>> ^hpqp:
>> ^shinyblurry:
Neros name was Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus.

Bin Laden's name was Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden.
Why awe they twitewing so?

>> ^hpqp:

>> ^shinyblurry:
Neros name was Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus.

Bin Laden's name was Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden.


The point being that his full name doesn't add up to 666. Not only that but Neros original name was Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus. So arbitrarily picking out Nero Caeser as his name because it adds up to 666 and saying this is who John is talking about doesn't cut the mustard. This wasn't who John was talking about, because the man of sin has not yet been revealed. It was prophecy for the future, not for Johns present.

>> ^lantern53:

We can trust 'Russia Today', right?
I mean..they are our friends, right?
Ole Putin is a good old boy, right?


seriously?
are you trolling us?
putin has as much to do with RT as kalid sheik mohammed has to do with al jazeera or obama with msnbc.
/facepalm....

look up agent provocateur and then look up how many instances that tactic has been used by law enforcement in the USA alone.
notice anything?

see? information is your friend.

>> ^messenger:
First, you've made the assertion many times here that if we will only just invite Jesus into our lives, he will reveal himself to us, etc. I've told you somewhere here that my own family did just that. We were all faithful Catholics. My parents have been practising for over 70 years. My sisters were Catholic for varying lengths of time from 15-26 years. I was Catholic until I was 14. We all fervently believed, but at no point was anything revealed to any of us. Nobody in my family has ever directly experienced anything like what you claim will happen in 5 minutes.

That isn't really surprising. There are two kinds of Christian out there, those who have a religion and those who have a relationship with Jesus Christ. Catholics primarily fall under this first category of Christian. The Catholic religion, if you've done your research, is essentially Christianity blended together with paganism. There is no pope in the bible, no nuns, no monks, no sacraments, no confession, no mary worship, no bowing to statues, no praying to saints, etc. These is very little resemblence between what catholics practice and the Christian faith. That is why so many catholics do not know Christ. My mother, who attended the catholic church when she was a child, told me she barely ever heard about Jesus while she was there.

A Christian who has a religion is someone who simply has a head knowledge about Jesus. They were most likely brought up in the church, and have inherited their parents religion. They don't know why they believe what they believe, it is just simply what they were indoctrinated with. They believe Christianity is going to church, reading the bible, and praying. These people do not know God and are not born again.

A Christian who has a relationship with Jesus Christ is born again and supernaturally transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit. They have intimate knowledge of God because they have the Holy Spirit living within them and experience the presence of God on a daily basis. These are those who have given their entire lives and personalities over to God, as Lord and not just Savior.

While by a miracle some catholics are actually born again, most are not. You do not know the Lord for the reason that you had a religion and not a relationship. I don't blame you for running away screaming from the catholic religion. I empathize with anyone who escapes that madness. What I pray is that you consider Christ without the burden of that religion, and look at what He actually taught about how to know Him.
>> ^messenger:
Second, most times that you make the assertion that if you look for Jesus wholeheartedly that you'll find him, I remind you that the same can be said for every religion on Earth. If I gave myself to Islam, I would become Muslim and believe. If I gave myself to Judaism, I would become Jewish and believe. You gave yourself to Jesus, so you believe in him, not Mohammed. If your test for your claim of Jesus's divinity is that if we seek him we'll find him, then by that exact same test, we could also prove that Islam and Judaism are also true. Can you give me something other than statistics on the predominance of Christianity in the world to support the claim that Jesus is the true god and the other religions are false?


If you invite Jesus into your life as Lord and Savior, you will receive the Holy Spirit, whom will supernaturally transform your being and give you an undeniable revelation of Gods existence. You will experience true joy, a lasting peace, and have intimate knowledge of the love of God. I am not saying this as some sort of metaphor..that is what will literally happen to you. You will know when you encounter the living God, versus some feel-good experience with false religion.

@shinyblurry

Two points I want to make, one that you have never addressed here, and another that you haven't addressed well.

First, you've made the assertion many times here that if we will only just invite Jesus into our lives, he will reveal himself to us, etc. I've told you somewhere here that my own family did just that. We were all faithful Catholics. My parents have been practising for over 70 years. My sisters were Catholic for varying lengths of time from 15-26 years. I was Catholic until I was 14. We all fervently believed, but at no point was anything revealed to any of us. Nobody in my family has ever directly experienced anything like what you claim will happen in 5 minutes.

Second, most times that you make the assertion that if you look for Jesus wholeheartedly that you'll find him, I remind you that the same can be said for every religion on Earth. If I gave myself to Islam, I would become Muslim and believe. If I gave myself to Judaism, I would become Jewish and believe. You gave yourself to Jesus, so you believe in him, not Mohammed. If your test for your claim of Jesus's divinity is that if we seek him we'll find him, then by that exact same test, we could also prove that Islam and Judaism are also true. Can you give me something other than statistics on the predominance of Christianity in the world to support the claim that Jesus is the true god and the other religions are false?

"Weak atheism", which is what most atheists profess, is a lack of beliefs. Full stop. It is not a claim about anything. It is a lack of a claim about anything. Not only is there therefore no burden of proof, but there's no logical possibility of proof. Specifically, I don't have to prove that God doesn't exist because I never claim he doesn't. I simply claim, "For now, I don't know of and I don't believe in any god." I can also fairly say, "I doubt the Biblical God exists". I don't have to provide proof of that either since it's just my own best educated guess, not something I'm claiming is a fact. My doubt is based on facts, but these facts don't lead to the conclusive determination that the Biblical God doesn't exist. So I pass it to you then to tell me which atheist claim of mine you would like proof of.

"Strong atheism", on the other hand, is a theistic position that there absolutely is no God of any kind. To me, this is as ridiculous as any other absolutist claims about deities.

To say you lack belief is an autobiographical statement about your psychology. It has nothing to do with the question of Gods existence. Atheism, by definition, is a denial of any deity. When you describe your beliefs, you aren't talking about atheism, you are talking about agnosticism. You are saying you don't know. The problem, and confusion begins when you take that a step further, and say you don't believe in God because you don't know. That doesn't logically follow. Does it make any logical sense to say that because I don't know if apple pie tastes any good, I don't believe it tastes good? Does it make sense to say that because I don't know if Howard is left handed, that I don't believe he is left handed? If not, then why does it make logical sense to say that because I don't know if God exists, that I don't believe He exists?

If you really didn't know, you wouldn't believe *or* disbelieve in God. You would be neutral to the existence of God. You are not clearly neutral, since you are taking a negative position on God, and a negative position has a burden of proof.

I'm going to explain why your test doesn't prove that you are necessarily right. If a human fully gives their mind to any religion, they will feel that that religion's god is doing whatever that religion believes that god does. In other words, I could do the same "test" with Islam, Judaism, Buddhism or Voodoo and in all cases I would feel a spiritual high of one sort or other. You say I would feel it more with Jesus, yet the Imam I pass on the way to the train station keeps telling me I'll feel it most with Allah and the teachings of Mohammed. Jews tend not to proselytize, so they don't tell me anything, but if I asked them what would happen if I converted and devoted myself to Judaism, they'd tell me very similar things too. I've seen them in spiritual highs reading the Torah. It's awesome to behold. Ancient Romans and Greeks had different takes on what gods were, but certainly felt they had personal relationships with them and had numinous experiences as a result.

Your premise is faulty for a number of reasons. First, you presume that all spiritual experience is a trick of the mind, based on the fact that you had a break with reality and believed in something that wasn't true. I've given you an alternative explanation to your theory, which is that most people who claim to be having a genuine spiritual experience are having that experience. The question is, is it from a genuine source or are they being deliberately deceived?

You also presume that the reason people believe is because it makes them feel good. If all it were was a spiritual high, I wouldn't believe it either. My faith isn't based on feelings, it is based on the action of God in my life. Many times I did not have the feelings, but God provided the evidence. God is omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient, and there are certain things only He can do. God has demonstrated to me beyond any reasonable doubt that He is an absolute control of reality, down to the very atom, down to the mircosecond.

What I am saying to you is, God will provide the evidence that will convince your skeptical mind. He will provide the undeniable evidence that you could not interpret away. When you encounter the living God, you will walk away utterly changed, in every conceivable way, forever.

Ask Jesus to throw you a bone. Say to Him, Jesus, if you are real I will serve you. Please show me evidence that you are who you say you are. If you are sincere about serving Him, I have no doubt He will respond. He said knock and the door will open.

>> ^messenger:

@shinyblurry

What spirit do you believe in if you don't believe in anything supernatural?

These don't form my "faith", per se, but my best educated guesses or hunches at the moment. I rarely verbalize my beliefs on these matters, so it probably won't come out too coherently, but heregoes:

All the experiences that humans have are part of the natural condition of being human, and are ultimately caused by something in nature and in our natures, not by anything supernatural. I don't believe there are any higher powers necessarily, though our knowledge of what happened more than 14 billion years ago is nil, and there is so much yet undiscovered, so really, anything could be there. I don't think we had a conscious creator. I don't believe there are any superior entities that interfere with the universe at all, and none have a personal interest in us.

Any spirituality I have, therefore, stems from experiences as a human only. I believe conditions like nirvana probably exist and are achievable with great concentration and effort. I believe that faith in something helps it become real, and lack of faith hinders it. This includes health and psychological matters, as well as attracting success or failure in your endeavours.

I think that humans probably don't actually have free will, but considering how complex a question that is (the sum of all laws that govern everything in the universe), it's better for me to interact with the world as if we do. I believe that the the closest thing a person has to a "calling" or a "true path" is to be true to themselves, find their own person, and let it express itself perfectly in the world. This can be done by achieving mental calmness and following your heart and what feels right [edited]. In a state of mental calmness, your heart will never misguide you. There is no single correct expression of a person, just as there is no single correct "good" thing to do at every given moment. It can be suppressed by the self or others, and this suppression always causes unhappiness, which causes people to do bad things to others and themselves. True happiness and fulfilment can only come from feeling free to express who you really are. That to me is the human spirit.

Words do have meaning, and I would suggest, considering the content of our previous conversations, that your conclusion is based on the many misconceptions and misunderstandings you have about scripture.

You're quoting the Bible at me as if I already accept that it's true. I don't. If I were to interpret that passage's spirit into my spiritual framework, it would say that humans usually cannot have numinous experiences unless they are very much in tune with their true selves, and let that spirit flow through them and guide their actions, and leave the ego out.

I will also note that these objections are always concerning the Old Testament, a lot of which applied only to Israel and not to Christianity.

I'm not talking about the laws. I now understand that they no longer apply. I'm talking about the historical account of events. I don't understand how the OT could have been accurate and the word of God before Jesus, but then suddenly ceased to be after. Either a book is God's word and it's true, or it's not. And a god's word should not be something ephemeral. Its truth value cannot change ever. So, either God did all those horrible things in the OT that are ascribed to him, or he didn't. If he didn't, then the OT is wrong.

Instead of considering the words of Jesus on their own merit, skeptics try to do an end run around Him and undermine the OT so they can dismiss Him entirely. [edit: didn't insert this quote in the first draft]

I don't know everything that Jesus preached, but I consider him to be probably the best moral philosopher I've ever heard of, at least in broad strokes.

Actually, statistically, it would be the people who are unaware that there is a supernatural reality who would be considered defective.

Statistics don't determine fact. I thought you told me you were a scientist before your conversion.

There is no evidence that your scenerio is true, it is actually only your confirmation bias at work; you had an issue where you believed something was going on which wasn't true, and then you unjustifiably extrapolated that to everyone elses spiritual experience. That just doesn't follow.

Are you going "lalala" with your hands over your ears? That's not what I said at all. Fact: there are lots of people besides me and you around the world who have transcendental experiences. Fact: they often identify the entity in their experience as a divinity from a particular religion. Fact: they are just as fervent about what they believe as you are about what you believe. If you agree that those are facts, then I don't see how you can tell me that your interpretation of your experience must be the correct one and all those other people's are false ones. Logically, this is strong evidence that your interpretation is not necessarily accurate, and may in fact represent something in the human condition caused naturally.

What I know and you don't know is that most everyone who claims to be speaking to a real entity actually is speaking to one.

How could you know this? Are you in their minds? Did God give you some statistical data?

There are superior beings, fallen angels, whose only purpose is to convince people, usually with supernatural signs and evidence, that anything but Jesus Christ is the truth. They have invented uncounted false religions, cults, spiritual systems, philosophies, etc, to blind human beings to the light of Christ. The people who believe in them are not just deluded, they are deceived.

How can you say that your revelation is the truth, and that all these other people's revelations are false? They would tell me with equal fervency that theirs is real and all the others are false. Saying yours is necessarily right is illogical. I mean, what separates you from these other people that got fooled by what you think are false visions? How do you know you haven't been fooled too? I mean, if they can get fooled, why can't you? Are you smarter? Stronger? What?

Is it possible we're all plugged into the matrix? Sure. Is it possible the Universe started five seconds ago and all of our memories are false? Sure.

We agreed back at Qualiasoup vs. Craig not to introduce solipsistic arguments.

I presuppose that God created reality, and that it is not inherently deceptive; that we can know what the truth is. I believe my presupposition is well justified by a preponderance of evidence, not the least of which is my personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

Do you have other evidence besides your relationship with Jesus? What is it?

Now I'm paraphrasing the Imam: "I presuppose that Allah created reality, and that it is not inherently deceptive; that we can know what the truth is. I believe my presupposition is well justified by a preponderance of evidence, not the least of which is my personal relationship with Allah through the teachings of his prophet Mohammed (PBUH)."

What's the difference between the two of you? How can you say you're right and he's wrong?

Now me: "I presuppose that reality is not inherently deceptive; that we can know what the truth is. My presupposition is not justified in any way. It just makes my experience of life more meaningful."

@shinyblurry

Two points I want to clarify:

... it would be nice if more atheists would acknowledge their burden of proof.

"Weak atheism", which is what most atheists profess, is a lack of beliefs. Full stop. It is not a claim about anything. It is a lack of a claim about anything. Not only is there therefore no burden of proof, but there's no logical possibility of proof. Specifically, I don't have to prove that God doesn't exist because I never claim he doesn't. I simply claim, "For now, I don't know of and I don't believe in any god." I can also fairly say, "I doubt the Biblical God exists". I don't have to provide proof of that either since it's just my own best educated guess, not something I'm claiming is a fact. My doubt is based on facts, but these facts don't lead to the conclusive determination that the Biblical God doesn't exist. So I pass it to you then to tell me which atheist claim of mine you would like proof of.

"Strong atheism", on the other hand, is a theistic position that there absolutely is no God of any kind. To me, this is as ridiculous as any other absolutist claims about deities.

As to demonstration:
How can you test my claim? Give your life to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and God will provide you undeniable evidence of His existence. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.

I'm going to explain why your test doesn't prove that you are necessarily right. If a human fully gives their mind to any religion, they will feel that that religion's god is doing whatever that religion believes that god does. In other words, I could do the same "test" with Islam, Judaism, Buddhism or Voodoo and in all cases I would feel a spiritual high of one sort or other. You say I would feel it more with Jesus, yet the Imam I pass on the way to the train station keeps telling me I'll feel it most with Allah and the teachings of Mohammed. Jews tend not to proselytize, so they don't tell me anything, but if I asked them what would happen if I converted and devoted myself to Judaism, they'd tell me very similar things too. I've seen them in spiritual highs reading the Torah. It's awesome to behold. Ancient Romans and Greeks had different takes on what gods were, but certainly felt they had personal relationships with them and had numinous experiences as a result.

I'll address the rest of your content above in a later comment.

>> ^Boise_Lib:

>> ^criticalthud:
>> ^MilkmanDan:
>> ^CrushBug:
I think I just discovered a new hotel hobby.

Seconded... Then again, why stop at Leviticus?

the bible is excellent as a fire starter or as toilet paper in a pinch. or if you need something to waive at people while you judge them.
if no bible, see if you can find L. Ron Hubbards Dianetics
Or John Smiths Book of Mormon
or Mohammed's Koran
or some other piece of ignorant lunacy written by fools

Joseph Smith. (dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb) Not that I care.


fixed for you

>> ^criticalthud:

>> ^MilkmanDan:
>> ^CrushBug:
I think I just discovered a new hotel hobby.

Seconded... Then again, why stop at Leviticus?

the bible is excellent as a fire starter or as toilet paper in a pinch. or if you need something to waive at people while you judge them.
if no bible, see if you can find L. Ron Hubbards Dianetics
Or John Smiths Book of Mormon
or Mohammed's Koran
or some other piece of ignorant lunacy written by fools


Joseph Smith. Not that I care.

>> ^MilkmanDan:

>> ^CrushBug:
I think I just discovered a new hotel hobby.

Seconded... Then again, why stop at Leviticus?


the bible is excellent as a fire starter or as toilet paper in a pinch. or if you need something to waive at people while you judge them.
if no bible, see if you can find L. Ron Hubbards Dianetics
Or John Smiths Book of Mormon
or Mohammed's Koran
or some other piece of ignorant lunacy written by fools

The cover (which al-jazeera so 'elegantly' omits to show) pictures Mohamed, "guest editor", saying the following (rough translation): "100 whiplashes if you don't die of laughter!" It plays on the expression "mort de rire", literally "dead from laughter" (and roughly the equivalent to lmao or lol).

>> ^xxovercastxx:
"This" is this video. I'll give you one example of dishonesty/ignorance (I'm not sure if they're stupid or lying in this case). As they're showing the map of radar gaps they claim that the locations of the gaps are widely unknown, even to air traffic controllers. If that's true, how is some random dude from Youtube able to show us a map of them? Either the map is made up or he's full of shit about it being a big secret.


Here's the quote:
How should Mohammed Atta and his associates have known the most intimate details of military and civilian radar coverage in the U.S. - details, widely unknown even to air traffic controllers in charge on 9/11? And how should they have known by minute, when their individual plane had reached such a 'radar gap'? Finally: Why didn't the 9/11 Commission even mention this issue?

The video lists the map source in the bottom right hand corner. The map is based on images from a 2002 study at MIT Lincoln Laboratory. The study notes there is "no common integrated air picture" between the FAA and DoD and recommended actions to take to form a "seamless and common air picture".

pdf: http://i-cns.org/media/icns/2002/11/Session_E2-4_Bussolari.pdf
scribd: http://www.scribd.com/doc/18663172/T8-B16-Misc-Work-Papers-Fdr-5202-Briefing-Slides-Surveillance-Implications-of-911-MIT-Lincoln-Lab

If you honestly have questions like this, then you should ask them instead of forming opinions from true ignorance.

Got anything else?