knapplc

Exactly. But then we would find evidence for God acting as a puppet. We would be able to say, here is how things worked. Now we're free of disease, hooray! But all of this other stuff isn't acting like it should given the circumstances. Therefore, God must exist. I'm just pointing out how if God is a puppet who controls everything, then he's sure putting the universe on cruise control right now. If he was messing around with our everyday lives we would have evidence for him pulling the puppet strings - there would be things that just wildly wouldn't add up. I don't get where you're coming up with God-as-puppet. God would be the puppet master in your scenario - controlling everything to such a degree that no disease, no bacteria, nothing at all can harm Man. In fact, this is exactly what Christians believe. God controls everything in Heaven to such a degree that nothing bad ever happens there - in fact, "bad" is the antithesis of Heaven. Heaven being the ultimate goal of Christians, God can be nothing but a puppet master. Enhance is correct - an omnipotent God is fully capable of eliminating all "bad" from Earth right now. Since overbreeding, overpopulation, disease, etc are bad, they would not happen here if chose for them not to happen. They do happen - therefore God chooses to allow them to happen. If he does not choose this, and they just happen, he is not omnipotent.

Do you really find it laughable that men are concerned with abortion? Is that any different than I, a man, being concerned for the well-being of a man I see injured on the street? May I not have an opinion of that man, and may I not wish to aid him in some way? Isn't the central tenet of whether or not you care based on the question of what is happening in an abortion? If it's some tissue being removed from the body, no harm/no foul. If it's a life, it's murder. If it's murder, I would certainly hope that we, as a society, are gravely concerned with abortion, whether we're male or female. If it's a life, the one person not being consulted in the matter is the life being murdered. The gray area is, we don't know if it's a life. We cannot agree on what a life is. Those who feel it is a life should be horrified by abortion - I'd be concerned if they weren't. Those who don't feel it's a life are justifiably unconcerned with the procedure, and justifiably annoyed that others butt their noses in someone else's medical life. I believe it's a life at a far earlier stage than I think most feel. Not Oklahoma-legislature early, but pretty darned early on in the process. Unfortunately, just because I believe that doesn't clear anything up. There are plenty of folks who disagree, and until we arrive at a consensus, this will be debated.

If you're implying that I've never questioned my faith, then you're wrong. There have been a couple of bad times in my life when I have questioned what I truly believe, and in the end, I always come back to the same thing. Iam not and never have been the kind of person to "blindly follow" anything. If I felt that believing in God was such a ridiculous thing like so many of you seem to think, I wouldn't. Fact of the matter is, I see what the world is and I believe it was the work of God. You come back to the same thing (the Christian God) because you determine that "there are things which are impossible for humans to understand"... therefore God. We can rephrase that any way we like: There are things which are impossible for humans to understand... therefore Zeus. There are things which are impossible for humans to understand... therefore Jupiter. There are things which are impossible for humans to understand... therefore Horus. There are things which are impossible for humans to understand... therefore Xenu. There are things which are impossible for humans to understand... therefore The Flying Spaghetti Monster. We can go on and on with the literally thousands of examples of gods throughout history. Each god has the same - or greater - documentation as the Christian God, each god has multitudes of believers, each god has had documented interactions with Man. We can go on and on with the literally thousands of creation myths, the multitude of resurrected deity myths, the multitude of virgin birth myths. None of the myths that comprise Christianity are unique. None of them are independently verifiable - or, to put it another way, none are more verifiable than any other religion. You cannot conclusively state that you believe what you believe because of any other reason than any other religious person believes what they believe - even if it's a person of a diametrically different religion. You may look at that and think to yourself - no big deal. But nothing in any of this says your god is different than any other god. Only your belief - a belief which you could very easily have if you were Jewish, Muslim, Roman, Greek, etc. Further, your belief in your god comes from nothing first-hand. You have not met your god. You have never seen your god. You attribute things to your god which could, by examples given, be attributed with equal conviction to Xenu, Jupiter or Cit-Bolon-Tum (the Mayan god of healing, who may very well be responsible for the miraculous healing in the OP). Now, all of this being the case (and it manifestly is), you cannot state that you come back to God because of anything other than blindly following him. If you do not recognize the dangers of such blind faith, that's on you. As long as you don't bother me with your faith, I won't bother you.

Buffet's news release: LINK

This is what can happen when alternate jerseys go bad. I present to you the 2012 Pittsburgh Steelers throwback jerseys: For the love of all that is holy, please do not let our jerseys look anything like this. And please, please, please do not take our official pic in the bathroom of a McDonald's.

The chief danger in a belief system like Shark is describing is this - it's tremendously easy for a human to manipulate someone who has that kind of utterly blind faith. I don't mean blind faith derogatorily - I just mean that if you're that accepting of whatever happens, whatever you're asked to do, then there is no filter. At all. This is how the Jim Jones's and David Koresh's of the world gain power over people.

I love this answer. God can do anything to you. Anything. The worst life imaginable, the most heartache, the most unfair, unfulfilled, unwarranted harms can happen to you (and those you love), but it's completely OK. Why? Because God has a greater plan.

Count me as someone who isn't interested in living in a world of disease and death for the privilege of overcoming the obstacles. Have a loved one die from cancer and tell us whether you still have this opinion. I'm guessing your mind will change. Too late. And you're totally OK with that? That's a bizarre, morbid stance. If you believe in a God who has the power to take HIS CHILDREN out of this life of suffering and misery but CHOOSES not to, you're nuts.

Count me as someone who isn't interested in living in a world of disease and death for the privilege of overcoming the obstacles. Have a loved one die from cancer and tell us whether you still have this opinion. I'm guessing your mind will change.

Oh, Aggies. This is not the best way to make a good first impression in your new conference. For the sake of reference, North Carolina does not have an SEC school. Missouri does, though. As does Texas (that's the Texas part of "Texas A&M", Aggies). EDIT - per The Dude's suggestion I found the back of the shirt:

It's been rather busy around here lately. Thanks for posting this.

Speaking of these text boxes, has anyone else noticed that if you copypasta some text from an article into the text box here, then highlight it from top to bottom and hit the quote button, the text disappears? BUT, if you quote the copied text from bottom to top, it works just fine. Weird.

Thank really need to go out to AR Husker Fan and zoogies. I played a pretty small role in this.

I can't see the VB threads, either. It has to be a board setting. They don't let me tinker with the controls so I can't fix it. We'll see if zoogies or AR can do something about that. Now that we have all these spiffy new forums, the only thing we ask is - use them! Have fun!

You can. I know a couple of Christians who are scientists (for a living). Three, actually. ...four, if you count me I would count you if you had come to Brewsky's last Friday. Next time, yes?

You can. I know a couple of Christians who are scientists (for a living). Three, actually.

Certainly that was not my intention. It's not so much as I don't understand the whole burden of proof lies with those making the assertion as so much as it is my frustration with the rigidity of which "non-believers" have in acceptance of the anecdotal evidence provided by those "believers" and vice versa--the rigidity of which "believers" have in acceptance of the anecdotal and scientific evidence provided by "non-believers". Actually, what I find most irritating about this whole thread and that whole religious discussion hullapalooza is the inability of either side to empathize, or to try to understand the other side. And what's particularly even more frustrating to me is that both sides are intertwined, and yet huge outrageous arguments ensue about which is "more" right. Then you're missing out on the intent of my posts, because I've spelled that out several times.

That would be pretty smart. I would buy a chip if one of Nebraska's got broken. Didn't they do this when the 94 Orange Bowl trophy was broke exiting the plane in Lincoln? I don't know that story. Tell us about it.

I find that to be a totally OK situation, too. As long as neither side says, "You don't have the same opinion as me, so you're wrong/bad/dumb/etc" then there's no problem. Room for everyone at the table.

That would be pretty smart. I would buy a chip if one of Nebraska's got broken.

I paid you guys good money to make up nice things about me, and the best you can do is "knowledgeable?" There were several times that night I thought we should have all just shut up and let Crewe entertain us. Enhance is right - Crewe has many good stories. And he tells them well.

BBBXII, that's not accurate at all. It is the burden of believers to provide proof. The fallacy in your post is that, in the absence of proof by believers, you're accepting their response "We can't prove it, so you disprove it." That's not an acceptable response. If something is asserted to exist, the burden of proof always lies with those making the assertion.

The abortion flip-flop is just one of literally dozens of positions Paul has taken over the years which at times contradict each other, or which are completely untenable. Ron Paul owes his popularity to the fact that the average American simply doesn't dig elbows-deep into the facts surrounding the candidates they support.

For those claiming the non-believers need to prove God doesn't exist, can you show me how this is done? For example, can you prove the Jedi don't exist?