Political Correctness destroying US/EU?

I wish I would've read the bottom portion of your post before responding, but alas, I didn't, but I just now read it and now I can respond.

Quote :

Well again, I'm not closed to the possibility of deities; I'm just not seeing evidence. For one thing, remember that I used to be a Christian. You don't think when my faith got shaky that I tried to reach out to God in hope of getting some sign? And back then I wasn't as "spoiled" as I am now, all I asked for then was something like a gust of wind or a noise or something falling over or just anything that showed there was something there listening. Needless to say, I didn't get anything. The five or so times I tried. Sufficed to say, I have tried reaching out, and it doesn't work.

First off, I want to thank you for your honesty, Kara, truly. It sounds like you and I are again in the same boat. So many times in my life I tried to make God "real" for me, and it just wasn't happening. It's funny, but God knows the perfect time to approach a person, he's never early or late, he's always right on time. There were times were I cried out to the Lord and he never answered either, and now looking back, I realize that he had a good reason not to do so, it would've been too early and I wouldn't had been ready for it.

I truly understand where you're coming from and honestly, you have the right to feel the way you do and see the world the way you do. God knows exactly what it will take for the two of you to have a true relationship, and seeing that you two aren't there yet, I have the utmost faith that the reason is because it's simply not your time yet.

Psalm 46:10 "Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth."

Dude, if you're seriously desiring to have God reveal himself to you, and it sounds like you are, he WILL appear, I promise, just give it time man.

Quote :

Nobody is saying magic is real cuz Harry Potter says so right? But okay, we know that's fiction. How about the Quoran? It says sperm comes from your backbone. Hey! It's an old book that says it's real! It's a major religion! Eh? EEH??
What about the old Aesir tales? Did you know that the reason we have tides is cuz the giants drinks out the ocean in reference to how Thor managed to lower it after being fooled into a drinking contest with them? It's ancient tales, Zer0! Must be real! Yeah we still lack the actual evidence any of this is real; all we have is the claim, be it the Bible claiming Jesus performed miracles, the Quoran saying Muhammed was the chosen of Allah or old Scandinavian runes saying Loki gave birth to an eight-legged horse.

I understand why you group the bible in with those other false books and beliefs. You see them as the same thing, fairy tales and such. Given where you are, it totally makes sense. On a side note, sperm from your backbone? Really? LOL

Quote :

For another thing know what I see when I read those quotes now? "Close your mind and keep telling yourself that it's true. When you think it's true, then you understand." If you have to close off everything you know in order to believe, then you're not being rational and scientific about your approach to try and understand things.
We didn't used to believe Komodo Dragons existed either, but they did. Know what made us accept them as a fact of reality? We could demonstrate they exist, we have physical proof.

Good point! If something is real, you shouldn't have to convince yourself that it is, it simply... is. It's making sense why you're saying the things you're saying and why you see the world how you see it... because God isn't real to you... yet.

Quote :

Religion has to run on faith because it cannot demonstrate that it's claims are accurate; it cannot prove heaven exist, it cannot prove we go to the underworld when we die, it cannot prove we reincarnate, and it cannot prove that the fire god must be appeased to create a fire. That's why it says "close off everything you know and accept the truth." Therein lies the reasons why Komodo Dragons are a fact, and God isn't. Even those who didn't believe Komodo Dragons existed could go look upon them; with God you have to believe until you die regardless of what anybody else say or else you go to hell.

If God never proved to me that he was real, I would feel the same way as you, I really would... and I did at some points in my life. I was like, "Okay God, where are you, show yourself to me, do something crazy in my life to show me you're real, because I'm running out of faith about you." And I heard... nothing. It was pretty disappointing, and I know you know what I'm talking about.

Quote :

I never challenged you, but as I do wanna address this. As said above somewhere, I have done that. I did it when I first started questioning the Christian faith which I was afraid to do at the time out of fear of hell and eternal damnation. For one thing I never got any replies, and for another I began to realize more and more that if you have to reinforce your belief in the face of evidence purely by faith, then you're not intellectually honest with yourself, and the longer it went with no result in the latter two efforts after I had began growing more open towards the notion that there was no God, I began considering myself an atheist.

It breaks my heart to hear you say that questioning your faith in Christianity led you to be fearful of eternal damnation, and possibly the judgments of other so-called Christians. Every Christian SHOULD be questioning their faith, SHOULD be questioning God, how else do we learn and grow if we just swallow the "truth" blindly without questioning it. People who do that aren't real or honest with themselves. Good for you for questioning it dude, seriously! You should!

Quote :

Second, discarding everything you know is not an honest position as far as I'm concerned. I mean, imagine if you told me "discard everything you know about thunder and try to believe Zeus is behind it," can we not both agree that that's not a legitimate way of being scientifically objective?

I think you misunderstood what I meant when I said that. Hopefully I can explain it better. What I meant was, people have a tendency to have pre-conceived notions about Christianity, God, Christ, all that stuff. And what I meant was to shed all of that and start over from scratch. Take everything you were taught by your parents, priests, pastors, religious folks, and discard it. Get alone with God and get the truth straight from him only. That's what I meant.

Quote :

Finally I wanna ask one thing to try and understand how you came to the conclusion that God is real and Jesus is his son etc etc: what evidence convinced you? What experiences did you go through that made you think that the Bible specifically (unless I'm mistaken and you also listen to the Torah and Quoran, as Abrahamic religions) had it right? What do you think it would take to change your position on religion [to point it out again, for me I would convert to theism if I saw more evidence- or proof -in favor for than against]? Do you feel any guttural turning to read the former question along with a feeling of resistance because you don't wanna give up 'the truth'? Can you try telling the story of how you came to convert to Christianity, or otherwise believe that God is real etc you know how it goes?

This is a HUGE and very personal question, but a very fair one that needs to be discussed for sure. First, let me start off by saying that I only believe in what the bible says, any book outside of the bible that talks about God or Jesus Christ, is simply Satanic in nature, meant to separate man from Jesus and the truth. So, I just want to make that clear.

To accurately tell my story (my testimony), I grew up in the United States with a mom and a dad, and an older brother. We lived with an average income, we weren't rich but we never starved either. Dad was a hard working IT guy but was also abusive physically and emotionally to my brother and I, but only verbally abusive to my mom. My dad always hated Christianity, and to this day is an atheist who worships himself and money. My mom on the other hand was raised Catholic and went to a Catholic school where the teachers were nuns and priests (and yes, the abuse in school was real). Her family, due to Catholic reasons, didn't believe in birth control, so they had 8 children in a 3 bedroom house, it was a messed up situation.

Being raised Lutheran with an atheist father and an ex-Catholic mother, my brother and I went to church almost every weekend (but hated it) and went to a private Lutheran school where we had Religion class. It's basically a class that teaches the bible through the eyes of Martin Luther. We used to color the Martin Luther symbol during art class, haha, talk about brain washing.

As I got older and reached puberty, hormones led me to find the beauty (and sickness) of pornography. In high school I was introduced to pot and alcohol. After my parents divorced my junior year of high school, I thought rock n' roll was the answer to life's question, why am I here? I learned drums and started a rock band. I floated through life never being able to hold down a job, getting drunk as often as finances would allow, and sleeping in spare bedrooms of my friend's houses because I had no place to live, or a car. At this time, drugs, sex, and rock n' roll were my life, and I was further from God than I had ever been. In fact, I remember being 19 years old and made the decision that Jesus wasn't even real. Sure, there might be a real guy in history who was pinned to a cross by Romans, blah blah, but it's all fairy tales. I mean the bible talks about freakin' unicorns for goodness sakes, only a blind fool would believe such non-sense.

In my mid 20s I joined the United States Army, learned computers, got an honorable discharge and began attending college (University) for a computer degree. I was still addicted to porn and sex, still a chain smoker, and drank with my friends. I didn't really think about God much during these times because all of these worldly vices seemed like this was the best life could get. Sure, I was miserable, but I mean, we're born, we get fucked up, get laid, grow old, and die, right?

I got married at 27, still an atheist, and my new wife who was raised Lutheran, same as me, kept prodding me to go to church with her. After months, I put down the video games and porn long enough to go. When I was there, they had a guest speaker named Mark Cahill who wrote the book "One Heartbeat Away", yes the book I mentioned above. I got to see him speak in person for 1 hour. After the service, he made the strangest announcement. He told everyone that he placed baskets outside of the sanctuary room for people to place donation money to his ministry. He said, we normally charge $15 per book but feel free to take as many as you want, if you'd like to donate, that's great, if not, that's fine too. Then he said an even stranger thing. He said, "For those of you who are financially hurting, feel free to take as much cash out of those baskets as you need, the money is a gift from God. Our ministry will use whatever is left over to continue witnessing to people the truth." I was like..... WTF?!?!?! This dude is giving away free money??!? I'd never seen anything like that before so I decided to read his book.

Honestly, that book changed my life, but even then, it didn't stick. Slowly, over time, I began to fall back into my old sinful porn addicted, and selfish ways. I pretty much lived that way until I was 30 and my wife and I were so sick of each other, I moved out and filed for divorce. While I was living alone, waiting for the divorce to finalize, I began reading a second book called "Wild at Heart". This book talked about what God expected out of a man and a husband/father, how he calls us to live. It blew my mind, and I (temporarily) re-dedicated myself to Jesus.

This 2nd dedication lasted about a month or two but again, it didn't stick. I eventually fell back into my old ways again, except this time, while living in my filthy sin, I still thought about God on a daily basis, but more in a light of shame and guilt. I could feel his pulls on my heart, I could hear his whispers, and his knocks on my door, but I didn't want to open it. I wanted to do my own thing.

Eventually at 34 years old, I finally hit rock bottom. I had gotten very serious about body building, it was my new hobby, except I was taking it to extremes and got on steroids. I began selling them to my friends, I was still addicted to porn, but not just any porn, I was addicted to underage porn, illegal stuff. I began worshiping myself in the gym, I was tall, huge, commanding, and the devil convinced me that I was better than everyone else. Eventually I lost my job and was broke and was close to losing my apartment and car. I mean I had hit completely rock bottom. My entire life was a joke, a disaster, and I hated who I'd become and I just wanted it all to end. I didn't want to die but I wanted the emotional and spiritual pain to end.

A few months later, I got a new high paying job that took me out of the gym because of the late hours. God essentially got me alone, sat me down, and made me an offer. He said "It's just you and me now, nobody else, and I want to extend an offer to you. You can choose to continue the life you were never meant to live, a life of sin and emptiness, or you can live according to how I created you and know the life you were born to have, in my glory and majesty." I thought about it for about 2 weeks, this offer, and came back to God and said "Okay, I want to be with you, I give you everything, I surrender my entire life over to you and will follow you, and only you, now and for the rest of my days."

That was it, I've never looked back. Things began happening in my life that I can't explain, miracles, everything. I had never known this kind of peace and joy in my heart before, as I stood next to the Father. He forgave me for all of my sins and I was washed free from everything, baptized in clean waters, washed of all my discord.

Is my life perfect now? No, of course not, but I've found a peace and joy that only comes from him. Do I still sin? Of course, but it's different now, it's hard to explain but I actually feel the pain that it causes Jesus when I do. He guides me in everything I do, he's always on my heart and mind now and I carry him throughout my day. Before I submitted to Christ, I thought the purpose of life was MY happiness and I was always fighting for it, but not anymore, I've realized my purpose is to serve him, and when I do, I receive Joy, which is not to be confused with happiness. Happiness can be given or taken from you, it's temporary, but the Lord's Joy can only be given to you by him, and it's everlasting. Take a look at the disciple Paul, he was sitting in prison for spreading the gospel and no matter what they did, they could not take his Joy, they took his happiness, but not his Joy.

Okay, I think I've written enough for now, my fingers hurt. I hope this helps you, or someone, on your journey home to Jesus. We were all created BY him FOR a purpose, and it wasn't to glorify ourselves.

God Bless you all,
Zer0

Let's see, take your time with replies, nothing has to come right away.

Zer0m0rph wrote:

Karavolos wrote:

People living until they're 900+

There is no precise Biblical answer to this question, but I can offer some ideas. First of all, when God made Adam and Eve, they were sinless and basically physically perfect. When sin entered the world, there was an obviously harmful effect upon their bodies. They died. Genetically speaking, when they were first made, their health was so good that their natural inclination was to live a long time. Over time, you see a decline of long life until you get to present day. You can google this question and get even more potential answers, but the bible doesn't specifically say.

I'll start this by saying that if there is a God as potent as the Biblical one then a dude living to 900+ is probably not that unreasonable. The problem lies in that living to 900+ is a clear scientific impossibility which is inconsistent with reality that leads to evidence that- sorry about the language and offense here -the Bible is full of shit and is spouting ancient desert fairy tales at the reader and expecting them to be taken as truth. When that alone didn't work, know what they did? They invented Hell as a looming threat of what happens if they didn't buy into the stories; which is why Hell doesn't exist in the Old Testament and had to be made during the New Testament. Funny how man can tamper with the supposed word of an all-powerful being to their benefit.

Zer0m0rph wrote:

Karavolos wrote:

Plants being created before the sun?

Where did you get that? Nowhere in the bible have I ever seen that God created plants before the sun.

The Book of Genesis.
"Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. ¹² The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. ¹³ And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day."
Followed by:
"And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, ¹⁵ and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. ¹⁶ God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. ¹⁷ God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, ¹⁸ to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. ¹⁹ And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day."

Sufficed to say, if you know basic biology then you know how dependent on the sun the majority of plant life is for survival, which serves as another example of a derp moment in the Bible.

Zer0m0rph wrote:

Karavolos wrote:

Angels? Demons?

Quote :

I can attest that angels and demons are both real, because I've seen an angel with my own two eyes and I've felt or been attacked by demons on 3 occasions in my life, all before I was even a believer.

I'll take your word for it and toss the bone that if I saw a honest-to-god (no pun intended, just a phrase) Angel or Demon in the flesh (or well, whatever they'd be made of) I'd easily consider God much more of a possibility. From my perspective though the anecdotal evidence should always be taken with a grain of salt. Some people claim to see Angels, other probably find eyewitnesses to Vishnu while others still see I don't know, voodoo spirits. Believe in reincarnation? I've heard stories about a little girl claiming to have been murdered in her past life showing the cops the place she was supposedly buried, and woopidy doo, murder case solved. I don't believe it, mind you- or at least think there is something else at play than reincarnation (bear in mind how I've said I like the idea of reincarnation in the past), but if it has any legitimacy to it as an actual case, are you likely to believe in reincarnation?

Zer0m0rph wrote:

Karavolos wrote:

Giants?

Quote :

Giants? Really? Where in the bible do they talk about giants? If you're referring to Goliath, he wasn't a Dungeons and Dragon's giant, he was simply a tall, well built man for his age and time.

"Genesis 6:4 There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown."

There are also nephilim and anakim and blahblahfim and I-can't-be-arsed-looking-up-moredim.

Zer0m0rph:

I c wut u did thar: http://www.christiananswers.net/q-eden/edn-c015.html
There are also ends of the earth, pillars of the earth, God seeing everything from above the skies which is implausible in a spherical planet. Still, we've had the idea that the planet is round and orbits the sun since the ancient Greeks so it is fair to say the guys writing the Bible (people authoring it btw) didn't believe the earth was flat.
Still, there is this thing: https://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/febible.htm Fair warning: is long.

Zer0m0rph wrote:

Karavolos wrote:

Nevermind how it keeps raising the bar on where God/heaven is. 'He's in the sky!' well we reached the skies, no God. 'He's in space!' Nope, none that we can see. 'He's in a higher plane of existence/alternate dimension!' We'll see, but at this point it's unlikely.

Good luck trying to find a shapeless formless entity like God. He doesn't have a physical body like we do, so you can journey through the skies, space, black holes, wherever, you won't find him. He is omnipotent, he's everywhere at the same time, something our tiny puny minds can't comprehend.

The bar is raised yet again.

Zer0m0rph wrote:

Karavolos wrote:

The keyword in my statement there is "why I believe." For all I know, the existence of a deity or deities could be legitimate; but I don't believe there is based around what I perceive to be a lack of evidence for it.

Let's focus on the "Lack of Evidence for God". If you and I were standing on the top of a tall sky scraper, looking out over a vast city full of buildings, and I pointed to the tallest building and said, "Prove to me that there was a designer, a creator of this building.", what would you say?

For starters, there is a difference in that we can prove that buildings were made by people; we cannot prove that oooooooo sheep came from God or that trees were zapped into existence by a divine power. That's why God isn't a fact; I don't see how that never occurs to you. Second, you're running into a "God of the Gaps" fallacy here which about amounts to "I don't know therefore God." Just because I don't know who made the building doesn't mean God must be behind it, you're the one making the claim that God exist, so it's your burden to prove your claim if you care to do more than make baseless claims supported only by the thing making the claim; namely the Bible.

Zer0m0rph wrote:

Have you ever wondered why ancient cultures that have never even heard of God all have similar laws and codes of morality? Take for instance, lying, murder, stealing, are all considered bad in every culture across the globe. Why is that? Why is it that we don't have to be taught that these things are bad. When someone comes and steals your shit, nobody has to tell you that you've been wronged, you know you have, and naturally you seek justice. Why is that? Where did we get that information from? Perhaps God imprinted a basic moral code on to everyone he created? I think so yes. More evidence of God's existence?

Because humans are a very social animal and doing bad shit onto others mean the ostracization of the rest of the group at best. Humans have basic empathy and in most cases can sympathize with "I don't want this to happen to me, so I won't do it to others" that come from evolution; we would never have been pack animals had we stolen shit from each other willy nilly. I don't see God here anymore than I see Zeus, Shiva, Buddah etc; you've proven nothing and only claimed that God is behind it.

Zer0m0rph wrote:

Karavolos wrote:

What is it you experienced even?

I will respond to your question with a bible verse.

Matthew 7:6 "Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces."

My personal experiences with God, I only share with other believers. To share something as special and intimate as something like this with an unbeliever would be like "throwing my pearls to swine". Perhaps at a later time we can talk about this... when you're ready.

k.. (we need a dog emoji)
"I won't tell you until you agree with me." Right, way to make me understand your position.

Zer0m0rph wrote:

Karavolos wrote:

How can I be blind to the notion of God when I used to be a Christian and I've since found the religion to be flawed and most likely untrue? See how it works?

Before we can even discuss this, we have to agree on what a Christian is. Many people call themselves Christians when they are in fact, NOT Christians at all. They are wolves in sheep's wool, hiding, waiting, plotting, to destroy the name of Jesus Christ.

A Christian, a TRUE Christian is someone who has given over everything they are, everything they own, their heart, their money, their possessions, their careers, their relationships, their dreams, and their life over to Jesus Christ. A TRUE Christian is someone who has had a personal one on one encounter with God, have confessed of all of their sins to him, and have repented, and have a 100% dedication and desire to spend the rest of their life pursuing Christ with their whole heart.

Does this sound like you? Of course not. Kara my friend, you were never a Christian.

Look up the "No True Scotsman" fallacy.

Zer0m0rph wrote:

God is not doing a piss-poor job of representing himself. "He who has ears, let him hear, and those who do not, let them dismiss me." Not even God can convince a corrupt heart, someone who has already dismissed him and turned their back on him. You see, God cannot show himself to you because you won't let him. You will only find God when...

Yeah he would be, otherwise God would be a fact and everyone would know. It wouldn't even infringe upon the free-will argument cuz we could still choose whether or not to worship him- which is another argument all-together -which is more free will-y than being ignorant.
Running on the presumption he exists here; if he was doing a good job he'd have made himself known throughout the world, or at least to say, the Chinese who were the most advanced people at the time, as opposed to some backwater section of desert dwellers in the middle east and relying on them to spread the message from there by ways of text in a time where public education wasn't a thing.

Zer0m0rph wrote:

I know I sound like a broken record here, but I'm going to keep posting this verse over and over until you hear me.

Yep. I hear you, I just don't consider some quote in an ancient book of fairy tales written by man with the phrase "GOD'S WORD" slapped onto it to give it authority while many borrowed elements from other mythologies are plastered in to make it seem as cool as the other myths around.
http://listverse.com/2013/06/30/ten-influences-on-the-bible/

Zer0m0rph wrote:

I have posted plenty of evidence and I have proven to you God's existence in as limited of fashion as possible given your blindness.

No you haven't, you've made claims after claims and ran into two logical fallacies in this post alone (God of the Gaps and No True Scotsman) while running Bible verses down my throat as evidence while calling me blind when I say it's not evidence. If the Bible was true, it'd be supported by things outside the Bible; which I see very little evidence for. Claiming that God's work is all around us is not evidence, it's another claim which says "fuck all those other religions, WE have the right one!" which by the way is something about all religions say with just as much mental gymnastics and call to have faith in order to bypass how it doesn't pass the scientific method.

Zer0m0rph wrote:

I'll be honest with you Kara, you're an intelligent guy, clearly, and unlike many of the other atheists on this forum, you actually seem to care about your soul and relationship with God, and I think you're closer than you realize to having a personal relationship with Christ. I'm praying that one day, God will get you alone and find you, and reveal himself to you as he did for me, because life will truly be worth living after that time.

Thanks. I must say that our debate aside, I care more on your well-being since you claim religion is making you happier and so on, which is something I don't want to ruin. The reason I rose up from my sloth is because you started going for the throat with the absurd claim that 'taking God out of the schools is the reason for mass shootings in the US', which you have the right to say and feel; but I also have the right to criticize it and point out why that's wrong (by the logic places like Canada and Sweden etc should be warzones).
As for souls and gods well, if they do exist then I would likely be concerned if only out of self-preservation yes; but I'm as skeptic there as I am everywhere else for anything that cannot be proven. Pray away if you think it'll help; but I do wanna remind that evidence passing the scientific method is what works best for me.

This all said and done, shall we end this debate here? I still don't see it leading anywhere really and putting effort down over nada just wears me down for no good reason. Closing statements maybe?

=EDIT=
Ps. Out of curiosity, the Angel(s) you say you saw, what did hir/they look like? People with wings or more Old Testament-y?

Closing Statements...

Quote :

The reason I rose up from my sloth is because you started going for the throat with the absurd claim that 'taking God out of the schools is the reason for mass shootings in the US', which you have the right to say and feel

Incorrect again. If you go back, Jad said "Who thinks Western way of life will exist in 100 years?", and I said "Makes you think twice about bringing children into this world, doesn't it? Anyone ever read the book of Revelation from the bible? Scary stuff is ahead of us folks.", then he said "Keep god out of this." and that's when I said "Keeping God out of this is what led to all the problems in the first, but okay."

I don't know where you're getting "take God out of the schools is the reason for mass shootings"... Wow.  

Quote :

This all said and done, shall we end this debate here? I still don't see it leading anywhere really and putting effort down over nada just wears me down for no good reason. Closing statements maybe?

I agree, I don't see this going anywhere either. Until God pays you a special little visit, we are talking apples and oranges and won't ever be on the same page. I think if we continue, we'll both just get frustrated, so yeah, let's end it here. I had a long list of corrections and rebuttals planned, but it's pointless, so I'll agree to disagree and move forward.

Zer0m0rph wrote:

I don't know where you're getting "take God out of the schools is the reason for mass shootings"... Wow.  

This one is my fault, I misremembered what was actually said on Page 6 and mixed it up with shit I've heard from other sources:

Zer0m0rph wrote:

Keeping God out of this is what led to all the problems in the first, but okay.

Sorry about that one, Zer0  

Zer0m0rph wrote:

Until God pays you a special little visit, we are talking apples and oranges and won't ever be on the same page.

Presuming we still have some modicum of contact should that happen, I promise I'll let you know if that ever happens. Until that FAITHFUL day I'll agree with the latter part of the rest:

Zer0m0rph wrote:

I think if we continue, we'll both just get frustrated, so yeah, let's end it here. I had a long list of corrections and rebuttals planned, but it's pointless, so I'll agree to disagree and move forward.

Quote :

This one is my fault, I misremembered what was actually said on Page 6 and mixed it up with shit I've heard from other sources:

Quote :

Sorry about that one, Zer0  

It takes a man to admit his mistakes. No worries buddy, I mix up stuff all the time, and I appreciate the apology.

Quote :

Presuming we still have some modicum of contact should that happen, I promise I'll let you know if that ever happens. Until that FAITHFUL day I'll agree with the latter part of the rest:

As much contact as you want, we're still friends as far as I'm concerned. I do REALLY appreciate the debate and you taking the time to think about all this stuff (most people don't dare think about this kind of stuff), let alone put your heart and soul on display for all to see. That shows a certain strength that many lack these days, so kudos to both of us for being able to have a civil conversation about religion, and nobody storming off in a rage about it.

It's funny, but this thread originally started about politics, which tends to upset people when others don't agree with them. In fact, several members bailed out on this thread and even thought about leaving the forum over it, and I think we (you and I) showed everyone that two people can disagree and still respect each others difference. Nobody needs to load their AK-47 and start beheading people over it. The thing that I love about Jesus so much is that he never forces anyone to do anything they don't want to do. He gives everyone the freedom of choice and so that's how my world view is too, everyone has the right to freedom. I can't stand people who think "If you don't believe what I believe, then we'll have a problem!", that's garbage.

The last thing I want to say to you, publicly, is that if you ever reach a point in your life where things aren't adding up, or making sense, or your life seems so... dull, purposeless, and you're willing to open your heart and mind to the possibility that you were meant for so much more than what you've been living so far, don't hesitate to look me up and we can talk about it. I'm a good listening if that's all you need, and I can pray or give you advice too if that's what you're looking for. No matter what, my door is always open to you.

So, you say Hilary will go and convert our catapults to Christianity?