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.

If you think that any experience of any higher beings can't be anything other than a malfunction of the brain, then I guess there's not much point in any further discussions about it.

One thing I found quite fascinating is that deaf children, who grow up in an environment where sign-language is used a lot, will pick up sign-language in the same way that hearing kids will pick up speach. Our brain seems to be a massive pattern recognition machine which will latch onto any patterns it can find. I think you'll find that most christians don't simply believe in God because of what the bible says, but rather they believe what the bible says because they have had certain personal experiences which point them towards the conclusion that the bible is indeed correct. Otherwise you could pick up any book and make a decision to believe what it says. Christians may be strange but they are not stupid.

First the bad news: No landing on planets at all, except a few cut-scenes, and the physics are not very realistic - so in that respect no improvement in two decades, it's the same as the original Elite game. Apart from that, I'm really surprised that you hadn't heard of it. In fact I was surprised that I hadn't heard of it when someone at TTLG was talking about X2. Quick history: X was released years ago, then followed X2 and now X3 was released a few months ago. Gameplay: Same as Elite, free play as you fly around in first person perspective and dock at various space stations in various systems, trading goods and buying better equipemnt and better ships. Two big differences between Elite and X are that in X you can own more than one ship at the same time, and you can even buy space stations (factories) and start making serious money, if you can deal with the supply problems and such. Of course there are pirates etc and first-person space battles galore. In X2 you could fly around inside the space stations, but the trips from the station entrance to the docking bays became tiresome and so in X3 you always dock externally at space stations. You travel from star-system to star-system via 'star-gates', although later in the game you can get a jump-engine. There is an optional plot where you can accept a string of missions for the terra-corp company which make the game a bit more personal.

Erm ... now? http://www.egosoft.com/games/x3/screenshots_en.php

If you are not busy in July 2015, you might want to check this out: http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/index.php They'll be launching it this month: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/newhoriz...main/index.html --- Regarding creation vs evolution, just wanted to say a few things quickly: 1) Christians really should consider accepting that some evolution has taken place, because even if you believe in a literal interpretation of the bible, you have to accept that there are now far more types of animals (including different human races) than could possibly have fitted on noah's ark. 2) I agree with JohnD that devolution is quite possible and would (in principle) fit with the observation that systems tend to degenerate and fall apart rather than getting better and better. 3) If you start talking about the possibility of God/angels/demons interacting with the world, scientific certainties are pretty much out of the window. Science is to a large extent based on observable cause and effect. If you put undetectable beings into the equasion, it all becomes quite meaningless very quickly.

I never thought of this, but yeah I could probably also help a bit with German translations and/or proofreading.

Would now be a good time to mention wormholes?

Exactly. You are of course correct in saying that. Yes, Pluto is not considered an equal of Mercury, last I heard they were alternatively talking about having different 'grades' of planets.

Well oDDity if you want to be super pedantic, I'm sure you are aware that orbits are elliptical, and so the word 'centre' is misleading anyway. And yes, the mass of other planets forms part of the equasion which determines our path around the sun.

And wasn't even using it to chat up a girl.