Merry Christmas,

Anyone quoting the New York Times and BBC is to be completely dismissed. How many reporters there have been fired for false reporting? Can you spell B I A S E D sources?????

Larry Blanchard wrote:

Well, almost :-). It's usually attributed to Stephen Hawking (hope I got the name right), but it actually originated with author Terry Pratchett. He invented "Discworld", a flat disc supported on the backs of 4 giant elephants. The elephants are standing on the back of a giant turtle. From there "it's turtles, all the way down."

And if none of you have ever read a Terry Pratchett book, start out with one called "The Last Hero" - Terry finally found an artist with the same strange sense of humor. You won't get all the jokes as some refer to earlier books, but the illustrations and the text will give you a good idea of Terry's wry humor. The picture of Death stroking his pet kitten is alone worth the price of the book :-).

Now I KNOW you're either a troll or severely mentally handicapped. In either case, you're a lost cause, so I'm going to quit wasting group space responding to you. Back to model railroading folks.

It is you who are mentally handicapped. I love the people who are brain washed like you who think the New York Times is somehow to be used as a source of information. Of course they are a biased source of 'news' and it that is all you read you are ignorant of half the world.

So when you go down further to see your turtles will go there with little facts if that is your source of news.

Larry Blanchard wrote:

Yep. I think he asked her what the turtle was standing on, or something like that. A question that should be asked early and often of all theological and cosmological purveyors of "truth" (preachers and physicists both). Where did the "Big Bang" happen? Where is the universe expanding TO? Just who is this God fella anyway, and where did he come from?

While physicists are at least open to their models being questioned, the ayatollahoids tend to damn you to hell for even asking.

Look out for the edge!

Jerry posted:

Hello Jerry and thank you for a well written response. I accept the challenge. Curt may have tossed a grain of sand into the wormgear but we should remember it takes at least 2 to stretch a thread. :)

I don't know if the other religions you mentioned would enjoy it or not, but what I would term liberal activists use those groups as a tool to push and enforce into our society their own anti-Christian agendas. I will defend this statement for now by simply asking you to consider the changes that have occurred in our culture over, say the last 3 decades, and who exactly were the instigators of those changes.

Yes, there are differences within Christian sects but aside from those between Protestant and Catholic and certain cult offshoots, they not to the degree or importance you suggest. It's the other religions where the conflict lies, religions which except for Native American beliefs had no part in the foundations of this country, and even these religions have only become an issue in the last couple decades. Our "history" made us strong by taking diversity and combining it into one nation and roughly one similar moral faith-based belief system. It is the acts of modern liberalism which has done the opposite and divided our nation, using "diversity" in an attempt to alter it's entire culture to conform to a more global, one world order mentality in which America's heritage and traditions, steeped in Christianity, are slowly eliminated and replaced with foreign cultures, religions, practices, and ideology. If it continues, America will no longer have an identity at all.

Surely the Founders made allowances for other beliefs to exist within America, but there is no evidence to suggest they intended these to ever be allowed to replace the Biblical beliefs we were structured on.

I disagree; your definition of the greeting as merely one of "hope for joy" is only such if you redefine the greeting from it's original and traditional meaning. When I give that greeting, a testimony is exactly what the intent is. If someone is offended because of what I believe, that is their problem. Do other faiths have consideration for the feelings of a Christian? Not much I'd say. Not only do they want us to be "aware" of them, but they would prefer we set our beliefs aside to make room for theirs. The liberal creation of political correctness has set this up so that it is always Christianity which must back down and conform to other religions, and I don't understand why this double standard is accepted by so many people, even within Christianity itself.

On the subject of Curt I will give you the benefit of the doubt in your assessment. I haven't studied all his posts but only judged by the few I read in this thread. Harm can be done deliberately or through ignorance and I'm not sure from which Curt originates.

There was one last subject in this thread; that of effectiveness of prayer which I assume was being used as an example of evidence of there being a God. I don't know which studies were bogus and which were not. I do know that there are documented cases of miraculous unexplained (medically) healings nearly every year that most often involve prayer. For what that is worth.

If anyone here would be sincerely interested in seeing Divine intervention through historical examples concerning America's formation, I would highly recommend reading a 2006 book entitled "Mayflower" by Nathaniel Philbrick. Let me say upfront that this is not a "religious" book or one designed to put a spin on history one way or the other but a fair, truthful account of the Pilgrims arrival and the 2nd generation war that followed in the New England area based on recorded accounts from numerous historical sources (Christian and not) as well as accounts by Native Americans of the time. Although it is not the intent, Philbrick does not censor out events that can only be described as the hand of Providence at work time after time in this period of history. I have read similar accounts from other sources during the Revolutionary War and it becomes difficult to argue when all are taken into account that something greater than chance and coincidence played a part in so many events.

I was hesitant at first to read this, fearing it would tear down all the stories we have been traditionally taught on the subject. Indeed not a few myths are put to rest and Philbrick does not refrain from detailing mistakes and misdeeds made by the colonists (as well as the Indians), but the full story is so much better and beyond what is commonly taught (parts of it are actually on the level of an action/adventure story if you can believe that). If all the current information was removed from school textbooks about the Pilgrims and replaced with a reading of Mayflower, I would have no problem with it.

Sorry for the length of this post. I was in the mood.:) ~Brad

Steve Caple spake thus:

Edward Abbey used to refer to him/it as the "gaseous vertebrate".

snipped-for-privacy@aim.com spake thus:

You're right; I think /The Watchtower/ is a *much* more believable, unbiased source of news.

Yep. Or at least on the back of A turtle; when asked what the turtls stood on, she came up with "turtles all the way down". People of credulity - er, uh, excuse me, let's call it "faith" - say the believe in a god, and that god created the universe. They seem to neglect to ask where that god came from. Or as Dougles Adams put it, "Who is this god fella, anyway?"

Cosmologists of more modern varieties posit soemthing like a "big bang" as the origin of the universe, but at least they seem to realize that begs the question of where that big bang happened and when. Well, of course they say that was the start of space and time, but that's sort of a cop out, although such may be inevitable in attempting to answer ultimate unknowable mysteries. (Ignoring the absurdity of time having a "start".) The nice thing about the physicist variety of cosmologists as opposed to the theological variety is that the former don't tend to damn you to hell or behead you or burn you at the stake when you question their basic premises. Indeed, questioning basic premises is their metier.* The physicists aren't filled with fear by unknown things; the ayatollhoids** are, and they attract people who can't live with mysery, are afraid of not knowing what happens when they die, and accept or create answers for it and tend to enforce acceptance of those answers by others because non-belief threatens their fragile psychic well-being. Wussies!!! Just like NeoCons

For a delightful exposition of the back-of-the-turtle cosmology, check out Hazmat Modines song "Bahamut" - and hear some great "New Orleans whorehouse Balkan marching band" blues along the way:

Careful, you'll be driving chocoholics over the edge.

Oh, is THAT what you call your local chapter of NAMBLA?

Spender spake thus:

In this group, we're all Steve.

snipped-for-privacy@aim.com spake thus:

No, it's Steve. We are all Steve.

Spender spake thus:

And there are a surprising number of people in the world who could benefit from this.

That should be _non_ believers.

How very un-Christian of you to say so.

Indeed.

Bill

Steve Caple wrote: . . .

Thank you Steve, that's a great link!

Bill Dixon

"Bill" or is it "Steve" today or one of your other fake names. How many fake names do you have time to make up? Do you work? Of course not, must children don't.

I am still pray> snipped-for-privacy@aim.com wrote: