The area in which believers and non believers differ in so many ways is in regard to how far in the future one can perceive the concept of “no pain no gain”.
When I first heard this analogy, and when I read Job for the first time, I too was tempted to see Dan’s point of view and get angry with God for the terrible evil He allowed to happen to Job. (Make no mistake God is responsible for Job’s misery and the death of Job’s family). But what I see now and Dan does not is the difference between the killer and God: purpose. The killer did it for no reason and God did this for a great reason. God permitted this incident for the purpose of instruction, demonstration, and perception. The pain Job and his family sowed produced some of the greatest fruit mankind has ever known.

Allow me to explain:
Let’s say my eight year old recently started taking things that are not his. I am concerned for the welfare of my son for his whole life and not his welfare for the moment so I punish him; say I give him a time out. My son does not perceive the long term benefits I may be doing for him by teaching him stealing is wrong so he now calls me mean or evil. I am doing something mean and evil to him to a degree for the immediate moment, but I am doing this in hopes that there will be a long term benefit that will outweigh the immediate pain.

Assume for a moment that God is indeed omniscient, omnipotent, and benevolent: all knowing, all seeing, all powerful, all loving. He knows every possible future for mankind. He may do things beyond our comprehension that for us for the “moment, lifetime, century, etc.” might seem mean or evil but He sees the long term benefits.

This is in essence what a believer believes. God has a purpose for everything. We may not see it or comprehend it but He is working for a greater good. Our faith and trust is in this. The story of Job is a very rare occurrence where God directly and drastically interferes with our lives. I’m certain that if Dan as well as Job were given the choice of sacrificing themselves for the good of their children, let alone mankind, they probably would. God choose Job because he knew he wouldn’t be cross with Him. I choose the word cross on purpose because for those who want to know Job is a type to Jesus who sacrificed himself for us.

This made my day. This morning I wrote a similar thing he now (yesterday evening in USA) talks about

This is Paul De Leeuw, a popular dutch comedian. Found this comment on another site:

"Yep its a fake, he now has a guy who supposedly is mentally retarded, and has to do some really embarrassing stuff for him. It's also a fake, but definitely funnier than this.

The first time this little kid came on his show, paul said some horrible thing about his singing talents, and how he would grow up to be a big loser, and stuff. The next show he said how that was not how he treats children, but in fact he loves children. This video is the result."

@NetRunner

You said,
"And with the miscarriage thing, honestly, now you really are just making straw man attacks. He's not saying mothers can't be upset if they lose unborn children, he's saying it's none of anyone else's business if she decides she wants to lose it..."

NO! I won't let you intellectualize what he said into something different. I won't let it be justified with words that don't apply. How can a bunch of cells, as he classifies the not-yet born, be a child??? That is saying that the unborn "child" is not a child at all! You add the term "child" but he distinctly says it's not a child. To him it is simply cells that have the ability to one day be a child. That's fine, but accept what that means.


And that brings up my point; either a woman is batshit crazy when she loses her cells (Like a woman crying every time she uses hand soap,) or it is a child she lost... And see Net, the problem is it now becomes an issue that you cannot defend, it is now a sexuality issue, an equality issue, and that's where you are not able to intellectualize.

You know why he won't say they're children? Because then he has to admit that the right have some sense in what they say. Instead, he now get's to have his cake and eat it too. "It's not a child except when the body itself aborts it...then women can be upset...even if I only called it a group of cells."

At least you have the balls to call it a child...

And speaking of cults--what about his own cult? If I called a woman a cunt, any woman, his supporters would be foaming at the mouth against me. But he waves his magical amazing-wand around and the supporters say its fine to use the word CUNT in certain occasions. But not for anyone else besides him...

(For the record, a lot of people didn't like his use of the word CUNT. Also for the record, his cultists didn't mind.)

You know it's funny--when I argue with highly intellectual individuals I always use "straw-man attacks" or am "wrong." In fact, as of today, I have never once noted something worthwhile that contrasted an intellectual's opinion. From now on when I hear the term straw-man I am just going to just assume there is no response and that the straw-man argument is itself a straw-man argument/attack.

Ya exactly. Made me chuckle a bit. I'm going to show this video to him the next time I go. I'm sure he'll love it.>> ^Xax:

>> ^Stu:
He has a little kitchen in a town near me where he makes everything in front of you. It's a great experience, but he has revised his way to do this slightly where he cuts both ways. He does it amazingly fast as well. It's just a cool thing to watch because he hasn't lost a step at all in his ways.

Hmmm, so the bit where he says slicing horizontally is unnecessary, he now does?

>> ^Stu:

He has a little kitchen in a town near me where he makes everything in front of you. It's a great experience, but he has revised his way to do this slightly where he cuts both ways. He does it amazingly fast as well. It's just a cool thing to watch because he hasn't lost a step at all in his ways.


Hmmm, so the bit where he says slicing horizontally is unnecessary, he now does?

>> ^bareboards2:

My family is conservative and whines about others taking welfare, how unions are killing America and how bloated the government is.
But my brother was on unemployment for a total of three years. He gets a military pension. He now works for a company on a military contract. He joined a union to get higher pay (he didn't like that he didn't have a voice in negotiating his pay, it was a governmental agency that did it, and didn't do it well. Well enough.) His wife works for the county government.
My dad has three government source pensions.
These Republicans talk about self reliance but when it comes to their own pockets, they grasp grasp grasp, but somehow it is the other person's fault.
The hypocrisy blows my mind.
The only good thing about it is I now can stop all their whining about others by holding up a mirror to their own behavior.
I am smug and morally superior and I LOVE IT.


I will kind of have to disagree with you on this number--not because your wrong, but because it's a slight bit disingenuous.

***Unemployment Insurance is like Health Insurance. It is there, paid by you and me, for you and me. I may not agree with most food stamps programs, etc. but there is nothing wrong with using Unemployment Insurance.

***As far as pensions... They are there for a reason. Like the Military pensions, for example... Your body typically is fucked by the time you reach old age. The second part of pensions is that government employees' pay (compared to say the private market employee with a master's degree) is a lot less than the private sector... Remember, higher up positions are like Managers or even CEOs. So even if an E8 makes 100K in benefits and such a year, he is sorely behind, say, a CEO, which he is the equivalent of.

Did you know the average age of a retired military or law enforcement officer is 5 years? That isn't shit for a benefit if you ask me...

Now pensions for a County Admin, Mayor, Senator, etc., yeah, that's bullshit. If the job doesn't have shit pay and demanding physical labor, it shouldn't have a pension.

I think nobody cared about this in good times, and only scapegoat when times are bad due to jealousy.

(As far as the union part, your 100% right. I didn't mind when our union was disbanded; they risked forcing layoffs in trade for pay raises...)

My family is conservative and whines about others taking welfare, how unions are killing America and how bloated the government is.

But my brother was on unemployment for a total of three years. He gets a military pension. He now works for a company on a military contract. He joined a union to get higher pay (he didn't like that he didn't have a voice in negotiating his pay, it was a governmental agency that did it, and didn't do it well. Well enough.) His wife works for the county government.

My dad has three government source pensions.

These Republicans talk about self reliance but when it comes to their own pockets, they grasp grasp grasp, but somehow it is the other person's fault.

The hypocrisy blows my mind.

The only good thing about it is I now can stop all their whining about others by holding up a mirror to their own behavior.

I am smug and morally superior and I LOVE IT.

That, is just simply amazingly cool to know! Let him know how much I enjoyed it. I have to check out his blog, and the music (I will definitely put that in the credits) thank you so much for posting it!
It is wild what you find digging around online!


>> ^timlombardo:

Hah, I can't believe this is on here...this was my brother's senior thesis as a student at Ringling in '06. He is a 3d modeler at Activision (recently designed the RC Bomb Car in Black Ops). He now posts some of his personal work on his blog - http://nicholaslombardo.blogspot.com/.
The music was written and performed by our cousin, Todd Lombardo. He writes and produces music in Nashville and is currently touring with Jerry Douglas - check out a performance from last year http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORvfCJkhRm4.

I lived down the street from Will Santos. He now has a skateshop in that neighborhood. Good guy...

I can understand why he might not be happy.

He now has to deal with the reaction to this from gamers who weren't supposed to see it. They'll be asking if this is a game, whether it's good or not and generally talking shit.

So there's probably not much point in gamers seeing some dev trailer right now. It's going to appear in games eventually. Why can't we just wait instead of poring over every little thing?

@NetRunner

I guess the point I was trying to make was that I have personally seen the system fail in the last 6 months. My brother was a fucked up mess mentally, and to this day is still irrational to the point that it's like trying to talk to a wall on many topics......especially topics that landed him in the court system. He's not quite as irate as he was, since he got the shit kicked out of him so bad in prison holding (contempt of court charge and was held until his trial could be completed and him sentenced, got probation). He was beaten by 5-8 guys, which they've only charged 2.....broke his shoulder bad enough that they thought he'd need surgery to repair it for the first couple days after it happened. He now has a virtually unusable arm, he can't lift it even as high as his should and there for awhile he couldn't grip anything or raise it beyond his waist. He was also knocked unconcious and had his head split open. And the kicker here was that prior to this they kept him in solitary due to his outbursts related to his mental condition. Within 24 hours of being put into the public areas of the prison, this happened to him. And they didn't press charges until he brought it up with his probation officer and they had no record of it when he mentioned it. They also withheld pain medications....and have now refused to pay medical expenses for what happened in jail...they've even billed him for the trip to and from the hospital for treatment.

Now....this incident could have been prevented a minimum of 3 months ago when they sent him to a mental facility in another city ...for evaluation. They told my parents he was going to be evaluated for a mental disorder (because this happened in the past and even though he went to months of treatment they never corrected it, just covered it). It turned out, the only thing he was being evaluated for was mental competency....does he know right from wrong. That's it. They didn't confirm if he was bipolar like previous diagnosed, or borderline personality disorder like previous diagnosed....or schizophrenic like they thought he was before bipolar was the diagnosis. So they took someone who had previously been diagnosed with a mental disorder, tested him for competency, held him in jail and on house arrest due to the mental disorder, and put then him on trial untreated for his mental disorder. He was put back into jail when he failed to take medications while on house arrest. What sane, rational thinking person would refuse to take a pill a day so he could stay in a house where he can eat regular food, sleep in a bed, take showers regularly..etc? And for that matter, what sane rational thinking person would chew out a judge and then refuse to take a piss test and land himself in jail in the first place when they were going to let him go bail free?

There was ONE, just ONE sheriff in the whole court building that took it upon himself seeing that my brother was not thinking properly...to try to get him in and out of the building without arresting him. All of the others wanted to take him down as soon as he left the court room...he told them no and that he would take responsibility for it. And from there on, everything else was an utter failure. The court system that could force treatment on him to get him back to normal didn't do it, and they are the only ones who can unless you get power of attorney over someone through a lengthy 6+ month process that costs a nice chunk of change.

There's just a near complete lack of division for criminals aside from the worst crimes such as rape, child crimes, and murder...after that..everyone is a criminal whether they truly understand their guilt or not or whether they can be "cured" or not. Personally after seeing what my brother has had happen to him, I think I'd rather be dead than go to prison on any charge......they don't foster anything but breakdown physical, mental, or emotional in those places.

So how does he now that she's on dialysis?

For the most part he seems harmless. He's talking to kids, after all--he is being silly in order to keep their attention. A definite wtf for equating suicide with cowardice and thinking that Jurassic Park is somehow anti-Biblical, though. And epic Constitutional fail for saying that America is supposed to be a "Christian nation."

Where is he now? Still "spreading the fire" of revival.

Ok so assuming there's some historical basis here, and removing the mysticism, and trying to relate to Moses as a leader.

Here's a guy who, religious mythos aside, during an economic crisis, led an rebel movement to a successful uprising of slaves.

So they all escape into the wilderness and he realizes he now has Anarchy. Thousands of hardened, bitter, uneducated people without food, water or shelter all looking to him. All shit's gonna break loose if we don't get some order in place.

So like the founding fathers, sits down and tries to a constitution/basic laws for the newly freed people. When he comes back, Aarons taken over, made a new god - cooler and more laid back. Now he's gonna just look like the asshole with all the strict rules. "Aarons god would let us, his one is better!"

So he smashes the constitution and kills a shitload of people so they don't think Aaron's god is that cool after all. Typical response from any dictator. Failed Coup - Punish everyone.

Then goes back and rewrites a simpler constitution - and starts with a law that stops all that "Aaron's golden bull god is cool" bullshit. "1) thou shall have NO other gods. God is a jealous god".

In context, thousands are mourning. Everyone's family has watched a loved one be butchered.
"Hands up who still likes the Golden bull" Noone? good, now you know who's boss around here."

Classic nation building - citizens must fear the government to obey the laws.