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I am going to stop reading the homosexuality posts, at least for a while, because of the repeated seemingly personal attacks on me via post/e-mail(mainly e-mail). If anyone has a specific comment, suggestion, and/or note that does not contain any name calling, etc. that they would like for me to read, send it ...
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No. No. The library at Alexandria was perhaps the greatest library ever built in the world. The Greeks had a love of wisdom, philo sophos, and this great love was reflected in the Alexandrian library. The Christians got a hold of it and began modifying and purging texts and then the Moslems invaded and either the ...
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Recently an e-mail to me mentioned: (Technically, the messengers aren't even human so it *can't* be a case of "homosexuality" -- even of rape.) [...] The Jude reference to Sodom is also meaningful only in the context of the Sodomites' "lust" for the "other flesh" of angels. Again, application to homosexual behavior ...
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OFM Comments: No disagreement at all that there is a VERY serious struggle going on. But Jesus more typically uses consequences as a threat. That's quite different from Hell Classic (TM). :-) Jesus doesn't sound like the usual hell-fire type of preacher. He attracts people through what he does. And the stongest exa...
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From what I understand of my experience in looking up this word, and discussing it with a Greek-literate individual, the meaning of the word is rather clear. Basically it literally means "he who beds with a man" or "he who has sex with a man." The burden of proof is on the pro-homosexuality side of the argument t...
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So now you are saying that an Islamic Bank is something other than BCCI. Would you care to explain why it was that when I said "I hope an Islamic Bank is something other than BCCI", you called me a childish propagandist.
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In the part of the posting you have so helpfully deleted, I pointed out that they used the wording from the English Bill of Rights apparently *changing* what they understood by it, and I asked why then should we, two hundred years later, be bound by what Keith Allan Schneider *thinks* they understood by it. So one ...
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Could you speak up? I can't hear you.... --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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What atheists are you talking about? IMNSHO, Abortion is the womans choice. Homosexual sex is the choice of the people involved. War is sometimes necessary. This leaves capital punishment. I oppose capital punishemnt because mistakes can happen (yes this thread went around with no resolution recently). As ...
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That is indeed the present consensus. Contrary to what Dr. Fox has been saying, however, present consensus is *not* that the longer passage in Josephus about Jesus was inserted, but only that it was modified. There is no question that it was *at least* modified (based on what Origen says--that Josephus did not rec...
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Hello. Hoping to net some netters who are in the helping professions (counseling, psychology, psychiatry, social work, therapy etc.) to network on some topics and consider the possibility of a sci.counseling.christian type newsgroup or list. The integration of psychology and counseling and theology is a subject of g...
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Not if you show that these hypothetical atheists are gullible, excitable and easily led from some concrete cause. In that case we would also have to discuss if that concrete cause, rather than atheism, was the factor that caused their subsequent behaviour.
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Well, let me see if I can explain it. It's similar to collecting coins, or stamps, or campaign buttons, or coke bottles, or juke boxes, or model trains, or just about anything else that is collected (and just about everything is collected). In all cases, you might consider it something of an aberration; I mean, what...
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The CLIPPER initiative is an announcement by Clinton that all the "secure" voice phones will use the same crypto chip, as a de-facto government standard. Problem is, the government is admitting that they hold the keys to break the code easily, and the Justice department will be using the keys to listen in on "illega...
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Is there room for nudists? After all, if you believe most upstanding moral churches, nudity IS a sin... --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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I have been studying the Bible now for about a year. I love it, but I am not very familiar with the different denominations, or traditions, or common beliefs of various christian groups. I have heard various people (outside this news group) describe *idols* such as power, money, material possessions etc. These thing...
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no I'd recommend reading _Mormonism and Early Christianity_ by Hugh Nibley, particularly the articles on Christ's forty-day (post-resurrection) mission, baptism for the dead, early Christian prayer circles, and temples (2 articles). ..bruce.. --------------------------------------------------------------------...
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Yeah, but these were not the wives. The wives came from Nod, apparently a land being developed by another set of gods.
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... Does it matter that the study (yes, singular) that showed LSD causing birth defects also holds true for aspirin? Does it matter that this study is flat-out wrong, and LSD does not give you a greater risk of having children with birth defects?
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"Liberate" is the way an invader describes an invasion, including, if I'm not mistaken, the Iraqi liberation of Kuwait. Never invaded Nicaragua? Only with more word games: can you say "send in the Marines?" Oh, good: word games. If you let the aggressor pick the words, there's scarcely ever been a reprehensible...
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[stuff deleted] Actually, you get a ton of weapons and ammunition, 70-80 followers, and hole up in some kind of compound, and wait for . . . . :-)
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[ 2 good reasons deleted. AI] It's even worse than that -- "Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish from it" (Deut. 4:2). Shall we rip out every page from our Bibles beginning from Joshua through Revelation?
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Just a quick comment. As a baptist clergyperson, I find the idea of such a "baptism" (if the news report is in fact accurate, and they seldom are regarding religion) offensive. The pastor here seems to have a most unbaptist view of baptism- one that seems to demand the ceremony even when comprehension and choice are ...
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... I have seen it used in an Orthodox church once, although I can't recall why. I found it odd, to say the least. Also, I object to the statement that the Orthodox DELETE the filioque from the original form of the Creed. The creed originally did NOT contain that phrase, and it is not present in the Greek original, ...
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In <1993Apr20.004119.6119@cnsvax.uwec.edu> nyeda@cnsvax.uwec.edu (David Nye) Why? How? Might makes right? How can they force their morality on me? Why can't I do what I want? Who are they to decide? What if I disagree? Good point, but it is being immoral in our opinion. We don't let them choose, we make the deci...
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but theology is full of reason even if it is, as we believe, based on false premises etc etc. hold on there: no meaning to "consciousness" or "mind" or "self"?! what illogicality? since when is, for instance, (non-behaviourist) psychology a pipe dream? Surely the major purpose of the science of psychology is t...
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Well, you're going to have to practice, but you're getting the hang of it. Soon we're going to have to give you a new nickname. Try these on for size: Tammy "Lucky Seven" Healy Tammy "Pass the falafel" Healy Tammy "R Us" Healy Tammy "Learning by Doing" Healy Maddi "Never a Useful Post" Hausmann -- Maddi Hausm...
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Why is the NT tossed out as info on Jesus. I realize it is normally tossed out because it contains miracles, but what are the other reasons? MAC -- **************************************************************** Michael A. Cobb "...and I won't raise taxes on the m...
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From: jbrown@batman.bmd.trw.com There are many indications that would have taken place had Saddam been wanting or planning on going into Saudi Arabia. There were none. This has been openly stated by ex-Pentagon analysts. Pull. From: jbrown@batman.bmd.trw.com Actually, reports from other mid-east countries showed ...
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Perhaps it's prophetic that the week "Where are they now?" appears and I can claim to be a still-active old-timer, my news software gets bit rot and ships outgoing articles into a deep hole somewhere... Anyway, here's a repost: These days you don't have to fall far behind... Last Monday (admittedly after a long week...
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I found this little gem, I don't know if anyone has any interest/comments... -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hi everyone, I'm a commited Christian that is battling with a problem. I know that romans talks about how we are saved by our faith not our deeds, ...
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: >But if entertainment (company) sell computer programs saying they are virus : >safe. Doesn`t they have burden of proof that viruses don`t exist in their : >floppies ? : I don't think so. The assumption is there. If it turns out that : their software has a virus, then it is up to you to prove that fact : to a co...
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Hi, What presentation package would you recommend for a Bible teacher? I've checked out Harwards Graphics for Windows. I think its more suitable for sales people than for preachers or Bible teachers to present an outline of a message. I'm looking for one that: * is great for overhead projector slides. * has...
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So instead you are asking individual citizens to place themselves at risk by assuming that everyone who claims to be a cop, actually is a cop. Around here the police have actually made public service announcements saying that if you are a lady driving by yourself at night and you see blue lights flashing behind you. ...
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They must be theists in disguise. In any event, we don't _need_ to create religious parodies: just look at some actual religions which are absurd. And now . . . Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey.
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whitsebd@nextwork.rose-hulman.edu (Bryan Whitsell) sent in a list of verses which he felt condemn homosexuality. mls@panix.com (Michael Siemon) wrote in response that some of these verses "are used against us only through incredibly perverse interpretations" and that others "simply do not address the issues." [rem...
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When an alleged private revelation attracts sufficient attention, the Church may investigate it. If the investigation indicates a likelihood that the alleged private revelation is in fact from God, it will be approved. That means that it can be preached in the Church. However, it is still true that n...
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Bill, ever heard of secular humanism? Please check out what this stands for, and then revise your statements above. Cheers, Kent
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> Between Adam and Eve and Golgotha the whole process of the fall > of man occurred. This involved a gradual dimming of > consciousness of the spiritual world. This is discernable in > the world outlooks of different peoples through history. The > Greek, for example, could say, "better a beggar in the land of ...
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[ref to Rev 12:7-12 deleted] Also read Ezek 28:13-19. This is a desctiption of Lucifer (later Satan) and how beautiful He was, etc, etc Grant
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Zoroaster is far older than Daniel. If anything, one could claim that, in a sense, Daniel is a descendant of Zoroaster; as Daniel, though being Hebrew, has assimilated into Zoroastrianism and has successfully introduced the religion into the Tanakh of Judaism. [However, the majority of the book is in Hellenistic Aram...
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I asked around in one of the areas you suggested yourself, and presented the information I got. No mention of US landmines was given. Okay, so you are going to blindly believe in things without reasonable evidence? I didn't realize you were a theist. I am doubting a claim presented without any evidence to support...
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When Robert refers to the "orthodox", he is talking about the Historical position of the Christian Faith. Such things are derived from Biblcal texts through the centuries by the apocolic fathers of the faith. You are right that people read things differently in the Bible, and this is alright in parts like parables a...
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You are right, Michael. In John 3:5, Jesus says, "Amen, amen, I say to you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit." That's really what He said, and He meant it. That verse is the definition of baptism. I don't have the law book in front of me, but there is a canon law that urg...
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For those who pray in tongues, When is it appropriate for you to pray/speak in tongues and why? I just would like to gain more knowledge about this subject.
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Ever since I was a kid and learned to tell when I was in a dream I have used my dreams for fantasies or working out problems. In my dreams I have done everything from yell at my mom to machine-gunning zombies, not to mention myriad sexual fantasies. I have deliberately done things that I would never do in real life. I...
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Great start. I realize immediately that you are not interested in discussion and are going to thump your babble at me. I would much prefer an answer from Ms Healy, who seems to have a reasonable and reasoned approach to things. Say, aren't you the creationist guy who made a lot of silly statements about evolution s...
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It is possible that the individual saw a true prophetic vision, but that he interpreted the scale of time and space according to his material con- sciousness, translating the supersensible perceptions of a plane above that of time and space into an immediate worldly context -- and getting it wrong. Not that he did it...
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Well, the best thing to do is to read the book "Parallel Universes" by Dr. Fred Wolf. In essence, Dr. Wolf says that one interpretation of the sub-atomic particle/wave duality is that what we perceive as a wave is actually an infinate number of parallel universes overlaid, and in each of these universes there is a ...
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But it's STILL HAPPENING. That's the entire point. Only last month, John Major hailed it as a great victory that he had personally secured a sale of arms to Saudi Arabia. The same month, we sold jet fighters to the same Indonesian government that's busy killing the East Timorese. It's all very well to say "Oops, w...
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: This figure, is far below all the other figures I have seen. If it : is indeed accurate, then how do you explain the discrepancy between : that figure, and other figures from international organizations? : Most figures I have seen place the hit ratio close to 70%, which is : still far higher than your 35%. Or does...
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Ah, you taking everything as literal quotation. No wonder you're confused. First, can I ask that we decide on a definition of "objective"? And? I'd guess that it might be. It may be the case that some people are unable to evaluate complex moral issues. Rather than leaving them to behave "immorally", it might ...
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Meng, I have a better prayer: Dear God, Please save the world from the likes of these!!!
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Anyone from Alabama knows it should be: Is "The Bear" Catholic? Does a Pope shit in the woods?
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: But how do we know that you're representing the REAL Christians? : ;-) : Bill, you're an asshole. Get lost. Maddi, I see that you still can't grasp the obvious, is it because your are devious by nature, or can you only find fault with an argument by misrepresenting it? I plainly said that I was stating the Chri...
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I wouldn't punish him with eternal torture if he didn't love me. But then I;m a decent chap. It seems your god isn't. I've looked, and he wasn't. Another promise broken. Lying bastard! How do you know what effort I have and have not given? Can anyone eaplain what he's just said here? Peter
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I certainly agree with the last paragraph. Also, Jesus;s statements on hell can be treated as totally symbolic, allegorical or as parables, as was much of his other teaching. There's more than enough hell here on earth that we are freed from by following Jesus that the rest just doesn't mattter to me. And the fact ...
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I have no problem with the idea that catechumens be dismissed before the Eucharist. They were not considered qualified to participate. Does the dismissal in the early church mean that the eucharist was a secret? I mean, was it: you don't have to stay; from now on, only the membership can participate; you really...
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: The same works for the horrors of history. To claim that Christianity : had little to do with the Crusades or the Inquisition is to deny the : awesome power that comes from faith in an absolute. What it seems you : are doing twisting the reasonable statement that religion was never : the solitary cause of any evil...
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1) They are religious parodies, NOT atheistic paradies. 2) Please substantiate that they are parodies, and are outrageous. Specifically, why is the IUP any more outrageous than many religions? --- Private note to Jennifer Fakult. "This post may contain one or more of the following: sarc...
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: Are you saying that their was a physical Adam and Eve, and that all humans are direct decendents of only these two human beings.? Then who were Cain and Able's wives? Couldn't be their sisters, because A&E didn't have daughters. Were they non-humans? Okay all humans are direct descendents of of a bunch of hopefu...
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I didn't say to visit some "nice" homosexuals. I said "visit some congregations of Christians..spirit-filled believers.." Praise the Lord that we are all members of the same body. Let us agree to disagree.
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comments : ^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ There is a BIG difference between the status of what you refer to as Alexandrians (actually, this includes all Oriental Orthodox Churches and not only Copts) and that of Nestorians. The Oriental Orthodox Churches never even...
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The peaceful attempt to serve the warrant was met with gunfire. Due process was not served because the Branch Davidians wanted it that way. *You* think on that. -- "Milk is for babies; when you're a man, you drink beer" - Arnold
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Some people might think it takes faith to be an atheist... but faith in what? Does it take some kind of faith to say that the Great Invisible Pink Unicorn does not exist? Does it take some kind of faith to say that Santa Claus does not exist? If it does (and it may for some people I suppose) it certainly isn't as b...
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I wrote that I thought that 2 Peter 1:20 meant, "no prophecy of Scripture (or, as one reader suggests, no written prophecy) is merely the private opinion of the writer." Tony Zamora replies (Sat 8 May 1993) that this in turn implies that it is not subject to the private interpretation of the reader either. I am not su...
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<Yawn> Another right-wing WASP imagining he's an oppressed minority. Perhaps Camille Paglia is right after all. "I would not have any argument or problem with a peace-nik if they [...] stayed out of all conflicts or issues"? I bet you wouldn't. You'd love it. But what makes you think that sitting back, saying n...
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: I heard on the radio today about a Christian student conference where : Christians were called to "repent" of America's "national" sins, such : as sexual promiscuity. : : To which I reply: ...whoa there! : : How can I repent of _someone else's_ sin? I can't. : : And when I claim to "repent" of someone else's sin...
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A religion is a cult which if those in power belong to it. Actually, they're all bull shit.
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"This is your god" (from John Carpenter's "They Live," natch)
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(st) Stephen Tice (km) Ken McVay (st)Seems to me Koresh is yet another messenger that got killed (st)for the message he carried. (Which says nothing about the (km)Seems to be, barring evidence to the contrary, that Koresh was simply (km)another deranged fanatic who thought it neccessary to take a whole bunch of (k...
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Oh boy, get a small baby and figure out how much brain power they have the first 6 months.... Cheers, Kent
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Do we attach some meaning of the Israelites entering "the promised land" to Christianity? I submit God did not hold the children responsible when the adults chose to follow the bad report of the 10 spies over Joshua and Caleb. This is recorded for us in Deuteronomy 1:39 "Moreover your little ones, which ye sai...
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qpalo@digi.lonestar.org (Gerry Palo) For my money the primary danger of anti-cult groups is that they are every bit as wacky as the groups they oppose and that by and large they have no compunctions about printing lies, half-truths and misleading innuendos as part of their exposes. A recent book on cults I picked up...
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Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
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Brian, have you checked out what your priests told you in the Bible to see whether they were telling you the truth? Did you know that according to the Bible, there shouldn't even be such things as "priests" anymore? Do you know why the preisthood was established in the Old Testament to begin with and the reasons wh...
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#In article <1r0sn0$3r@horus.ap.mchp.sni.de> # #>|>#>#Theism is strongly correlated with irrational belief in absolutes. Irrational #>|>#>#belief in absolutes is strongly correlated with fanatism. # #(deletion) # #>|Theism is correlated with fanaticism. I have neither said that all fanatism #>|is caused by theism no...
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The above article is a good short summary of traditional Christian teaching concerning the death of Mary. Also very good is "Re: Question about the Virgin Mary" by Micheal D. Walker. He tells the story very well. I would like to add that in the Eastern Orthodox Church we celebrate "The Dormition (or falling asleep)...
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Since this is alt.atheism, I hope you don't mind if we strongly disagree... : The fact is God could cause you to believe anything He wants you to. : But think about it for a minute. Would you rather have someone love : you because you made them love you, or because they wanted to : love you. The responsibility ...
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The last time we discussed homosexuality, I asked whether anyone could identify any other act besides homosexual intercourse that the Bible prohibited, but which might in some circumstances bring no apparent harm to anyone. Put another way, the question is whether homosexual intercourse is the only act that Christians ...
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From: dhammers@pacific.? (David Hammerslag) How do you (Mormons) reconcile the idea of eternal marriage with Christ's statement that in the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage (Luke, chapt. 20)? Footnotes in some bibles reference this verse to the Book of Tobit. Tobit is in the Septua...
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In the Monday, May 10 morning edition of the San Jose Mercury News an article by Sandra Gonzales at the top of page 12A explained convicted killer David Edwin Mason's troubled childhood saying, "Raised in Oakland and San Lorenzo by strict fundamentalist Christian parents, Mason was beaten as a child. He once was t...
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Sorry about the delay in responding, due to conference paper deadline panic. [Alarming amounts of agreement deleted :-)] That ("complicated") isn't in fact where P(H) > P(HG) comes from; it's more the other way around. It's from P(H) = P(HG) + P(HG') where G' is the complement of G and by axiom, P(anything)...
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Sounds like more of the same. Gods were used to describe almost everything in the past. As we come to understand the underpinnings of more and more, the less we credit to a god. Now, the not-so-well understood elements (at least by the author) includes quarks and tectonic drift. I guess that's better than describ...
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There is no reason to believe that Paul's thorn in the flesh was a sin in his life. That makes little sense in the light of Paul' writings taken in totality. He writes of how he presses for the mark, and keeps his body submitted. No doubt Paul had to struggle with the flesh just like every Christian. Paul does as...
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[reply to kmr4@po.CWRU.edu (Keith M. Ryan)] Jeez, can't he get anything straight. I told him to wait for three days. GOD
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Last night CNN reported that FBI has infrared pictures showing that the fires started in three places at the same time. That would indicate something not resembling an accident. Cheers, Kent
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Wrong about what? I think they are correct in thinking that a well-placed bomb or six would get headlines, but I think they are wrong if they think that you can set off bombs and still be a Buddhist. Maybe what we are seeing here is that Chinese cultural genocide against the Tibetans has worked well enough that ...
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I have not seen this book, though I have had several people quote it in support of some tendentious assertions they were making, so I have become curious about it. I don't want to malign this Hislop fellow, whoever he may be, as I have only heard the arguments at second hand, but both of the arguments seemed to ...
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[to Benedikt Roseneau ] #In article <1qv6at$fb4@horus.ap.mchp.sni.de> # #>#The information of that is invariant under your child being a son or #>#a daughter and singing about Santa Claus. Wasn't your argument that #>#"there has to be more"? #>More than what? #More than we assume. Which is what, exactly? #>(a) Most...
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This response originally fell into a bit bucket. I'm reposting it just so Bill doesn't think I'm ignoring him. Bill, I'm sorry to have been busy lately and only just be getting around to this. Apparently you have some fundamental confusions about atheism; I think many of these are well addressed in the famous FAQ....
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Mathew: Could you let us know when this happened, so I can see if my version is as up-to-date as possible? I try to re-save the FAQs once in a while, but otherwise I ignore their regular postings, so I wouldn't generally notice such a change. And I like to stay current. Thanks,
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which Kenneth Engel challenges: I will wimp out and admit that I never liked the metaphor of Jesus "paying" for our sins in the sense that many Christians accept as literal. The point is that God understands the suffering we go through, not just intellectually like when we watch the Somalians on TV, but _really_ unde...
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I can certainly see opposing the "Amen" -- but that doesn't require opposing a moment of silence. Does anybody else besides me see a vicious circle here? I guarantee you the people who want school prayer aren't going to back off when they can't even manage to get a quiet moment for their kids to pray silently.
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On Sunday 9 May 1993, Kenneth Engel writes (in substance): We are told that the penalty for sin is an eternity in Hell. We are told that Jesus paid the penalty, suffering in our stead. But Jesus did not spend an eternity in Hell. This objection presupposes the "forensic substitution" theory of the Atonement. No...
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What? Absolutely not. No way. Asimov was a lifelong atheist, and said so many times, right until his death. Judging from the many stories he told about his own life, he felt culturally closest to Judaism, which makes sense. He was born Jewish.
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No, that's the point of evolution, not the point of "natural morality". Unless, of course, as I have suggested several times already, "natural morality" is just a renaming. But your "yes?" is actually stronger than this. You are agreeing that "every time an organism evolves cooperative behaviour" you are going...
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