ZenkoXC: damnit, according to the book of revelations 144,000 people go to heaven, so what are we trying for? thats like 1 in 713,111 people actually go to heaven....

izen: i don't think it says that...

izen: i've pretty much read it

izen: its actually in infinitely decreasing number

ZenkoXC: well that sucks even more

izen: but its not true

ZenkoXC: religion is just a way of controlling people... at least thats how it seems more and more, or to explain things, but whatever, no harm ever came from practicing it

ZenkoXC: yet

izen: that is a very sophomoric comment

ZenkoXC: ok

ZenkoXC: well what would you say it is

ZenkoXC: I'm just glad I use my bible for something other than a decoration, so when I meet my maker I'll be able to ask him some interesting questions

izen: if you went a bare bones ontological proof of God's existence...

izen: i'll quote it from somewhere important

ZenkoXC: ok

ZenkoXC: I always find proof and than disproof... I'm still figuring out what to believe

ZenkoXC: the paradox that asks "can God create a rock too heavy that even he can't lift it?" frightens me

izen: I have a mission for you

izen: read "Valis", "The Divine Invasion", and "The Transmigration of Timothy Archer" by Philip K. Dick

izen: sum of about 750 pages

izen: elements of Gnosticism... Christian... it seems to answer that question very well...

ZenkoXC: well that should be good.. I need some new reading material

izen: since God exists outside the boundaries of space and time, 1) is it really fair to ask that question, 2) if that event happened, would God in his infinite wisdom not find some way of overcoming it, 3) if that event happened, would it not be an occurence that God thought of, and therefore God would be always already prepared for in some way, 4) does that paradox not explain human existence... and the way that God creates souls that may or may not be destined for damnation...

ZenkoXC: Hmm... I forget what t he word was, but it seemed to make sense to me, basically if God can influence everything he must be like, dark-matter or an omnipotent? I don't know what that means, but it basically meant to me that he's like the Force... I still don't understand why he'd create half-assed souls

ZenkoXC: and it sucks because I doubt I'm going to heaven now

izen: zack, my brother, who is ridiculously by the book religious, hates me reading these books... but they gave me some comfort... i don't necessarily believe what they say... it just seems like a way to explain tentatively... some of the wrongs of the world... in a new way... it is essentially a permutation of traditional scripture... Dick quotes one scripture outside of the traditional bible...

izen: one of his depictions is that life on earth is like an illusion... we constantly find ourselves encountering decay and what we perceive as falsity and evil... but really this is just a lack of God... its a lack of the fullest presence of God... which is also supported in scripture... God is in us and around us... but we have scripture and the Bible as the connection and the scripture tells us that we have the ability to sin... and this is derived from our free will and the conscious/conscience that relies

izen: on misperceptions

izen: you might not want to believe everything i say or tell you to read... but i think it is thought provoking... and at the same time... if not answering questions... helps to explain things and rationalize the importance of questions

ZenkoXC: this stuff makes me go nuts, once I learn one thing... I want it to be explained more and more, and it only gets worse, one bit of information can make a guy go into the insane assylum faster than you can say scrambled eggs... or in my case, hell, which seems like I might be going there

izen: live by the principles that you read in scripture... question the ones that don't make sense... look for more rules in your experience... read outside the lines...

izen: corrupt people made our bible what it is...

izen: but that sparks the debate about free will... and we shouldn't get into that...

izen: i had a screaming match with my brother...

ZenkoXC: yes, lets not

izen: i said, wouldn't it be the ultimate irony if the book that says don't follow false doctrines... had... through the work of corrupt catholics in the early days... burning scripture and rearranging... become just that...

ZenkoXC: you, being as hardcore Christian as Dave Richardson, might hate me for saying this... but to me the Bible is just like propoganda.. but not the stupid kind.. the kind that recruits you for an army, or in this particular case... the kind that recruits you to be a Christian and look into a new way of life... than I watch the history channel, read 'The Da Vinci Code' and say 'Dude, what the fuck is going on? 28 books deleted from the old testemant?'

rizen: I will tell you what I think of the Da Vinci Code

rizen: I think its a tool used as justification for many worldly deeds...

izen: i think that it is entirely possible that the bible could be missing stuff...

izen: do i think that it is stuff about sex being divine and jesus being with mary magdalene and gays being allowed to marry... no... that seems pretty much to contradict everything currently in the Bible...

izen: and I believe that if the Bible was all wrong...

izen: completely wrong

izen: no divine spirit within...

izen: the rapture would have already happened...

izen: since it hasn't happened... or if it has and this is hell on earth... i'm forced to just fall back on faith...

izen: and that is ok...

izen: b/c if the best argument against is "the rapture hasn't happened b/c the Bible is entirely fiction and there is no real Bible or real deity"... i'm essentially dealing with an atheist and i have already systematically defeated atheism... or have forestalled it for a time...

izen: i think simply plato or aristotle... i think it was aristotle... the whole divine forms... i think its pretty much obvious that we are not the supreme beings...

izen: which brings me to the ontological proof

izen: its Anselm...

ZenkoXC: About gay marraige: If you liked other men, wouldn't you like to get married? That's off topic...

izen: i'd like to have promiscious sex and drink beer all the time... i don't do either at all... so thats not the point... we constantly fight against our instinct... Gays just think that sexual preference is somehow monstrously different than everything else... but at the same time... want to claim that its a sin no harsher than any other...

rizen: here is the proof essentially:

izen: if the only knowledge we can gain is through intellect-- a being greater than which none can be concieved must lie not only within the intellect but within reality...

izen: essentially... if i try thinking about God... the moments of absence of understanding... when you really try to process what constitutes God... and you reach a point where its infinitely unfathomable to go any further... the being that you have just attempted to rationalize must lie both within that channel of thought... above it... and it must be real...

ZenkoXC: are you saying that people who are insane are thinking of things that are actually real... because if they weren't real there would be no way to think of it in the first place? or am I just a retard

izen: the things that happen to the insane are not demonstrative of God... I mean, they are not being used as a proof in God's existence... the insane person is not attempting to rationalize pain or insanity... but if you think about the plagues... than if the person asks... "is this the most insane God can make me" than the insanity would have to be both infinitely great within the mind and within the world...

ZenkoXC: I feel as if I've stepped into the middle of the mind of a genius... I'm glad we're not discussing modern feminism cause you'd rape me(not literally....) but if you have a, good explanation for all of that, how can you answer the question "well, if God created the universe(which is still hard to believe considering the world is so complex, then again, he's God) than who created God?

ZenkoXC: or do I have to rely(spelling?) on faith, which in that case, I might as well just quit = (

rizen: well to be technical, G-d's name means, I am...

izen: i mean... to some... at least

izen: its a matter of omnipresence...

izen: thinking back to the Being greater than which none can be conceived ... we can conceive of a Being who has no creator...

rizen: so we can conceive of one that exists

rizen: even scientists can't dispute that...

izen: we have a ball of energy... big bang... where did it come from... where is where...

izen: these are questions that are assumed to be "yes, it existed..."

ZenkoXC: assumptions suck, but I'll live with that one

izen: i mean, it is not a solid assumption... it is a working one... if you find a reason to believe that everything has to be created by something... than you have also lost your own vitality... b/c you are no longer anything... you are a pawn of a pawn of a pawn of a pawn... and so on...

ZenkoXC: I still don't particularly enjoy the thought of me going to hell since those accepted to heaven is infinetly decreasing, which is also stupid because if more and more people are being born shouldn't it be infinetly increasing? And how the 'hell' did you get so smart? Jeff told me that he asked you what the 5th word in Moby Dick was and you knew it

rizen: I know... Call me Ishmael..

ZenkoXC: I'm 15, generally I have a while to figure these things out... but we're all going to die on Dec 22 2012... that leaves 7 years

rizen: that doesn't seem right

rizen: i mean, you don't know that...

ZenkoXC: isn't it safer to be prepared? like condoms.

rizen: and as for the amount of people getting into heaven... everything in this world can occlude us into believing we have no shot... or its a sealed deal... it is our job to constantly struggle for God's acceptance and for our own ease... not pride...

rizen: we should be ready to die at any moment

ZenkoXC: but I don't want to accept death, yet.. there are about 10 things I still want to do while I'm on this plane of existence, I don't believe every person I've came in contact with over my short, but eventful life, has invested their time in me only to have me fade out of existence faster than I came into it

rizen: what 10 things deserve making your Creator wait?

rizen: my rationality is this... every moment I have enjoyed, every person I have loved... they all remind me of a part of myself... even if death meant isolation from them... in some temporal sense... I would have them with me... in memories and as extensions of myself... as if the parts of me that make me laugh at the same things... were theirs

ZenkoXC: does it make sense that he put me here for a time so short, to accomplish.. nothing? I kind of believe when people stop seeing a purpose in life, that's when they go because they've come to terms that there is nothing left to do.. it's wrong to say that babies stop seeing a point to existence and thats why they die... shit happens and it's sad.. but than why would I have reached a stable point in my life, right now only to have it taken away?

ZenkoXC: oh well, they say no matter how violent your death is, you never feel it because your soul leaves before your physical image... so that's comforting that I can like.. spontaneously combust and not feel a thing

ZenkoXC: than again I talk and talk, and say life taken away.. as if it belongs to me



_______________________________________________

Discuss

Ok, for those who are going to post

"Too long/didnt read"

basically, he is asking,

Can God make a rock so big, even He cannot lift it?



I would personally have to say that God can make a boulder infinatly large enough that nothing could theoretically control it (or lift it), including himself. Since he has almighty power, he has the power to make it big enough that even he cannot lift it.

Although with what is known as almighty power, God can do "anything" (with a couple exceptions), that means anything he can make, he can also lift. With him being able to lift anything that he has the power to make in the first place, that means he can lift any rock anyway.

Now, in my opinion, both seem to be very valid points and if the other isn't represented, both seem legitament (only because together, they somewhat "cancel" each other out). But since this is more or less a yes or no question (not QUITE that simplified, but to some extent it's one or the other) it cant be either way.

Still, with what Catholics call the "limitations of God", there is included something that means he cannot learn anything. With God knowing everything, you have to realise HE has to know the answer to this question. That being so, since there are both very valid and so called "legitament" points to both sides, and the question is designed to be a paradox of itself, I believe that the question itself is not made for human comprehension. The question in itself is so complex and spiritually infinitly complicated (wow) that only God himself knows, because only God really knows what he is capable of, isn't he? http://www.totse.com/bbs/wink.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/wink.gif)



SmartTart

^^ good point ^^



Now read the other 12 points I brought up

Emperor I don't mean to sound like a dick, but can you just give a basic layout of your ideas?

I'm sure I, and a lot of other people, don't want to bothered with reading that since it's taxing to do so. What with all the damn ellipses.

[This message has been edited by Paradise Lost (edited 08-12-2005).]