I said a GOOD piece of discourse. All you've done is quote the bible. As someone noted earlier, all you've made are circular arguments.
>...even someone as ignorant and irrational as Thunderdolt< I'm ignorant of many things, just as you and everyone else are. Irrational? Explain. I think because I'm tenacious and unwavering in my beliefs, you say I'm irrational. When Jesus spoke, he did the same. "I am the way" "I am the truth" "I am the light". To never bend on God's word is a must. "Any man who drinks what I give him shall never thirst". Are you thirsty? Maybe not now, but there will come a day when you will.
>I said a GOOD piece of discourse. All you've done is quote the bible. As someone noted earlier, all you've made are circular arguments.< Like I said, it was discourse, but you didn't like how it read.
Thunderbolt, I'm trying to be fair with you here. Do you understand that if you just quote a book for the alleged sayings of a man you claim is the son of a God whose existence many here question, and you offer nothing based on logic or philosophy that you are only talking to yourself (or perhaps preaching is a better way of putting it), and that you are not actually having "discourse." It is as though you are masterbating in front of a woman and claiming that you are having sex with her but that she just doesn't feel it.
missed the boat, Poor analogy. I quote the bible because it is the TRUTH. There is no other answer to the question imposed on this tread. I'm ignorant, you are ignorant and all of man kind is ignorant to all the answers we search for. With that said, that's why it takes faith added with the evidence there is of God's presence to make sense of it all. Take the dead sea scrolls--there's proof. Take what the bible says about Israel being scattered among the nations to only be put back on their God given land(1948). How likely is that? Israel, a puny nation sitting around hostile enemies looking to cast them into the Red Sea. In 1967 Israel defeated all of the Arabic nations put together. You tell me there's no God.
as to a "god" i can not say..it depends on what you mean. but i can say jesus christ is not "god" with a large degree of certainty.
Gekko wrote: >as to a "god" i can not say..it depends on what you mean. but i can say jesus christ is not "god" with a large degree of certainty.< And how can you say that with certainty? That means you are not ignorant of anything and you know it all. That would be the only way. Why do you, as did the Jews, Romans and other Gentiles, persecute Jesus? He gave the ultimate gift--his life with the opportunity for who shall ever believe in him, shall not perish but everlasting life.
we are never going to agree because for me to believe something i need evidence. for you, i guess you don't, and that is why they call it "faith." personally, i'm not a big fan of faith at all. why the hell (pun intended) would i believe in something that has no evidence that it is real? now, you may dig up some weak proof of some scroll or something lol found somewhere, but that sh!t ain't gonna fly with me. i'm talking just the facts, mam. i'm talking court room type evidence..i'm talking scientific proof. this will inevitably lead to the argument.... just because there is no proof that it exists, it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. well no sh!t.....anyway, i'm done for now.
Wow, look at all the great stuff I missed. First let me make one thing clear: I do not care what anyone on this board thinks of me. People have a tendency to assume that what is important to them is important to others. They crave respect and recognition like a dog craves a bone, so they assume everyone else feels this way too. Whatever status I have (or "had") on this board, I did not seek it out and I most definitely never deemed it to have any real value. If you think I am on the ball, great. If you think I am a raving lunatic, great. I really truly could care less. That may be a hard concept for some of you to understand, because you don't have the ability to step outside yourself and see what the world is like from someone else's perspective. So deep down you assume I care just because you do. But the reality is, I really, seriously don't. These little skirmishes are like dumbbells for me. Work you for three sets of ten, then throw you in the closet. That's it. Now, to those of you calling me a terrorist? How shallow can you be? I am talking about ideas, people. I am talking about perspectives of the world. Rs7 said "I have nothing against any particular religion. I just don't want to be forced to convert by ANYONE. If I wish to worship my rabbits foot keychain, I should be entitled to. And I am. It's in our constitution." And you know what? I completely agree with that statement 100%. I am not talking about FORCING anyone to do anything. The fact that we must walk our own path is why faith and choice exist in the first place. Look at it this way- is anyone forcing you to be a capitalist? No they are not. You can be a communist if you want to. You can move to wyoming and stake a patch of land and live a subsistence existence off potatoes if you want. But if you start telling everyone that communism is the best way, people will stand up and loudly disagree. They will point out that your ideas, while you are free to hold them, are bad ideas and do not work. This is what I am talking about. I am talking about a war of ideas. I am talking about competing views of reality. I am talking about logic and truth, not bombs and bullets. Anyone with common sense should be able to see that. The references to 'terrorism' are shallow and small minded and silly and reveal more about the small mindedness of the criticizers than anything else. I love how you guys can so quickly put me (and others) in the stupid box. Because you have to, really- all your arguments are based on the idea that Christians are unintelligent. Even when you say, 'you may be smart but here you are dumb' you are still trying to argue that Christianity is essentially unintelligent. What does this boil down to? It boils down to a grade school argument. 'You are wrong because you are dumb.' That is the best you have- calling us dumb. This is what puzzles me about these threads. I know plenty of intelligent atheists. I do not feel the need to say or think that all atheists are stupid because I know they are not. I understand that there is a logical case to be made for atheism, though I obviously assert the finer points of it are incorrect and thus it is wrong. But the point is, I do not feel the need to secretly harbor the idea that all who oppose me are 'stupid.' The thought that your opponent is stupid or blinded is really just a security blanket, like the one Linus Van Pelt used to carry around. It shows a pathetic weakness on your part- a concession to your desires. If your opponent is just 'dumb', then you can write off his argument with a surface level examination and need not go deeper. If he is 'dumb', then you do not need to probe his argument in depth. Do you see my point here? The simple fact is, the 'Christians are stupid' line is based on insecurity and ignorance. Your true knowledge of history and philosophy in regards to this question is about as shallow as a pool of rainwater. To compensate for this, you call Christians stupid so that you can make a subconscious inference: "since they are stupid, we don't need to examine the case too closely." This is pathetic. It's downright weak. You guys are making incorrect logic leaps and faulty assumptions all day and night here. And you are doing it to protect your own insecurity. Your mental weakness. "Darkhorse is smart in all other areas but in this one he is dumb." I don't think so. I have studied the ultimate questions with the same rigor and precision and hard nosed objectivity that I have used on the market and on all other things. 'You believe because you have a blind spot'- please, what a rationalist loser argument. You just want to HOPE I have a blind spot so you convince yourself. 'You believe because your parents tricked you'- please, rationalist loser argument. Again, you just HOPE this and swallow your own line. 'You call this a war so you must be a terrorist'- please, ad hominem fallacy and straw man to the extreme, not to mention pulling ridiculous conclusions out of your ass. I have respect for a number of atheists I know, because they have the guts to say that there is an intelligent case for Christianity and they have the guts to stand against it WITHOUT tearing the Christian intellect to make themselves feel better. I can respect them as opponents because they do not do surface level analysis. They actually go deep and make hard connections and refrain from pulling stuff out of their butts. They do not call me 'dumb'. They say 'hey, I hear what you are saying and you make some very good points, but while respecting you I still have to disagree.' And you know what? That is a sign of strength on their part. They are willing to do the heavy lifting and the hard thinking. They can see that I have a solid case because they actually look instead of spending their time on DUMB ONE LINERS. Thus they do not need to hide behind name calling and pathetic rationalizations and lame arguments to promote their views. There are atheists out there whose minds I respect- but to be honest, the arguments I've seen on this thread are about as consistent as swiss cheese. You guys who think you are so high and mighty in your logic? You basically suck. Might be hard to swallow but you are your own judge and jury. If there were a logic referee on this thread- simply weighing the quality of the debate and the quality of assumptions, without taking argumental sides- you guys would be whistled off the field about every thirty seconds. Am I dumb or are you dumb for thinking I'm dumb? Deep down I think you know the answer. The 'irrefutable arguments' presented on this thread are laughable. They are broken records presenting the same tired points over and over again without ever going deeper. I have heard every one of them before and they are about as hard to punch through as wet tissue. You guys sound like a bunch of random walk professors congratulating yourselves on discovering why all traders 'have' to be idiots, meanwhile never having taken a logic chain past the tip of your own noses. The ones who act like they know the most on this issue are the ones who are the most deluded. And as to who is going to win: A recent WSJ editorial highlighted a study showing that America's universities are basically 95% left wing- i.e., atheistic, socialistic philosopher kings. The kind of monkeys you guys admire. But you know what? That's bad news for you, because it means your power has maxed out. The best you've got has failed miserably. You hijacked the halls of learning and yet you still couldn't snuff the foolish christians out. It's too late now, reality has caught up with your lies. The age of postmodernism is dead- 'no such thing as right or wrong' has been exposed to the world as the vile garbage it really is. Think back on your glory days, God hater- your time to shine is gone. This is the pinnacle of power for autonomous man. It's all downhill from here. Even science is turning against you now. Precious science, that haven of anti-God intellectual superiority for so long, has now led to what? The brightest minds in the world speculating that the universe could be composed of information, or reality could be composed of consciousness or thought- Steven Hawking suggesting that reality is actually a hologram. Crazy stuff that gets crazier. The more we learn, the more we realize we are babes in the woods. As it should be, as all truth eventually integrates itself with the ultimate truth. The barriers have been broken down and the tables turned. Science is now moving us closer to God, not farther away. Your hour has passed! Your sneering domination....is...over. And the return of intelligent theism is yet but a seed in the ground- a seed that will grow into a mighty oak tree.
So let's get back to reality for a moment. Let's step beyond the message board. This is just a trading thread. Doesn't mean much in the real world. But what about real action? What about real influence? I don't expect to make much of a change in anyone whose hearts are as hardened as most of you guys' are. But I don't really care. You are my opponents, not the ones I truly want to reach. That's why I gave that 'war' post- to capture the flavor of standing against those who are so obstinately hard hearted that they will never, ever change and never even consider changing. You guys are the ones who make this a battle in the first place, by arguing more with insults than with facts! You are the dirty fighters, not me, as your own insults and digs attest to. I would be happy to stick with logical discourse, but it seems you can't go five minutes without sneaking in a 'you're dumb' or a 'you have no clue' or some two bit comedic rant that has no substance to it. But the real fight isn't here anyway. It's out there, in the world. I have the drive and the ability to go as far as I want- or rather, as far as God wants. And I will. Soros original plan was to be a millionaire and he ended up making billions. Who's to say the same can't happen for me? I'm not saying it definitely will, but it could. The influence I can and will wield out there- in the real world- will literally be ten million times the influence on any trading board in existence. The same goes for many other Christians- 'warriors of the faith' that you choose to laugh at. Insults are like bugs on my windshield. Like the prodigy song says, 'people like you just fuel my fire.' We are strong and getting stronger. You talk the talk, we walk the walk. You focus on your self directed lifestyle, we focus on changing the world. Talk is cheap. Action speaks. Posts mean nothing. Just wait til you see the real action go down. Am I a freak? So it shall be. Calling all freaks.