Just out of interest a bit. I'm a referee, I used to referee American football but now it's just Soccer (Football). High schools are not the best competition but they pay well and it's steady so I do those games sometimes cause they're easy. Nearly every school I go to has a million dollar almost turf field for all their sports. The larger schools have stadiums with huge stands and scoreboards and just ridiculous amounts of money being thrown everywhere.

Also the kids are the worst...complete idiots who are entitled as hell. Who wouldn't feel entitled when they get this huge stadium to play their really bad (Seriously these kids suck) level of soccer in and a really expensive coaching staff to coach them. Badly I might add, either that or they just don't listen.

That's education...training morons to be absolute stars at a sport in high school. None of these kids is going to get a scholarship to a college for the sport either because that will go to awesome club players. Awesome club players hardly ever play for High Schools, most coaches won't let them.

We have money...it's priorities. You see parents spending THOUSANDS on fucking Prom...one fucking night of these peoples sad miserable lives. Get a fucking education instead of just being absolute nothings that don't matter.

Nope. Your cynicism is justified if not outright needed.

This "way of life" is killing these well-meaning but incredulously people.

Killing themselves, their local environment and contributing to the extinction of our species.

Seriously, someone should start a "Green Queen Pagent".

Give the winner & runner(s)-up full scholarships/grants to study renewable energy technologies.

Yay, 21st century hillybillies!
>> ^Sagemind:

So many opportunities to be cynical while watching this.
Then I realize that this is a completely different world from mine, and it's quite real.

She'll get that scholarship to safe-cracking college if she keeps at it!

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Just passed $60K>> ^sbchapm:

I just showed this to my 10th grade class. At the start I told them he'd raised $7300 for his scholarship fund, and by the time we'd finished the video, ten minutes later, it was up to $8300, so this is a great story in the making.

I just showed this to my 10th grade class. At the start I told them he'd raised $7300 for his scholarship fund, and by the time we'd finished the video, ten minutes later, it was up to $8300, so this is a great story in the making.

I LOVE THIS PLANE! It is the very symbol of the highjacked United States. It's hard to ignore this poster boy for government/military reform.

So here it comes....

How many American Citizens could have had $50,000 college scholarships for the price of this single aircrafts program?

TWENTY MILLION PEOPLE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Question:
How many kids could have had $65,000 college scholarships for the price of that single helicopter?

Answer:
Over 300

Question:
How many kids could have had $65,000 scholarships for the price of the Afghanistan war IN 2011 ALONE?

Answer:
Over 1.8 million

Question:
How many kids could have had $65,000 scholarships for the price of the Afghanistan war since 2003?

Answer:
Over 7 million

Remember to recoil in horror though at the thought of "freeloaders" wanting free education! We dont want educated Americans! We want $20 million dollar helicopters!

>> ^sepatown:

i don't think he makes good points at all. without comparing those pie-charts to the pie-charts of other aid organizations, those percentage splits are meaningless. how does the layman watching the video know if 37% is a lot or not much? is 27% for awareness programs good or bad? who knows? how much of that 27% is essential for boosting their income?
also his problem with the Legacy Scholarship Fun is strange as well, he recognizes that it's a good program but has a problem with $1.1million being spent on 'only' 700-800 kids. once again, without context how do we know if that is bad? 1.1million by 800 kids is like $1400 bucks per kid, per year. that doesn't jump out at me as some insanely unjustifiable figure UNLESS YOU PROVIDE ME WITH CONTEXT which he fails to do, which is interesting because he spends some time attacking the fund for that exact thing.
the only thing more annoying than the people jumping to support this KONY thing by clicking 'like' and then feeling good about themselves are the people jumping just as quickly to the contrarian position and the demonizing this charity because they wanna be in that group that thinks that they're somehow smarter than everyone else because they've read on Reddit or a blog somewhere that Invisible Children's Accountability & Transparency only scored 2/4 on Charity Navigator and therefore must be a scam.


In a 12 minute video he's made some good points but it's clearly a starting point for a debate. He doesn't strike me as a contrarian but someone who's choosing to be reasonably sceptical.

Charities throughout the world too often get a free ride and I would not be surprised if the next big financial scandals are charity-related.

I haven't actually made it through the Kony video. I saw a twitter link with a breathless gushing exhortation to watch it and the first five minutes seemed to follow in that vein. I'd rather a more clear-headed appraisal rather than rushing to frame the subject emotionally.

i don't think he makes good points at all. without comparing those pie-charts to the pie-charts of other aid organizations, those percentage splits are meaningless. how does the layman watching the video know if 37% is a lot or not much? is 27% for awareness programs good or bad? who knows? how much of that 27% is essential for boosting their income?

also his problem with the Legacy Scholarship Fun is strange as well, he recognizes that it's a good program but has a problem with $1.1million being spent on 'only' 700-800 kids. once again, without context how do we know if that is bad? 1.1million by 800 kids is like $1400 bucks per kid, per year. that doesn't jump out at me as some insanely unjustifiable figure UNLESS YOU PROVIDE ME WITH CONTEXT which he fails to do, which is interesting because he spends some time attacking the fund for that exact thing.

the only thing more annoying than the people jumping to support this KONY thing by clicking 'like' and then feeling good about themselves are the people jumping just as quickly to the contrarian position and then demonizing this charity because they wanna be in that group that thinks that they're somehow smarter than everyone else because they've read on Reddit or a blog somewhere that Invisible Children's Accountability & Transparency only scored 2/4 on Charity Navigator and therefore must be a scam.

Well I, for one, am impressed by the level of scholarship in these comments.

Congress does not have a century of a generally poor track record. The US has been the most prosperous country in the history of the planet the last century, and it's not even close. And much of what has made the US so economically prosperous had a lot to do with gov't decisions on where to spend money such as creation of the Fed, FDIC, etc., funding the industrial/military complex which led to things like NASA, computers, the internet; federal grants, scholarships, and funding for public universities; nuclear technologies that led to things from nuclear reactors to home microwaves, electrification with programs like the TVA and the Hoover Dam which developed entire regions economically, medical funding, I could go on and on and on.



Private citizens are responsible for quite a number of things you've mentioned, and their success.

but it's lunacy to say federal gov't spending didn't play a major role



Agreed. Why did you say that? No one is arguing that point. Government revenue should be spent on these things. My argument is about who is making those decisions and if they can be better made by those who experience these things firsthand.

Have you looked at the kind of financial decisions we Americans are making?



Yep. Personal savings has been bad only for the past decade or so. Economic growth in the US is primarily driven by consumer demand.

So let's talk about those million voters. Have you looked at the kind of financial decisions we Americans are making. With all the talk about how banks screwed consumers in mortgages, who were the idiots who agreed to said mortgages? Way too many Americans, even during the boom, were a paycheck or two away from being broke, had virtually no savings, overpaid for houses, weren't investing/saving for retirement, etc. I'm sorry, but the general public, including voters, are god awful at handling money. Even some people who are generally financially responsible are this way because of hardline rules they refuse to break like never using credit to buy anything other than a house or MAYBE a car. Can you imagine how many businesses would exist if loans weren't taken out to start them? Such people have no idea how to be entrepreneurial and borrow money to increase productivity.



Now you're just making gross generalizations. You've given good examples of how government funded programs in the last century helped lead to economic prosperity, but cited one poor example within the last 5 years of how a minority (yes. minority) of the population made bad financial decisions. By that logic, *my* money management is bad because of someone in Nevada bought a house and couldn't afford it.

I know you're upset at my tiny, detailless post, but I think it's you who needs to get perspective before so obviously jumping the gun.

Everyone, including the president, says that "we have to work together blah blah" but time and time again it does not happen. Then comes the proof that lobbyists pay congressmen to speak on their industry's behalf, completely undermining the voters who placed them in office in the first place.

As a result of narrow mindedness and rigidity, the US is performing average in reading and science, and below average in math. College tuition is rising much faster than home prices. Gas is higher. Food is less quantity but more expensive. Healthcare costs are exhorbitant. Social security is dying a slow death thanks to Reagan. Medicare is always on the chopping block because it's costs are absurd. Unions are losing their rights. Meanwhile, the military industrial complex is doing very well, and corporate entities have cleaned up their books and are in the best financial position in decades *but refuse to hire people*.

You can have your opinions on why things are the way they are; republicans do this, democrats do that. The president did this, Bush did that. None of that matters because NOW..NOW you're unemployed,and/or your house is in foreclosure, and/or your kids won't be able to goto college because it's too expensive. And those jobs that were lost during the crisis? They're gone. They are not coming back. It's a mathematical reality.

Let's do some numbers now.

US tax revenue: 2.3 trillion
Currently 535 people in position to control budgetting = 4.3 billion worth of financial leverage each.
130 million people = popular vote in 2008 election
So hypothetically, if voters controlled federal budgets, each voter would have ~17500$ worth of financial leverage.

Every year, each person elects where they think all US revenue should be allocated. This, in essence, gives each voting citizen of the united states direct control of the united states federal budget. Also, each state could give their population voting control of their state budgets. For those people who elect to not make their allocations, either congress and state congress will allocate for them as usual, or the leverage they had is transferred into the remaining pool.

Why do this?

1. Because the people, the majority, know best. Congress by nature of their numbers is incapable of providing the best decisions because this country is a huge melting pot of cultures. Each state has different problems and different benefits, and the local citizens deal with them firsthand everyday. The representative system of governance worked a century ago because the population was a fraction of what it is today.

2. The entire us lobbying institution would literally collapse overnight. Lobbyists exist to manipulate congress into moving money into their direction. Since the budgeting decision has been given to millions instead of a couple, money spent lobbying is rendered ineffective to produce their desired outcome.

3. No more blame game since you now have a piece of how the pie gets sliced. Do you support the military? Allocate money to military spending. Support stem cell research? Allocate money to science and R&D. Want to get off foreign oil? Allocate the money to alternative energy sources. Worried about social security? Allocate more to the fund. Worried about our country's ability to compete? Allocate the distribution to education. Worried about debt? Pay it down. People always hate the government because of the financial decisions they make. Not anymore.

4. The internet can be the primary vehicle of how people cast their tax allocation and educate themselves on this important decision. For those who do not have access, they can cast their allocation at designated locations such as their local library or post office.

5. There are times when emergency funds are needed for disasters; Economic, weather, unforeseen events. Congress shall have control over that as time is of the essence. But if the money exceeds a set amount, the voting power shall be delegated to the people (for example, bank bailouts).

Look, it's just an idea and it doesn't deserve to be insulted. But if you feel better, then GO FOR IT! I'd like constructive feedback though.

Congress does not have a century of a generally poor track record. The US has been the most prosperous country in the history of the planet the last century, and it's not even close. And much of what has made the US so economically prosperous had a lot to do with gov't decisions on where to spend money such as creation of the Fed, FDIC, etc., funding the industrial/military complex which led to things like NASA, computers, the internet; federal grants, scholarships, and funding for public universities; nuclear technologies that led to things from nuclear reactors to home microwaves, electrification with programs like the TVA and the Hoover Dam which developed entire regions economically, medical funding, I could go on and on and on.

You completely, utterly lack any historical perspective. No civilization on the planet prospered as well as the US did in the last century. I'm not crediting Congress for it all, but it's lunacy to say federal gov't spending didn't play a major role. Just because debts were run doesn't mean they made poor decisions.

So let's talk about those million voters. Have you looked at the kind of financial decisions we Americans are making. With all the talk about how banks screwed consumers in mortgages, who were the idiots who agreed to said mortgages? Way too many Americans, even during the boom, were a paycheck or two away from being broke, had virtually no savings, overpaid for houses, weren't investing/saving for retirement, etc. I'm sorry, but the general public, including voters, are god awful at handling money. Even some people who are generally financially responsible are this way because of hardline rules they refuse to break like never using credit to buy anything other than a house or MAYBE a car. Can you imagine how many businesses would exist if loans weren't taken out to start them? Such people have no idea how to be entrepreneurial and borrow money to increase productivity.

I'm sorry, but no. I'd take even the foolish budgetary decisions of the last 10 years than allow the general public to allocate the federal budget. They're clueless.

My direct experience with Asians (specifically Indian origin) at college were that a lot of them were admitted with scholarships or worked as teaching assistants to pay back what they owed as the difference. Many of them were in the graduate program while I was in the undergraduate, but my last two years there about half my classes were graduate classes with a couple projects removed for undergrads.

And what I witnessed to make up the higher than average test scores of the Indian students was that they would cheat. I had one of them turn around during a test and try to cheat off of my work. I turned him in so I wouldn't be blamed if he copied word for word something before I noticed, nothing happened.

They would take past students homework, put their name on it. Photocopy it 5 times and all the indians in the class would turn it in as their own work. They would get together to work on projects, despite it not being group projects...it was all heads on one screen for hours on end.

So, they may test better and score better, but after speaking with a few....their society doesn't seem to punish cheating like you have here in the US. So I don't put much stock in scores, I spoke with a number of them and they had their smart members who carried the dumb ones along.

And the reverse can also happen. The dumb ones can smother the smart ones potential. Seen it happen while I was in school, "jocks" who were obviously very intelligent would blow off classes and homework because it wasn't what the other guys in their group were doing. These were white folks mostly.

And then you have native born US people of white or black families who are just not capable of mathematics beyond simple multiplication and division. And don't absorb most subjects, but might be a wizard at automotive or electrical given the opportunity. Perhaps they are developing more slowly than others, or perhaps they will never be capable of what you expect of them. But they reflect poorly in your scores, and are not immigrants.

That doesn't mean there isn't a place for them in society.

Now if you tell me that the jobs that would normally be there for folks like this are just swamped by the immigration.....then that's another thing they should be accounted for.
Or if their low scores are holding back other students, that's nationwide...and I'll agree it's a problem that needs to be addressed.


Obviously in immigrants or native born, if you don't see improve in certain cultures after one generation...something is wrong. And it can't simply be that these people are from a certain background that is incapable of adapting...they are human after all.

But I don't think immigration is causing the flaws you see. I think they are exacerbating the problem that already existed prior to their arrival. And that native born and people with established cultural centers in those areas have learned to adapt to and taught to the new arrivals.

A few flaws I saw while in high school:

- Over indulgence in sports programs. The books would be literally falling apart and they would be paying to have a new sports complex built. Saw this in a number of schools. I even did some work on one once I was out of high school. Multi-million dollar project where half of it was in their field and complex. The other big chunk was for the administration, and a quarter or less was put into stuff for the kids...you know the reason the place exists in the first place. The common thinking was that the sports complex would "make them money", except if it had to pay it's own way and cover the payments on the property, upkeep costs, etc...it would spent it's entire years "earnings" in a single month. But the board thought it was making money, despite what everyone else told them. While the actual classrooms were all cost (in their eyes)....even though they should be the core of the school's focus and were rarely without issues. Leaking roofs, leaking windows, etc.

- Teachers overworked. Many of them had extra curricular things they were in charge of in addition to teaching class, grading homework, meeting with parents, etc. Some even worked second jobs so they could supplement their income....especially the newer teachers.

- Teachers over-controlled. Discussion was kept a little too politically correct in most explanations of topics. It makes it more difficult to wade through the language to get to the lesson being taught. Sometimes some plain spoken wording would have made it much more clear. Dancing around the holocaust and civil war subjects are doing a disservice to their impact.

- Teachers reciting from text books. Basically in these cases the teachers didn't know the subject well enough to explain it to others. These people should no be teaching. I knew of parents who would come in and remove students from particular teachers classes because they had older siblings who told their parents how horrible this teacher was. I had to suffer through because I couldn't convince my parents, and I think it hurt me in the subject of mathematics for quite sometime following that class. I lost a lot of interest in the subject because of this teacher.

- Stupid punishment. I had principals who would bend over backwards for sports players especially soccer and football, but would threaten me with detention and what not every time they thought I was doing something. One example stands out. Big snow the night before, they never plowed the township I lived in until right around the time school started. My vehicle wouldn't go in the snow, I had to go home and get a ride from my parents since their vehicle was heavier. Principal didn't believe me until the bus that would have been on my route showed up 20 minutes after I did. He threatened me with all kinds of stuff. And I lost another big chunk of interest in school, because why bother if they are going to punish you for nothing and let others slide for basically bullying other students.

- And I could go on and on. If you weren't a native English speaker or aware that all this above shit was common. You might think you were being singled out and only end up going because the law says you have to. And most times despite the evidence that the above does not work, it's just enforced more stringently...making it even less desirable to put up with all the BS.

Education might be considered a socialist program, but it's lost it's focus from education and put it into sports or administrative costs...or when it comes to college outrageous fees that have little to do with what you are receiving. Or....profit centered for many people involved. A capitalist way of thinking, and it's not WHY these places exist..it's against their nature to be this way. And it's going to affect the overall education of your population as costs rise and money is taken away from what should be it's only goal.

I'm not at all a scholar of the bible. I've read parts, I've been to
Sunday school before i was confirmed (age 14) and I have at times had
fun reading it.

Well, I would encourage you to try to understand it. Every conversation I've ever had with an atheist about the bible either brings up the same five things from the old testament or their doubts about who wrote the bible..and that's it. I've never actually spoken to an atheist, and I've spoken to many atheists, who even understood the basics. I think that if you're going to criticize something, you should at least try to understand it at a basic level..maybe that's just me. Although, the lack of understanding matches what the bible says, that the truth is spiritually discerned. Without the Holy Spirit, the atheist is going to find it fairly impossible to comprehend.

Arguing from authority is not a strong argument. Just because "the
intellectual scholarship" is much greater than I understand, doesn't
change what the book says. And since new evidence is not uncovered, it
is what it is, you are forced to "interpret new evidence" and that's
not the way the world works.

What you, and many others try to imply, is that what is the bible is simplistic, and for people without any intellectual standards. The truth is that what is in the bible is complex, and it takes a real intellect (supplanted with godly wisdom) to be able to understand it. The intellectual scholarship is vast because the bible is inexaustible. It functions as a cogent whole, and address all the deep questions that human beings have. It is not simple by any stretch of the imagination.

1) Personal evidence cannot be verified. What things were revealed to
you before you ever read or understood them? How were they revealed,
what was revealed, how did you later understand them / where did you
read them?

I would like to understand your thought process, which is why I ask.

Is it possible that you already had a forgone conclusion when you read
X, and therefore you interpreted X the way you wanted?

God had revealed to me through signs that He is a triune God, and that He has a Messiah, someone whose job it is to save the world. So when I finally read the bible, those signs are what initially confirmed it to be true. I didn't have any foregone conclusions about the bible before I read it. I had no actual idea what Christianity was all about.

What happened? How has your life improved, what did you do before,
what do you do now? How can you tell that it happened supernaturally?
Is there any difference from that to just having a profound change of
heart. If you are talking about addiction, it is possible to fill the
void of that addiction with other things - some people exchange
cigarettes with food, why not religion/faith? Does your faith take up
as much of your time as "the unhealthy things" you did before?

Before I became a Christian I was a theist, and before I was a theist I was an agnostic. When I became a theist my bad behavior didn't change. I was like Enoch, in that I believed that none of the religions were true, or that all of them just had pieces of who God is. I believed in a God that loved you the way you are and didn't particularly enforce any kind of behavior upon you, as long as your heart was in the right place. I would think that God, knowing me intimately, and knowing my good intentions, was very understanding if I did something which was out of line. Of course God is very patient with all of us, but the point is that I had plenty of faith in God at the time, and spent my time thinking about Him and pursuing the truth. The difference is that once I accepted Jesus into my heart as my Lord and Savior, everything changed.

It was only when I became a Christian that my behavior changed, and much of that practically overnight. When you're born again, you are spiritually cleansed and start out with a blank slate. You become like new. I had addictions, depression, anger, pain, sadness, and other issues that left me in short order. Some of those things I never thought I would give up, some of them I never wanted to give up, but I immediately lost the desire for them. It was a change of heart; God gave me a new one. It was supernatural because as I said, I didn't do any work. People spend their entire lives in therapy or counseling and spend tens of thousands of dollars or more to get rid of just some of these problems, and often don't see any results. I lost almost all of my baggage in just a few short months.

3) Not really. It only accounts for a visual interpretation of how men act. The writers of it has observed how people act and guessed at reasons why that is. Some are close to reality, some are way off. Which human behaviors does it predict? How and where does it describe in finite detail how those behaviors are created? I'm looking for actual citations here, because this is complete news to me.

It predicts all kinds of human behaviors by describing the mechanisms which motivate them to act. It shows the fundemental dichotomy of the heart of man. As an example:

James 3:3-10

When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. Or take ships as an example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go. Likewise the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.

All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and creatures of the sea are being tamed and have been tamed by man, but no man can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.

With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be. Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? My brothers, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.

and

Matthew 12:34

O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.

A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things.

and

Matthew 15:19-20

But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man.

For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies:

4) I disagree. It describes a point of view. The morality of the God of the bible is hardly any good morality. We have an ingrown moral compass, I can agree on that, it's been naturally selected against because it helped our ancestors to survive and procreate. "His moral law" is atrocious, if the bible is any indicator.

If everyone followed the morality that Jesus taught us, this planet would be as close to a utopia it could possibly get. He taught us to love one another, to forgive as a rule, to do good to even those who hate you, to help everyone in need, and to follow the moral law. Your idea of Gods morality being atrocious is plainly false. The passages that you feel are atrocious have an explanation, its just whether you want to hear them or not. As far as natural selection goes, all it cares about is passing on its genes. That is the only criteria for success. This doesn't explain noble behavior in the least, such as sacrificing your life for someone else. That's a bad way to pass on your genes.

5) Which prophecies have been fulfilled? You don't think Israel chose their currency based on the bible instead? Which captivities have been prophecied down to the year and where in the bible?

http://www.khouse.org/articles/2004/552/


6) This is hardly uncontested. There are parts of the bible that seem to be true, but because some of it is true, does not mean that all of it is. http://www.theskepticalreview.com/tsrmag/982front.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bible_and_history#Historical_accuracy_of_biblical_stories

It's positive evidence in the bibles favor when it is verified by archaelogical evidence. There are many things in the bible that historians denied were true in the bible, like the hittite civilization, until archaelogy proved the bible correct.

7) Citation needed. Saying that the universe has a beginning is hardly proof of anything. That's the easy way to say it, anyone apart from earlier theories said that, so of course they did it in there too. In actuality the bible claims that God is eternal, which there is no basis for.

These claims are just claims, there is no basis for saying them in the bible. Blood clotting could be found by trial and error back then, ocean currents can to a great extent be measured by fishermen even back then. Scientists who believed in an eternal universe have since changed their mind, when evidence discredited the theory. It's all about being able to back up your claims. the bible just claims.

This guy discovered and mapped the ocean currents, and he did so being inspired by psalm 8, which is the one that mentions the "paths of the seas"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Fontaine_Maury

Abraham didn't learn from trial and error. They were doing circumcisions on the 8th day from the beginning.

You must think something is eternal, unless you believe something came from nothing. So your problem isn't really with eternal things, just an eternal person.

Here is a list of them

http://www.inplainsite.org/html/scientific_facts_in_the_bible.html

8 ) How did you experience the holy spirit?

It's really impossible quite impossible to describe since it effects every level of your being at the same time, but experientially you could say it's like going from 110 to 220v. It's like you lived all your life being covered in filth and suddenly you're washed off and sparkling clean. It's like being remade into something brand new.

>> ^gwiz665

@shinyblurry Thank you for posting your reasons for believing the Bible to be credible. It is refreshing to have someone properly lay out their case instead of the normal circular reasoning I normally hear (God is real because the bible says it, the bible is true because God wrote it).

I'm not at all a scholar of the bible. I've read parts, I've been to Sunday school before i was confirmed (age 14) and I have at times had fun reading it.

Arguing from authority is not a strong argument. Just because "the intellectual scholarship" is much greater than I understand, doesn't change what the book says. And since new evidence is not uncovered, it is what it is, you are forced to "interpret new evidence" and that's not the way the world works.

1) Personal evidence cannot be verified. What things were revealed to you before you ever read or understood them? How were they revealed, what was revealed, how did you later understand them / where did you read them?

I would like to understand your thought process, which is why I ask.

Is it possible that you already had a forgone conclusion when you read X, and therefore you interpreted X the way you wanted?

2) What happened? How has your life improved, what did you do before, what do you do now? How can you tell that it happened supernaturally? Is there any difference from that to just having a profound change of heart. If you are talking about addiction, it is possible to fill the void of that addiction with other things - some people exchange cigarettes with food, why not religion/faith? Does your faith take up as much of your time as "the unhealthy things" you did before?

3) Not really. It only accounts for a visual interpretation of how men act. The writers of it has observed how people act and guessed at reasons why that is. Some are close to reality, some are way off. Which human behaviors does it predict? How and where does it describe in finite detail how those behaviors are created? I'm looking for actual citations here, because this is complete news to me.

4) I disagree. It describes a point of view. The morality of the God of the bible is hardly any good morality. We have an ingrown moral compass, I can agree on that, it's been naturally selected against because it helped our ancestors to survive and procreate. "His moral law" is atrocious, if the bible is any indicator.

5) Which prophecies have been fulfilled? You don't think Israel chose their currency based on the bible instead? Which captivities have been prophecied down to the year and where in the bible?

6) This is hardly uncontested. There are parts of the bible that seem to be true, but because some of it is true, does not mean that all of it is. http://www.theskepticalreview.com/tsrmag/982front.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bible_and_history#Historical_accuracy_of_biblical_stories

7) Citation needed. Saying that the universe has a beginning is hardly proof of anything. That's the easy way to say it, anyone apart from earlier theories said that, so of course they did it in there too. In actuality the bible claims that God is eternal, which there is no basis for.
These claims are just claims, there is no basis for saying them in the bible. Blood clotting could be found by trial and error back then, ocean currents can to a great extent be measured by fishermen even back then. Scientists who believed in an eternal universe have since changed their mind, when evidence discredited the theory. It's all about being able to back up your claims. the bible just claims.

8 ) How did you experience the holy spirit?

I think your have veiled your eyes more than I do.


Yea, I tell you, if you do not have an orange aura, you will never understand the complexities of the universe.