Christians - Your Testimonies Please

i totally understand
however i was restricting my response to the context established by your statement which i quoted

I dont want to be a biomechanical drone forced to feel chemical emotions or gentically engineered feelings.

what is being proposed is that humans are enhanced not lobotomized and turned into automatons. i doubt if you will lack your sense of self or be devoid of consciousness. it seems rather self defeating if that were to be the end result of this engineering.

as to the "awe" part. i see no reason to get carried away though it certainly is stupendous.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

It is certainly an intersting subject but I think the condition of the human soul cannot be fixed by technology. I guess you and the scientists are gonna have to prove me wrong there. The seed needs no special physical enhancements to be a beautiful flower. Ok you can genetically modify it to make it a more beautiful flower with a nicer perfume but I cant help but feel that if people didnt appreciate its majesty before it was enhanced, they are going to struggle to see it even after it is enhanced.
I guess what is interesting to me is that Kat's main argument against Christianity is based upon an idea that they will somehow resist the changes that she so strongly desires. It wont be Christians that resist change so to speak - it will be 'people' that resist it because it does carry risk. Personally I say - carry on - I wont stop progress. I wont do anything to stop it. But if there are those objectors that are scared of the risks,it is probably not wise to attack their faith or belief system as a means to an end. You will have to patiently make people understand that your technology is safe by proving it. It seems counter productive to attack anothers belief - especially if there actually was a positive outcome from it. I dont think God says anywhere 'Thou must not equip thyselves with biological enhancements' but rather 'love thy neighbour'.
Now if your neighbour is scared of what you propose and appears resisitant - what do you do? To achieve your ends you must make this 'objector' your friend. Attacking their belief system or branding all Christians or whatever Religion they follow as 'fools' will be detrimental to your cause and will slow progress imo. I think as you said ... 'caution is advised.'

Besides Christians are taught that 'Love does not seek it's own way.'
If the scientists are wanting to do this techno-improvment to themselves and are willing to do it for others who are 'up for it' then fair enough. A Christian may be appalled by it by why would they stop you? The law may try to stop you, but if its truly a victimless crime the law will have to yield.
Which is why I say - hey - If God lets you do this - I'll have a tail too please

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

c20 :m:

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

There was no misery before being ill he was enjoying life, and would have done for a while.

Good is someones actions that benefit someone else or themselves, do i need to define good? If your refering to 'good is god' then i'd disagree.

I've seen that but not on the same level, i'd consider depression unnecessary suffering and many people i know have gone through it.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

I didn't propose an irrational methodology either. You're stuck in a rational-irrational loop. Observation, experience and reality comes first, and only then we try to understand what happened. That's how empirical science developed. Something like history - and most aspects of human experience - are not reproduceable or measureable. Does that mean nothing ever happened or was ever learned until rational methodologies came along? When someone sees a tree fall in the woods and there's no one else to see it - I'm inclined to judge the character of the person before I dismiss what he's seen. Can you measure someone's character scientifically; can you use a rational methodology for establishing his credibility?

There isn't a better method for establishing scientific claims, I agree. But is c20 really making a scientific claim when he says his life has changed dramatically? If you had to follow the measureble aspects and statistics of his life on a chart, you'd have to say it's impossible for him to have changed that much. That's why people sometimes resort to the word "miracle". I don't think it was a miracle - what happened to c20 was a perfectly natural and reasonable result of when God comes into your life.

That's throwing the baby out with the bathwater. If I rejected reason I would belong in an asylum myself. I could independently verify what c20 experienced, and that's just one of hundreds of similar testimonies I've heard. You should see the expression on someone's face when they find out that what they experienced of God has be independently experienced by someone else. We're not trying to distinguish scientific claims, that's why we have scientists. But truth has never limited itself to either science or religion, as theists and scientists since time began will be able to affirm.

Once again you're artificially removing what God does from how He did it. God doesn't only come into the picture when reason has failed. But if rational methodology was as powerful as you make it out, then it would be able to predict the future. Sometime we need to experience a future we could not predict to realize that God is involved. And it doesn't need to be a miracle, you only need to realize that explaining something doesn't really explain why it happened in the first place.

Sure, you can measure c20's brainwaves, plot his behaviour, conduct rhethorical analyses, but will you ever be able to tell his parents or his friends why he's changed so much? If you called it a mental aberration they would disagree.

Yes, beliefs do change your behaviour. So does belief that reason somehow prevents delusion, or that belief in God is unreasonable. That's why we have communities, churches, friends, and laws. But making reason the only common thing between people is very narrow-minded. I believe you've met RosaMagika.

False beliefs should be corrected with love and understanding. Neither God nor science condones them.

The answer that God did it is no more satisfying than "evolution did it". Do scientists stop their research everytime they find something they were looking for. Don't make the mistake of thinking all non-religious people are ambitious scientists. And I wouldn't be warranted to say that someone who believes in the supernatural is more likely to discover facts that pertain to things that scientists used to categorize as "supernatural" and therefore avoided, even though I'm tempted to.

But that doesn't mean you condone wars, does it? Now how is that "reasonable", if progress is preferable?

Looking for immortality and believing God will grant it are different things. We might achieve near biological immortality and still be destructible. How will you overcome that? It will probably undergo a lot of testing it in the great laboratory of war, and at what cost? Will religion be able to avoid that war, or once again be blamed for it?

 

Is it that you believe in God but dont think He is as good as some people make out or is it that since there are bad things in the world you believe that a God cannot exist because otherwise He would sort them out

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

peace

c20 :m:

 

c20H25N3o:

I'm sorry, are you a nine year old girl or just a complete fucking retard?

How typical. Instead of responding to criticism you assume the motives of the person making it to be unpleasant ones, then forthwith place your hands over your ears and start singing "la la la la la"

No no, I don't have to "make you out to be" anything at all.
You've gone out and stated that you've moved from one drug to another. I am simply rubbing your face in your stupidity.

I'm no kind of man, and your incessant use of the word "whatever" is incredibly annoying. For one whose dick shrivels at mild profanity, you ought extend to others the courtesy of using a recognizable language. I doubt few of them have conversed in baby speak since early childhood.

Although it does admirably show your level of psychological development. A loving deity to change your spiritual nappy, Santa to bring you presents and all expressed with words like "da!" and "lol!"

Infants are cute because you know they'll grow out of it, "m8".

What is a "tho"?
Have you completed grade school?

See, this doesn't even make sense. Are you aware of that? One can't even follow your argument (I am being extremely generous in assuming you have one) because the format is useless.

And are you actually convinced that this:

Is at all an enlightening, useful or elegent statement? Does it even mean anything, or is this some queer version of "Mad Libs"?

Have you any ability to defend your beliefs? I would have been entertained by that - instead I see incomprehensible two and three letter combinations, quite a bit of random gibberish and no argument whatsoever.

 

I'm sorry, are you a nine year old girl or just a complete fucking retard?

I'm 31, have a wife and four children and am a systems developer / manager with over 20 yrs programming experience. Not a retard.

How typical. Instead of responding to criticism you assume the motives of the person making it to be unpleasant ones, then forthwith place your hands over your ears and start singing "la la la la la"

If you wish your pleasant motives to be seen clearly then I suggest you make them clearer from the outset lest you be misinterpreted by the less eloquent.

No no, I don't have to "make you out to be" anything at all.
You've gone out and stated that you've moved from one drug to another. I am simply rubbing your face in your stupidity.

I didnt say I had moved from one drug to another. That is your interpretation not mine.

I'm no kind of man, and your incessant use of the word "whatever" is incredibly annoying. For one whose dick shrivels at mild profanity, you ought extend to others the courtesy of using a recognizable language. I doubt few of them have conversed in baby speak since early childhood.

I cant believe you would even go here i.e criticising the way I type or the style of language. Did you even read my testimony. If you did you would realise that its not mild profanity that bothers me, its the fact that you are a moderator making personal remarks and setting a bad example to other forum users that bothers me. And you still havnt answered any of my questions as to whether you think its acceptable for a moderator to behave in the way that you have. I'll give you ten out of ten for avoiding the issue.

Although it does admirably show your level of psychological development. A loving deity to change your spiritual nappy, Santa to bring you presents and all expressed with words like "da!" and "lol!"

Infants are cute because you know they'll grow out of it, "m8".


Oh yes the style of my language again.

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

What is a "tho"?
Have you completed grade school?

Try reading it phonetically. Have you really run out of new things to say Xev. It is not me that looks weak here. And yes I completed grade school.


See, this doesn't even make sense. Are you aware of that? One can't even follow your argument (I am being extremely generous in assuming you have one) because the format is useless.

What argument

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

Have you any ability to defend your beliefs? I would have been entertained by that - instead I see incomprehensible two and three letter combinations, quite a bit of random gibberish and no argument whatsoever.

I am not trying to 'prove' anything or defend anything. What are you trying to prove

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

If you are trying to prove that I am mad or insane or misguided or lying or dumb or whatever, ask yourself why you are doing that. Doesnt make sense to me, but then why would it .. im dumb, confused, stupid or 'whateve'r.

Come on Xev, CHILL OUT. I'm sure this is fun for you but there comes a point when even you must wonder what you do it for.

 

"tho" is a variant of "the, those, then,though, ".

This knowen tho that be to wives bound.
- Chaucer.

To do obsequies as was tho the guise.
- Chaucer.

those of provincial mindsets would lack the flexibilty to recognize it as such. in xev's case, illiteracy is to be expected.

i see the teenager is blindly lashing out and engaging in her usual hysterics. a more hypocritical display would be hard to find

report the post. it is a simple click away

 

You're 31 years old and you've got 20 years programming experience? Sheesh were you programming at the age of 11 or something? So much for little boys going out to play, ride bikes, climb trees, etc...

Lol - over 20yrs - I have been programming since I was 7. I also climbed plenty of trees and popped plenty of beetles with magnifying glasses. I played football and cricket and had the best javelin arm in the school. It wernt all bits and bytes

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

I have been in two bad car accidents that have left me with a lot of scar tissue along my spine so cant do much of the physical stuff anymore

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

. The internet is cool tho .


Her stock of 'little babies for torture' may have run out again.

Im sure she is very sweet really :bugeye:

 

c20 mentioned 7yrs of age. do you read the posts or merely come here to troll?
furthermore, why is it your business on how he was raised?

 

I have reported before but it seems to be a blind link as no one ever does anything about it. If it came from any other normal user I wouldn't even bother hitting the 'report post' link but no matter what people think of me, they should definately care about SciForums and its overall image. Xev is a poor representative of its ethics and rules and it is that that frustrates me.

peace

c20 :m:

 

Bells:
I have internet access at the moment.

c20H25N3o

Firstoff that's pathetic.
Now - being 31, why are you writing like a nine year old girl on an AOL teen forum?

Why?

Did you mean "can't" and "there"?

Indeed.
But what does my behaviour have to do with your Christianity?

Because pussyboys like you have been whining about my style since I started posting. It's boring and the answer is obvious. If I did not find it acceptable to write as I do, I would not write as I do. This is blindingly simple.

In the States, dismal as our educational system is, we learn quite early in grade school that English is not always phonetic. Few modern languages are.

No, I'm curious about your psychology. I've never tried to prove you as any of these things.

This is from a "man" throwing a hissy fit over profanity and what he considers inappropriate behaviour? I daresay one who gets upset to the point of trying to "report" a post is quite an uptight little prick.
It'd be quite impossible for me to be un-chill wiith this much alcohol in my system, believe me.

Inept attempt to note my psychological motives.

 

M*W: Christian testimonies are the same old song and dance they've always been, and Jenyar's replies are full of the same meaningless rhetoric. I, for one, would like to hear something new and innovative about this religion of Christianity (but I don't think anything new exists, because they keep repeating the same ol' same ol'). Christians are into believing that there couldn't possibly be anything new and innovative, except for maybe their own personal interpretation of the Bible. Yet, ask them next week about the same scripture, and they'll give you an entirely different interpretation. What this tells me is that whatever is going on in their lives at the moment is how they interpret scripture at that given time. There is no consistency in their interpretation; so, therefore, there is no truth in their explanations of the Bible. I've even heard them admit that everytime they read the Bible, it gives them "a different interpretation!" Their own interpretation of the Bible is no more valid than the old eight ball with the mystery answers.

Christians are afraid to read anything outside of what's printed in their Bible, so they are not versed in the latest scholarly archeology and Biblical research. They continue to believe the lies that were forged some 1600 years ago. Some of these people are college graduates with master's degrees or beyond. Some of them actually write books on the subject. I find it hard to believe that a few of the more educated ones of this group are still in denial about the truth. Their ability to read and learn caves in to their historically generated fear of God (or could it be fear of the unknown?).

Psychologists tell us that fear is the absence of love. Fear denies one the ability to love one another and to love oneself. Yet, Christians will reiterate time and again that Jesus and Christianity are all about his great love for us, and we must accept Jesus into our hearts to attain salvation. This isn't what love is. This is fear perpetually generated way back from the time when the lions ate the Christians. Christianity is based on fear--fear of death and the promise of Hell--fear of the unknown.

They blindly believe, yet they do no research or reading outside of the Bible. When I was a Christian, I wanted to learn everything I could about Christianity (Catholicism), and I read, and I made pilgrimages to holy sites, and I had many discussions with Catholic priests all over the world. I lived a Christian life, and I taught Christianity for many, many years. I've written and produced Christian newsletters for Catholic parishoners. I listened to every word priests said, but I also attended seminars and other religious programs presented by non-Catholic ministers. At the time, my only associates were Christians. I even had religious "experiences" like protective visions of the Virgin Mary (on the hood of my car). I even had some ecstatic moments when I prayed. I went to prayer meetings where they all prayed in tongues. I never got the knack of it nor did the priests.

I believed that Jesus had died for my sins, and I went on pilgrimages at various sites to become closer to him. But what I found at these religious locations wasn't Jesus at all. If anything, Jesus was an after-thought. The pilgrimage sites were dominated by Mary, supposedly Jesus' mother, but I found this not to be true. The more I read, the more I learned, these holy sites paid homage to someone else, and not to the Virgin. It took me more than 20 years of reading and research to realize that the woman depicted in these holy places was not the Virgin but a younger, mystical goddess queen of heaven. At that time, I didn't realize it was Mary Magdalene, but my recent research has led me to that conclusion. Now, everything seems to come into place. It's all believeable to me. Christianity is just a footnote compared to the magnitude of the truth. Not only was Mary Magdalene the wife of Jesus, her womb is the holy grail that brought forth the Merovingian royal line. Mero (Mary) vin (vine) gian (from the royal line of). Mary Magdalene is the goddess who anointed Jesus. It is Mary Magdalene who reigns at the pilgrimage sites.

I would ask all Christians to open their eyes. Don't stop reading. Don't stop discussing. Don't be afraid to learn. Christianity only tells you a small part of a distorted history. It's up to you to find the truth.

 

And I advise you not to believe everything that you read. The Da Vinci Code is just a novel. And youll be interested to know that Customers who bought this book also bought:

* Angels & Demons by Dan Brown
* The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom
* Life of Pi by Yann Martel
* The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
* Deception Point by Dan Brown

Also see what customers recommend in addition to, or instead of, the product on this page.

* 29 people recommended De-Coding Davinci: The Facts Behind the Fiction of the Da Vinci Code in addition to The Da Vinci Code

* 35 people recommended De-Coding Davinci: The Facts Behind the Fiction of the Da Vinci Code instead of The Da Vinci Code

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

 

Hi Medicine Woman.

What was the best bit of the bible and the worst bit? Just from an anecdotal point of view if you like?

thanks

c20

 

I used to believe but the more i grew up the more i read from scripture and found contraditions, and the more i noticed bad things happening when god is supposed to be loving, so i havnt believe for a while now, i decided people dont need a god to be loving.

 

I used to thing God must be an idiot. I remember listening to a depeche mode song which had a chorus in it about God having a sick sense of humour and I thought - 'Yeah the bastard has!' Look at the fricken world and the mess we in. Felt like that pretty much up to my conversion to be honest. I didnt much associate God with Jesus by the way. Jesus was what the people in the spooky spooky churches talked about - you know - their highest spooky spook. The hypocrites who went to church and made sure everyone saw them put a fiver in the collection tray and they yakked on about Jesus (Boring!) and wore their Sunday best and were idiots in my eyes!'

Jesus had nothing to do with the God I thought was an idiot tho. The God I sneered at was idle and had let his creation get right out of hand! Cheers m8! Yeah nice one God! Ohh Nuclear weapons meh ! War, famine, billions of gallons of burning oil! Ohh wernt I lucky to be born! Beat a million billion other sperm up a flippin long tube in the greatest race of all for what? Did you forget about us God? Universe too big? Got lost did we? Cos here we all are and guess what! Its SHIT! Ha ha lifes shit and then you die! But hey you just get on with it dont you. What else can you do?

There was no God!


peace

c20 :m:

 

deecee
I have had simular things happen to me, what I like to do is to say if they can convince me that god exists i will followthere doctrine they then think there in and i finish by saying they can't use the bible or any religious book as referance as they where written by man, the look of utter confusion is delightful the first thing they do automatically is quote scripture I say sorry no try again.
another one i've used is that god and the devil are one and the same
this work wonderfully as i almost converted someone without trying i hasten to say(as i am not trying to convert anybody ) just having a conversation
i was ask how i could say that, so i said who's the biggest killer of man, the answer was man, i said "no god" . when theres a hurricane or vocano eruption etc or a major disaster ,by all the courts in the world it deemed as an act of god therefore, he is the biggest killer and must be the devil they usually leave after that .
if i want them to leave straight in future i shall use your's