I just realised something, a bit of sophistry on your part, and I have to debunk it: there is nothing contradictory about saying there is no absolute truth. When I say no one has the answers, I'm not saying I have the answers. My lack of answers isn't an indication that I have them. I'm saying I do not have the answers, and neither does anyone else.



you almost got me, I forgot how good Christians are at sophistry.

you know, i realize now that this is a bit of an unfair, one sided contest, since, like you said, you don't really know who you're arguing with, with what I believe. I don't have the time or the inclination to actually go into details about my personal, and very complex belief system, so I'll instead give you the best description of it that I've ever read, the words of a teenage lesbian hitchhiker in a car driven by one of Odin's bastard sons, as transcribed by Neil Gaiman:



I can believe things that are true and I can believe things that aren't true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they're true of not. I can be believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and Marilyn Monroe and the Beatles and Elvis and Mister Ed. Listen--I believe that people are perfectible, that knowledge is infinite, that the world is run by secret banking cartels and is visited by aliens on a regular basis, nice ones that look like wrinkledy lemurs and bad ones who mutilate cattle and want our water and our women.



I believe that the future sucks and I believe that the future rocks and I believe that one day White Buffalo Woman is going to come back and kick everyone's ass.



I believe that all men are just overgrown boys with deep problems communicating and that the decline in good sex in America is coincident with the decline of drive-in movie theaters from state to state. I believe that all politicians are unprincipled crooks and I still believe that they are better than the alternative. I believe that California is going to sink into the sea when the big one comes, while Florida is going to dissolve into madness and alligators and toxic waste.



I believe that antibacterial soap is destroying our resistance to dirt and disease so that one day we'll all be wiped out by the common cold like the Martians in War of the Worlds.



I believe that the greatest poets of the last century were Edith Sitwell and Don Marquis, that jade is dried dragon sperm, and that thousands of years ago in a former life I was a one-armed Siberian shaman. I believe that mankind's destiny lies in the stars.



I believe that candy really did taste better when I was a kid, that it's aerodynamically impossible for a bumblebee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there's a cat in a box somewhere who's alive and dead at the same time (although if they don't ever open the box to feed it it'll eventually just be two different kinds of dead), and that there are stars in the universe billions of years older than the universe itself.



I believe in a personal God who cares about me and worries and oversees everything I do. I believe in an impersonal god who set the universe in motion and went off to hang with her girlfriends and doesn't even known that I'm alive. I believe in an empty and godless universe of casual chaos, background noise, and sheer blind luck.



I believe that anyone who says that sex is overrated just hasn't done it properly. I believe that anyone who claims to know what's going on will lie about the little things too. I believe in absolute honesty and sensible social lies. I believe in a woman's right to choose, a baby's right to live, that while all human life is sacred there's nothing wrong with the death penalty if you can trust the legal system implicitly, and that no one but a moron would ever trust the legal system.



I believe that life is a game, that life is a cruel joke, and that life is what happens when you're alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it.

Dude, write some chords and a simple beat, and record that!!!

You've got a hit record on your hands I feel!!

I wonder if I could get Neil Gaimans permission.... I'll never forget the first time I read that, I was like, fuck, I'm going to give up writing, because I couldn't even sum up my own thoughts so perfectly.

Either you are making a truth claim, or you aren't. If you aren't making a truth claim, then why do you believe that what you're saying is true?



This is the problem with relativism. It makes the claim that there is no truth, or that it isn't knowable. As a philosophical system it is under the same scrutiny as any other philosophical system. It is classified as unlimited agnosticism (vs limited agnosticism). Another explains it far better than I: "...unlimited agnosticism is a subtle form of dogmatism. In completely disclaiming the possibility of all knowledge of the real, it stands at the opposite pole from the position that would claim all knowledge about reality. Each is equally dogmatic. Both are "must" positions regarding knowledge, as opposed to the position that we may or do know something about reality. And there is simply no way short of omniscience that one can make such sweeping and cateorical statements about reality, whether they are positive or negative. Agnosticism is negative dogmatism, and every negative presupposes a positive. Hence, total agnosticism is not only self-defeatin but it is self-denying. Only an omniscient mind could be totally agnostic, and finite men [and women] confessedly do no possess omniscience. Hence, the door remains open for some knowlede of reality. Reality is not unknowable." Christian Apologetics, ]Geisler



What Dr. Geisler is saying is that a complete denial of knowledge is unaffirmable. It's like saying " I can't express myself with words." The statement itself is an expression of words. It's self-contradictory and therefore meaningless. One may as well describe a shape as a "square triangle."



And, by the way, when you cross the street, do you look both ways before crossing? Because it's EITHER you OR the car, not both, right? You may say that knowledge and truth is inaccessible or non-existent, but I garauntee you that you don't live your life that way.

See, this is where I'm at the advantage.



I don't believe what I'm saying is true. I don't have to. It's all just possibilities. I don't believe in anything, even the evidence of my own senses.



Here's the kind of agnostic you're dealing with: Nothing I could experience could convince me that my entire life is not merely a dream. As far as I'm concerned, you could very well be a figment of my imagination, and nothing can prove this to me either for or against. I actually don't care either way, and it really makes no difference to me, one way or the other.

sentientsynthesizer Escribi�:

And, by the way, when you cross the street, do you look both ways before crossing? Because it's EITHER you OR the car, not both, right? You may say that knowledge and truth is inaccessible or non-existent, but I garauntee you that you don't live your life that way.

Of course I look both ways. My belief system isn't a dogma that I must follow, and there are no penalties for transgressions.



Trust me, when I orgasm, I do not shout out, 'Oh yeah! Heisneberg's Uncertainty Principle!!!'

Then the difficulty isn't with your head, but with your heart. You don't even care if there is truth. And not because it doesn't make any difference to you, because it will make all the difference to you. Even you understand that when you look both ways before crossing the road. So let your mind believe what your heart and soul already know to be true. Stop resisting.

sentientsynthesizer Escribi�:

And, by the way, when you cross the street, do you look both ways before crossing? Because it's EITHER you OR the car, not both, right? You may say that knowledge and truth is inaccessible or non-existent, but I garauntee you that you don't live your life that way.

Considering the existence of a god, the after life, creation, and intervention, i myself, am agnostic,but there are certain things i think are correct such as evolution, scientific laws, that christianity is false, seemingly obvious "facts", i dont actually know these to be true, but it would seem so(im not going to believe the car isnt there until you prove it to me), but im always open to the possibility that im completely wrong. i only say I cannot know. if youre not me you can "know" all you want and i wont argue with you. I might not think youre right, but you always could be. Also i think no one can say theres no truth out there until after they're dead.

oh, and as to all of the listed "proof" of christianity, isnt there just as much proof for all of todays religions? How do you know it wasnt the work of Vishnu, Odin, Zeus, Allah, Osiris, Baal,...etc. that was the cause of christs (supposed)resurrection?

sentientsynthesizer Escribi�:

Then the difficulty isn't with your head, but with your heart. You don't even care if there is truth. And not because it doesn't make any difference to you, because it will make all the difference to you. Even you understand that when you look both ways before crossing the road. So let your mind believe what your heart and soul already know to be true. Stop resisting.

soul... heart... mind...



I have my brain, my perception, that is all. There is no such thing as a 'soul'... mankind are hairless apes, and if the biblical story of genesis is to believed, IMO, the original Sin, the 'knowledge of good and evil' that was spoken of, was the moment mankind pretended that he was something more than any other animal.



That's truly the orgin of all the worlds suffering, the belief that we are somehow superior or different than dogs, dolphins or virus. If humans could accept that death is the end, and work to make life better in this life, we could remake the world into an Eden, instead beliefs keep mankind seperated and fractious, beliefs are why brothers kill brothers, why children starve and even why people are crucified.



A much better world we'd have if it could be rid of 'Belief'... heh, I've always been amused that the word Believe has the word 'lie' right in the middle of it... it's almost like the word itself is trying to tell us, 'If you have to believe in it, it's a lie'



I guess that even if I did believe in god, even if I believed in Jesus, I would have to side with the one who said 'Non Servitum'... I would not worship a god that gives babies AIDs, that starves women, that, in short, permits human suffering, so we can learn some lesson or make some point... Job was the biggest sucker in the universe... what kind of god allows his servant to be tortured to win a bet? Seriously, what sort of petty and childish deity does that kind of shit? No, if I believed in your god and your christ, I'm afraid I'd have to dedicate my life more actively to destroying them than I already do...

Well, FlamingLips, creation, intervension, existence of God, Jesus is the Son of God....these things are extra-ordinary claims which require either extra-ordinary evidence or faith. No one can talk you into faith, and sadly the extra-ordinary evidence some people want simply isn't there. Some things are self-evident. They impress their truths on us everyday. The idea of God and the like are not impressed upon you daily, as are the laws of physics like gravity and friction and force.



There's an expression: You have to see it to believe it. But I would say that there are some truths you have to actively seek out if you want to find them, precisely because they aren't impressed upon you daily. (You have to look for life's meaning if you want to find it.)



It's the Christian contention that God wants you to choose him willingly, after searching for him, and finding him. Toomuch'stash got it wrong. God made man with free will, the ability to choose God's will and obey, or his own, disobeying. Man chose to dis-obey. And now God wants (but will not compel) man to re-accept his innocence by actively choosing to believe in Christ. All you must do is renounce you self-will and actively accept God's will for you. Yes, even if it is on your death bed. God knows your intentions. If you are pure in his eyes in accepting His free gift, then you have received it. God is infinitely loving, and capable of infinite forgiveness. And, really, he wants to give them to you.





[/i]

Well, FlamingDead, part of what makes Jesus's resurrection so amazing is the detail of its prophecy, which was given to the Jews in great detail, perhaps 700 years before Jesus's birth. God spoke to individual male Jews in an audible voice, often giving them great signs of his presence, as it is recorded. The God of Israel said that he would send his "suffering servant" into the world to redeem it. Jesus fulfilled all of the Old Testament prophecies (well over a hundred). During his own life, he prophesied his death on the cross, and his subsequent resurrection ("Destroy this temple and I shall raise it up again in three days.") He also claimed identity as the LORD or YAHWEH of the Old Testament, giving his message, miracles, and bodily resurrection as proof.



Christianity is absolutely unique amongst other religions. In no other religion is there the claim that its high priest or originator physically rose after dying, this being a historical, physical and not merely spiritual claim.



Only in a very superficial sense are all religions alike. Fundamentally, they are very, very different in how they answer questions like, who are we? What is God like? what happens after we die? what is heaven like? These are questions that Christianity answers uniquely.

toomuch'stash Escribi�:

No, if I believed in your god and your christ, I'm afraid I'd have to dedicate my life more actively to destroying them than I already do...

ive concluded something similar, only my reason for disliking god would be that he inflicts eternal suffering as punishment for merely not hearing about him. If i was to see obvious proof of his existence, i would immediately oppose him on the grounds that i could be a way better god then him.

TheFlamingDead_ Escribi�:

toomuch'stash Escribi�:

No, if I believed in your god and your christ, I'm afraid I'd have to dedicate my life more actively to destroying them than I already do...

ive concluded something similar, only my reason for disliking god would be that he inflicts eternal suffering as punishment for merely not hearing about him. If i was to see obvious proof of his existence, i would immediately oppose him on the grounds that i could be a way better god then him.

I'm too liberal to ever follow the rules made by somebody I didn't vote for.

How did this turn into a discussion about religion? Can?t think of anything smart to say to you have to resort to your security blanket where you believe that higher intellectuals always return to the argument of the existence of Jesus/God which you?ve versed yourself for some laboring time. Wake up! Focus on the topic and what you?re saying. Its easy to retreat to the comfort that ?we are peas in a bowl created by a merciful God and that?s all we need to know? > but you?re wrong (living in ignorance is wrong [for some people]). ?But I don?t know any better? ? you say?. That?s where I come in because I know. With the proper guidance I will lead you to an inner utopia where no matter where you are, no matter who says what, no matter the obstacle you?ll be protected by the invincible field of certainty. If you want to be certain, Call me! > I have a message that will change you life. -> butterjump@hotmail.com

What are you, a scientologist? If I email you, do I get TEH HOT CYBAR AKTION?!?!?!!11



Listen, the video's about taking too much acid at a club. That's all the video is about. We solved that mystery, and wanted to talk about a mystery that wasn't solved yet.



tard.

I don't think it's about drugs at all, it seems to straight in general for that. I mean, yeah the skeletons are trippy but the rest of the world is normal. I think it's just a cool music video, they probably thought "how can we make this video different from the normal club video", somehow came up with skeletons dancing (maybe the concept was chemically induced X-D ), and that's how it stuck.



The Test video is blatently about acid, and you get light flashes and distortions, the whole works really. Hey Boy Hey Girl just has skeletons dancing, doesn't seem enough for me to pin it down to a vision of an acid trip.



In my opinion, of course

i agree chemicalfan

Oh, damn it all!! I thought the video was about our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ...



;)