₦airaland Forum

I have a strong urge to put god to the test. And why not? Everyday millions of people put god to the test by making demands on god in the form of prayers. The course of life continues to unfold in exactly the same way it it has been for billions of years, with some events attributed to gods of one kind or the other. But is he really there listening to these prayers and deciding which to respond to favourably and which to ignore. OK, let me, an atheist, put him to the test just like theist, by offering the following prayer;

Oh, dear God, Father in heaven, you are the most high and worthy of praise and respect. I prayer from the bottom of the being, dear Father, that I may not and never win the grand million-pound lottery. In Jesus name, I prayer. Amen.


How do you think god will respond to this prayer?

1) If he becomes indignant that I don't believe in him, then he is not going to answer my prayer. If he does not answer my prayer, this means I shall win the grand million-pound lottery. Great financial result for me.

2) If he chooses to answer my prayer, in which case I never win the lottery. I would be no better or worse off than I am now.

Which way do you think god would go? This is a great prayer - why don't you guys give it a go?

justcool:
@huxely
Ha ha ha ha ha I couldn't stop laughing after reading your last post. (Please don't take this as mockery)
Obviously your definition of omnipotence, omniscience and omnibenevolence are very different from mine. The gift of free will is part of Gods omnibenevolence. But this gift requires that you let the creature decide what to do. If He gives us free will and then also knows exactly what we will do with it, then this is not free will. In that case we were predestined, but this is not so; we chose our own destiny. Therefore God does not know before hand what will will do, that's why He sends prophets to warn us to do the right thing.
I know you will say: "If so then He doesn't know everything and therefore He is not omniscience." But His omniscience lies in the fact that he knows the consequence of all our decisions.
Therefore add "free will" to your equation and you will see the solution. The cause of all evil lies in man ability to decide--free will-- which man has used wrongly.
Now you will ask. "why did God give man free will?" But here is the answer: without free will we will not be humans. Free will is an intergal part of the human spirit. It is what makes man a man.

However, thanks for sharing your opinion.

Laughing at my views does not make yours right, does it. Since when did mockery become a valid method of intellectual argumentation?

You said my understanding of the three omni's are different from your. Can you act maturely and offer what you understand by these words?

For your arguments to stand you have to offer the following;

1) Provide evidence and reasons why free-will trumps the security from diseases, natural disasters to the extend that god would left millions of his beloved children perish for the price of being able to make one's own decisions

2) If god had created us without free-will and made the knowledge of free-will unattainable to us, we would never have known we were missing free-will. Just like an earthling has no experience of life in another universe, we do not miss the experience of life in a different universe.

3) Do non-humans have free-will? How do you explain diseases, death and natural disasters many billions of years before human came onto the scene?

Waiting with bated breath for your answers, or is it too much to ask?

seeklove:
@huxely
how come you did not reply justcol's first post where he asked you questions. I will like to see your counter agurement, or do you agree with him? Did he convince you??
Maybe, you are now a beliver

I did not respond to Justcool's question because, in essence they have been addresses in my earlier post on this subject. What a shame he and you failed to see how that was addressed.  Be that  as it may, let me address them all over again;

@ Huxley
There is nothing that I can add. m_nwankwo has answered your question. I completely agree with m_nwankwo. I will only give crude analogies for the sake of understanding:

(1)If I crash my car against a wall. Due to the impact, the car will compress against me and kill me.
Would I accuse the car maker of building a killing machine?

The god you posit and believe in is claimed to have the following attributes - omnipotence, omniscience and omnibenevolence.  An omnipotent and omniscient being should be capable of doing everything and should have current and fore knowledge of every act or event. 

That being said, is it possible for an omnipotent being to design a world in which there are feature he did not deliberately intend?

Did god intend for imperfection to enter into the world?  If you agree that he is omnipotent, could he have designed a world devoid of imperfections. Was he aware of the potential impact of these imperfection?  If he was, and did not take steps to elliminate them, then he cannot also be said to be omnibenevolent.  Do you see the contradiction in these attributes of god?  The fallacy you are committing is that of anthropomorphism - you are giving your god human characters and in the human world everything that appears designed is in fact designed by humans.  The design you see in nature is only apparent.  If nature was really the product of the design of some superior being, would you not expect that being to take steps to ensure that imperfections ( illness, catastrophes, earthquakes, viruses, mutations, etc) are not part of his design?  To use your examples, do you know of any ethically responsible engineer who would design and artefact and deliberately design faults?  What would you think of such an engineer?

Within reason you could accuse the maker of a car for gross negligence if they were aware of a fault in their design but did not take steps to correct it, but let their customers out with the car. If it can be proven that the accident was the result of negligence on the part of the maker, then they are usually legally culpable for such acts.  By our very nature humans CANNOT make an un-crashable car. If we could, we would.  Can god make an un-crashable car?

(2)If I let my clothings get so dirty by dragging it into gutter and flit. And when I catch a skin disease by wearing such a dirty cloth.
Would I accuse the tailor of making a disease-ridden cloth?

What if your clothing was INCAPABLE of getting dirty and INCAPABLE of being infected?  What if there were no germs and bateria and virus to infect you clothes?  Would that have been a better design?

(3)If I put jet-engine oil in my car instead of the specified gasoline, when I start the car, it might explode and kill me.
Would I accuse the car maker of building an explosive?

What if the car uis capable of running on just about anything, from water, soil, air, petrol, deisel, etc. Would that be a better design?  Is that within the capability of your god?

Red hot enlightenment led me to believe in one fewer god
by The Age

http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/red-hot-enlightenment-led-me-to-believe-in-one-fewer-god-20080722-3jas.html

Red hot enlightenment led me to believe in one fewer god

Catherine Deveny

Believe what you will, but don't expect me to stop prodding you about why you're religious.

WASN'T it hilarious how World Youth Day was an attempt to make Catholicism appear all modern and trendy, but what it achieved was to highlight how deluded and anachronistic the religion is?

The cavernous gap between the fresh-faced young teenagers and the old blokes in frocks and party hats was never more apparent than when the words "pilgrim" and "texting" were used in the same sentence. Repeatedly.

I had to laugh when I heard that "Ratzinger Rules" had been spray-painted on the Hyde Park War Memorial. And when I saw pilgrims chanting, "Jesus! Jesus! Jesus! Oi! Oi! Oi!" I can't help wondering how the teenage pilgrims coped with their hormones and no condoms and what the consequences will be in a few weeks' time.

The fusion of wild youth and religious rapture is a complicated reality. A complicated reality I assume was responsible for the GOD ROCKS! graffiti I saw on an old stone church yesterday.

I don't give a stuff what people believe in, but it won't stop me poking at it or prodding it. Why should religion be any exemption? Telling me I'm going to hell won't bother me because I have the Flying Spaghetti Monster, the Invisible Pink Unicorn and Bertrand Russell's Teapot in my heart. Google them if you are in the market for some red hot enlightenment.

Over the past couple of weeks Catholic-bashing has been elevated to the level of an extreme sport. Put your hand down at the back there, I'm allowed to. I spent every Sunday for the first 18 years of my life sitting in a medieval torture chamber listening to a bloke bang on about his imaginary friend who did magic tricks. Then the next 20 years massaging, editing and pruning the brainwashing into something that fit until suddenly I woke up one day and realised I was an atheist.

I wasn't searching for anything. I wasn't dabbling or questioning. I wasn't having any kind of spiritual breakdown. I just opened my eyes one day, looked around and realised that I had once been standing in a house and one by one the walls had collapsed and there was no longer a house there. I was standing out in the open. It was very liberating.

Funny though. For a while I would go to pray and then remind myself that I didn't believe. These days I send out wishes. I know, just as crazy.

I question some of my progressive, believing mates about if they believe in Noah's ark, the Immaculate Conception, Adam and Eve, the Resurrection, even heaven, and they squirm a little and try to change the subject. They get vague, defensive and then start muttering something about faith and mystery and a power of love that unites us all.

Sure, it would be easy to torture them, but they're adults and it's their life. I just can't see why it's so difficult to have a rigorous discussion about it. I feel no need to convert them. I just want them to know that if you are brave enough to place your hand through the invisible electric fence there's a bigger world beyond.

It's been a revelation to me a year since my "epiphany". I feel as if I'm walking through life with the blinkers off. Suddenly all the religious mumbo-jumbo jumps out as so bonkers. Wearing certain things, eating certain things, mumbling certain things at certain times so some imaginary friend will let you into a club in the sky when you die. I want to do my living now, thanks. I'm not afraid of dying. I'm afraid of never having lived.

There is a school of thought that suggests atheists should not call themselves atheists but just say we apply rational thought to everything and religion is no exception.

As Sam Harris, author of The End Of Faith, puts it, "I think that 'atheist' is a term that we do not need, in the same way that we don't need a word for someone who rejects astrology.

"We simply do not call people 'non-astrologers'. All we need are words like 'reason' and 'evidence' and 'common sense' and 'bullshit' to put astrologers in their place, and so it could be with religion."

I don't care what people believe in, but I do care that religion impacts on political discourse, public policy and that it stunts the ability of people to think for themselves and question. And that it kills people and causes suffering. But most of all I care that the invisible electric fences that are wired in the minds of children brainwashed by religion are difficult to remove. And impossible if you don't even know they're there.

A quote attributed to Stephen F. Robert sums it up for me: "We are both atheists, I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours."

Peace be with you.

Is this controversial or is it a straight-forward affair?

Does anyone need a reminder about the Camel and the Eye of the Needle?

Udyro:
@Femi 1
Can u provide one Bible portioni that u feel, contradict each other?



anywhere, thanx 4 contributing. but i'm waiting for your answers anytime.

If you have been reading your bible and not come across myriads of contradiction, then we can draw two conclusions from that;

1) Your coverage is rather limited
2) You have problems of comprehension

Pastor AIO:
LUCIFER. Isn't that the planet venus as worshipped by the Italians/romans prior to christianity. I am led to believe that when venus is the bright morning star it was called lucifer by the Romans, meaning lightbringer as he rose shortly before the Sun rose.

Please where does it mention lucifer in the bible as the devil?

There is someone else in the bible also called the bright morning star. Any guesses, anyone?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucifer

Sorry to add to the derailment of your thread Huxley but I think the situation is already past repairing

I suppose in some kind of way, it has not been derailed as you guys are battle over who/how the "apparent "imperfections came about from your various theological traditions.

Once you have agreed on the theological source of imperfection, why don't you juxtapose that against the naturalistic position.

I shall have to go really mad before I would put hit my children in anyway. From a very early age, I have taught my older son to reason things out and he is making great strides at become a good critical thinker. He is showing great signs at reading people's emotions too. Each time I point to him that a certain behaviour is unwelcome, he understands it immediately and never does that again. My philosophy is to try and arrive at decision with his full participation in the thinking behind the decision. I never drop it until he shows sign that he has really understood what I mean.

I very rarely shout at him. On the rare occasions that I do, I make sure that I later apologise. If I don't apologise in time, he will come and ask that I apologise, which I am ever so please to do.

I see a lot of parents shout at their kids, call them a sorts of names, treating them like they are non-human. If you treat a child/children like this is it a surprise that at some point only the rod seems like a solution?

It is sign of parental failure when the rod becomes a solution. It means you would have neglected you duties as a parent at the earlier ages of your child.

mazaje:
Religion is equated to morality in Nigeria and most part of the developing world, when i told my mum that most people in Finland do not believe in god the first thing that came out of her mouth was, how then can they be good? Most Nigerians equate religion with morality and its just so sad.

A whole generation of people have been conditioned to think that religion (God) = morality. What a shame religions gets its raison d'etre by claim to offer what it assuredly does not.

IDINRETE:
;huxley huxley, your own 2much o your own 2much

beware so that the holy spirit will not strike you down o

Well, u know oh. A di educate the masses weh them no get proper education before.

Lord Raglan came up with this framework for assessing mythological heroes from the past. He contends that such figures as Zeus, Jesus, Appollo conform to several of the following;

(1) The hero's mother is a royal virgin;
(2) His father is a king, and
(3) Often a near relative of the mother, but
(4) The circumstances of his conception are unusual, and
(5) He is also reputed to be the son of a god.
(6) At birth an attempt is made, usually by his father or his maternal grandfather, to kill him, but
(7) He is spirited away, and
(8 -) Reared by foster-parents in a far country.
(9) We are told nothing of his childhood, but
(10) On reaching manhood he returns or goes to his future kingdom.
(11) After a victory over the king and/or a giant, dragon, or wild beast,
(12) He marries a princess, often the daughter of his predecessor, and
(13) Becomes king.
(14) For a time he reigns uneventfully and
(15) Prescribes laws, but
(16) Later he loses favour with the gods and/or his subjects, and
(17) Is driven from the throne and the city, after which
(18) He meets with a mysterious death,
(19) Often at the top of a hill.
(20) His children, if any, do not succeed him.
(21) His body is not buried, but nevertheless
(22) He has one or more holy sepulchres.

--Lord Raglan, The Hero: A Study in Tradition, Myth, and Drama


How well do you think Jesus would score on this framework? Ok, let's compare him to other mythological heroes of the past;



[table]
[tr][td]Hero [/td][td]Score[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Oedipus [/td][td]22[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Thesus [/td][td]20[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Jesus [/td][td]19[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Romulus [/td][td]17[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Hercules [/td][td]17[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Persus [/td][td]16[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Zeus [/td][td]15[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Jason [/td][td]15[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Robin Hood [/td][td]13[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Apollo [/td][td]11[/td][/tr]
[/table]


You see, Jesus scores quite high on this index. Where do you think you local traditional heroes score? Give a go!
References;
http://www.amazon.com/Study-Folklore-Alan-Dundes/dp/0138589445

Ujujoan:
Boy, aren’t we getting a little bit paranoid here. Or am I just crediting you with more intelligence than you deserve? Even a baby can differentiate between ACTUAL HAPPENINGS, INSPIRATIONAL STORIES and MIRACLES; and you can’t?? I'm for you!!

Oh, let not my palpable lack of intelligence be the subject of the discussion. That would be a great distraction from the subject matter.

All I was asking for was the criteria for distinguishing [b]ACTUAL HAPPENINGS, INSPIRATIONAL STORIES and MIRACLES[/b]and how a man of little intelligence like myself could tell which from which?

Can you apply those criteria to the following?

1) The virgin birth
2) The crucifiction
3) Resurrection
4) The second-coming

m_nwankwo:
You did not torch a sore point. Indeed there is no sore point.

Hello m_nwankwo. Nice to see you back. BTW, pardon my little jibe about the "sore point". I am just a little mischievous sometimes.

m_nwankwo:
I use science because that is the only thing you seem to accept. Why should I give a spiritual evidence when you do not believe in the existence of spiritual things. My intention is to discuss with you on your own terms. Besides, I work with genes.

Is there such a thing as Spiritual Evidence, or is that an oxymoron ? If there is, can one lay Spiritual Evidence side-by-side factual (Scientific ) Evidence and compare them for points of correspondence? I would like to see some examples of Spiritual Evidence, if you may.

Since you work with genes, what is you explanation for the some apes having 23 pairs of chromosomes but humans having only 22 pairs, with Chromosome number 2 being a fusion of two previously single chromosomes?

m_nwankwo:
Science can analyse physical things and since the blue print of physical or biological life is encoded in our genes, it is possible to resolve this question of the the physical origin of mutations if the required specimens are available. If one can get DNA from the first Adam or Eve, several generations after them down to the present living humans, a profile of all genome of all these samples will provide enough evidence wheather or not these deleterious mutations were present in the first adam and eve or that they were acquired in the course of time. If these mutations are not present in the first human inhabitants of the earth, then your apparent linking of birth defects to the creator will be bazeless.

The fact is could god have created living things without the capability of mutation? Yes or NO?

BTW, mutation simply means change and by that definition there do not have to have been there from the start in your Adam and Eve. The change may not have been there from the start, BUT they had the ability to change. Why did god not put a stop to that ability to change?

Mutations, by their nature are random and there is no knowing in advance whether the mutation will be beneficial or deleterious. There just happen and Natural Selection works of the outcome of the mutation. Over many successive generation if the mutation did confer an advantage, natural selection drive the organism in the direction of that advantage.

I am currently in the middle of reading a good book about all this, called Darwinian Detectives, by Norman A Johnson.
http://www.amazon.com/Darwinian-Detectives-Revealing-Natural-History/dp/0195306759/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1216816132&sr=8-1

If you can grab hold of a copy, you will not be disappointed.

BTW, how long ago did Adam & Eve live? Are you suggesting that there was no diseases, death before Adam&Eve committed their sin? What accounts for the many billion of species that have gone extinct presumably before A&E? For your theory to hold any water A&E would have to have been the first creatures on earth, or near-abouts. Without going too far into the past, I would like to see evidence that humans lived before dinosaurs.

m_nwankwo:
Spiritually, I know that God created the human body without defects and all birth at that time were painless and the children were healthy. Indeed at that time there are no diseases. Diseases and deleterious mutations came into existence with the introduction of sin by man, that is with the misapplication of the neutral power of God by man, an abuse of his God given free will.

Where is your evidence for that statement? How did you come to know that? Spiritual and/or Scientific evidence will be much appreciated.

What do you think could be the most egregious sin, a sin for which there is no forgiveness? Could it be the massacre of innocent women and children, genocide, ethnic cleansing, or terrorism? Well, no. According to the bible you could be as bad as Hitler, Pol Pot, Stalin, Constantine, Charlemagne etc, and still expect forgiveness and passage into eternal life. Let's turn to Luke 12: 10 and Mark 3: 29;

Luke 12

8 I tell you, whoever acknowledges me before men, the Son of Man will also acknowledge him before the angels of God.
9 But he who disowns me before men will be disowned before the angels of God.
10 And everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven.

Mark 3

28 "I tell you the truth, all the sins and blasphemies of men will be forgiven them.
29 But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; he is guilty of an eternal sin."


Well, let me make this absolutely clear - I deny and blaspheme the holy spirit.

justcool:
Of course the story is inspirational, meant to give hope to the broken hearted.
But of course it cannot be a real happening or based on an actual happening. If the writers claim that it actually happened then they are liars, except if the boy's mother was delusional.
Sometimes difficult events drive people to the delusion of seeing things, sometimes it helps to comfort them. I guess it is the brain's way of helping the sorrow- stricken person deal with the situation.

But such things are not possible -- they don't eat in heaven, and no creature can sit on God's knee, neither can any creature dine with Jesus who is in the Divine plane.

If this story is apocryphal as you seem to suggest but has the value of inspiring and giving hope to people, could it also be that the following stories are also apocryphal;

1) The virgin birth
2) The crucifiction
3) Resurrection
4) The second-coming

Humankind invented story-telling as a means of giving hope and finding their place in an unpleasant world. The bible is just one such narratives.

Everyone who is alive today knows what it is like to not exist, essentially to be dead. Given that the age of the universe is currently estimated at about 13.8 billion years, there has been 13.8 billion years when we (no one) existed. Our current existence is but an aberration to the grand universal scheme of things. With each second, the universe is getting older and at some point it will be 100 billion years old, 1 trillion years old, etc. At these time horizon, it almost certain that there will be no place called "the earth" in which humans inhabit, given that our sun is set to run out of energy and self-destruct in about 6 billion years and that our galaxy (the Milky Way) is fixed on a collision course with our galactic neighbour, Andromeda, in about 20 billion years. Galactic collision and star explosion a dime a dozen in the universe, there is no reason why our planet, sun and galaxy would be spare from these events. Life as we know it would be only a very distance memory, that is, if atoms, electron and neutron can have memories.

Recent cosmological measurements show the universe expanding are a greater rate. Basically, the universe is accelerating away into nothingness. Given the accelerating universe, cosmologist predict that the will come a point when all matter in space will be stretched out and very thinly diffused that gravity will no longer be capable of holding matter together. All matter will be converted into atom, then to electron, neutron, and then to "nothing". Essentially, matter would have been converted back into energy according to Einstein popular equation E = mc². From energy matter came, to energy matter shall return. This stage of nothingness is estimated at about 100 trillion years in the future.

How does all of the foregoing compare with our miniscule moment of existence? Let's conservatively assume humans will exist on the planet until the sun's demise, ie in 6 billions years. Compared to 100 trillion, this is but a tiny fraction of time available for matter in the universe. Basically we shall be in non-existence for a great deal longer than we have been before.

Are you panicked by this very long period of non-existence? Why would you be? We had non-existed already for 13.7 billions years, yet we do not have regrets about that.

Reference

The End of Cosmology, an accelerating universe wipes out traces of its own origins, Lawrence M Krause and Robert J Scherrer, Scientific America, March 2008, page 35 - 41.

Oh, do they have natural bodily urges like hunger in heaven? How about other urges, like sexual ones?



Hands up all those who believe that this story is true and not a fiction from the Christian press?

SeanT21:
There are many reasons that contribute to those "perfect designs".

Would you care to share them with us?

Some interesting books about the state of Nigeria today:

http://www.amazon.com/Culture-Corruption-Everyday-Deception-Discontent/dp/0691136475/ref=pd_sim_b_1

http://www.amazon.com/This-House-Has-Fallen-Nigeria/dp/0813340454/ref=pd_sim_b_2

huxley:
Raises an interesting question - Why would you want to explore this with science? What is special about science that you think it is the appropriate tool to investigate this? Is science capable of revealing the truth about the origins of such mutations?

Did I touch a sore point with this comment?

m_nwankwo:
I did not say that you said so. I am sorry if it reads as to imply that you said so. I just asked a question. The origin of the deleterious mutations can be scientifically explored if the genes of the first human inhabitants of the earth (first Adams and Eves) are profilled. Unfortunately, there are no known existing specimen for such profiling.

Raises an interesting question - Why would you want to explore this with science? What is special about science that you think it is the appropriate tool to investigate this? Is science capable of revealing the truth about the origins of such mutations?

Pastor AIO:
Truth is Fact like Chalk is Cheese.
No! I disagree. Facts are relative but not Truth. The experience of Truth can be subjective in the sense that it cannot be demonstrated to another.
I get your point but you've made a small contradiction. 1)Truth is a universal interpretation. and 2)truth also must be . . . not subject to interpretation.

I would put what I think you are saying like this: No matter which way you look at it, when you look at it, or perspective from which you look at it, regardless of Conditionality, Truth remains the same.

The moment you interpret it according to a certain perspective it ceases to be the Truth. Various perspective will always come up with various interpretations of the truth. Yet truth remains integral, constant and beyond the interpretations that our brains can form.

Some concrete examples would be useful. For instance, were I to be asked, "What is the truth about XXXX?", I could say ;

XXXX is blue
XXXX is 10 years old
XXXX is 10 meters high.

These attributes constitute the truths about XXXX.

So, some concrete examples will help illuminate your discussions. Waiting in anticipation.

m_nwankwo:
Have you evidence that the deleterious mutation existed in the first human body?

Let's assume I said that (which I did not), the fact that they exist now, means there exist. How did they come to exist? Was it an intentional process or an accidental one?

m_nwankwo:
How does deleterious mutations arise in the human genes?

Why do "deleterious mutations" exist at all, rather that not existing?. Would it have been a better thing for mankind if these deleterious mutations had not been made to exist?

m_nwankwo:
Is the occurence of mutation in the human genes the same as the creation of the human body?

Can a non-created, non-designed entity result from a created and designed entity?

m_nwankwo:
How is God responsible for the birth defects shown in the video?

Who's responsible for creating humans?

Take a look at the work of the great creator. Satan could not have done better.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6CjeF51CfE&feature=related

Enjoy?

Can you thing of any Truths which is not about something? For instance, to speak of truth in a meaningful way it has got to be related to some other entity;

Examples:

The truth about human origins, the truth about the physical nature of the stars, the truth about the age of the earth, the truth about what causes cancer, etc, etc.

Now do we have a systematic epistemic methodology for arriving at reliable truths about such entities?

According to the narratives of the bible, the earth is only about 10000 years old. If that were true, how would you account for petroleum, dinosaurs, the Grand canyon, etc. Is the bible then a source of truths or falsehoods?

Pastor AIO:
The Salesman will not be able to sell his perfume if he didn't convince you that with it you had better hope of getting the girl you want. "oh yeah, spray this on and your latter will be better than your former".

Hope is what keeps everything going in this temporal place. Nothing works without hope.

Oh yeah and FEAR too. "Don't spray this and you won't ever find love . . . EVER!"

What a shame I did not know this in my youth. All the time I had "wasted" developing and honing sophisticated chat-up lines could have been saved by a simply trip to the perfume shop. If this is really true, then how superficial the ladies must be.

Sorry Pastor, I know what you mean, but could not resist a little jibe.

Utter rubbish

shuppie:
i believe in punishment, routine and structure,

What constitute punishment to you? Did you mean physically hurting a child with a smack from your hand, a belt, a piece of wood, or metal?