Ambassadar

*Beep Beep Beep* *Red warning lights go off* Time out. Not an evolution debate. There is another thread for that. Thanks.

Insofar as that we were created in the image of God yes. Notice how the comparison only goes so far as saying the "image" of God. How do you reach that conclusion? Originally man was sinless just like God is sinless. Man made the choice to sin and thus separated themselves from God. 80 years isn't very far from eternity. Eternal seperation from God is our choice. Jesus is sitting there with a free gift of eternal life for us... all we have to do is take it. How would that not be fair? I think if we actually saw God in all his glory we would be so blown away we would be kissing his feet assuming we weren't so terrified and awed by his power that we were just struck senseless. Imagine the thought of a God that created the Universe and is completely perfect and all powerful. It is mind boggling. Then think about how even though we are merely a speck when compared to him he still loves us and cares for us. I deeply appreciate that and would want to worship him for it. I don't think the human mind is capable of fully grasping who and what he fully is. So what is hell? Hell is eternal separation from God. This question of what is hell got me thinking. I've read most of the Bible and I couldn't really think of any reference to the whole you go there and roast. I asked a few people and they said they don't know of anything in the Bible that says it is a place of torture or anything like that. I actually found out(I need to find another source to confirm it though) that the word Helling was the term in old English that meant to cover something. To apply that to humanity at death it would be like getting covered in the grave. All I can say for sure right now is when you die and haven't accepted the bridge Jesus extends to us to God then that is the finality and utter separation from God for eternity. That is what causes the great anguish and misery associated with hell. This is actually a pretty interesting thing to look into and I didn't realize how little I knew about it. I am going to have to look more into it because I wouldn't say I am the authoritative answer on it at this point. So far though it doesn't seem like hell is some place of torture and fire. I may be wrong but that is my impression from looking at what the Bible says right now. Thanks. I would like to say that rebuttal from anyone on this post I just made is welcome as well. Rebuttal is welcomed.

This thread isn't about life. It is about the universe. The only bearing life has on this discussion is to show that energy hasn't degraded to it's lowest state yet. All I am doing is walking through the steps I see logically of how the Universe came into existence and I feel one of the options has to be there is a God. I listed some other options as well. Why does it tick you off so badly I made a God option. Do you think we shouldn't explore that possibility at all? Isn't that kinda close minded? If you can't prove there isn't a God then that option should stay on the table. So once again the burden falls on you to fulfill your claim. Actually it's because if I start talking evolution then this thread becomes pointless because it will blow up into so many topics that it will be impossible to cover everything. This thread is about the creation of the Universe. The evolution threads are so muddled and all over the map not to mention a giant flame fest that I don't think any productive discussion could come from continuing those threads. Once this thread has run it's course I might do one with some thoughts/observations on evolution if you want and if it is ok with the Mods. Until then please let's stay on topic. All I did was say if you KNOW this then tell me how you know it. Educate me. Also I would like to point out once again you are making generalized comments like "evidence says otherwise" without actually showing me evidence. If you have all this evidence like you claim repeatedly then show it to us. I would like to see it.

Nice response Death_By_Pod. Note to everyone else. This is exactly the type discussion I was looking for. He wasn't just like "You are wrong." He was like "I disagree and then listed his reasons." Where did the energy come from then? Are you telling me something can be created from nothing? Again, where did the energy come from that was in that state if that is the case? 1. It isn't known if there are other universes. 2. It isn't known how the physics of such universes would be if they existed. 3. That being the case this statement is a huge assumption. 4. I covered this when I gave as one of my potential final options that the second law of thermodynamics is not always true. If it doesn't work in another Universe then it wouldn't always be true. In other words we agree that this would have to be one of the potentials of what could be since it cannot be proven or disproven at this point. I don't understand your point. I never said the Big Bang assumed the universe was created from scratch. To me the Universe is the energy contained in the Universe so when I made this statement I was referring to it in energy terms. I dunno if that answers what you were getting at so if I am still missing your point please explain it to me a bit more please. Theory: a hypothesis assumed for the sake of argument or investigation Are you saying this isn't a hypothesis? So how would you define the first law? All science is speculation until proven. Explain to me how logically what I said on this point didn't make sense and give me a better alternative. And the second law says without an outside energy source it would have stayed in a degenerate state for eternity. What is the outside source of energy? I think it is still a bit early in our discourse for either of us to brand the other one as full of faulty assumptions. Let the assumptions speak for themselves. If you can prove them wrong or I can prove yours wrong then only that will show if they are faulty or not. Of course it is speculation. Everything Stephen Hawkins comes up with is speculation as well. Unless the beginning of the Universe can be reproduced to observe it first hand anything anyone ever says about it is speculation. I already said what I preferred. I prefer the option that I think a God created the Universe. To me that makes more sense than randomly saying "Some other Universe that might exist(entirely possible but as of now it is just speculation based off of some math and some assumptions when observing some particles since we don't understand what is happening with them) might have different laws of physics(absolutely no proof at all on this) and those laws might make it possible for energy to be created from nothing(2nd law of thermodynamics would be wrong... If you are so science driven though why would you be just tossing out laws of science when they bothered you?) and then that energy might somehow come into our Universe(Once again a big leap of faith that might be possible but no first hand evidence) to keep things working." Is this what you consider a reasonable assumption? Compared to this I feel like my assumption is just as reasonable or more so. Granted that is just my opinion. Other people may think the alternative is more attractive but that is fine. It's not like there is some dictatorship that will execute someone for disagreeing. PhD doctorates of Physics don't really understand every aspect of theories. That shouldn't stop people from discussing it amongst themselves. It is interesting stuff. I agree with this but does education make intelligence? No, it merely allows it to be harnessed better. I would still like to hear what people have to say even though there is a good chance I have a further level of education.

I find it interesting that the original poster has disappeared and hasn't said a thing in over four pages...

I will field this one from a Christian/Biblical perspective for ya. Please don't say stuff like "what if there isn't a God" etc. This whole point is made from the Christian perspective which assumes there is a God and Jesus was who he said, etc It comes down to a few main points. Why is man separated from God today? Originally God and man (Adam and Eve) conversed and had an active relationship. When Adam and Eve sinned they separated themselves from God because it basically dirtied them in his eyes since he is a holy God. Their sin also dirtied their descendants and thus a gulf was created between man and God. So what is sin? Sin is breaking God's commands for how we are to live. It is what separates us from God and in effect keeps us out of heaven. All it takes is one sin and a person is not worthy of being in God's presence because of how holy he is. So basically we are screwed... Except God knew this and he loves us so he realized that left on our own we are toast. He didn't want this for us so instead of us having to pay for our sins(going to hell) he sent Jesus down to be sacrificed in our place. Jesus took the penalty for our sins. All ya have to do is accept him as Lord and acknowledge he saved you from your sin and thats it. That is all you have to do to go to heaven. The key is Jesus took the sin from us when you accept him as your savior and payed for it himself so in God's eyes we are once again pure in terms of sin.. It's basically a pretty sweet deal. God didn't have to send Jesus to pay for our sins but he did because he loves us. It isn't some diabolical plot on his part. It is a complete act of love. I have a few questions in return for ya... If a man can be good enough to go to heaven then why would Jesus have to come in the first place to die for us? Do you think a person is capable of earning his way into the presence of the most holy and perfect being in the entire universe that has no tolerance for sin? One sin is enough to disqualify a person. I know I sure as heck am not capable of that and I'm probably what most people would consider a "good" person. To my knowledge Christianity is the only religion on Earth that doesn't require a person to work their way to heaven with good deeds. That's because for a Christian it's like hey, we are all sinners, we have all messed up, we are all human. It's impossible to earn our way into God' presence. God sent Jesus down as a free gift to us if we accept him and his forgiveness. Why not? Why would I want to reject his love? Why wouldn't I love the fact he loved me first? Why wouldn't I want to worship him for how good and loving a God he is? Being saved is a free gift. Why not take it? If a person relies on them self to pay for their sin instead of allowing Jesus to pay for it then they are going to have to bear the consequences according to the Bible. I guess this is also why Christians can come across as pushy sometimes. It's like they know how awesome a gift they got from Jesus and they just want other people to be able to have it also. Sometimes people can get carried away with it but it's only because they care about that person and want them to have what they got themself. It is all meant in good will. I hope this clears things up some on the Christian perspective of things. Let me know if I need to go into more detail on anything.

Explain to me how the universe wasn't snapped into existence. As to the rest this thread is not about evolution.

I reread what you said and I do sorta agree with your defense of it. I think my comment about opinions was more directed at this quote you made My apologies for not being clearer with that originally. I dont want this to slip into an evolution debate so to respond I am going to merely say do you think I did this on my original post? This is unrelated to the original topic but I will say that in the steps of the scientific method hypothesis comes before experimentation. After experimentation you re-analyze it and see how it compared to your original hypothesis.

If this was true then why did Ahmadinejad not deny the charge that Iran was supplying IED's in his interview that I quoted part of earlier? I will quote it again to refresh you.

Another thing to remember is there are always two sides to every coin. Difficulties in life and overcoming challenges is what makes us grow as a person. The more you overcome the more you learn and mature. The most incredible people I know are the ones that have been through the hardest times and weathered the storm. It can be difficult when you are in the middle of a crisis of any sort and you just feeling like giving up but when you hang in there and realize that the hardship is molding you into a better person it will really help your outlook on life. Overcoming difficulties is what makes us grow to our full potential. A person that always has everything handed to them on a platter may never realize their full potential because they never have to push themselves to realize it. Most hardships when you look back on them later in life were blessings in disguise.

Overall I would agree that peacekeeping missions don't end up very pretty. What is your take on Liberia? It's what we did with the French Resistance during WWII and also in Afghanistan when the Soviets invaded. Seemed to work great then. Why wouldn't it now? I don't see anything wrong in empowering a person to defend their life and freedom, do you?

Gotcha... that makes more sense. Another question... Do you think World War II would have been as bad if the allies had attacked Hitler when he started illegally annexing territory and started breaking the WWI peace treaty by expanding his military? This was before he had turned the German military into a powerful juggernaut so Germany couldn't have put up as tough a resistance as they did several years later.

I'll throw in my two cents if ya don't mind. From a Christian perspective according to the Bible man wasn't flawed until humanity sinned and thus separated themselves from him. All the flawed messed up stuff is just a consequence of that. As to the girls thing that is an interesting topic. As I was growing up I went through phases where I was the book nerd that everyone picked on and I also had my moments where I was the jock that kicked some rear in sports. I didn't really figure out the whole girl thing until college even though I had won state and stuff in highschool in sports. The key is confidence around females. Jerk guys that act like they are the stuff portray confidence. A lot of times those guys are just covering up their insecurities with false confidence but as far as girls are concerned it works. A lot of "nice guys" are great guys but their insecurity is unattractive to a girl. Overall I have always been pretty confident in who I am. I just never knew how to act around girls because I grew up with a brother and was just never around them. I felt like there was some kind of secret about how you act or treat them. I would put the ones I thought were really pretty up on a pedestal and get freaked out when I talked to them. Girls don't like that. A girl wants a guy that will treat her as a normal person and won't take any crap off her. A girl has to respect a guy. If he comes across as scared of her or intimidated by her it's gonna be darn hard for her to respect him. You don't have to be mr buff guy to get a girl. Charm counts for a lot more than buffness with most females. A charming guy with average looks will get a ton more girls than a stud guy that is awkward around them. Once it kinda clicks how things work it gets sooo much easier with females. As they get older they come around. I personally thought most girls were idiots until sometime during their freshman year of college. Not all of them but it seemed like the vast majority.

Malaria yes... Aids... no... how are you going to get people to quit having unprotected sex outside of marriage? People in the US don't even always have unprotected sex outside of marriage so how the heck would you get an entire continent to quit doing that? Actually I feel we have a pretty good record. The Barbary War- slapped down the Barbary pirates and made the Mediterranean safe from these scum that had Europe paying bribes to them for years. Then there was the American Businessman that was kidnapped by the Raisuli in Morocco in 1904. Teddy Roosevelt took care of business. http://www.deanesmay.com/archives/000374.html World War II. We tangled with Vichy France when we did a joint landing in Morocco with the British and free French. Morocco was liberated. Moved east into Algeria and Tunisia liberating Northern Africa from the Nazis. Next up off the top of my head would be Mogadishu and the Blackhawk Down incident. This went poorly only because we went into it halfway. You can't step into the middle of a war, try to play nice and then step out if you get bloodied. If they had let the military take care of business this would have been a success. Personally I don't think we should have been there in the first place. Once we got involved though we shouldn't have tucked tail and fled. That just portrayed the US as weak and invited further attacks. Last thing I can think of where US troops were on the ground was in Liberia recently. From what I know they were able to get the situation under control with help from Nigeria and probably some other nations. I haven't studied this in detail. That being said what should be done about the Sudan? I don't honestly know. It is terrible what has happened there. If armed troops are put on the ground they don't need to be restricted to policemen like the troops in Rwanda. If troops go in they need to be taking a side and attacking an enemy to destroy them. That is what a military does. To try to use it otherwise is foolish. Another approach that might prove to be more effective in the long run is to arm the people getting butchered. Give them the capability to defend themselves. That way outside countries aren't bogged down in a never ending war and the people being slaughtered have a means of protecting themselves. What they choose to do with that capability would be up to them. Thoughts?

What was the answer to Hitler and the holocaust? Do you have a better way it could have been solved?

Another option is every time I go to chop wood for manage thy kingdom I swing my waterbirth island on my way there to pick up a load of snape grass. It actually accumulates really fast that way.

If I don't believe you exist pault what does that mean?

A lot of that stuff was referring to the downfall of Israel. Jerusalem got utterly creamed in AD 69 by the Romans. People were resorting to cannabilism eating their dead children. Others were committing suicide jumping off their rooftops. The Roman auxiliaries were gutting people trying to leave the city because there was a rumor going around that refugees had eaten their gold to hide it. It was bad... Read some Josephus if you are interested. It is called "The Accounts of the Siege." As to your main point that people have been saying the end of the world is near for thousands of years I agree. People are too quick to only focus on their present generation. We actually have it incredibly good right now. Remember that in the Bible it says God will come back as a thief in the night. In other words when no one expects it. All of a sudden he is there. To me that just doesn't sound like right now at all. Woot! Tigra and I finally agreed on something. :D How hard would it be to sneak a suitcase nuke across the Mexican or Canadian border into the US?

Hehe... that is one fine looking woman.... I don't think going to an extreme either way is good or healthy. I guess I should rephrase what I meant. I think practical strength training for use in things like sports, martial arts or the military is better than bodybuilding and no I don't mean looking like a sumo wrestler is good. I mean more normal sports like soccer, baseball, basketball, etc

Either way my post is applicable. The reason is if he is merely a puppet of the clerics and they have all the power then that means he is saying what the person in power wants him to say. In effect he becomes their spokesperson to deliver their message to the world. Whether it is his message or their message that message is scary. Either way it also comes from whoever is in control. Now explain to me how that is pointless....

Body builders have to get on diuretics for days before their competitions and dehydrate the heck out of their bodies. That isn't healthy. They also take roids and have heart problems from it. Take Schwarzenegger's heart attack a few years back as an example of that. Body building almost always involves steroids. If you watch a non steroid bodybuilding competition and compare it to most bodybuilders you know of the differences are huge.

When I think of bodybuilding I think of this: To me that is just nasty. When I think of strength/power/weight building I think more of professional athletes.

I am attempting to do that. I notice you haven't pointed out a single flaw in my line of logic. Please point it out if you see it. Prove there wasn't a creator of the universe using facts then. I'm waiting. Thanks for implying I don't have common sense. Weak arguments usually involve personal attacks like this. How about backing up your opinions? And you obviously didn't read my first post if you are making this comment. If you did read it then go back and read it again because you didn't understand it if you are saying this.

And getting cancer earlier makes you less of a burden? *sarcasm*

I won't do any talking... I'll just let Iran's President Ahmadinejad make my points for me. Notice which country is shattered first behind him... http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=53809 http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3356154,00.html