Yes,I can get you mushrooms,you can have pie and chips with themm
m too!Rugby truckstop ,thats one of my places where we hang out
Zac_A:
whisperingsmith:
I’m not happy about this: Sploom, Winseer and CF clearly have a massive stash of 'shrooms and they’re keeping them all to themselves instead of sharing them around the rest of us - that’s not fair, I haven’t heard a talking snake for years
To be fair you’d need to smoke/consume/sniff/inject some very dodgy substances, maybe all at the same time, to believe that the miracle of life, culminating in the the human brain, somehow ‘evolved’ from a bit of seawater foam.
It’s even got all the flaws expected of a fallible creator.
I like being with Team God.
Winseer.
I just read your long post,yes,I dont like organised religion and the bad things that gi with it,and when these abuses happen,we (Christians)get the blame for it too.
About the childhood cancer topic though,its used as proof that God doesnt exist.But the opposite of that,if children didnt get cancer,or indeed ,not of us got it,those same people wouldnt be using that as a means of proof that God exists.They would simply move on to something else,like earthquakes.If God exists,why do people die in earthquakes.If there were no earthquakes,it would be some other natural disaster and you could go on and on with this argument until you have a perfect world and heres the thing.They would still dishonour God even then.
You cant have a God that overlooks sin.Like a parent,if your child does something wrong,you are duty bound to disipline them,otherwise you are not fit to be a parent
Sploom:
Winseer.
I just read your long post,yes,I dont like organised religion and the bad things that gi with it,and when these abuses happen,we (Christians)get the blame for it too.
About the childhood cancer topic though,its used as proof that God doesnt exist.But the opposite of that,if children didnt get cancer,or indeed ,not of us got it,those same people wouldnt be using that as a means of proof that God exists.
It’s a reasonable bet that ever increasing cancer rates are the result of evils like nuclear energy and weapons tests increasing background levels of radiation and not of God’s design.
If not just evidence that the creation of life by a fallible creator is by definition predictably flawed.Bearing in mind that cancer seems to be linked to failure of the DNA system for whatever reason
Winseer/CF/Sploom - The Godly triumverate of TN (not saying which one is the one in the dress)
In my best David Attenborough voice: “Here we see two members of the group preparing to commune with their deity…”
Im afraid I disagree there Carryfast,I dont believe God to be infallible,if you look at all the terrible things that humans are doing to each other and to Gods creation,if God were to provide a perfect world as a reward for that,He wouldnt be a just God
> Sploom:
> Im afraid I disagree there Carryfast,I dont believe God to be infallible,if you look at all the terrible things that humans are doing to each other and to Gods creation,if God were to provide a perfect world as a reward for that,He wouldnt be a just God
Does God self-identify as a ‘He’ or is that just a result of historical patriarchy - I would have thought a real god would be androgynous ■■
Zac_A:
Winseer/CF/Sploom - The Godly triumverate of TN (not saying which one is the one in the dress)In my best David Attenborough voice: “Here we see two members of the group preparing to commune with their deity…”
I think everyone misses the point that "Why should God be there for each and every one, most who don’t even consider there to be a God at all?
I remember Carl Sagan lampooning “Horoscopes” during his Cosmos series, and yet even in this latter day-and-age - people are more likely to believe they have something in common with someone born on the same day as them - than someone who considers the same powers running the universe as they do.
With a background “training” in Physical Sciences - there’s plenty of things that make rather MORE sense in the realm of “Laws of Physics” IF one arbitrarily adds “God” and indeed “Satan” to the mix.
Some powers are deceptive, such as Electricity. Some powers are everywhere, “Omnipresent” - like Gravity. Some powers are hugely damaging, but cannot be seen, heard, or smelled - only felt. - like Heat.
Tradition has it that “Salt” and “Iron” are the enemies of Satan, whereas “Bad Blood” and “Original Sinned Flesh” are the villains from the God side of things.
Then there’s “Magnetism” - like Gravity in some ways, like Electricity in others - but can also get hot, and make noises - something that few other powers in the universe can do, bearing in mind that “Sound” as we know it - can only exist in a place with a gaseous medium to move across.
If you flick a light switch on, you don’t expect someone to drop dead across the other side of town, you don’t expect someone to be “cured”, and you don’t expect a Royal Fanfare.
Why do people insist on having unreasonable and nonsense “expectations of God” when they, at best - only half-believe to the extent that it is God who has to prove his own existance all the time, rather than humans come forward with enough virtue to bag themselves the Lord’s Grace, totally undeserved by all of us as it is…
“Be there or be damned” is the easiest way to describe “Heaven” to those who cannot hold it even as a concept.
“Let US make Man in OUR image”
also implies both an androgenous and plurality of God, whereas it is a human knee-jerk reaction to assign pronouns “He/Him” if I were to put my non-fitting PC hat on a moment… 
The first five books of the Bible are known as the “Books of Moses” which presumably means that the tales contained within those early tomes - were not known among even the Israelites as late as the Soujourn in Egypt.
The very start of book 2 - Exodus - implies that there has been some kind of “Regime Change” in Egypt, since a new pharaoh who “didn’t recognize Joseph” had come to power by this point.
My money is on the second intermediate period for this connection to the Bible:
Egypt had split into two seperate kingdoms, with the Northern kingdom wiped out by foreign attack attributed to a people known as the Heqa Khasut (Prince Shepherds) and it is possible imo that the new “Hyksos” ruler was this “Pharaoh that did not know Joseph”. All rights and priveleges previously assigned to the multitude of Israelites now living in Egypt - were pretty much subjegated overnight.
I read the Bible as History, rather than a literal account of eye witnesses as such.
There would be some misunderstandings as to how to write certain things, bearing in mind most people would not be able to read and write in the first place.
The old testement often speaks of a people “Losing God’s Favour” - and that alone - is enough to bring the people down low, often in to ■■■■■■■ rather than “wiped out to the last”…
Even in Modern warfare - battles of “Total Anihlation” are pretty rare, to say the least.
Even a nuclear holocaust would have pockets of humanity survive - all over the world.
Indeed, the population of the world might well drop less from every nuke on Earth being fired - than from the genetic, famine, and subtle culling that I believe is going to reduce the world’s population down to around 100,000,000 which sounds like a lot, until you realize that this is a drop of 98.75% compared to the “Armageddon” drop in world population of “A quarter by Manmade devices, and a further third from God’s devices” - totalling around a 50% drop, a rather milder “Apocalypse” all around.
Sploom:
Im afraid I disagree there Carryfast,I dont believe God to be infallible,if you look at all the terrible things that humans are doing to each other and to Gods creation,if God were to provide a perfect world as a reward for that,He wouldnt be a just God
If God were totally infallible, he’d re-write the timeline so that Satan ceased to exist.
I suspect that in the pantheon of a wider Universe - “God” is top, but there are other “lesser deities” too.
Why would God ban us from “Set no other god before me” as the very first of the ten commandments, if there were no others?
Indeed, Satan might well just be the most powerful OF those “Lesser gods”…
Satan was created good but then he became proud and wanted to be better than God.
I wonder why because he must have known that he didnt have the power to overthrow God.
I think people are designed by God to worship Him only but when they dont do this,they stilll keep worshipping something else instead.That could any number of things like famous people,football teams ,money ■■■ ,drugs,alcohol or whatever
Wow I’ve just had a flashback…^^^^^^^^^^ 
Last time I heard a conversation very similar to the one above between the above 2 members . was many years ago, in another life as a resident DJ in a Holiday Camp nightclub.
It was at the end of the night having a few drinks with the live band that had just been on, a conversation between the drummer and lead guitarist.
But unlike our 2 crazy members here, they had a good reason for talking like that , …
They were both off their ■■■■ on LSD. 
> Sploom:
> Satan was created good but then he became proud and wanted to be better than God.
> I wonder why because he must have known that he didnt have the power to overthrow God.
>
> I think people are designed by God to worship Him only but when they dont do this,they stilll keep worshipping something else instead.That could any number of things like famous people,football teams ,money ■■■ ,drugs,alcohol or whatever
Sploom, you should read Terry Pratchett:
There are roughly 3,000 gods on the Discworld and research theologians are discovering more every day. Most people make the mistake of thinking that gods came first and then came the people to believe in them, when in fact the people came first, and then their belief created the gods. Gods and people go hand in hand: gods need people to believe in them, and people need something to blame. The system seems to work quite well.
Gods feed on belief. The more people believe in a god, the more powerful that god becomes. As gods lose belief, they become weaker and smaller. Once there are no more believers, the god becomes a mere echo of a voice on the wind. Some small gods are gods that were once powerful, others are gods in potentia, as it were, waiting for someone to erect a small cairn, or pile of stones as a short prayer so that they can gain some power, perform a few miracles and gain believers. It is revealed by Hughnon Ridcully in The Truth that gods can get sick, but from Small Gods we already knew that gods can die from lack of belief.
Gods, of course, play games with the fates of men. The game they play is somewhere between Dungeons and Dragons, Risk and Chess, with Monopoly and Battleships thrown in for good measure along the way. Don’t think the game is complicated though; gods don’t have the patience for complex games. They prefer games that are short and violent. The game is played on a map of the world that is, on closer inspection, the world itself. If you look closely enough at the tiny pin that is Cori Celesti in the middle of the board, you can see the gods on top of it in their home of Dunmanifestin, playing the game. If you look closer still, you can see the board with a tiny Cori Celesti and on top of that…
whisperingsmith:
> Sploom:
> Satan was created good but then he became proud and wanted to be better than God.Sploom, you should read Terry Pratchett:
He should, God knows he needs some light relief, but it could cause his head to explode, good old TP (RIP) was clearly a…
Christ used “Parables” to get across sometimes cryptic concepts otherwise.
Many of the disciples - couldn’t read or write, and represented the “Ordinary Working Man” of the age.
When I was a kid, like many on here of my generation - my favorite film in the early 70’s when I grew up was “Jason and the Argonauts”.
There were some “Olympus-related” scenes from this film that I’ve linked below:
I thought during those years since that "To travel to “heaven”, one cannot be made of flesh and blood, but rather had to be “Transfigured” into an ethereal being to merely exist “up there”.
The first scene deals with such a concept, with Jason blatently admitting that “He doesn’t do god(s)” and the “proof” then put to him by him having already inadvertantly met one (Hermes) right then and there…
The next montage of scenes, which follows on from the first - deal with concepts such as “meeting” and “Hubris” and even “Blasphemy”.
When one has had such an experience, one might be said to have had “A vision”.
In the Bible, the Book of Revelation is a vision given to “St John the Divine”.
It is this being transfigured, or “Prepped for Space Travel” as I interpret it - that adds this “Divine” maxim to the name.
“Divine” doesn’t mean “St John gets to be God himself” or any such nonsense.
We don’t seem to have many politicians these days who are of the “Conviction” variety, that is - they do the things they do - because they actually believe in them.
Isn’t having such a “Visionary” given a position of power - all the better compared to some jobsworth who’s only there to line their own pockets, and get away with lying to the public as long as possible?
Boris Johnson - is gone, not because he Lied to the Public - but because he Lied to Parliament.
Blair - stood down before he could be busted for the same, over Iraq.
I feel sorry for more worthy Labour politicans such as Blunkett and Cook who demand respect, despite also “not doing God” the same as Blair…
In the second clip above, Zeus says “The Gods are best served - by those who ask for their help the least”.
That maxim - could also be re-attributed to the “God’s Will” concept:
There’s a big difference between the type of leader who “gets stuff done” off their own back, and one who has to consult others, including regular “Prayers” and the like, before making any kind of moves whatsoever. We need businesspeople, mass employers, and “people that do” as our leaders and political figures, NOT these grifters who don’t know any other job outside of “politics” which all-too-often is nothing more than “Lies Management” or “Selling Impunity” or even “following your own agenda, never the public’s one they voted for”.
Which type do you think God prefers? - providing we’re talking about two different ways to do a RIGHT thing, of course.
We already know which type of “leader” that Satan prefers: The type that gets the most people killed over time as a form of “attrition”.
Kill too many at once, and people will notice. Kill them slowly over time though? - People will put that down to all manner of reasons, very rarely “So-and-so died - because the Devil got him!”.
For God to succeed, people have to believe in him. For Satan to Succeed? God only has to be thwarted, even temporarily - is a “Win” for Satan.
You don’t have to believe in Satan to be “Evil”, but I don’t believe anyone can be truly Good without God.
I don’t believe in “Alturism” for that reason then: This thing where we’re expected to “do good to those we’ve never met”. Think of the money laundering opportunity that represents, on a permanent level…
We don’t know if our latest charitable donation has actually saved a single life anywhere, or did it go to fund some overseas third-world “paedo” outfit, like the Oxfam scandal with it’s “Laid for Aid” propositioning of underaged kids at the cutting edge of places like Haiti, or other front-line disaster zones around the world…?
If you don’t “believe in anything” - this firmly-entrenched Evil - gets to go on and on.
The “Good doing nothing” - are merely those who call themselves Good, but because they don’t actually have any faith - can’t expect to achieve anything with such “Alturistic” behaviour.
If I were leader - I’d do away with all tax breaks for charities, and make it so that no charity is EVER supported by government again. If people want to donate to any charity - they can still do so, but it is out of their own tax-paid wages, and doesn’t involve anyone in government whatsoever, so there is no fraud opportunity at Government/Charity level, and of course the “Money Laundering” backchannel - is gone as well.
When the world is polarized between Good and Evil people in power however, - we’ve got a serious problem: Even WAR doesn’t go well when both sides are evenly balanced!
A quick win - reduces lives lost on both sides. It is the most evil people on earth, that would literally play both ends against the middle, and prolong EVERY war to profit themselves, with no end of lives lost keeping those profits from such diabolical policy - from going on and on.
What would it take to make a formerly Good person become Evil?
What would it take to convert a formerly Godless person to staunch believer?
It doesn’t even depend upon one’s “Ambitions” in life. We’re all dead at the end of life anyways, after all. Perhaps we might think more of the future - if we had kids, good health rather than bad, young rather than old, more wealth rather than less…
More opportunities - doesn’t always translate into “Better Deeds” and a “Better Legacy” however.
I like to think that the future still holds upward opportunities where I can “make a good difference”, rather than “Make my mark”. To me, “Making that difference” is INTENDED to be “My Mark” !
Christianity; a whole belief system and religion based on one woman’s excuse after a drunken one night stand that got way out of hand.
the maoster:
Christianity; a whole belief system and religion based on one woman’s excuse after a drunken one night stand that got way out of hand.
Which would obviously have to airbrush out the inconvenient fact of Genesis 1 from the Bible.
> Carryfast:
> > the maoster:
> > Christianity; a whole belief system and religion based on one woman’s excuse after a drunken one night stand that got way out of hand.
>
>
> Which would obviously have to airbrush out the inconvenient fact of Genesis 1 from the Bible.
What have Keith Richards & Adam and Eve got to do with Christianity, CF ■■
the maoster:
Christianity; a whole belief system and religion based on one woman’s excuse after a drunken one night stand that got way out of hand.
It could also be said
“Gravity - A daft science concept based on the assumption that all large things attract each other in some way, despite not being made out of metal.”
“Wind - a daft belief, based on something you can hear, smell, and taste - but cannot see, therefore it surely cannot exist”
“Ground - a warped concept, as if Ground is only solid to corporeal beings, why don’t Ghosts fall straight through the center of the Earth, come out at Australia, and go flying off into space?”
Now look at speeches like
“We hold such truths to be self-evident”…
You have to have intelligence above that of an animal to be able to reason both Right and Wrong, AND “Truth from Fiction”.
and recognize facts - when you discover them for yourself, rather than defer to others to tell you their version of facts…
“Not believing in any religious concept” is like “not believing there’s life elsewhere in the Galaxy”.
Hardly likely, if there are over a trillion star systems in this galaxy alone, and as many galaxies out there… The odds are so great here that even if you could only create “Life somewhere” by throwing together two grains of sand in over a billion light years of space - then that would happen often enough for the entire universe to be absolutely teeming with life, regardless of the vast distances between star systems.
It would be like living on the Isle of Wight, and merely “Speculating” that the lights of Portsmouth across the water - is just a natural thing, and not evidence of material civilization…
I cannot “Not believe” - it’s beyond faith for me at this point. It’s also beyond “I just want to believe” as well, of course.
Winseer:
You have to have intelligence above that of an animal to be able to reason both Right and Wrong, AND “Truth from Fiction”.
and recognize facts - when you discover them for yourself, rather than defer to others to tell you their version of facts…
So please tell me how you personally discovered by your own actions the thousands of facts that allows you to used a computer or phone to access the internet?
You didn’t, obviously, you relied upon the scientific processes of validating research withing the scieintific community which allowed the manufacturing community to build the devices you use.
Winseer:
“Not believing in any religious concept” is like “not believing there’s life elsewhere in the Galaxy”.
No it’s not, one is a fairy tale, the other is a scientific voyage of discovery
Winseer:
Hardly likely, if there are over a trillion star systems in this galaxy alone, and as many galaxies out there… The odds are so great here that even if you could only create “Life somewhere” by throwing together two grains of sand in over a billion light years of space - then that would happen often enough for the entire universe to be absolutely teeming with life, regardless of the vast distances between star systems.
It’s sound logic to hypothsize the universe IS teeming with life, but the distances you hint at are what will stop any two species from ever encountering each other.
Winseer:
I cannot “Not believe”
That’s your problem, all religions are either fairy tales about IFITS, or just a codified philosophy (Buddhism being one of the latter)
The “Unrepentant” seem to think that God owes them a favour, - or he cannot possibly exist…
Ask yourself WHY you’re owed anything at all?
Ask not what God’s Universe can do for you, but what You can do for God’s wider Universe, of which you are all part - like it or not.
The only people that can manage without God in the long run - are those who can bring themselves back from the dead.
For the rest of us? - That bus ‘to the place that’s the best’ leaves at your life’s end. Be there - or be square.
Chances are, you cannot fly an aircraft, nor even know someone well that can.
That doesn’t mean that “Man can’t fly” or “Flight is impossible” - just because you, personally - have never experienced “having a pilot’s licence” in your life.