(May 23, 2013 at 11:15 am)Texas Sailor Wrote: WRONG! Lol...

Indeed! But only if you consider the oxford english dictionary also wrong.
http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/luck

Quote:Not laughing at you and you're not totally wrong. I just changed my image to the Genie from Aladdin, and recall Robin Williams voice yelling that at something Aladdin said that was incorrect, but, I digress. Luck can be defined quite simply as the point where two lines intersect.

Reference material?

Quote:The line of preparation, and the line of opportunity. If you are prepared for something at the time and a seemingly unlikely opportunity presents itself, the results of your accomplishment could be construed as luck. It just depends on the level of your preparation. If i've never play the lottery, I'm never prepared to win it, and with no ticket, the opportunity doesn't exist. In the event that I purchase a ticket, and the numbers I chose are drawn, I was prepared with the ticket complete with numbers, and the opportunity presented itself for my numbers to be worth money. Its no more than that. There are tons of other variables in this analogy alone that can be chalked up to a series of the two things: Preparation and Opportunity. There is no example of something deemed as luck or a blessing that can't be broke down to the same basic outline.

Intresting, but it's all baseless conjecture without supporting documentation.
When will you get it? I seldom if ever speak out of turn. When I make a statement here I may use my own words/spelling and bad grammar, but it is almost always certainly backed with actual reference material (Not commentary, but actuall reference material) The only time it isn't is when i start a sentence with: This is what I think, or I simply believe that...

Quote:Sure they can! If you follow the outline.

Not to day not in this ecconomy. Not with employees/5 digit weekly payrole, rent, fuel prices, insureance costs, rising supply equipment costs, and a declining market. where people want to pay less and get more across the board.

I'm not doing lawn maintence or mobile car washing. i own a brick and mortar business that does not suffer fools or those who depend on luck for their day to day expenses. If you still think it is possiable to luck your way into a business then put up everything you own and go for it. see what happens. Put your money where your mouth is.

Quote:Try to apply it, and come up with your own way to understand it using the two line principle. It's certainly possible.

It seems like you have it all figured out, why not give it a try.

Quote:Wrong! Your contradicting yourself a bit here and not being fair with the determining factors of things that are lucky. If you are prepared, and the opportunity presents itself to maximize business, you can hardly say that the successful outcome you are able to derrive from it "came out of the blue"! If I read that right. You seem to be confusing luck with a miracle! If I'm reading your refutation of luck correctly, and I believe I am. You are actually arguing against miracles, which I agree, are absurd.

It's not luck that keeps us in business. I don't like to use the word mirical because it has no meaning. That is why i directly attribute what has kept us going and growing for 10 years as the direct result of the full filled promises of God.

I a/s/k for 'X' God gave me 'X'. I was faithful to what God gave me, then He gave me Y. I was faithful to X and Y and He gave me Z, and on and on and on.

Quote: Me waking up to be an owner of a successful business that I know nothing about, and being able to single handedly make it flourish, would be a miracle, luck could not be applied to such a scenario. I would not be prepared, and it wasn't an opportunity. It would just be a bizzare happenstance, positive in nature, and for which, no logical reason could ever be had as it does not correlate with reality. A miracle is merely another unfounded claim of an extraordinary event manifesting from transcendant intervention in human affairs.

i guess this means you never looked up the word miracle.
http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition...?q=miracle
Whether you believe in them or not is a non-issue. as your described the defination of a miracle to a tee in the above paragraph.

Quote: These are things that have never been proved.

Take time to READ the defination I provided. They don't have to be proven. a Miracle is an unexplainable event with a positive outcome that has been attributed to God..

Quote:Its jamming God into things you don't fully understand because you want it to be true. You sell yourself short here.

You can not possiable know that unless you can honestly evaluate each and every event that has kept this business going. We've had checks from customers who owed us money Years and years prior show up when something major was due on the day it was due to the penny... Stuff like this happens a few times a week. Not for a few weeks, but for 10 years.

Right now we need like 3K for to complete a project. two weeks ago out of the blue we were given 3 vinage soda machines (coke pepsi and RC cola), a cigarette machine, a modern pepsi machine, and a few old coke and gas station signs, As was writting the pervious paragraph I just got a text that a retailer is on the way to make a deal for all of it..

Again, One instance is luck, Hell I'll give you the first 100 times it happens is luck, but after 10's of thousands of events like this happen, on an on going basis for 10 or more years... We past luck a decade ago.

Again this is only the business part. There is an impossiable marriage we worked through and an understanding of the Bible none of you have been able to shut down, without appealing to logical fallacy or personal attacks.

Again I do not tell you this to brag you into belief. I tell you this because God has offered all of this to you as well. I am not anything special.

Quote:It doesn't mean understanding cannot be achieved. Luck happens all the time! But, take credit where its due. You were prepared, you put in the work, and you took advantage of a good opportunity. You did this. It wasn't anything else!

Uh, no. Did I meantion that during the worst of the worst of my wife's drug addiction happened durning the fist 4 or 5 years of the business? This meant I could not work for days at a time sometime weeks, depending on what was going on at home.

I always got a big job just before something bad happened that would carry us through whatever trial was on about to end my world. One after another after another...

I was not prepaired at all matter of fact I think the reason God gave me this business was because i was not fit to work for anyone durning the time.. Not to mention I had a 250.00 aday Herion addict keeping my books (Because I am worse at that than i am spelling believe it or not.)

So tell me again how I am selling myself short.

There was always just enough money to keep us going. And it wasn't because I am just a really really good refrigeration mechanic. Or because I was business savy, or because of anyother reason than God gave me all that i have.

Quote:A loan you can apply to your business? If you did not have the business or at least the idea for one that seemed profitable, you would not be prepared for such a lucky opportunity! Keep this in mind. Lets see another one...

I was working for another man who promised to make me a partner at the time when i was offered this money. I was content with working for Him. Heck I was completely content working for my orginal company, till they gave my job away. I was a worker bee and happy to beee one for a very long time.

I took the money because the two years came and went and I was still not a partner. I left because I did not want to work with someone who would not keep their word.

Quote:I'm having a hard time finding justification for this plug-in, considering the logical explanation provided above for luck being preparation and opportunity.

I don't know what you mean plug in.

i said that to help establish that everything I have was a gift/responsiablity from God.

Quote:You and the other companies were both prepared.

Nothing could be further from the truth. We operate with very little saved. Everything is provided as we need it. When we do have money left over we give it back, effectivly keeping us completely dependant on God. Yet somehow we've kept a really good credit score as well. (We always pay our bills on time.) Which can be a little scarry from time to time, because our monthly expenses can total more than what i use to make in a whole year. Even so, God has always proven to be faithful, so long as we remain faithful.

Quote: The opportunity that your company was fortunate enough to come by, did not present itself in the same way to the others. The lines didn't intersect for them as you say they did for you. Perfectly understandable. No need to plug in Genies.

Do you not see what you have to do to dismiss my life story? you have to disect it into all of it's indivisual parts and try and dismiss them one at a time. While any one event can be explained away a simple luck, the sum total of ten years and well over a 7 digits worth of revenue can not be explained away as luck.

"I make money ergo god"



Guess what Drich, I make money too, "ergo no god".

(May 23, 2013 at 4:38 pm)Rhythm Wrote: "I make money ergo god"



Guess what Drich, I make money too, "ergo no god".

Not like I do ;P

Where's that friggen rope, errr, I mean camel?
.

So laying aside that we all make money in different ways - and accepting that what you're probably referring to is the amount of money made...a quick survey of the richest people in the world should give us a relative measure of which faith tradition is more accurate, eh?

You wanna hang your hat on that? Is that what it's all about?

Bill gates, on record, doesn't believe your bullshit. He's number 1.

Vlad Putin, wears a cross, feels that it's no one business - so a different sort of christian than yourself, number 2.

Slim Helu, a maronite - you lose again.

Warren Buffet - agnostic - you lose..yet again.

But fuck these guys, statistical outliers I say!

How about studies which correlate wealth and organized religion? Guess what, you lose again. The median net worth of individuals who follow your religious tradition is -lower- than the median net worth of an individual in our country. Let me translate that for you, in case your illiteracy has you struggling (and god hasn't miracled any understanding of that statement to you, yet).....that means that people who believe in your god are poor compared to people who don't.

Or maybe...just maybe......the relative wealth of yourself, or myself, has no power to demonstrate the accuracy of a god claim-nothing to do with miracles or their originating point. What do you think?

(can I make a suggestion, btw, if you're doing better than I am and so have the cash and time to spare? Invest in some community college courses on biology)

(May 23, 2013 at 4:27 pm)Drich Wrote: Reference material?

I don't know what material you want, but i'll assume your request had something to do with thinking I had an alternative definition. But, what I was referring to when I said "luck can easily be defined..." I was under the impression we were at least in agreement over the actual definition of the word, and was attempting to illustrate a more in depth explanation of how luck (as you defined) occurs. Seneca wrote- "Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity." This is not a definition, its an old saying that gives you a better understanding of the things attributed to luck, as it can be applied to every story you've told.

(May 23, 2013 at 4:27 pm)Drich Wrote: Not to day not in this ecconomy. Not with employees/5 digit weekly payrole, rent, fuel prices, insureance costs, rising supply equipment costs, and a declining market. where people want to pay less and get more across the board.

You've given a good description of negative circumstances. If an unlikely success, apparently coming from chance, happens to fall into any of these peoples laps, then it is certainly lucky. Your definition. But to understand that luck, you need to understand the variables and conditions. Once you understand the variables and conditions and they are not as unlikely as you thought, you have an explanation, and from there, you can stop calling it lucky, and you'd just have something really convenient that just doesn't happen all the time, there's nothing magical or transcendant about it.

(May 23, 2013 at 4:27 pm)Drich Wrote: those who depend on luck for their day to day expenses.

You're referring to people that have gambling problems. That's not at all what i've made any reference to.

(May 23, 2013 at 4:27 pm)Drich Wrote: If you still think it is possiable to luck your way into a business then put up everything you own and go for it. see what happens. Put your money where your mouth is.

Hmm...That's just a dare to gamble. Nobody said that luck was guranteed. It wouldn't luck if it could be depended on, could it?

I like to play games and wager from time to time, but I certainly wouldn't play with more than I was ok with losing. That's just irresponsible Drich.

(May 23, 2013 at 4:27 pm)Drich Wrote: It's not luck that keeps us in business.

Well, by your definition from Oxford's Dictionary, it certainly could keep you in business. Especially if you needed something that seemed unlikey, and then, apparently from chance, you got it. That would be quite lucky.

(May 23, 2013 at 4:27 pm)Drich Wrote: I don't like to use the word mirical because it has no meaning. That is why i directly attribute what has kept us going and growing for 10 years as the direct result of the full filled promises of God.

Hmm...Somehow I don't believe you.

(May 23, 2013 at 4:27 pm)Drich Wrote: I a/s/k for 'X' God gave me 'X'. I was faithful to what God gave me, then He gave me Y. I was faithful to X and Y and He gave me Z, and on and on and on.

Holy Fallicious-Reasoning Batman!!! Let's point out how you've failed to establish the source of 'X' before we move on to the rest of the alphabet...

First, you've managed to use circular logic to assert a cause that begs the question, then you've managed to over-look any alternatives for your recieving 'X' and simply affirmed your consequent that "God gave you 'X'. 100% Non sequitur. It would be wildly illogical for anyone to accept your conclusion.

(May 23, 2013 at 11:15 am)Texas Sailor Wrote: These are things that have never been proved.

(May 23, 2013 at 4:27 pm)Drich Wrote: Take time to READ the defination I provided. They don't have to be proven. a Miracle is an unexplainable event with a positive outcome that has been attributed to God..

Wait a minute...I distinctly remember you saying...

(May 23, 2013 at 4:27 pm)Drich Wrote: I don't like to use the word mirical because it has no meaning. That is why i directly attribute what has kept us going and growing for 10 years as the direct result of the full filled promises of God.

(May 23, 2013 at 11:15 am)Texas Sailor Wrote: Its jamming God into things you don't fully understand because you want it to be true. You sell yourself short here.

(May 23, 2013 at 4:27 pm)Drich Wrote: You can not possiable know that unless you can honestly evaluate each and every event that has kept this business going.

You're right! But so far, it fits pretty well Drich. But, simply jamming the gaps of knowledge cocerning contributing factors to your success with magic is not a valid explanation.

(May 23, 2013 at 4:27 pm)Drich Wrote: We've had checks from customers who owed us money Years and years prior show up when something major was due on the day it was due to the penny...

That's not even luck! We understand all of the variables so it didn't apparently come from chance. It came from your actions prior to! It was convenient timing, no doubt, but you were prepared for this opportunity when you provided the service. Had you not provided the service, they would not have given you any money! The money didn't just appear in your lap from a flash of light, there was a logical explanation for it. cause/effect-preparation/opportunity.

(May 23, 2013 at 4:27 pm)Drich Wrote: Stuff like this happens a few times a week. Not for a few weeks, but for 10 years.

Thanks for saving me the time. Since you did not change any details about these supposed acts of divine intervention from God, I will simply defer to my above explanation for all the many times a week this occurred and for all 10 years of it. Honestly, this sounds less and less like luck and more like common occurence.

(May 23, 2013 at 4:27 pm)Drich Wrote: Right now we need like 3K for to complete a project. two weeks ago out of the blue we were given 3 vinage soda machines (coke pepsi and RC cola), a cigarette machine, a modern pepsi machine, and a few old coke and gas station signs, As was writting the pervious paragraph I just got a text that a retailer is on the way to make a deal for all of it...

Wow Drich, that sure is lucky! As it appears to come from chance. Of course, the variables are there to be understood since the crap came from people, and not flashes of light and into your living room!

(May 23, 2013 at 4:27 pm)Drich Wrote: Again, One instance is luck, Hell I'll give you the first 100 times it happens is luck, but after 10's of thousands of events like this happen, on an on going basis for 10 or more years... We past luck a decade ago.

Now your are wildly overgeneralizing. You can't generalize from a large sample of events unless they are demonstrably similar. It's just more claims that are unfounded in evidence. That's a fallacy by the way...

(May 23, 2013 at 4:27 pm)Drich Wrote: Again this is only the business part. There is an impossiable marriage we worked through and an understanding of the Bible none of you have been able to shut down, without appealing to logical fallacy or personal attacks..

Your fallicious reasoning is enough for anyone to reject your claims. They are non sequitur. Your conclusions are not a reasonable inference from, or even related to, any evidence whatsoever. They are very bad arguments...Oh look here's another one coming up...

(May 23, 2013 at 4:27 pm)Drich Wrote: I tell you this because God has offered all of this to you as well. I am not anything special.

Loaded Language-Attempting to appeal to emotions, appeal to pity...Non sequitur.

I've grown bored of this, I see no need to entertain anymore of this irrational rant of yours. Till next time!

(May 24, 2013 at 12:44 pm)Rhythm Wrote: So laying aside that we all make money in different ways - and accepting that what you're probably referring to is the amount of money made...a quick survey of the richest people in the world should give us a relative measure of which faith tradition is more accurate, eh?

You wanna hang your hat on that? Is that what it's all about?

Bill gates, on record, doesn't believe your bullshit. He's number 1.

Vlad Putin, wears a cross, feels that it's no one business - so a different sort of christian than yourself, number 2.

Slim Helu, a maronite - you lose again.

Warren Buffet - agnostic - you lose..yet again.

But fuck these guys, statistical outliers I say!

How about studies which correlate wealth and organized religion? Guess what, you lose again. The median net worth of individuals who follow your religious tradition is -lower- than the median net worth of an individual in our country. Let me translate that for you, in case your illiteracy has you struggling (and god hasn't miracled any understanding of that statement to you, yet).....that means that people who believe in your god are poor compared to people who don't.

Or maybe...just maybe......the relative wealth of yourself, or myself, has no power to demonstrate the accuracy of a god claim-nothing to do with miracles or their originating point. What do you think?

(can I make a suggestion, btw, if you're doing better than I am and so have the cash and time to spare? Invest in some community college courses on biology)

Take it easy rhymmy, I was in no way referring to what you nor I take home. It was a turn of phrase, not a slight against your manhood. Or anything else. (Just trying to make a pun.)

You said we all make money, Your right we all make money we all can provide for our families, and on and on and on... All I was saying was I make money, but not in the way that you do. God gave me and continue to gives me money as long as I am faithful to it. Meaning that I manage what he has given me and that I give a portion of it back. When I get greedy and keep too much, or I buy something that I shouldn't, then the money dries up for a time. (About as long as it take me to give up or give back what I took.)

So yes Bill Gates and everyone else you mentioned and 7/8 of the rest of the western world makes or takes more home than I do, but few Make money like I do.