaps the Bible is full of crazies. :)

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nemesis wrote:

> Besides, non-believers will say miracles such as healing due to prayer are
> actually a matter of chance, so I don't see the relevance of them trying to
> find proof of God's interactions in the world when every said interaction can
> be ultimately traced to quantum fluctuations, which IMO is precisely God's way
> of interacting with the physical world...

To quote a website that was shared here recently: "Why doesn't God heal 
amputees?"

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nemesis wrote:
> 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.

Yes, so ... When a grief-stricken father falls off the deep end, enters 
a crowded shopping mall and starts picking off random people with his 
hunting rifle, this makes the world much better? Lets say the father in 
this case was very faithful, believed in God and believed the Bible is 
literal truth. His becomes delusional in his grief, refuses psychiatric 
help, relying only on church and scripture, and hears the voice of God 
saying his child contracted cancer because of all of the evil in the 
world, and he has now been chosen to eradicate that evil. He truly 
believes God is talking to him. God instructs him on which people are 
evildoers. He picks them off and shoots them each and every one at God's 
instruction. The man was truly faithful, believed in God, but was 
delusional, causing the death of several people. One of whom was on 
their way to creating a community outreach program to help impoverished 
children in the inner city, who because of this man will never reach 
this goal. How does that make the world a better place?

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Phil Cook wrote:
> And lo on Thu, 13 Dec 2007 01:57:16 -0000, nemesis 
>> The eye of a needle was how a narrow passageway was known at those 
>> times.  

> I think you'll find that's a retrospective explantion. Firstly if it was 
> an actual place it would have one name 

I think you misread, Phil. Nemesis was saying "the eye of a needle" was 
slang for "alleyway."  Not that it was a specific alleyway.

The explanation *I* heard was that the original text said "camel-hair 
rope" rather than just "camel", but I have no idea where I heard that.

-- 
   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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