anonemouse

Well, you will never vote, then. No candidate will mimic your beliefs 100%. Like TOM said, the ones that are pro-life and anti-gay rights are very often pro-rich, pro-death penalty, and anti-poor. Not exactly the candidates Jesus would support if he could vote, now are they? From what I know, the basis of Christianity (or at least Jesus) was loving your fellow man and helping the down-trodden. I think even Jesus would make compromises in today's world. Sometimes you have to choose the candidate that will help the most people, and make compromises where your other principles are concerned.

I weighed between six and seven pounds at birth, but I was also about 3 weeks early. I hit puberty the week I turned 10. Before that time, I was average. I thought I was fat, but when I look at pictures, I realize that I wasn't. My weight gain was fairly slow, but I think I eventually hit a point around 7th or 8th grade where I just started piling it on. I think I've had PCOS since I first started menstruating, so I think I eventually hit the tipping point where it was concerned. I think my PCOS made me tend to gain weight a little easier, and then I eventually got to the point where the weight I was gaining caused my PCOS to worsen, which then caused me to gain more weight. It became this vicious cycle.

I know, I'm just getting anxious because I have already been through all this once. I got all of my required seminars and support groups done, got all the clearances, got my stuff submitted to insurance, and then found out I had to switch surgeons. Now I get to go through it all again.

Having to wait for a surgeon's office to send you materials sucks when you are willing to have surgery tomorrow, if necessary. I have only been working on getting approved since the beginning of November, but I am SO ready to begin the rest of my life. I just wish everyone else that is involved with the process (surgeon #2's office, insurance, etc.) felt the same urgency. The new surgeon's office holds nutrition classes the 2nd and 4th Wednesday/Thursday of every month, and they require all surgery candidates to attend two of them. The next one is this coming Wednesday/Thursday. If I don't hear from the surgeon's office before then, I won't be able to go to it, and I'll have to wait for the ones in March. It's all just very frustrating. My original goal was to have surgery before the end of the year. Obviously, that didn't happen. Now, I'll be lucky if I can have surgery before May. I'm also wondering if I should just schedule for May, anyway, if I get approved, since I'll be out of classes then. My only other break is in the middle of March, and there is no way I'll be approved before then.

I bought a few boxes. One of my friends has a younger sister in the GS. I only bought 3 boxes, though, and most of that will probably go to waste. Not much of a cookie eater, I'm afraid.

Well, then, who says that anything else that exists had to have a creator, then? It doesn't matter what something is, whether it's plasma, physical, or something we call "spirit" for lack of a better name. If it exists, it had to have been created. You can't just say, "Well, this is an exception." Either everything that exists had to have been created or it didn't. Again, who or what created the "spirit" you call God? Bingo. I think that is why much of society has turned to religion. They need to know that there was something out there stonger than them that created the universe and themselves. They think that in order for something to exist, something had to have created it. It really is!

I was trying to point out the hypocrisy of your statement that everything had to be created. Like I said earlier, I don't necessarily think that matter and energy never had a beginning. I think that we don't understand everything yet and that we don't have the capability to understand. But, as I was trying to point out, creationists argue that all energy in the universe and all beings in the universe had to have a beginning, had to be "created". Yet, they ignore the fact that a being (or spirit, energy, whatever) capable of creating something had to have been created itself. An analogy to God is a machine that creates molds of objects. In order for that machine to exist and create those molds, someone had to create the machine. Now, another machine can construct the mold machine, but that machine must have had a creator, also. In other words, saying that there must be a creator for every living and non-living object out there leads to the foregone conclusion that there is a never-ending line of creators, because in order for something to exist to create, it must have been created itself. With that in mind, who is God's God?

But this all-powerful being or spirit or whatever you want to call it is able to create. Anything that is able to create has a creator. To say that the same principles controlling the creation of other things (created=creator) doesn't apply is a cop-out, in my opinion. Either God is there or he isn't. If he is, he had to have been created by someone or something. If he isn't, then science is right. To me, the whole argument is ironic. Creationists argue that all the beings and components of the universe in existance had to be created, all the while ignoring that something had to create their creator. It doesn't matter if God is a spirit or an actual living being, the energy (or whatever you want to call it) that created us had to have been created. But you've said that the Bible is not subject to change or interpretation. Shouldn't that "proof" be constant?

But it still exists. And, by your argument, everything that exists has to have a creator. So who (or what) created it? To me, you explanation is no more valid than my explanation was to you.

But logic can also be misleading. When sailors would sail away hundreds of years ago, they would sometimes never return. People back then thought it was logical that they fell off the edge of the sea or were eaten by sea monsters.

Why does something have to have a beginning? Can it not just exist? I personally think that there is an explanation out there for everything, but those explanations may not be within our grasp. That's one reason I think religion is so universal. We, as thinking animals, need explanations for what we see and religion gives us that. I think www.talkorigins.org explains it best: If you think about it, by saying that everything must have a creator, you also must ask the question "Who created the creator?". Are there successively "higher" creators out there?

Believe me, I had an open mind about it. For a time, I actively searched for something that would help be believe, but I couldn't find it. I think being able to believe would make life much easier. If someone asks what religion you are and you tell them that you don't have one, that you're an atheist, they get this look of vague (or sometimes outright) disgust on their face. For a long time, I wondered what was so different about me that I could read the same passage that a friend read and not see the "rightness" that they saw. It's just that nothing I read or heard about God ever resonated as "real" or "right" with me. Eventually I came to the conclusion that maybe I wasn't finding something to believe in because it wasn't there, at least not for me.

I think you need to find a new surgeon. This group sounds like they don't have the empathy needed to give you the support you will need. Seriously, look at finding another surgeon. You may have to wait a few months, but I think you would be better off than staying with this group.

I guess I just mean that we are not born with the belief that there is a God. That belief has to be taught to us. Some of us just aren't susceptible to the teaching, IMO. I think the people that are susceptible to the teaching were born with the "God gene", and are more open to spiritual thought and inquiry.

Yeah, but if we keep going, we'll wind up where we just were. But, I'll indulge you. I've never believed in God, because I just haven't. I don't really know how to explain it. Even as a child, it seemed like a made-up story. It never resonated with me like it does with some people. Nothing I have learned in the years since then has made it seem more realistic. To me, it's just a story. I have never seen or heard of any evidence that would corroborate a higher power. I guess I just lack the gene that helps me believe in spiritual things. To me, God is no more believable than aliens, Bigfoot, the Easter Bunny, Santa, or the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. To that same end, I can't comprehend why people do believe in God. It literally makes no sense to me.

Yep! We agree!

And if you want to challenge evolution, you need to support it with scientific evidence, not the Bible, not ideas, not feelings or opinions. So can we come to an agreement? I will not question your interpretation of the Bible, as long as you don't try to question evolutionary theory without having supporting scientific evidence. Otherwise, we are at an impasse.

No, I don't challenge your knowledge of scripture. How many times can I say it? Do I have to spell it out for you yet again? I DO NOT CHALLENGE YOUR KNOWLEDGE OF SCRIPTURE! I have said it again and again. I do, however, challenge your interpretation of the message they contain. I am not the only person here that does that. Many of the Christians that have posted to this thread also challenged your interpretation. When you get so many people challenging your interpretation, I would consider the possibility that you are wrong!

So, wait. You like what he says (I assume, since you were the one that posted the link) when you think he is agreeing with you, but he's wrong all of a sudden when he says something you don't like? Methinks you should do your research, Ron, and stop posting links to material that you haven't read (as evidenced by this link and the two racist links). Yes, Google is your friend, but you have a responsibility to actually look at the source before you post it (or at least, you should).

Ron, I wouldn't go around admitting that you know not of what you speak. Passively accepting scientists is what gets people into trouble, on both sides. That is the difference between you and me. I have done my homework. I've researched both sides of the argument. I know what evidence both sides cite, and the explanations they use to back up their theories. You, on the other hand, have just found a couple of scientists that spout the theory you like and left it at that. You haven't bothered to examine the other side of the equation. I'm sorry if it makes you mad, but your uneducated opinion is less than bunk to me. Before you start yelling (again), I don't call it uneducated because you are not a scientist. I call it uneducated because you are willfully ignorant of the other side of the argument. You don't have to have a degree in something to be able to discuss it intelligently. If you want evidence of that, scrounge up the evolution thread where I discussed the theory with Gadgetlady. Gadgetlady isn't a scientist, but she's had the forethought to research and actually know the argument and evidence of the other side before she came to her conclusion. Her opinion, I respect, simply because she has researched it.

The difference is that the Bible is, in some ways, subjective. There are different ways to interpret what it says, I think you know that. Otherwise, why are there so many Christian sects that believe differently, when they all study the Bible? I don't fight you on scripture. You know the scripture. I've simply stated that your inference of the messages in the Bible may not be the only one. Science is competely different. To say that we shouldn't follow science just because it changes is a cop-out used by those who find certain scientific theories that they don't agree with. Do you beleive in gravity? Do you believe in the law of motion? If you don't, you better not get into that car of yours that was built by science. You don't believe in evolution because you don't like what it means about your faith if scientists are right. Not because there is a lack of evidence. No one chooses to believe in creationism over evolution because of a preponderance of scientific evidence. They choose to believe in creationism, because they choose to.

I would maybe think about keeping the band. You never know, there might be an alternate treatment for your other condition in the future, and you can stop the one that won't let you lose weight.

Yeah, I can't justify screwing up my nice paint for a $2.00 bumper sticker, no matter how clever it is. Plus I live in Kentucky. What I want to put on it probably wouldn't go over well, and I like my car too much to risk it.

Dr. Neumaier also says this: Emphasis mine.

Ron, it bugs me when people like you challenge me over something they have no comprehension about or even a basic understanding of what they are challenging. I don't challenge you over website design, do I? That's because you know more about it than I do. I'm impressed with myself because I actually have evidence to back myself up? Uh huh. Um, Ron, that guy believes in evolution. If anything, he's a Christian evolutionist. Thus validating what I said earlier: