I AM AGNOSTIC AND HAPPY TO SEE WHAT HAPPENS NEXT

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I have higher morals than many Christmas Christians I know.

That may be true. However, where do you think your sense of morality comes from?

My sense of morality comes from my experiences in life, which I would imagine is true for everyone. There is no need to have religion in order to live a moral life.

[pajarito 0]

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My sense of morality comes from my experiences in life, which I would imagine is true for everyone. There is no need to have religion in order to live a moral life.

Again, I agree that a non-religious person can be very moral. I’m not trying to say one must be religious in order to be moral. I think that a sense of right and wrong is imprinted on our hearts by our creator whether we believe in that creator or not. I’m speaking specifically to the atheists and trying to tie morality in with the existence of God. I read some C.S. Lewis stuff that I thought was interesting in this regard. He was speaking in reference to what he called the “herd instinct.” I would also call that morality that we’ve taken from our parents who took it from their parents who took it from their parents and so on and so forth. That our morality is just something that developed in the course of evolution in order to better suit the survivability of the whole. I agree with some of that but not all. Some feelings of morality that we might experience fall into that category of what we must do to function and relate with one another. However, there are some which do not fit into that category and it would seem they must come from something completely different. Here’s what C.S. Lewis said:

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For example, some people wrote to me saying, ‘isn’t what you call the Moral Law simply our herd instinct and hasn’t it been developed just like all our other instincts?’ Now I do not deny that we may have a herd instinct: but that is not what I mean by the Moral Law. We all know what it feels like to be prompted by instinct – by mother love, or sexual instinct, or the instinct for food. It means that you feel a strong want or desire to act in a certain way. And, of course, we sometimes do feel just that sort of desire to help another person: and no doubt that desire is due to the herd instinct. But feeling a desire to help is quite different from feeling that you ought to help whether you want to or not. Supposing you hear a cry for help from a man in danger. You will probably feel two desires – one a desire to give help (due to your herd instinct), the other a desire to keep out of danger (due to the instinct for self-preservation). But you will find inside you, in addition to these two impulses, a third thing which tells you that you ought to follow the impulse to help, and suppress the impulse to run away. Now this thing that judges between two instincts, that decides which should be encouraged, cannot itself be either of them. You might as well say that the sheet of music which tells you, at a given moment, to play one note on the piano and not another, is itself one of the notes on the keyboard. The Moral Law tells us the tune we have to play: our instincts are merely the keys.

Your instinct for self-preservation would be the stronger of the two instincts. Your conscience might tell you, however, to pick the weaker of the two and do the right thing. That doesn’t seem consistent with respect to a completely natural theory of our existence. What do you think?

[billvon 2,991]

>Your instinct for self-preservation would be the stronger of the two
>instincts. Your conscience might tell you, however, to pick the weaker
>of the two and do the right thing. That doesn’t seem consistent with
>respect to a completely natural theory of our existence.

Sure it does, and it happens in many more animals than man. Many prey animals will 'warn' upon approach of a predator (by showing its tail, by making a noise etc) even though that brings attention to itself and may well cause it to be eaten. Why does it do that? To preserve its gene pool by protecting other members of the herd. When we evolved intelligence, we retained vestiges of those basic instincts, and we feel them upon occasion. We generally call such twinges "conscience."

Compassion in animals:

http://www.awionline.org/pubs/Quarterly/05_54_2/542p67.htm

How altruism evolved in man:

http://endeavor.med.nyu.edu/~strone01/altruism.html

[pajarito 0]

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Sure it does, and it happens in many more animals than man. Many prey animals will 'warn' upon approach of a predator (by showing its tail, by making a noise etc) even though that brings attention to itself and may well cause it to be eaten. Why does it do that? To preserve its gene pool by protecting other members of the herd. When we evolved intelligence, we retained vestiges of those basic instincts, and we feel them upon occasion. We generally call such twinges "conscience."

Ok...
Let's say it has nothing to do with preserving your own gene pool. Say you're walking down the road and see an armed robbery in progress. Shots ring out. An old lady (or old man; or young child) is about to walk in the line of fire. You put yourself in danger in order to get her out of the way. Self-preservation would tell you to just stay out of the way. You don't "want" to be in that situation. However, something else tells you that you ought to help that person. You put your personal safety aside and do what you might not really want to do. Where does that come from? Self sacrifice for other than "herd instinct" reasons.

[billvon 2,991]

>You put your personal safety aside and do what you might not really
> want to do. Where does that come from? Self sacrifice for other
> than "herd instinct" reasons.

Again, its basis is in a desire to protect others of your genotype. Do that experiment with ten people, and try it with people who look like them and people who look nothing like them. People will tend to protect people who look like them as opposed to people who look strange to them; that's the 'greenbeard' phenomenon in action, where you act to protect your phenotype because it often represents your genotype.

But that's just the basis of the instinct, and most of us don't act purely on instinct. Since we have intelligence, often we override our instincts with our higher functions. We might not want to rescue the old lady because she doesn't look familiar to us, but we do so anyway because we feel it is the right thing to do. We might want to rescue the drunk woman on the freeway, but our intelligence might tell us that our only real choice was to watch the woman die or have both woman and rescuer die - and thus we might hold back.

Also note that our instincts don't work perfectly. Instincts are inborn behaviors that work most of the time, but not always. So it's a good thing that we can override them with our intelligence; it leads to us making much better decisions (usually.)

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Your instinct for self-preservation would be the stronger of the two instincts. Your conscience might tell you, however, to pick the weaker of the two and do the right thing. That doesn’t seem consistent with respect to a completely natural theory of our existence. What do you think?

I think that Bill answered that question better than I would have (as usual).

I can't explain why we have a lot of the instincts or emotions that we have, but I can't see how lack of an explanation would prove the existence of God. In fact, I think that's why so many people cling to the idea of some sort of god - because it's a simple answer to anything that cannot be explained.

[sinker 0]

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Your instinct for self-preservation would be the stronger of the two instincts. Your conscience might tell you, however, to pick the weaker of the two and do the right thing. That doesn’t seem consistent with respect to a completely natural theory of our existence. What do you think?

I think that Bill answered that question better than I would have (as usual).

I can't explain why we have a lot of the instincts or emotions that we have, but I can't see how lack of an explanation would prove the existence of God. In fact, I think that's why so many people cling to the idea of some sort of god - because it's a simple answer to anything that cannot be explained.

there's a lot more to people's faith in God than just "well, we can't explain that, it must be God." that reasoning sure gets old. people of faith are not just mindless simpletons (not that you're saying that, but that is where that mindset comes from IMO).

-the artist formerly known as sinker

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there's a lot more to people's faith in God than just "well, we can't explain that, it must be God."

I believe that, for some people. But I've had a lot of people try to "prove" the existence of God to me by pointing out certain things that cannot be explained, and I don't understand how they have convinced themselves that that is proof of anything. Sorry, didn't mean to imply that anyone who believes in God is like that.

And I know that a lot of atheists come across as arrogant, thinking that anyone who believes in God is a mindless idiot, but I don't think that I am like that. I simply don't believe in God (in any form), but I don't in any way feel superior to those who do. Hell, sometimes I wish that I did believe in God - it seems like it might make life easier to deal with in some ways, but I can't really force myself to believe in something that I honestly don't believe in.

[Channman 2]

Don't you know? NOTHING

[jakee 1,489]

I gotta say Pajarito, this sounds a lot like an argument from the list that was posted a few days ago, something like

Argument From Morality

1. God is good
2. I try and be good
3. God is making me good
4. God exists!

Seriously though, some people do put themselves in harms way to rescue others, equally some people don't. Others even go out of their way to hurt people. The situation you've outlined here for instance.

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Say you're walking down the road and see an armed robbery in progress. Shots ring out. An old lady (or old man; or young child) is about to walk in the line of fire. You put yourself in danger in order to get her out of the way.

Now I'm sure this is what you would do, but how many others? Call me pessimistic but take a random 100 people and I reckon you might get 10 or 20 who'd also put themselves in danger. Strangely enough you'd also get less people willing to help when there are more people around capable of helping. In those cases most will just think, 'Oh, that can be someone elses problem' (And Douglas Adams told us all how powerful that can be).

So did god give us that impulse too, and why did god give some people stronger moral impulses than others? Does that line of thinking even fit in with the concept of free will?

And that is without pointing out that for you to get to exercise your good guy instincts someone else has already acted out his bad guy instincts to put the kid in danger. No god given morals for him.

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[sinker 0]

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there's a lot more to people's faith in God than just "well, we can't explain that, it must be God."

I believe that, for some people. But I've had a lot of people try to "prove" the existence of God to me by pointing out certain things that cannot be explained, and I don't understand how they have convinced themselves that that is proof of anything. Sorry, didn't mean to imply that anyone who believes in God is like that.

And I know that a lot of atheists come across as arrogant, thinking that anyone who believes in God is a mindless idiot, but I don't think that I am like that. I simply don't believe in God (in any form), but I don't in any way feel superior to those who do. Hell, sometimes I wish that I did believe in God - it seems like it might make life easier to deal with in some ways, but I can't really force myself to believe in something that I honestly don't believe in.

i certainly respect your post, and want to say sorry if I came off a bit defensive. I agree w/ you at least on some level, at least in my faith, as a Catholic, there are plenty-o-sentimentals who pray to this saint for a miracle or that saint for a sign, etc. and when something serendipitous (sp?) happens, they are quick to say "God answered my prayer." Well, maybe, but maybe not... maybe it was just a cosmic fart. Who knows...

anyway, thanks for the thoughtful post

-the artist formerly known as sinker

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19 Moby Thesaurus words for "atheist":
Sabbath-breaker, apostate, backslider, blasphemer, deserter,
disbeliever, gentile, heathen, infidel, minimifidian, nonbeliever,
nullifidian, pagan, recidivist, recreant, renegade, sacrilegist,
secularist, unbeliever

Fuck. There go my 4-way ambitions

"where danger is appears also that which saves ..." Friedrich Holderlin, 'Patmos'

[immanence 0]

Introducing a very long post Feel free to ignore!

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... where do you think your sense of morality comes from?

Speaking personally, a complex constellation of institutions founded on violence and aimed towards normalization. I think most of my moral values were not found by me, but rather instilled — better yet, let's use Kafka's phrase, "imprinted" — in me by what I would define, these days, as the State. This isn't a conspiracy theory. I'm not talking aliens controlling the planet. I'm talking detailed rationalities which are socially derived and pertain to the broad reproduction of the "order of things". The constellation of institutions I mentioned include those disciplinary sites of domination such as the school, the military barracks, the asylum, the prison, the hospital, the factory, etc. I have never been in the military, I should add, but I'd say that as a young boy I grew up amid a constellation of values — including military ones (I grew up in a small border town famous for its Elizabethan ramparts) — that formed a sort of grid for my existence and basic dreams and thoughts. I'd call this grid — which included lots of lessons in politeness in a family context — "morality". Mostly it was an aesthetic experience: how schools looked like prisons, looked like factories, looked like asylums. Then there were so many stories I grew up with: don't go with strangers, respect officers of the law, etc. Not all of it was stultifying. I wouldn't say that. Perhaps a large part of my freedom now is based on discipline I learnt then. As for religion, I did go to Sunday school. But I don't remember much about this. Probably I learned (or thought) more about aesthetics and space — grandeur, authority, pomp, ceremony — rather than morality per se, there.

Not sure I answered the question, but this is what occured to me. In general, I'd say I was coded: programmed. I didn't discover my basic values for myself. Not by any means. And there was a lot of societal indocrination involved. Only much later in life did I get time to look at the whole picture again. But then I'm not so arrogant to imagine that when I did I was free. Broadly speaking, the really free people, those who don't fit the mold (and there's not just one mold, but millions) are outside society, in some way. Even when reading radical politics, or radical philosophy, I'm within the bounds — very firmly — of society. E.g., Friedrich Nietzsche is published by Cambridge University Press.


Adding a few comments to other parts of the discussion .....

In response to Gawain:

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When I was in the "power players" commitee meeting at the time, we conspired to make sure we arranged definitions in such a way as to piss off a certain individual in Egypt.

You nailed it!

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Primary meaining "disbelief", a refusal or reluctance to believe. I won't buy the argument that it's limitation of language, since there is quite a bit of flexibility in the english language.

That's exactly what I was saying. Atheism is not a belief but a refusal to believe. The limitation in language appears when one says "I am an atheist." The "I am" part, relative to an idea or group of ideas, denotes belief (e.g., I am a socialist, I am a libertarian). If atheism is the refusal to believe — and I agree it is — it's a connundrum in language (which you picked up on) that suggests that atheism is a belief in and of itself. So I don't think being an atheist is a belief.

The reason for quoting from the Thesaurus was simply to make a side point about how, in general (and despite the secular nature of public life; and here I'd say that secularism is not atheism nor agnosticism but rather the privatization of religious belief), atheism is vilified.


In response to 1010:

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It is unfair to always recite the wrongs made in the name of religion while not discussing the good accomplished by those having a belief in God.

I don't doubt it. My point is that you don't need a belief in God to do good (if doing good is your aim). In fact, I think the danger is that that "do-gooding" (forgive the phrase, no perjorative connotation intended) is, for people who believe in God, muddied by notions such as "pleasing God" or ensuring one's salvation. Personally speaking, I'd probably appreciate a favor done for me more from an atheist than from a Christian just because I know that the favor, for the athiest, is not calculated relative to their own gain.

I do take your point, though ...

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Historically, the monasteries kept written language and education alive through the dark ages.

True, up to a point. The first universities were certainly extensions of monastries. But we would also have to say that it was only certain kinds of knowledge that were protected. If libraries were born in monastries so, also, was censorship. Giordano Bruno, one of the greatest intelligences of his age, was burnt at the stake, his palate and lower jaw penetrated by iron spikes (called a "box" — used frequently to prevent screaming, but in Bruno's case specially designed), by Jesuit Cardinal Robert Bellarmine in 1600 for challenging orthodox theories of the place of the earth in the universe. Bruno, in his book Of Infinity, Universe and World, suggested, among other things, the existence of multiple earths. He was tortured for eight years before his trial, replying famously to his accusers: "In pronouncing my sentence, your fear is greater than mine in hearing it."

I'd also add — and this, though controversial, is a clear fact — that it was the church who did more than kings or despots to multiply the means of human torture. The sheer production of different kinds of torture through the period of the three inquisitions is just breathtaking. So yes, they protected some knowledge, but the price was a gory one indeed.

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We can look back in history to find violence performed in the name of religion. But we need only look back to our father's or grandfather's lifetimes to see the millions killed in Soviet Russia, by atheists or those proclaiming and/or enforcing atheism

A very good point. I agree entirely. Just as I would say one doesn't have to be religious to do good, being athiest sure doesn't mean one can avoid evil. The gulag had more than one cause, of course, but Russia's experience with religion would definately be important to a full discussion.

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You find my belief in a higher power a tolerated madness and sad. I find your atheism to be sad. In my experience, at the center of an atheist, is a person with a hardened heart.

People do tend to say this. Personally, I haven't met an atheist like that. As for me, well, I replied to VisionAir separately on this issue.

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To be clear, yes I am Christian - I believe in the resurrected Jesus of Nazareth as being the Son of the one God. From as early as I can remember I have prayed and felt the presence of the Lord in my life. You mention tolerate as if my being religious is something which you must endure. I hold no such grudge against my atheist friends.

Okay, but you cannot be unaware that society as a whole seems much more set up for people like you than people like me. And the role that religion and God plays ........ I mean, can you imagine feeling in your heart of hearts that all that is a sham, completely bogus, but seeing major wars occuring in the name of religion? Can you imagine what it feels like to be atheist, and atheist not because I think that God gipped me, but because I feel that it's just a step too far into the completely fantastical: like believing in fairies or something? Just as much as these words likely bother you, the very concept of "belief", the constantly referring back to a book which in my view was just cobbled together by ordinary human beings 2000 years ago, the constant trumping of arguments because, afterall, this is the word of God and therefore Truth (capital T), the constant reference to ways of life, "parables", that mean nothing now — all this is so infuriating. Why? Because there is so much beauty, so much grace, so much to be discovered and felt in this world. And hell, since I'm in rant mode I deplore the piety and absurd, twisted morality of the body which goes with most religious practice. I decline to accept that my desires are evil. I refuse to be taught about morals and family values from celebates. And I won't even get into the appalling scandals which have rocked so many churches ..........

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The notion of being an atheist seems rather silly to me. As I imagine the notion of belief in an afterlife may seem to you.

Indeed it is. I can't imagine living my life in a cave or a moral straight-jacket because I'm waiting for an afterlife which noone has reported back from, and which is just a "belief", thoroughly unproven and taken on "faith". Same as I abhor all that stuff about Adam and Eve and the serpent, etc., etc. As a political analyst (by vocation) I can't help but hear in religion the first echoes of the State. This is all it seems to me: a way of keeping people in line, and governing their lives in complex, reflexive, uiltimately decentralized ways. No. I see the present and I say "LIVE NOW!" I know I am a heathen. But I am a heathen with a very soft heart and a very warm nature, and a lot of passion for life, worts and all.

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I don't think heaven will be stocked with middle-class tourists. But I think it will have many of those same people, as they were when they were young and vibrant, in perfection, before the cares of this world caused them to become middle-class tourists.

Too much like Disney for me to base a life on. I hope — genuinely — for you its true, though. Maybe it will be. Maybe whatever this thing is that we call "soul" is powerful enough to create whatever afterlife we imagine or don't imagine. Maybe I don't imagine one because I'm not supposed to have one. I don't have any answers to any of these final questions. No offense meant in anything that I have said.


In response to VisionAir:

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Your "religion" does not matter!!! It is your relationship with God, and your obedience to His word, that is what is important.

I wish He would come down and prove that it was His word. Instead he plays this game: if they believe with no proof whatsoever thenthey will be saved. It's so mean!


In response to 1010 again:

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I would argue that it would be hard to be an exceptional person, one who may give their life for another, without faith. I would also argue that I may not have some of the answers of life, or know what answers I lack and thus must rely on faith, to be based upon faith

There is a woman I love called Rime and I would give my life right now for her (I'd rather live for her, mind you). I don't have faith in the way you understand it. I can't be exceptional because I don't have faith? I think that's a step too far. Albert Einstein was an atheist and seems pretty exceptional to me. Same for Bob Geldof (remember him? Live Aid?), Angelina Jolie, Milan Kundera, Arthur Miller, Gore Vidal. Hell, Barry Manilow, if you like the old copacabana thang or Fidel Castro if you live the Guevara-Havana thang.

Trust, mind you; I can go with this concept. But it is not trust in a coming reward. I don't live in order to be saved. I live because I believe that there is a broader rhythm to all things, and that if I'm destined to go in, or be knifed, or blown up in a car bomb, thus it will be. Let happen what will happen: even if it means falling into the abyss. I don't fear. I have trust. But this is different from having faith. Because trust surmounts faith insofar as it doesn't fear the worst.

On the "herd instinct," by the way, nothing I have ever read comes close to Nietzsche's critique of morality. Check out Book II of The Will to Power and the entirety of On the Genealogy of Morals. You may not agree, he may challenge you deeply, he may strike you as the anti-Christ, but he cannot be ignored.

Kind regards to all .........
ian

"where danger is appears also that which saves ..." Friedrich Holderlin, 'Patmos'

[immanence 0]

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Funny how atheism is deemed incendary, or offensive to believers, while their belief and righteousness is deemed normal, and should be tolerated by me.

You exercising your freewill not to believe does not offend me...it saddends me. I pray your heart will soften one day.

My heart has been bent every which way in this life; it is very soft and pliable. Truly, in the absence of God I see the deepest, closest, wonder to human, animal, cosmic life. I find sadly too often among those who take another path (religious paths, of varying nature) characteristics, lines of thought and judgment, that I do not wish for myself, and that I try to cure myself of. To me, without God, and looking at faces, people, cats and dogs, buildings, trees in the street, knowing there is not an all-seeing creator (which is not to say that everything around us not resonant and divine: it is transcendent beyond all poetry) brings me new levels of forgiveness and understanding: I see this vast and small human adventure, and all the games and loves and arguments we have.

I believe my heart gets bigger. Thanks for your post.

"where danger is appears also that which saves ..." Friedrich Holderlin, 'Patmos'

[happythoughts 0]

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I got my sense of morality originally from my parents - which is the place that most people get it, whether they are atheists, christians, muslims or buddhists.

I think that is the case. There is a certain percentage of the population that will follow a religion geographically.

Japan -Shinto, Buddhist
US - Protestant, Catholic
Italy - Catholic
Middle East - Muslim
China...

If there is a narrow definition of rules and stuff for The One God somewhere, then Judgement Day will be interesting.

"Everyone get into a line by religion..."
"Southern Baptists, Hindus, Episcopalians..."

"And the winning religion is..."

Fortunately, only Christian religions have a concept of Hell. The odds are against it. If Christians win, it certainly sucks for everyone else.

"What? No virgins?"

[immanence 0]

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My sense of morality comes from my experiences in life, which I would imagine is true for everyone. There is no need to have religion in order to live a moral life.

Again, I agree that a non-religious person can be very moral. I’m not trying to say one must be religious in order to be moral. I think that a sense of right and wrong is imprinted on our hearts by our creator whether we believe in that creator or not. I’m speaking specifically to the atheists and trying to tie morality in with the existence of God. I read some C.S. Lewis stuff that I thought was interesting in this regard. He was speaking in reference to what he called the “herd instinct.” I would also call that morality that we’ve taken from our parents who took it from their parents who took it from their parents and so on and so forth. That our morality is just something that developed in the course of evolution in order to better suit the survivability of the whole. I agree with some of that but not all. Some feelings of morality that we might experience fall into that category of what we must do to function and relate with one another. However, there are some which do not fit into that category and it would seem they must come from something completely different. Here’s what C.S. Lewis said:

***For example, some people wrote to me saying, ‘isn’t what you call the Moral Law simply our herd instinct and hasn’t it been developed just like all our other instincts?’ Now I do not deny that we may have a herd instinct: but that is not what I mean by the Moral Law. We all know what it feels like to be prompted by instinct – by mother love, or sexual instinct, or the instinct for food. It means that you feel a strong want or desire to act in a certain way. And, of course, we sometimes do feel just that sort of desire to help another person: and no doubt that desire is due to the herd instinct. But feeling a desire to help is quite different from feeling that you ought to help whether you want to or not. Supposing you hear a cry for help from a man in danger. You will probably feel two desires – one a desire to give help (due to your herd instinct), the other a desire to keep out of danger (due to the instinct for self-preservation). But you will find inside you, in addition to these two impulses, a third thing which tells you that you ought to follow the impulse to help, and suppress the impulse to run away. Now this thing that judges between two instincts, that decides which should be encouraged, cannot itself be either of them. You might as well say that the sheet of music which tells you, at a given moment, to play one note on the piano and not another, is itself one of the notes on the keyboard. The Moral Law tells us the tune we have to play: our instincts are merely the keys.

Your instinct for self-preservation would be the stronger of the two instincts. Your conscience might tell you, however, to pick the weaker of the two and do the right thing. That doesn’t seem consistent with respect to a completely natural theory of our existence. What do you think?


What a great post!

"where danger is appears also that which saves ..." Friedrich Holderlin, 'Patmos'

[Guest 1010]

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No offense meant in anything that I have said.

Not a bit taken, none intended either. I'll just be brief, for now, in the hopes of returning to this thread in the future.

I didn't state a point well, but any response which includes Angelina Jolie is welcome. My point in "I would argue that it would be hard to be an exceptional person, one who may give their life for another, without faith ... " is more for the believers -- I was being complimentary to the non-believers. It should be harder (require more mental effort, or character, for lack of a better word) for an atheist to give their life for another, than a believer. The atheist is giving their all, their everything. The believer is "only" giving their body with the expectation of life continuing in another form.

I don't live in order to be saved, myself. I don't think of my faith as a bargaining with the creator of the universe. If one is to do good because of faith, it should be from the fullness of one's heart, the fullness of which came to be by faith. To do good in order to be saved, in my mind, would trivialize an omniscient presence I think of as God.

We have much in common in our love of the physical world. I was lucky enough to get in two jumps after work this evening. We are just starting to feel the nip of fall here; the clouds on the western horizon didn't block the setting sun but lent color and character to the orange globe. The nearby Cascade range peaks (Mt. St Helens, Mt. Adams, Mt Rainier) to the north and east were looking quite chilly in their darkness. I'm going to have to get along with my jumping so I can fly camera sooner rather than much later. You would have appreciated the views.

Cheers
Russ

You can have it good, fast, or cheap: pick two.

[Guest 1010]

>I think that a sense of right and wrong is imprinted on our hearts by our creator whether we believe in that creator or not.


This is exactly how I think of it, but didn't have the words to it before. Thanks Paj.

You can have it good, fast, or cheap: pick two.

[airtwardo 7]

You would have appreciated the views.

***

Heaven is EVERYWHERE!

~ If you choke a Smurf, what color does it turn? ~

[Guest 1010]

ummm ... yummm ... must concentrate ... just to save somebody a post, yes I do understand I left an inconsistency in praising the use of Angelina Jolie's name in the context above. Oh well.

(Back to the subject.) I see the sky outside and know that mathematics can be used to explain it all. From the sky being blue to the behavior of dirt, there is an organization present. In the future I expect someone else will see an Angelina Jolie and understand the math that can explain the mixture of DNA at conception, creating beauty. (Or to extoll the lip gloss and makeup which finishes what the Lord started. )

You can have it good, fast, or cheap: pick two.

[VisionAir 0]

According to your title you are happy to see what happens next..........Well here's a little insight for you.

http://www.livingwaters.com/Merchant2/graphics/tracts/prophecy/index.html

Huh?!? What cloud?!? Oh that!!! That's just Industrial Haze
Alex M.

[Channman 2]

Scaring this individual with the truth...he can't handle the truth.

[VisionAir 0]

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waiting for an afterlife which noone has reported back from, and which is just a "belief", thoroughly unproven and taken on "faith".

Check out www.choothomas.com

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In response to VisionAir:

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Your "religion" does not matter!!! It is your relationship with God, and your obedience to His word, that is what is important.

I wish He would come down and prove that it was His word.

Oh but He will be back to prove it, but for most it will unfortunately be to late. Check out http://www.leftbehind.com/channelbooks.asp for a glimpse of what it could be like. The Left Behind movies part 1 & 2 were very entertaining and part 3 comes out next month.

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Instead he plays this game: if they believe with no proof whatsoever thenthey will be saved. It's so mean!

The proof is in the pudding...when you believe you will get and feel your proof from the Holy Spirit. By not getting your proof until after you believe makes for truer believers.

Huh?!? What cloud?!? Oh that!!! That's just Industrial Haze
Alex M.

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Oh but He will be back to prove it, but for most it will unfortunately be to late. Check out http://www.leftbehind.com/channelbooks.asp for a glimpse of what it could be like. The Left Behind movies part 1 & 2 were very entertaining and part 3 comes out next month.

On a purely prose critical level, those books are someo of the most poorly written I have ever read. Bad dilogue, weak characters, preaching, and overall bad writing. They could have EASILY written about the horrors of the Tribulation with defined religious overtones that were subtle but surely there; instead, by the 80th page of the first book, I have already been bludgeoned in the face by preaching.

On a relgious level:

Llets not get started on the fact that these "men of God" made a TON of cash interpreting the bible as they see fit. If I want to read about the Rapture and Tribulation, I will stick to the free version.

bleh.

Why yes, my license number is a palindrome. Thank you for noticing.

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