Regardless, say someone followed in the footsteps of Jesus, helped the poor, shed material desire, accepted the rejected and so on, but rejected His claims of deity. I think a just God wouldn't damn such a person for their disbelief because in the context of the rest of their life, they did much good according to Christian guidelines.
Here, you grossly misunderstand Christian dogma. All have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God. (Romans 3:23) Only through Jesus' blood is it possible to gain redemption in God's eyes. "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life." (John 3:16) If you have not accepted Christ as your personal saviour, you are damned. Through Christ we are given our only opportunity to reconcile with God. He said "I am the way and the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me." (John 14:6) No other has made a case as convincingly either for Godhood or for morality, and no other claims to be the only source to God's salvation. Here is Paul's explanation of this theology in its proper context.
Indeed, Christ is very much the example of God. Some people argue (somewhat convincingly) that Jesus did not exist, although the weight of the evidence falls heavily on the side of His existence. If nothing else, it is possible to twist facts enough to deny Him. The only record we have of Him is through those who loved Him, and everything that has come into contact with His influence has been altered.
It is not by deeds that we are saved, as it is not possible to live up to God's perfect standard and achieve salvation by works. Our only hope is redemption, which is brought about by God the Father, through the sacrifice of God the Son (who was sacrificed to show the depth of His love), and revealed to us through God the Holy Spirit. We conceptualize these elements of God's nature as individuals to better explain the ways in which He works, and this is the essence of Trinity doctrine. This doctrine of redemption is the only doctrine that can make sense. If we are all His creation, it is obvious from experience that some are created more capable of performing good deeds than others. What sense does works-based salvation have, then? God would be creating people unequally, and essentially condemning some at their very creation. Christ was the great equalizer, and indeed, He teaches that all qualify for salvation, no matter how low a social rank one has, no matter how sinful one's past life was, no matter how short a time one has left, and no matter how capable of ethical conduct one is. I have personally found faith invaluable in increasing my own ethical conduct, and God promises the same to you. You need only to hear the good news of Christ's life and accept it.
Whether the Bible is or is not entirely accurate is irrelevant. It succeeds in communicating the fundamentals of Jesus' life and the path for reconciliation with God. It is left to you to accept it, and it is indeed that simple. Believe that Christ was God sent to redeem mankind and turn from unethical conduct and you are a Christian! Christ makes it simple; even if you hold to only the Golden Rule you are in agreement with most of Christ's teaching. However, Christ's teaching is without flaw, insofar as it is accurately reproduced by the authors of the four Gospels. The Old Testament and the rest of the New Testament require some interpretation to understand accurately.
If I can convince you to read just one book of the Bible (and I've read it in about an hour before), then I recommend the Gospel of John. It is both deep and direct, and holds up to even the most intensive (internal) analysis. There is one confusing element: The author refers to himself as "the beloved disciple"; the person referred to as "John" is John the Baptist, who is a different person. Nonetheless, it is an excellent exposition of Christ's life, teaching, and deeds.
Heh. Again, the modifier used depends greatly on perspective. In my non-internet life (ie. my experience), "most" is accurate. In my internet life, "many" is accurate. If my overgeneralization was offensive, well, I apologize. It was a matter of perspective, and I realize now that the genericity of my response may not hold.
What you describe does not work the way you seem to think it does. God does not acknowledge acts of human morality. We are all imperfect, and therefore we all fail to meet his extraordinarily exacting standards. He instructs us to give to others until we have nothing, and survive on His grace alone, or at least, that can be implied from the logical extension of some of his teaching. No Christian I know meets that standard, and I certainly don't. Yet, through Bible study, prayer, and devotion, I am slowly improving. The only way we can ever be made right in his eyes is through the one man who lived without flaw, God incarnate, Jesus Christ.
The theological answer is that salvation is limited to those with faith in an infinitely just, infinitely wise, and infinitely loving God. Christ's sacrifice is the atonement that extended the Jewish faith to non-Jews. His request is that you obey his commands, all of which improve the quality of your existence.
I ask you sincerely, which is the life more lived? One filled with a belief in a God of love, or one filled with so many (mostly negative) reasons to deny God that he could "easily fill a book"? I do not mean to offend, I mean only to give my perspective through a question. Your comments are appreciated.
It so happens that the people who write these expositions tend to make a living doing so. Try reading. Not everything is online. As for a quick explanation of the two (and this is quite cursory, and potentially inaccurate to some degree), God hates sin. During the Israelites' return to their promised land, God ordered them to leave nothing of the old (and highly sinful) pagan (not Wiccan, Wicca has nothing in common with ancient pagan culture) culture behind, lest the Israelites integrate it into their culture. The Tower of Babel was one of humanity's repeated arrogant attempts to make themselves like God. The only hope we have to overcome God's hatred of sin, as we all sin, is either through Abrahamic covenant (as the Israelites did) or through the shed blood of Jesus Christ.
Now, we've touched on several other matters which are also difficult to elaborate upon, especially for people who have as many preconcieved notions as most internetters, such as sin, the place of war in religion, God's judgement, God's perfection, and whatnot.
I did not provide you with no information. I gave you a reference to a book which explains the Christian God in thorough detail. However, anything less than a full book on the topic is a gross oversimplification. It's like answering the question: "How to I program a Windows computer to output sound?". Generally, you can reply "through the waveOut API", but that doesn't explain much. Similarly, my explanation is but a simple gloss of the matter.
I'm not saying yours was. I'm saying many are. Especially, there are many sites preaching agnosticism and atheism online, using straw-man versions of Christianity to try and "disprove" it.
You're welcome to your opinion, but criticizing religion by using its own text does not work, especially when you're dealing with a text that is as analyzed as the Bible. If you're going to involve the Bible in your rationalization for why you don't believe in Bible-based religion, you must consider the existing analyses in your study. This is the behaviour I am objecting to.
I am curious about the reasons you object to Abrahamic faith, though you only need explain if you desire to. I personally promise to remain civil.
Your position is only defensible if you are ignorant of Christian theology. The loving, forgiving God of the Old Testament is also the vindictive, judgemental God of the New Testament. Yes, I double-checked that last sentence.
There are a great many detailed theological expositions explaining God, using material from both testaments. These two different "Gods" you speak of are no more than straw men. The God of the Old and New Testaments are identical by every single Christian theology that I've ever seen. Just because you do not understand does not make your position valid.
I cannot possibly hope to recapitulate the material these expositions contain, but suffice to say, your position is only held by agnostics and atheists who are looking to convince themselves that the Christian God is bogus.
Like it or not, the Catholic religion is a denomination of the Christian faith, and drafts of Lewis' book were sent to leaders from several different denominations including the Roman Catholics, and received general approval from all.
Some even claim that the Roman Catholic Church is the only true church, as they trace their origins back directly to the early Christian church. I believe this may be a touch misleading, but it is quite undeniable that they are Christian. They adhere to the Nicene Creed.
I don't agree with everything they do and I personally consider a lot of their theology to be very suspect, but that doesn't negate their validity.
You grossly misunderstand the Christian faith. It is far from as simple as most agnostics claim it to be, and indeed, most agnostic beliefs are based on straw-man versions of religion. Christianity is phenomenally complex. Not only is the Bible a huge data set, it is also a thoroughly meaningful data set, and one that requires knowledge of both ancient Hebrew culture and two thousand year old Roman culture to properly meaningfully interpret in some instances. People spend their entire lives studying it and are still surprised by things contained within it.
How much research have you done, and from which sources? If you'd like a brief, straightforward, non-denominational primer on Christian beliefs, try Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis. Don't go calling God petty and hateful just because you misunderstand Him.
Not quite. Netscape was free from the outset. The problem was that Microsoft was using its monopoly on operating systems to also move into the browser market.
You've got it all wrong. I reboot when I install an update that actually pertains to security in a real way. Most don't, or are of very marginal use.
I was hit by msblast, yes. It was also gone fifteen minutes after I got that 60 second error.
What I'm saying is simple: Running as non-admin users is not necessarily the "optimal solution". If you're technically competent, running as admin has very few negatives. Running without firewalls simplifies the port insanity that firewalls bring, and allows software to work with fewer headaches. UPnP is a nice step towards eliminating port insanity. Finally, I've yet to find an antivirus software that wasn't a pain.
In a nutshell, know what your updates do and understand the security holes in Windows. If you do, you don't need to bother introducing potential glitchiness by using limited accounts. I'm aware this is very contrary to how most Linux users think, which is likely why I was moderated down.
My technique speaks for itself; I've fewer than 24 hours of downtime (probably more around 10ish) on my main machine in the last year, and this is without any configuration optimizing it as a server.
I run Win XP as admin, usually without firewalls or antivirus. The only thing I've ever been hit by is msblast.exe, and I have record uptimes of over a month on my main (ie. constantly-used) box. Yes, those long stretches were achieved by not rebooting after updating, yet I'm still fine.
The problem is that most users are clueless morons. You don't need to be anally-retentive about security to be secure, just not stupid.
Wikipedia is competitively accurate when compared to other encyclopedias, according to repeated studies. What's more, often articles have citations that can be researched more and links to further information. Just because you're an anti-Wikipedia troll doesn't mean that Wikipedia is not a valid source of information nor does it invalidate what information is there. There is no universally good quality information source, perhaps short of reading peer-reviewed scientific journals, and even those occasionally have mistakes. Wikipedia's the best thing the internet has right now.
This is no big problem, really, as the data that would otherwise be contained in the Wikipedia page are instead merely linked to in the discussion for the censored article. The information is still available, just not as publically as before.
Ehm, no. This situation bears zero resemblance to Betamax vs. VHS. There are players announced that will play back both HD-DVD and Blu-ray. Betamax and VHS were totally incompatible. Whichever loses (even if neither does), we all win.
Cornell acting President Hunter Rawlings, in his state of the university address last week, spoke about the challenge to science represented by intelligent design which holds that the theory of evolution accepted by the vast majority of scientists is fatally flawed.
Intelligent design does not hold that the theory of evolution is fatally flawed. Instead, it holds that there are some situations in evolutionary history that seem more likely when considered as an act of creation. It doesn't say that evolution didn't happen, but rather that it's pretty unlikely that it could have. Popular examples include the cilium, the flagellum, the Cambrian Explosion, the first living organism, and so on.
As a personal proponent of ID, it's my opinion that although it's possible these things could have evolved, it seems more sensible to attribute them elsewhere as they bear attributes that are better explained by an act of creation rather than an act of chance. Furthermore, it is dependent on evolutionary theory to give it structure and allow for sensible interpretation. Twisting ID to imply that evolution is bunk is complete nonsense. ID depends on evolutionary theory.
The modern evangelical church, however, has picked up the concept and twisted it beyond all belief. I have a great dislike of the modern evangelical church. I don't believe in proselytizing, much less attempting to force my beliefs on others, and the Church seems much too inclined to do both.
In other words, don't blame Intelligent Design because some Christians are utter morons and twist it to imply something it does not.
As well, ID is a means of bolstering one's faith. It's not something you can use to convince other people that God exists. You can only show that God exists through your actions.
As someone else noted, SNES emulation is far from perfect. Perfection doesn't seem to be the goal of the ZSNES/SNES9x devs. Want perfection? Check out Meka or Kega Fusion, which emulate the Sega Master System/Game Gear and Sega Genesis, respectively. These two emus are coded expressly with the purpose of providing perfect emulation. The number of carts that don't work perfectly with Meka can be counted on one hand.
Slashdot Mirror
Here, you grossly misunderstand Christian dogma. All have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God. (Romans 3:23) Only through Jesus' blood is it possible to gain redemption in God's eyes. "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life." (John 3:16) If you have not accepted Christ as your personal saviour, you are damned. Through Christ we are given our only opportunity to reconcile with God. He said "I am the way and the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me." (John 14:6) No other has made a case as convincingly either for Godhood or for morality, and no other claims to be the only source to God's salvation. Here is Paul's explanation of this theology in its proper context.
Indeed, Christ is very much the example of God. Some people argue (somewhat convincingly) that Jesus did not exist, although the weight of the evidence falls heavily on the side of His existence. If nothing else, it is possible to twist facts enough to deny Him. The only record we have of Him is through those who loved Him, and everything that has come into contact with His influence has been altered.
It is not by deeds that we are saved, as it is not possible to live up to God's perfect standard and achieve salvation by works. Our only hope is redemption, which is brought about by God the Father, through the sacrifice of God the Son (who was sacrificed to show the depth of His love), and revealed to us through God the Holy Spirit. We conceptualize these elements of God's nature as individuals to better explain the ways in which He works, and this is the essence of Trinity doctrine. This doctrine of redemption is the only doctrine that can make sense. If we are all His creation, it is obvious from experience that some are created more capable of performing good deeds than others. What sense does works-based salvation have, then? God would be creating people unequally, and essentially condemning some at their very creation. Christ was the great equalizer, and indeed, He teaches that all qualify for salvation, no matter how low a social rank one has, no matter how sinful one's past life was, no matter how short a time one has left, and no matter how capable of ethical conduct one is. I have personally found faith invaluable in increasing my own ethical conduct, and God promises the same to you. You need only to hear the good news of Christ's life and accept it.
Whether the Bible is or is not entirely accurate is irrelevant. It succeeds in communicating the fundamentals of Jesus' life and the path for reconciliation with God. It is left to you to accept it, and it is indeed that simple. Believe that Christ was God sent to redeem mankind and turn from unethical conduct and you are a Christian! Christ makes it simple; even if you hold to only the Golden Rule you are in agreement with most of Christ's teaching. However, Christ's teaching is without flaw, insofar as it is accurately reproduced by the authors of the four Gospels. The Old Testament and the rest of the New Testament require some interpretation to understand accurately.
If I can convince you to read just one book of the Bible (and I've read it in about an hour before), then I recommend the Gospel of John. It is both deep and direct, and holds up to even the most intensive (internal) analysis. There is one confusing element: The author refers to himself as "the beloved disciple"; the person referred to as "John" is John the Baptist, who is a different person. Nonetheless, it is an excellent exposition of Christ's life, teaching, and deeds.
Heh. Again, the modifier used depends greatly on perspective. In my non-internet life (ie. my experience), "most" is accurate. In my internet life, "many" is accurate. If my overgeneralization was offensive, well, I apologize. It was a matter of perspective, and I realize now that the genericity of my response may not hold.
What you describe does not work the way you seem to think it does. God does not acknowledge acts of human morality. We are all imperfect, and therefore we all fail to meet his extraordinarily exacting standards. He instructs us to give to others until we have nothing, and survive on His grace alone, or at least, that can be implied from the logical extension of some of his teaching. No Christian I know meets that standard, and I certainly don't. Yet, through Bible study, prayer, and devotion, I am slowly improving. The only way we can ever be made right in his eyes is through the one man who lived without flaw, God incarnate, Jesus Christ.
The theological answer is that salvation is limited to those with faith in an infinitely just, infinitely wise, and infinitely loving God. Christ's sacrifice is the atonement that extended the Jewish faith to non-Jews. His request is that you obey his commands, all of which improve the quality of your existence.
I ask you sincerely, which is the life more lived? One filled with a belief in a God of love, or one filled with so many (mostly negative) reasons to deny God that he could "easily fill a book"? I do not mean to offend, I mean only to give my perspective through a question. Your comments are appreciated.
Yeah, it was in a comment in a different branch of the discussion. Sorry, I assumed people generally at least scan over related comments.
I don't assume it for no reason. I assume it because experience has shown it to be often true.
Haha, so true. This is why I don't play WoW any more.
Hm, it seems I referenced CS Lewis' Mere Christianity in a different thread. Mea culpa.
Anyhow, there it is.
It so happens that the people who write these expositions tend to make a living doing so. Try reading. Not everything is online. As for a quick explanation of the two (and this is quite cursory, and potentially inaccurate to some degree), God hates sin. During the Israelites' return to their promised land, God ordered them to leave nothing of the old (and highly sinful) pagan (not Wiccan, Wicca has nothing in common with ancient pagan culture) culture behind, lest the Israelites integrate it into their culture. The Tower of Babel was one of humanity's repeated arrogant attempts to make themselves like God. The only hope we have to overcome God's hatred of sin, as we all sin, is either through Abrahamic covenant (as the Israelites did) or through the shed blood of Jesus Christ.
Now, we've touched on several other matters which are also difficult to elaborate upon, especially for people who have as many preconcieved notions as most internetters, such as sin, the place of war in religion, God's judgement, God's perfection, and whatnot.
I did not provide you with no information. I gave you a reference to a book which explains the Christian God in thorough detail. However, anything less than a full book on the topic is a gross oversimplification. It's like answering the question: "How to I program a Windows computer to output sound?". Generally, you can reply "through the waveOut API", but that doesn't explain much. Similarly, my explanation is but a simple gloss of the matter.
I'm not saying yours was. I'm saying many are. Especially, there are many sites preaching agnosticism and atheism online, using straw-man versions of Christianity to try and "disprove" it.
You're welcome to your opinion, but criticizing religion by using its own text does not work, especially when you're dealing with a text that is as analyzed as the Bible. If you're going to involve the Bible in your rationalization for why you don't believe in Bible-based religion, you must consider the existing analyses in your study. This is the behaviour I am objecting to.
I am curious about the reasons you object to Abrahamic faith, though you only need explain if you desire to. I personally promise to remain civil.
Ah. Agreed then. I perceived the != operator to be commutative. ^_^
Your position is only defensible if you are ignorant of Christian theology. The loving, forgiving God of the Old Testament is also the vindictive, judgemental God of the New Testament. Yes, I double-checked that last sentence.
There are a great many detailed theological expositions explaining God, using material from both testaments. These two different "Gods" you speak of are no more than straw men. The God of the Old and New Testaments are identical by every single Christian theology that I've ever seen. Just because you do not understand does not make your position valid.
I cannot possibly hope to recapitulate the material these expositions contain, but suffice to say, your position is only held by agnostics and atheists who are looking to convince themselves that the Christian God is bogus.
Like it or not, the Catholic religion is a denomination of the Christian faith, and drafts of Lewis' book were sent to leaders from several different denominations including the Roman Catholics, and received general approval from all.
Some even claim that the Roman Catholic Church is the only true church, as they trace their origins back directly to the early Christian church. I believe this may be a touch misleading, but it is quite undeniable that they are Christian. They adhere to the Nicene Creed.
I don't agree with everything they do and I personally consider a lot of their theology to be very suspect, but that doesn't negate their validity.
You grossly misunderstand the Christian faith. It is far from as simple as most agnostics claim it to be, and indeed, most agnostic beliefs are based on straw-man versions of religion. Christianity is phenomenally complex. Not only is the Bible a huge data set, it is also a thoroughly meaningful data set, and one that requires knowledge of both ancient Hebrew culture and two thousand year old Roman culture to properly meaningfully interpret in some instances. People spend their entire lives studying it and are still surprised by things contained within it.
How much research have you done, and from which sources? If you'd like a brief, straightforward, non-denominational primer on Christian beliefs, try Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis. Don't go calling God petty and hateful just because you misunderstand Him.
Not quite. Netscape was free from the outset. The problem was that Microsoft was using its monopoly on operating systems to also move into the browser market.
You've got it all wrong. I reboot when I install an update that actually pertains to security in a real way. Most don't, or are of very marginal use.
I was hit by msblast, yes. It was also gone fifteen minutes after I got that 60 second error.
What I'm saying is simple: Running as non-admin users is not necessarily the "optimal solution". If you're technically competent, running as admin has very few negatives. Running without firewalls simplifies the port insanity that firewalls bring, and allows software to work with fewer headaches. UPnP is a nice step towards eliminating port insanity. Finally, I've yet to find an antivirus software that wasn't a pain.
In a nutshell, know what your updates do and understand the security holes in Windows. If you do, you don't need to bother introducing potential glitchiness by using limited accounts. I'm aware this is very contrary to how most Linux users think, which is likely why I was moderated down.
My technique speaks for itself; I've fewer than 24 hours of downtime (probably more around 10ish) on my main machine in the last year, and this is without any configuration optimizing it as a server.
I run Win XP as admin, usually without firewalls or antivirus. The only thing I've ever been hit by is msblast.exe, and I have record uptimes of over a month on my main (ie. constantly-used) box. Yes, those long stretches were achieved by not rebooting after updating, yet I'm still fine.
The problem is that most users are clueless morons. You don't need to be anally-retentive about security to be secure, just not stupid.
Wikipedia is competitively accurate when compared to other encyclopedias, according to repeated studies. What's more, often articles have citations that can be researched more and links to further information. Just because you're an anti-Wikipedia troll doesn't mean that Wikipedia is not a valid source of information nor does it invalidate what information is there. There is no universally good quality information source, perhaps short of reading peer-reviewed scientific journals, and even those occasionally have mistakes. Wikipedia's the best thing the internet has right now.
This is no big problem, really, as the data that would otherwise be contained in the Wikipedia page are instead merely linked to in the discussion for the censored article. The information is still available, just not as publically as before.
Ehm, no. This situation bears zero resemblance to Betamax vs. VHS. There are players announced that will play back both HD-DVD and Blu-ray. Betamax and VHS were totally incompatible. Whichever loses (even if neither does), we all win.
Intelligent design does not hold that the theory of evolution is fatally flawed. Instead, it holds that there are some situations in evolutionary history that seem more likely when considered as an act of creation. It doesn't say that evolution didn't happen, but rather that it's pretty unlikely that it could have. Popular examples include the cilium, the flagellum, the Cambrian Explosion, the first living organism, and so on.
As a personal proponent of ID, it's my opinion that although it's possible these things could have evolved, it seems more sensible to attribute them elsewhere as they bear attributes that are better explained by an act of creation rather than an act of chance. Furthermore, it is dependent on evolutionary theory to give it structure and allow for sensible interpretation. Twisting ID to imply that evolution is bunk is complete nonsense. ID depends on evolutionary theory.
The modern evangelical church, however, has picked up the concept and twisted it beyond all belief. I have a great dislike of the modern evangelical church. I don't believe in proselytizing, much less attempting to force my beliefs on others, and the Church seems much too inclined to do both.
In other words, don't blame Intelligent Design because some Christians are utter morons and twist it to imply something it does not.
As well, ID is a means of bolstering one's faith. It's not something you can use to convince other people that God exists. You can only show that God exists through your actions.
This means 4chan's in even more trouble...
Because I love recursion, here's a link to the Hydrogenaudio post discussing this comment.
If it was conducting electricity though, wouldn't it likely also be acting as a bit of a hydrolysis apparatus too, and releasing oxygen and hydrogen?
wasn't really a streak, it was more of a zerg rush.
As someone else noted, SNES emulation is far from perfect. Perfection doesn't seem to be the goal of the ZSNES/SNES9x devs. Want perfection? Check out Meka or Kega Fusion, which emulate the Sega Master System/Game Gear and Sega Genesis, respectively. These two emus are coded expressly with the purpose of providing perfect emulation. The number of carts that don't work perfectly with Meka can be counted on one hand.
Considering that even fluid dynamics has a hard time making water behave in a way that looks realistic, why is this surprising?