Sip

That was her point I think

That's ok man. We still love you

Minor? Have you read anything Sasun has said? Just because he uses the word "God", you get all warm and fuzzy. He is using the term a LOT more loosely than you do. A LOT!

Wooo hooo we agree

I have no doubt that prayer and meditation "work". But in my experience, many people have unreasonable expectations from what prayer and meditation can do and their reasons for doing so. I often find it extremely hillarious that people ask other people to pray for some random person to get well or to pull through some hardship. That is a false expectation ... what it does do however is make the person asking for the prayers to somehow feel better and have a more positive outlook. THAT is what makes for positive change, NOT the prayer itself. Similarly, an internal prayer (of a self) or meditation to feel more at ease, more at peace, etc, is perfectly valid in my opinion. Again, not because of the prayer itself, but the impact it has on those who believe it is going to help them somehow. What I categorically object to is most people's reasons for prayer. They pray because they expect whoever is listening to their prayer to do something for them (often God). But there is no one listening to the prayer other than yourself. It's like convincing ones self of something. You are sick, you tell yourself you are going to get better, and you get better. This I have experienced myself and I don't doubt we have a lot of potential of doing things that often we don't realize. But again, I absolutely reject the notion that many claim there is some supernatural being listening and answering prayers. That's like saying God turns on the light when you flip the switch on the wall. So basically, my objection to prayer in most cases is the reasons for which people do it. On a related note, it's great that someone donates money to the needy. But at the same time, it is rather disturbing if they do it because of tax breaks or personal wish to go to Heaven. The actions are good, but the reasoning behind them is WHACK.

Hey! That's not nice

Mathematics is based on a set of very clearly defined set of axioms. For example, these are some of the basic Euler postulates: * Things which are equal to the same thing are also equal to one another. * If equals be added to equals, the wholes are equal. * If equals be subtracted from equals, the remainders are equal. * Things which coincide with one another are equal to one another. * The whole is greater than the part. * It is possible to draw a straight line from any point to any other point. * It is possible to produce a finite straight line continuously in a straight line You can not prove or disprove the axioms. They must be accepted for the rest of mathematics to make sense. You can't do anything else in math without these basic assumptions. With religion and spiritual discussions, the same things apply. However, the entire discussion here revolve around the validity of the basic axioms. The notion of "God" is what is being discussed. People like Sasun take the definition of God as a given and go on from there to build an entire belief system. I have been questioning that basic definition and I claim it is too broad, too generic, too vague, and basically, entirely useless. Does this make what I have been saying clear?

Ha ha ... not to you right now but those people back then just KNEW. That's why I say this just knowing business is VERY dangerous.

College Crap? It's been one of the most exciting seasons for me both with LA and the WI Badgers going almost undefeated. Except both teams kind of had some let downs in like 2 games out of their 10. Unfortunately for UCLA, it was against SC (who will probably win the national championship again this year) As far as NFL, I don't follow teams anymore ... I just follow specific players. More preceisely, I follow the ones in my fantasy league(s).

Beauty is a subjective term used to describe certain desirable qualities. For a flower, the aroma, the color, texture, and the visual appeal of it is generally considered "beautiful". A flower is beautiful because there exist other things that are not beautiful (for relative comparison). So beauty in and of itself does not exist. Beauty only apprears when there is ugliness. I think we have had numerous threads in the past where this topic has been discussed. So this is another reason why the definition of "God" and "Devil" are rather arbitrary. Everything good is grouped together under the label of "God", while everything bad is often grouped together under the label of "evil" ... while neither could exist without the other.

There was a general understanding that many women were witches a few hundred years ago. "General understanding" is not enough to validate a statement. But general understanding or not, God is defined as the source of everything good and then used to justify the existence of good things. It is not just because mechanically your statement is a tautology. It is by its nature that it is a tautology.

I saw it just 2 days before ... it was against USC.

That IS the point ... you are defining something as source of beauty and then using it as evidence for something beautiful. That IS a tautology. You have not said anything meaningful.

That is a meaningless statement. Take the word "God" and replace with any arbitrary noun. The meaning of the statement doesn't change. I could just as easily say: "For example, the beauty in a flower is evidence of Azat, because Azat is the source of beauty." Just because you chose to label the source of beauty as God, doesn't mean you said anything. All you have is come up with a tautology.

That is absolutely NOT true. I have not run particle accelrator experiments in my home but I have seen the evidence. The published evidence of a repeatable scientific work is VERY different than the unverifiable claims of some philosopher with an overactive imagination. Does this say that ALL scientific results are infallible and irrefutable? Of course not. But to claim I have had absolutely no first hand knowledge of these evidences and equate it with non scientific "knowledge" is not a correct way to proceed.

No but I think people like sSebB misunderstand you. He maintains a position that there is a LOT of evidence of God etc. But you acknowledged you just believe without evidence. I just wanted that to be crystal clear ... he thinks he agrees with you but in fact he does not.

WOW! He finally said it. Aaaaaaaaallaho Akbar. Praise Jesus. Thank you Buddah. Going back to what you and I both have said earlier, your version of reality and my version of reality are very different. I will never believe anything that I have no evidence of. You do. In my opinion, now this is just my opinion, no one should just believe things blindly like that. By blind, I mean without evidence. The term has been mentioned before but was brushed off under the rug with talk of how people like me are similar to deaf-mute people. The reason is, there are countless explanations and models that will describe anything without evidence. The chances of you having picked the right one, without proper evidence, is ZERO. I will let Quebecker work out the math

You don't choose to be a cheesehead ... it chooses you Can you tell I've been in too many spiritual debates?

Don't get me started on sSeb again ... but Sasun, this back-and-forth is becoming very redundant between the two of us. I fail to see why you do not acknowledge there is absolutely no credible evidence of anything you are claiming, while I can provide a MOUNTAIN of evidence on everything I have claimed. You say: Ok, #1, what possible reason do you have for believing ANY of this. I know, I know, us who don't understand simply aren't as sophisticated as you to understand. But with all due respect, that just sounds like meaningless mumbo jumbo. In order for you to believe something, there has to be a reason. What is the reason behind this? What have you personally experienced that led you to believe ANY of this? The beauty of everything I believe is that I can start with basic principles and axioms, and through sound reasoning, arrive at each and every piece of knowledge. More important of all, I can explain it to ANYONE. Not just those who are super gifted with "non-sensical" (not related to basic senses) vision. #2, based on this idea, the number of souls should either remain constant or diminish. But in fact, there has been a consistent increase in the earth's population from waaaaaaay before Adam and Eve supposedly got kicked out of Heaven (by the way, it is very hard to understand what you believe because you rarely take a clear position. It's always some twisted unclear colorful and vague description). So do you believe that God put man on earth? Obviously you don't believe the concepts of Heaven and Hell as advocated by the Armenian Church and most major Christian establishments. This is just one example of inconsistencies in what you say. I doubt anyone can argue that what I have said is inconsistent. I ADMIT that I don't know it all. What I do know is there is no evidence of God other than imaginative (or as you call, direct information fed into the brain). But for you to claim that I don't know what you know because you somehow (through this magical means) arrive at this knowledge that is not to be questioned, tested, or verified, places you in an extremely weak position in terms of convincing me of anything.

You missed the point. That is exactly what is not consistent with a God that created light and dark, heavens and earth, and all else in between. I don't have to read the Bible to debate the inconsistencies presented in this thread. I'm just going by what you and sSebB have said.

There you go again bringing God down to man's level. Where do you get all this stuff? If I were a believer in the Christian God, that would be one of the most disrespectful things to my God anyone could ever say. The God who created light and dark, the heavens and earth, and ALL else, is soooo much above having to have respect for anything, let alone an insignificant spec we call "human".

Now we're getting somewhere! This is probably the most intelligent and most Christian thing you have said this whole time. Although I don't think anything will be revealed when we die, but that's besides the point.

sSebB, what sucks for you religious people is that us non religious types can't pray for you to one day hopefully see the light and realize the truth So that's why I believe you that you'll probably be stuck in your mindset forever. All I can do is hope that one day you'll wake up and see what's going on but that's all it is ... hope. On a related note (to add to what Zartonk said earlier), anyone notice how Christianity has become the "me" religion? It's all about me, me, me, my salvation my eternity ... I, I, I want to know God and end up in Heaven. It kind of seems to go against a lot of what Jesus was probably trying to convey.

I've had good luck with Get Bot.

Yes.