maadmax

Sounds good to me. I would think anyone who seeks God would also question and test their faith. If their faith generated reality is true it remains, if not it will pass. God has made us with the ability to create reality like He has done. We either find Him or replace Him with a god of our own creation.

Why does someone else's marriage impact people? Wendy P. Why do the homosexuals want to call their unions "marriage" ? Are they hoping that it will somehow whitewash their behavior as being "normal"?

I agree with your statement. For me seeking God is not about avoiding hell. Its about finding Truth, and in the process discovering the truth of who I am.

"The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven." +1

IMO, human life is not worth THAT much, even though we preach that it is. we murder thousands of people in wars, people die from disease, we let people die for lack of nutrition, health care and so on. Why do we spend so much time worrying about people not born yet when we seemingly could give a fuck about all those people that are already here? The debate is driven by religious beliefs and that alone. Since I disagree with religion fundamentally, I also disagree with an anti-abortion argument that is based upon religion. ergo, it does not matter when 'human life' actually begins. Granted. If true reality is defined by an arbitrary system of right and wrong then you are right, it does not matter who lives and who dies. My comments are based on the premise God exists, and therefore so does a standard of absolute right and wrong. ...

I'm curious to know... - your opinion on just when the "soul" appears. How much later after conception. - is it OK with you to abort prior to the "soul's" appearance but not after? Granted, I did not read the entire thread...you may have answered this already but would you please iterate..just once though, eh? Hey Andy, Difficult question, I wouldn't think the termination of a morula or a blastocyst would be the same as terminating a fetus. ...

Okay, thanks for the straight answer. How short of a time are we talking? There are plenty of pro-choice people who could completely agree with you, but their idea of a short time is three months, while your idea of a short time might be a nanosecond. Don't know the answer. But in my opinion I would consider electrical activity in the brain as a indication.

OK, I'm officially asking you both. Alert the DZ.com authorities. With IUD use, a woman is intending for a fertilized egg to be destroyed. If life begins at conception, not implantation, why is IUD use any different from an abortion? In my opinion human life starts at conception. What else could it be? The human being, possessing a soul, comes a short time later. ...

Different view points have different criteria for what constitutes good and evil. Hedonism seeks to maximize pleasure and minimize pain. With Christianity, all things (blessing and suffering) work together for good. In my personal experiences, some of the most profound blessings I have experienced were preceded by some of the most intense suffering. It is hard to know what hell really is. My belief is that those who have chosen to reject God are better off there in an environment they can comprehend than they would be in heaven ...

In the assumption that God did exist. He would be a bully, unjust, egotistical, spiteful, jealous (self proclaimed), sly, underhanded, vengeful and malevolent dictator. Makes me glad I don't believe in his existence, I'd feel like a total ass falling inline for someone with those characteristics, nevermind idolizing and worshipping him. The difference in our viewpoints appears to be that you assume God is the cause of our suffering. The plan of God, as I understand it, is that He created us with free will. We have the capability of knowing Him through faith and self denial or we can set ourselves up as god in His place. We are the cause of our suffering, God provides a means of escape.

No. But it does terminate human life.

When do any us become a human being? Are the hate crazed religious fanatics human beings? Are those consumed with themselves above other, human beings? Human life begins at the diploid stage of existence. ...

You imply I am unable to see a truth Who's truth? It's the truth that hedonism underpins reality. Our society has been sold a bill of goods that if an unborn human inconveniences it mother, she has the right to terminate it, prior to birth. After that she is called a murderer

Except for oxygen, the same is true for breast milk, does that also mean the baby lacks an independent physiology? How does the process by which we acquire our oxidative sources of energy have anything to do with human life?

I would have thought confusing the issue with semantics, because you obviously lacked an adequate response, was beneath you. The physiology of an embryo is totally separate from it's mother. For better or worse it is how we enter this world. The embryo is inside its mother but not part of her, it is a totally distinct human life. Embryo is just a term describing that stage of human life. Much like baby, child, adolescent, teenager, adult. Providing nourishment through and umbilical cord is no less dehumanizing that giving the new born a bottle. ...

I guess it says that if god is not a smiling benevolent force ruling over "la la land" where every one lives happily every after, you will be darned if you ever give Him the time of day much less acknowledge that He exists.

No; horribly stated, as it ignores the scientific facts that (a) virtually all species eventually become extinct (cockroaches, sharks and lawyers excepted), and (b) the normal evolution of stars such as our sun will cause expansion of the star to the point where inner planets will eventually heat to the point that life cannot be sustained. Or to put it another way, by the time "the fires" consume the Earth's life (which will eventually happen), species homo sapiens sapiens will probably have already long since become extinct (absent technological intervention and/or interplanetary migration). The consumption I am referring to is not the death of our sun. It is the consequences of evil practiced by our species and the judgment of God.

So what? They also thought the Earth was flat and that witches floated. So, most of this End Times speculation is just fantasy. For Christians, the Bible says that no one knows the date it will occur. As far as the rest of the people living on the earth, it will be the last thing they suspect until it consumes them. ...

Personally, I think if there is such a thing as end times, we won't recognize them as such; they'll be just more of the same by then. Wendy P. Interesting point. From what I understand of the "End Times" described in the Bible, most of the people living at that time think the opposite is true.

... so to all of you fundamentalists out there, please, be so kind and gentle, and GO FUCK YOURSELFs! if you think you, or your kind, are better than any other.. well, please leave. nothing to see here! thanks for listening, ciao for now, c. Anger is a good sign, once apathy sets in you are probably beyond hope at that point. If anything, the awareness of God makes you the servant of others not superior by any means. Have a wonderful day and enjoy the life God has given you

[I'd argue with that assertion. I'm quite confident that I can't know whether there is a "god", and I'm equally convinced that neither you nor Meso can either. You most certainly believe in such an entity, and he almost certainly does not, and both of you are just as convinced of your rightness as I am of your ignorance (the literal definition, not a slam). Blues, Dave The way I see it, having faith in something, like God, is not the same as knowing it as a fact. Faith in the Words written in the Christian Bible opens up the possibility of knowing God. If that knowledge produces the promised results in the lives of those who read them, their faith is justified. And as their faith is justified in time they can have hope that it will be justified in eternity. Proof for any of us will only come when our last brain wave has jumped its final synapse. ...

It annoys me immensely when people have the idea that you need to be 100% about the lack of any greater power in order to be atheist, and not having that makes one an agnostic, that's just not the way it works. I am 99.995% sure there's no greater being- though while being extremely unlikely, to the point of logical deduction that it doesn't exist- I will allow for that .005% that there may be something, not necessarily the Abrahamic God, but I'll give a .005% of something greater existing. And I'm no God damn agnostic! It seems really simple to me, agnostics just don't have as much faith in their beliefs as atheists.

Well, right. But once you blindly accept the work of ANY religious leader, you can enter into the Kingdom of Martyrdom through Violent Explosion, or the Kingdom of Profits through Sale of the Holiest of Relics, or the Kingdom founded by Killing the Evilest of Heretics. That's the problem. Once you blindly accept anything, there is no level of evil that cannot be justified via that level of devotion. Totally agree.

As much of a need for him as new age hippies need their existence of faeries in their subconscious. Faith is the religious man's great trump card. You can't say anything when a person uses the whole 'faith' thing, but thing is it's the same tactic that can be used by any crazy. The man who believes in faeries can use the faith card too, so can the man who thinks the government watches his every move and the Muslim, Hindu and every other religious sect. Faith doesn't help ones cause at all, it just levels it into an untouchable ground of all things which have so little logical support that it's the only way for it to make any 'sense'. Basically faith is used by those whom are to stubborn to look at facts but will refuse to give in to logic, it is void of all common sense. And if I had to say: I have faith that Satan is the real master of man, the true Lord and the only one to offer mankind any potential- there is no way to conclude that your faith is correct and mine is not. We would both be on the exact same level. Faith is retarded- 'nuff said. Faith is a necessary stepping stone to examine areas of spiritual phenomena. Science is still unable to quantify this obvious area of our being. Attributing consciousness to electrically charged neural matter is an incomplete explanation. The results of ones faith determine the validity of the object the faith is based in. There is no way any of us can discover everything on our own. We all learn by placing faith placed in the discoveries of others. ...

His work of neutralizing the sins of the world was completed prior to His physical death on the cross. How? Good question, I can't give you a quantum physical description. It requires faith to bridge the gap of understanding as stated previously. Once we accept the work of Christ through faith, we enter in to God's Kingdom and have access to all of the spiritual riches it contains. ...