I have a question for everybody.

And I bet youre the one thats gonna show me where the energy in this universe came from. Before answering the question remeber that energy is conservative and is constant throughout the universe. In other words always has benn always will be. Sounds like God dont you think?

Retorical question...

Are you saying an unseen body does not exist even if the wobble orbit of a nearby says it does ?Are you going to suddenly cripple this debate by some unflexible definition of the word "know" ?[This message has been edited by WILLOWTREE, 04-12-2004]

That's sort of what I have in mind. Whether some of these things happened or not doesn't matter entirely; the message is still there. Jesus taught in parables and though most would agree the exact situations of the parables did not take place, the messages are still taken seriously. So why worry about whether or not Moses did his thing in Egypt; has anyone thought of that part of the Exodus as a metaphor? It sounds a lot like a certain journey I'm going through that every other Christian alive is going though now.

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Wanna feel God? Step onto the wrestling mat and you'd be crazy to deny the uplifting spirit.

I understand it's just a rhetorical question, but beauty is not something you 'know', is it? It's something you just.. sense. I hope that conveyed the concept properly.But I DO know that I find the universe beautiful in all its savage wonder. And until you find me a space alien that will disagree with me, I will stick to my tentative knowledge of existence and say the universe is beautiful.

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Wanna feel God? Step onto the wrestling mat and you'd be crazy to deny the uplifting spirit.

Whatever God teaches us?If God is so far away that we can learn little from him, then that is surely all he can expect us to believe about him: those few things we can learn from him. If he is near and teaches a lot, then we are supposed to believe what he brings to us.Personally, I really like Jesus' statement that you will know a prophet by his fruit. Who can produce that thing we are all (or almost all) after? Who can produce love, safety, excitement, fulfillment, happiness, and a fraternal bond between all who follow him?That one has the message of God, and that one can be trusted.That's how we got the Scriptures, anyway. The Scriptures weren't collected because people thought they were inerrant books on science. They were collected because they were written by esteemed teachers and prophets.

I have to at least in part unagree. Some sense of beauty must be learned and evolved. A foul stinch is obviously a protection device from instinct to prevent you from eating things that are going to make you sick. I'm sure there are a lot of people that don't see what everybody else see's in Brittany Spears (it's not the singing). So I think a "sense" of beauty is largely learned...having said that, it's obvious that an alien is not going to have learned that same sense having had different experiences...I mean good God man, haven't you seen pictures of extraterrestrials! They are ghastly beings!

"A foul stinch is obviously a protection device from instinct to prevent you from eating things that are going to make you sick."But I'm not talking about percieving ugliness. Percieving beauty and lack thereof can be put close together but not exactly the same.
More on this here..."I'm sure there are a lot of people that don't see what everybody else see's in Brittany Spears"Yeah, obviously. I don't like blondes myself. But we can all see why she and other women are attractive and it's because what we call marks of beauty are, according to instinct, signs of good health and fertility. But sexual attraction is not what I was addressing.Is there any primal benefit from liking the starlit sky? I know no person who thinks a clear night sky is hideous. Even a cloud cover in a lightning storm, though dangerous, is quite beautiful in its own wild way. Sure some people are afraid of thunder, but to see a stillframe of a lighting bolt zigzag across the sky is something I've yet to see addressed as 'ugly'."it's obvious that an alien is not going to have learned that same sense having had different experiences..."Those are big assumptions. How do we know aliens live in noticably different environments? You seem to know a lot about what aliens think. Maybe you could give Elvis my regards?"I mean good God man, haven't you seen pictures of extraterrestrials! They are ghastly beings!"If you mean the stereotyped big-eyed ones, they're not so bad. If I had big eyes and sticky fingertips, the better to gawk and feel the females of the same species. I'd say they've got it good.But if you mean these aliens you keep talking to who have had different experiences and think our universe is ugly, you'll have to show me a picture.

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Wanna feel God? Step onto the wrestling mat and you'd be crazy to deny the uplifting spirit.

My humor escapes you, work on it.

Look at Gandhi and his source of inspiration about God. The Bhagavad Gita and its stories are only a path to the divine just as is the Bible, the Koran , the teachings of Buddha, I Ching, etc. There are many writings concerning a path to God and to accept only one without even examining the others is a foolish endeavor.
I am a deist and feel that we should examine everything we can to come to our own acceptance of things in this world and not discount something based on dogma, creed and superstition. There is more than one path to enlightenment Grasshopper

apparently my humor has eluded you as well. My humor thrives on sarcasm, please keep this in mind.

I believe that beauty is BOTH conditioned and instinctual.
By instinct most creatures are attracted to symmetry because asymmetry usually denotes bad genes. A study on finches showed that the female finches were ignoring the male finch that has two different color bands on each leg, but the same male was given bands that matched and was given access to mate by the females. Humans Ideal of beauty stem from this symmetry, In a study hundreds of faces were compared ranking from most attractive to most unattractive. The faces that exibited the most symmetry were picked by the panel from people all over the world. In almost every case the choices were identical. So You and Rocket are both right I believe Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and also instinct. It is interesting that the Golden Ratio (Phi) plays a big part of what is found to be beautiful. Music/ architecture/the divisions of the face/body: The closer to this ratio the more beautiful humans tend to find the object. A plastic surgeon has invented a mask based on this ratio and uses it as a guide to make faces beautiful. Marilyn Manson has purposely made himself as asymmetrical as possible to denote his evil persona. Asymmetry tends to cause a negative response in animals.

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"One is punished most for ones virtues" Fredrick Neitzche

The Bible accounts that Christ said not one jot or one tittle is to be changed until all is fullfilled...End of Old Earth beguinning of New. This sounds like quite a proclomation to those who Believe on Him to take the scriptures serious and not tweek it to fit ones lifestyle. So If you believe in Chirst you'd best take His Advice because He Is Creator and We all Will One Day Answer to give account of ourselves...even those who dont believe on Him...He is just.

As you say, not a jot or a tittle will pass away. So, after you're done giving a tenth of all your spices, you can explain why no other modern Christians do... and then you can tell me what shred of archaeological evidence there is for the Exodus. Any mention of Ron Wyatt will get you laughed off the forum.Born2Preach... you are looking in the right direction. One may quite reasonably draw inspiration and wisdom from great portions of his scripture without slavishly inisting on a blind belief in every detail of every book, especially those that have been disproven many times over.

A belief is a good thing to but it its kind of hared to think that one man can defeat an army with just a jaw bone of a goat. Maybe a small army with bad weapons but not one man (for one he who’d get his ass kick). And another story that grabs me is the tower of babble; supposedly it reached to the havens.How tall where the havens away from earth; it always seem to be gust an arms length away. Well to barrow a quote from a vary good move it is what you have faith in it’s that you have faith Dogma I love that move and recommend everyone to watch it and listen to it