I need help I dont think there is God.

[MoinkMan]

Before you send me anything please read this
sorry about the extra stuff it is a conversation thats still going on on xfire. sloth man is me
[19:09] SLOTH MAN: hey\
[19:09] {R&R}Llama: hi
[19:09] SLOTH MAN: you playing wowscape?
[19:10] {R&R}Llama: no
[19:10] SLOTH MAN: retail?
[19:10] {R&R}Llama: yes
[19:11] SLOTH MAN: wow
[19:11] SLOTH MAN: just waste your money
[19:12] {R&R}Llama: right, I pay for a game that isn't full of hackers, doesn't crash regularly, and isn't completely and utterly beyond repair
[19:12] SLOTH MAN: they fixed it
[19:13] {R&R}Llama: onot to mention that the community isn't made up of bratty thirteen year olds who can't cough up $15 a month
[19:13] SLOTH MAN: they ip ban every hacker
[19:13] SLOTH MAN: i was just on
[19:13] SLOTH MAN: they banned like 5 people
[19:14] {R&R}Llama: right, there's only 5 hackers
[19:14] SLOTH MAN: no
[19:14] SLOTH MAN: i havent met a hacker
[19:15] {R&R}Llama: they're everywhere
[19:15] SLOTH MAN: there no more
[19:15] {R&R}Llama: right, they eliminated the entire hacker community from wowscape in the two weeks since my little brother bought retail
[19:16] SLOTH MAN: ok you got me there
[19:17] SLOTH MAN: wait
[19:17] SLOTH MAN: your bro is paying for it?
[19:17] {R&R}Llama: he is now
[19:17] SLOTH MAN: nvm
[19:17] SLOTH MAN: as long as you dont waste your money on it iam ok
[19:17] SLOTH MAN: my little bro pays for a different mmorpg
[19:18] SLOTH MAN: and he pays for it
[19:18] SLOTH MAN: thats the only way ill play any game with monthly charges
[19:19] {R&R}Llama: $15 a month is nothing
[19:19] SLOTH MAN: dude
[19:19] SLOTH MAN: 180 for 6 months
[19:19] SLOTH MAN: that can get you 2-3 games on the 360 or ps3
[19:19] {R&R}Llama: that would be $90 for 6 months
[19:19] {R&R}Llama: 15*6=90
[19:19] SLOTH MAN: o really?
[19:20] {R&R}Llama: 10*6=60 + 5*6=30 == 90
[19:20] {R&R}Llama: $180 for a full year
[19:20] {R&R}Llama: a considering I make close to $8k a year
[19:20] {R&R}Llama: that's really nothing
[19:21] SLOTH MAN: then how is your little bro paying for it?
[19:22] {R&R}Llama: makes money cutting grass
[19:22] {R&R}Llama: probably pulls in $1.2k or so a year
[19:22] {R&R}Llama: so again, nothing for him
[19:22] {R&R}Llama: he doesn't spend money on anything else, he's in 8th grade
[19:22] {R&R}Llama: its not like he needs gas or goes out to dinner
[19:23] SLOTH MAN: o
[19:25] SLOTH MAN: how old are you?
[19:26] {R&R}Llama: 17
[19:26] SLOTH MAN: 16
[19:26] {R&R}Llama: well, you can get a job
[19:26] SLOTH MAN: well id rather just be lazy
[19:26] {R&R}Llama: believe me, $15 a month is a drop in the bucket when you make more than $400 a week
[19:26] SLOTH MAN: i know
[19:27] SLOTH MAN: just iam saving up for a car
[19:27] {R&R}Llama: could afford one pretty quick with a job
[19:27] SLOTH MAN: [wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth] your "job"
[19:27] SLOTH MAN: jk
[19:27] {R&R}Llama: lulz
[19:28] {R&R}Llama: have fun paying for gas nowadays
[19:28] SLOTH MAN: [wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth] that
[19:28] {R&R}Llama: [wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth]ing $3.10 a gallon
[19:28] {R&R}Llama: glad my ten year old altima still gets 35 mpg
[19:28] SLOTH MAN: hydro-oxynigated powered vehicles is what iam using
[19:29] {R&R}Llama: a kayak?
[19:29] SLOTH MAN: my legs
[19:29] {R&R}Llama: those are powered primarily by carbohydrates
[19:29] SLOTH MAN: well if i said that you would of guessed my legs now wouldnt of you
[19:30] {R&R}Llama: oxygen merely provides an endpoint for electrons attached to ATP
[19:30] {R&R}Llama: would have guesse that before kayaks
[19:30] SLOTH MAN: i heard atp today i should know what it means
[19:31] {R&R}Llama: adenosine tri-phosphate
[19:31] {R&R}Llama: made from adenosene di phosphate by energizing a phosphate molecule via the breakdown of glucose
[19:32] SLOTH MAN: Look at the big brain on brad
[19:32] {R&R}Llama: lulz, I haven't had bio for over a year
[19:32] {R&R}Llama: took ap last year
[19:32] SLOTH MAN: ap stands for what again?
[19:33] {R&R}Llama: advanced placement
[19:33] {R&R}Llama: college classes that you take in high school then take a national exam for
[19:33] SLOTH MAN: again
[19:33] SLOTH MAN: brain on brad
[19:33] {R&R}Llama: they're kind of necessary if you want to go to decent college
[19:34] SLOTH MAN: what do you want to do?
[19:34] {R&R}Llama: biomed engineering
[19:34] SLOTH MAN: awsome
[19:34] SLOTH MAN: make me into a cyborg
[19:34] SLOTH MAN: i want to be MC
[19:35] {R&R}Llama: lulz
[19:35] {R&R}Llama: that project had a 1% survival rate according to the book
[19:35] {R&R}Llama: gl
[19:36] SLOTH MAN: well can you help out a friend of mine
[19:36] SLOTH MAN: he has no legs or arms
[19:37] {R&R}Llama: that's still a long way down the road
[19:37] SLOTH MAN: could you make legs with sort of like car suspensions
[19:38] {R&R}Llama: uhm no
[19:38] {R&R}Llama: the best you could do is regrow his limbs
[19:38] {R&R}Llama: from his DNA
[19:38] {R&R}Llama: the reattaching part is the biggest problem
[19:38] SLOTH MAN: i say clone him
[19:38] {R&R}Llama: and the moral objection to what happens to the rest of the body you used to regrow the limbs
[19:38] SLOTH MAN: and kill the no legged version
[19:39] {R&R}Llama: well, ideally we'd regrow just the parts we needed
[19:39] {R&R}Llama: but we can't really do that yet
[19:39] SLOTH MAN: why is cloning so anti moral
[19:39] {R&R}Llama: because right no we'd be creating a living, breathing human being to harvest the parts from
[19:40] {R&R}Llama: or using stem cells
[19:40] SLOTH MAN: instead of having the actual people in the army you have a clone army
[19:40] {R&R}Llama: though we can't do targeted organs with them yet
[19:40] {R&R}Llama: that's coming soon
[19:40] {R&R}Llama: right
[19:40] {R&R}Llama: but those clones are no less people than you or me
[19:40] SLOTH MAN: seriously when we start cloning thats when armies getting stronger
[19:40] SLOTH MAN: how do we know?
[19:41] {R&R}Llama: we know because we're putting someone's DNA into a fertile egg
[19:41] {R&R}Llama: not only are they going to be a person
[19:41] {R&R}Llama: they're going to be genetically identicle to the donor of the DNA
[19:41] {R&R}Llama: aside from the nurture developmental factors
[19:41] {R&R}Llama: the clone will essentially be that person
[19:42] {R&R}Llama: farming them to a specific purpose would essentially be slavery, though even more cruel because they weren't even born naturally
[19:42] SLOTH MAN: so if you clone 1 person 4-5 times at birth you can test to see how that person will act in different areas
[19:43] {R&R}Llama: if you were mengela
[19:43] SLOTH MAN: mengela?
[19:43] {R&R}Llama: nazi scientist who did horrific studies on twins in concentration camps during WWII
[19:43] SLOTH MAN: no
[19:44] SLOTH MAN: i ment like sending one to a farm city
[19:44] SLOTH MAN: sending them to different areas
[19:44] SLOTH MAN: see how they all act and what they die from
[19:44] {R&R}Llama: you could, yes, and test the effect that nurture has on intellectual and emotional development
[19:45] {R&R}Llama: but that's still a morally gray experiment
[19:45] {R&R}Llama: seeing as you're essentially controlling their lives
[19:45] SLOTH MAN: well no you send them to parents in those areas
[19:45] SLOTH MAN: they get to do what ever
[19:45] {R&R}Llama: right
[19:45] {R&R}Llama: but you still created them for the purpose of a scientific experiment
[19:46] SLOTH MAN: we as a race never do things without a purpose
[19:46] SLOTH MAN: even God didnt make us with out a purpose
[19:46] {R&R}Llama: right now people find using egg cells (the vast majority of which will never become people; females have about 400k of them in their bodies) to cure cancer and regrow tissues questionable
[19:47] {R&R}Llama: i can't imagine they'd find cloning people and then dictating the terms of their live for the sake of a behavoiral study any less objectionable
[19:47] SLOTH MAN: whats the difference of doing that and having them been born there
[19:47] {R&R}Llama: a valid question
[19:48] {R&R}Llama: and i imagine the people who object would simply say "its different"
[19:48] {R&R}Llama: they see them being born there as a natural course
[19:48] {R&R}Llama: whereas you're playing god if you put them there
[19:48] <llamaodeath 5t0pped pL4yiN9 World of Warcraft>
[19:49] <llamaodeath i$ n0w pl4yin9 World of Warcraft>
[19:49] SLOTH MAN: and btw in 20 years by the way things are going i can see religon slowly dieing because if you notice the "cool Kids" are atheists
[19:50] {R&R}Llama: lulz
[19:50] SLOTH MAN: and by the way things are going most people want to be "cool" or "hip"
[19:50] {R&R}Llama: religion has been around since the development of society
[19:50] {R&R}Llama: as long as people are afraid to die
[19:50] {R&R}Llama: there will be religion
[19:50] SLOTH MAN: yea
[19:51] SLOTH MAN: yea but that religion will probably be atheism
[19:52] {R&R}Llama: atheism is by definition not a religion
[19:52] {R&R}Llama: it is a lack thereof
[19:52] {R&R}Llama: s'what the word means
[19:52] {R&R}Llama: a=without
[19:52] {R&R}Llama: theism=god,religion,etc
[19:52] {R&R}Llama: it provides no comfort for those terrified of dying
[19:53] SLOTH MAN: also with people saying that they can put your thoughts your brain in a computer people are going to veiw it as "heavan"
[19:53] SLOTH MAN: yea your right about that too
[19:53] {R&R}Llama: sounds very wozniak
[19:53] SLOTH MAN: it was on discovery
[19:53] {R&R}Llama: s'what the matrix was, essentially
[19:54] {R&R}Llama: except, as the story goes, it all went wrong
[19:54] {R&R}Llama: because "humans, as a race, define their reality by suffering"
[19:54] SLOTH MAN: also have you heard the Phrase i dont have enough faith to be atheist
[19:54] {R&R}Llama: I've heard it tossed around
[19:54] {R&R}Llama: in a way its true
[19:54] {R&R}Llama: if you view faith as courage

 

[MoinkMan]

[19:55] {R&R}Llama: it takes a lot to be able to say "I know some day that I will die, and I believe that this life is it, and I accept that"
[19:55] {R&R}Llama: I'd venture to say that there are shockingly few people who can say that in all honesty
[19:55] SLOTH MAN: its really depresing
[19:55] {R&R}Llama: most atheists are disenchanted with organized religion and want to distance themselves from it
[19:55] SLOTH MAN: i thought about it deeply and i really got disturbed
[19:56] {R&R}Llama: I doubt very many of them truly accept that this is it
[19:56] {R&R}Llama: yeah
[19:56] {R&R}Llama: your brain has defense mechanisms against that
[19:56] {R&R}Llama: tries to make you think of something else
[19:56] SLOTH MAN: i went mad for weeks
[19:56] {R&R}Llama: or come up with justifications and possibilities
[19:56] {R&R}Llama: hence most religions
[19:56] {R&R}Llama: of course
[19:56] {R&R}Llama: your brain is terrified of dying
[19:57] {R&R}Llama: the natural response to death or the knowledge that you will die is absolute, overwhelming, incapacitating terror
[19:57] SLOTH MAN: it left me feeling empty
[19:58] {R&R}Llama: i think its what turns a lot of people to religion
[19:58] {R&R}Llama: I personally like Orson Scott Card's theories
[19:59] SLOTH MAN: let me research that real quick
[19:59] {R&R}Llama: he kind of expounds them in the last few books of the ender series
[19:59] {R&R}Llama: mostly in xenocide i think
[19:59] {R&R}Llama: and children of the mind
[19:59] SLOTH MAN: xenocide?
[20:00] {R&R}Llama: i just kind of found it comforting
[20:00] {R&R}Llama: name of one of the books in the series
[20:00] {R&R}Llama: refers to the extermination of an alien race
[20:00] {R&R}Llama: the series starts as scifi
[20:00] SLOTH MAN: yea i started enders game but never finished
[20:00] {R&R}Llama: but by the end its really just a veil for card to state his beliefs on how the universe works
[20:00] {R&R}Llama: lol, the rest of the books take place 3k years after ender's game
[20:01] {R&R}Llama: and are entirely and hugely different
[20:01] {R&R}Llama: i found his theory at least acceptably plausible; all theories like that are way outside the realm of science
[20:01] {R&R}Llama: but his seemed as if it could be true
[20:01] SLOTH MAN: what is it?
[20:02] {R&R}Llama: well, i think he kind of started with string theory, and ran from there
[20:02] {R&R}Llama: we don't know what the fundamental building blocks of the universe are yet
[20:02] {R&R}Llama: given their nature, it may be impossible for us to figure it out experimentally
[20:02] {R&R}Llama: right now, there's 30-some kinds of quarks we've discovered
[20:03] {R&R}Llama: which are currently the smallest particles we know of
[20:03] {R&R}Llama: but something clearly makes them up
[20:03] {R&R}Llama: a group of theoretical physicists came up with the idea that the fundamental building blocks are "strings"
[20:03] {R&R}Llama: see, a string formed into a loop can vibrate in an infinite number of directions
[20:04] {R&R}Llama: it can spin on its horizontal axis, its vertical axis, there can be vibrations around it
[20:04] {R&R}Llama: etc
[20:04] {R&R}Llama: infinitely
[20:04] {R&R}Llama: so a string vibrating in different ways could account for all the quarks we've found
[20:04] {R&R}Llama: conglomerations of strings make protons and electrons and nuetrons and photons
[20:04] {R&R}Llama: etc
[20:04] {R&R}Llama: card kind of took this and said, okay, say there are different kinds of strings
[20:05] {R&R}Llama: say some strings are "stronger" than others
[20:05] {R&R}Llama: there's a trillion, trillion, trillion strings making up someone
[20:05] {R&R}Llama: in this kind of web
[20:05] {R&R}Llama: groups of strings that make up cells, etc
[20:05] {R&R}Llama: everything is tied together
[20:05] {R&R}Llama: according to card
[20:05] SLOTH MAN: ok
[20:05] {R&R}Llama: so he says, what if what "we" are, our conciousness, etc
[20:06] {R&R}Llama: is a result of the string that kind of bring this whole web to life
[20:06] SLOTH MAN: o
[20:06] {R&R}Llama: what i really like about it is that it fits cell theory
[20:06] {R&R}Llama: life has to come from life
[20:06] SLOTH MAN: well more i think about the universe
[20:06] SLOTH MAN: more i think of how its untrue
[20:07] SLOTH MAN: how could you get something
[20:07] SLOTH MAN: out of absolutley nothing
[20:07] {R&R}Llama: that's kind of the beauty of infinity
[20:07] {R&R}Llama: let's you say that the universe has always been here
[20:07] {R&R}Llama: there was no before
[20:07] {R&R}Llama: it has always been there
[20:07] {R&R}Llama: people have a hard time grasping that
[20:07] {R&R}Llama: we don't do well with non finite numbers
[20:08] SLOTH MAN: your just covering up
[20:08] SLOTH MAN: everything has a start
[20:08] SLOTH MAN: and everything has an end
[20:08] SLOTH MAN: dont you agree?
[20:09] <llamaodeath 5t0pped pL4yiN9 World of Warcraft>
[20:09] {R&R}Llama: no
[20:09] {R&R}Llama: there's no start to the universe
[20:09] {R&R}Llama: maybe as we know it
[20:09] SLOTH MAN: as we know
[20:09] {R&R}Llama: the current leading theory is the big bang
[20:09] {R&R}Llama: but it was still there before that
[20:09] {R&R}Llama: just as a singularity
[20:09] {R&R}Llama: a single point with infinite mass
[20:09] {R&R}Llama: and then for some reason
[20:09] {R&R}Llama: it suddenly expanded outward from that point
[20:10] {R&R}Llama: there's a lot of evidence for that expansion part
[20:10] {R&R}Llama: for all we know, the universe could go through cycles of big bangs and big crunches
[20:10] {R&R}Llama: collapsing back to a singularity when the expanding radius of the universe gets too large
[20:11] {R&R}Llama: maybe we just happen to live in the one that, by pure chance, formed right
[20:11] {R&R}Llama: maybe there have been billions (or infinite) of such contractions and expansions before the universe came to be as we know it
[20:11] {R&R}Llama: this is where it starts getting pretty heady
[20:12] {R&R}Llama: because that then begs the question of "well, could there be other universes like that"
[20:12] {R&R}Llama: which leads to "if there are, what's between them?"
[20:12] {R&R}Llama: and [wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth] else is there when the universe is a singularity
[20:12] {R&R}Llama: it can't be "nothing", merely calling it nothing makes it something
[20:13] {R&R}Llama: I don't think its something humans are ready to or capable of understanding
[20:13] {R&R}Llama: beyond speculation
[20:13] {R&R}Llama: and that's religion's field
[20:13] SLOTH MAN: how do we no the point of infinite mass isnt god
[20:13] SLOTH MAN: think about it
[20:13] SLOTH MAN: god can change his size
[20:13] SLOTH MAN: he made everything
[20:14] {R&R}Llama: that point of infinite mass is us
[20:14] {R&R}Llama: we're speaking of science, not religion
[20:14] SLOTH MAN: i know
[20:14] {R&R}Llama: the point of infinite mass is everything in the universe
[20:14] {R&R}Llama: compressed to a sphere with a radius of 0
[20:14] {R&R}Llama: a true point mass
[20:15] {R&R}Llama: if you want to speak of god, I would posit that if there is one, he would exist outside of the singularity
[20:15] {R&R}Llama: he would be beyond it
[20:15] {R&R}Llama: he would be the "everythng else" the "nothing" that we can't even put a name on
[20:15] {R&R}Llama: I think if you chose to believe that, your beliefs would be relatively safe from science and other religions alike
[20:16] SLOTH MAN: what do you mean by safe
[20:16] {R&R}Llama: some religious views are easily assailed by science
[20:16] {R&R}Llama: creationism, for example
[20:17] {R&R}Llama: clearly proven quite wrong by radiocarbon dating and mounds of other evidence
[20:17] {R&R}Llama: picturing god as something omnipotent within this universe as well
[20:17] {R&R}Llama: omnipotence causes paradoxes (can god create something he cannot lift?)
[20:18] {R&R}Llama: paradoxes by definition cannot exist
[20:18] {R&R}Llama: anything that creates a paradox, therefore, cannot exist
[20:18] {R&R}Llama: in this universe, anyway
[20:18] {R&R}Llama: as long as you're in this universe, you have ot play by its rules
[20:18] {R&R}Llama: it would also put you out of the reach of other religions
[20:20] SLOTH MAN: so your saying there is no god
[20:21] SLOTH MAN: or theres a slight possiblilty for god just not in this universe
[20:21] {R&R}Llama: I'm saying I doubt the existance of a personal god like the one described by the major world religions in this universe
[20:22] {R&R}Llama: it simply can't fit into my worldview; it would break so much of verified science
[20:22] {R&R}Llama: an extremely powerful being, who has vast influence over the workings of the universe, that i can see
[20:22] {R&R}Llama: the earth has only been around for 5 billion years
[20:22] {R&R}Llama: the universe has been here for more like 14
[20:22] SLOTH MAN: how do we know
[20:22] {R&R}Llama: that's a lot of time for things to develop before we did
[20:23] {R&R}Llama: cosmic background radiation and the red shift effect
[20:23] SLOTH MAN: we havent been keeping track for as long as we had
[20:23] SLOTH MAN: been here
[20:23] {R&R}Llama: lets us calculate how long its been since the earth and our solar system were at the center of the universe (ie, the big bang) by looking at how fast we're moving away from everything else
[20:24] {R&R}Llama: and there's a couple of isotopes that have half lives of a few billion years
[20:24] SLOTH MAN: how do we know were not moving closer to something?
[20:24] {R&R}Llama: let's us figure out the age of the earth
[20:24] {R&R}Llama: red shift and blue shift effects
[20:24] {R&R}Llama: its part of special relativity
[20:24] SLOTH MAN: i know
[20:25] {R&R}Llama: has to do with what way light move within the spectrum based on the speed of the observer and the object being observed
[20:25] {R&R}Llama: if its moving away from us
[20:25] {R&R}Llama: it shifts one way
[20:25] {R&R}Llama: if its moving towards us
[20:25] {R&R}Llama: it shifts a different way
[20:25] SLOTH MAN: a black hole obsorbs light
[20:25] {R&R}Llama: right
[20:25] {R&R}Llama: but only within its event horizin
[20:25] {R&R}Llama: whoah
[20:25] {R&R}Llama: horizon*
[20:26] SLOTH MAN: how do we not know were going towards a black hole
[20:26] {R&R}Llama: lol
[20:26] {R&R}Llama: well, they're extremely rare, because they have to be formed from a supermassive star that collapses
[20:26] SLOTH MAN: i know
[20:26] {R&R}Llama: and we can usually see the effect they have on the light that passes around them
[20:26] SLOTH MAN: o yea
[20:27] SLOTH MAN: learned that on discovery
[20:27] {R&R}Llama: our galaxy as a whole is also going away from everything else
[20:27] {R&R}Llama: all galaxies are going away from all others
[20:27] {R&R}Llama: the black whole would have to be part of our galaxy
[20:27] {R&R}Llama: and near our solar system
[20:28] SLOTH MAN: it moves whole stars
[20:28] {R&R}Llama: more than likely, the supernova created to form would have obliterated us anyway
[20:28] {R&R}Llama: provided they get close enough to it
[20:28] {R&R}Llama: G=(m1M2)g/r^2
[20:28] {R&R}Llama: m1 and m2 are the masses of the objects involveed
[20:28] {R&R}Llama: g is a constant
[20:28] {R&R}Llama: r is the distance between their centers of mass
[20:28] {R&R}Llama: G is the gravitational force
[20:28] SLOTH MAN: o yea einstien said that they are impossible nature wouldnt let something like this happen
[20:29] {R&R}Llama: as your get further away, the effect of gravity becomes exponentially less
[20:29] SLOTH MAN: i know
[20:29] {R&R}Llama: we'd literally have to be right on top of one to get sucked in
[20:30] SLOTH MAN: we
[20:30] {R&R}Llama: it's extremely unlikely
[20:30] SLOTH MAN: do?
[20:30] SLOTH MAN: well that makes me feel allot better about them now
[20:30] {R&R}Llama: lol
[20:30] {R&R}Llama: worry more about car accidents and the energy crisis
[20:30] {R&R}Llama: and wars over oil
[20:30] {R&R}Llama: and the environment
[20:30] {R&R}Llama: those are the problems that are going to threaten you most in your lifetime
[20:31] SLOTH MAN: you wanna get started on politics now dont you?
[20:31] {R&R}Llama: haha, no
[20:31] SLOTH MAN: well i did
[20:31] {R&R}Llama: i like science better
[20:31] SLOTH MAN: ok
[20:31] SLOTH MAN: well i think all people are crazy
[20:31] {R&R}Llama: fewer asshats and morons in science
[20:31] {R&R}Llama: politicians, yugh
[20:31] SLOTH MAN: yea
[20:31] {R&R}Llama: a little bit, yeah
[20:31] {R&R}Llama: we call it cogniitive relativity
[20:32] {R&R}Llama: or cognitive dissonance
[20:32] SLOTH MAN: all people are crazy just the normal ones keep their theiries in their minds
[20:32] {R&R}Llama: nah, they're crazy too
[20:32] SLOTH MAN: i reall need to learn to spell right
[20:33] SLOTH MAN: yea but the public dont know it
[20:33] {R&R}Llama: if your definition of insanity is based on social perception of normality
[20:33] {R&R}Llama: i used to have a great essay on it
[20:33] {R&R}Llama: let me see if I can find it for you
[20:33] SLOTH MAN: i agree
[20:33] SLOTH MAN: its all about the culture
[20:34] {R&R}Llama: found it
[20:34] {R&R}Llama: I'll have to paste it in pieces
[20:34] {R&R}Llama: its a really easy read, and not long
[20:34] SLOTH MAN: its ok right know
[20:34] SLOTH MAN: o ok
[20:34] SLOTH MAN: well send it in a file
[20:35] {R&R}Llama: can you even do that on xfire?
[20:35] SLOTH MAN: yea
[20:35] SLOTH MAN: go to actions
[20:35] SLOTH MAN: and send file
[20:36] {R&R}Llama: found it
[20:36] SLOTH MAN: well send it
[20:36] {R&R}Llama: says waiting for response
[20:37] {R&R}Llama: how bout now?
[20:37] SLOTH MAN: no
[20:37] {R&R}Llama: weird
[20:37] {R&R}Llama: [23:37] <Requesting file transfer. Waiting for response>
[20:37] {R&R}Llama: swhat it said to me
[20:38] {R&R}Llama: don't have it turned off, do you?

 

[tturt]

Well, science isn't religion though some people act like it is. There are a lot of interesting things are going on in that field such as they're using pig cells and growing teeth! Though it's expected to take years before applying it to humans but it will impact the dental field dramatically. So it's good that some people share their theories. But it's the nutty ones that I wish would keep their ideas to themselves. I told our youngest son that I thought all families were dysfunctional to a degree. So I can see where you would say all people are crazy.

Some Christians don't like organized religion either.

Regarding the information from a program on the Discovery channel, I don't agree with - believers don't believe in Christ Jesus just based on being afraid to die. Of course, we're concerned about family and friends and no matter how complicated things can get sometimes, the majority don't want to rush things. Whether that aspect of the program is true or not ...

the important aspect of your thread is you stating "I need help." What proof do you want He exists?

I do know that if you ask Him into your life, He will come into your heart. He does want a relationship with you.

 

[MoinkMan]

Well, science isn't religion though some people act like it is. There are a lot of interesting things are going on in that field such as they're using pig cells and growing teeth! Though it's expected to take years before applying it to humans but it will impact the dental field dramatically. So it's good that some people share their theories. But it's the nutty ones that I wish would keep their ideas to themselves. I told our youngest son that I thought all families were dysfunctional to a degree. So I can see where you would say all people are crazy.

Some Christians don't like organized religion either.

Regarding the information from a program on the Discovery channel, I don't agree with - believers don't believe in Christ Jesus just based on being afraid to die. Of course, we're concerned about family and friends and no matter how complicated things can get sometimes, the majority don't want to rush things. Whether that aspect of the program is true or not ...

the important aspect of your thread is you stating "I need help." What proof do you want He exists?

I do know that if you ask Him into your life, He will come into your heart. He does want a relationship with you.

well i have been praying allot and it doesn't seem to help

 

[LilLamb219]

There are SO many things that science has gotten wrong. When people use science to claim there is no God, well, you really can't trust that.

The person in the chat mentioned carbon dating. There have been a lot of cases I've read where the carbon dating has been WRONG when done again. Isn't that something?

If you want to know if God exists, you can find easily about Him in the Bible. It's where He says who He is and what He has done for us. In there, you will gain faith, not listening to people who claim science when science is constantly changing. God doesn't change.

 

[tturt]

Moinkman,I&#8217;m not a Biblical scholar. I don&#8217;t want to make prayer more complicated than it actually is. A key component of prayer is trusting that Yahweh does exist such as Heb 11:6.

Yahweh will always answer the prayer for salvation. He will always accept us when we ask for His forgiveness and receive Christ Jesus as our Savior (I John 1:9).

Once we become believers, there are several reasons why our prayers aren&#8217;t answered the way we think they should be such as not being in agreement with His will such as James 4:3.

Also, I took the liberty of quickly glancing at your earlier posts and you expressed concern for someone being deplored to Iraq and said "God be with you." I'm puzzled and trying to understand. Did you believe in God earlier including asking for salvation but now you don't believe in Yahweh? Or has something happened to cause you to doubt? Did you know that it's pretty common - once someone becomes a believer, the enemy will start placing doubts of all kinds in your mind. That is when we think of scriptures that says we are saved b/c of His faithfulness. We are His children b/c of His grace and mercy to us.

I am sure of this - Whatever is going on - Yahweh is drawing you to Him.

 

[texastig]

There are 17 non-Biblical sources for Jesus Christ.
That means you can throw the Bible out the door but He still walked the earth and did miracles.
That means the Bible is correct.
As for carbon dating, it's flawed. Some scientists carbon dated a snail and found it millions of years old.
Verified science isn't very verifiable when they say this, "maybe, possible, could happen".
Jesus is more verifiable.
Something cannot come from nothing.
Thanks,
TT

 

[Xipilgrim]

If you don't think that God exists, then pray.
God asnswers prayer; I'm not saying you will always get what you want, but God does answer prayers.

 

[alatir]

If you don't think that God exists, then pray.
God asnswers prayer; I'm not saying you will always get what you want, but God does answer prayers.

Yep, a simple prayer to Jesus can change your views and start reading Bible from the gospel of Mark.



Science is also a set of beliefs and in modern scientific world one of the core beliefs is that God doens't exist and there are no supernatural things. The problem with this belief is that they can't prove it and it's unscientific to claim that the science is the ultimate answer. It's only human knowledge and wisdom.

Go to China and ask some Christian persecuted by an atheist government if God and Jesus exist and you would get a definete "yes!"

 

[alatir]

well i have been praying allot and it doesn't seem to help

It's absolutely necessary to confes that you have sinned against God and ask Jesus to forgive your sins. Otherwise the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ don't mean anything to you. This should be the first prayer when a person wants to enter the kingdom of God. Then you can ask God to fill you with the Holy Spirit and open the Bible to you.

 

[Elijah2]

Hey MoinkMan, are you saved?

 

[heymikey80]

Just to inject here on first look.

llama doesn't think the universe had a beginning?

It did. That's what that "a singularity" ... "then for some reason" is about.

It's always interesting to see what high schoolers are thinking about this, but how about a scientist and a science communicator of the last century:

For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story [of discovering the Big Bang] ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries. Robert Jastrow, "God and the Astronomers"
​

 

[heymikey80]

well i have been praying allot and it doesn't seem to help

Um, so what's the basis for your conclusion that it doesn't seem to help?

Here's a little note on prayer that fell into my hands from that author, CS Lewis

MY DEAR WORMWOOD,
The amateurish suggestions in your last letter warn me that it is high time for me to write to you fully on the painful subject of prayer. You might have spared the comment that my advice about his prayers for his mother it "proved singularly unfortunate". That is not the sort of thing that a nephew should write to his uncle&#8212;nor a junior tempter to the under-secretary of a department. It also reveals an unpleasant desire to shift responsibility; you must learn to pay for your own blunders.

The best thing, where it is possible, is to keep the patient from the serious intention of praying altogether. When the patient is an adult recently re-converted to the Enemy's party, like your man, this is best done by encouraging him to remember, or to think he remembers, the parrot-like nature of his prayers in childhood. In reaction against that, he may be persuaded to aim at something entirely spontaneous, inward, informal, and unregularised; and what this will actually mean to a beginner will be an effort to produce in himself a vaguely devotional mood in which real concentration of will and intelligence have no part. One of their poets, Coleridge, has recorded that he did not pray "with moving lips and bended knees" but merely "composed his spirit to love" and indulged "a sense of supplication". That is exactly the sort of prayer we want; and since it bears a superficial resemblance to the prayer of silence as practised by those who are very far advanced in the Enemy's service, clever and lazy patients can be taken in by it for quite a long time. At the very least, they can be persuaded that the bodily position makes no difference to their prayers; for they constantly forget, what you must always remember, that they are animals and that whatever their bodies do affects their souls. It is funny how mortals always picture us as putting things into their minds: in reality our best work is done by keeping things out.

If this fails, you must fall back on a subtler misdirection of his intention. Whenever they are attending to the Enemy Himself we are defeated, but there are ways of preventing them from doing so. The simplest is to turn their gaze away from Him towards themselves. Keep them watching their own minds and trying to produce feelings there by the action of their own wills. When they meant to ask Him for charity, let them, instead, start trying to manufacture charitable feelings for themselves and not notice that this is what they are doing. When they meant to pray for courage, let them really be trying to feel brave. When they say they are praying for forgiveness, let them be trying to feel forgiven. Teach them to estimate the value of each prayer by their success in producing the desired feeling; and never let them suspect how much success or failure of that kind depends on whether they are well or ill, fresh or tired, at the moment.

But of course the Enemy will not meantime be idle. Wherever there is prayer, there is danger of His own immediate action. He is cynically indifferent to the dignity of His position, and ours, as pure spirits, and to human animals on their knees He pours out self-knowledge in a quite shameless fashion. But even if He defeats your first attempt at misdirection, we have a subtler weapon. The humans do not start from that direct perception of Him which we, unhappily, cannot avoid. They have never known that ghastly luminosity, that stabbing and searing glare which makes the background of permanent pain to our lives. If you look into your patient's mind when he is praying, you will not find that. If you examine the object to which he is attending, you will find that it is a composite object containing many quite ridiculous ingredients. There will be images derived from pictures of the Enemy as He appeared during the discreditable episode known as the Incarnation: there will be vaguer&#8212;perhaps quite savage and puerile&#8212;images associated with the other two Persons. There will even be some of his own reverence (and of bodily sensations accompanying it) objectified and attributed to the object revered. I have known cases where what the patient called his "God" was actually located&#8212;up and to the left at the corner of the bedroom ceiling, or inside his own head, or in a crucifix on the wall. But whatever the nature of the composite object, you must keep him praying to it&#8212;to the thing that he has made, not to the Person who has made him. You may even encourage him to attach great importance to the correction and improvement of his composite object, and to keeping it steadily before his imagination during the whole prayer. For if he ever comes to make the distinction, if ever he consciously directs his prayers "Not to what I think thou art but to what thou knowest thyself to be", our situation is, for the moment, desperate. Once all his thoughts and images have been flung aside or, if retained, retained with a full recognition of their merely subjective nature, and the man trusts himself to the completely real, external, invisible Presence, there with him in the room and never knowable by him as he is known by it&#8212;why, then it is that the incalculable may occur. In avoiding this situation&#8212;this real nakedness of the soul in prayer&#8212;you will be helped by the fact that the humans themselves do not desire it as much as they suppose. There's such a thing as getting more than they bargained for!

Your affectionate uncle
SCREWTAPE ​

 

[SlowTrainComing]

These cats are speaking the truth. Shortly after being saved, I began to deal with alllllllllll sorts of doubt as to His existence. A friend of mine, the one who stayed up nights talking Christ and was instrumental in leading me into His glory, quoted this to me:

14 And when they had come to the multitude, a man came to Him, kneeling down to Him and saying, 15 &#8220;Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic[c] and suffers severely; for he often falls into the fire and often into the water. 16 So I brought him to Your disciples, but they could not cure him.&#8221;
17 Then Jesus answered and said, &#8220;O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you? Bring him here to Me.&#8221; 18 And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him; and the child was cured from that very hour.
19 Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, &#8220;Why could we not cast it out?&#8221;
20 So Jesus said to them, &#8220;Because of your unbelief;[d] for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, &#8216;Move from here to there,&#8217; and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you. 21 However, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.&#8221;[e]

God knows we will have our doubts. Christ foretold the myriad doubts His very disciples would have, in fact. He knows that faith in an increasingly faithless world is hard to maintain. All he asks is for us to build, through prayer and fasting, on the tiny, minuscule mustard seed-sized faith we possess.

You, my friend, have that faith. You have your questions and doubts but the fact remains, you are airing them on a Christian message board with heaviness of heart and WORRY that you are letting God down. How then could you not have faith? When you did something wrong as a child, you felt pangs of regret for your parents, right? That was because you knew they were there and respected them, even when you felt rebellious and thought you knew the answers.

Satan is a real force, brother. He can, and absolutely does, come after us with subtle attacks on our faith. he will try to cast doubt, skepticism and obstinacy on our faith. But if you focus on your mustard seed of faith, however tiny, it will glorify God and your faith WILL grow. In my own experiences, I've found that the most troubling moments of my faith have been followed, in some way, by some of the strongest.

I'm praying for you, brother. Do the same, with all you can muster - and DO NOT be discouraged if it doesn't feel like much compared to others. All prayers glorify God. He hears all of them.