Ghostbusters:
"Then, during the Third Reconciliation of the Last of the Meketrex Supplicants, they chose a new form for him, that of a giant Sloar! Many Shubs and Zulls knew what it was to be roasted in the depths of a Sloar that day, I can tell you!" -Vinz Clortho (Rick Moranis)

The real Ronald Reagan was in favour of a social safety net for the truly needy, despite being known for the 1981 Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act which cut benefits for some of the better-off welfare recipients. Also, if you look at his position on immigration (granted amnesty in 1986) and gun control (banned open carry in California, banned sale of machine guns in 1986, lobbied for the ban on assault rifles in 1994) you'll find that he is politically far to the left of any of the current Republican presidential candidates.

The real Barack Obama proposed income tax rates lower than under Reagan, and if he's ever proposed socialist style wealth redistribution then I didn't hear about it. From over here he looks centre right poitically, so it's a little bit jarring to hear people talk about him as if he's a leftist!

This is a picture of a tormented soul; he is lost and looking for the light, crushed under the weight of his own depravity. He is crying out for a Savior. This is a more lucid apprehension of the reality of human existence than most.

Praise the Lord that He has provided atonement for our sins, and made the way of reconciliation so that we can be delivered from sin and death.

Revelation 1:17-18 And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last:

I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.

This is the reaction of John, the beloved disciple, when he saw Jesus in His glory. He fell down at His feet as if he was dead. This is the reaction of the believer upon seeing God. The reaction of the unbeliever is going to be one
of great sorrow, and abject terror:

Matthew 24:30 Then will appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven. And then all the peoples of the earth will mourn when they see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory

Revelation 6:15-16 Then the kings of the earth and the great men and the commanders and the rich and the strong and every slave and free man hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains;

And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb:

For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?

When we stand before God, everything will be in the open. There will be no secrets; you'll be exposed as the person you really are and not the person you present to other people.

What is in this video is all false bravado. No one can stand in the day of judgment except those whose sins are covered by the atoning sacrifice of the Lord Jesus on the cross. He died for our sins, and was raised the third day so that we can be forgiven and have everlasting life. He took our place and took the punishment we deserve so that all who put their trust in Him as Lord and Savior will receive forgiveness for their sins, reconciliation to God, and adoption as Gods children. That is the only way anyone can stand before God in the day of the judgment.

Romans 3:23 for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God

Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Romans 10:9 Because if you confess the Lord Jesus, and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved.

I guess I am having difficulty squaring two of the things you've mentioned. If a devout Muslim barber can refuse to serve women and this is not seen as discrimination why can't a devout Christian refuse to participate in a gay wedding and get the same respect from you?

As to the idea that religious rights, or rights of conscience are subservient to rights of physical attributes or genetic predisposition I need more convincing. The Civil Rights Act doesn't favor one over the other. Religion ranks as an equal with race, color, sex and national origin. How are physical rights "more protected?"

An instance comes to mind where someone's religious rights are actually weighed as more important that your physical rights. Members of the Native American Church may legally use peyote. You and I will be arrested.

I see the argument of conscience vs. genetics upside down from where you've landed. So does the State of Oregon. Did you know, that if there is no reconciliation between the bakery and the State then State will move to 'rehabilitate?' Because something must be defective in the bakery owner's mind they need to be 'rehabilitated.' That is chilling. The very idea that your thoughts could be somehow suspect indicates that the State has concluded that thoughts are incredibly important. Because thoughts lead to behavior. Not only do they not want you behaving in a certain manner, they don't even want you thinking it. I reference 1984 and Animal Farm.

I am not sure that people know what they are asking for when they back this kind of intrusion. It might seem right to them at this moment, but when their counterparts are are in charge (because the pendulum swings), it makes one wonder what thoughts will be in the dock then. How will that law be used to root out contrary thinking then? I want to be free to think what I want to think. I want the privilege of being right and the privilege of being wrong. I also want you to have that privilege, as well.

As I have mentioned before, I think these laws are blunt. While I agree that people should not be discriminated against and I practice that in my own life, what is to stop the members of Westboro Baptist Church from showing up at a bakery run by gays and demand they cater an anti-gay event? How can they refuse since they already cater other events? We have opened the proverbial can of worms

@bcglorf @Fairbs

I used to hold the same view on military intervention. If only it were applied impartially by a nation or alliance, then any would be genocidal leader would be deterred by threat of imprisonment or death.

However we all know that in reality this is stymied by the lack of altruistic intentions, the political dimensions of risking soldiers' lives in foreign wars and the unintended consequences of even fully altruistic intervention.

I can't really argue against there being a case for intervention in Rwanda or after Saddam gassed the Kurds.

A sufficiently large force by the US/NATO would have probably deterred the Hutu militias in Rwanda from waging their genocide. Had the international community demanded Kurdish sovereignty from Iraq following the gas attacks, Saddam would have probably accepted it coming off the Iran-Iraq war for fear of being attacked by Iran while he waged a civil war.

In either case I can also play devil's advocate. Would the inevitable Tutsi government set up by intervening forces in Rwanda have been seen as legitimate by its people? Would reconciliation really have been effective if it was effectively imposed by outside powers? Would civil war have reignited? Even with how things turned out in the absence, we know that Kagame's government is increasingly authoritarian and has supported militias like M23 in Congo against the remnants of Hutu militias which has itself been a source of much death and violence. In the case of the Kurds, what if calls for cession resonated in the Kurdish population in Syria and Iran and the opposition turned violent in those countries?

In most cases, while hypothetical intervention may appear the clear moral ground I just can't be certain the outcome would have been better. In the case of Rwanda, probably, a large portion of the 500,000 lives lost would have been spared. In the case of the Iraqi Kurds, no intervention would have pre-empted the initial gas attack, however inciting the situation could have resulted in more people dying in violent struggle and resistance.

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

Very interesting, *quality video and discussion. I would say there is probably some under-reported aggression and violence in Japan- but in general a whole hell of a lot less than anywhere else I have lived. In 3.5 years there- never saw a fight, never saw any violence that I remember - there was one crazy guy who was running around yelling at people - but that's it. Violence by Yakuza does happen, but it seems aggrandised from films. I think Yakuza are mainly loan sharks, brothel owners and black marketeers.

For whatever reason, violence is baked into the US culture - tied in maybe with a rugged frontier individualist spirit. Americans love their guns. My family too. My dad always carried a nickel-plated '38 under his car seat, which he called his "merging assistance device".

>> ^legacy0100:

I would have to partly disagree on this one. I believe high density does attribute to more aggression. Dr. Frans de Waal points out that high density alone does not always lead to aggression, and that there are other factors that attribute to reconciliation and peaceful coexistence. This much I agree with. However, this should not be used to throw away the immense impact over population has on human aggression.
He gives several different examples, one including about the chimpanzees in tight confined space. I find his claims very hard to believe. Chimps get very frustrated and show abnormal, anti-social behavior when they are in a tight confined space for a long period of time. Their hairs fall out, they bite their own knuckles or even each other. They show aggression to inexperienced moms and to their babies. It could be that Dr. de Waal may be omitting some factors in here. The chimps he is referring to may be from a zoo where they are put in small confined space when it's time to goto sleep, but then are let out to a bigger enclosure where they can run and play. This may be a bad example, but we don't really know because he doesn't reveal the source of his data. Perhaps his research did confine the chimps to a tight space all throughout the experiment. If so, then the duration of dwelling in tight enclosure is a big factor, but he didn't cite anything about that either.
I also would like to point out that there's generally a lot less food intake and physical activity in urban Japanese society. Your typical Japanese sushi portions can testify for that, as well as various hikikomori symptoms people suffer in overly populated Japanese cities.
Dr. de Waal says there's less crime in Japan, but this simply isn't true. He is overly reliant on only the statistics reported by the government, and he isn't are of the deep rooted cultural practices that mask these aggressions to the outside world. Dr. De Waal never mentions about the various odd symptoms and personal sacrifice everyone must make in order to maintain the order there. Violence is everyday life in Japanese society, including the fairly well known presence of Yakuza. Japanese people often get bullied by the Yakuza, but they do not report these events because for one, they are afraid of retaliation, and two, Yakuza has deep rooted connections with the government. Yakuza usually do not engage anyone foreign simply because it would get the embassies involved, and they do cannot exert any influence in foreign lands. So they only stick to bullying Japanese people, and stay clear of foreigners. Even in high school physical violence is rampant. Students fight or bully each other all the time, but it is not seen as a crime, but merely 'part of growing up'. Nobody reports anything, so the crime data remains low.
Compare this with cities in Netherlands. It is highly populated, but enjoys abundance of resources thanks to laxed attitude toward drugs and sex, which are themselves ways to alleviate aggression. People in Netherlands are also very mobile because of their well developed transportation infrastructure including extensive bike lanes, roads and trains. They are also in close proximity to larger open areas in Germany or France where they regularly escape to thanks to their abundance in resource, while in Japan people are very much confined to their own living quarters and their workplace, who usually cannot afford to take frequent vacations due to high expectation from bosses as well as fierce competition towards promotion. Imagine regular US/UK office space antics times ten.
Overall I find Dr. de Waal's argument only partially credible and would like to look into his experiments and his citations before acknowledging this as fact.
I remember Dag and his wife saying they used to live in Japan. I would like to hear their opinion about this issue and Japanese society being used as proof to this theory.

I would have to partly disagree on this one. I believe high density does attribute to more aggression. Dr. Frans de Waal points out that high density alone does not always lead to aggression, and that there are other factors that attribute to reconciliation and peaceful coexistence. This much I agree with. However, this should not be used to throw away the immense impact over population has on human aggression.

He gives several different examples, one including about the chimpanzees in tight confined space. I find his claims very hard to believe. Chimps get very frustrated and show abnormal, anti-social behavior when they are in a tight confined space for a long period of time. Their hairs fall out, they bite their own knuckles or even each other. They show aggression to inexperienced moms and to their babies. It could be that Dr. de Waal may be omitting some factors in here. The chimps he is referring to may be from a zoo where they are put in small confined space when it's time to goto sleep, but then are let out to a bigger enclosure where they can run and play. This may be a bad example, but we don't really know because he doesn't reveal the source of his data. Perhaps his research did confine the chimps to a tight space all throughout the experiment. If so, then the duration of dwelling in tight enclosure is a big factor, but he didn't cite anything about that either.

I also would like to point out that there's generally a lot less food intake and physical activity in urban Japanese society. Your typical Japanese sushi portions can testify for that, as well as various hikikomori symptoms people suffer in overly populated Japanese cities.

Dr. de Waal says there's less crime in Japan, but this simply isn't true. He is overly reliant on only the statistics reported by the government, and he isn't are of the deep rooted cultural practices that mask these aggressions to the outside world. Dr. De Waal never mentions about the various odd symptoms and personal sacrifice everyone must make in order to maintain the order there. Violence is everyday life in Japanese society, including the fairly well known presence of Yakuza. Japanese people often get bullied by the Yakuza, but they do not report these events because for one, they are afraid of retaliation, and two, Yakuza has deep rooted connections with the government. Yakuza usually do not engage anyone foreign simply because it would get the embassies involved, and they do cannot exert any influence in foreign lands. So they only stick to bullying Japanese people, and stay clear of foreigners. Even in high school physical violence is rampant. Students fight or bully each other all the time, but it is not seen as a crime, but merely 'part of growing up'. Nobody reports anything, so the crime data remains low.

Compare this with cities in Netherlands. It is highly populated, but enjoys abundance of resources thanks to laxed attitude toward drugs and sex, which are themselves ways to alleviate aggression. People in Netherlands are also very mobile because of their well developed transportation infrastructure including extensive bike lanes, roads and trains. They are also in close proximity to larger open areas in Germany or France where they regularly escape to thanks to their abundance in resource, while in Japan people are very much confined to their own living quarters and their workplace, who usually cannot afford to take frequent vacations due to high expectation from bosses as well as fierce competition towards promotion. Imagine regular US/UK office space antics times ten.

Overall I find Dr. de Waal's argument only partially credible and would like to look into his experiments and his citations before acknowledging this as fact.

I remember Dag and his wife saying they used to live in Japan. I would like to hear their opinion about this issue and Japanese society being used as proof to this theory.

You mentioned a bunch of metaphysical rules of the universe above. I'm assuming that since God created the universe and everything and everything, that he created both the physical rules and these metaphysical rules too.

* "sin" --> Rule: Sin exists and is defined by a particular set of actions/thoughts/etc.

Sin is defined as disobedience to Gods commands

* "death" --> Rule: Death exists

Natural death temporarily exists..the second death is eternal

* "Their sin brought death into the world." --> Rule: When the first person sins, death will come to everyone.

This isn't a rule, it is simply a consequence of the disobedience of Adam and Eve.

* "He bore the punishment (death) for all sins so that through Him, we could be forgiven for our sins and be given eternal life." --> Rule: For humans to be forgiven for our sins and be released from death, someone had to be sacrificed.

There is a story about a King who decreed that anyone who committed the crime of adultery would have their eyes put out. This was enforced in the land for some time, until one day the prince of the kingdom was caught in the act. The King then was faced with a dilemma. On one hand He desired to be merciful to the prince, his son, but on the other hand he had to maintain his standard of justice to maintain the integrity of his authority in the kingdom. Therefore, to solve this conflict between justice and mercy, he put one of the princes eyes, and one of his own.

This story is similar to the reasons why God sent His Son to the cross. It was the solution to the conflict between His justice and His mercy.

* "What was required was a man who lived a perfect, sinless life in total obedience to God" --> Rule: The sacrifice had to be a perfect human to be effective.

The law was given because of sin, and the law couldn't make anyone perfect. What the law did was serve as a mirror unto man to show him what sin is. What was required was someone to perfectly fulfill that law so man could be reconciled back to God. Until that point, man had been spiritually separated from God because of sin. It took a sinless person to build that bridge and restore mans fellowship with God. That is why Jesus serves as a bridge between man and God, because it is only through His righteousness that we can reach God. Our good works are not good enough; they are like filthy rags before a Holy God.

So, why did God invent these particular rules? Why did he invent the concept of sin in the first place?

Why did your parents tell you not to play in traffic or take candy from strangers? For your protection.

Why not let us rut around like the other animals doing whatever occurs to us without the need for judgement?

Because we're not animals, and because we know better. He created us in His image and gave us a conscience to know right from wrong. We are set apart for His purposes.

Why did he invent death if he loved us so much?

Death was a punishment for sin. However, it was also a tender mercy. If mankind was immortal, we would be eternally separated from God.

Why did he create the rule that when one person sinned, the whole of creation would die (especially after he created humans such that they would sin all the bloody time)?

It wasn't a rule, but simply a consequence. When He created human beings, they were not made such that they would sin all of the time. It is when man chose to sin that his nature became corrupted. It's like how traits are passed down from their parents genetically..we inherited their sinful nature.

Why did God create such a horrible place as Hell? Why not just love Satan and Satan's angels (all his creations) enough so that they would be good again as he expects from you and me?

We don't know whether there was an offer of reconciliation to Satan or not. What we do know is that today they all stand condemned. Salvation is not "God loving us enough so we'll be good again".

Why would God create such an impossible condition for the forgiveness of sins that he would have to create and send his son to be killed by his fallen creation?

I gave an explanation for this earlier. I will say that His standard for goodness is moral perfection; that is inherent to His nature.

This all sounds like plot-driving fantasy writing to me (Rule: the one ring can only be destroyed by being dropped into the fires of Mount Doom; Rule: Fairy dust and happy thoughts will give you the ability to fly; Rule: Walking into the special closet without thinking about it will put you in Narnia), and that's why I think the Bible is fiction too. They're such random rules of cause and effect (not to mention some of the random rules of sin itself) that they can only lead to disaster and disappointment... unless they're just plot devices that lead to a bunch of awesome fantasy stories. And that's what I currently believe.

As you learn more I hope you will begin to make the connections between what we have been talking about for the past year or so. Although you are developing a more in depth understanding of the gospel, it is still on a superficial level and you have many misconceptions. If you want to understand it, then instead of trying to constantly falsify it, you might actually try studying what Christian theologians (and not skeptics) have said about it. There is nothing logically contradictory about the gospel. It is internally consistent in every respect, and its depths are inexhaustible.

If God doesn't want to send us to Hell, why did he invent rules so that he would? Can't God just change or break his own rules and stop sending us to Hell?

Let's say you have a perfectly well behaved son, but one day he starts doing meth on your kitchen table and bringing hookers into his room every night. Are you going to compromise your standards and say that is okay or are you going to lay down the law and give him an ultimatum? You don't want to do anything that would harm your son, because you love him, but neither are you going to approve of his behavior, or endanger the well being of the rest of the household. You are going to let him know there are very real consequences to his behavior and enforce the rules.

God is Holy and just.

By who's definition? What can those human words of judgement possibly mean when applied to a god? And if we are following the human meaning of "just", how is it just to create the concept of sin, create death, create rules where if you sin you die, create hell as the punishment for sin, and then create humans such that we would definitely sin? That's not just in the least. And yes, you say that you and I have the chance to redeem ourselves, but what about those of us who lived and died before we had that chance? Why should they all have to suffer? They will never have the chance to accept Jesus as saviour.

God has given us progressive revelation. As I've said before, you don't go to hell for what you didn't know, you go to hell for what you do know and reject. Everyone prior to the cross was saved according the amount of revelation God had given them. For the gentiles, it would on the basis of their conscience. For the jews, it was on the basis to their adherance to the law.

The words holy and just wouldn't mean anything if God hadn't give us revelation about Himself. They mean something because of who He is. It is without Him that they would become meaningless. Essentially, it is all to say that God is perfect. Or as they say in philosophical circles, that He is a maximally great being, possessing every possible perfection.

We will experience life as God had originally designed it, here on Earth, before the fall.

That's a new one for me. Can you give me a quote? I was pretty sure heaven was up in the sky somewhere, even according to the Bible. Didn't Jesus "rise" into heaven?

Revelation 21:2-5

And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.

And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.

And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful.

Now, because of Jesus, we can be forgiven and go free. Jesus paid our fine in full. This is the good news, that through Jesus our sins are forgiven, and that He grants us eternal life. Pray to Jesus Christ and ask Him to come into your life as Lord and Savior, and you will be saved.

If my fine is paid in full and I've been given eternal life, why am I praying for anything?

For the same reason that if you wish to enter a door you must first walk through it.

>> ^messenger

Thanks for your thoughtful reply. What scripture says that is everyone receives some kind of evidence that would lead that person to conclude that there is a God, or at the very least, push them enough in that direction to be led to Jesus Christ. It also says that rather than acknowledge it, some people suppress the truth God has revealed them because of sin. It is all too common that humans suppress the truth naturally and effortlessly when it reveals something which causes them discomfort.

Having received (supernatural) evidence that sufficiently proves to me that not only is there a God, but that His name is Jesus Christ, I have faith that all of this is true. I don't believe God is going to hold anyone accountable for revelation they did not receive. I have also spoken with many people who have been given such evidence, such as @A10anis, who was shown supernaturally that God spared Him in a car wreck, but still denies God and refuses to repent.

As far as the rules go, no Christian expects the unbeliever to obey them. We expect that you hate Gods rules and would avoid following them whenever possible, except where they match up with the general morality of the culture. The point isn't really about following the rules, when it comes to why you should accept Jesus Christ. The point is that everyone has broken these rules, and that come judgment day, God will find you guilty for breaking them unless you have repented and turned to the Savior for forgiveness. Jesus Christ came to bring reconciliation with God, and forgiveness for our sins, so we could have a meaningful and loving relationship with God. It is our sins that separate us from Him.

>> ^Sketch:

I think I see. So, the issue you have is not that the Bible says, "believe or burn". It is that you have "faith", or you want to believe, what scripture tells you, in respect to everyone receiving evidence for God. Furthermore, you believe that you have received this evidence, whatever it may be, and it was/is real and sufficient enough for you to accept it as truth. Therefore, it confirms your belief in what the scripture tells you. Perhaps you received what you perceive as the evidence first, which led to revelation, I don't know. Of course, you seem to accept that if you had rejected the evidence you were supposedly given, then you would burn in Hell. Which really is just restating what the video said, except that you are placing the blame on people for rejecting what you see, and the bible states, as clear evidence, and not placing the blame on the actual rule-set given for accepting this so-called evidence for revelation. I think it is the rule-set that people have a problem with, but from your perspective, the rules are divine and infallible, and so any eternal punishment is the fault of those who deny and disobey the rules.
I do not know what you consider to be this "evidence", and I'm sure there are many other 80 post threads about it, but I respectfully(?) disagree that anyone receives any credible "evidence" that is sufficient enough to warrant giving one's life over to a religion without there being some amount of willful self-delusion, and desire for it to be true (faith). And there's certainly not enough to justify religious folk requiring the rest of us to conform to religious rules. From our perspective, without evidence, there is no reason for us to believe that these rules are divine and good. As they are written they are just base and ugly. This, I think, is where we differ.

>> ^shinyblurry:

>> ^GenjiKilpatrick:
@shinyblurry
So is this an accurate description? Or is your version of god more/less "just".

This video is short on theology and big on popular atheist misconceptions about Christianity and the bible.
This is the justice of God:
Psalm 89:14
Justice and judgment are the habitation of thy throne: mercy and truth shall go before thy face
The foundation of Gods throne is righteousness. Most people like to think of themselves as good people, because in comparison to others, they are more compassionate, do more good works, etc. They think of themselves as having good intentions, even if their conduct has been imperfect.
Gods standard of good is much higher than ours; moral perfection. He doesn't consider moral imperfection with good intentions to be good; He considers it to be evil. He has also ordained that the wages of our sin is death. Because we have all sinned and fallen short, we are all guilty and headed for punishment.
God, however, doesn't want to punish anyone. He is longsuffering towards us and desires that all would come to repentance. On one hand, His justice requires that the law be enforced, but on the other He desires to be merciful to us and forgive us. What is God to do?
To solve this conflict between justice and mercy, God sent His only Son to Earth, to act as our substitute and take the punishment that we deserve for our sins. He lived a perfect life, without sin, and was qualified to atone for the sins of the world. He paid the price for all sin on the cross, and made the way of reconciliation with God. Therefore, all who repent of their sins and turn to the Lord Jesus Christ, will have their sins forgiven, and also obtain eternal life.
Those who refuse to repent and change their ways will be punished. Hell was not created for human beings, but those who wish to follow the ways of the devil instead of God will be eternally punished along with him in hell.
To say that someone would end up in hell for a lack of evidence is incorrect. God makes it plain to everyone what He requires of us, and if He hasn't made it plain to you yet, He will. You are only held accountable to the amount of revelation you have received. People do not go to hell because of a lack of evidence, they go to hell because they love their sin more than the truth and refuse to repent.

I leave it to others to read your diatribe and see for themselves that you actually concur with the video. Suffice to say; "Believe in me, and be saved. Or, reject me, and burn in hell for eternity." Why anyone would choose to be a slave to such a sick concept is beyond rational, free thinking, educated, 21st century humans. Here is another sick concept; A person can be good all his life but still damned for eternity for not accepting god. Yet a murderer, rapist etc, will be accepted into heaven if he repents and takes god as his saviour. God/gods are man made, if you cannot see that, you are a lazy thinker who does not deserve the brain nature bestowed on you.

>> ^GenjiKilpatrick:
@shinyblurry
So is this an accurate description? Or is your version of god more/less "just".


This video is short on theology and big on popular atheist misconceptions about Christianity and the bible.

This is the justice of God:

Psalm 89:14

Justice and judgment are the habitation of thy throne: mercy and truth shall go before thy face

The foundation of Gods throne is righteousness. Most people like to think of themselves as good people, because in comparison to others, they are more compassionate, do more good works, etc. They think of themselves as having good intentions, even if their conduct has been imperfect.

Gods standard of good is much higher than ours; moral perfection. He doesn't consider moral imperfection with good intentions to be good; He considers it to be evil. He has also ordained that the wages of our sin is death. Because we have all sinned and fallen short, we are all guilty and headed for punishment.

God, however, doesn't want to punish anyone. He is longsuffering towards us and desires that all would come to repentance. On one hand, His justice requires that the law be enforced, but on the other He desires to be merciful to us and forgive us. What is God to do?

To solve this conflict between justice and mercy, God sent His only Son to Earth, to act as our substitute and take the punishment that we deserve for our sins. He lived a perfect life, without sin, and was qualified to atone for the sins of the world. He paid the price for all sin on the cross, and made the way of reconciliation with God. Therefore, all who repent of their sins and turn to the Lord Jesus Christ, will have their sins forgiven, and also obtain eternal life.

Those who refuse to repent and change their ways will be punished. Hell was not created for human beings, but those who wish to follow the ways of the devil instead of God will be eternally punished along with him in hell.

To say that someone would end up in hell for a lack of evidence is incorrect. God makes it plain to everyone what He requires of us, and if He hasn't made it plain to you yet, He will. You are only held accountable to the amount of revelation you have received. People do not go to hell because of a lack of evidence, they go to hell because they love their sin more than the truth and refuse to repent.

I think a common reconciliation would be to say that the Bible is a mix of inspired truths from God (which are infallible), and a history (written by earnest people, but who were just writing what they knew) whose recording may have been guided by God but is not infallible.

Thanks for trying to at least provide some references Ghark. I'm curious how credible you honestly believe them to be though. All but 2 of them are to the same blog, the one is a very short piece by Ynet with nothing more to say than that SANA declares itself the victim and the other is a different blog reporting proof that America supports activists in authoritarian countries.

That last bit seems to be the most veracious of all the claims, but I wouldn't call it 'news'. America(sadly, like virtually all governments) not only supports repressed activists but has also actively supported what can only be called terrorists and has on multiple occasions participated in the overthrow of foreign rulers through covert and even overt assassinations. Don't mistake my claims here as being based on the naive notion that America or the CIA would never do anything like this, as they have and without a doubt will again. My claim is much different, and so is Tarpley's.

The important nuance I think your missing in my disagreement with Tarpley here is that his claim is NOT CIA support for a Syrian uprising. His claim is that there is, in fact, no legitimate Syrian uprising and that it is all a facade orchestrated by the CIA, Mossad, or whomever else he thinks is the puppet master. The truth of the matter is that the Syrian people are now living under their second generation of brutal dictatorship. The truth of the matter is that the Syrian people have seen the difference between the free world and their own, and those people have taken to the streets. Importantly to our discussion here, one of the ways they have seen the difference between freedom and repression has been through social media, like facebook, twitter and to at least some extent our dear videosift here as well.

The sources you referenced supporting Tarpley's notions on Syria all point back to either SANA, the Syrian state media, Al-Alam, the Iranian state media or XinhuaNet, China's state media. For brevity I won't point out the massive number of articles from the NYtimes, the CBC and BBC all reporting on the Syrian protesters being brutally repressed and murdered by Syrian forces. If you wish, I can fill out a page with supporting links, but I hope you might be able to recognize that at the very minimum these sources balance out with equal support. I would go further and posit that state funded media like CBC and BBC are vastly more independent from the state message than SANA and Al-Alam, but it isn't necessary to my argument.

If you accept my generous notion that the above can be called a draw, and we throw them out as having a bias one way or the other, what are we left with?

We are left with Al Jazeera reporting an entirely different story than Tarpley's:
http://blogs.aljazeera.net/liveblog/Syria

If you want more links from Al Jazeera they have a wealth of stories from all manner of separate and independent sources all backing their overall view that there is a legitimate internal Syrian uprising independently demanding the basic freedoms of a democracy, and the Syrian government met them with deadly repression, over and over and over again.

Is Al Jazeera a pro American tool of the CIA?

I'm going to cite what I consider to be very basic, fundamental facts but if you want references for them I can provide them if you don't trust a 5 second google verification of them.

The UN human rights committee voted 122 in favor of condemning Syria's crackdown, are they a pro American tool of the CIA?

The Arab League has threatened to revoke Syria's membership and asked that Syria allow their monitors into the country as a path to reconciliation, which Syria rejected.

Is the Arab League a pro America tool of the CIA?

There some really interesting work being done on forgiveness lately.. not the least of which is explored in this film.

>> ^Boise_Lib:

Cool, I thought this was the guy.
A very interesting project. South Africa comes to mind. Instead of sweeping everything under the rug, a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Instead of retaliation, or "looking forward not back"--reconciliation. If you don't acknowledge--you can't forgive--and you can't move forward.
Forgiveness what a novel idea.