You want to know if I believe that evil is a real thing? You mean a real thing like air? You mean a real thing like rocks? You mean a real thing like gravity. Or do you mean a real thing like time.

Do you mean a real thing like God? Do you mean as in "the power of Satan?"

Maybe this will help: can you see the fundamentalist Islamists wrestling with this question?

This question of the reality of evil defines everything. If you are being honest, trust me with your answer and I will show you. This is a fair question, if you care about the outcome of our debate.

Considering the crowd that gathers at this watering hole, this is not a discussion that would benefit either of us.

The truth is scary. Kind of like splitting the atom. The implications of entertaining the possibility that evil is real, like a rock is real, or a thought is real, or love is real - the implications can be shattering.

Love can be subtle, joy can be mild, evil can be subtle.

If evil can be real like a rock, and subtle, it can shape everything.

So can love.

The most significant shift in American thought ( do you think there is really such a thing - is it a collective reality?) today is the sanitation of God. God has become a Happy Meal to be consumed with the responsibility of confronting evil - which is real and everywhere - in all of its forms.

All I am asking is that you be open minded and meditate on that concept, maybe for a couple of years.

At least the possibility exists that the mind, with all of its creativity, and joy, is open to influence of rationalization, and ego, and the (subtle) influence of evil ... and if that is really true, then our perceptions can be colored by evil, and God can defragment that evil from our hard drives, but the denial of the existence of evil - by the political left - the implications to the continued existence of  our culture are staggering.

To say that is irrelevant to a discussion of how to handle fundamentalist terrorism takes Americans into a brave new world.

with the responsibility of confronting evil

(without)

If you can show me that I've underestimated you, more power to ya' but I have to tell you, not yet! 

No way. It's not about me, and it's not about you. The first step, one that we are all taking, is to seek understanding.

Is evil real, or is it just an idea?

Keep an open mind, and you will be rewarded. Good luck.

Is time real, or is it a concept?

Before you can even fathom the depth of the other questions, you have to be able to understand the depth of this one.

Is time real?  

Maybe this will help: can you see the fundamentalist Islamists wrestling with this question?

Maybe this will help: Fundamentalist Islamists invented Zero. You know, the thing that Christians refused to believe in because that would mean there was a place that God wasn't.

Or, maybe you just misunderstand Liberals. Or maybe you misunderstand personal responsibility.

Well Whomit, you’re apparently not a Christian or a Jew or Muslim who demonstrates even a basic level of education about what God is - eternal, existing before time, uncreated … pretty interesting stuff, if you ever delve into it - until then, let me assure you that the concept of zero is embellishment of the basics and just barely scratching the surface of what likely even a basic fundamentalist Islamic education would give you, after all, we share the Old Testament, and believe in the same God … I’m blown away by your remark.

[quote=coolshoos]

If you re read everything I said above, consider making an apology. This type of muddling is intellectual terrorism. Are you drinking or just being emotional?

Yeah coolshoos, I mean really. Your grasp is tight like a suckling babe's to it's mother's teet, and about as deep.

Your juvenile anthropomorphic God Head mythology is even less than I thought you brought to the table. It's like you think you win because you have most of the cards up to a 7, and you have all the suits!

Please. Don't.

Just for the fun of it, I'll ask you again:

Is time real?

You say God is before time (as if that's not a contradiction of terms itself). then you must understand what is time. So tell us, coolshoos, is time real?

And the terms you're looking for are

Free Will

and the three Os

Omnicient, omnipresent, omnipotent. He knows all, He is everywhere and He is all powerful.

Your Sunday school teacher will confirm this.

[quote=Whomitmayconcer]

Maybe this will help: can you see the fundamentalist Islamists wrestling with this question?

Maybe this will help: Fundamentalist Islamists invented Zero. You know, the thing that Christians refused to believe in because that would mean there was a place that God wasn't.

[/quote]

Wrong!

http://www.andrews.edu/~calkins/math/biograph/biozero.htm

Ok, thank you.

Will you give me this much? It was the texts of the Moors which had been left behind as they "left" Spain, that introduced Zero to the Christian translators of the books?

The very fact that there is a Zed character lets us know that this is not a western word.

Further,will you accede the notion that the Christian church resisted Zero's "existence", or lack thereof due to it's implication that there was such a place where the three O's was negated? (They felt the same way about the vacuum).

Whom,

It really amazes me that you sit there and spew your discontent and hatred towards Christianity and how all Christians are idiots, yet when someone dare to speak ill of Islam, you get bent out of shape.  You can't have it both ways.  You know as well as I do that Muslims are seeking and getting preferential treatment all over world because the world is afraid that someone might be offended them and that the Muslims will blow something up because they've been upset.  http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-07-25-muslim-specia l-treatment-from-schools_N.htm This is crap.

I'll give it to you that there have been some crazy folks who have done some pretty stupid things in the name of Christ but Christian leaders are pretty quick to stand up and condem that action.  Where are any Muslim leaders standing up publicly to condem the action of the radicals?  They are not speaking out because they are afraid they will be next.

Don't criticize Christianity and turn right around and tell Christians to just take it because that's just what should be expected because allChristians are idiots.

I can only imagine that little shiney things amaze you!

I don't sit here and spew hatred toward Christianity, I defend Christianity and Catholicism in particular against all sorts of callumnies. But don't let your misperceptions get int he way of a good rant.

I don't get bent out of shape when people slam Islam. The only way I mentioned islam at all was to point out Mikebutler222's assinine attempts to parse his phrases as regards them.

I can't have it both ways? You mean (aside from the fact that you don't know what you're talking about) that there are only two choices, Xtian or Islam? FreeFromJones, there is a wide wide world beyond the teachings of organizational base godworship and spirituality (supernaturality) and reality. I see no reason to restrict my "beautiful mind" to such a pitiful range.

"You know as well as I do that Muslims are seeking and getting preferential treatment all over world because the world is afraid that someone might be offended them and that the Muslims will blow something up because they've been upset. "

And what solution do you offer? Blow them up if they don't conform to your way of thinking? That seems to sum up the Western philosophy for the past 4,000 years (not that it doesn't also sum up Middle Eastern philosophy over the same time frame)

Let me ask you this, what do you think the story of Cain and Abel is about?

"Where are any Muslim leaders standing up publicly to condem the action of the radicals?  They are not speaking out because they are afraid they will be next."

So let me untwirl this one for you there freefromjones: The whole world is afraid of the Moslems because offending them might get somebody blowed up and we accept this as something that we all know. And yet there is something wrong with the "Good" Moslems because they are afraid that they might get blowed up real good if they speak out against the other Moslems, and that just goes to show that the "good" Moslems are really bad.

Can you see how stupid this sounds? Why shouldn't "good" Moslems be afraid of being blown up? Do you then see why I have little patience for people who say stupid things like this, without even realizing that they are saying it (At least with Mikebutler222, I still believe that he says stupid things on purpose, which is a different kind of stupid).

"Don't criticize Christianity and turn right around and tell Christians to just take it because that's just what should be expected because allChristians are idiots."

Convolute much?

Further,will you accede the notion that the Christian church resisted Zero's "existence", or lack thereof due to it's implication that there was such a place where the three O's was negated? (They felt the same way about the vacuum).

I've never heard such a thing.  If it did, then I was a very long time ago.  We used to believe all kinds of stupid things.  Witches, black magic, global cooling, global warming, Lindsey Lohan is going to kick her drug habit.   

The whole world is afraid of the Moslems because offending them might get somebody blowed up and we accept this as something that we all know. And yet there is something wrong with the "Good" Moslems because they are afraid that they might get blowed up real good if they speak out against the other Moslems, and that just goes to show that the "good" Moslems are really bad.

No, this goes to show either : 

a)there are no "good" (I prefer the term moderate) Muslims and that the Islamofascists do represent the teachings of Islam as a violent death cult with which the members of the religion agree.

b) the "good"  Muslims are afraid and that makes them just as big of weenies as the apologists and surrender monkeys on the left. Possibly even worse, since they are allowing their religion to be perverted

c) the moderate Muslims are out there but they are being ignored by the media for the agenda of making Bush look bad, beating the drumbeat about Iraq (no wmds etc etc etc ad nauseum) and electing a Democrat even if it means the death of our own soldiers and encouraging future attacks on the United States.

I tend to believe B and C are the correct answers.

"If it did, then I was a very long time ago."

Yeah, obviously. It was one of those concepts that the church is so infamous for clinging to, like the geocentric nature of the universe, and the creation myth.

Folks tend to overuse these examples and ignore the other facts of the church, like the university system, like hospitals, like the fact that they hid thousands of Jews from the Nazis (Godwin doesn't apply, before anyone goes shouting). No, instead the Catholics are called Nazi sympathisers for the same reasons that "good" Muslims (I prefer to use the more incendiary term "good' in that it reflects the "there's some good negroes and then there's niggers" language of the "race hysteria" era in this country!) are expected to act against their own self interest.

As for 'c', that's just delusional! What main stream press are you talking about, and what difference does it make anyway? Are there examples popping up on Fox news nightly? Are they sweeping it under the carpet there too?

Further, has there not been enough evidence for you that the MSM absolutely abrogated its responsibility to fact check the claims of the administration leading up to and after the "war" in Iraq?

You're compressing time and forgetting things that disagree with your opinion.