gonpost

I understand what you are saying. But I am wondering who is controlling the world if God isn't. The Devil? Humans? Animals? Nature? What makes the world go round? I guess nature and gravity and a bunch of other things make the world go round! :D he just set how everything works.... Except for the deciding if you can get into heaven/hell after you die, you've hinted at existentialism. Look it up if you like.

I have a question which current rare owners might be interested in... Will jagex change any of the GE prices when january comes? The reason i ask is that the minimum prices for rares are much higher (ie the min price for purp phat on GE is 168,150,000). Would there be any long-lasting implications, or would the price of the rares just fall again from that level to how they are falling now? Will people buy up a ton of rares just a few days before the january update, or will people not have a clue if jagex will change the ge price and therefore nothing exciting will happen...? Input please. :)

Not really. It's not AT ALL as good of money to sell accounts. A very good account takes *significantly* more time to make than an equal amount of gold. Account selling/trading will be minimal. I'm quite confident that I'm correct. It's simply not a viable option...for anyone.

Absolutely true. I rest my case. Do you have anything to say about my other two points? Plectrum, I was trying to be nice. You've just come off as a complete [wagon]. You took something WAY out of context. The "absolutely true' was OBVIOUSLY referring to the second sentence. I added in the first sentence so that I wouldn't be leaving your words out. I left out the other two points because you basically agreed with me, which shows progress. Don't you have anything to say about my last post other than that smart [wagon] remark? You just lost all your credibility pulling that maneuver. I'd be glad to talk to you again once you've grown up a little (seriously). But for now, there's no reasoning with you. Until then, good luck in life to you.

Not quite. The first sentence you said should be continued to "beliefs other than disbelief in a god". Your second sentence is not entirely true. There can still be purpose and meaning without a god. You went on to say "we are here for nothing", as the logical conclusion of your previous two sentences. I would like to add in that that is nihilism, and nihilism is not the logical conclusion of athiesm. I can understand why you would reject nihilism, because it truly offers nothing for humanity (other than a case of depression :)). If you had said "we are here for no inherent purpose", that would probably lean towards existentialism...they believe that we humans must create our own purpose in life. Both a thiest and an athiest could be an existentialist. The former believing that god left humanity on his own in the universe to find its own purpose or meaning for existing, and the latter believing that humanity is simply here (no reason necessarily required, although he/she may or may not believe in one), and must find his own purpose in life. We've *thought* of many things, plectrum. Just because we have conceived of something does not necessarily require that that something exists. Also, you said "if were weren't meant to have purpose". How could you know for certain humanity was even meant to have an inherent purpose? Meant to have a purpose by who, god? An athiest would beg to differ. Careful, plectrum. "You contradicted yourself. You said that Atheist don't have a base of beliefs beside the disbelief in God. " Absolutely true. "Then you went on to say that Atheist don't believe in higher purpose." Some might. Buddhism is technically athiestic in that there is no god. However, they believe in a higher purpose. Many athiests, however, do not believe in a "higher" purpose after life. Others may hold hope that there is something after death, but say that they do not know what that something is.

(1) You keep using examples of materialistic things being meaningful and somehow important. Since you and I don't have the same beliefs I can't argue things that are divine to prove my point. So I used a materialistic example, ideas, to prove my point. I never said that Atheist don't have ideas, Atheism is an idea. (2) You fail to understand there are more details to a belief than the definition of the word. Christian, the word, means "Christ Ones", it doesn't even mention God. You can't argue an entire set of beliefs on one word. Atheism is the base of what Atheists believe. Its not the only thing. Atheists don't believe in universal purpose. Why is it hard to come to grips with this? (3) No, I just don't understand why you don't understand your own beliefs. But if you do understand them I don't understand why you can't explain them well. (4) I don't want this higher purpose. People who believe in a God accept that there is a higher purpose. 1. You seem to like "ideas". An athiest could very well live for the spread of an idea (think of the forms of economy and governments throughout history). That's not material. 2. Athiesm doesn't form any base to any beliefs whatsoever, other than the base that there is no god. One athiest could have entirely different convictions than another, and their only common conviction would be that there is no god. I'd agree when you say athiests don't believe in a universal purpose. A PARTICULAR athiest may believe that there is a universal purpose, but athiests as a whole do not believe in a higher purpose together. After all, athiesm isn't a system with followers. It's merely a disbelief in god...nothing more. The word "christian" does mean "follower of christ" (or "christ's ones" is close enough as you said). However, it does imply god because according to christianity, christ is god. I might be wrong in assuming this for you, though, because I don't know what type of christian you are. 3. He does explain them well. Quite frankly, you two are thinking from fundamentally different sides. Hence you are having trouble understanding each other...the difficulty in communication is as much his problem as it is yours. Using definitives like "you fail to understand" is not a good way to debate. You should say "I think..." or "Perhaps", because you two clearly aren't on common ground. Your fundamental viewpoints are different, so it's hard to understand each other. Be friendly! :) 4. Yes, people who believe in god do accept that there is a "higher purpose". They believe it. Athiests simply say that your "higher purpose" probably doesn't exist (ie god). It's not a matter of athiests coming into the light and accepting that there is a higher purpose of or related to god. They simply see no compelling reason to believe in that purpose, and so they choose their own.

Purpose is created by a necessity. Quite frankly, I think you are asking "why does anything happen at all"? To be perfectly honest, no one really knows the answer to that. There are some things that are simply not known (for now, at least). If die and happen to see god is really there (unlikely but possible), I'd like to ask him what his purpose is. Perhaps he created his own purpose. Why couldn't we humans do the same thing? You're looking for an end. But be honest with yourself. You aren't REALLY looking for an end. You're looking for another beginning. After all, if you finally fulfilled whatever ultimate purpose you had, you'd be left looking for another purpose to continue existing. Perhaps it is best that we are forever looking. Just throwing some things out there. :)

It's probably better to say simply "all he does is live and die" than to put in some stereotype with a rather dismal image attached to it...we have to be realistic here. However, most people would say that if he helped feed many starving children, he at least got the rest of humanity a step closer to fulfilling that purpose. He fulfilled it to the best of his ability (if that was his life's work). One could argue the best way to attack the problem of hunger, but that's a different matter completely.

Perhaps some of you will never be satisfied with an alternate "meaning/purpose" to life from the viewpoint of an athiest. I would like to point out that simply wanting a "satisfactory" meaning to one's life does not mean that religion is necessarily true, even though it fills that void quite easily. Athiests tend to look at the evidence, hence even though there may not be an obvious meaning for their lives, they find meaning. Here's something that just came to me... What about god? No one ever things about him/her/it. What's the point of "living" or existing for god? He obviously created his own meaning somehow, so why couldn't we?

As someone who has 94 slayer, I'll tell you right now that 60k slayer exp per hour is impossible. Dagg tasks are not common at all, and even with a cannon you won't hit 60k per hour on that task. Normally, slayer is between 10 and 15k exp per hour, but more towards 10k for anyone under 120 combat....

As an American, I have to say I haven't seen anyone around me ever have a "fear of communism". People merely think that it never turns out well, which, in fact, it never does. Keep in mind that communism and socialism are the forms of the market, not necessarily of the government. Communism just tends to degrade into a dictatorship, so that's why they're always associated with one another. Most of Europe has a socialist economy or practices mainly socialism. The US is a capitalistic economy with many socialized things, such as government owned utilities and welfare. As to which one is best....I'll leave that up to the debaters. That contest has been going on for centuries. Once again, as far as I've observed with kids my age, there is no fear of communism and all that red scare crap went out long ago with the Vietnam war. If people fear China because they are a communist country, then those people are idiots. No one should fear or even *consider* war (which for some reason I hear about all the time) against a country just because the other country has different government and economic practices. Not to mention, China has been becoming more and more capitalistic as time has gone on. With their economy as it is, they really have no choice.

As far as the community as a whole is concerned, I'd say that it's mostly younger players (12-16), but many of the mature and experienced players can be found if you train any skill to a high level. For instance, in the TSG we have a lot of players who are older than the average runescape player. Many of us are also all dedicated to the goal of eventually getting 99 slayer. On our clan chat channel we talk about slayer all the time (best way to kill a certain monster, about slayer news and updates, about which weapons to use for what, info about certain monsters), and lately we've been organizing god wars dungeon trips. We're always able to get a group of 110+'s to go since nearly everyone in the TSG is higher level. They've also got a lot of common sense and can do the GWD very well. That's just my 2 cents. I hope it helps a little.

Here's a few.... The first is my 99 prayer party! Every one of my good friends got together in my house, and we had a drop party afterwards. http://img233.imageshack.us/my.php?imag ... yerif5.png Here is 77 RC. You can mention about the world 66 law runecrafting company, and explain how and why it works. I figured this'd be good to show people the point of it. http://img486.imageshack.us/my.php?imag ... ingaq1.png This is just after the 99 capes came out. Myself and a few of my friends all met by the yanille house portal and tried to synchronize our cape emotes. Obviously, we did it! http://img227.imageshack.us/my.php?imag ... sonbi8.png Here's 126 combat...do with it what you want. http://img233.imageshack.us/my.php?imag ... gesok2.png Oh and here's duke freedom reaching 1 billion networth. Obviously now it would have been 10's of billions, but he was banned. http://img233.imageshack.us/my.php?imag ... lnwnk9.png Oh, and mention some of the clans perhaps. Ie the TSG, which I'm in. It's the slayer's guild, led by axe man jack. It's a great community of players and we talk all the time on our runescape clan chat channel. The forum is here if you wanna know more: http://z13.invisionfree.com/TSG/index.p ... e.com/TSG/

Remind yourself that it's not real. While you're watching the movie, make sure to look at the room you are in. That'll remind you that it's only a movie and that you're still in reality; and that reality is just as it has always been. Just reason with yourself. EDIT: It seems warrior said nearly the same thing as I was making this post, haha. But it really is the best way to get over that fear in my opinion.

And mr. paw claw hits the nail on the head! Well said. Any achievement diary is welcome to me. :) (I'm lvl 126)

Not to offend Satenza, but I'm just pointing something out here. If you want to avoid a flame war, avoid generalizations (I'm going with what the author was thinking here). Hence the term "Christian Liberals" doesn't cover *all* Christian liberals. IN MY OPINION, Satenza is right that what he said applies to MANY of them, but we could by no means say all of them. If you want to have a religious topic, it's best to keep it to the individual unless you are very specific about what you are saying, so as to avoid accusing the wrong party, and also to avoid accusing people who affiliate themselves with said party but who happen to think differently on a few issues. Edit: The other thing you have to do to avoid flame wars is to keep focus, and to avoid all insults! It's incredibly rare that an insult is effective, unless you want to convey an honest opinion and use them sparingly, and only when they are needed. That's my take on it, anyway.

I'm not sure if this is right....but isn't that a Catholic thing? The phrase "the universal Church" clues me in, seeing as catholic literally means "universal". The problem you'll have is that Christianity simply means that you recognize Jesus as your Lord (or part of or w/e). ANYTHING can vary after that. But yeah, that's the problem. You can never say "Christians" unless you mean *only* people who recognize Jesus as their lord. Anything further than that and you have to specify, just as with any other group or sect of people.

85920607 Yes, that's what was on there. If you can figure out what that is, you deserve a heap of cookies.

Can you trade them?

They're nothing. A J mod said their for interest only, and they're not useful for anything. He didn't give any hint that they would ever be, either.

That's some of the most insane luck I've ever heard of... Congrats! :shock:

How can you guys stand full brightness? If you go past the 2nd brightness level (normal), the only change that occurs is the color gets drained out! Looks terrible! The "normal" setting (2nd notch) is definitely the best.

I think natural evolution is evolution without the influence of a god/deity. Evolution by God would probably mean evolution as viewed commonly (taken place over millions of years), but guided by God. That's a common Catholic viewpoint. At least, that's what I took them to mean.

Put it in the bank, sit back, and live off of the interest quite comfortably. I wouldn't be able to spend the money by myself, so I'd probably give some to mom/dad (my mom's place could really use some fixing up), but otherwise I'm not too sure. I'd probably find some organization I believe in and donate to them. And since I wouldn't have to work (although I would still go to college just so my brain doesn't completely rot), I could donate my time as well. Something like that, I think.

You probably won't make up your mind until you are faced with the end of your funding for college. Personally, I'd forgo and not even consider marrying/having kids/making money/retiring/dying as a possibility (that is, the societal norm). Just do your own bachelor thing for a bit. As far as the degree goes, I really don't think you will make up your mind or do much of anything at all until you have a change of life philosophy, which doesn't change easily. I know you probably won't do this, but you need to look at the whole world (through the internet, perhaps). Then go outside and try to see things in a different way...like, look at the trees as you did when you were a kid, remember the feel of everything as it was when you were younger, and then imagine it with different feelings. That'll give you an idea of what you want...I hope. Anyway, go searching. And don't sweat about being a bachelor for a while. I've got the same plan in mind for a while yet. Oh, and quit the smoking. That way you won't be living one pack to the next, and instead can focus on other things. I'm serious.