TheInspiration

I'm sure any Aussies here are laughing at us being worried over these creatures we get over here.

That should be the absurdity of a religious belief, not all religious beliefs. It annoys me that it's always religion in general that's absurd - as if they're all as bad and as false as each other.

Seen some more huge spiders in my house today - must be the time of year if lots of people are finding huge house spiders.

Oh my fucking god same thing happend to me last night.. was just getting ready to shower, usually put the towel on the radiator before i go and shower so its warm, and when i got the bathroom i lifted me arm up and seen something on the bottom of my t shirt and just thought its some ribbon and when i looked properly there were two on the one on my towel and one on my arm.... a fucking shit me self and started shouting mammmm hellppp spiderrr lmfao...i am fuckin shit scared of them Edit: It was two of them that craig has taken a pic of My sister was going on about this massive spider crawling all over my towel and so I skillfully removed it before it hid somewhere and would be on the verge of giving me a surprise next time I use the towel. About half an hour later there was another big spider there which my dad disposed of. Then this morning my sister started askiing how sure I was about getting rid of the spider as there was another huge spider in the bathroom. This is annoying me - they must be breeding quickly.

I support England but I'm not particularly bothered how they do. Is that a terrible thing? They annoy me too much.

Actually all siders found in the UK are venoumous, its just that their teeth can't penetrate human skin. Ah yes, I knew that. Interesting to note the biggest spiders (tarantulas) with the biggest fangs haven't caused too much trouble to humans. These beasts are mean:

I know the "evidence" usually given is dubious at best - it really does just leave the gospels. In all honesty I think there probably was a preacher around at the time who may have been "good". What happened to him and what he taught in a factual sense I doubt very much (especially the later added resurrection bits(different style of writing apparently)). Levticus: 20:13 If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them. Always quoted by bigots on the issue. Its a lovely chapter that - if you have sex with a woman during her period you should be cast out of your town. It also has the classic "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" - the justification of hundreds of murders by the church of love. Do you think they wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for religion? Granted people have acted appallingly in the past to homosexuals and "witches", but Leviticus was written at a time when "witchcraft" and homosexual behaviour was commonplace and many were disgusted by it. In any case what Jesus said is more relevant than what we find in Leviticus. As for the evidence for Jesus, I'm reading The Case For Christ which has been interesting so far and I've already read Why Can You Trust The Bible? by Amy Orr-Ewing, which explains why we can rely on the Bible and answers other common queries surrounding it. I would recommend them. I know we can't exactly "prove" Jesus was the son of a higher being, but we can't really "know" anything several decades into the past. There are thousands more manuscripts that support the New Testament than the writings of Plato, Socrates, Aristotle etc, which were written not too long before.

Apart from the heavily politicised gospels there is none. Have you studied/read about the issue much? No matter how much evidence for Jesus is found, scpetics will carry on asking for more and more in my view. Also how are the Leviticus quotes particularly nasty?

When have science and religion combined together well out of interest? Historically, religion has usually opposed science, right back to the days of Copernicus and through to Darwin. More recently of course, the major 'sensible' churches have realised the futility of their position and have reluctantly accepted that only science can describe the physical world we live in. At the same time, in the interest of self preservation, the bible has become a metaphor and religion is the domain of the super natural that supposedly can't be tested by science. The vast majority of scientists I know are not religiously inclined, most have been bought up as christians but realise, whilst not being fundamentally incompatible with christianity, the two don't marry up at all well. The christian scientists I do know are an enigma to me. The only explanation for their beliefs that I can see is that they have decompartmentalised their minds into rational and irrational sections. Their motives imo stem from comfort in some case and fear in other cases, such is the strengh of religious brain washing. Some I suspect don't believe at all but do it for family committments - my Dad fits this type (a converted catholic chemist). Science attempts to describe the physical world. Why can it not be a creation used to sustain the world? A lot of Christians perceive it that way - in fact many great scientists from the past have been Christian, many who even took the Bible literally. Lots of people use science as a means of arguing for a god/creator of some sort. Lee Strobel's book The Case For a Creator combines a range of ideas from interviews with different people to point out evidence for a creator. Intelligent Design, whatever you think about, only disagrees with atheism and doesn't attempt to prove evolution is false, though it is wrongly assumed to. I think there's plenty of evidence for design in this world. I know it's all very well to say assuming there is a God explaining a certain scientific law is effectively giving up hope of finding new answers, but I don't see why there has to not be a God when it makes sense to think that way - we may never find any explanations for order, complexity and purpose in the world without going outside the universe. I'm aware people often talk about intelligent design being an "argument from ignorance" but I don't think that's quite right when we're talking about a God who can be believed in through personal experiences and personal relationships and the evidence for Christ. I know it's all very well to point out disease and mental disabilities in humans can't be the creation of an all-loving God - it instead questions why God does it. It doesn't discount other evidence for a creator in this universe. It merely asks questions.

In addition in plenty of cases religion and science combine together well. It's not always a case of them being direct opposities. This is where people who claim that religious people will dread the progression of science as if it's tearing religion apart.

Spider's in this country are all harmless. I just don't like those massive house spiders as they creep me out, even if they aren't going to hurt me.

just chucked a massive one out of the bathroom that I found on my towel.

How is Ameobi any worse than Heskey? I don't think either are particularly bad, but not England standard players. Ameobi at least has played alongside Heskey recently. Instead however, they should be looking at young fresh talent like Agbonlahor, for example.

Tbh, I don't really use the term "race" as everybody is still a human - we're not different species. In years to come humans will gradually progress towards looking the same. People like to split up three main "races" - white, black and east Asian. However, they all flow into each other. White people are Caucasians, which includes middle-eastern people who aren't too dissimilar to Pakistanis, who aren't too dissimilar to Indians. Nepalis are then a mix between Indians and Chinese people. North Africans are like middle-Eastern people and they gradually become darker as you go south until they become recognised as black etc etc. Sorry, I'm not saying anything too exciting.

I think I should make clear that I don't believe in Christianity simply because I live in a country where the biggest religion is Christianity and that I've had a Christian upbringing. People generally come to Christ through their own experience - something that is supposed to not happen in Islam. This is why Christianity deals with a personal relationship with God and not merely just a belief. If the only reason to believe was the country I'm in it wouldn't surprise me to think I could well be an atheist now, being a pretty sceptical guy myself. As it stands I think there is a lot of evidence for Christianity in different forms. The Bible clearly states God will respond if people come to him, which is what atheists aren't prepared to do. You make a fair point about different countries, however the Bible again makes a case that you can still get eternal life even if you don't follow Christianity. Otherwise, it would be quite tough for those in Saudi Arabia. As for your point about an unequal world, sadly I doubt God designed it that way, yet he gives free will if you go by the Bible and that is how Egypt for example, was invaded and became an Islamic country. I accept you have made points which I've partly responded to with my point about skeptics/atheists refusing to come to God, but I'm not going to deny there's some issues we can't answer. This doesn't however mean the religion is stupid. Certainly not right now can we say that.

How is it the root of all evil? Look at all the evil caused in the previous century - I don't think Hitler, Stalin, Mao etc were influenced by any religion. Hitler wasn't fond of the Jews like it has to be said. I know what you're getting at tho. True, he didn't like Jews much and so you can't really deny the Jews had some role in WWII. However it's a bit harsh to go round calling them the "root" of the evil we witnessed then, which is what certain people are implying if they really think religion itself is the root of all evil.

How is it the root of all evil? Look at all the evil caused in the previous century - I don't think Hitler, Stalin, Mao etc were influenced by any religion - at least no religion of their own.

I accept that premise but still haven't seen a good explanation for such an acceptance - the mass extinctions and dead ends for our ancestors in our past suggest to me a very "disjointed" plan at best. I think even if it were the case thats a long way from the all powerful God most believers define. On the ratiionality of Christianity I would go back to the biblical "truth" - the base premise of that religion is Christ dying for our sins which results from the fall - that fall (ie the Garden of Eden story) would then have to be "true" for the faith to make sense. This brings us back to Genesis - if christians now describe it as a "metaphor" or whatever rather than fact where does that leave the original sin? I'm quite sure that the creation story as we read it in the Bible is metaphorical, however I do not think this means Adam and Eve can't have existed, perhaps a bit more than 6000 years ago, and maybe not quite as they were presented in Genesis. I see the story as rather poetic and mystical in its language, however there is an important story there displayed regarding sin. Personally I think it makes sense to see the "fall of man" as representative of how all humans sin, not just Adam performing the original sin. Also I admit you have a point about evolution there and I've wondered about that myself. There's no denying evolution does not wipe out the possibility of any higher being, however I very much understand those who think it makes any god "redundant". Either way there's a lot about this universe science has to answer and I currently see no reason why believing in the Christian God is silly as there are a number of different reasons for it.

You've never caused offence, not to me anyway. However I do like to point out Christianity is a rational religion. I'm sure you can nitpick parts of the Bible and point out contradictions (which are often exaggerated or misinterpreted) and you can raise various other questions surrounding it (as many Christians like myself do), but it's still very much a rational religion. I've come quite a long way through a personal relationship with God and it depresses me that that always has to be considered a case of hallucination/madness from those who are making a priori claims about the Christian belief. I was quite doubtful of my religion a while ago and often thought it seemed ridiculous in places, but having read some rather thought-provoking apologetics, many of my views have been restored and I must say they go to show Christianity is not some made up rubbish from an ancient text. I think it's very easy to mock religious belief, as everyone does. Personally I'm not too concerned really as I can happily say that many comments people make are actually wrong and poor attempts at sounding contraversial, and let's face it - they're harmless. I'm open to hear intelligent but non-aggressive questions to Christianity (or religion in general), but it's the more abusive and arrogant comments about the religion and it's followers I don't like. In addition, many Christians irritate me, and I would easily have a go at criticising them, however on forums it's not normally long before my own religion gets hurled abuse at and is considered man made and stupid etc, which I don;t want to put up with, while mocking/criticising members of it.

I have strong feelings that in the next 10-15 years allegations that Castro has died might just be true.

photoshoped.

Don't worry about him - I've seen him make inappropriate comments on another forum, but nevermind them. It's a very tragic moment. Maybe he was a bit drunk, but it's still terrible that the life of a really talented young player comes to an end.

Has there been a massive increase in it this year or is it just making the news more easily?

my apologies, thought you were talking about me.

Yeah hope so but will end up burnt.