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Tokyodreamer
SFN Regular
USA
1447 Posts |
 Posted - 05/01/2002 : 16:23:51 [Permalink]
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quote:
Is there any way you can share this grade A paper with us?
Oh gawd! I actually find it quite embarrassing in it's amatuerish and sloppy form. I have a really bad habit of waiting until the night before a paper is due to actually do the paper (yes, literally!). It's just a mish-mash of stuff we've mostly all seen here. Very little organization.
A bit from Helms, Cumont, Acharya S, one quote from Gibbon, and a dash of Doherty (The Jesus Puzzle author).
What the hell, you guys can rip it apart and laugh at my suckiness, and maybe I'll improve as a writer, if I can ever show my, er, face here again! 
How should I supply it?
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Truth above pride and ego; truth above all |
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@tomic
Administrator
USA
4607 Posts |
Posted - 05/01/2002 : 17:37:30 [Permalink]
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quote:
Oh gawd! I actually find it quite embarrassing in it's amatuerish and sloppy form. I have a really bad habit of waiting until the night before a paper is due to actually do the paper (yes, literally!). It's just a mish-mash of stuff we've mostly all seen here. Very little organization.
You realize that this is how our entire civilization, such as it is, operates??
@tomic
Gravity, not just a good idea...it's the law! |
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spamorama
New Member
13 Posts |
Posted - 05/10/2002 : 23:28:20 [Permalink]
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I gotta say, that's an interesting opening story.... I hope everyone doesn't mind me jumping in at the end of this post after only reading the first few, but I have a little “story” of my own that I thought up about 10 years back to respond to my Baptist Minister father when he asked why I didn't believe in a God that loves us and just wants us to be happy. My story goes something like this:
Imagine that I, the worlds greatest inventor, created a robot and released it on the world. It is so technologically advanced, it can make itself entirely invisible. I wanted to make it a good robot, but it turned out to be the meanest SOB robot that you have ever seen. Now it's the ultimate weapon; it kills people, it messes up peoples lives, it gets inside of your head and makes you crazy, and it makes you want fight and kill each other. Oh, and its also so fast it can be practically everywhere at the same time. And did I mention, that like most evil creations, it is entirely unstoppable by anyone, except me. I could simply say the appropriate voice command and stop the robot forever, but I prefer sitting back, innocently watching the show from my nice big house.
Now, in hating the actions of the robot, I would guess that I should not be surprised if people begin to hate me too, especially if they found out I could stop the robot with a simple voice command. I would also assume that once the link was made between the robot and myself, logical people would begin to think that I must be pretty angry, to allow the release of such a machine.
This is the point where I ask, “how is this story different from the story of God and the Devil? Didn't God create the devil? Isn't the devil responsible for all evil? Isn't God powerful enough to stop him, yet continues to let him run around? If you get rid of that part of your belief system, I might be able to agree that 'God is love', and begin to understand why I should follow him."
Mike.
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Boron10
Religion Moderator
USA
1266 Posts |
Posted - 05/12/2002 : 19:31:24 [Permalink]
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This seems to illustrate a common idea: belief in a god implies a belief in a devil, and its converse. Why must somebody believe in both? Is it not possible that only one exists?
Seems to me, if there is a god, this creature cannot be omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent. It would have to leave out at least one of those three characteristics.
-me. |
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Lars_H
SFN Regular
Germany
630 Posts |
Posted - 05/12/2002 : 20:05:16 [Permalink]
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quote:
This seems to illustrate a common idea: belief in a god implies a belief in a devil, and its converse. Why must somebody believe in both? Is it not possible that only one exists?
I find it a lot easier to 'belive' in a devil then to belive in God. At least the existance of a being with very much but still finite powers and a malevolent intention towards mankind does not imidietly contadict common sence or my knowldege of the world.
quote:
Seems to me, if there is a god, this creature cannot be omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent. It would have to leave out at least one of those three characteristics.
-me.
Actually the contradiction does not really come from being omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenvolent but from claiming that such a being created the Universe we are inhabitating.
People like Leibniz tried to make sense out of this contradiction in the past, but nowadays most chritians are contend to ignore the whole probleem or gloss over it with rhetorics.
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Blair Nekkid
New Member
Canada
20 Posts |
Posted - 05/13/2002 : 08:30:23 [Permalink]
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I believe that the wise sage Tom Waites said "There is no devil, it's just god when he drinks."
Cheers,
Blair
"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts."
Bertrand Russell |
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Computer Org
Skeptic Friend
392 Posts |
Posted - 05/13/2002 : 08:58:53 [Permalink]
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quote:
I was reading along where spamorama wrote:
". . . the meanest SOB robot that you have ever seen. Now it's the ultimate weapon; it kills people, it messes up peoples lives, it gets inside of your head and makes you crazy, and it makes you want fight and kill each other. Oh, and its also so fast it can be practically everywhere at the same time."
Religion!
Imagine that.
I thought that it was an analogy about lawyers.
Do thou amend thy face, and I'll amend my life. --Falstaff |
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Slater
SFN Regular
USA
1668 Posts |
Posted - 06/30/2002 : 22:24:41 [Permalink]
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quote:
What the hell, you guys can rip it apart and laugh at my suckiness, and maybe I'll improve as a writer, if I can ever show my, er, face here again!
Okay, you wrote that back in May and in a couple of minutes it'll be July. It sounds like good beach reading to me--cough it up!
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My business is to teach my aspirations to conform themselves to fact, not to try and make facts harmonize with my aspirations. ---Thomas Henry Huxley, 1860 |
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Tokyodreamer
SFN Regular
USA
1447 Posts |
Posted - 07/01/2002 : 05:51:42 [Permalink]
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quote:
quote:
What the hell, you guys can rip it apart and laugh at my suckiness, and maybe I'll improve as a writer, if I can ever show my, er, face here again!
Okay, you wrote that back in May and in a couple of minutes it'll be July. It sounds like good beach reading to me--cough it up!
So much for hoping you all would forget about it! I'll try and dig it up...
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fortiter in re, suaviter in modo |
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Tokyodreamer
SFN Regular
USA
1447 Posts |
Posted - 07/03/2002 : 14:48:23 [Permalink]
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Ok, you asked for it! My Jesus paper.
I couldn't find the file, so I had to scan in my hardcopy. It's in PDF format, so if anyone can't read it, let me know. It's text searchable, so I could cut and paste it out to a text file, but all the formatting would be lost, and I really don't feel like retyping it all back into Word.
You can barely make out the markups by the teacher. They're all word usage and spelling/grammar related. But check the note next to my big fat A!
If you can't make it out, she says, "Good work. Just as I thought, Jesus was a figurehead."
And to think I was anxious about turning it in, fearful of offending her and receiving a bad grade! (Which of course I would have fought, but what a hassle...)
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You can tell she's hydrolic...
Her silver scream is supersonic
You can see the mercury smear in her eye...
Edited by - tokyodreamer on 07/03/2002 14:50:07 |
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Xev
Skeptic Friend
USA
329 Posts |
Posted - 07/03/2002 : 15:24:01 [Permalink]
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Hey, cool paper TD!
(BTW, what's the source of your signature?)
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Every problem has a solution. Only sometimes the solutions involve imaginary numbers and make my head hurt. |
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Tokyodreamer
SFN Regular
USA
1447 Posts |
Posted - 07/03/2002 : 17:55:50 [Permalink]
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quote:
Hey, cool paper TD!
Thank you! 
quote:
(BTW, what's the source of your signature?)
Group: Chemlab
Song: Vera Blue (96-69)
One of my absolute favorites.
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You can tell she's hydrolic...
Her silver scream is supersonic
You can see the mercury smear in her eye...
Edited by - tokyodreamer on 07/17/2002 14:48:50 |
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Xev
Skeptic Friend
USA
329 Posts |
Posted - 07/04/2002 : 18:33:30 [Permalink]
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Much thanks, TD. Very groovy song...a rare sort of punk.
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Every problem has a solution. Only sometimes the solutions involve imaginary numbers and make my head hurt. |
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James
SFN Regular
USA
754 Posts |
Posted - 07/04/2002 : 21:44:31 [Permalink]
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Very nice, TD. You definitely earned that A.
When Christianity took hold of the Roman Empire, there weren't priests in charge, they were CEO's! Not only by taking and adopting the holidays of the religions around them did Christianity flourish, it allowed them to make up and expound on those stories with very little effort.
I must say, I'm almost jealous.
________________________
Monday is an awful way to spend 1/7 of your life.
Two more years...Two more years...Two more years...Two more years...Two more years...
*whine* |
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Slater
SFN Regular
USA
1668 Posts |
Posted - 07/05/2002 : 13:53:29 [Permalink]
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quote:
it allowed them to make up and expound on those stories with very little effort.
I think the point is that these stories from other gods are all there is to Xianity, not that they are add ons.
Nice job TD you took a difficult (and dangerous) subject and made it very clear.
You can see why I have to base my argument for Mithrain based Christianity on politics and motive/opportunity. It isn't like Mithra is unique in either story or in minor incidentals.
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My business is to teach my aspirations to conform themselves to fact, not to try and make facts harmonize with my aspirations. ---Thomas Henry Huxley, 1860 |
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