Zaccheus

I thought you were on your way to pluto ...

Nice.

... and?

I'd love to discuss the subject seriously, but I really don't think that's possible in this thread.

I guess not.

Ah yes, now I see you:

Non-obvious interpretations of the text? I really don't think so. What are you talking about? Quoted text is obviously different from non-quoted text. You say Jesus is never directly quoted in the new testament? Are you having a laugh? Our views are so far apart, I don't think there is much point in continuing this.

I can't see any cat in that photo. Where are you in that picture?

That is kind of what I meant. The scientific principle may be sound, but unless you double check everything yourself, you have to make a judgement call somewhere down the line.

I've made a Visual C++ 2005 Project for the SDK demo app - you can download it from here: http://www.rclsoftware.org.uk/download/gra...sdkTutorial.zip The code is explained here: http://www.rclsoftware.org.uk/gravel/v3/sdk/tutorial.html

LOL. This is not like the Doom3 SDK where you have to compile it, rather it is a DLL which contains functions which do things for you, functions which you can use in your own applications. Have you managed to compile the demo application?

That's a good question, one I ask myself very often actually. Let me put it this way. Many people claim many things. It's nice to say that scientific research is verifyable, and on the whole I agree, but in praxis that does not help much because I myself cannot repeat any of the experiments which scientists claim to have conducted. Somewhere down the line, you have to make a judgement yourself. Who do you trust, what is the likelyhood of falseness, etc. Like I said above, most christians have had some kind of experience (or experiences) which strongly suggest that there is indeed something trustworthy about the bible. Otherwise we really wouldn't bother.

The whole old testament is full of passages where God is said to be patient and forgiving towards the Israelites. And God gets angry in the new testament too.

I love these kinds of contradictions. Most are very easy to counter - some are not. This is just off the top of my head, but I see no real problems with the passages you quoted: It does not say that Jacob had seen God face to face, only that Jacob SAID he had. The text is from the King James Version, a rather poor translation by todays standards. Even the New King James Version (and other, much better, translations) read "and they drove out", making it clear that it was 'Judah' (the tribe) who could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley. See also http://www.aboutbibleprophecy.com/q16.htm . I understand An-eye-for-an-eye to mean: If someone does you wrong, do not wipe out the whole clan, only demand retribution according to the damage you have suffered. That is justice. Jesus sais, if you want to be perfect, you can go beyond what the law says and demand no retribution at all. Again, Job 7:9 is a quote, so all the bible is saying is that Job had made a certain comment: Those who have died don't normally go back to the life they had lived before they died. John 5:28-29 does not contradict that. Language is full of phrases where the same word is used for different things. The passage in James talks about people doing stuff they should not be doing. Genesis 22:1 is clearly talking about Abraham doing something which God told him to do, to see if he would in fact do it. Now I have no idea why the King James Version translates this as tempting, as 'testing' would be a far better english word to use here and modern translations do so, but I think it is pretty clear that we are talking about two different concepts here anyway. There are tons of websites which aim to find contradictions in the bible, and tons of websites which then debunk the 'contradictions'. The whole thing reminds me of the moon-landing-hoax-conspiracy websites vs debunking websites sometimes. The most interesting questions I have come accross arise out of comparing Matthew and Luke regarding the birth and childhood of Jesus.

http://www.pcper.com/images/reviews/195/specs_2.jpg I agree it would be nuts to buy one - though it's fun to read about it; a nice little pre-view of what will be 'normal' in a few years time.