JJ Husker

I disagree. A person does not have to decide which god or which religion to come to the conclusion that a higher power caused this all to come about. And it is a logic leap to claim that because humans have come up with multiple versions of God that there must be more than one and for some reason now we have to choose which one. What if there really is only one true God and mankind's attempt to explain him has simply left us with all these multiple "gods" and religions you trot out in every thread like this? I think there is one true God with a multitude of human attempts at explaining him. Sure doesn't mean there is really more than one, and if there isn't more than one, then it is not necessary to choose which one and it doesn't matter where you were born or the predominate religion in the area. Too many people get hung up on the constraints generated by mere human beings. Yeah, humans probably don't have it right. So what? The existence of one God, one creator, one all powerful being, is not dependent on our ability to explain him. Once a person can accept that there is one true God (however, whoever that may be) then it becomes very easy to realize we were created and not just some random accident. Then the only challenge is figuring out which religion, which explanation, which description of God a person is going to gravitate towards. Then, at that point, you are correct, it depends where your were born, how your were raised and what you were exposed to. But none of those human inspired details are the least bit important to come to the conclusion that there must be a higher power, an architect, a God.

I blame NUance for starting such a contentious topic. That guy is a troublemaker A big part of the problem is that people who do not believe in God or the Bible want to act like people who do, believe in the exact, word for word, account of the creation story in Genesis and literal interpretations of all text in the Bible. Problem is, I have yet to run into anyone personally that believes the creation story literally. Heck, priests and ministers I've discussed it with don't literally believe God created things in 7 days. It's a story, and is not intended to be an in depth physics text book, And yes, there are some on the fringes that believe every single word is unquestionable fact. That is how we end up with things like the creation museum portraying humans riding dinosaurs etc. Yes, I believe God created everything (was the first cause) and yes, I believe the Bible is the inspired word of God. But I also think some of those words were laid out to be general in nature and in many cases to tell a story or get a point across and not absolutely, 100% the literal truth. And back on topic- It is much easier for me to believe that we have a purpose and that a higher power caused all this to happen. I just can't accept (and really don't want to) that this all happened by random chance and by a billion freaks of nature we crawled out of the primordial ooze and now here we are and that we really don't have any purpose other than to evolve and reproduce and survive. There has to be a master plan, a reason, a higher purpose.

The Bible records a lot of interaction wt His creation - especially through the life of Jesus Christ. I believe He was the "First Cause" behind creation. He established the physical & moral laws by which the universe operates. I know it does. But the bible is fictional. I am talking about if there truly was a God. Well this is real f'n productive. How about if you don't want to have a reasonable, civil discussion about this that you just stay out of it? Thanks in advance for not continuing (yada yada yada)

I believe in evolution. Further, I believe that if science can discover it, God created it first. Evolution is simply the scientific trail of proof of what God did.

Sure you do. It's beautiful there. The people are awesome and not properly represented by these two. Yeah, you can find those people in abundance there, and yeah, it's a more liberal/free culture than the Great Plains or the Midwest, but they're actually really good people for the most part. And one day on the drive down the 280 will change your mind, big-time. It's the best commute I've ever done. I actually looked forward to driving home on that highway. Clearly California isn't for everyone. But every place I've been to, from San Francisco to Tahoe to San Diego and a few points in between, I've loved. L.A.... not so much. Actually I really enjoyed the couple of days I spent there years ago. Mind you, we were doing the touristy things; Alcatraz, Golden Gate, wharf and Embarcadero areas, street cars, drove down the crookedest street, etc. But yeah, I think I would struggle with the extreme liberal and loon elements the area is known for. I sure wouldn't appreciate having someone like Pelosi as my senator/rep. I'm sure they have their share of nice normal people but it's a lot more fun to play up the reputation ;-)

This ^^^ So tired of some people worrying about when and with who other people choose to have sex with. Wish these lawmakers would actually fix some real problems and worry about themselves as far as their religious beliefs are concerned. Jesus didn't roam around looking for people to condemn, he cured people and looked for any possible way to help them reach eternal life. And then we have idiots like these in Missisissippi and elsewhere proposing crap like this, supposedly in Jesus' name? I sure wouldn't want to be in their shoes on judgment day.

About all I learned from those 2 morons was further confirmation that I do not ever want to live in or around San Francisco and that dreds sometimes look sort of cool on a white guy.......this wasn't one of those times. And for those of you calling it a hate "crime", lighten up Francis. Sure her response was bigoted, biased, prejudiced, hate fueled if you will, but there was no crime worth reporting. Yeah, she touched him......so what? Nobody got hurt. Last time I checked being an a-hole wasn't a crime (good thing for me and lots of others too). If we're going to classify what happened in that video as a hate crime, well, I don't want to live in that world. Time to put on the big boy pants and move on with your life.

BF crew? I'm not even going there....lol. Speaking of annoyances. I do most of my posting and perusing of HB on my Samsung Galaxy 5 phone. I much prefer the "full site" view as opposed to the mobile view. But almost everytime I open it up my phone has reverted to mobile view and I have to scroll to the bottom of a page, select full site, and then continue on my way. Is there any way to keep it in full site mode?

Wow! Your post caused me to Google the demographics at UNL. When I attended back in the early 80's, it seemed like there were a fair amount of black or African American students there. Keep in mind I was raised in Columbus so even 3 POC would've seemed like a lot to me at that point in time. But what I found today was that only 2.4% of the enrollment is black/African American. Even more surprising was the stat that 4.4% of the student body is varsity athletes. I was thinking I might refute your claim of "extremely small amount of non-athlete blacks at the University", but you are absolutely right. It is an extremely small amount. Causes me to wonder now if this is just a Nebraska/Lincoln thing or if black college enrollment is really low in many larger Universities. Anyway, thought I'd share.

I picked Rick and Carl because don't tell me what to do. Actually I picked them because they've been getting on my nerves for about 2.5 seasons.

I was just joking about the +1. I liked what you did with it, turning the tables. If people did that with more issues we would have much less extremism in this world. It's a good way to check your point of view.

Thanks for posting that. I tried my best to put disclaimers on what I was saying because I really do not know for sure what the real message of Christianity is as I have not studied it in depth at all. I had heard it stated often that the message of killing the adulterers was in the Bible and I had sort if come to accept it as part of their religion. But, like anything, if certain individual passages are taken out of context or applied too broadly, it is easy to become confused with the true message. I do stand by my statement that Islam does not teach it's followers to do most any of the things that people often claim makes it bad. One short article does not necessarily have me fully convinced that Christianity is a completely peaceful religion but I sure will hesitate to claim it proposes doing what members of Branch Davidian or the National Liberation Front of Tipura seem to do with it. It very well could be that their radical elements simply look at passages out of context much like some radical elements who claim to be Islam do. In that context, what you said is absolutely true. This is probably my biggest frustration with people who want to claim religion or Islam in particular is bad. The problem is with people not doing what the religion or the Koran is really teaching. Too many people won't acknowledge that important difference and choose to blame the religion for the actions of people who are operating outside the core of the religion. The message of Islam is all good. However some people, be they average Joes or bad Imams or radical Muslims, give the religion a black eye by mutilating the real message. Please don't take offense to me editing your post, JJ. You made a point very well, and I wanted to see what it looked like if everyone's perspective was changed a little. In the words of the famous Jake Brigance : "Now, imagine that girl was white..." No problem. However, I do require that you plus 1 my post if you are going to take such liberties with it. I would also like to point out that the New Testament portion of the Bible established a new covenant so a whole bunch of that Old Testament stuff that people like to quote as being in the Christian Bible (i.e. killing adulterers) really should not be applied as part of any Christian faith or teaching. IMO lots of that stuff goes out the window as soon as a person accepts Jesus Christ as their savior and is only then really classified as a Christian. Jesus changed lots of things that are contained in Old Testament writings.

Thanks for posting that. I tried my best to put disclaimers on what I was saying because I really do not know for sure what the real message of Islam is as I have not studied it in depth at all. I had heard it stated often that the message of killing the infidels was in the Quran and I had sort if come to accept it as part of their religion. But, like anything, if certain individual passages are taken out of context or applied too broadly, it is easy to become confused with the true message. I do stand by my statement that Christianity does not teach it's followers to do most any of the things that people often claim makes it bad. One short article does not necessarily have me fully convinced that Islam is a completely peaceful religion but I sure will hesitate to claim it proposes doing what members of ISIS or the Taliban seem to do with it. It very well could be that their radical elements simply look at passages out of context much like some radical elements who claim to be Christian do. In that context, what you said is absolutely true. This is probably my biggest frustration with people who want to claim religion or Christianity in particular is bad. The problem is with people not doing what the religion or the Bible is really teaching. Too many people won't acknowledge that important difference and choose to blame the religion for the actions of people who are operating outside the core of the religion. The message of Christianity is all good. However some people, be they average Joes or bad Priests or Popes, give the religion a black eye by mutilating the real message.

I don't believe this is correct. I won't claim Islam is inherently radical but stating that Christianity is radical is ignoring the context, history, and teachings of the New Testement. Yes, in the Old Testament days, there was slavery, stonings, an eye for an eye type stuff, etc. And historically the Church did make some mistakes with the crusades and killing in the name of the religion. But trying to claim those are principles of the Christian faith is just flat out wrong. Sure some whack jobs take it in that direction but they are confused and wrong about what the Christian faith is telling them to do. On the other hand, I am no expert but it would seem that part of Islam, current day as well as historically, is to kill the infidels and to martyr yourself in that endeavor. That would appear to be a correct interpretation of what they teach their followers. Christianity does not propose such things and radical Christians who think it does have been subjected to false teachings or are otherwise operating outside the tenets of the religion. It is not the same thing at all. I would change my mind if you could show me that killing the infidels is not part of what Islam teaches or that real Christian teachings encourage any similar behavior. If it does, I sure haven't been exposed to it. Bible verses about raping and pillaging and slavery have a lot more to do with historical context than they do with bona-fide Christian teachings. Just because those things may have been commonplace 2000+ years ago does not mean they are tenets of the religion.

More well spent money..... I mean why do the job you're getting paid to do yourself when you can hire consultants to do it for you. It has been my experience that these things are a joke and/or a witch hunt. They always seem to find "problems" even if none really exist. People won't keep hiring them to consult if the reports state everything is hunky dory. I've got an extremely jaded (and deservedly so) view of these things.

It's not so much that you suck at it, it's that you seem to be getting even worse every year. ;-) I keed.

Thanks everybody for the It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia recommendations. I had never watched it before but thought I should try it after all the good reviews. I don't laugh out loud often while watching TV shows but this one gets me at least a few times every episode. Terrible people but great comedy.

Well this is just....just.....just crazy talk.

+1 This is perfect.Can't go wrong with the Jesus.

Knapp refers to the 10 fellows on this list as "youngsters".