Nimon

Ah, Internet at last. Unfortunately, no matter how fast I shovel the bits, I'm not getting the latency I need. I bought new tin cans for the phone line and everything! Ah well, the view out the (big) windows is worth it. But I'll have you know, I'd put a higher bandwidth connection at the top of the list. The list includes things like faucets at the sinks, running hot water, and flushing toilets, so it's not like gaming is a low priority for me.

I had a fun couple of maps the other night with Shazzz and crew. That may be the last of my Internet gaming. I need to pack up the computer and put it on the truck, and poor-quality dialup awaits me on the other end of the move. If I would have had a reasonable connection after the move, your servers would definitely be worth the $50. Ah well. --[CoFR]Nimon

I picked up the moving truck yesterday. It's gonna be a fun week. I feel for the individual, but big-picture-wise I'm glad to see the high prices. The only way to lessen our reliance on oil is for the market to pressure us to change. It has to happen eventually, so better for that to happen when we're not in the midst of another big economic crisis. Unfortunately, the high prices have to be sustained for years to have a significant effect. If you look at the inflation-adjusted average price for gas over the last three decades, we're still no where near the price in the late 70s early 80s. Small comfort, huh?

You might want to watch 28 Days Later. Sugar has its drawbacks. Grab the two neighbors in ranch-style houses; have them bring their food, firearms, tp, and pets to our house; empty our pantry of food and water, grab the spear, some other tools to use as weapons (unfortunately the firearms are in storage), and the camping stove and fuel; and move everyone to the second floor of our house. Fill the tub and many buckets with water. Only one access point, easily defended and can be made narrower. Three rooms for sleeping, two toilets, and a running water supply that, if the power went out, would last a few days on emergency use only. Break out the board games and cards, and don't expect to see more than one or two zombies this far out in the sticks.

Part 2. Never. If we assume that, being human, our understanding of the divine is flawed, we should never stop trying to improve that understanding. I don't suggest a continuous sampling of religions throughout your life, but I do suggest that you continually ask questions and push the limits of your understanding. Obviously, I don't. Nor do a lot of scientists who believe in God. The Vatican has hosted gatherings of astrophysicists, so they don't seem to have a problem. For those who do, I suspect this is another case of "religious" meaning "Christians who believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible." While a lot of Christians do, I do not think they are in the majority. I've found discussing such events with those who read them literally to not be very useful; the all-powerful aspect of God provides a ready explanation for such things. More productive examples are ones that lessen the power of God. In Jeremiah, for example, God tells the prophet that he thought Israel, after doing all those evil things, would return to him, but they didn't. Taken literally, this seems either an error in judgment or an imbalance between justice and mercy; either way, God seems to have made a mistake. I also like to point out that Jesus used stories to teach, so why wouldn't God through the prophets? Those questions aren't going to change minds, but sometimes they'll prompt someone to delve deeper into the questions and their own beliefs. I see that as a good thing. Unfortunately, of those who believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible, many I have encountered have an understanding of Christianity that, at best, is at a children's-Sunday-school level. However, while you may be tempted to use that as an excuse to dismiss the arguments of those who interpret the Bible that way, that would be a mistake. I know some very intelligent, well-educated Christians whose opinions on theological matters I give considerable weight, yet they believe in a young earth, six-day creation, etc. On a related note, I find it interesting when people who do not believe in the Bible justify their nonbelief by interpreting it literally. Hmm. Gee, that's a shame. He has at least three Noah routines. All good stuff and in my collection, but the St Paul insurance company has a TV commercial that is even funnier. It shows Noah doing the collecting. Prayer isn't about changing God's plan. It is open and free communication with God. I can tell him things, ask him things, and just spend time together. And when I do ask God for something, I'm not asking him to change his plan because I don't know what his plan is. For all I know, me reaching the point of asking is bringing me in line with his plan.

Sorry I'm late. I wrote most of this a couple of months ago, but then a downed computer, working overtime, and the joys of selling a house ran interference. There are responses to several people in here. Hopefully who would want to see it, will. So, without further ado...part 1. Full disclosure: I grew up in the church and became a Christian at a young age. Nothing fancy after that other than the usual waxing and waning in my closeness to God. I've been reading the Bible on a daily basis since probably fourth grade, a habit that has helped me to not stray too far during the times when I was being particularly obtuse. My beliefs have changed quite a bit over the years--hopefully due to an increase in understanding--but the core is still same. I have no qualms about questioning my own beliefs and searching for answers. Consequently, in all the relevant readings/talks/discussions/debates I've been involved in, no one has ever made me doubt my faith--how could anyone challenge me more than I already have myself? Then there's my wife, who tried Christianity as a teen, but found it a horrifying experience. She was a neopagan when I met her and became a Christian about four years later. Unknown to me, I was an annoying counterexample to the pigeon hole she wanted to put Christians in. Her conversion came in the middle of the night through two (audible) discussions with God; her part during the first one was...heated, but during the second she literally surrendered. Since then, her life has gotten much more interesting. First of all, she married me, which would do in most people. She's also had glimpses of both heaven and hell, flown with God (which is ironic, considering she never flew as a pagan), and seen many things beyond most people's sight. When it comes to demonic battles, she's the warrior, I'm the support. (And once those started, my life got a bit more interesting, too.) Everything that I have seen, heard, done, or had happen to me that I attribute to God or the spiritual realm could be explained by coincidence, pattern matching, or plain old wishful thinking. The things my wife has seen, heard, and done could be explained through imagination, delusions, or mental illness. Consequently, I view them as evidence, not proof, and I believe, not know, even though I there is zero doubt in my core beliefs. I suspect you use "proof" the way Unclean has elsewhere, which is to say "evidence." We do not have proof of how worlds are created. If we did, we wouldn't need theories. If you mean evidence, there's a lot of evidence. Theology aside, the Bible is a rich historical document, full of cultures, places, customs, and events, many of which can also be found in other sources. As a bonus, the traditions of Israelites made them anal retentive when it came to copying their scriptures, so the rate of scribing errors was kept low. If you really mean proof, well, there's not proof of much in history. Many Christians view it as the inspired Word of God or "God breathed." What they mean by that can vary--some read it literally, others like myself do not--but your argument isn't likely to prove useful in discussions with us. Or we have a built-in spiritual need. I had an agnostic roommate who, while not believing in anything outside the material world, recognized that need in himself and was active in the UU church. Have there been any cultures without a spiritual component? One of the Founding Fathers of the US--I want to say Jefferson--who was not a Christian felt the same way, but I don't buy it. Do atheists act like animals? As far as the "why bad things happen to good people" question, I view that as a consequence of free will. Our choices, amplified through the chaos of billions of people making choices, result in a lot of bad things happening. God can micromanage our lives for us, or he can let us make choices. Understand, I do believe God involves himself in our lives every day, but free will is always there. As for your last question, I can think of several answers off the top of my head. Which one would you like me to put in God's mouth? We're not God. He sees the big picture to beat all big pictures, and he knows us individually better than we know ourselves. Stuck as we are, seeing only a small segment of an imperfect world, it does take faith to believe that God is both just and merciful. For many people, I think that is a much greater leap of faith than believing God exists. Such a broad sweep with "religious." CS Lewis--hopefully we can agree he was a religious man--wrote of his concerns should we ever encounter ETs. One was that we will try to "convert" them when they may not be fallen. I was certainly never taught that we were the only ones, although I have heard an apologetics speaker making that claim. In my view--and I do not believe this is outside mainstream Christianity--the "religion" of Christianity is mostly trappings. All that matters for salvation is your personal relationship with the Christ. While Paul tells us (the church) to judge fellow Christians who are in error, he also tells us that it is not our place to judge those outside the church--we have no say in who is or is not saved. The version I primarily use was translated about forty years ago. Some of the sources they used were not available to the King James translators. (I do, however, also have a King James. It has an especially useful feature: "thou" is singular and "ye" is plural, but both are translated as "you" in modern translations and paraphrases. That can sometimes change how you read a passage.) There were two mandatory religion classes at the church-affiliated college I went to: Basic Issues of Faith and Life, which was what you'd expect at a Christian school; and Religion and Human Identity, which covered multiple religions. The semester I took it we spent most of our time on the Souix, Judaism, and Buddhism, but it changed from year to year.

Congrats, Shazzz! Now that the easy part is over, get ready for the hard part. But don't worry; I'm told that after twenty years or so, you get to another easy part.

I'd say that's a problem with specific churches or attendees, not the Church in general. Look at my church, which is far from perfect. There's a group that regularly visits the elderly. The youth group recently cleaned up main street in our relatively small town. Prior to the city building a rec center, the church provided a safe place for kids to hang out and game on Friday and Saturday nights. When we got together with two other local churches for our Easter service, the offering collected was given to the city to help pay for its annual celebration. The church runs a K-6 school, and many of the students do not attend any church. We're getting ready to build a third building, this one with classrooms and a gymnasium. It will be used by the church, the school, and the community. Every night of the week--and some mornings--there are small groups from the church getting together for prayer, Bible study, basketball, or singing. And all that's just off the top of my head. We have about 500 regular attendees, and 100 or so members. If anyone's time at our church is spent only in a pew on Sunday, it's not because of a lack of opportunity. The social aspect of Christianity is the hardest for me to deal with, as I'm not very sociable. However, I recognize the importance of it. Community is a good way to help people and get things done.

Thankfully, gladly, mercifully nothing but one broken link. Searching the web or groups, however, results in thousands of hits, and most of them are mine. (I will never be able to run for political office. )

I've never smoked anything, but I did work the Wednesday morning shift at the golf course for several summers--Ladies' Club. *cough* I also did a fair amount of spray painting without proper respiration, and I lived in NYC for a year. The doctor says I have allergies, and the allergist said I have a disease. A few years ago they put me in a fancy machine at the hospital to check out my lungs; it checks how much junk they could take before reaching a critical point. They had to stop the test after the control run because I was already at that point. The tech said, "I don't know what you got into, but it's bad." But, hey, at least I have that whole no-smoking thing going for me.

Cool! They even have a switch for thermal imaging!

Cool. Thanks for the pointer. This would have made shopping for property easier. I had to use the then-new terraserver. (It clunked a bit and didn't have all of northern MN.) No surprise, the resolution for the areas I'm interested in is poor, but I was surprised at some of the areas they do have in detail--Orr, MN, population 249.

Cool stuff.

My bad. You said it was the most powerful argument you'd heard, and while you provided counterexamples, I didn't get the impression you thought it was a weak argument. I agree that it is unreasonable. Any argument that assumes a likely response from a deity is in trouble. Then don't. Is it safe to assume that, if God exists, people are incapable of truly understanding the nature of God? If so, why try to figure out God based on how various believers behave? Of course. But can I request appropriate capitalization and spell checking? It would make it easier for me to read.

Interesting. I strongly oppose Pascal's wager; it strikes me as false belief, and I think motivation is important. That's not a problem for the agnostic version. However, consider this possibility: if a god exists, and it is a reasonable god, then that deity will treat the person who actively searched for it and failed more favorably than the one who gave up or didn't search at all. Would you say that is an equally reasonable argument? I'm sorry, but I'm having trouble following what you said. Could you rephrase it?

Does Chicago have paper mills? If not, it cannot qualify as the worst smelling. I suppose it is possible that they only put paper mills in very small cities, like International Falls, but talk about your stench. Rendering plants aren't as bad.

Just got back from it. Excellent movie. I think it's the best Batman to date, but then, I didn't care for Nickolson's Joker. Murphy will also be the villain (I assume) in the upcoming Red-Eye. I only recent saw 28 Days Later, and I wasn't aware he was in Batman Begins until I saw him on screen. I like him. It'll be interesting to see what Red-Eye is like.

The cadaver my brother worked on in anatamy class had black lungs, so he assumed it was a smoker. The prof checked the details, and it turned out the man had just lived in Chicago most of his life.

Right, let's settle this... http://www.nyc.gov/html/dep/html/watersup.html Looks like Jersey only enters into it in that they tried to prevent NY state and city from tapping into the Delaware River headwaters back in the late 20s. The matter was resolved by the US Supreme Court in '31, which told NY to go forth and do. When I was living in NYC, they had a problem with too much bird poop in the upstate reservoirs, and they were trying to sort out what to do. I recall one local politiician saying, "Whatever we decided to do, it'll be the most expensive option, and we'll have to redo it in five years." But he may have been a bit cynical.

Both the play and the movie are brilliant, but they really only work if you are familiar with Hamlet. The more familiar, the better. The movie has Tim Roth and Gary Oldman, two of today's best Hollywood villains, in the title roles. (Coincidence? Hmm...)

I thought NYC water came from the Catskill Mountains? It used to. In my day, the lake in Central Park, in which many a bird paddled about and rain filled with whatever it washed from the Manhattan sky, was surrounded by a very rusty chainlink fence. On this fence hung signs which said, roughly, "This is your drinking water. Treat it with care."

Need more classics in here. A short list (not all of which I like, but they fit the bill): North by Northwest Psycho Charade The Maltese Falcon Casablanca Ben Hur The Ten Commandments (sorry, but Yul Brynner is cooler than Charlton Heston) One Clint Eastwood spaghetti western (I'd pick Fistful of Dollars) One Clint Eastwood post-spaghetti western (I'd pick Pale Rider) Rio Bravo The Magnificient Seven The Wizard of OZ Gone With the Wind Dr. Strangelove King Kong and of course... The Princess Bride See? Classics. Let us know if you want foreign films, too.

I lived in NYC in the early 90s, and while I thought the usual complaints about dirt, crime, and traffic were overrated, it did have impressive levels of all three. Taken in combo... Anyway, New Yorkers loved to brag about their water, but it was nasty--mostly due to the very old pipes it flowed through, I suspect. I bought my drinking water at the grocery store.

I do not believe that is an accurate portrayal of Arminianism, as you seem to be ignoring God's role in the process. Let me make some comments and respond to a few of yours, and hopefully my view of it will be clear. First of all, and mostly as an aside, I do not believe hell has anything to do with fire. That is a metaphor that the people of Jerusalem easily understood, as they had an example close at hand. I believe that hell is the absence of God. What is fire compared to that? (Incidentally and if I recall correctly, holding a similar position is one of the things that got Billy Graham in trouble with his denomination.) Second and more importantly: I do not believe in predestination. I believe God knows what our choice would be and can act on that knowledge, even to the point of "hardening hearts"; however, just because he knows our choice ahead of time does not mean we do not have a choice. In other words, this isn't a bug in free will, it is a feature of being all knowing. Luck doesn't enter into it. Some raised in Christian homes will be lost, and some will be pulled out of utter chaos and saved. If God is both just and merciful, then I trust him to see to it that all those who would choose to accept his offer of salvation will have the opportunity. Some he reaches through parents or the church, some he reaches through strangers, tracts, etc. And some he reaches directly, as he did with my wife. I believe that is a moot point. It doesn't matter if someone is good or not. What matters is accepting the salvation offered and repenting of sin. Every Christian continues sinning. It doesn't matter whether we have a prideful moment or murder a child--all sin is abhorrent in God's eyes. God is unfair by our standards. Consider the parable of the workers: no matter how long they worked, the pay was the same. I don't think it is uncommon to find Christians who believe that the unsaved die a second death instead of suffering eternally. (I am indifferent on the matter, since I think salvation is a matter of giving God his due, rather than "do it or else.") I don't believe it does. First of all, it seems to rule out free will. However, since I believe you are focusing on the fairness of the approaches, let me ask this: is it fair for God to allow into his presence even those who have openly rejected him?

If the decision went the wrong way, chalk it up to bad prosecution. Many of their witnesses hurt them more than the defense.