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God Any christians on the forums?

#661 User is offline   Spoon Poetic Icon

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Posted 19 October 2005 - 07:50 PM

The ruins of Troy are almost definitely truly the remains of the city of Troy. Even if they aren't, Troy existed, as did Mycenae, and Helen, Queen of Sparta. That doesn't necessarily mean that Homer's epic should be taken literally, but there is a factual foundation behind the story.
The ruins of the Tower of Babel is the tower that was built in that time period that was named such. Again, doesn't mean all parts of the story revolving around it are absolute fact. Given the ancient Hebrews method of keeping history, teaching lessons, and just telling stories, I believe we'll never really know the truth behind that story and many others. And like Slade said, people just made up neat stories to explain thing they didn't understand--because it's human nature to want to understand everything.

I never said there was documentation of the scattering of tongues. I said there was documentation of the existence of the Tower, and that part of the tower is still there.

As far as how Noah did what and whether there was a flood that covered the earth, you have to remember we're debating about a faith. There are some things that you have to believe one thing in order to believe another. If you believe in God, it's a lot easier to believe that certain things can extend beyond the laws of physics because God had some purpose in doing that. If you don't believe in God, you probably won't. Besides, what is "impossible" changes every day. 100 years ago, interatcing with people from a whole different continent as if they were standing right beside you was "impossible." Now there are several ways for this to occur. Not even 600 years ago, it was "impossible" that the earth be round. Man, flying? "Impossible!" The laws of physics and chemistry aren't even static. Maybe we're not as smart as we think, and the ways of the world don't fit in such a nice little box of postulates and laws like we would like for it to.

But now I'm just getting all philosophical and rambly. biggrin.gif

This post has been edited by Spoon Poetic: 19 October 2005 - 07:53 PM

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#662 User is offline   Mnesymone Icon

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Posted 20 October 2005 - 12:07 AM

Ahhh... floods. I like floods.

The great Biblical flood likely ties in to the cracking of the Bosphorus. At its margins, the Black Sea floor is not like the floor of a sea, but much more like land - reason: the Black Sea was as much as 150 feet shallower in the past - when the Bosphorus cracked, the Mediterranean filled the Bosphorus. anyone living on the Black Sea coast would notice a freaking huge flood that did a lot of damage. Though it would be somewhat blockheaded to literally follow every word of the Bible, if you accept it as an enlargement of the truth, the Black Sea flood is a good basis for the Deluge.

And though there are many flood legends around the world, that doesn't mean that a single flood covered the world at any one point. Following the ice age, there would have been an obvious sea-level rise, but melting of landlocked glaciers isn't exactly deluge material - its oceanic icecaps that are a worry.
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#663 User is offline   Zatoichi Icon

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Posted 20 October 2005 - 12:15 AM

Oh, I'd like to point something out. For any of my theories that I have put up so far, I am assuming that if there is no response you agree or at least think that they hold merit. This might be a little arrogant of me but ... I probably should have just kept my mouth shut, oh well.
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"And the Evil that was vanquished shall rise anew. Wrapped in the guise of man shall he walk amongst the innocent and Terror shall consume they that dwell upon the Earth. The skies will rain fire. The seas shall become as blood. The righteous shall fall before the wicked! And all creation shall tremble before the burning standards of Hell!" - Mephisto

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<a href="http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/cast/starwars.html" target="_blank">http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/cast/starwars.html</a>
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#664 User is offline   Jordan Icon

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Posted 20 October 2005 - 01:22 AM

Maybe if you put infant animals on the ship (egg form, babies etc..) that would save space.

I always wondered what happened to the dinosaurs. When I was young I thought they were maybe some sort of experiment by God. Or maybe they did exsit with man.

I wonder what would happen if some early writer from the OT actually spoke of a giant lizard. Do you think more people would be impressed with the bible? Because who knows what the fuck happened to the dinosaurs. OR those MEGA mammals. LIke 80 foot sloths, that giant lemur that looks like a were-wolf, etc...

When I think about it I would rather see a Mega Mammal than a dinosaur. Have any of you seen that video on MEGA mammals? It's like something out of tolken, those things are huge and so surreal looking, even more so than dinosaurs.

GIANT GROUND SLOTH
http://www.unmuseum.org/sloth.htm
http://www.museum.st...rson/sloth.html
http://en.wikipedia....ki/Ground_sloth

check out Pleistocene period animals.

This post has been edited by Jordan: 20 October 2005 - 01:23 AM

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#665 User is offline   Spoon Poetic Icon

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Posted 20 October 2005 - 01:37 AM

The Bible does make a few references to things that may have been dinosaurs, or monsters, or something like that. I wish I could remember where, but I can't.
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#666 User is offline   Slade Icon

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Posted 20 October 2005 - 01:43 AM

Dinosaurs are now fossils in museums, Jordan. They are bones that have been compressed over time and their organic material has been replaced with that of rocks and such.

Civ: Sorry, it made sense in my head! I meant that Spoon said there was a tower, and you said that Spoon said that the Tower was responsible for the different languages. Then I meant to say that that sort of thing doesn't make sense, even if you speculate "Well, what if there is an omnipresent benevolent consciousness that exists in a higher plane than humanity..." because modern thought usually attributes God to being warm and fuzzy, not so much vengeful and smitey. I.e. "No kind and loving God would ever do that to man." So it doesn't even make sense as a thought experiment.

Does that help at all? I apologize for incoherency... pinch.gif
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#667 User is offline   Spoon Poetic Icon

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Posted 20 October 2005 - 01:48 AM

I don't know where you have gotten that modern thought is that God is warm and fuzzy... At least, where I'm from, He still kills babies and gives people cancer and pours out his judgement on New Orleans, because "it is His Will, we are not meant to understand His reasons for doing things" or because they did something that he needs to punish them for. dry.gif

This post has been edited by Spoon Poetic: 20 October 2005 - 01:50 AM

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#668 User is offline   Jordan Icon

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Posted 20 October 2005 - 02:14 AM

Ya, I knew that when I was 4 years old, dinosaurs live in museums in the form of petrified bones.

But I still have questions about them, from a biblical stand point. WHy they died and why they existed in the first place.
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#669 User is offline   Slade Icon

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Posted 20 October 2005 - 02:14 AM

Most people (I would hope) don't subscribe to the Fred Phelps news letters, Spoon. I'd reccomend you move to a place that doesn't require fire and brimstone to keep people religious.
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Posted 20 October 2005 - 02:30 AM

That'd require a lot of traveling.

Fire and brimstone isn't quite what I was talking about, though it's prevalent here, too. It's more a kind of resigned acceptance that God has his own agenda that we will never be privileged enough to understand, and if something good happens, it was God's will; if something bad happens, it was God's will. It's kind of contradictory, because supposedly, we have free will... Yet anything we do is God's will.

Uy. That's the south for ya.
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Posted 20 October 2005 - 11:40 AM

QUOTE (Slade @ Oct 20 2005, 01:43 AM)
Civ: Sorry, it made sense in my head! I meant that Spoon said there was a tower, and you said that Spoon said that the Tower was responsible for the different languages. Then I meant to say that that sort of thing doesn't make sense, even if you speculate "Well, what if there is an omnipresent benevolent consciousness that exists in a higher plane than humanity..." because modern thought usually attributes God to being warm and fuzzy, not so much vengeful and smitey. I.e. "No kind and loving God would ever do that to man." So it doesn't even make sense as a thought experiment.

Does that help at all? I apologize for incoherency... pinch.gif

Fair enough. I get that, and I'm sure I've acknowledged it, but maybe an analogy would help: Let's say that in 1000 years folks get the idea that the WTC was destroyed by God as gesture to show Mankind that He was all-powerful. Folks like me could say "that's total nonsense." Then some other folks could come along and show evidence of the WTC and smugly grin, having "proven" God and the retribution story.

For the record, I doubt that the tower Herodotus looked at was the Tower of Babel referred to in the legend. I think it was just some building. Remember that the only important identifying detail about the Tower of Babel was what happened during its construction; we have no other way of knowing what or even where it was. To say "this is the Tower of Babel," you MUST acknowledge the language myth. Otherwise it is just some building. Anyway. Herodotus many have been the "father of history," but his fact-checking left a lot to be desired. This guy also wrote about the Amazons, a fantastic tribe that never existed.

So too Troy. I doubt anyone has found the ruins of an actual city that was the subject of a 10-year war, but if they had, it doesn't change the fact that the elaborate histories of all the soldiers and kings and whatnot, especially that Horse story, are all clearly made up. You don't have to look too long and hard at the source material to realise it's just way too detailed to be true. This stuff wasn't even written down until hundreds of years after the "fact." And if you don't buy the stories, but all you got is this city that may be the one the story was about, wouldn't that be like authors in 1000 years writing about the race of gnomes that populated London in the 1950s? You all may disagree, but I say yeah, it it would.

Spoon: if you're saying that the fact we once thought the world was flat = it may once have been possible to construct a 300-foot wooden boat that would hold twos and sevens of all of the world's animals (or even a few hundred species), even though that's impossible NOW, then I guess I know what page you're on. Not knowing something and then later knowing it doesn't = a change in possibility. Either a Flood happened, or it didn't, and either a boat got built, or it didn't. And no, the laws of physics haven't changed. Some of the variables have, but none of the ones involving boats, Floods, or Towers.

Ztoichi: I agree with everything you have ever said or felt in your entire life. That and I am too lazy to go back and reread your posts. tongue.gif

This post has been edited by civilian_number_two: 20 October 2005 - 11:42 AM

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#672 User is offline   Spoon Poetic Icon

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Posted 20 October 2005 - 04:26 PM

I never said I had proven the story of the scattering ot languages by showing that the Tower of Babel existed. In a previous post, you refuted the Tower actually existing at all, when in fact, it does. Archaeologists know a lot more than you or I and they have decided that based on a lot more documentation than just that of the Bible and Herodotus, that this one particular ziggurat--Etemenanki--is almost definitely the construction that the Bible refers to as the Tower of Babel. You are wrong that "what happened" during the construction of the Tower of Babel is the only indication of what or where it was. There is a lot of different documentation with offhand or direct references to the Tower of Babel, though different peoples may have called it a different name. Giving a building a name does not mean you acknowledge that some myth about it is true or isn't. I call the Altar of Zeus the Altar of Zeus, but that does not mean I believe Zeus is the king of the gods.

Why are you so set in stone in your beliefs that there was no Troy or anything? Do you seriously think that nothing surrounding it is true? Granted, I doubt Helen was the offspring of Zeus and Leda, or that Aphrodite had a part to play in the story. But do you also believe there is no Sparta, no Mycenae? Because of Schliemann's discovery of ten cities on top of one another, fitting Homer's placement and description, also being where the Romans rebuilt Troy, and other documentation of the city other than just the Illiad, Archaeologists and historians are accepting of Troy being a real city. Just because we haven't had enough time to fully excavate Shliemann's finds to prove whether that particular site is Troy or not, you can't say that for a fact, there is no Troy, there was no Trojan War, no "elabroate histories of all the soldiers and kinds and what not."

Just a request: Be learned about your subject before taking such an immovable stance, please.

My statement about the laws of physics changing: No, gravity did not simply come into being the day Isaac Newton discovered it. I meant that until we discover something, it is unknown to us; also, there have been many times where something that we all knew to be fact has turned out to be wrong. Such as the world being flat, the speed of light, and other laws of physics etc. Ergo, there could be some explanation for the flood that we haven't been able to think of yet, because we don't know enough about our own world--similar to how the ancient Greeks didn't know enough to be able to accurately explain, say, lightning.
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#673 User is offline   Zatoichi Icon

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Posted 20 October 2005 - 10:53 PM

QUOTE (Spoon Poetic @ Oct 20 2005, 05:26 PM)
there have been many times where something that we all knew to be fact has turned out to be wrong.  Such as the world being flat, the speed of light, and other laws of physics etc.  Ergo, there could be some explanation for the flood that we haven't been able to think of yet, because we don't know enough about our own world--similar to how the ancient Greeks didn't know enough to be able to accurately explain, say, lightning.


OOOH YEAHHH!! That was good.

To that list I'd like to add:
Rain makes worms
Meat left out makes maggots.
Today's Republican party is filled with wonderful, understanding, magnificent people.

So anyways ... here are some things that I'd like to point out. (don't take everything at face value)

1. God being all 'fire and brimstone aside', at least we didn't get stuck with a pantheon (or just one of any of them) of sex crazy, moody, pieces of shit.
"Oh, you don't think that it is a good idea for me to seduce and basically rape (ignore the mistake I've made) your underage daughter. Well you know what, you can go to Hades!" *kills you, and sends your soul to Hades, and the bad part no less, for trying to deny one of the god's what they desire*
"Gee, I'm having a bad day. Maybe I'll cheer up if I rain death and destruction on some completely random city. Wow, that is a wonderful idea" *rains death and destruction on all of Rhode Island instead*

So in my opinion, don't bitch so much about God just because He is what the majority of the world (at least pretends to) believe in. I am pretty that we are much better off with God than anybody else. And don't you dare point out a single god or somesuch that is benevolent and non-violent. They'd still be sex crazy, which leads to the quote I made up.

2. To me, God's Will is when it is a beautiful morning and kick ass tunes are playing on the radio (sadly, my cassette adapter still hasn't worked yet). Seriously, though, I believe that God's Will only pertains to the extremely big religious type stuff and small amounts of good (not all of the good stuff mind you)that happen in our day to day lives (if not for this, what would anyone worship Him for?). For an example of big religeous type stuff, see things such as Jesus. People are ignorant to believe that God completely obliterate's cities while there is a single innocent person in them (Refer back to what happened before Sodom was destroyed. Yes I know he got only it down to ten people, but he thought he was pushing his luck already, and didn't really want to piss God off)

3. For the first time in my life Jehovah's Witnesses came to my door (the other day, two women actually). It was nearly midday and I think I was in my bathrobe still. The entire time I tried to keep myself from laughing and forgot to point out that I am a pretty religious person already. Still, I either got lucky, or they just get a bad rap. They said that they'd be back, but they haven't returned.

4. Would you believe that some people go as far as to completely deny the existance of dinosaurs because that's not how the Bible tells it. Further, they come of with some total bullshit explanation that I didn't even bother listening to. I mean come on, how do you actually plan to have a serious religous discussion with someone and state something like that (Even though it was not her idea originally, this was one of my aunts telling me this)? There is a fine line between disagreeing with scientists, and being really fucking dumb.
Apparently writing about JM here is his secret weakness. Muwahaha!!!! Now I have leverage over him and am another step closer towards my goal of world domination.

"And the Evil that was vanquished shall rise anew. Wrapped in the guise of man shall he walk amongst the innocent and Terror shall consume they that dwell upon the Earth. The skies will rain fire. The seas shall become as blood. The righteous shall fall before the wicked! And all creation shall tremble before the burning standards of Hell!" - Mephisto

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<a href="http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/cast/starwars.html" target="_blank">http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/cast/starwars.html</a>
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Posted 20 October 2005 - 11:07 PM

Genesis 11:

" 1Now the whole earth used the same language and the same words.
2It came about as they journeyed east, that they found a plain in the land (A)of Shinar and settled there.

3They said to one another, "Come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly." And they used brick for stone, and they used (B)tar for mortar.

4They said, "Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top ©will reach into heaven, and let us make for ourselves (D)a name, otherwise we (E)will be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth."

5(F)The LORD came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built.

6The LORD said, "Behold, they are one people, and they all have (G)the same language. And this is what they began to do, and now nothing which they purpose to do will be impossible for them.

7"Come, (H)let Us go down and there (I)confuse their language, so that they will not understand one another's speech."

8So the LORD (J)scattered them abroad from there over the face of the whole earth; and they stopped building the city.

9Therefore its name was called [a](K)Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of the whole earth; and from there the LORD scattered them abroad over the face of the whole earth. "

What do we have? "A plain in the land of Shinar?" That is the entire region of Iraq, in which there are thousands of discovered ancient buildings. Come on; there is NOTHING in that story that defines where the thing is, or what it looked like. There are NO other references to Babel anywhere else in any of the remaining books of the Bible. If you make a claim that you have found the Tower of Babel, you are saying you found THAT tower. The same if you found wood and claimed it to be a part of Noah's Ark: you wouldn't be saying "this may be a part of a boat;" you'd be acknowledging and affirming the Genesis Flood myth. As for material outside the Bible story, you have Herodotus, the founder of history, though not history as we know it. He made stuff up, like all of the ancient writers. If it so happens that the folks in Mesopotamia in Herodotus's time called the thing he looked at "Babel," then so be it. He was looking at Babel. But you gotta be wary about the ancient histories. They were filled with preconceptions and bigotries, and were designed to bolster myths and prejudices, not to challenge them.

I agree that this is different from making up an elaborate fiction about a war in an existing city that people agree is real. Myths about London don't make London less real; understood. It's really not the fact, though, that archaeologists agree that Troy is real; there is a sort of quiet conspiracy to acknowledge its possibility however, the way that Bristish historians have elaborate ways of backing up the weirdest aspects of the King Arthur myth, right down to Excalibur and the Holy Grail. It's nice to believe in it, and of course really giant myths that everyone is familiar with are good for archaeology.

I have read the Iliad, and there is a chapter where Homer names more than 200 leaders and enumerates their ships and crews. We don't have such a detailed history of the Crusades. And it is a bit interesting that if you follow all of the stories of the individual characters, they eventually become related to one another in multiple ways. These myths were like ancient comic books; the stories became more elaborate as frequently as the stories were told. This by the way is the basis for my claims that The Iliad is not history.

I guess you felt it dismissable, but I noticed you left out my WTC analogy, and also the fact that Herodotus wrote the "history" of the Amazon women. I understand your main points however: Babel existed, and we know exactly where it is, adn Troy existed, and we know exactly where it is. At the same time we are not sure that any single thing said about either place is true, from the linguistic diaspora to the decade-long war with Greece that noone can prove ever happened.

This business about physics and such: I really don't get what you're after now. You're trying to claim that Noah's Ark is a real historical possibility, and as your argument you say "we don't know everything." Are you saying that at some point in the FUTURE we may know enough about shipbuilding that we'll be able to get all of those animals into a boat about the size of a football field? And that this science, discovered at some point in the future, is the science that Noah had at his disposal some thousands of years in the past? I say this is wrong: the boat is too big for someone to build at that time, yet too small to hold all those animals. The former complaint can be challenged by your claim, but the latter is rigid and irrefutable. It's simply a law of physics that stuff won't fit inside something that is too small to contain it.

As for the explanation of the Flood myth, I like Rememberer's. At the same time, it is such an elemental story I don't think it actually requires any historical impetus: people knew about Floods already, so they made a story about a really BIG one. There are many ancient stories like this, a lot of them involving really big people or buildings or fish or boats and such.

Your final comment: "Be learned about your subject before taking such an immovable stance, please." Just because I don't agree with the things you have read does not mean that I am not learned about the subject. The more I read about Troy and the history of the wars, the more obvious it is to me that it is myth, like the tales of King Arthur and his knights or Robin Hood, or Zorro, or Batman. Others may read it and be impressed by how elaborate the stories are, and conclude that they must be true. You can't accuse either side of not reading the stuff just because you come to differnt conclusions.
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#675 User is offline   Spoon Poetic Icon

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Posted 21 October 2005 - 01:16 AM

1. I did not forget your WTC reference. I thought I was making myself perfectly clear that I disagreed with that analogy when I said that "I never said I had proven the story of the scattering of languages by showing that the Tower of Babel existed," and "Giving a building a name does not mean you acknowledge that some myth about it is true or isn't." I repeat my analogy: If you or I refer to the Altar of Zeus (an actual place in Pergamon, Turkey) as the Altar of Zeus, that does not mean that either of us are affirming the existence of Zeus. How about I continue with your WTC analogy? I'm going to tell you a story. Once upon a time, Allah decided that NYC was bad and needed a spanking. So he sent his mighty airplanes of doom and destroyed the World Trade Center to teach us all a lesson." Now that I've told a story that you undoubtedly believe is false, containing and naming the WTC as a character, are you going to stop referring to the WTC as the WTC? Will that be acknowledging that my story is true?

2. I repeat myself again. There is more documentation on the Tower of Babel, or whatever name you want to call it (because as there was more than one language, there was more than one name), than that of the Bible and Herodotus.

3. I NEVER SAID that I thought the Iliad was more than myth, either. Myth with foundations in fact. (People did not usually make up stories with people, places, and/or plots that people didn't at least recognize, as they would not be able to relate to them.) You seem to have assumed that because I assert that Troy was a real place, I think the Iliad is completely true. I do not! But just because I do not believe the Iliad is perfectly accurate in every way, that doesn't mean I can't believe that its setting and maybe some of its characters existed. That's like saying, because there is obviously inaccurate myth and legend about this big rock we call Earth, Earth must not exist. And unless you get into some really abstract philosophy concerning butterflies dreaming about being human, you can't dispute me on my assertion that Earth does, in fact, exist.

4. There is also a lot more evidence that there really was a Troy than just the Iliad and the excavation site. There's even evidence that there really was a Helen, Queen of Sparta.

5. Where did I ever mention Noah's Ark? I said the Flood could have happened and we just have no explanation for it as of yet because of the way knowledge develops and changes. I never mentioned that damn boat. (But for the record: The Bible gives Noah YEARS to build that thing, and he probably had lots of slaves helping him, and if someone could build the pyramids, why couldn't someone build a really big boat out of even lighter materials? And I think there was something out there a while back about how the Ark could be constructed, with exactly those measurements, and God was smart to tell Noah to make it out of cedar wood instead of some other wood for some reason... I don't know.) I spoke of the Flood, but don't want to get into the subject of the boat itself, because I can't explain it. It's a grey area for me, and unlike some people, I don't pretend to know everything in black or white.

6. My statement about being learned, blah blah etc: I said that because there were a few of your points (i.e. that there is no other documentation of the Tower/Babel) that were not backed up quite right. However, it was rude of me, and I apologize.

7. Zatoichi, any good Christian knows that the dinosaur bones were put here by Satan in order to make sure people didn't believe the Creation theory. tongue.gif But, even though you were ignorant to this life-changing awareness, I like your ideas on the will of God. And I know it's horrible of me to suggest this (I'm a bad influence, I know) but you should try messing with the door-to-door Jehovah's Witnesses, or the Mormons. Especially the Mormons. Asking sincere questions about stuff that just makes no sense (why they found horses in America in however many years BC when horses weren't in America until the Spanish brought them in the 1400's, why most books in the Book of Mormon is written in the same writing style when they were supposed to have been written by different people, why they can't stray from the KJV or make a more easily understood version of the Book of Mormon, when Jesus didn't speak King James English...) is GREAT FUN. (See, told you I'm a horrible person.)

I am writing about Jm in my signature because apparently it's an effective method of ignoring him.
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