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| Peace through superior firepower  |
Let's get the thread back on track and away from the argumentative physics lesson. | |||
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| Member |
You are right. That is what I love about faith in God. I didn’t have the grace that I should have. I see where I was wrong and hope to be more understanding in the future. OP, God loves you. I pray that you will be encouraged by believers near you and people here. "I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them." Thomas Jefferson "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is that good men have insurance." JALLEN | |||
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Member |
gambit, you haven't posted since the OP but if you want to send me your address, I'll send you a book. | |||
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Member |
Oh hey!  so when the last line of your original reply said "Believe in God or not, be not destructive." You're saying now that wasn't directed towards me?To be clear, your condescending reply had zero effect. Just trying to set the record straight. | |||
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| I will fear no evil.. Psalm 23:4 |
I pray you find peace and comfort. I will say, this Sunday a portion of my Pastors sermon reminded us that being a Christian is not easy, you will have struggles and downfalls. It was good to hear that many of us are in the same position but God is ultimately in control. | |||
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W07VH5 |
What does that even mean? I wish people would stop using that meaningless platitude. Someone comes up to you and says I’m questioning my faith and you tell them “god is in control”. What are they supposed to think? Oh, ok. God is controlling me and making me question my faith so I better let it happen. ??? I know you meant well but those garbage church sayings have got to stop. | |||
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| Freethinker |
To win Pascal’s wager it’s necessary to do more than live a good life. The “wager” is usually stated as “just believe.” If we’re wrong we’ve lost nothing except a bit of time and effort in the process, but if we’re right we gain a great supernatural reward. The problem with that simplified expression of his advice is that it assumes belief can just be turned on like a light switch. As I understand it, a fuller explanation of his position was that he thought that if one followed the rites and dictates of a religion, that one’s practices would lead to acceptance of the religion’s tenets. I.e., action would lead to belief. That too makes an odd assumption about why we develop beliefs, but I suppose it might work for some people. Again, though, there is another much more significant problem because it assumes that whatever belief system we choose to pursue is the correct one. There are myriad religions and some of them teach that following a different, wrong belief is just as bad, if not worse, than no belief at all. And Christian doctrine (as it is usually taught) makes it very clear that living a good life isn’t sufficient for salvation for a couple of reasons, not least because it’s supposedly impossible for any human to live a good enough life. “[A]ll our righteous acts are like filthy rags,” and all that. (Sorry for the nested quotations, but I believe it’s necessary to make clear what I’m referring to.) ► 6.4/93.6 ___________ “We are Americans …. Together we have resisted the trap of appeasement, cynicism, and isolation that gives temptation to tyrants.” — George H. W. Bush | |||
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| W07VH5 |
When I was 14, I never heard of Pascal’s wager. However, that’s exactly what I reasoned. I figured if it’s all a big story then I’ve lost nothing and gained a few friends along the way. If it was all truth then I better get in on it. Basically, I was looking for a place to go when my dad was home on Sunday. Two of the guys at church, Mike and Dave, took me under their wing and i adopted them as my church dads. That turned from escaping my home to actually wanting to be with these people that treated me like a son. That turned into taking their advice. Which turned into regular Bible reading. Which turned me into a better person. I fell in love with scripture and when i realized that the prophecies actually came true in The Messiah, it all snapped into reality for me. I took pascal’s wager and won. | |||
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| Lawyers, Guns and Money  |
Well, that's a shame. There's a good discussion going on here. "Some things are apparent. Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is: families under siege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property; the precipitous decline of the rule of law; the rapid rise of corruption; the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit. The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible." -- Justice Janice Rogers Brown "The United States government is the largest criminal enterprise on earth." -rduckwor | |||
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| Official forum SIG Pro enthusiast  |
It has been a great discussion. Many members have posted things that I had not ever considered. I hope gambit123 is doing ok. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The price of liberty and even of common humanity is eternal vigilance | |||
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I Deal In Lead |
https://www.poetrybyheart.org....oems/abou-ben-adhem/ Abou Ben Adhem (1834) Leigh Hunt Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!) Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace, And saw, within the moonlight in his room, Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom, An angel writing in a book of gold:— Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold, And to the presence in the room he said, “What writest thou?”—The vision raised its head, And with a look made of all sweet accord, Answered, “The names of those who love the Lord.” “And is mine one?” said Abou. “Nay, not so,” Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low, But cheerly still; and said, “I pray thee, then, Write me as one that loves his fellow men.” The angel wrote, and vanished. The next night It came again with a great wakening light, And showed the names whom love of God had blest, And lo! Ben Adhem’s name led all the rest. | |||
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| Little ray of sunshine  |
I never understood Pascal's wager. How can belief adopted only to be on the right side of some spiritual line be genuine belief? It is inherently fake, and non-belief. I mean, I sort of get the point of Pascal proposing the wager, and it makes a point. But it can't be a real-world strategy. If you are like Mark123, he came to genuine belief later, but then he isn't merely making a wager any more. The fish is mute, expressionless. The fish doesn't think because the fish knows everything. | |||
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| Lawyers, Guns and Money |
I think Jesus made the same point to the Pharisees who outwardly made a show of it. "Some things are apparent. Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is: families under siege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property; the precipitous decline of the rule of law; the rapid rise of corruption; the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit. The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible." -- Justice Janice Rogers Brown "The United States government is the largest criminal enterprise on earth." -rduckwor | |||
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| Peace through superior firepower |
Yeah, sort of like invoking laws of macro-scale physics, such as Conservation of Energy, on a quantum level. | |||
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| Little ray of sunshine |
You just can't resist, can you? The fish is mute, expressionless. The fish doesn't think because the fish knows everything. | |||
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Fire begets Fire |
Come on man… That was some funny shit right there… Accurate too which is why it’s so damn funny.  "Pacifism is a shifty doctrine under which a man accepts the benefits of the social group without being willing to pay - and claims a halo for his dishonesty." ~Robert A. Heinlein | |||
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A Grateful American |
Pascals' Wager is "Green eggs and Ham". "the meaning of life, is to give life meaning" ✡ Ani Yehudi אני יהודי Le'olam lo shuv לעולם לא שוב! | |||
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| Peace through superior firepower |
I'm an unrepentant sinner. | |||
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