Well, which one opens you reality and which one lets you stay into the Matrix dream land ? I do not remember. Anyway it surely has nothing to do with democrats & republicans...
Or has it ?
I remember in Matrix ones who were eager to get out of the lies of the Matrix and those who desired to move into it again, forgetting the tough reality. I don't know, I am not American, is there any similarity ? Sweet lies or hard reality politics ? Who's got the blue pill, who's got the red one ?
great, now I just have to send SPAM for my competitor to this provider (with fake ads so that it is not a very intersting product), i blur the trace to me and the competitor loses market shares
in one century I do not think my corporate maintenance procedures created today will be available / archived in one century I do not expect to be working any more, so procedures & knowlegde will be lost in one century I do not expect to be able to find my Verising login/password neither my bill to renew my corporate domain name for another century
when you do not regularly work with nor do you maintain something it disapears from your thoughs. In one century many corporations (if they live that long) will just forget to renew. What happens if they do not renew in 100 years ? Do they disapear from the internet ? What can Verisign tell us ? Noone at verisign will be there in one century. There is really no engagment from a corp that will probably not be there in one century. Besides, would you dare give your provider the responsability of calling you in one century to remind you you must pay ? I would not dare that.
That total nonsense.
moreover, who can say if domain names will not be free in 30 years ? Therefore you would have paid 70 years more, will Verisign give you change ?
If that's serious news, it's probably more some kind of advertisement from Verisign than a real product. It means "we are confident we will be there in 100 years, you can trust us to register for any length of time". Sorry mister VS I do not trust you.
30sec is a bit long, however this proposition has the advantage to try to solve a problem.
For centuries, fines have proved not be solutions. When did crime declined because of fines or imprisonnement ? When someone does not want to follow the law, then no monetary penalty will compell him to follow the law. Even more, many people who drive drunk are indeed alcooholics. No possible fine can counter balance the addiction. Because every one would choose the profit of fun right now (drinking) over the security of maybe one day getting fined.
I am quite sure that if the test would require only 2 secs lots of people would still continue to argue against it. The problem is lots of people just want not to abid to law, but they want to abid to what they agree is a good law : that is a law that does not impact them. Well, said otherwise I believe __we__ are lots of egocentric people and we accept constraints that apply to others but not to us. By definition law is supposed to apply to every one.
This New Mexico proposition has indeed lots of inconvenients, but at least it is a courageous proposition and not one that pretend to change things by harder fines. Fines would indeed be a good solution if there were a garantee everyone would be catched everytime. Maybe something like the film "the 5th Element" where the car itself fines you ? Get buy one at a Big Brother's near you ?
Your friend Microsoft is lost in the maze of IP infringement.
Please help him to find out all the names used by evil hackers who want to steel mighty things from your friend.
Because there are so many bad boys in the world that speak strange languages,
help your little friend Microsoft to get every occurence of name spelling that can sound like his very own name.
Of course in english, our friend Law Yer has just come with the evil name : Mike Rowe Soft, so this one can not be proposed.
When you have finished this game, hand out the answer to your dad or your mom and go on to the next game.
For instance, in French:
[mi | my] [c | k | que] [r] [o | au] [ss] [o | au] [ft | pht]
those are scholars, but scholars are not expected to touch, even less to modify Aramic or Babylonian documents, they are too valuable
therefore Microsoft kernel is much more valuable than Linux kernel...
what kind of document do you modify ? uncomplete or erroneous ones;-p
well, Microsoft protects some kind of artefact (some may say the one ring... to tie them all)
this may explain why you have to be explicitly authorised by the "librarian" Microsoft in order to touch the saint relic of their Kernel.
I am quite surprised. Lot's of "Urah" and "that's good"...
But just remember:
1/ if InterTrust succeeds who's coming next on their menu ? However I do not think the future will take this path.
2 / remember, InterTrust is backed up by Sony & Philips. That is not David against Goliath as some are thinking. That is Mamoths against Mamoth.
They will probably settle an arrangement. It is not good for Sony & Philips to test the validity of the copyright up to its end. It is far much better to let the shadow of it, in order to scare others. That is much better in order to force others into complying with their own agenda. Remember who are Sony & Philips ? They are not FSF advocates but music & multimedia devices suppliers... Remember who are their friends ?
Their agenda (InterTrust agenda) is probably to give Sony & Philips leverage on MS in order to implement THEIR technology into Windows. That will make money (licence + standard devices & albums disks) for them and cost nothing (no market to penetrate, MS does it & no trial for years). After that their technology will be all over the rest of the world.
The best thing (the worst ?) of all 3 is that it can even be good for MS who might end with 2 allies in order to propagate its technology (CE in Philips & Sony devices ? MS DRM in Sony albums ?).
Indeed that is very very bad for all of us.
We are living is a very sad world guys. Depressing to read/.
Remind who where these guys who "played" with first cars and planes One century ago ! They were wealthy aristocrasts or just wealthy guys. They became Aces or just explorators (crossing the Atlantic with one of these planes was nearly suicide). They were those who much improved planes and cars and began the cars & planes industries. Because they were plenty of money and dreams.
Just let nowadays dreamers throw their money into space and in a few tens of years we might walk up their money ladder...
Just imagine what could do Bill G. with all his money !!!!:-)
And once again I started to make it short and its one full page. Really sorry for the length. I can hardly help doing shorter.
Do you have a cup of tea next to you ?
The subject? Because yours did not make much sense so I decided to go the whole hog.:-) :-))
Well, mine was related to my comment where I used an example based on Pasta as an argument:-)
I have no theory as to God, really.
From your previous comments I would rather say you think "He may exists but it will confuse me if I seek whether something is from god or not. Therefore I do nothing." Sorry if I am wrong I do not want to say *this* is what you think. Just my interpretation.
If this is right it is big problem indeed. You can not pray because of the risk to endanger yourself. I do not criticize. I know myself how it is hard to take risks (Nowadays God encourages me to take more and more risks and try new things, but it is hard).
Another "theory" might be "he does not exists" or "he just answers to perfect people" or "he does not care for me"... For you it seems rather to be "I do not want to know right now"... well in fact you do not need God to know whether this is true or not.
There are no scientific tests to bemade though.
Ok, no scientific test regarding to God, but you can apply scientific protocol when you seek. Einstein theories seemed ludicrous to famous scientists of the early XXth century. However, some people applied scientific and rigorous study his ludicrous theories and proved them to be right. What is "science" ? What is "scientific" ? Something labeled as such before experiment or after ?
Philosophy is not science, but philosophers apply scientific rigor in the reasonment to determine whether they are right or not. After you say, "ok the reasonment is good, do I want to live that way ? The Bible's way ?"
praying is not scientific
Right, the same way speaking is not. Because "to pray" just means "talk to God" according to the Bible.
How can I know I really meant God to appear in my heart of hearts? What about my subconcious desires I may not fully understand etc.
Words you spell may not be what you think. But when you say them you know if they express what you want / think or not. You do not need to go through an analysis in order to know if you said truth or not. You just know. At least I do.
If your deep desires are not expressed, you subconscious will let you know (dreams probably). I would say, just let it in its side. Life is sweeter when simple.
And what if god does get in touch?
Maybe it is the real question you ask ? Is it ? And what will you do next if He exists ?
What test is ther for knowing if it realy is god? (...) I am not testing a condition so it's hard to do this sort of thing. with any sort of rigour.
If God is God, then ask for something you cannot do yourself. Ask him for help. Generally situations / problems where you have nothing to loose are good tests. If it improves you cannot say it is because of you. Let it be simple. Your are about to loose your job and no opportunities around ? Your debts are abyssal ? You cannot do anything yourself. But God will if he really exists. Do you have to question yourself to know whether the solution is from God ? If you ask someone for help and you receive help, who has done it ?
This is what I mean by test. You ask and see the result. But if after the result you tweak in order to proove this is unrelated to your prayer, then it is problaly not a rigorous study of events. I hope it is better expressed.
An example, my 1st job, I did not know whether I wanted to apply as a developper or a system administrator. Finaly I am doing both. The company found me, I did not even thought it was possible to do both so it just fell in my hands. I was really surprised. You may say that's fairly good luck. But is it surprising when your Friend is The One who throws the Big Dices of life ?:-)
Usually, God's solutions are very surprising. Not necessarily new to the world, but we usually think of other solutions. And his are better.
I do not know what you already prayed. Neither do I know what God prepared for you. But what I know is he will answer if you ask. If you ask him to proove his existence, he will do so. Conviction will come to you. If you ask him help, he will give it.
I cannot tell you what to pray to test. I just do not know. It depends on what you live.
Luke 11.9 And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.
10 For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.
11 If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent?
12 Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion?
God sees us as sons and daughters.
(NB : many French versions are much simpler, they are not old french:-( maybe modern english bible exist ?)
Now...historical evidence for the existence of Jesus and evidence he was the son of god. That's another matter.
That can be tested or at least examined for veracity.
Yes, historical evidence of the existence of Jesus are not questionned by the vast majority of history schoolars. I mean even those not christian.
As for He being son of God, I would say it is more subject to... subjectivity (if you consider the Bible's miracles are just tales or not). But if he really is God and Son of God as stated in the Bible and if he is really resurrected from the dead after he died to cover our sins. Then If all this is true it means he will answer when you pray, because the Bible says so. If he is not resurrected he is not God and all the rest is crap. Then no danger to pray. He will not answer. But if you ask for something and you get it (unless it is stupid like "I want my boss to die and get his job") then it prooves the whole thing.
I have writen to pray Jesus and in other place to pray God, in fact the Bible says to pray God the Father in the name of Jesus or Jesus. Because he is the bridge between the Saintety of God and us.
But you also have to look in the right direction. In science, if you want to discover something you have 2 possibilities (I think):
1/ you look at something and by luck you find something else. You have to be open minded else you will reject the new thing. For instance, if Pasteur just throw to the bin the samples that came wrong he would have never found penicillin.
2/ you have an intuition about something, you design a theory and you make some test. Maybe it will proove you are right or it will proove the opposite. You test, you analyze the result and you compare with your theory. You decide whether you are right or not. So you have to be more than open minded. You have to believe your theory might be right. It does not mean you have to be ready to defend it with your life. But you have to act, to test. Is it wrong ? Would you say this protocol is wrong ? I would be surprised if you say yes:-)
With God, the same applies. Maybe he will reveal himself as he did to Moses. Odds are he will rather give you only traces. Up to you to see them as what they are and not throw the samples. Or you may have a theory. "God does not exist". Then test the theory.
When someone tells in his letters he waits for you, then I think one test is simply to answer : "ok let's see if you really exist or if you only are in fictionnous character. If you exist, show me." That is not much complicated.
The bible says: 1 Thessalonians 5.21 Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.
I am perfectly open to the idea God exists as I have already stated. Praying does nothing for this.
I've seen no good evidence so I feel I cannot believe as yet.
What praying will do is merely confuse me, as it used to. I am not confused at the moment.
You can't verify what I am saying you'll have to take my words on trust.
I am also perfectly open to the idea some girl exists somewhere that I will marry. I have seen no good evidence so do I believe she cannot exist ? Does seeking for someone do anything ? Could it help me to find whether she exists or not if I look around ?
I agree. If I look around I may get confused and ask myself "Is that girl well enough for me ?". Maybe she is, maybe not. I will probably ask me this question a few times before I get an answer. The conviction she is the woman I want to live with.
If you come and tell me some of your friend is great for me, I may not trust your words. But if I never dare to meet her I am sure of one thing. She definitly is not someone I can communicate with. She will not really exist for me before I get in touch with her. She is merely an idea.
After all it's probably better that way, since I am ok alone at home. No one to tell me to wash the dishes. No one who wants things I do not. No conflict. No change in my life.
Yes. You are right. until you decide it might be interesting to change your life. And I know very much what I am saying because right now I have not decided if it is better for me to live with someone or to be single. There are so much freedom in being single. But also so many happyness to be two...
1/ some religions state their god(s) is on another plane of interest. He is more concerned in his stuff than in ours. When he does not answer it means he has something else to do, etc... The Bible tells us we are the concern of god. We are at the center of his preoccupations. Ok not every religion say that. Sorry I do not undestand the rest of the sentence. I am not a native english speaker.
2/ I have not the answer to that. I am not omniscient:-) As for the risk, we can only discover new territories by taking some risks. But I agree it is fool to always risk everything. Myself I consider God as a safe and magnificiant "territory" to discover. I do not take the risk to leave it. Or to be honest when I do leave that safe place it is generally not long before I come back. So who I am to tell you to leave that safe place you live in ? I would tell you I prefer not to leave my god for another one even though you tell me he is waiting for me. But what if someday I realize my god is fake and my life is not safe ? Maybe someday it will be your case. Maybe you will ever be confident in what you already experimented. That is wise.
But the Bible tells man's wisdom is foolishness to God. And God's wisdom is foolishness to man. (I do not remember the verse)
3/ I cannot tell you why you should change your life. Reasons why I changed mine are not necesseraly the same reasons that someone else in my church. Yours are not mines. I can only testify what I live (I did in some other comments). There is no reason why you should change your life. But when you want to, then God will be here to answer. Faith has nothing to do with arguments. We could speak for years. I could pray for you to see "the light". But nothing will happen until you say "well, let's dare it". It is difficult to express what I mean. Words are so limited regarding to ideas:-( Yes I failed to explain why you must change your life. It is not important. Because God does not tell us : "you must change". He invites us.
That's fine because I'm not angry
I did not think you were:-)
you do what you think is right and good for you
Thanks.
I'm quite happy with my position as it stands though, because it is consistent and it is safe.
I wanted to say the same, but in fact since the day I know God I would add it is more and more consistant & safer;-)
Perhaps a rather cynical view is that praying opens you up to the possiblity god exists and thus carefully influences you into thinking more about this thus-far invisible god.
Why is it cynical ? This is plain right. When you pray sincerelly, you beggin to accept the possibility He exists. Exactly the same way that when you take the remote controller you implicitly accept it can remote control the TV set. If you have faith the remote control will do nothing, why would you try to take it ?
Then it means you have lots of faith. Faith in the non existence of God. None of my words can go against your faith. Only you is master of your faith. Even God does not want to interfere with your faith, whatever it is. But when you ask him to proove himself his existence, he will show you tidbits. You do whatever you want with them.
I wouldn't like to place a value on the worth of that view but if you can provide a reason why I should pray to your god rather than any of the other thousands of gods people worship across the world daily then I'd be glad to listen.
Here are some reasons.
1/ Because the Bible tells us God wants to be close with us. So why go to some god that is supposed (from the description in the religion) to be far from us ? Would you go to another continent to marry when the smattest, funniest, most beautifful girl is next door and she is found of you ? Let her and you have a chance.
2/ If he does not exists. No risk. But if he does. What will happen ?
3/ I cannot really provide a reason to pray anyone. I can only tell you what I live. Only you can tell what you live. And only you can live it. There is not easy answer. No magical word. You are responsible for your life.
Well I do not know what you prayed or what you expected.
As far as I am concerned I do not feel something special everyday when I pray. Someday it is even hard to pray and I think that it is stupid. Probably I am crazy to pray someone I cannot see. But I also remember events that happened and that I cannot assign to luck. Of course You can tell that is just luck. But we usually say 2 events are coincidency but 3 are not:-) And they have been many. I cannot force this thruth (faith) in you. The same way God will not force it to you. But He will show you clues. Up to you to give it the meaning you want. But when you call it God it opens lots of things.
I could explain what things he did for me. But it would be nothing for you. You would look at them as just my personnal interpretation of odd events.
But I can tell you who I was.
My heart was dry and I was lone. I was not opened to others and was full of lots of fears. I spent most of my time trying to avoid responsabilities. Since I reckoned God as my God, He really changed lots of things in me. In my personnality. I am opened to others, I beggin to take my responsabilities and I am more confident. God did not change all this in one day. And I needed to accept not to keep grasping my old way to react to life. I have to let him change my life. And everytime it is a new challenge. Life is not always more easy with God. Life is not always sweeter. But He is giving birth to the true personnality that was buried deep in me. And this is good to be who I really am. It is good to go to friends and show them I love them. It is good not to be afraid of showing my feelings. And not being scared of theirs.
You could say a psychanalyst could have done this. Can he go deep in my heart a show me really what my propblem is ? Can he show me who I really am ? Often I thought my problem was this or that. I asked God to remove this aspect of my life. He did not. Instead he showed me (during prayer/talk with him most of the times) the problem was somewhere else. But knowledge is not freedem. I invited him to take the place of my fears and anger. I did not force myself to act in a good way. I just decided to renounce the bad way. And with time God takes over and develops the good way in me.
I could convince myself
About self conviction. I did not look after god or religion. One day someone explained me what was in the Bible. And I reckoned it was true because I knew what I did was wrong. I accepted Jesus as the one who took my place:
God created man to have a relationship with him. God settled limits. Man has gone beyond, separating himself from God. God gave is Word through messengers. He does not want to be strong and force himself to us. Instead he wants us to freely accept to follow his ruling. If you do not want to, he stays there, next to you but do not interfere since you decided you did not want him. He is very gentle, a real gentleman:-)
At some point God came on earth in Jesus. He had a problem. On one side he loves us, he wants the relationship, he wants not to wipe us. But on the other side He cannot stand sin. And sins and sinners must be punished (like you punish your child when he continually does the opposite of what you told, like you punish someone that does not follow the law of the society). The punishment in this matter is (eternal) death. That is complete separation from God. So someone had to die for the sin. But because God loves us He went on earth. Jesus did everything God the Father told. There was no sin found in him. Then he accepted to die and take our sin and our sentence upon him. It is written Jesus was completly separated from God.
This is what is hell : the complete separation from God. It means Jesus (God) himself who was with God (the Father) from eternity accepted to be separated and to take the worst sentence ever. Even though He was innocent. Because of this if you accept Jesus did this for you, then God accepts to put it in front of your fault. For him if you accept the grace act you are free from the sentence.
That guy explained all this to me. And I accepted it, because I saw how wrong I was.
My experience is not yours however.
Zechariah 4.6 Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the LORD of hosts.
God rarely presents himself in fire and thunder, but more generally by conviction. But he waits for us to accept the possibility to be convicted of his existence.
God can appear to you at any point he wants. But do you want ? He respects you and do not want to force himself to you. So he waits for you to do the second step. He did the first by sending people to you to explain this, he gave the Bible and sacrificed himself for our sins to be erased.
The prayer is nothing more than just talking and telling and thinking : "ok if you really exists proove it and I am ready to react according to this". Do you dare ?
it'd be great if there was an all-loving god as depicted in the Bible but just because it'd be nice doesn't make it true.
Again you are right.
But not trying to get in touch with him will never let show you it is true (or not).
How can you tell the remote controller can switch the TV on ? Because you tested it and it worked. But what you say is a bit like saying "well that would be nice if I could control the TV from my sofa but the coolness of the idea does not make it true". Yes the assertion is true. But unless you test the remote controller you cannot be sure it is true or not.
There is a whole lot of things to tell about this. But I will keep it short.
In the book of Exodus, God freed his people, he showed himself directly and did extraordinary things. And the people just did the opposite of what he commanded.
1 And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of the mount, the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said unto him, Up, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him.
8 They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them: they have made them a molten calf, and have worshipped it, and have sacrificed thereunto, and said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which have brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.
At some point limits had to be set.
But God also did not renounce to his words. He said he would give the country to Abraham's descendants and He did so.
34 Therefore now go, lead the people unto the place of which I have spoken unto thee: behold, mine Angel shall go before thee: nevertheless in the day when I visit I will visit their sin upon them.
The last bit anounces Jesus to come to clean our sins. That way we can stand before God without being under the condamnation of our faults that have been erased, because Jesus died instead of us.
Another thing to help you understand. When one of your member (your foot for instance) gets corrupted. If physicians cannot save it and it dies. Would you prefer to keep your foot and die because of it or would you prefer them to cut it ?
God was not joyfull to get rid of the (bad) part of Israel. But He had to do so in order to save the rest who were not (yet ?) corrupted.
You will see all this when you read the rest of the book. As usual, it is dangerous and unfair to argue only on a few sentences.
Good reading.
Before Jesus came on earth and gave his life for us, the whole humanity was under the gouvernment of the Law : God cannot stand sin and someone found guilty must be condemned. But even during the Old Testament God proved to be reluctant to sentence judgement. He pusponed or cancelled many judgements. But at some point it was too much. When you have a child you can choose not to punish him as soon as he does a bad/evil thing. You can choose the path of love and compassion. But at some point you have to punish. Because you are the parent and you must set limits. When parents punish kids and forbid them to see their friend, are parent evil ? Would you say they do not love their children ?
As a parent you adapt the punishion to what was done. The exemple you presented was *very* severe because God was giving his words to Moses while many Jewish were worshipping a golden calf. He was just giving the first comandment not to worship another god...
For the "joyfull relationship", if someone you saved the life betrayed you in return the next day, would you be happy ? If you answer "yes" then I advise you some counselling (or prozac;-)
the gospel tells Jesus is the Word of God. So he is the messenger and the message:-)
and why worshipping Jesus ? Because he is God born from a woman (not from a man and a woman). Mary was inseminated by the Holy Spirit 2000 years before Dolly, and people say the Bible is full of impossible stories ? Science itself proove a woman can infant by insemination... so why not the rest of the story ?;-p
For the existence of Jesus as someone who walked on earth and was a jewish leader, even atheist historicians agree he is a historical character (not a fictionous). When historians work on characters who lived thousands years ago they sometime have fewer sources than the books of the bible, and it is generally enough. So why should we be more critical with religious matters ?
If you are sick and tired, why you you spend so much time reading comments that deep in the thread ?
How do you know eating a breakfast is good and healthy ? Because from day 1 you ate. So there must be a day 1. Therefore to take your own phrase "apply the same rigour to something even *more* fundemental than that":-)) Obviously you do not have "past evidence" that god exists and can answer to you. But if you never try to talk to him, how can you know ?
If during all your life you never prepared any lunch, how can you know that's easy or not to cook pasta ? If you never tasted oisters how can you tell you do not like the taste ?
The main problem is that we just accept easily things that were told during childhood. But it gets harder with age. Our intelligence make a wall. When you are young to just eat (sometime nasty things). When you are older you try to know things without putting you at risk.
If I give you a phonenumber and tell you the guy there is nice and can even help you. In order to know whether I tell you the truth or not you have to give him a call.
You can argue with me you don't know him yet so you won't phone him. You may think that's crap and the guy cannot or do not want to help you. But do not tell me he does not exist. Because you do not want to talk to him does not imply he does not exist. And it does not mean he does not want to get in touch with you.
More than one century ago you might even thought that the black device (the phone) does nothing and it is stupid to talk into it since everyone just knows by experience that there only exist one way to speak to someone : being in the same place.
Well, nowadays you can call anyone even without any cable connexion, with your mobilephone. How do you know it works ? Because you tested it once. Because someone told you (presumably your parents) that it is natural to speak in the device. So you tried it. And it worked. When you were young you did not want to proove things could work before you try to operate them. You just grabed it and experienced it. This is why you experienced the phone. You were too youg to ask you questions. This is why right now you can tell this is a natural thing.
But imagine going back in 1800 and talking to someone there about what you can do in 2000s. How will he react ? I suppose he will dismiss your talk, and probably consider you are insane. But when he experiments the 2000s devices, his grasp on the world is forever changed. What he once believed is nothing in front of what now stands in from of him. He may decide to continue as before because it is too hard to put aside his whole life and to change everything. Or he may decide to change his life.
So what evidence can proove God exists ? Well not my testimanial, but your own. Just ask him to show you if he exists. If he really exists, he can show himself. Probably not with fire and thunder. Maybe not by plain illumination. But by his actions. Just ask Jesus to act in some way that is not contradictary with his nature and he will do so.
By "not contradictary with his nature" I mean he will probably not give you millions or kill all your enemies. He will probably not make trees fly. But if you are in trouble with people against you He will surely act so that the situation changes in your favor. Why ? Just because 2000 years ago Jesus gave his life for my sins and for yours to be cancelled in front of God the Father. Because sins are cancelled nothing stands between you and god but your own decision not to meet him. And if Jesus gave his life for your sins to be erased, don't you thing he will manifest himself if you ask him for help ? His sacrifice beeing to clean the path between you and god, don't you think he can do just a small thing that can help you believe in him ?
Imagine Lary Wall (put the famous name you want here) tells you he is ready to meet you if you need any help. Would you tell that it is false just because no famous guy offered this to you ? Sad because lots of famous guys are easily reached everday on newsgroups (for the least). And the fact that you never did this (or maybe you did ?) does not change the truth. You just have to try to know.
Ironically, in some languages (aka French for sure) "to believe" commonly means "I think but I am not sure", there is doubt. However, for a believer from any religion, "to believe" means much more than "to be convinced". A believer is completly convinced (or he is supposed to be;-), this is faith.
Well, starting from the "religious" definition here is my comment.
I'm making a distinction between beliefs and (...) thinks
Right, there is a difference between these 2.
I may think the girl next door loves me.
I may believe / I have faith she loves me.
"belief" is related to thought (think), but it is much deeper. If I think she loves me, this is a possibility. I will probably try to prove it.
But when I believe she loves me (in a way a believer "believes") then I am convinced she loves me. Generally this is based upon some proof (she told me or lots of facts show me her affection).
The same goes with your familly.
Do you "think" or do you "believe" people close to you love you ?
How do you know this ? (remember "belief" is faith so it is conviction that is subjective knowledge).
You probably know it from experience, your own personnal one.
As far as I am concerned, I have never actively looked for God. Until He found me. Someone just explained to me what Jesus did and what were the consequences of my acts. I did not actively looked for God, but I accepted to listen to that person. I realised how crap/nasty was my life and how deep was Jesus' love. I just could not do otherwise than accept it. Why ? Just because God told me. Not with words in my head, but with conviction in my heart. The guy himself did nothing but tell me what is in the Bible. Then I had to decide whether I wanted to continue my way or to try to live with Him. I decided to stop doing stupid things and to try to follow the path Jesus showed in the Gospel. I invited Jesus in my life.
So here comes from belief / faith : From the deepest part of your heart. Not from the mind.
If you really want to know whether He does not exist, just do as you would with anyone you never saw. Ask him to proove his existence to you. If he exists he will show you, if he does not exists you have no risk, He will never answer you.
This is slighly like the SETI program. Lots of people believe ETs exists, so they scan the sky. It they exist and do not try to obfuscate traces of their existence, then we must find some proove someday. This is good reasonning. Therefore why not doing the same with God ? The Bible tell us God want to be known by us, but the books also say He is reluctant to force himself to us. He waits for you to invite Him in your heart & life.
When He will show himself to the whole earth there will be no more place for free acceptance. Do you doubt in the existence of the sun ? Well the Revelation book (the Apocalypse) tell us that the day He will reveal himself to anyone, this will be Jugdment Day. And it will be too late the book states.
So the question is not is there an Entity somewhere ? Is it convenient to believe in something or something else ?
The big question is how to know if He exists ?
And the Bible answers : "Ask God to proove His existence to you." Noone can proove it to you. Noone can live your life. Noone can go deep inside the kernel of your heart but the best Hacker even who created the best AI (Astonishing Intelligence) ever;-)
When someone talk to me about his friend, I can invent many reasons why not to meet her, but if I really want to know whether she is so nice I have to see her. Any excuse just really mean I do not want to meet her.
Therefore if you do not want to ask God the Big question about his existence, just tell others you do not to know God, and do not answer anything else. It would be a lie.
But take your responsability in case He really exists... Because He will do the same with you as you did with Him : when He will reveal himself he won't want to meet you...
Who takes the bargain ? Do you just think or believe ?
Have a nice day and GBY:-)
What's great when you buy a product from a closed software company is you have a roadmap. The software will not disappear. Well that is what MS said once compared to OSS.
When the company closes -> you loose everything. When the company wants to push a new version -> you have no choice (this is more drastic when you are a big company and you need documents compatibility or standard procedures).
Yes it is very safe & cost effective to buy closed software... Does it count into your total cost of ownership Mr Gates ?
Slashdot Mirror
a crime in some countries (eg. France) when that someone did not agree
this guy may be happy not to be in france or he would have been procecuted
maybe because it's not vapor anymore ?
it's already evaporated !
Well, which one opens you reality and which one lets you stay into the Matrix dream land ? I do not remember. Anyway it surely has nothing to do with democrats & republicans...
Or has it ?
I remember in Matrix ones who were eager to get out of the lies of the Matrix and those who desired to move into it again, forgetting the tough reality.
I don't know, I am not American, is there any similarity ? Sweet lies or hard reality politics ?
Who's got the blue pill, who's got the red one ?
great, now I just have to send SPAM for my competitor to this provider (with fake ads so that it is not a very intersting product), i blur the trace to me and the competitor loses market shares
might that happen ?
30 years when you wanted IBM to upgrade your mainframe a tech guy came and unsolded a connector.
You gained a few memory and lost a lot of $$$.
in one century I do not think my corporate maintenance procedures created today will be available / archived
in one century I do not expect to be working any more, so procedures & knowlegde will be lost
in one century I do not expect to be able to find my Verising login/password neither my bill to renew my corporate domain name for another century
when you do not regularly work with nor do you maintain something it disapears from your thoughs.
In one century many corporations (if they live that long) will just forget to renew.
What happens if they do not renew in 100 years ? Do they disapear from the internet ? What can Verisign tell us ? Noone at verisign will be there in one century. There is really no engagment from a corp that will probably not be there in one century.
Besides, would you dare give your provider the responsability of calling you in one century to remind you you must pay ?
I would not dare that.
That total nonsense.
moreover, who can say if domain names will not be free in 30 years ? Therefore you would have paid 70 years more, will Verisign give you change ?
If that's serious news, it's probably more some kind of advertisement from Verisign than a real product. It means "we are confident we will be there in 100 years, you can trust us to register for any length of time".
Sorry mister VS I do not trust you.
30sec is a bit long, however this proposition has the advantage to try to solve a problem.
For centuries, fines have proved not be solutions. When did crime declined because of fines or imprisonnement ?
When someone does not want to follow the law, then no monetary penalty will compell him to follow the law. Even more, many people who drive drunk are indeed alcooholics. No possible fine can counter balance the addiction. Because every one would choose the profit of fun right now (drinking) over the security of maybe one day getting fined.
I am quite sure that if the test would require only 2 secs lots of people would still continue to argue against it. The problem is lots of people just want not to abid to law, but they want to abid to what they agree is a good law : that is a law that does not impact them.
Well, said otherwise I believe __we__ are lots of egocentric people and we accept constraints that apply to others but not to us.
By definition law is supposed to apply to every one.
This New Mexico proposition has indeed lots of inconvenients, but at least it is a courageous proposition and not one that pretend to change things by harder fines.
Fines would indeed be a good solution if there were a garantee everyone would be catched everytime. Maybe something like the film "the 5th Element" where the car itself fines you ?
Get buy one at a Big Brother's near you ?
well you just have to encrypt the port number, and for this just connect to the ssl port...
you can even use a security key card that gives you a random number from which the port sequence is selected.
welcome to paranoia land
Your friend Microsoft is lost in the maze of IP infringement.
Please help him to find out all the names used by evil hackers who want to steel mighty things from your friend.
Because there are so many bad boys in the world that speak strange languages,
help your little friend Microsoft to get every occurence of name spelling that can sound like his very own name.
Of course in english, our friend Law Yer has just come with the evil name : Mike Rowe Soft, so this one can not be proposed.
When you have finished this game, hand out the answer to your dad or your mom and go on to the next game.
For instance, in French
[mi | my] [c | k | que] [r] [o | au] [ss] [o | au] [ft | pht]
...but what about those of us who speak Aramic?
;-p
... to tie them all)
those are scholars, but scholars are not expected to touch, even less to modify Aramic or Babylonian documents, they are too valuable
therefore Microsoft kernel is much more valuable than Linux kernel...
what kind of document do you modify ? uncomplete or erroneous ones
well, Microsoft protects some kind of artefact (some may say the one ring
this may explain why you have to be explicitly authorised by the "librarian" Microsoft in order to touch the saint relic of their Kernel.
I am quite surprised.
:
/.
Lot's of "Urah" and "that's good"...
But just remember
1/ if InterTrust succeeds who's coming next on their menu ? However I do not think the future will take this path.
2 / remember, InterTrust is backed up by Sony & Philips. That is not David against Goliath as some are thinking. That is Mamoths against Mamoth.
They will probably settle an arrangement. It is not good for Sony & Philips to test the validity of the copyright up to its end. It is far much better to let the shadow of it, in order to scare others. That is much better in order to force others into complying with their own agenda. Remember who are Sony & Philips ? They are not FSF advocates but music & multimedia devices suppliers... Remember who are their friends ?
Their agenda (InterTrust agenda) is probably to give Sony & Philips leverage on MS in order to implement THEIR technology into Windows. That will make money (licence + standard devices & albums disks) for them and cost nothing (no market to penetrate, MS does it & no trial for years). After that their technology will be all over the rest of the world.
The best thing (the worst ?) of all 3 is that it can even be good for MS who might end with 2 allies in order to propagate its technology (CE in Philips & Sony devices ? MS DRM in Sony albums ?).
Indeed that is very very bad for all of us.
We are living is a very sad world guys. Depressing to read
Remind who where these guys who "played" with first cars and planes One century ago ! They were wealthy aristocrasts or just wealthy guys.
:-)
They became Aces or just explorators (crossing the Atlantic with one of these planes was nearly suicide).
They were those who much improved planes and cars and began the cars & planes industries. Because they were plenty of money and dreams.
Just let nowadays dreamers throw their money into space and in a few tens of years we might walk up their money ladder...
Just imagine what could do Bill G. with all his money !!!!
Already exists since the 1st of june 2003 when ARCHOS offcialy launched the new AV300 series :
;)
mp3, divx, photos, camera, video shoot & playback, tv recorder & playback, radio, speech/radio/mp3 recorder (some need modules), 3.8 inches screen, USB2/Firewire for a "few" 800 buck.
oh... forgot, it's 20Gb and 40Go in a few months.
Not yet in stores however or already in shortage ?
And once again I started to make it short and its one full page. Really sorry for the length. I can hardly help doing shorter.
:-)
:-)) :-)
:-)
:-( maybe modern english bible exist ?)
... subjectivity (if you consider the Bible's miracles are just tales or not). But if he really is God and Son of God as stated in the Bible and if he is really resurrected from the dead after he died to cover our sins. Then If all this is true it means he will answer when you pray, because the Bible says so. If he is not resurrected he is not God and all the rest is crap. Then no danger to pray. He will not answer. But if you ask for something and you get it (unless it is stupid like "I want my boss to die and get his job") then it prooves the whole thing.
Do you have a cup of tea next to you ?
The subject? Because yours did not make much sense so I decided to go the whole hog.
Well, mine was related to my comment where I used an example based on Pasta as an argument
I have no theory as to God, really.
From your previous comments I would rather say you think "He may exists but it will confuse me if I seek whether something is from god or not. Therefore I do nothing." Sorry if I am wrong I do not want to say *this* is what you think. Just my interpretation.
If this is right it is big problem indeed. You can not pray because of the risk to endanger yourself. I do not criticize. I know myself how it is hard to take risks (Nowadays God encourages me to take more and more risks and try new things, but it is hard).
Another "theory" might be "he does not exists" or "he just answers to perfect people" or "he does not care for me"... For you it seems rather to be "I do not want to know right now"... well in fact you do not need God to know whether this is true or not.
There are no scientific tests to bemade though.
Ok, no scientific test regarding to God, but you can apply scientific protocol when you seek. Einstein theories seemed ludicrous to famous scientists of the early XXth century. However, some people applied scientific and rigorous study his ludicrous theories and proved them to be right. What is "science" ? What is "scientific" ? Something labeled as such before experiment or after ?
Philosophy is not science, but philosophers apply scientific rigor in the reasonment to determine whether they are right or not. After you say, "ok the reasonment is good, do I want to live that way ? The Bible's way ?"
praying is not scientific
Right, the same way speaking is not. Because "to pray" just means "talk to God" according to the Bible.
How can I know I really meant God to appear in my heart of hearts? What about my subconcious desires I may not fully understand etc.
Words you spell may not be what you think. But when you say them you know if they express what you want / think or not. You do not need to go through an analysis in order to know if you said truth or not. You just know. At least I do.
If your deep desires are not expressed, you subconscious will let you know (dreams probably). I would say, just let it in its side. Life is sweeter when simple.
And what if god does get in touch?
Maybe it is the real question you ask ? Is it ? And what will you do next if He exists ?
What test is ther for knowing if it realy is god? (...) I am not testing a condition so it's hard to do this sort of thing. with any sort of rigour.
If God is God, then ask for something you cannot do yourself. Ask him for help. Generally situations / problems where you have nothing to loose are good tests. If it improves you cannot say it is because of you. Let it be simple. Your are about to loose your job and no opportunities around ? Your debts are abyssal ? You cannot do anything yourself. But God will if he really exists. Do you have to question yourself to know whether the solution is from God ? If you ask someone for help and you receive help, who has done it ?
This is what I mean by test. You ask and see the result. But if after the result you tweak in order to proove this is unrelated to your prayer, then it is problaly not a rigorous study of events. I hope it is better expressed.
An example, my 1st job, I did not know whether I wanted to apply as a developper or a system administrator. Finaly I am doing both. The company found me, I did not even thought it was possible to do both so it just fell in my hands. I was really surprised. You may say that's fairly good luck. But is it surprising when your Friend is The One who throws the Big Dices of life ?
Usually, God's solutions are very surprising. Not necessarily new to the world, but we usually think of other solutions. And his are better.
I do not know what you already prayed. Neither do I know what God prepared for you. But what I know is he will answer if you ask. If you ask him to proove his existence, he will do so. Conviction will come to you. If you ask him help, he will give it.
I cannot tell you what to pray to test. I just do not know. It depends on what you live.
Luke 11.9 And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.
10 For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.
11 If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent?
12 Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion?
God sees us as sons and daughters.
(NB : many French versions are much simpler, they are not old french
Now...historical evidence for the existence of Jesus and evidence he was the son of god. That's another matter. That can be tested or at least examined for veracity.
Yes, historical evidence of the existence of Jesus are not questionned by the vast majority of history schoolars. I mean even those not christian.
As for He being son of God, I would say it is more subject to
I have writen to pray Jesus and in other place to pray God, in fact the Bible says to pray God the Father in the name of Jesus or Jesus. Because he is the bridge between the Saintety of God and us.
Why this subject ?
:
:-)
:
:-)
Being open is the first step. Ok.
But you also have to look in the right direction. In science, if you want to discover something you have 2 possibilities (I think)
1/ you look at something and by luck you find something else. You have to be open minded else you will reject the new thing. For instance, if Pasteur just throw to the bin the samples that came wrong he would have never found penicillin.
2/ you have an intuition about something, you design a theory and you make some test. Maybe it will proove you are right or it will proove the opposite. You test, you analyze the result and you compare with your theory. You decide whether you are right or not. So you have to be more than open minded. You have to believe your theory might be right. It does not mean you have to be ready to defend it with your life. But you have to act, to test. Is it wrong ? Would you say this protocol is wrong ? I would be surprised if you say yes
With God, the same applies. Maybe he will reveal himself as he did to Moses. Odds are he will rather give you only traces. Up to you to see them as what they are and not throw the samples. Or you may have a theory. "God does not exist". Then test the theory.
When someone tells in his letters he waits for you, then I think one test is simply to answer : "ok let's see if you really exist or if you only are in fictionnous character. If you exist, show me." That is not much complicated.
The bible says
1 Thessalonians 5.21 Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.
And Morpheus says "Show me"
Have a nice day
I am perfectly open to the idea God exists as I have already stated. Praying does nothing for this.
:-) As for the risk, we can only discover new territories by taking some risks. But I agree it is fool to always risk everything. Myself I consider God as a safe and magnificiant "territory" to discover. I do not take the risk to leave it. Or to be honest when I do leave that safe place it is generally not long before I come back. So who I am to tell you to leave that safe place you live in ? I would tell you I prefer not to leave my god for another one even though you tell me he is waiting for me. But what if someday I realize my god is fake and my life is not safe ? Maybe someday it will be your case. Maybe you will ever be confident in what you already experimented. That is wise.
:-( Yes I failed to explain why you must change your life. It is not important. Because God does not tell us : "you must change". He invites us.
:-)
;-)
I've seen no good evidence so I feel I cannot believe as yet.
What praying will do is merely confuse me, as it used to. I am not confused at the moment. You can't verify what I am saying you'll have to take my words on trust.
I am also perfectly open to the idea some girl exists somewhere that I will marry. I have seen no good evidence so do I believe she cannot exist ? Does seeking for someone do anything ? Could it help me to find whether she exists or not if I look around ?
I agree. If I look around I may get confused and ask myself "Is that girl well enough for me ?". Maybe she is, maybe not. I will probably ask me this question a few times before I get an answer. The conviction she is the woman I want to live with.
If you come and tell me some of your friend is great for me, I may not trust your words. But if I never dare to meet her I am sure of one thing. She definitly is not someone I can communicate with. She will not really exist for me before I get in touch with her. She is merely an idea.
After all it's probably better that way, since I am ok alone at home. No one to tell me to wash the dishes. No one who wants things I do not. No conflict. No change in my life.
Yes. You are right. until you decide it might be interesting to change your life. And I know very much what I am saying because right now I have not decided if it is better for me to live with someone or to be single. There are so much freedom in being single. But also so many happyness to be two...
1/ some religions state their god(s) is on another plane of interest. He is more concerned in his stuff than in ours. When he does not answer it means he has something else to do, etc... The Bible tells us we are the concern of god. We are at the center of his preoccupations. Ok not every religion say that. Sorry I do not undestand the rest of the sentence. I am not a native english speaker.
2/ I have not the answer to that. I am not omniscient
But the Bible tells man's wisdom is foolishness to God. And God's wisdom is foolishness to man. (I do not remember the verse)
3/ I cannot tell you why you should change your life. Reasons why I changed mine are not necesseraly the same reasons that someone else in my church. Yours are not mines. I can only testify what I live (I did in some other comments). There is no reason why you should change your life. But when you want to, then God will be here to answer. Faith has nothing to do with arguments. We could speak for years. I could pray for you to see "the light". But nothing will happen until you say "well, let's dare it". It is difficult to express what I mean. Words are so limited regarding to ideas
That's fine because I'm not angry
I did not think you were
you do what you think is right and good for you
Thanks.
I'm quite happy with my position as it stands though, because it is consistent and it is safe.
I wanted to say the same, but in fact since the day I know God I would add it is more and more consistant & safer
GBY
Perhaps a rather cynical view is that praying opens you up to the possiblity god exists and thus carefully influences you into thinking more about this thus-far invisible god.
Why is it cynical ? This is plain right. When you pray sincerelly, you beggin to accept the possibility He exists. Exactly the same way that when you take the remote controller you implicitly accept it can remote control the TV set. If you have faith the remote control will do nothing, why would you try to take it ?
Then it means you have lots of faith. Faith in the non existence of God. None of my words can go against your faith. Only you is master of your faith. Even God does not want to interfere with your faith, whatever it is. But when you ask him to proove himself his existence, he will show you tidbits. You do whatever you want with them.
I wouldn't like to place a value on the worth of that view but if you can provide a reason why I should pray to your god rather than any of the other thousands of gods people worship across the world daily then I'd be glad to listen.
Here are some reasons.
1/ Because the Bible tells us God wants to be close with us. So why go to some god that is supposed (from the description in the religion) to be far from us ? Would you go to another continent to marry when the smattest, funniest, most beautifful girl is next door and she is found of you ? Let her and you have a chance.
2/ If he does not exists. No risk. But if he does. What will happen ?
3/ I cannot really provide a reason to pray anyone. I can only tell you what I live. Only you can tell what you live. And only you can live it. There is not easy answer. No magical word. You are responsible for your life.
Well I do not know what you prayed or what you expected.
:-) And they have been many. I cannot force this thruth (faith) in you. The same way God will not force it to you. But He will show you clues. Up to you to give it the meaning you want. But when you call it God it opens lots of things.
: :-)
As far as I am concerned I do not feel something special everyday when I pray. Someday it is even hard to pray and I think that it is stupid. Probably I am crazy to pray someone I cannot see. But I also remember events that happened and that I cannot assign to luck. Of course You can tell that is just luck. But we usually say 2 events are coincidency but 3 are not
I could explain what things he did for me. But it would be nothing for you. You would look at them as just my personnal interpretation of odd events.
But I can tell you who I was.
My heart was dry and I was lone. I was not opened to others and was full of lots of fears. I spent most of my time trying to avoid responsabilities. Since I reckoned God as my God, He really changed lots of things in me. In my personnality. I am opened to others, I beggin to take my responsabilities and I am more confident. God did not change all this in one day. And I needed to accept not to keep grasping my old way to react to life. I have to let him change my life. And everytime it is a new challenge. Life is not always more easy with God. Life is not always sweeter. But He is giving birth to the true personnality that was buried deep in me. And this is good to be who I really am. It is good to go to friends and show them I love them. It is good not to be afraid of showing my feelings. And not being scared of theirs.
You could say a psychanalyst could have done this. Can he go deep in my heart a show me really what my propblem is ? Can he show me who I really am ? Often I thought my problem was this or that. I asked God to remove this aspect of my life. He did not. Instead he showed me (during prayer/talk with him most of the times) the problem was somewhere else. But knowledge is not freedem. I invited him to take the place of my fears and anger. I did not force myself to act in a good way. I just decided to renounce the bad way. And with time God takes over and develops the good way in me.
I could convince myself
About self conviction. I did not look after god or religion. One day someone explained me what was in the Bible. And I reckoned it was true because I knew what I did was wrong. I accepted Jesus as the one who took my place
God created man to have a relationship with him. God settled limits. Man has gone beyond, separating himself from God. God gave is Word through messengers. He does not want to be strong and force himself to us. Instead he wants us to freely accept to follow his ruling. If you do not want to, he stays there, next to you but do not interfere since you decided you did not want him. He is very gentle, a real gentleman
At some point God came on earth in Jesus. He had a problem. On one side he loves us, he wants the relationship, he wants not to wipe us. But on the other side He cannot stand sin. And sins and sinners must be punished (like you punish your child when he continually does the opposite of what you told, like you punish someone that does not follow the law of the society). The punishment in this matter is (eternal) death. That is complete separation from God. So someone had to die for the sin. But because God loves us He went on earth. Jesus did everything God the Father told. There was no sin found in him. Then he accepted to die and take our sin and our sentence upon him. It is written Jesus was completly separated from God.
This is what is hell : the complete separation from God. It means Jesus (God) himself who was with God (the Father) from eternity accepted to be separated and to take the worst sentence ever. Even though He was innocent. Because of this if you accept Jesus did this for you, then God accepts to put it in front of your fault. For him if you accept the grace act you are free from the sentence.
That guy explained all this to me. And I accepted it, because I saw how wrong I was.
My experience is not yours however.
Zechariah 4.6 Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the LORD of hosts.
God rarely presents himself in fire and thunder, but more generally by conviction. But he waits for us to accept the possibility to be convicted of his existence.
I agree with you :-D
God can appear to you at any point he wants. But do you want ? He respects you and do not want to force himself to you. So he waits for you to do the second step. He did the first by sending people to you to explain this, he gave the Bible and sacrificed himself for our sins to be erased.
The prayer is nothing more than just talking and telling and thinking : "ok if you really exists proove it and I am ready to react according to this". Do you dare ?
it'd be great if there was an all-loving god as depicted in the Bible but just because it'd be nice doesn't make it true.
Again you are right.
But not trying to get in touch with him will never let show you it is true (or not).
How can you tell the remote controller can switch the TV on ? Because you tested it and it worked. But what you say is a bit like saying "well that would be nice if I could control the TV from my sofa but the coolness of the idea does not make it true". Yes the assertion is true. But unless you test the remote controller you cannot be sure it is true or not.
There is a whole lot of things to tell about this. But I will keep it short.
;-)
In the book of Exodus, God freed his people, he showed himself directly and did extraordinary things. And the people just did the opposite of what he commanded.
1 And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of the mount, the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said unto him, Up, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him.
8 They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them: they have made them a molten calf, and have worshipped it, and have sacrificed thereunto, and said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which have brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.
At some point limits had to be set.
But God also did not renounce to his words. He said he would give the country to Abraham's descendants and He did so.
34 Therefore now go, lead the people unto the place of which I have spoken unto thee: behold, mine Angel shall go before thee: nevertheless in the day when I visit I will visit their sin upon them.
The last bit anounces Jesus to come to clean our sins. That way we can stand before God without being under the condamnation of our faults that have been erased, because Jesus died instead of us.
Another thing to help you understand. When one of your member (your foot for instance) gets corrupted. If physicians cannot save it and it dies. Would you prefer to keep your foot and die because of it or would you prefer them to cut it ? God was not joyfull to get rid of the (bad) part of Israel. But He had to do so in order to save the rest who were not (yet ?) corrupted.
You will see all this when you read the rest of the book. As usual, it is dangerous and unfair to argue only on a few sentences.
Good reading.
Before Jesus came on earth and gave his life for us, the whole humanity was under the gouvernment of the Law : God cannot stand sin and someone found guilty must be condemned. But even during the Old Testament God proved to be reluctant to sentence judgement. He pusponed or cancelled many judgements. But at some point it was too much. When you have a child you can choose not to punish him as soon as he does a bad/evil thing. You can choose the path of love and compassion. But at some point you have to punish. Because you are the parent and you must set limits. When parents punish kids and forbid them to see their friend, are parent evil ? Would you say they do not love their children ?
As a parent you adapt the punishion to what was done. The exemple you presented was *very* severe because God was giving his words to Moses while many Jewish were worshipping a golden calf. He was just giving the first comandment not to worship another god...
For the "joyfull relationship", if someone you saved the life betrayed you in return the next day, would you be happy ? If you answer "yes" then I advise you some counselling (or prozac
the gospel tells Jesus is the Word of God. So he is the messenger and the message :-)
;-p
and why worshipping Jesus ? Because he is God born from a woman (not from a man and a woman). Mary was inseminated by the Holy Spirit 2000 years before Dolly, and people say the Bible is full of impossible stories ? Science itself proove a woman can infant by insemination... so why not the rest of the story ?
For the existence of Jesus as someone who walked on earth and was a jewish leader, even atheist historicians agree he is a historical character (not a fictionous).
When historians work on characters who lived thousands years ago they sometime have fewer sources than the books of the bible, and it is generally enough. So why should we be more critical with religious matters ?
If you are sick and tired, why you you spend so much time reading comments that deep in the thread ?
How do you know eating a breakfast is good and healthy ? Because from day 1 you ate. So there must be a day 1. Therefore to take your own phrase "apply the same rigour to something even *more* fundemental than that" :-)) Obviously you do not have "past evidence" that god exists and can answer to you. But if you never try to talk to him, how can you know ?
If during all your life you never prepared any lunch, how can you know that's easy or not to cook pasta ? If you never tasted oisters how can you tell you do not like the taste ?
The main problem is that we just accept easily things that were told during childhood. But it gets harder with age. Our intelligence make a wall. When you are young to just eat (sometime nasty things). When you are older you try to know things without putting you at risk.
If I give you a phonenumber and tell you the guy there is nice and can even help you. In order to know whether I tell you the truth or not you have to give him a call.
You can argue with me you don't know him yet so you won't phone him. You may think that's crap and the guy cannot or do not want to help you. But do not tell me he does not exist. Because you do not want to talk to him does not imply he does not exist. And it does not mean he does not want to get in touch with you.
More than one century ago you might even thought that the black device (the phone) does nothing and it is stupid to talk into it since everyone just knows by experience that there only exist one way to speak to someone : being in the same place.
Well, nowadays you can call anyone even without any cable connexion, with your mobilephone. How do you know it works ? Because you tested it once. Because someone told you (presumably your parents) that it is natural to speak in the device. So you tried it. And it worked. When you were young you did not want to proove things could work before you try to operate them. You just grabed it and experienced it. This is why you experienced the phone. You were too youg to ask you questions. This is why right now you can tell this is a natural thing.
But imagine going back in 1800 and talking to someone there about what you can do in 2000s. How will he react ? I suppose he will dismiss your talk, and probably consider you are insane. But when he experiments the 2000s devices, his grasp on the world is forever changed. What he once believed is nothing in front of what now stands in from of him. He may decide to continue as before because it is too hard to put aside his whole life and to change everything. Or he may decide to change his life.
So what evidence can proove God exists ? Well not my testimanial, but your own. Just ask him to show you if he exists. If he really exists, he can show himself. Probably not with fire and thunder. Maybe not by plain illumination. But by his actions. Just ask Jesus to act in some way that is not contradictary with his nature and he will do so.
By "not contradictary with his nature" I mean he will probably not give you millions or kill all your enemies. He will probably not make trees fly. But if you are in trouble with people against you He will surely act so that the situation changes in your favor. Why ? Just because 2000 years ago Jesus gave his life for my sins and for yours to be cancelled in front of God the Father. Because sins are cancelled nothing stands between you and god but your own decision not to meet him. And if Jesus gave his life for your sins to be erased, don't you thing he will manifest himself if you ask him for help ? His sacrifice beeing to clean the path between you and god, don't you think he can do just a small thing that can help you believe in him ?
Imagine Lary Wall (put the famous name you want here) tells you he is ready to meet you if you need any help. Would you tell that it is false just because no famous guy offered this to you ? Sad because lots of famous guys are easily reached everday on newsgroups (for the least). And the fact that you never did this (or maybe you did ?) does not change the truth. You just have to try to know.
Ironically, in some languages (aka French for sure) "to believe" commonly means "I think but I am not sure", there is doubt. However, for a believer from any religion, "to believe" means much more than "to be convinced". A believer is completly convinced (or he is supposed to be ;-), this is faith.
;-)
:-)
Well, starting from the "religious" definition here is my comment.
I'm making a distinction between beliefs and (...) thinks
Right, there is a difference between these 2.
I may think the girl next door loves me.
I may believe / I have faith she loves me.
"belief" is related to thought (think), but it is much deeper. If I think she loves me, this is a possibility. I will probably try to prove it.
But when I believe she loves me (in a way a believer "believes") then I am convinced she loves me. Generally this is based upon some proof (she told me or lots of facts show me her affection).
The same goes with your familly.
Do you "think" or do you "believe" people close to you love you ?
How do you know this ? (remember "belief" is faith so it is conviction that is subjective knowledge).
You probably know it from experience, your own personnal one.
As far as I am concerned, I have never actively looked for God. Until He found me. Someone just explained to me what Jesus did and what were the consequences of my acts. I did not actively looked for God, but I accepted to listen to that person. I realised how crap/nasty was my life and how deep was Jesus' love. I just could not do otherwise than accept it. Why ? Just because God told me. Not with words in my head, but with conviction in my heart. The guy himself did nothing but tell me what is in the Bible. Then I had to decide whether I wanted to continue my way or to try to live with Him. I decided to stop doing stupid things and to try to follow the path Jesus showed in the Gospel. I invited Jesus in my life.
So here comes from belief / faith : From the deepest part of your heart. Not from the mind.
If you really want to know whether He does not exist, just do as you would with anyone you never saw. Ask him to proove his existence to you. If he exists he will show you, if he does not exists you have no risk, He will never answer you.
This is slighly like the SETI program. Lots of people believe ETs exists, so they scan the sky. It they exist and do not try to obfuscate traces of their existence, then we must find some proove someday. This is good reasonning. Therefore why not doing the same with God ? The Bible tell us God want to be known by us, but the books also say He is reluctant to force himself to us. He waits for you to invite Him in your heart & life. When He will show himself to the whole earth there will be no more place for free acceptance. Do you doubt in the existence of the sun ? Well the Revelation book (the Apocalypse) tell us that the day He will reveal himself to anyone, this will be Jugdment Day. And it will be too late the book states.
So the question is not is there an Entity somewhere ? Is it convenient to believe in something or something else ?
The big question is how to know if He exists ?
And the Bible answers : "Ask God to proove His existence to you." Noone can proove it to you. Noone can live your life. Noone can go deep inside the kernel of your heart but the best Hacker even who created the best AI (Astonishing Intelligence) ever
When someone talk to me about his friend, I can invent many reasons why not to meet her, but if I really want to know whether she is so nice I have to see her. Any excuse just really mean I do not want to meet her.
Therefore if you do not want to ask God the Big question about his existence, just tell others you do not to know God, and do not answer anything else. It would be a lie.
But take your responsability in case He really exists... Because He will do the same with you as you did with Him : when He will reveal himself he won't want to meet you...
Who takes the bargain ? Do you just think or believe ? Have a nice day and GBY
What's great when you buy a product from a closed software company is you have a roadmap. The software will not disappear. Well that is what MS said once compared to OSS.
When the company closes -> you loose everything.
When the company wants to push a new version -> you have no choice (this is more drastic when you are a big company and you need documents compatibility or standard procedures).
Yes it is very safe & cost effective to buy closed software... Does it count into your total cost of ownership Mr Gates ?
Great ! Maybe some day one will be able to sue Microsoft because someone used one of its OS in order to crack another system.
But isn't it too dumb ?