Cup Lion

Firstly, its a person's choice to go to hell. Their actions (all people have free will) are their own responsibility. God doesn't gain anything from people being sent to hell. Trust me, its obvious that he wants everyone to be with him in heaven, or else he wouldn't have created purgatory. Only pure people are allowed in heaven, so God gives us purgatory in order that we may become pure and join him. Seems like God is doing his best to help us gain eternal life. He sent his Son to Earth, as many other people have said, to save everyone. His teachings redirected people in the right direction. Also, His death signified God opening the kingdom of heaven to everyone, not just the chosen people.

I don't think there's many people who deny a man called Jesus existed. It's the miracles and the whole "son of God" or "prophet" thing some people object to. Good, because if everyone agrees that a man called Jesus existed then I bring in this point. Jesus must have either been lying, mad or who he said he is. Now from what he was saying throughout the Bible, we can tell that he was, infact, not lying. From this we can also realise that he is not mad, as he did not act like a madman (even though he did throw over the tables in the church, but so would just about any other sane Christian.) This leads me to believe that he must be the 3rd option, and is who he said he is. My instructor proposed Lewis' Trilemma to me and I really wasn't convinced. I find Lewis' Trilemma a very poor explanation for the divinity of Jesus. Personally, the way his logic works in this case was confusing to me. Its very hard to convince someone by saying that because his teachings were not flawed, he couldn't have been insane. Michel55... said he wanted evidence of a "scholar who witnessed jesus christ and his miracles..." I was just saying that, even if you don't believe he performed miracles, he did exist, and many people "witnessed" him. And many people will agree with that. :)

By the way, there is historical evidence that a man named Jesus Christ existed. Look it up on Google.

Played Macho-Man Volleyball at my school for a fundraiser. My junior class beat all the other classes by large margins. It was a fun night.

Asking for an opinion and not expecting religion to impact their opinion is kind of asinine. BlueLancer didn't understand how religion came into this argument. I explained that the views of a religion can impact a person's stance on this issue. Thus, I do not see how he is correct in saying religion shouldn't be involved. People have ideas, those can be influence by religion, and when they write those views here, religion is now involved. No matter what, religion is bound to be involved. Religion can be associated with any topic.

Congratulations on 1300 total, NJE03. I know it has been a big goal for you for a while. Great to see you achieve it.

I didn't say you annoyed me. -.- I don't understand though. You've brought up an example where a person wants to live to spend more time with their family. Where's the euthanasia? I think it pretty much stands to reason that if a person wants to live we should let him. If them being alive will cause medical difficulties, and if they are at the point where they can't convey their thoughts to their family, what is stopping the family from euthanising them? The person is just a burden, and the family might even say, "If he was conscious, he would want this." The man gets euthanised against his will, when in fact he would have enjoyed being with his family for a few more years/months, etc.

Mic Check - RATM

There are certain aspects that you can consider advantageous to your family, such as extra years to spend with them. Everyone likes that. Also, though in pain, it could give a person time to think about their life and what they have done with it, and maybe get a few things done relationship-wise with a few people. See, it's this attitude towards life that annoys me. That you should stay alive because friends and family want to be close to you. If one of my closest friends or a member of my family was finding life so unbearable, and they'd tried everything to feel better, I wouldn't want them to stay alive just because they think I'd miss them. To me, that just seems incredibly selfish. If I was half the friend I claim to be, I'd respect that it's nothing personal and they'll be happier in death than in life, so it's the right thing for them. Asking someone to stay around just because you'll personally miss seems natural but also very self-centered. I didn't mean a family prolonging a person's death in order to spend time with them. I was referring to an instance in which the suffering person wants to spend a bit more time around their family. Its two opposite things. It's a shame I annoy you. The Catholic religion (one of many religions) comes into play in the sense that it teaches life and death is determined by God, not by man, as I stated in my post, which you quoted. That is how religion comes into it. I don't think I can be clearer. People's values are affected by religion, or lack thereof. Thus, most discussions have the possibility of involving religion, or lack thereof. A big part of Euthanasia is whether or not it is morally right or wrong. According to the Catholic church, morals come from God. What I am trying to say is, almost everything is linked to religion, and most things are important issues because certain religions teach differently about the topic. I don't see how it is stupid that religion gets involved when its inevitable and happens all the time.

Its a text called "Issues of Faith and Morals". After reading what you said, which I partly understood, it kind of made me worry about the book, because it presents the idea of Hoyle's number as such a strong case against atheists and their belief in no God, when really, its a huge miscalculation. My instructor found it interesting that his work would be invalid, since he was a "very careful and decorated scientist" and some of his works were awarded the Noble prize. He thinks there must have been something missing or that we don't know about if he made such an obvious error. Meh, if only we could sit Hoyle down and ask him what the heck he was thinking. :P Its doubtable. To go with the Mona Lisa analogy (not a very good one), it could take, lets say, hundreds of years to get a millimeter square in the correct place, but who says the next year, it will be misplaced. The odds of everything being assembled correctly at the same time is unimaginable. Thus, I agree with Lateralus in saying it isn't the best example.

I scored a 14. Possibly Mildly Depressed. :o Not at all. Being sick the last week didn't help much, I guess.

Ah, sorry for jumping to conclusions. It was quite hilarious to see the look on my instructor's face today when I told him I had looked at some information that invalidated Hoyle's number. He's always seen me as a strong Catholic, so when I questioned the textbook and its "facts" he was quite surprised. And those were some interesting articles posted by venomai. I'll post later when I organize my thoughts, because they seem to be mixed within all the Wikipedia articles :? I read.

If you believe in God: No one has a right to take on the role of God and choose to kill themselves. Life and death is determined by God, not by man. But I guess one could make the point that we don't have a right to prolong life then via medical technologies. There are certain aspects that you can consider advantageous to your family, such as extra years to spend with them. Everyone likes that. Also, though in pain, it could give a person time to think about their life and what they have done with it, and maybe get a few things done relationship-wise with a few people. Gosh I sound like the devil's advocate.

One would have to define "a decent reason" and which medical illnesses it should apply to. Medical illnesses do include mental illnesses. And what's to keep a person from harming themselves over a break-up, and then asking to be euthanized because they have serious medical issues. EDIT: Where I live, there is a bill called Initiative 1000, which deals with what I like to call assisted suicide. It is similar to euthanasia. It could be tied in with this discussion as well.

I got your point, Warri0r. To be honest, I got it via the link venomai posted (though, it was from wikipedia. :P). You just said it in a way more complicated way. But thanks for the clarification. Still, what I find hard to believe is how if our creation was the same as that of all the other organisms in the world, why are we given a conscience, a thought process, etc. I know Hoyle was an astronomer. I stated it clearly in my post. I was more concerned with Chandra.

Though I haven't finished reading through the links venomai has posted, I agree with Lenticular. Its extremely hard to understand how physical things (chemicals, reactions) can form such psychological things (conscience, emotions, thought process). It doesn't seem possible that chemicals reacting to energy can form something so complex and...can't find a word to describe it (not physical, unseen)... as a conscience. I am just repeating myself over and over again. It just doesn't make sense that it could happen without some intervention.

When I was younger, the Big Bang Theory was mentioned a lot. A power outage happened right next to my house and it made a huge bang, so I always thought that is what people meant by the Big Bang. I remember going around whenever it was mentioned, saying, "I remember when that happened." Quite funny, to be honest. A little Off-Topic, but oh well.

Kind of interesting to think about it though. Even if it was just a bunch of chemicals that were introduced to energy, how did a human form to have such insight and a conscience, among other things.

I recently read in a book that our Milky Way galaxy contains some 100,000 million other stars, and that there are at least 100 million more galaxies like ours. If there are, lets say, 10 planets for each star, that comes to roughly 10^20 chances that we could have been created. At least, that is how I interpreted it. You could even say 10^100 if you wanted. Yet, in the early 1980s, Chandra Wickramasinghe (an astrophysicist in Wales) and Fred Hoyle (a well-known British astronomer) calculated that if humans were created by chance, and not designed by a higher being, we would have a one in 10^40,000 chance of being created. They did this by calculated the odds on whether random shuffling of amino acids could have produced life. Kind of an unimaginable number, if you ask me... How would one explain that?

I think Trapical made it pretty clear how money does not equal "true" happiness, if you will.

In my opinion, the post seemed less formal and more personal without statistics, which helped me connect with it better. It would have been like a lecture or a research article if it had been filled with statistics. I don't really want to read that.

Awesome. 10/10 For the achievement and +1 for not having a party.

Hope all in real life is going well. :)

You've come a long way. I can see that you have stuck with this goal for what seems like forever. Keep it up. You'll be there in no time.

Just the words I would have used. Epic.