chrisuk_sw

HelloI'm going to Las Vegas this Saturday for a week for my friend's 30th birthday. There's a group of 7 of us going and we're staying on the Strip. 3 of us are poker degenerates and will have bankrolls of $1k-$2k for the week, looking to play a combination of NL cash games and tournaments. The others are recreational players and will probably play a bit.I was hoping on getting some suggestions for:- what's good to do on a Sunday club-wise, and what will lines be like? (my friend's actual birthday) - what are good bars to go to, for any day?- what casinos run satellites into their bigger buy-i

Actually, Back To The Future works just fine, because it uses a multiverse worldview that allows free will. When Marty goes forward in Back To The Future 2 he sees a future where at some point he has had a car crash. When he goes back in time to where he left, he ends up making a different choice than the one he would have made, doesn't have the car crash, and reality from that point on branches. If he were to go forward into the future from that point, it would be a different future than the one he originally went forward to. No. It wasn't demonstrated, not at all. If you have definite k

(edit: my reply here screwed up, its 2 or 3 posts down)

I doubt I'll get the chance, unless it is on YouTube somewhere. I live in the UK.

Canada is exactly right here. If you can see that I am going to tie my shoe at exactly that moment then there is nothing I can do other than tie my shoe at that moment. I have no free will to do anything else. I may believe I am doing it out of my free will, but this is an illusion: my actions have been pre-determined.If God knows the choice I am going to make then I do not make a choice.

The problem of free will is tied in with God's omniscience. If God is all-knowing, then our actions - past, present and future - are already revealed to him. He knows what I, you and everyone else is going to do before we do it. Free will is then an illusion. We may think we are making choices, but our stories have already been written, as they are already revealed to God.However, if free will exists and we can act according to our own choices independent of God, then what path we take is something that God cannot foresee. In this case, God is not omniscient.If we have choice, then God is not

Good argument. Given your benevolence, you cause suffering to your children so that they will be deterred from bringing about greater suffering to themselves or others in future. This is a similar argument to that which SilentSnow gave in post 97 against the problem of evil - that God may cause suffering in order to achieve a greater good.However, I think that God cannot make this claim, for two reasons:- given omnipotence and omniscience as well as benevolence, God could either have structured reality such that children could not cause suffering to come about (using omnipotence), or used for

Hi. Yes, by all-powerful I mean his "actions that aren't restricted in any way". I don't think this is incompatible with a theoretically "true" God. It is the next assertion about the nature of God that provides the restriction - benevolence. A God can be omnipotent but malevolent, and then there is no problem of evil.The Judeo-Christian God supposedly is omnipotent, omniscient and benevolent, which, as you show, leads to contradictions when free will is factored in. You are saying that God's benevolence restricts his omnipotence (requiring that God do only good would prevent God from doing s

So every person that believes in God never gets sick never gets hurt and leads wonderful lives.- Not if God is all-loving, all-powerful and all-knowing. An all powerful God would not allow anyone to suffer, ever. That person's faith would be irrelevant to an all-loving God.You being an outsider who does suffer and so forth sees this...Would you now be willing to believe in God? Of course but are u basing it on faith or on the love of God? No of course you arent. - Again, if God was all-loving and all-powerful, I would never suffer, and neither would anyone else.Further yes suffering is necessa

I agree with you that free will (often invoked to solve the problem of evil/suffering) is a serious problem for Judao-Christian theists, but believe the logic of the problem of evil still holds, given your argument above:- God is allowing suffering to accomplish a greater good- God is all-powerful, all-knowing and all-loving- An all-powerful God can achieve an end in any way he/she wants to- Suffering exists- Either God wants to accomplish the greater good through suffering (so is not all-loving) is not aware of the suffering (so is not all-knowing) or cannot achieve the greater good without s

I remember very vividly seeing a documentary about electricity generators causing cancer. There was the story of an eight year old boy who, unknown to his parents, had his bed placed next to a generator built into the wall of his house so that he slept with his head next to it. He developed terrible tumours and cancers and had to undergo debilitating and painful chemotherapy in vain efforts to save his life.One day, shortly before his agonised death, he turned to his mother with tears in his eyes and asked her "What have I done wrong?" His mother broke down and told him: "You've done nothing w

No, I never claimed that was all I got out of it. Healing the sick was a very nice and decent thing to do. Healing the sick and releasing him from slavery would have been even better though.Of course, that there is sickness in the world at all is akin to The Problem Of Evil - a good argument that an all-powerful and all-loving God doesn't exist.

HiHere are three books, don't know if you'd strictly describe them as spiritual, but they certainly were formative for how I see and think about the world.The Ages of Gaia by James Lovelock - presenting the idea that the whole Earth - animal, mineral and vegetable - is one single unified living entity. An incredibly simple but sweepingly profound idea with big implications for how we treat our homeThe Tao of Physics by Fritjof Capra - a book on the connection between Western physics and Eastern mysticism. It introduced to me some interesting ways to view the natural world and how reality and o

I think this is a bit disingenuous. The only point of agreement between atheists is that we do not have a belief in God. Atheism is not a philosophy, creed, culture or movement of any kind. For most, its not even a denial that God exists - its just a lack of belief that God exists. Most atheists don't even consider their atheism at all, we just accept that we're here and we should make the most of this incredible opportunity that we have. The great thing about atheism is that there is nowhere you are not allowed to go - except to believe in a supernatural entity. We are free to view the world,

Hi - yes, as Canada said, I was only responding to the statement "all Christians get that (the Old Testament law no longer applies)". There are a minority of Christians who do believe in a literal fundamentalist reading - that they are a tiny minority is something that we should all be thankful of. It would be terrible if the views of the Westboro Baptist Church (the "God Hates Fags", let's picket servicemen's funerals, people) were mainstream. Yes, a lot depends here on the term "blaspheme". Websters has it as1 : to speak of or address with irreverence2 : revile, abusewhich is a more general

(thread suggested by Zealous Donkey)In the documentary film The God Who Wasn't There (website) there is a very powerful segment at the end, where the director talks to the head of his old Village Christian School (website). As a child, the director was taught that anyone who denied The Holy Spirit would damn their immortal soul for all eternity with no possibility of forgiveness. This struck mortal terror into his child self as he believed that he had done this through doubting what he was being taught.There are three instances in The New Testament where Jesus says that denial of The Holy Spir

Doesn't that seem a bit harsh? All crimes - serial killing, cannibalism, mass murder, genocide - can be forgiven and you can spend eternity in paradise... but if you state, or even think, for just one moment that an invisible, undetectable presence doesn't exist, then you are condemned to unending pain without respite. As I said in another thread, I've heard of children being utterly terrified to the point of nightmares that their natural doubts have caused them to be condemned for all time in the lake of fire. That's not a good thing.

Kind of, and yet, no. We came (!) into being by sexual reproduction and exist because our DNA is composed of genes that were able to make copies of themselves. When I said that "we were created to pass on our genes", its just that we are the result of this copying process, and if we have children, our genes will continue to exist. However the process itself has no goal, no purpose.

If we've blasphemed the Holy Spirit, there is no grace, no second chance: according to the New Testament that particular sin is irredeemable.

It's an interesting idea - that the fig tree story is allegorical to the state of Israel and the curse to befall it. (What is it with God and cursing things?) I see that this comes from this earlier passage in Jeremiah:Jeremiah 8:13 "I will take away their harvest, declares the LORD. There will be no grapes on the vine. There will be no figs on the tree, and their leaves will wither. What I have given them will be taken from them." This is perhaps a more worrying interpretation than Jesus just showing off his miraculous power. It seems to give a justification for the destruction of Jews or Is

Yeah, don't bother with it - the pokerden is a poor show, and I think Mad Marty's a pretty dire TD too. Would disagree about the stakes being low though, there's over $100K for the winner of every show.Along with suitedpairs, yourmoney2 has some good poker stuff on youtube

*sigh* once upon a time this started out as quite a good thread.... we were actually discussing whether- the philosophies of Jesus are sound- the philosophies of Jesus can be accepted if you do not believe he is divineinstead it's turned into brvheart's willy waving. I'll give you just this one paragraph of attention before trying to get back on track. brvheart - you have been by far the most antagonistic and insulting poster in this thread. The first personalisation came in your post 14 ("WTF!?!? You have no idea what you're talking about"), which caused zzz to fire back. Check out what you s

Haha, wonderful. You berate people for not investing in a dictionary and then delete SEVEN definitions that completely disprove your argument. It's like a good old fashioned book burning. Here are the other definitions for "cult" that you deliberately left out....1. a particular system of religious worship, esp. with reference to its rites and ceremonies.- Tick for Christianity as being a cult. Cross for atheism2. an instance of great veneration of a person, ideal, or thing, esp. as manifested by a body of admirers: the physical fitness cult.- Tick for Christianity. Cross for atheism3. the obj

Mattnxtc- thank you for a well considered response to the original question. Yours is a very interesting rationale, allowing you selectivity but us heathens only absoluteness and compulsion!

I don't want irrationality and fear to govern my life but love, only love. It is not my heart that would have to soften to accept ancient myth, intolerance, racism and nonsense as truth. It would have to be my head.