Name: Doomer #20 Date: Sun Mar 26 15:25:48 1989 FE: Yeah, even -I- can agree with THAT, but what I want to know is what does HE want? Right now, I don't believe in any 'religion' (Well, 'cept for Gryph's that is...) and I don't know what the Hell is going on, something that I doubt I will ever find, or even get close to finding... I gotta remember to use my board today, I keep forgettin'... Name: Gryphon #21 Date: Mon Mar 27 13:46:11 1989 we didn't have time to use it Saturday. Ach vell.... I am the *one* true religion, guyz! I wrote a book..it says so! Thus, I must be telling the truth! Name: Utwo #109 Date: Tue Mar 28 13:02:16 1989 How about the Gospel according to ME? Name: Doomer #20 Date: Tue Mar 28 14:07:45 1989 Good one, Utwo, I like it! Yes, lets write a book, not all of us, lets just all pretend that we don't know each other, then write a book proclaiming the Horde as Gods Incarnate and then YEARS AND YEARS from now people willl look at our books and go "HEY! They have the same story and they didn't even live REMOTELY close to each other! They MUST be Gods! Lets turn it into the...um..the uh, BIBLE! That's it! And everyone MUST go to church every Sunday, and if you don't do just as -I- say you're going to...um...you're ggoing to, uh, HELL! That's it! And Purgatory. Hey, Lets throw THAT one in too! GODS this is funner than...um...HELL!" Name: Headless Chicken #6 Date: Tue Mar 28 14:44:28 1989 The scary thing is that it might work. About the PO Box number, if someone wants to give me their address, I'll leave something like a rock in my box for a few days so it'll pick up the "vibes" and then I'll send it to you. Then you can tell the Spirit to tell where the rock was. Or, if you want, send me a rock (I'll give you another adress tomorrow) and I'll put it in my PO box, then the Spirit can find the rock. I think that the rock would be better if you sent it to me. Name: Gryphon #21 Date: Tue Mar 28 19:18:47 1989 Doom: Good idea. And since it's all true...hallejujah! And the lord Gwif decreed: "All other spirits are pagan and evil and if you worship them I will scorn ye to the eternal flames of Hell! My Vice-Deity Doom has come to Earth, and through him you will learn the way to *true& salvation! Accept him as he atones for your mistakes, enduring horrible suffering for you! He died for you! Even tho he was immortal, it gave him no pain, and all that, he is good, I am good, if anyone else says they are a god or if they even *think* to worship anyone else, they are evil! Bad! disgusting heathen skum from hell in 3-d!" Name: Doomer #20 Date: Tue Mar 28 23:19:03 1989 And, I, Doom as Vice-Deity to the Almighty Gwiff of Phunness >All Hail Gryph< do proclaim that if thou dost do evil, and vile things to others I will personally see to it that you ROT in HELL!!! (By the way, Hell's this place, that um....well, like I, uh, well, um GRYPH, yeah Gryph um, Gryph threw this bad guy in this lake and um, he, uh, was like evil, so uh, Gryph threw him in the lake...In fact it was a like a lake of fire! Yeah, that's it! Well, anyway that's where YOU are going if you don't be good and worship us!) And that is FINAL...Oh, except that if you're leader's would care to make up rules as they go, or even change a few of ours, well, hey, that's cool too! Name: Utwo #109 Date: Wed Mar 29 19:24:59 1989 And like if you go convert other people to follow the godness Gryph >All hail Gryph< we'll be sure to put you towards the front of the list to let you in to um... um... heaven. Yea, that's it. What's heaven? Oh that's like... umm... well you know... like... like this really cool place and it's up high. And it's like made of clouds. Yea that's it. Name: Jk #18 Date: Wed Mar 29 21:09:09 1989 Hmmm...I think I'll start a schizm in the One True Church of Gryph. Turn away from the bureaucracy of the Interdimensional Congress, come follow the PURE doctrine that is Gryphliness. Throw off the shackles of pomp and ceremony...Overthrow the dictatorial clergy and their "edicts". Follow me, my brothers and sisters, into a new age, a new spirit of awareness of the magnificence of the Allmighty Gryph. Come, brothers and sisters...come and ...(Now to nail this puppy up on the door of Whittenberg...) Name: Doomer #20 Date: Thu Mar 30 03:06:39 1989 And for about 2 hundred years after your schism the REAL church will proclaim that all of YOUR d00ds will go to Hell (See the Bible) because they don't belong to the one TRUE church. And then we'll say "Naaa, that was a mistake, we take it all back, you d00ds can go to heaven too! Aren't you overjoyed?" Name: Gryphon #21 Date: Thu Mar 30 07:46:13 1989 In the Beginning... There was void. Darkness. Pretty much of nothing, really. Except for..Gwif. Now, you may ask, so what...? But Gwif was not normal--not as you and I know it. Gwif was a resident quasiplanar omnipotent deity who had existed for eternity. But..he was bored. Extremely. We're talking out of his skull. ANd so he arose in his infinite power and might, and with infinite wisdom, he made a small workroom from this void and sat down in his omniscience to find something to do. Of course, being omniscient, it took him barely any time at all to do so. He arose, and flexing his all-powerful mental will, gestured outward with a flourish. He liked flourishes, they always gave things a dramatic look, even if no one else could see it. Well, isn't his fault. And so, with the flourish, he created the universe. This wasn't something he did lightly. I mean, would you simply wake up and create a whole universe before a nice nutritious, Cheerios breakfast? But he planted the seed for Creation, a small dense speck of matter. And thus, Gwif created the Seed of Creation. >All Hail Gwif.< And within this Seed, he created Chaos, from which perfect Order would be formed, so thus Gwif created Order from Chaos. >All Hail Gwif.< The seed expanded outward in a huge shower of matter and gas, and was flung about for fourty days and fourty nights until the goodness, gracious, great balls of fire came to rest. Some of these balls cooled into rocky lumps of matter, while some burned bright as Gwif's neatokeen spif lighter. He redecorated the place, making some neat constellations with the stars and creating a few solar systems, until he found one solar system that was pitiful. It was really bad. It had one pitifully small sun. The ends were flanked by two planets that were quite tiny, one in fact couldn't even stay in its own orbit. After the first there were two planets he intended to be twins, and in fact, made Gwif rather nauseous. But in an act of omnipotence, he struck the nausea away and skipped over further examination of those two. He went to another one. it was a dark, red planet, and rather cold. But it did have running water. Gwif was thirsty, and since he hadn't had a drink in a few millenia, and even then on another plane, he drank the planet dry, and upon observing the results sighed in his infinite despair. No planet seemed suitable for life. Outside the red planet was a pretty brown planet. Largest one, in fact. Life had begun to grow here, and the natives were restless whenever he landed. They seemed to think someone else was responsible for creation, so in an act of all-goodness, he purged this pagan thoughts from their mind by exploding their planet into millions of tiny stones he designated as "asteroids". A wee bit miffed, he continued on his journey. The next two were neat...giant balls of gas he didn't hafta worry much about. The next two after those were a bit smaller, but much the same, except for a slight accident in which Gwif bumped into the green one and knocked it on its side. And the last one, as said before, was simply too tiny. Gwif was mad. Of course, this was divine, and the wrath it inspired was just peachy. So he picked the worst planet--the third one, all different colors and very unstable--and decided to put life on there. Thus, Gwif is responsible for life on Earth. >All Hail Gwif.< His first step was to remove some of the clouds so that the light from the...yes, sun is a good name...would shine through. He didn't like the land masses joined into one, so with a puff of breath knocked the continents all over, and he secretly revelled in this game of "landform billiards". After a coupla moves, he had successfully sunk a small continent in the lower South should be thankful that Gwif did this in his ultimate wisdom. >All Hail Gwif<. Then he set about life again. First he created dinosaurs. A masterpiece, he thought, all strong and ferocious and certain to survive this rough world. But their brains were small and they paid him no service or worship. He gave them the cold shoulder, and they all froze to death. Thus, Gwif caused the Ice Age for the good of man. >All Hail Gwif<. In his omniscience, he knew what should be made. He then created animals, but after awhile, watching them stalk, eat, sleep, and procreate got damn boring. So he created a new bipedal being, with a brain capacity far larger than those of the other animals, yet with an incredible lack of wisdom--perfect people to worship him and pay homage. And thus, Gwif created Man. >All Hail Gwif<. Name: Gryphon #21 Date: Thu Mar 30 08:00:20 1989 That's all spontaneous. Corrections, it seemed to like leaving off the last sentence. It should read: "two planets he intended to be twins. One was highly noxious, and in fact made Gwif rather nauseous" and "..sunk a small continent in the lower South hemisphere and knocked a coupla islands up north. He knew his creations should be grateful for this..." Name: Fire Escape #65 Date: Thu Mar 30 14:48:28 1989 Gwif: Don't forget the part where you look down on your creation and see how imperfect they have become..that's where you are moved with compassion and love and decide to pay the price for their imperfection yourself so that the creations you LOVE can be with you forever. Then that's where you HUMBLE your mightiness to take on the physical form of one of your creations an go through that embassaring act called BIRTH! and Grow up OBEYING your parents perfectly even though they aren't perfect like you (whoa..humility to the max here!) and then you end up letting the one's you love kill you, make fun of you and hate you. Then you expeience total separation from everything and for the first time in your existence, the almighty Gwif is not almighty, and in this moment you are seperated from your body and the almighty Gwif is defeated by his own creation, death. Then three days later you get to reunite with your human body, forever bearing the marks of your love for humanity and declare with joy that those who you love can now freely know you for their path has been made by your love and power. How magnamious of you. I mean really Gwif, if you are going to mock the Bible and the whole concept of God at least do what God really did. Don't belittle yourself with only the fire and brimstone bits, God died for us, are you willing to as well?!? Fire Escape Name: Slitter #130 Date: Thu Mar 30 20:35:56 1989 GODS HAVE EVER BEEN CREATED IN MAN'S IMAGE...NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND. Name: Warrior Of The Son #116 Date: Thu Mar 30 21:24:43 1989 To Tell you the truth Slittler, Your message didnt make much sense you should read it over before you save it. But just incase you said what I think you might of said I will say this. Were created in Gods image. He made us all. Name: Slitter #130 Date: Thu Mar 30 22:41:18 1989 The title was actually part of the message...it goes: Gods have always been created in man's image. Not the other way aroundŽ How else can a man conceive of a god? Anthropormorphizing (sp) is a must. Name: Headless Chicken #6 Date: Fri Mar 31 00:06:32 1989 I contend that God is not prefect and that the act of saying that he is (by Himself) is, in itself, an act of imperfection. Note that this makes not a lick of difference to you because you have the ability to take what is said at face value. I don't posses such a gift, so I can't think of God being perfect. Name: Doomer #20 Date: Fri Mar 31 02:52:03 1989 What Slitter is saying (Basicly anyway) is that people tend to a) Make up gods to fit their purposes (ie, Merciful God during the slavery in Egypt; War d00d God during the driving of the pagans out of the Holy Land, etc. etc.) or, b) (Which I think might be more acceptable to you) alter what a god really is to suit the purposes/goals of the peopleŽ Made perfect sense to me. Name: Warrior Of The Son #116 Date: Fri Mar 31 19:48:09 1989 No Way! There is one God!! No other!! God created us not us creating him!! Name: Doomer #20 Date: Fri Mar 31 21:22:59 1989 Thank you for proving my point WoS... And who told you that? A God who was written about in a book that humans MADE. This arguement is useless to pursue because nothing can be proven/said in either direction. One thing, tho, we can hear you WoS, we don't need the '!!!' after everything, thank you. You've made your point. Hell, I WANT to argue this: Ok, WoS, are you familiar with the bible? I mean Old Testament? Ok, here we go from a God who showed compassion and stressed justice to all, evenly. Now, this was during the time when the Jews were enslaved. Then, when they were freed and they got to the promised land, God became a war God to drive out the Pagans, creating the great 'war machine' the Ark of the Covenant to do the job. The Jews rejoiced in their victories and the defeat of their enemies and suddenly where once He had stressed Justice for All and Mercy He was suddenly 'apeased' by the slaughtering of the Pagans who lived in that land. Go figure. Could it be that since the situation of the Jews changed that their vision of what God SHOULD want for them changed also? Name: Jk #18 Date: Fri Mar 31 21:46:14 1989 Excellent point DooM. Think of this as well...A God who loves everyone equally sure seemed to be playing favorites now, wasn't he? His "Chosen People"? Do you know what Jewish tradition pictured the Messiah as? A holy warrior who would come and destroy this world, sparing only the Jews who would then live on with God for eternity. THAT was the Jewish idea of God (correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that's still Orthodox belief...Judaism is not my forte).