Created in the image of God

I am well aware that it makes this condemnation and as i said,its merely reflecting the opinions held by the men who wrote the Bible,much that nonsense about multi-thread clothings. This is what is called a cultural bias and there actually a very secular explanation on possibly why the early hebrew saw fit to put this nonsense in their holy book. If you're interested i'll tell you about it.

Thats actually very simple. Early man lived very much in extended families or tribes and unlike what the book of genesis quite ridiculously advances,the average lifespan was considerably shorter back in those days...you were lucky if you lived to the ripe old age of 60,especially if you were a man. The list of attrition factors was very long; war,famine,disease,droughts,animal predation,you name it. The deck was very much stacked against humanity because aside from our higher cognitive capabilities,we have really no natural deffense(claws,fangs,fast locomotive capabilities to get away or wings to fly,poisonous skin,hardened scales,ect). Man really had only two things going for him...his brain power,as i previously mentionned and procreation. Having as many children as possible that could either become deffender or providers for the tribe at a very early age(10-12 years old on average) was the best way to offset the many difficulties they faced everyday. And because men were the ones doing most of the dangerous work (war,hunting,building things) and because women have on average a longuer lifespan then men,there were almost always more women then men in early tribes. Given all these factors,it natural that they took a very dim view of male homosexuality back in those days because every homosexual couple meant that there were less children being born to the tribe an this flew right in the face of their very survival. So the holy men/priests/rabi of those tribes who were for all intents and purposes representative of the law in the tribe,declared male homosexuality a sin punishable by death and wrote it in their biblical laws,along with other similar laws,like eating shellfish or porks,both of which are dangerous to consume if they are not prepared properly. Its also interesting to note that there's really not much condemnation in the bible for FEMALE homosexuality. The reason is that polygamy was a common practice back in those days as well,because of the larger number of women compared to the number of men and it was viewed as perfectly natural and even desirable that the many wives of a man be inclined to feel a close kinship and even pleasure each other when the husband was busy with one(or sometimes two or three) of his many wives or away at war/hunting. And considering how the vast majority of men get a kick out of watching two women doing it,its likely that the foolish rabi the would put down such practice as sinfull in the bible would have been quickly replaced by a more reasonable rabi...but that last one is just my humble opinion...:-). Anyway,as you can see,you dont need God to suddently find something sinfull....sometimes,secular reasons will do just fine. The problem is that we inherited that mentality along with their religion but the situation that created the problem the early hebrew faced does not exists anymore. Humanity is thriving on earth to day and is not threatened with extinction...at least not by factors that have anything to do with homosexuality but unfortunately,the cultural bias remains to this day even though the reason for it is long gone.

This not an opinion TC...this is anthropological data gathered about the myths and custums of people who lived back then. Its based of writings as well as art and good old fashion common sense. You are always speaking about your Bible is if its was somehow special and unique...there are dozens of different "holy" books across dozens of different cultures. Why should yours be any truer. What i told you about homosexuality has nothing to do with evolution. As i said,it a cultural thing,nothing more. Are you really gonna stand (or sit) there and tell me that all mighty God took even one second of his eternity to make up rules about sexual practices,what we eat(pork and shellfish) and how we dress(Bible says no cloth weaved with more than one thread,its a sin)? Come on,TC...even you cant be that gullible.

TC,the bible does not require to be proven false....it has to be proven true...at least as far as i'm concerned. The multi thread cloth laws are in levictus i believe,along with the pork,shellfish and homosexuality laws. And as i said,the Bible does not condemn FEMALE homosexuality...at least not specificaly. You can decide to infer that it does but that is just your opinion,not a fact...i'd even go so far as to say that most of your interpretations are very much your own BTW...i've spoken to other christian believers that gave me different explanations for some of my questions...One of them actually agreed with me about homosexuality and said that what the Bible actually condemns is homosexual prostitution and not the loving commited relationship of either two men or two woman...perhaps it would help if you guys all got together sometime to get your stories strait...no pun intended. Homosexuality per say is not more dangerous than heterosexuality btw...aids is not born from frictioning body parts...its a virus...it has to exist in one of the two homosexual men in order to be transmited. Promiscuous and anonymous unprotected sex...now thats playing the roulette big time but thats true for both strait and gays...and even then,not women...there is no single documented case of female to female transmition of any sexually transmited disease in medical science. But as i said...you can choose to infer that God wrote the Bible through the hand of man if you so desire...i choose to go with the more logical and likely conviction that man came up with the Bible all on his own.

Actually,you dont need to have sex with a monkey to gets hiv...any mixing of bodily fluids will do (say like monkey saliva mixed with human blood,the result of a monkey bite).You dont need God to discover that some things are hazardous to do...its more likely that some people tried them first,they got sick and died and THEN,the laws were enacted. Its quite probable that back then they believed that God was directly punishing the offenders and had no knowledge whatsoever of what germs were.As for homosexuality,you say God did not make us to do this...this assumes that A: God DID make us,an assertion with no facts to expressly back it up or that B: thats God DIDN'T intend for some men and some women to be homosexual...again,just your and your chosen mythology's OPINION.

Thats what is said TC...your opinion AND the opinion of your chosen mythological beliefs(the Bible),none of which is substanciated by facts...HIV and other sexually transmited diseases do not infect gays more then they do straits. hetero man has sex with infected hetero woman...BANG...he's infected,end of story. But aside from sexually transmited diseases,there is no inerant danger or harm from homosexuality itself. As for the grease monkey,it was my understanding that it was unclear to science as to how it jumped from them to us but even if that were the case,thats zoophelia,which is not the same as homosexuality. Zoophelia is purely a sexual perversion because there is no attachement or love for the animals being abused,much like pedophiles have absolutely no love for the children they abuse and harm. Most homosexuals,however,do not congregate strictly for sexual reasons...many of them because partners for life,despite the state's ridiculous refusal to recognize their unions. It is possible that the zoophile that first got the hiv virus from a monkey transmited it to a partner who was unaware of his zoophiliac practices. And i'm not gonna deny that the homosexual community should really re-examine many of their unsafe sexual practices because thats the main reason why the virus became so wide spread so fast but the fact that until a few years ago they were always being driven underground by bible nuts influencing public policy in our secular states with their religious nonsense did not help either...it took some heterosexuals getting it as well for the governement to finaly realize that this was not a "gay problem" but a plague that threatened everyone. In any event,the vast majority of HIV infected people on the planet are not gay and did not contract it through gay sex.As your your interpretation of unclean,there is no question that they understood the concept of disease back then,probably having lost many people to them. You decided to believe that they knew about those disease because God told them about it...but common sense rather dictates that they learned about diseases the hard way,by watching many of their loved ones die from them...hence the levictian laws being enacted as a safeguard against further contamination.Yes we are discussion the Bible. I studied the Bible when i was younger and i found it to be very interesting as an indicator of the beliefs of ancient tribes of men. I also studied the 7 tablets of creation,writen by the ancient sumerians,the oldest civilisation known to man. Those tablets were writen nearly 4000 bc and relate a story somewhat similar to the book of Genesis but its much more complete and much less vague. As i told you the other day,the SUmerians are the original source for the story of Adam and their version contain far more details then the version of the hebrew,like the mention of Lilith,Adam's first wife. They are also very clear on several things,notably on their gods(yes plural) being actually flesh and blood beings that came from heaven(translation:the sky/space) and brought them their wisdom. The sumerian worshiped them and believed that they had created man. But their belief about the creation of the nature of the world was far different. They seemed to be aware of the fact that the earth was a planet in a heliocentric solar system and that it revolved around the sun. They were also aware of the existance of the other planet in the solar system and described them in details in their writings...even the ones that could not be seen from earth before the invention of the telescope in the 18th century. Oddly,they also refered to the earth,which they called Kiri as the 7th planet,not the third like we do because they counted the planet from the outside as opposed to the inside of the solar system. They also mention a 10th planet beyond Pluto who eliptical orbit around the sun in extremely large and only comes back near the earth every 3600 years or so. They called that planet Tiamat and were convinced that the earth was formet from the collision of a then much bigger earth and one of Tiamat's satellites as they planets passed each other some 4 billion years ago. They got all this knowledge from their "gods" according to them and even have a drawing of the solar system with all the 10 planets around the sun in their proper size and position on a tablet that is nearly 6000 years old. As i said,they did not describe their gods as invisible,intengible beings but as very visible,very much physical beings that came from the heavens. If you read the Book of Genesis while using the tablets of creation,many of the more vague passages become clear...such as the part about waters ABOVE the firmament. The tablets describe that the many planet in the solar system are covered with ice (frozen water) a fact confirmed by many of the probes send to explore our solar system by NASA. But the sumerian did not believe this was a water canopy of some kind...they had simply been told by their "gods" that there was water in space,in the form of ice. The book of genesis is merely a more romanticized and abridged version of those tablets,which is understandable since the Sumerian culture predates both the Babylonian and Jewish culture and both inherited the Sumerian knowledge. Unfortunately,the true meaning of this knowledge was lost or misinterpreted by the babylonians and then by the hebrew...hence,the book of Genesis.

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[This message has been edited by LudvanB, 02-03-2002]

indeed...if its true that your God inspired the writing of these abominable rules,then he's no God of mine...thankfully,your bible is nothing more than one treatese of superstitious nonsense of men among so many others. There are some good philosophies in there but its mixed in with all this cultural garbage and as a result,fewer and fewer people will bother sifting through the trash to get to the good stuff...

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Originally posted by TrueCreation:
"Why don't you perform blood sacrifice on the altar anymore, even though it is commanded in Leviticus? In fact, the first NINE chapters of Leviticus concerns itself with bloody sacrifice. Far less time is spent on homosexuality."
--Untill Jesus was crusifide, this was true and we would still have to do it, but Jesus was the last sacrifice paying for all our sins.

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"15:19-30, 33 God lays down the law on menstruating women. Such women are to God both filthy and sinful, and anyone who comes near them is contaminated by them."
--You streched them outragiously, God in no way said they were filthy or sinful, God said they were unclean, and as depicted throughout the rest of leviticus, this means that a disease is easilly transmitted, thus menstruating women. It also sais men who discharge are unclean also, how ironic? Not ironic at all today actually, since knowledge has increased as is also prophesied in the bible, though is obvious that knowledge would increase, it is odd to know that it increases in such a way as if the rapture were to happen any minute now, but anyways.

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"12:1-8 Women are dirty and sinful after childbirth, so God prescribes rituals for their purification. If a boy is born, the
mother is unclean for 7 days and must be purified for 33 days; but if a girl is born, the mother is unclean for 14 days and be
purified for 66 days. This is because, in the eyes of God, girls are twice as dirty as boys."
--I think you are reading the wrong bible or something, it did not say they werre dirty or sinful after childbirth. I am not sure what would be the difference of the 33 or 66 days you would have to ask some sort of doctor for an answer to that. But I know off the top of my head the other, as the bleeding occuring after childbirth is obviously a indictation of uncleaness, also it is odd how circumsision is to be done on the 8th day, as it is done today if you want to have a baby circumsised the 8th day is the time when least possibility of illment or infection will occur.

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"God really doesn't like women, does he?"
--You stretch the truth way too far, but also note that it wasn't adam who ate the apple, it was eve.

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"Don't round the corners of your head or mar the corners of your beard. 19:27"
--I find it odd how you only quote versus like these, why not quote some like this:
"`Do not eat any meat with the blood still in it. "
"`Do not cut your bodies for the dead or put tattoo marks on yourselves. I am the LORD.
"`Do not degrade your daughter by making her a prostitute, or the land will turn to prostitution and be filled with wickedness.
--Why not any of these? Is it your just seaking the ones that appeal to you?

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"Children who curse their parents, adulterers, and homosexuals must be killed. 20:9-12"
--Yup, good thing we have a medium today, that is, we have Jesus.

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"Woman with "familiar spirits" must be stoned to death. 20:27"
--That is, a man or woman that is a medium/sorcerer.
"A man or woman who is a medium or spiritist among you must be put to death. You are to stone them; their blood will be on their own heads.'"

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"The unchaste daughters of priests must be burnt to death. 21:9"
--You make it sound so much like it isn't.
"`If a priest's daughter defiles herself by becoming a prostitute, she disgraces her father; she must be burned in the fire."

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"Handicapped people must not approach the altar. 21:16-23"
--You make it sound so bad, I would like a defect in those days, it basically says that they don't have to do this, so they are not to go near the alter,

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21:22 - "He may eat the most holy food of his God, as well as the holy food;"

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21:23 - "I am the LORD, who sanctifies them; or who sets them apart as holy "
Sanctified means:
-To set apart for sacred use; consecrate.
-To make holy; purify.
-To give social or moral sanction to.
-To make productive of holiness or spiritual blessing.

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--To be crippled was almost a blessing.

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"Cursers and blasphemers must be stoned to death. 24:16, 24"
--Sure must, as goes for God's people too, you make it sound so bad, luckly we don't live in that day and age, we have Jesus.

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"God places a dollar value on human life; with women worth less than men. 27:3-7"
--How is this bad, Eve picked the apple and gave it to adam, it wasn't the other way around, if you are to assume that any of these quotes make relevance, you must assume the adam and eve 'myth' is true.

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"11:10-12 Clams, oysters, crabs and lobsters are abominations to God."
--I believe such crustaceans can carry many diseases harmful to us, in that day, it would have been a safty rule, such as God sure didn't want them to eat them.

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"18:29, 19:8 "Whosoever shall commit any of these abominations ... shall be cut off from among their people."
--Yup, pretty smart of God, otherwize plagues and diseases would run rampent.

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"19:18 "Love thy neighbor as thyself." This is by far the best verse in Leviticus, and one of the best in the entire bible. It
seems out of place here, however, since in the next chapter God orders us to kill wizards (20:6), children who are
disrespectful toward their parents (20:9), adulterers (20:10), and homosexuals (20:13). And throughout the Old Testament,
God encourages the Israelites to kill their neighbors every chance they get. (See Numbers 31 and 1 Samuel 15 for just two
of many examples.) "
19:15 "`Do not pervert justice; do not show partiality to the poor or favoritism to the great, but judge your neighbor fairly."
--It states that your neighbor isn't allways the nicest person or the following Gods commands. The Old testement was pretty strict.

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"20:10 Both parties in adultery shall be executed."
--Were you just expecting the woman to be executed?

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"20:11 "And the man that lieth with his father's wife ... both of them shall be put to death." Which? The man and his father?
The father and his wife? Or the man and his father's wife? Oh heck, just kill all three."
--Hm.. I think this is where we pick up a little common sence, ok so..Who sinned? Was it his daddy? Nope, was it mabye, the adulterer and the adultress? Yup, I think thats using a bit of logic.

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"20:12 If a man "lies" with his daughter-in-law, then both must be killed."
--Sure, yup. Were you still expecing the dauter in law to be exicuted because God is favorable to the woman to such a degree?

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"20:14 If you "lie" with your wife and your mother-in-law (now that sounds fun!), then all three of your must be burned to
death."
--Sounds fun? Oh my, well, still, Gods rules, (this is pretty sick anyways I think!)

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"20:15-16 If a man or woman "lie with a beast" both the person and the poor animal are to be killed."
--Yup, and the problem?

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"20:27 People with "familiar spirits" (witches, fortune tellers, etc.) are to be stoned to death."
--Yup.

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"21:18 Anyone with a "flat nose, or any thing superfluous" must stay away from the altar of God."
21:20 A man with damaged testicles must not "come nigh to offer the bread of his God."
--Again, I quote from above:

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"22:3-5 A man who is unclean, or is a leper, or has a "running issue", or "whose seed goeth from him", or who touches any
dead or "creeping thing" ... "shall not eat of the holy things, until he be clean."
--Yes it does say that, why is that bad, again, a sanitation law.

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"23:29-30 Don't do any work on the day of atonement or God will destroy you."
"24:14-23 Anyone who blasphemes or curses shall be stoned to death by the entire community."
--Pretty strict in that day, huh.

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"19:19 "Thou shalt not let thy cattle gender with a diverse kind: thou shalt not sow thy field with a mingled seed: neither shall
a garment mingled of linen and woolen come upon thee." I'm glad God told me about this, I was just about to do some of
these awful things."
--Really you were? In other words, God is saying, don't mate your dogs with your sheep, or hour horse with your goats. And don't where the linen material the offspring may produce.

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You know what TC? As far as i'm concerned,anyone who can sit there and defend this mythological garbage is no better than the animal religious fanatics who flew those planes in the WTC on sept 11. There's only one reason that may be invoked to kill someone...if that someone is trying to kill you or someone you chose to protect for whatever reason and any God that says otherwise is no god of mine,never was and never will be. I can understand the need of some people to believe in God figures and let their priests and "holy" teachings govern their own existance but when you start advocating the murder of fellow human beings simply because they were born gay or have the inborn capacity to attune themselves with nature the way mediums do,you crossed the line from benevolent religious beliefs to barbaric cult practices. The world has allready suffered ONE dark age because of superstitious crap like that and does not need another. Thankfully,we are slowly but surely outgrowing this nonsense in western societies and the rest of the world will follow suit.

TC,you are telling me that you would agree with say a law passed by the governement that allowed you to kill homosexuals and mediums on sight with impunity. At least,this what can be infered from your defending those biblical superstitious abominations in the old testament. I do get carried away when reading statements like these but then again,anyone who studied history,especially that of the spanish inquisitions and all its attrocities perpetrated by so called "men of God" understand the inerant dangers of such radical beliefs. But i'm gonna give you the befifit of the doubt here and simply ask you...do you believe that these laws should be applied to their literal sense,yes or no?Your statements is not necessarely accurate. Some people believe that we are all God..i.e. that God is actually the sum of everything that exists. As for knowing God's plan,that assumes that God has a plan to begin with...merely one more baseless assumption among the many you make. As for laws being laid down for our own safety,that is also very much relative. IMHO,we are here not to glorify God but to develop our consiousness/spirit/soul...the real us. The universe,the flora,fauna and everything down to the bodies we inhabit are merely tools used in this learning process. I dont believe we were ever told whats what. I believe we had to discover it all on our own and we are still discovering things to this day and correcting mistaken conclusion we reached in the past...for the most part...while SOME people still cling to ridiculous notions heralding from superstitious times who have otherwise long turned to dust.Homosexuality is NOT a handicap and IS an inborn trait. Study the subject at least a little before you go shooting your mouth off about things you obviously know nothing about. As for mediums,no they are not the ennemies of God,despite what your bible says. They are people with the gifts of atuning themselves to nature and sometimes with the gift of foresight. I know from experience that mediums are a reality, and although i've never personally met one who could give predictions with pinpoint accuracy like winning lotto numbers,i know a woman who's gift of foresigt about weather patterns is nothing short of amazing. She is also capable of approaching animals and petting animals who would otherwise flee from human presence. She explained to me that there was nothing "magical" about her capacity or the abilities of any mediums but rather that her senses are more finely attuned to certain things than most people. She also has a sister with whom she can communicate empathicaly,meaning that they can sense each other's general emmotional disposition even when they are miles away. She told me that those gifts,while stronger in her and her sister,exists in each and everyone of us to varying degrees. And before you ask,no she does not work in a fair(she's a social worker),does not worship the Devil and does not seek the destruction of christianity,even though "good" christians have persecuted people like her throughout that ages. She is herself a baptised christian and is convinced that her gifts come from God. She is also a wicca and worship the nature that God created and revere it. I once asked her if that wasen't a contradiction and she explained that God does allow the worship of other dieties,as long as none are placed ABOVE God and since she worships both God and nature as a CREATION of God. Yep,she's a creationist too. My opinion,which is substanciated by a close study of history is that you dont need to look to God to find out why mediums are given such a bad rep in the Bible...good old fashion jalousy is explanation enough...

You substanciate NOTHING. You merely obstinately repeat your absolute conviction that the Bible is the truth in all it says and when presented with statements in the Bible that are false,you simply re-interpret them to your heart's content. You say mediums are by their nature tools of demonic activity. How exactly? How could this claim be falsifiable scientificaly? I know from experience that people get jalous of other people's unique capabilities. Some people get jalous of other people's strenght,beauty,natural abilities at a given skill. There is no reason to believe that the autors of the Bible did not feel this way about mediums. There is no reason to believe that they wrote them down in their bible as being evil or possessed because they wanted to direct the ire of populations against them. People destroy the object of their jalousy. Thats a known fact. Jalousy will sometime blind even the smartest people to the obvious fact that keen senses can and are being used to do good as well as harm and that people should be judged by their actions and NOT by their inborn traits/capabilities. The woman i mentionned is the kindest person i know and she is very devout to her work as a social worker and has been for over 30 years. She never married or had children of her own most likely because of this devotion and the idea that some cult out there would consider her evil by nature BECAUSE she has a gift and uses it to make her own life easier while harming no one is simply repungant to me. Your brand of christianity is an insult to God.

I dont respond in the context of your Biblical quotations because A: I dont believe they come from God and B: I dont agree with them,period. To me,anyone who views a medium as an instrument of demonic activity is a superstitious fool and deserves to be pitied. Mediums,like everyone on earth receive their gifts from God...not the God of your Bible,which doesn't exist but from the God which gave birth to life and who may or may not have created the universe per say. Mediums have a gift. If they use it to do good,they are good and if they use it to do harm,they are evil,same as anyone. If you dont think your God and your Bible agrees with mediums,than dont be one but for the record,there is nothing inerantly ungodly about mediums. Even Kind Solomon,from your Bible,sought the help of a witch at one time.

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Originally posted by TrueCreation:
"I dont respond in the context of your Biblical quotations because A: I dont believe they come from God and B: I dont agree with them,period."
--Great, then I think we can move on and leave it at the door that says they are not contredictory or erroneous in the least.

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"To me,anyone who views a medium as an instrument of demonic activity is a superstitious fool and deserves to be pitied."
--Don't argue with me, argue with the bible, but wait, we've already done that and seen the majority of the outcome havent we.

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LUD:we keep having this argument and it always ends the same...i do not convince you that its MAN's opinion thats writen in there and you do not convince me that its GOD's own.

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"Mediums,like everyone on earth receive their gifts from God...not the God of your Bible,which doesn't exist but from the God which gave birth to life and who may or may not have created the universe per say."
--Sounds like the God of the bible, but this God of the bible doesn't like the practices of mediums, and as I explained before, the way they think about their beliefs is expected if the bible is true.

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LUD: always with the "if the Bible is true",which,again,i see no more reason to believe than the Talmut,the Quoran or the books of budism.

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"Mediums have a gift."
--Technically yes, but who sustains that gift? Sertainly not any entity that agrees with the bible.

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LUD:having a natural ability to sing well is also a gift. Who gives and sustain that Gift? outside the bible,is there evidence to suggest that medium's gifts are more demonic in nature than signing? You see,thats my whole problem with your arguments...aside from your unyelding belief in the inerant nature of the Bible,you usually have none.

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"If they use it to do good,they are good and if they use it to do harm,they are evil,same as anyone."
--Mediums in the bible used their 'gift' to do 'good' but it does not substantiate what they are doing.

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LUD:not sure i got that last one...care to explain?

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"If you dont think your God and your Bible agrees with mediums,than dont be one but for the record,there is nothing inerantly ungodly about mediums."
--Considering the bible, it is directly ungodly.

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LUD:again,the likelyhood is that its merely an opinion stated by the autors of the bible and a possible explanation for it is that they were jalous of the gifts of mediums.

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"Even Kind Solomon,from your Bible,sought the help of a witch at one time."
--Yes but you forgot what happend afterword did you not?

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LUD:IF you are refering to the witch hunt,it happened BEFORE he sought the aid of a witch.

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--Its unfortunate to be unable to get direct comments out of you towards my arguments, I should hope to discuss with you on any implication in such a way so we can come to conclusions and not drift off into other implications when one of them is wrongly attributed.

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LUD:i dont always have time to comment directly on your posts,what with running a business and all(i make video games for a living so that probably makes me a devil worshipper,right?)

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Originally posted by KingPenguin:
then why do you have time for sarcasm. if you yell at creationists for not being open then try to be open yourself.

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Sense of humor KP...please look it up...