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Thx for the reminder : ) I am actually really enjoying this thread, reading it and inputting my own opinions. And I am also disgusted with the fact that priests have molested children, and other people who are not believers in Christianity are what I would consider people with better values. In the end though, it is unfortunate that the non-Christians with better morals are still under the wrath of God, since their sins have not been forgiven them. Will the priest still go to heaven? well, his sins have been absolved by the blood of Jesus Christ, so i believe, even though he is much more deprave compared to what he should be, he would still go to heaven. In heaven though, his actions on earth will be judged, and God may not reward him as much as He would to a more rightous person. God rewarding Christians in heaven is not so the Christians can have more glory, but it is for the Christians to have something of value to give back to God as an offering (such as the elders casting down their crowns before the Lord). And Christians will choose to do that because then they will see God in His true infinite glory. So it is dissappointing for me to accept that good people who are not saved from their sins will still go to hell. Does that mean God is unjust? First of all, I consider whatever God does to be the definition of "just". Secondly though, I also believe that God gives everyone a chance to accept Christ as their saviour. Many people say the flaw in this belief is: What about people on a remote island who are untouched by any outside influence and therefore can't hear the gospel? My answer to that is: Did Abraham hear the gospel? No he didn't, but in Hebrews it says he is justified by his faith, and God accounted that to him for rightousness. And the people on a remote island or whatever who have never heard the gospel are still without excuse as it says in the book of Romans.

Actually, Kobayashi Maru is a type of highly-contagious toe fungus prevalent in the African Sahara, and is also commonly associated with the demonic mythical bird of the same name... :ph34r:

Alright. Might want to look at who actually compiled the New Testament, though... <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I have just now briefly looked and am presenting a couple things i found in this post. (although, i already have faith that God compiled it, but i know that doesn't count much in a faith-objective viewpoint.) ------------------------------------------------- http://www.gotquestions.org/canon-Bible.html "For the New Testament, the process of the recognition and collection began in the first centuries of the Christian church. Very early on, some of the New Testament books were being recognized. Paul considered Luke

Lay off the Christian propaganda. Jess LaVey is a known born again Christian. Though I agree on the scumbag part. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> yeah, since he is a known christian, then everything he does now makes all christians hypocrites. and even though he is a scumbag, the stuff he writes is still the bestest literature ever

looks like someone is generalising followers of religions again... You'll put your faith, on the other hand, in the judgment of a council of bishops, convening hundreds of years after the death of Jesus, as to what ought to consist of his gospel, though? Personally, i put my faith in the Bible, which I believe to be God's own words, not in councils of bishops or whatever else. The earth is older than the Bible says it is? So you think that if God created everything (which is my belief), then he would not have the earth already well-developed as it would be if it had existed for a long long time? You think God would create an uninhabitable piece of rock and then put people on it? No, God is not stupid. He wants people to live on the earth, so why wouldn't He make it in the way that it would be had it existed for a long long time? OH NO! THATS WRONG BECAUSE GOD CAN'T DO THAT! I ASSUME SO... right.... God made people imperfect? OH YEAH! HE MADE THEM WITH ALL THESE FLAWS JUST TO PUNISH PEOPLE BECAUSE HE IS SADISTIC. YEAH, BECAUSE I SAY SO. AND OBVIOUSLY IF HE GIVES US FREE WILL AND WE DECIDE TO DISOBEY HIM, THEN THAT MEANS THAT IT IS HIS FAULT THAT WE CHOSE TO DISOBEY HIM. HIS FAULT! NOT OURS! HE MADE THE DECISION FOR US. I KNOW BECAUSE I SAY SO. HUMANS ARE SMARTER THAN ALL OTHER CREATURES ON EARTH, AND I AM HUMAN, SO OBVIOUSLY I AM SMARTER THAN GOD! GOD CAN'T MAKE US WITH FREE WILL AND STILL HAVE US NOT DISOBEY HIM BECAUSE THEN IT WOULD NOT BE FREE WILL. THERE IS NO OTHER SCENARIO THAN THIS ONE I JUST MADE. SO THAT MEANS THAT GOD IS NOT OMNIPOTENT. BECAUSE I SAY SO. WE ARE ALL JUST A RAT IN A CAGE DESPITE ALL OF OUR RAGE, BECAUSE I SAY SO. GOD HAS TO BE RIGHT BY MY STANDARDS OF WHAT RIGHT IS, BECAUSE I INVENTED 'RIGHT', NOT GOD. GOD DID NOT INVENT 'RIGHT', SO HIS VERSION IS WRONG, BECAUSE I SAY SO. sure...

vengeful? i think it is actually just, considering that sin represents our rebellion toward God. But then of course, its not surprising that i would think of it that way... Jesus lived His whole life in obedience to God, i.e. He did not sin throughout His whole life. God couldn't use Peter as a sacrifice because he sinned and needed forgiveness himself. Plus Peter wasn't the Son of God, and hadn't been prophecied about.

Have you seen me? or are you just guessing what i look like and drawing that... hmm, i am bad at jokes... sorry. i'd better shut up for now.

Crazy? No, ....This joke sucks...

Judges 16:27-30 - "Now the house was full of men and women ... about three thousand men and women.... And Samson called unto the Lord, and said ... strengthen me ... that I may be at once avenged of the Philistines.... And Samson took hold of the two middle pillars upon which the house stood..... And Samson said, Let me die with the Philistines. And he bowed himself with all his might; and the house fell upon the lords, and upon all the people that were therein. So the dead which he slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his life. " Lev. 24:16 - "He that blasphemeth the name of the Lord, he shall surely be put to death, and all the congregation shall certainly stone him." Lev. 21:9 - "And the daughter of any priest, if she profane herself by playing the whore, she profaneth her father: she shall be burnt with fire." Dt. 13:6 - "If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers; Namely, of the gods of the people which are round about you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth; Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him: But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people. And thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die." 2 Chr. 15:13 - "Whosoever would not seek the LORD God of Israel should be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman." Ps. 58:10 - "The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance: he shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked. " Sounds pretty violent to me. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Oh, well then i guess you are a member of the one of the twelve tribes of Israel and you have gone back in time to when those rules were enacted in the tribes. Sure these passages are violent. But the Bible doesn't permit US to violence. God ordered them to do such drastic things (i.e. put to death those not seeking the Lord) because He wanted His people to remain pure and undefiled from the rest of the world. If God said to His chosen people,"Put to death those who don't follow me, but ya'know, you don't really have to do that. And i won't do much other than scold you for it." Hmmm, doesn't sound like an effective command to me. Did I mention that God hates sin? (-Isaiah 13:9- See, the day of the LORD is coming

lol. sorry if i sound threatening. you don't have to trust me, but that's why i am quoting the Bible, so that you don't have to listen to some other random guy talk about his version of religion/faith/worldview. I am just presenting the Bible into this discussion about evolution and creationism. I didn't think that would be such a bad thing... This comes from that article: "The document shows how far the Catholic Church has come since the 17th century, when Galileo was condemned as a heretic for flouting a near-universal belief in the divine inspiration of the Bible by advocating the Copernican view of the solar system. Only a century ago, Pope Pius X condemned Modernist Catholic scholars who adapted historical-critical methods of analysing ancient literature to the Bible." Just because the Catholic Church in the past has adopted theories that have since been proven wrong (copernican view of the solar system) doesn't mean that the Bible is now touting the same views. The Bible doesn't delve into those types of things. Just because the Catholic Church in the past made decisions to condenm so-called "heretics" like Galileo, doesn't mean that the Bible says Galileo is condenmed on the basis of his theories. Another part of that article:" They go on to condemn fundamentalism for its 'intransigent intolerance' and to warn of 'significant dangers' involved in a fundamentalist approach. Such an approach is dangerous, for example, when people of one nation or group see in the Bible a mandate for their own superiority, and even consider themselves permitted by the Bible to use violence against others.

Most of the things in the first link are really simple to explain. for example, was Abraham justified by faith or by works? Well, his works showed his faith. so saying he was justified by his works in this case would mean that he is justified by his faith. (sarcasm ->) NO! BECAUSE ABRAHAM COULD'VE JUST SAT AROUND AND HAD FAITH WITHOUT HAVING TO DO ANYTHING. AND THAT SHOWS HIS FAITH BECAUSE HE IS NOT GIVING UP ANYTHING OF VALUE TO GOD AND SO DOING NOTHING IS WHAT HE COULD'VE DONE! um...no. By doing the works (taking his only son Isaac to be sacrificed), he showed his faithfulness to God (God asked him to do this and stopped him from killing his son because He is not a sick God. and then he provided a ram for the sacrifice instead.) I have to go eat breakfast now, so I'll be back later and try to defend my reasoning for my beliefs then.

For this Trye thing, I have an explanation which i believe to be very viable and logical. First, if you want to read some Bible, I recommend the book of Jonah. It is very short and it is also where I will be deriving my explanation from. Jonah 1:1-2=The word of the LORD came to Jonah son of Amittai: "Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me." Okay, so we see here that God is commissioning Jonah to preach against the city of Nineveh because it is such a bad place. Jonah, being a Jewish nationalist, and wanting the Assyrians (an enemy of Israel) to be destroyed, did not want to preach against them and tell them to repent (because he knew God would be compassionate if they did so (Jonah 4:1-2= But Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry. He prayed to the LORD, "O LORD, is this not what I said when I was still at home? That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.) So, Jonah flees from God (or tries to) and goes down to Joppa, which is on the coast of Israel, finds a ship, and heads for Tarshish (Jonah 1:3. now guys, if you ever try to run away from God, common sense tells you not to go over water in a ship. That makes it too easy for God to stop you. jk). Next, in Jonah 1:4-17 God sends a storm and everybody on the ship finds out that Jonah is disobeying God, so Jonah has them throw him off the ship to stop them all from dying and he gets swallowed by a big fishy fish (if he didn't get swallowed then he probably would've drowned, neh? so this fish sent from God was a good thing for Jonah.) While in the fish, Jonah prays to God a prayer of repentance and the fish barfs him up on the coast (Jonah 2). Jonah at this point is probably pretty grody looking. He has been living in the stomach juices of a fish for 3 days and nights, so his skin is probably bleached and his hair (if he has any left) is probably bleached too. He would be quite a sight. God tells Jonah to go preach against Ninevah again and this time Jonah does so. The first time he preaches against them, the king and people respond and put on sackcloth and fast (signs of mourning). Now here is the main point of my post here: Jonah 3:10= When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened. Oh look! wow, God shows compassion and relents from His wrath. (sarcasm->) NO! HE SAID HE WOULD DO SOMETHING AND NOW HE HAS TO DO IT BECAUSE THE BIBLE HAS TO CONTRADICT ITSELF!!!! um... no. So my explanation is simple. God is forgiving, and it could be that when the people of Trye heard Ezekial's message, they chose to repent and God chose to forgive them. Many years later, the Ninevites reverted to their old wicked ways and God brought the destruction upon them then. So they did eventually get destroyed, but 300 years later or something like that. Oh look! wow, Trye too was destroyed many years after the prophecy said. Maybe they repented, and God relented for a while until they didn't repent and became evil again and then God took them out. (sarcasm ->) NO! BECAUSE THE BIBLE HAS TO CONTRADICT ITSELF SO THATS NOT POSSIBLE!!!!!!! um... no. Anyway, my explanation is very reasonable and logical and does not involve any twists on words or whatever to work. I am sure anybody would agree that this scenario is a viable possibility for Trye and actually makes a lot of sense. Sorry if i offended anybody again, and i am not judging you either.

lol. yeah, I am going to stick with my belief that the Bible is infallible. But if somebody came up to me and had undeniable proof that some parts of it are not true, then i would have to agree with them. And i don't incriminate studying the Bible's origin, i actually would encourage that. because i doubt that it will be proven to have been written by some crazy guy on drugs around 0 BC, and because i think more studying will help prove its truth even more, or if anything, purge it of its falsehoods. For example, there was a section of the NKJ version of the Bible where they later realised they had mistranslated, and so they rewrote it to be correct and that was that.

I will definitely extend that courtesy to you. I try not to judge (God does that for me, lol) because if i do judge others, it'll haunt me later (or so i believe. Luke 6:36-38= "Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you."). It doesn't matter to me as much pertaining to what one believes about creation. Your actions are what matter. and because i believe certain actions (sins) cause God (who I believe in) to punish the offender, then I care more about your opinion on God than simply the creation of the world. It's not as important. For example, there are many denominations and sects of Christianity alone. I don't think God will say,"Well, you guys who weren't 1943 Reformed Conservative Methodist Christians are going to hell, because you disagreed with this denomination about minute things." I am probably wrong about particular technical things that i believe (such as,"baptism is not necessary to be saved" or "baptism is only authentic when one is submerged under water and brought up again"), but i don't have any doubt about Jesus (or so i believe). So I am not telling you,"YOU ARE WRONG AND I AM RIGHT" because (its really hard to admit this) i don't know everything . I am definitely not judging you, but I am telling you what my faith is. You can agree with it, or leave it and believe what you think is true, that's your choice. so i again extend the courtesy of not judging you, and especially not judging you about unimportant things (or what you and i agree to be not important enough to judge a person about).

yeah, i don't like the armours because of how they look . but like Force Reaper said, you don't need the extra statistical boosts after a playing the game for a while, so you might as well put on something with a nice looking backside, because you have to watch it through the rest of the game.

i think they should be counted. Why shouldn't they? you can make your opinion the next time you read a post or two of that person. if they wrote something that was stupid and they have 1,000 posts, then you can probably assume that most of those posts are stupid spam. if they have 50 posts and you read a couple and they look pretty detailed and on-topic or whatever, then you can guess what most of their previous posts were like. Unless you are DL and you want the count to stay at 999, then i think it would make it more fun. this is a fairly old topic, but i remembered i didn't vote in it just now and thought i should revive it.

Yeah, its funny because there was recently that omnimax film about the lunar landings and it looked more realistic than the actual footage of the moon. lol

Good point. the Judaism faith does not believe that Jesus is the Messiah. There is a cornucopia (haha thats a funny word) of points in the NT to support that He is the Messiah. They, obviously, don't believe the NT is the truth. The book of Matthew in the NT was addressed to the Jewish peoples at that time, so in reading Matthew you may see such phrases as,"So all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying..."

yeah, sorry. i was just trying to explain my views, but i should be more considerate in the future. i don't want to be a luny on the side of the street yelling with a sign that says"YUR GOIN TO HELL!"... Although, i guess i need to respect him and his views too.

was i being discriminatory? I apologize if i was. and julianw, if you can show me which metaphors i have been taking literally, then i will surely change my position. If you can find biblical proof that all religions are inspired by God, then i will agree with you. But if its not in the Bible, i won't believe it. So far from what i have seen in the Bible, Jesus is the only way to be reconciled to God (John 14:6=Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.) and we do need to be reconciled (romans 6:23. and colossians 1:19-23= For it pleased the Father that in Him [Jesus] all the fullness should dwell, and by Him [Jesus] to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him [you get the idea], whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross. And you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight

If absolute physical proof is what you require in order to believe in something such as Jesus' divinity (the He is God's son), then you will not find the proof. It's a matter of faith in this case. In faith, I take the Holy Bible to be the infallible words of God (written by people inspired by God. 2 timothy 3:16). Would God allow His words to get corrupted? I doubt that. Therefore, the Holy Bible is what I base my beliefs in. The basis of Christianity is in the Bible (or should be...): that Jesus is the Son of God, come to earth to die as a sacrifice for the sins of those who accept Him as their Saviour (romans 3:21-26 and 6:23 say this better than i do. then of course the well-known John 3:16 and then many other places in the Bible). Evolution is in opposition to the Bible because in Genesis 1:26-31 one reads that God made man in one day. So according to scripture, man is put into existance in a day, not over many many many years of adaptation upon adaptation. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> The point of being a Christian is definitely not to make a lot of money. So yes, it is hardly a surprise that people who have a Christian (but not limited to Christian) belief about God (such as: God created human beings in their present form exactly as described in the Bible) would have lower incomes...

There are too many choices for this poll. i say we should vote for one of three options: Disciple, Blank, and draakh_kimera. (haha, i am so funny. because i said we should do it the way it already is! ha ha ha... <_< )

I agree. It's funny to hear people say,"Oh! WOwzers! Saddam Hussein should still be in power. U.S. intervened incorrectly and now this really bad guy is out of power and that is bad. very bad. WOWserzs!" Okay, so the U.S. may not be justified to invade Iraq, but it already happened. So now what? Well, it is wise to argue the war so that it doesn't happen again in the future. But why argue that it should stop now when it is already so far in progress?and if the U.S. left now, then it would just be worse off. We should make the best of the situation starting now, no matter how or why it escalated to the state it is now.

i agree with that suggestion.

i like them, zulu. if i was any good at art, then i would offer helpful advice. but alas, i am not.