If Not Hell then what?

[pocaracas]

The guy is dead... can' talk to him.

Actually you can.

You claim that it works.
It works in your mind, to your eye, to you.
It is indistinguishable from you convinced yourself that it works.
It is indistinguishable from being brainwashed.
It is indistinguishable from it's all in your head.
It is indistinguishable from someone made it up and you fell for it.

Because my life is a testament to who well A/S/K works.

Your life is a testament to how some people are just lucky, sometimes.

God took an illiterate, taught him how to read and comperhend the written word where 12 years of grammer school failed.

Not so illiterate, then.... 12 years of learning... -.-'
I mastered the art of reading after 2 or 3 years.
Not saying I'm better, just saying you're not making that good of a case for yourself... lying much?
(I always assume everyone can perform mental operations as well as I can)

From there He opened his mind and heart to precepts and understanding that span the bible and on into being able to answer all of his own question about God, life and our purpose here. That developed into help others with their own questions, which rolled into an on line ministry for 5 years of answering christian questions, and a year and 1/2 of defending the faith from all takers ranging from doctors and lawyers to an oxford professor, to doo-mases who just hate because God has not granted them their wishes. To having a paper researched for publication on an orgins account that encorprates genesis and evolution seemlessly.

So you dedicated your life to reading the bible over and over and over and memorized it's various translations and told others about it... congratz for wasting your time.

Not to mention what He has done in my marriage life, and the sucess I have been given in my company. (which is poised to be bought out, and I am to take a job as an exectuive/engneer, shortly after the project i am currently working on goes to market later this year.)

Luck at work, crap marriage that you decided to endure...

I know there is a God.

No you don't. You think you know, because you believe.
Different thing...
It's all in your mind, remember?

Not because of my sucesses, but because of how deep and complete my failures have been. I am constantly reminded of my short commings and how quickly everything I have can be lost. why? Because none of what I have is because I earned or deserved any of it. It was literally given to me, and I am just a steward of God's gifts nothing more. No God= No gifts. No gifts= Drich dead a long long time ago.

yeah... you're a crap human being that got a break and attributed it to some higher power, because you couldn't come up with any other reason for it... how about... luck!?
Are you aware of what "luck" means?

---

I think you give far too much credit. I don't afford the statements he's so fond of making any credibility whatsoever. You assume he's managed to convince himself, I don't think that this is so.

Based on what?

Based on the singular idea that your world view (there is no God) HAS to be correct?

What if your wrong? What if God will not give you anything because you are too proud to ask for it?

What if I'm too proud to ask for anything and I get it anyway?
Does that mean that asking has no bearing on the outcome?, or that I did ask but wasn't aware of it? or that god doesn't care about asking? or that there is no god giving stuff to people and some people get lucky sometimes?
Considering the amount of people asking and getting nothing and those not asking and getting something, I'd say there is no correlation between asking and getting. So, it seems more obvious that your god (that gives stuff to people who ask for it) is not a real entity.

[Drich]

Actually you can.

Because my life is a testament to who well A/S/K works.

Your life is a testament to how some people are just lucky, sometimes.

God took an illiterate, taught him how to read and comperhend the written word where 12 years of grammer school failed.

Not so illiterate, then.... 12 years of learning... -.-'
I mastered the art of reading after 2 or 3 years.
Not saying I'm better, just saying you're not making that good of a case for yourself... lying much?
(I always assume everyone can perform mental operations as well as I can)

From there He opened his mind and heart to precepts and understanding that span the bible and on into being able to answer all of his own question about God, life and our purpose here. That developed into help others with their own questions, which rolled into an on line ministry for 5 years of answering christian questions, and a year and 1/2 of defending the faith from all takers ranging from doctors and lawyers to an oxford professor, to doo-mases who just hate because God has not granted them their wishes. To having a paper researched for publication on an orgins account that encorprates genesis and evolution seemlessly.

So you dedicated your life to reading the bible over and over and over and memorized it's various translations and told others about it... congratz for wasting your time.

Not to mention what He has done in my marriage life, and the sucess I have been given in my company. (which is poised to be bought out, and I am to take a job as an exectuive/engneer, shortly after the project i am currently working on goes to market later this year.)

Luck at work, crap marriage that you decided to endure...

I know there is a God.

No you don't. You think you know, because you believe.
Different thing...
It's all in your mind, remember?

Not because of my sucesses, but because of how deep and complete my failures have been. I am constantly reminded of my short commings and how quickly everything I have can be lost. why? Because none of what I have is because I earned or deserved any of it. It was literally given to me, and I am just a steward of God's gifts nothing more. No God= No gifts. No gifts= Drich dead a long long time ago.

yeah... you're a crap human being that got a break and attributed it to some higher power, because you couldn't come up with any other reason for it... how about... luck!?
Are you aware of what "luck" means?

---

Based on what?

Based on the singular idea that your world view (there is no God) HAS to be correct?

What if your wrong? What if God will not give you anything because you are too proud to ask for it?

What if I'm too proud to ask for anything and I get it anyway?
Does that mean that asking has no bearing on the outcome?, or that I did ask but wasn't aware of it? or that god doesn't care about asking? or that there is no god giving stuff to people and some people get lucky sometimes?
Considering the amount of people asking and getting nothing and those not asking and getting something, I'd say there is no correlation between asking and getting. So, it seems more obvious that your god (that gives stuff to people who ask for it) is not a real entity.

Maybe you do not understand what luck is. Luck is occasional happenstance that results in unmerited good fortune, not a way of life. people can not run a business off of luck. A company can not cover operational costs depending on the occasional good thing happening. Larger companies do not buy out smaller ones because they are lucky. Mechanics are not given engineering jobs because they are lucky and figure things out that proper engineers can't. What Makes this something more than luck is the consistency needed to support and maintain the level we operate at everyday. From unsolicited work, to being awared major contracts from business we have never dealt with and/or never even heard of before. (Things happen out of the blue.)

This isn't a one week, one month thing. We've been in business for over 10 years, and it started out with a unsolicited loan for 25K from a Jewish man that I had only ever met in passing once. (I did not even know his name when he approached me.) From that the Lord has effectively doubled this business every year. even in the great depression we are just coming out of. We've done this consistently with out the tools or typical education needed to work and operate on the level we have been able to acheaive, and maintain. While other better suited companies in this field have closed up shop.

You can dismiss my work here on this site, my business, and my maritial relationship any way other than luck. As there has been far too many coincidences to be considered just luck.

Call me a liar, call me deluded, call me anything but lucky. Because I have equal if not greater failures than all of my success put together. It is through my failures that I have been able to accurately define my personal limitations. It is through my limitations that I can ascribe my success to God. It is through sheer volume of consistant 'good fortune' that I know I am not simply 'lucky.' I have been literally blessed, because I am faithful to what God has given me.

I am not special I am simply running through the promises God makes to each of us in scripture. It is because I A/S/K for the Holy Spirit that I was given a measure of the Holy Spirit. With that measure of the HS I prayed to God that He make me 'faithful' to what I had been given. He did and I was. Subsequently I was given more, to which I was faithful to what I was given.. Multiply that times 20 years and here I stand with personal proof of God. It is the same 'proof' God offers you.

[pocaracas]

You can dismiss my work here on this site, my business, and my maritial relationship any way other than luck. As there has been far too many coincidences to be considered just luck.

Some time ago, I was testing my luck on a virtual roulette I created with a few lines of code.
The idea was just to bet on one color or the other... zero was a possibility, and that's where the house makes money, if players were half smart...
Anyway, the concept was the standard roulette trick. Start with X credits, start betting one, if you win, bet on the other color, if you lose, bet on the same color, but bet twice as much.
Turns out, you can have a good luck streak and win one at a time...
But you can also have a bad luck streak and loose it all in [X=2^Y, solve for Y ... e.g. 10 spins cost you ~1k credits; 20 spins cost you ~1Million credits] spins.
Coincidence just happens, regardless of any external forces.
Your desire to attribute a reasoning to coincidence is what leads you to accept the god mythology... you're not alone in that... but it is sad that people point it out to you and yet you still persist in attributing a divine
intent in dumb luck.

You got lucky at your job, a fancy client, some word of mouth about the quality of your work from that fancy client and more clients... it happens. Bill Gates made his first OS at home, got lucky with IBM (the big client) and then puff... microsoft was born. I don't see him attributing it to any god.

You didn't get that lucky with the wife.... drug addict, I don't envy you... but you love her.. she got lucky with you.

As for your "work" here on this site... I haven't seen anyone take your views seriously, except for a few theists... those were already bought, so they don't count...

[Drich]

You can dismiss my work here on this site, my business, and my maritial relationship any way other than luck. As there has been far too many coincidences to be considered just luck.

Some time ago, I was testing my luck on a virtual roulette I created with a few lines of code.
The idea was just to bet on one color or the other... zero was a possibility, and that's where the house makes money, if players were half smart...
Anyway, the concept was the standard roulette trick. Start with X credits, start betting one, if you win, bet on the other color, if you lose, bet on the same color, but bet twice as much.
Turns out, you can have a good luck streak and win one at a time...
But you can also have a bad luck streak and loose it all in [X=2^Y, solve for Y ... e.g. 10 spins cost you ~1k credits; 20 spins cost you ~1Million credits] spins.
Coincidence just happens, regardless of any external forces.
Your desire to attribute a reasoning to coincidence is what leads you to accept the god mythology... you're not alone in that... but it is sad that people point it out to you and yet you still persist in attributing a divine
intent in dumb luck.

You got lucky at your job, a fancy client, some word of mouth about the quality of your work from that fancy client and more clients... it happens. Bill Gates made his first OS at home, got lucky with IBM (the big client) and then puff... microsoft was born. I don't see him attributing it to any god.

You didn't get that lucky with the wife.... drug addict, I don't envy you... but you love her.. she got lucky with you.

As for your "work" here on this site... I haven't seen anyone take your views seriously, except for a few theists... those were already bought, so they don't count...

...All of which is why when God provides proof to us indivisually, it is as ironclad and bullet proof as it need to be to withstand any on slought for the one who has A/S/Ked. But if one is outside looking in, it can be easily dismissed.. Why? Because the faith of another will never ensure your own salvation. God demands that we all come to Him personally and find our 'proof' through Him only. I don't tell you these things to convince you to have faith in God. I tell you these things so you know God will set up and carry you through your own set of trials and rewards so that you can know it is Him who is making all things possiable.

[pocaracas]

...All of which is why when God provides proof to us indivisually, it is as ironclad and bullet proof as it need to be to withstand any on slought for the one who has A/S/Ked. But if one is outside looking in, it can be easily dismissed.. Why? Because the faith of another will never ensure your own salvation. God demands that we all come to Him personally and find our 'proof' through Him only. I don't tell you these things to convince you to have faith in God. I tell you these things so you know God will set up and carry you through your own set of trials and rewards so that you can know it is Him who is making all things possiable.

Self-delusion is the hardest nut to crack there is... harder than diamond!

[The Grand Nudger]

To having a paper researched for publication on an orgins account that encorprates genesis and evolution seemlessly.

Monkey men with souls? I really, really, really hope that gets published, lol.

Based on what?

Based on the singular idea that your world view (there is no God) HAS to be correct?

LOL, no, nothing quite so magical or immense. Based upon the contents of your posts Drich - as always, no god required.

What if your wrong? What if God will not give you anything because you are too proud to ask for it?

How many times do I have to tell you that I don't want anything from you before it sinks in?

[The Reality Salesman01]

Maybe you do not understand what luck is. Luck is occasional happenstance that results in unmerited good fortune, not a way of life.

WRONG! Lol...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. 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.

people can not run a business off of luck A company can not cover operational costs depending on the occasional good thing happening. Larger companies do not buy out smaller ones because they are lucky. Mechanics are not given engineering jobs because they are lucky and figure things out that proper engineers can't.

Sure they can! If you follow the outline. Try to apply it, and come up with your own way to understand it using the two line principle. It's certainly possible.

What Makes this something more than luck is the consistency needed to support and maintain the level we operate at everyday. From unsolicited work, to being awared major contracts from business we have never dealt with and/or never even heard of before. (Things happen out of the blue.)

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. 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.These are things that have never been proved. Its jamming God into things you don't fully understand because you want it to be true. You sell yourself short here.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!

This isn't a one week, one month thing. We've been in business for over 10 years, and it started out with a unsolicited loan for 25K from a Jewish man that I had only ever met in passing once.

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 did not even know his name when he approached me.)

Irrelavant...

From that the Lord has effectively doubled this business every year.

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

even in the great depression we are just coming out of. We've done this consistently with out the tools or typical education needed to work and operate on the level we have been able to acheaive, and maintain. While other better suited companies in this field have closed up shop.

You and the other companies were both prepared. 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.

You can dismiss my work here on this site, my business, and my maritial relationship any way other than luck. As there has been far too many coincidences to be considered just luck.

Nobody is dismissing anything or discrediting you. You are discrediting yourself by chalking up your accomplishments to an unworthy explanation. Luck is a perfectly understandable occurence, and its not magic. It can be explained at every turn. Its a fortunate turn of events but its restricted to the type of occurence for which luck could be given as a description of it and the predictibility of the outcome. A fighter pilot avoiding an intercepting missile that never misses can rightfully describe his situation as luck, due to the unlikely nature of his experience but he was prepared with the ability to maneuver the aircraft. Luck is certainly contingent on being prepared and having the opportunity to achieve unlikely positive results. Lacking the understanding of ALL the contributing factors isn't necessary, but unlikely things can happen if there are variables in place that can make it possible. All you need is the variables, the outcome can be construed as luck based on the level of predicability for the "lucky" outcome. Take a step back, and understand what's being said. Nobody is discrediting you, we're just trying to get you to see that there's a rational understanding, anything else is illusory. Just watch sports! Professional athletes get lucky too. Nobody is saying they're not good at what they do simply because they had a lucky break that allowed wind to drift the ball between goal posts, or off the leg of an opponent, or between the legs of a goalie. Shit happens bro. It's not magic.

[Sal]

To me "luck" is just incidents that were not entirely predictable; sorta like "random" with the human condition mixed into it.

[downbeatplumb]

Who says He does want these a holes to suffer?

I think suffering is the point. For through suffering comes wisdom and understanding. (As fleeing as it maybe.) It was my experience that one quickly comes to understand who God is, what was being offered, and the acceptance of my refusal and all that it truly meant. I also understood the depth and scope of what an eternity of this suffering would mean. (The loss or consumption of my sanity to Hell fire.)

Remember God owes the Dammed nothing. (This includes mercy.) Even though I believe we will eventually receive mercy in the way of surcuming to Hell fire and being consumed by it. This may take a few seconds or it may take millions of years. I believe our time in Hell is based on how wicked and hard our hearts are.

Ok so I think that I understand what you are saying here. It is that god is an evil vindictive fuck isn't it!

[The Reality Salesman01]

To me "luck" is just incidents that were not entirely predictable; sorta like "random" with the human condition mixed into it.

Yes! But the variables or conditions to an event or incident can be understood in some part. From a basic understanding of the conditions that could potentially produce such an occurrence or out come, you can begin to measure levels of predictability. If a certain result shows to be unlikely, it can be accurately described as "lucky" when it occurs without understanding of the process. Once all the variables are understood or even a larger amount of them are, predictions can be more accurately made, unlikely occurences can be anticipated to be more rare than others and when they happen, it's not necessarily lucky at that point, but an aticipated rare occurence that can be expected, rare as it may be. Look at our universe! Considering the variables we understand and the conditions that more commonly exist, we're pretty fortunate to be here, and i'd say "lucky" is an accurate assessment of the formation of the universe, not magic!