Arkangyle

I want to impress my date Friday night ... she's coming over and I'm cooking ... I need a main course. Ideas?

The Middle East conflicts pit the Jews against the Muslims ... as both groups do not accept Jesus Christ to be their savior, all of them killed are lost to the kingdom of Heaven.

As a Christian nation, we have an obligation to God ... He commands us to spread the word and save the souls of others who have not yet bent knee before him. But what can we do?

What if we offered to give each side of the conflict weaponry in exchange for conversions to Christianity. Each soldier we equipped would be required to pledge allegiance to Christ ... then, when he dies, it's ok ... his eternal soul is saved. And since we'd be equipping both groups with high quality gear, you can be certain there'd be a lot of additional souls in Heaven.

What do you think of this proposal?

I'm sure you know the wager, but I'll restate for illustrative purposes :

(1) Believe in God + God exists = Heaven

(2) Believe in God + God doesn't exist = Nothing

(3) No belief in God + God exists = Hell

(4) No belief in God + God doesn't exist = Nothing

From a juvenile approach, this would seem reasonable ... and it appeals to those who fail to consider other alternatives (other religions being "right") in their Christianity-centric view of the world. But let's disregard this aspect for now.

In case (2), belief without God, the implied gain / loss is "nothing" ... our personal outcome is not changed.

But isn't this rather selfish in nature? What of the outcome to others? Could we not have spent our lives helping the human condition ... not discriminating against homosexuals ... not flinging missles at countries whose religious beliefs are different? Personal immortality may not exist ... but through our actions we can achieve immortality in the survival of man.

http://www.venganza.org/

Do you only perform good works because of a fear or feeling of obligation to a diety? If there were no god, would we all be cast into a mosh pit of sin and destruction ... all seeking to do harm to others?

Or can morality exist without religion?

Several religions take a somewhat neutral stance on morality ... Buddhism and Taoism are reasonable examples, though they may still contain some essence. But what of atheists? Are they all immoral creatures? Or is the morality present in those individuals who do not subscribe to a morally-guided faith evidence morals can and do exist outside of religion?

Do you help others solely because you wish for them to help you in return? Or is there something more.

Is the only thing keeping you from slaughtering your co-workers the desire to not be cast into the pit of Hell (or other suffering to yourself)?

I was thinking ... each year we celebrate Christmas, claimed by many to be the day of Jesus' birth. Everyone in the world is getting gifts from others ... even Santa Clause gets cookies and milk ... but nobody ever gets anything for the J-Man himself. This year I would like to get something for Jesus ... to let him know I care. But what to get him?

I know Christmas is still off in the distance, but I like to put a lot of thought into the actual gifts I give. I heard God doesn't play dice ... so I'm guessing the new version of Monopoly is out of the question.

Now, before any of you go blahblahblah telling me to give him my devotion, let me remind you that there are plenty of dogmatic fans of his already ... basically, "he's already got one."

I saw this during The Daily Show tonight ... amusing ... exactly how does arbitrary rankings on arbitrary categories based on arbitrary "factually true information" play into God's plan?

http://www.raptureready.com/

If the United States is, as many claim, a nation founded on Christian principles and that our laws are based on the Ten Commandments ... why is it only three of the ten commandments are illegal?

VI. Thou shalt not murder.

VIII. Thou shalt not steal.

IX. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.

We often hear this declared as a way of asserting the laws of Christianity, at least in the eyes of the one declaring such, to others. Personally, I see it as a way of distancing themselves from the situation ... a way of avoiding personal judgement for "casting the first stone."

How do you interpret the statement?

I'm so totally stoked.

If a homeless man, while searching through trash for recycleable goods to earn money, found $21,000 in bond certificates of yours and responsibly returned them to you, how much would you give him as a reward?

I hear people say, "God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve!" Who is Steve? I thought God created everyone/thing ... if he didn't create Steve, then where did Steve come from?

(a) Life ON EARTH originated from gradual evolution/adaptation of protein molecules.

(b) Life ON EARTH is the creation of a all-powerful, divine, extra-planar being (God) who loves his creation ... yet he sits idle as innocent women/children are brutally raped and murdered, as these events are necessary for "his plan".

(c) Life ON EARTH is the result of seeding by an extra-terrestrial race.

Personally, I find (c) the most plausible.

In the not too distant past many actions have taken place that we now view as inappropriate, despite their acceptance in those times. Often these methods of discrimination have been committed in the name of a diety.

From around the mid-15th century until the mid-18th century approximately 40,000 - 100,000 thousand people were executed in Europe and early America on the accusation of witchcraft. Twenty during the Salem witch hunt.

In contemporary times we generally scoff at the notion of witchcraft and consider these earlier hunts to be primarily caused over jealousy or other social despisement amongst a primitive people. We would not consider such action to be appropriate today.

What will they say about us in two hundred years? Will they adhere to modern Christianity's disdanement (discrimincation against) of several groups whom are viewed to be living outside of the Biblical principles ... or will they think how odd and primitive we must be to have done such?

There is a witch in our town. I know she is because she has a mole on the side of her nose and she is not married. I brought this issue up at our last council meeting, but they did not accept my accusations on face-value (sic).

How can I prove to the council she is a witch, so that we might move forward with the necessary task of burning her alive?

Another unproven arbitrary potentiality for our world's creation ... in a way it's a branch of Intelligent Design. Basically, our world exists solely inside a computer. We, as individuals, are creatures hooked to a machine and our brains wired directly so that what we perceive to be real is controlled by the computer ... and so the computer can take appropriate action based on our brain's signals to the body.

Perhaps we could even sanction a special screening of all three films during class, to afford the children a basic understanding through visualization.

Intelligent Design has been lauded in recent years as providing a much needed balance to the teaching of evolution. However, it's argument is very arbitrary in nature. Another alternative, and one we likely would see if Intelligent Design were admitted into the classroom, is the following:

75,000,000 years ago a being named Xenu ruled the Galactic Confederacy. When Xenu was close to being overthrown by a revolution he devised a plan to eliminate the excess populations of people under his dominion. With the aid of psychiatrists he drugged billions of people and then loaded them on space planes to be exterminated on a planet known as Teegeeack (Earth).

After reaching Teegeeack, the people were unloaded and placed around volcanoes ... then the volcanoes were blown high by implaced hydrogen bombs. Only a relatively few physical bodies survived.

The Thetans (souls of the dead bodies) were then brainwashed and later clustered into the surviving bodies.

John Hospers explored the notion of whether we can truly separate into distinct parts the mind and the body ... such that, following death, the mind (soul) continues.

In order to dissect this line of thought, try to imagine yourself without a body. Your sensory organs are intrinsic to the notion of sensation ... sight, smell, sound, touch, taste ... these are all functions of the physical body transmitted to the brain ... and each of them can easily be disrupted even while we are alive.

So then how do we sense without them in death? Does this notion seem to imply that, as St. Thomas Aquinas argued, "the body is necessary for the action of the intellect, not as its organ of action, but on the part of the object" (Summa Theologica, Burns and Oates of Welwood, Tunbridge Wells). St. Thomas' assertion implies the necessity of a reformation of the physical form in the afterlife ... be it Heaven, Hell, or some other location.

My vote goes to Mary ... but Mary is a really strong contender and you never can tell how a match like this will turn out.

Who would your money be on?