>> ^shinyblurry:

"God doesn't listen to half-hearted prayers," when xxovercastxx asked.
I find a related thought experiment disconcerting. I picture a child upset because god hasn't come to her. She is honest, kind, lives by the bible, but she has not felt the touch of God. She asks the religious men why and they say "god doesn't listen to half-hearted prayers." From that day on, she spends her entire life praying, for 6 hours every single day, waiting for the touch of god, yet never feels it. And on her deathbed she dies knowing that she has not been accepted by god, and will not see heaven.
How do you know whether xxovercastxx was being sincere or not? You're so quick to assume not. She/he could honestly and openly invite god into her/his heart every single day and never feel god's touch. Would you sit there over the child from before, telling her "no, still not sincere" as she wastes her life in god's service?
If such a person feels no touch, then they are either insincere or god does not exist.
Your story is clouded by all sorts of assumptions. You're working from the premise that God does not exist, so you don't expect anyones prayers to be answered. I know that He does exist, and that people fall away because they decided to go their own way instead of trusting God. A person who can walk away from God and totally reject Him just like that obviously did not have much love for Him in the first place. It's like being married to someone in a deeply committed relationship for many years, and then suddenly walking away from it because someone else gave you some flowers. Obviously, to these people, God was never personal, and was simply a tradition they followed.
What God wants is a total committment. A half-hearted prayer is seeking something from God and giving nothing in return. It is to be double-minded before God, and see Him only as the great ATM in the sky, who can fulfill your dreams of living a life without Him interferring in it. If you're unwilling to submit to the Lordship of Christ, I wouldn't expect to hear anything. This isn't to say God wouldn't answer even a half-hearted prayer, but you definitely shouldn't expect much when you give so little.
There may be millions of people that invite god into their heart every night.. some may even repent their sins for safety. In fact, i'm sure there are many people who identify as religious and feel like that. People who, unlike you, are not able to convince themselves that they feel god, but live religiously because they can't bear the alternative and desperately WANT to feel god.
Would you say that they are all insincere, every single one?
I fear the answer will be simply "yes." Anything else must surely make you question your faith, that god could ignore an honest soul asking for help?
I haven't convinced myself of anything. I was secular when God knocked on my door, and I wasn't even looking for Him. What I know is that religion doesn't get you close to God, and neither is it based on feelings. To know God is a personal relationship. It is based on love and trust. A person who is unwilling to change their life and serve God is probably going to be in a perpetual crisis of faith. A person who is willing to change, willing to humble themselves, will most certainly get an answer.
>> ^dannym3141


You say i am clouded in my assumption that goes does NOT exist. Yet you work from the assumption that god does exist. Are we not, in that respect, equally flawed? If it is a flaw in my argument, it must be a flaw in yours and i think that might be unacceptable to your point of view and certainly would require you to make a new reply to my comment in lieu of that. If it is not a flaw, then it can't be a flaw in mine surely?

Hopefully you'll be able to answer my question now we have that cleared up. I have a feeling you will extricate yourself from the responsibility of equality though, and you will say that the assumption of god existing is not flawed. Yet assuming god doesn't exist is flawed.

"God doesn't listen to half-hearted prayers," when xxovercastxx asked.

I find a related thought experiment disconcerting. I picture a child upset because god hasn't come to her. She is honest, kind, lives by the bible, but she has not felt the touch of God. She asks the religious men why and they say "god doesn't listen to half-hearted prayers." From that day on, she spends her entire life praying, for 6 hours every single day, waiting for the touch of god, yet never feels it. And on her deathbed she dies knowing that she has not been accepted by god, and will not see heaven.

How do you know whether xxovercastxx was being sincere or not? You're so quick to assume not. She/he could honestly and openly invite god into her/his heart every single day and never feel god's touch. Would you sit there over the child from before, telling her "no, still not sincere" as she wastes her life in god's service?

If such a person feels no touch, then they are either insincere or god does not exist.

Your story is clouded by all sorts of assumptions. You're working from the premise that God does not exist, so you don't expect anyones prayers to be answered. I know that He does exist, and that people fall away because they decided to go their own way instead of trusting God. A person who can walk away from God and totally reject Him just like that obviously did not have much love for Him in the first place. It's like being married to someone in a deeply committed relationship for many years, and then suddenly walking away from it because someone else gave you some flowers. Obviously, to these people, God was never personal, and was simply a tradition they followed.

What God wants is a total committment. A half-hearted prayer is seeking something from God and giving nothing in return. It is to be double-minded before God, and see Him only as the great ATM in the sky, who can fulfill your dreams of living a life without Him interferring in it. If you're unwilling to submit to the Lordship of Christ, I wouldn't expect to hear anything. This isn't to say God wouldn't answer even a half-hearted prayer, but you definitely shouldn't expect much when you give so little.

There may be millions of people that invite god into their heart every night.. some may even repent their sins for safety. In fact, i'm sure there are many people who identify as religious and feel like that. People who, unlike you, are not able to convince themselves that they feel god, but live religiously because they can't bear the alternative and desperately WANT to feel god.

Would you say that they are all insincere, every single one?

I fear the answer will be simply "yes." Anything else must surely make you question your faith, that god could ignore an honest soul asking for help?

I haven't convinced myself of anything. I was secular when God knocked on my door, and I wasn't even looking for Him. What I know is that religion doesn't get you close to God, and neither is it based on feelings. To know God is a personal relationship. It is based on love and trust. A person who is unwilling to change their life and serve God is probably going to be in a perpetual crisis of faith. A person who is willing to change, willing to humble themselves, will most certainly get an answer.
>> ^dannym3141

Tags for this video have been changed from 'ATM, Banks, Hostage, Rational' to 'Skip to 50 seconds for the action, ATM, Banks, Hostage, Rational' - edited by chilaxe

I think she is amazing! the whole band should be famous. but then again im really baked atm, nevertheless that shit sounded great.

>> ^Jinx:

I'm just really bored at the stagnate FPS genre atm. Hasn't been a good recent multiplayer FPS game recently apart from TF2, and that was a while back. Even then the focus is clearly on public play and the competitive community is small and dying out pretty quickly. Its sad that in this e-sports renaissance created by SC2 there is no FPS game to really step up and enter the limelight. The Arena style of Quake needs to make a comeback. Its so watchable as a spectator sport, and the skill the best players display is just astounding. Even watching these speedruns etc makes my jaw drop.
Instead we get boring Modern Yawnfair 12 - For Xbox360 and PS3! And yah, I'm a PC elitist. I watched some Halo3/Reach @ MLG and while it wasn't terrible, it was lightyears behind Quake. CS:GO is on the horizon, and I hope steam support that as much as they are pouring money into DotA2, but still, I prefer an FPS where you don't die in one pixelshot or from wallbanging spam.
/rant
Oh, and a new tribes is coming, but I was super turned off by their free2play model. If its anything like LoL I am not interested. I'd rather pay upfront and know I am on a equal footing than everybody else rather than sink limitless cash into making sure I can remain competitive.


I realize I'm necroing a 2 week old video thread, but, there are some things that nobody bothered to say.

Jinx: Many of these F2P games are not Pay2Win. You simply pay for variety/speed of unlocks. Nothing you can pay for with cash can make you do more damage, move faster, etc. The only things in LoL that absolutely require actual cash are character skins and extra rune pages. Everything else can be unlocked with the same points even the richest person has to earn by playing matches. Can you spend $1-200 and unlock every character? Yes. Do you have to...is it worth it? No. Just play with the free rotated characters each week. Personally, I'm sick of paying up front for shitty games or games I don't play that often.


@EvilDeathBee The difference is, many of the companies that used to produce the best stuff now produce mass market crap and many of the great companies were bought out and/or ruined by EA/Activision. Westwood Studios...gone. Lucasarts is plagued by the same mass market bullshit problems as the newer movie trilogy. id hasn't made a good shooter since before Doom 3, and Rage is the latest crap they've spewed out. You can find videos of Carmack saying they're being held back by console graphics/memory considerations. Luckily we have Blizzard and Valve still, though Blizzard is now Activision Blizzard, and is making console Diablo 3 and has added friggin Facebook to Battle net. GG. Valve seems to want to make hats, ignore HL2:Ep3 while splitting the already-split MOBA community by releasing DOTA2, which nobody really asked for given that HoN and LoL are rather popular. But, at least Valve and Blizz put out quality PC games. BF3 now has the useless Origin, which is nothing but a business move and provides zero benefit to gamers.

Games used to be art. Now they're all about money.

@Hawkinson "A few thousand"? Doom 2 sold like 2 million back before PC gaming was at all popular. Quake 2 sold 1-1.5 million also. I couldn't find Q1 numbers but I'd guess they're similar. You're also forgetting that Doom 2 was distributed as shareware, and I've seen estimates that 15 million played it. Give google a try next time you want to pull statistics out of your ass

>> ^mintbbb:

I am afraid this is a dupe The original is dead atm, but the thumbnail matches and I know I have seent his before
dupeof=http://videosift.com/video/Worlds-Cutest-Envelope-Opener


Don't dupe it yet until the original is fixed.

I am afraid this is a dupe The original is dead atm, but the thumbnail matches and I know I have seent his before
*dupeof=http://videosift.com/video/Worlds-Cutest-Envelope-Opener

I'm just really bored at the stagnate FPS genre atm. Hasn't been a good recent multiplayer FPS game recently apart from TF2, and that was a while back. Even then the focus is clearly on public play and the competitive community is small and dying out pretty quickly. Its sad that in this e-sports renaissance created by SC2 there is no FPS game to really step up and enter the limelight. The Arena style of Quake needs to make a comeback. Its so watchable as a spectator sport, and the skill the best players display is just astounding. Even watching these speedruns etc makes my jaw drop.

Instead we get boring Modern Yawnfair 12 - For Xbox360 and PS3! And yah, I'm a PC elitist. I watched some Halo3/Reach @ MLG and while it wasn't terrible, it was lightyears behind Quake. CS:GO is on the horizon, and I hope steam support that as much as they are pouring money into DotA2, but still, I prefer an FPS where you don't die in one pixelshot or from wallbanging spam.

/rant

Oh, and a new tribes is coming, but I was super turned off by their free2play model. If its anything like LoL I am not interested. I'd rather pay upfront and know I am on a equal footing than everybody else rather than sink limitless cash into making sure I can remain competitive.

I see that a banker has taken it upon himself to operate the ATM personally. Ho!

The "anonymous" suggestion is a fair point. But that's the way that people donate to charity these days. Are you two prepared to say that about everyone else who donates and wants to see their name on the list? That everyone who doesn't donate anonymously is doing it for political reasons? I could understand how someone who donated, even if they didn't think about their name in print, would be upset if they got a call that said, "Sorry, but because of your beliefs, we can't put you on a pedestal like we do with every single other donor that contributes."

Well, the reason the FBB was donating was to be listed as one of the teams on the "relay for life" program. That's what they were turned down for. Not only that, but they used to whole thing to garner publicity. So I am not feeling too much sympathy for them at this point.

I agree that the reason many people/organizations who donate large amounts of money is specifically to get on those lists. So yes, I am prepared to say that many on those lists are doing so for political reasons. Perhaps not all of them, but I would say probably the majority.

We may live in a society where those with religious beliefs might feel that things are going downhill. But by and large, the majority of America is still very uncomfortable with Atheism. Something like 70% of Americans believe that Christ is the savior in one way or another. And most of the rest are still religious. So I think it's understandable that atheists feel the need to stick up for themselves. Especially in situations like this, where they can show that they still care for their fellow human beings, regardless of anyone's beliefs.

Well, I think the problem that most believers have is that the stated goal of many atheists and atheists organizations is to remove religion from the public sphere or irradicate it entirely. The mouthpieces for the New Atheism say in no uncertain terms that people who have faith are pinheads and that religion is the worst thing to ever happen. It's certainly not a live and let live kind of attitude that is being promoted as representing atheism.

Shiny! What a coincidence that I am just recently becoming acquainted with the first few verses of Matthew!

Ahh, but I don't believe in coincidence.

Someone was passing around a picture of this giant mega-church the other day that was all sparkles and spot-lights and looked like the bridge to the Starship Enterprise. Anyway, I found this reference to Matthew 6:6 and was very surprised by the fact that people don't seem to recognize it in their lives.

Yes, and sadly, that is just scratching the surface. The bible for many seems to be book of allegory, filled with mere suggestions on how to live our lives, rather than the direct commands of God. That's why you'll find Christians in bars, Christians smoking weed, and Christians cheating on their taxes. More than that, false doctrine has invaded the church. A very popular one right now is the "Health, wealth and prosperity" gospel, which teaches that God only wants you to be rich, and people who are poor and suffering just don't have enough faith.

Now, I understand that proselytizing and praying are two different things. So I'm not telling you to shut up. But the idea that praying should be done in secret, according to the bible, is something that I find remarkable given the televangelist America that we live in. And obviously, if people truly cared, they would apply that same idea to charity as well. Unfortunately, as QM said above, everything seems to be political, even praying.

That is the thing, that it is all being done for show. It is not about salvation, or sanctification; it is about sterling and silver. This is what is truly harmful, that the public face of Christianity is so far astray from the true teachings of the bible. Light years away from it in fact. The airwaves are saturated with false teachers, who proclaim that God is the great ATM in the sky, and if you only send in some money He'll give you the pin number. They are wolves in sheeps clothing, preaching a man-centered doctrine, to tickle the itching ears of people who seek out teachers who will tell them what they want to hear. "No, you don't need to change! God loves you the way you are!" The bible is not so kind to such people:

Galatians 1:8

But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed.

Just out of curiosity, do you have a favorite version/translation of the bible? Because even simple things like the verses we're discussing seem to be changed around quite a bit. I especially love the ones that read Matthew 6:6 as: "Go into your closet to pray."

haha, yes..some of these translations are very poor/strange. I prefer the ESV, it is probably the best modern literal translation. The KJV can be a good supplement, because although it used less accurate manuscripts, its archaic language preserved some of the meaning that the more modern translations may have glossed over. bible.cc is a good site for comparing verses. Here's a good sermon on Matthew 6:5-6

http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=813081634369


>> ^Ryjkyj:
The "anonymous" suggestion is a fair point. But that's the way that people donate to charity these days. Are you two prepared to say that about everyone else who donates and wants to see their name on the list? That everyone who doesn't donate anonymously is doing it for political reasons? I could understand how someone who donated, even if they didn't think about their name in print, would be upset if they got a call that said, "Sorry, but because of your beliefs, we can't put you on a pedestal like we do with every single other donor that contributes."
We may live in a society where those with religious beliefs might feel that things are going downhill. But by and large, the majority of America is still very uncomfortable with Atheism. Something like 70% of Americans believe that Christ is the savior in one way or another. And most of the rest are still religious. So I think it's understandable that atheists feel the need to stick up for themselves. Especially in situations like this, where they can show that they still care for their fellow human beings, regardless of anyone's beliefs.
>> ^quantumushroom:
I don't pretend to know the atheists' true motives, but everything is political. Everything. This arrangement sucks and I wish it were not so, but it is. An anonymous donation would've been more apropos if the highest goal was really helping the charity versus branding positive atheism.
As we both know, that doesn't hold true online. Why, we may be the only two peeps online now who even admit to not having all the answers!

Shiny! What a coincidence that I am just recently becoming acquainted with the first few verses of Matthew!
Someone was passing around a picture of this giant mega-church the other day that was all sparkles and spot-lights and looked like the bridge to the Starship Enterprise. Anyway, I found this reference to Matthew 6:6 and was very surprised by the fact that people don't seem to recognize it in their lives.
Now, I understand that proselytizing and praying are two different things. So I'm not telling you to shut up. But the idea that praying should be done in secret, according to the bible, is something that I find remarkable given the televangelist America that we live in. And obviously, if people truly cared, they would apply that same idea to charity as well. Unfortunately, as QM said above, everything seems to be political, even praying.
Just out of curiosity, do you have a favorite version/translation of the bible? Because even simple things like the verses we're discussing seem to be changed around quite a bit. I especially love the ones that read Matthew 6:6 as: "Go into your closet to pray." <IMG class=smiley src="http://cdn.videosift.com/cdm/emoticon/smileopen.gif">
>> ^shinyblurry:
If they were humble, and this really was about helping cancer patients, they would have given the donation anonymously. Clearly for the atheists this was more about having a feather in their cap than helping people. Reminds me of this verse:
Matthew 6:2-3
Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.
But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

>> ^Yogi:

Which credit union is the best one though?


Credit unions memberships are limited to a certain locality or group. So it varies depending on where you live. I'd choose the one that has the most locations, and is insured by the NCUA (nearly all are).

Also, it's helpful if the credit union is part of the coop network. If it is, you can use ATMs at other Coop network credit unions at no charge. And you can use any ATM with the Coop network logo for free. For example, all ATMs at 7-11s use the coop network. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CO-OP_Financial_Services

I'm quite happy with my credit union. Free overdraft protection to a line of credit beats the hell out of $30 overdraft fees at large banks.

>> ^Yogi:

Today I got a letter from my Union Bank that they were going to start charging me $2 everytime I use an ATM.


Like, period? Even their own?

If so, O-U-C-H

Today I got a letter from my Union Bank that they were going to start charging me $2 everytime I use an ATM.

Yea i started using my BoA card to scrape shit off my shoe. I had no problem dropping Chase either after they bought WaMu and fucked everyone over there with the same Min Balance CLASS WARFARE.

Funny thing is, I only have $25 dollars in an account, and they wont let me deposit more money in because of "inactivity".

Fuckin geniuses like Chase, get rid of the "poor" people... Who needs them when one rich customer covers them all? Fuck poor people!

I highly recommend Charles Schwab online banking. Great phone app, you get no atm-fee debit card, no min balance, + interest, free checks. They don't even have branches and ya know what, I don't need a physical bank anymore.

In conclusion, use Charles Schwab and ING direct and Capital One. Fuck the rest!

here's one:

http://videosift.com/video/Chicago-Youre-The-Inspiration

And in case it actually gets votes and stuff, I will gladly let others get the prizes. I have plenty of unused power points atm, and it would be wrong to get free promotes. I just want to make the world happy and cheesy, and please DO upvote this cheese!