109/111 # 103295 A note From: ADMIRAL AUTODIAL on Tue May 9 8:43am to Ironman's message which was back aways: To think that GE went down because of the lack of Christian participation is both quite funny and blatantly false, especially considering that the board operated for several months without a religious subboard. Did that hurt the system? No. I took the system down because *I* didn't have the time to properly take care of it, with school and several other things going on. So no matter how many people care to HYPOTHESIZE about what happened, this IS what happened. It would be really nice if people refrained from theorizing on matters of which they have no knowledge. 111/111 # 103359 Hey Cave Man, From: BURGUNDY-ORANGE BIFF on Wed May 10 2:33pm Reread your post, I do not use quotes,,, I think you should address this to Ezekiel. And if you want love that is fine.... Loving Biff: FE'S Personal Parrot, Sword Wielder, and Cross Bearer 75/81 # 103885 OK..something meaningful.. From: FIRE ESCAPE on Wed May 17 11:39am "A greedy man stirs up dissension, but he who trusts in the Lord will prosper." - Proverbs 28:25 What does it mean to be "prospered"? The Hebrew word here is "Halak". HALAK (mostly translated as Prosper) means: To cause to keep going forward. To make one continue onward, to make go forwards without allowing it to go backwards. To safely escort, to protect. It carried the idea of "drawing something forward to a particular destination" like a magnet draws metal. It also held the connotation of recharging or energizing, to propel something forward. To progess. Therefore, the accurate translation of this verse is NOT one of prosperity by TODAY's conotations of health and wealth gospel claimers, the orriginal language tells us explicitly what was meant. It is a promise to the believer that he will be escorted or propelled to his destination, Heaven. It is an assurance that we will have the energy and the mommentum to walk in our faith without growing faint. It has nothing to do with material gain, but rather with spiritual goals. 76/81 # 103917 GOD MADE IT ALL. From: THE GREEK SYNDICATE on Wed May 17 4:46pm and it was *good*® (snicker) 78/81 # 103956 Well guys, it doesn't From: BURGUNDY-ORANGE BIFF on Thu May 18 12:02am say that what God made was inherently good, but rather that it was good that he made it. Also what God created can be perverted to other things. Just as with a child's tinker-toy set, little Billy can have fun and make a car or little Billy can sharpen one of the pieces and stab mommy. Dioxin is formed when TCP-or trichlorophenol is raised to a temperature above 200 degrees Celcius. 79/81 # 103979 flow ON, Jesus! From: THE GREEK SYNDICATE on Thu May 18 4:25pm flow ON (sorry, still passing the ammo) 80/81 # 104026 Hmm.. From: JIMI on Fri May 19 6:33am Interesting... I ran into a old copy of a first translation of the Biblios that was in greek.. It made some REAL interesting reading.. One of the interesting passages was "And Lucifer created light and said that it was good".. 81/81 # 104039 First translation.. From: FIRE ESCAPE on Fri May 19 11:52am I'm sure it was a greek translation of something that seemed like a Bible, but it's not the Christian Bible. Unfortunately we sometimes have to make this distinction. I see jokes all the time about how great it would be to write your own Bible, I'm sure someone thought of it long before any of us, that's why you have so many old mystical biblical sounding books. If you don't like the real thing, invent something you do like. Unfortunately they don't hold up under Biblical Criticism and if you know God, it's quite easy to discern what is inspired and what is fiction. I know I'll get alot of argument on that point, but that's ok. I don't expect most people to agree with me, but I have to say how I feel about it anyway. And about Creation. God originally did create all things GOOD. It is the effect of Man's rebellion on the creation that has caused corruption and evil to arise out of what was originally meant for Good. It's our own fault, not God's. He gave us the building blocks, and do we really have the right to blame Him that we chose to build a gun and blow away our neighbor instead of building good things? If you want to hold the creator at fault for the actions of the creation then you best not EVER have any children, they might grow up to be murderers, and then you would have to hold yourself accountable. Great logic here. See what I mean yet? 70/73 # 104072 ah, old paths From: CHILDHOOD TRAUMA on Fri May 19 11:39pm old points, but how can I refuse. then it is GOOD to design a system where the errors of the guilty are paid by the nonguilty? where the errors of the father are visited on the son in the form of misery? GOOD? FAIR? ha! 71/73 # 104109 I don't understand... From: MR. MOO on Sat May 20 11:24am Fire Escape, how can you say that? If you think about it, how caî you define what is good and what is bad. Sure, killing your teacher is bad to US, but how 'bout to somebody that really did do it. MAybe he thought it was right, or good. The same thing goes for hunting. Some people think killing aniamls is BAD, people who live on it thinks it's GOOD. You can't say that we are influencing people to be bad when we could be the bad ones. 72/73 # 104176 well, frankly, From: THE GREEK SYNDICATE on Sun May 21 2:10am I'll believe it when I read it in "Deities Quarterly." Or if God says something like that when he visits me (every morning at 6:30 am, more regular than clockwork.) Ever played scrabble with an omnipotent opponent? I don't recommend it. Like, for instance, when He cleans out his tray with "ZWEEGHB", triple word score and the 50 point bonus... "Zweeghb?" "IS THAT A CHALLENGE?" -- you have to think about that one. I mean, if you challenge God and you're wrong, you lose the points and get turned into a pillar of salt. -- "LOOK OUTSIDE." And sure enough, right outside there's a Zweeghb munching on the rosebushes. ^^^ plagiarism rules. John M. Ford, "Scrabble with God." ---the Greek Syndicate 73/73 # 104225 Cute Greek.. From: FIRE ESCAPE on Sun May 21 3:05pm At least there is some humor left around these parts. Who says "WE" determine what is "good" or "Bad"? I never said that. Personally I would LIKE it if it was up to us to pick our own goods and bads, but that's not the way it works, for the reasons Moo pointed out. In order to be completely fair, there has to be an absolute standard of right and wrong, of which only a PERFECT being could define. Since GOd is the only perfect being in existence, He is the only one fit to establish what is right and wrong. And He has done so and has told us what these things are. And according to His scale, we have all fallen short. Why is it unfair for a perfect God to hold imperfect man accountable for choices that man himself chose? If mom gives you a dollar for lunch and you blow it on gum and get cavities and end up going hungry and having your teeth fall out, can you REALLY BLAME MOM? I don't think so. SHe told you what to do and you did your own thing. Now after screwing up, your whole thinking remains "screwed up" and you have your own children and raise them to think like yourself, is it your mom's fault that your children are screwed up? No. It's still YOUR fault and you have to deal with the consequences and so do your children. This is similar to what happened with God. We screwed up and raied our children to be screw ups too. So by default there can be no true innocents as ALL are guilty of being "screwed up". It's not God's fault and since He is the same perfect person He was at creation, He still retains His perfect requirments. By necessity who has to do the changing? We do! 53/75 # 104255 Schtuff From: S'TALON on Sun May 21 8:40pm First, who said that God was perfect? And how do we even know what perfect is? Second- FE, don't you think your above scenario is a bit far fetched? 54/75 # 104264 aw! From: CHILDHOOD TRAUMA on Sun May 21 10:25pm S'talon stole my question. Ya, m0n, who says god is perfect anyways, doesn't even make logical sense since perfection is a single state and god changes. was he once unperfect become perfect and changed to unperfect again or what? 55/75 # 104266 As a From: IRONMAN on Sun May 21 11:06pm fellow professed Christian, Childhood Trauma, would you enlighten a fellow Christian as to how God was once unperfect, then perfect, then unperfect again ? 56/75 # 104275 I think he means... From: DR. APOLOGETIC on Mon May 22 1:54am that perfection is a single state, and God changes, therefore forcing Him into more than one state... or is God the same as when he sent bears to slaughter little children and asked for sacrifices on altars every once in a while... because I haven't seen any of you killing your required number of sheep recently... 57/75 # 104280 NOW THATS A NEW WRINKLE From: CAVE MAN on Mon May 22 3:30am I always assumed god was perfect, but of course also assumed i didnt know what perfect was. Black-white-black-white, watsa matter FE, didnt you like the way your parents raised you? You cant say my parents didnt raise me perfect, because of some sin your relatives accumulated. Your knowledge keeps exceding your reason. Is thier some reason? For that matter, do any of us need a reason for reason, or is it just defacto reasonable? 58/75 # 104287 UH From: YAMABUSHI on Mon May 22 12:01pm This is getting wierd. Whats the Question. I've been reading this and I can't tell If it is Gods perfection, all we have is the writers of the Bible to believe regarding the truth of it. Sounds doubtful. I always looked at Zeus(The God, not the user) when this question arose. He WASNT perfect. - Yamabushi 59/75 # 104292 Perfection... From: ADMIRAL AUTODIAL on Mon May 22 2:36pm OWJ hit it on the head...if God is indeed perfect, then He has to be immutable, since any change from perfection would dictate that He would fall into a state of imperfection, which is usually considered contrary to the qualities a supreme being possesses. But if He is immutable, then it seems that He can't interact with the world, because interaction implies change...so, logically, it appears that we have a supreme being who is either imperfect or who does not interact with the world. Tune in again next time when we discuss "free will"... Admiral Autodial 60/75 # 104293 A quick answer to you, From: TRITON on Mon May 22 3:08pm Admiral Autodial: Change does NOT imply becoming imperfect. The simplest example comes from mathematics. If you change the equation 2+2=4 by adding 1 to both sides, you get 2+2+1=4+1, which is still a TRUE statement, even though it has CHANGED. In that sense, PERFECTION does not imply UNIQUENESS. Another example, from physics: in a sense electrons are 'perfect' because as far as we have been able to determine, their motions all obey the Schroedinger equation. In the simplest instance, with hydrogen, a single electron orbits a single proton. And yet there are many correct solutions to the Schroedinger equation for that system, allowing many possible values of energy and spin state. The reason I have quoted examples from mathematics and physics, is that most reasoning to prove or disprove God's existence comes from logic (of which mathematics is part) or from observed experience (the guiding principle of physics). My examples are fairly elementary, but they extend to real life (otherwise all the time I have spent studying mathematics and physics has been wasted). My conclusion is that mathematics and physics cannot be used to prove or disprove God's existence (at least they haven't led to a conclusion in 2500 years). As I understand it, FE's Christianity requires FAITH (and I admit, that is one step that even I am reluctant to take). BUT, all my 'worldly' reasoning doesn't cause me to disbelieve either. I am an agnostic, who believes there is not enough evidence one way or the other. The question is still open. 61/75 # 104332 Ummm... From: DR. APOLOGETIC on Mon May 22 10:53pm Triton: Truth and perfection are two different things... i often tell the truth, but I'm not perfect... comprende? 62/75 # 104334 Does it matter? From: ANONYMOUS on Tue May 23 12:01am I believe in a power greater than myself that I choose to call God. I can get in touch with it through prayer. It helps me along in my day to day life. I don't know if God is perfect. I don't know if God has a son named Jesus. There's all kinds of things I don't know about God but today I try not to let that get in the way of me developing a relationship with God. I think that this is probably the only way to learn about God anyway. Some of the athiests or agnostics would say I am more or less self hypnotizing myself to believe in God but when you see God working in your life in ways that are beyond your control you realize it just ain't so. I too used to want to know for sure wether or not there was a God and just exactly what was he like before I was going to try to develop a relationship with him but I finally figured out that it don't work that way. 63/75 # 104340 I won't push From: OPTIMUS PRIME on Tue May 23 12:48am this off on anyone else, but my personal feelings is that there must be a God. Oh sure, lots of things happen by random chance, but a whole universe as unique and diverse as ours? Not even likely. I can't look at a single blade of grass and pass it off as random chance, just too many maybes in the random-chance approach. (so you might call it 'God wins by default') 64/75 # 104346 re: "tune in next time when From: THE GREEK SYNDICATE on Tue May 23 1:07am we discuss free will" I should perhaps mention at this juncture that I have sworn an immutable blood-oath, reaching beyond the grave, that if it is ever proven to me that free will does not exist I will kill whoever proved it. so do it quietly, please, so I don't have to take up the ZULU spear again? "please, god, don't let me kill again!" ---the Greek Syndicate