06-05-2008, 04:11 PM | #601 |
Hobbit
Join Date: May 2008
Posts: 22
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I just realised that I'm 31 years old.
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06-05-2008, 08:03 PM | #602 |
Dread Mothy Lord and Halfwitted Apprentice Loremaster
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*bows down*
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Crux fidelis, inter omnes arbor una nobilis. Nulla talem silva profert, fronde, flore, germine. Dulce lignum, dulce clavo, dulce pondus sustinens. 'With a melon?' - Eric Idle |
06-06-2008, 12:49 PM | #603 | |
Elf Lord
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Ilha Formosa
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Math Profesor " Explain Pi r square" Football player: "Ha, you can't fool me. Pie are round."
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Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep. Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man; But will they come when you do call for them? "I like pigs. Dogs look up to us, cats look down on us, but pigs treat us as equals."- Winston Churchill |
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06-06-2008, 01:19 PM | #604 | |
Elf Lord
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Old Zen story:
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Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep. Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man; But will they come when you do call for them? "I like pigs. Dogs look up to us, cats look down on us, but pigs treat us as equals."- Winston Churchill Last edited by GrayMouser : 06-06-2008 at 01:22 PM. |
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06-09-2008, 09:38 AM | #605 |
Entmoot Minister of Foreign Affairs
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Funny
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"Well, thief! I smell you and I feel your air. I hear your breath. Come along! Help yourself again, there is plenty and to spare." |
06-09-2008, 10:06 AM | #606 | ||
Entmoot Minister of Foreign Affairs
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Why does God sometimes not protect us at all even when we do pray? Of demons, witchcraft and dark energies, why is there no scientific explanation to this? Why, when under the lense of science, does the natural world appear so beautiful and symmetrical, but why does the supernatural, the sights, visions and experiences that can not be explained by science, appear so assymetrical, so illogical, so inconsistent? Why would God create a world based on several unshakeable pillars of what we collectively define as laws of science, with symmetry and beauty down to the tiniest particle, and then let supernatural freaks of nature occur every now and then, obscure, without logic or explanation, impossible to validate? Isn't it blasphemy to believe in witchcraft, the supernatural, things that cannot be explained by the laws of nature? Isn't it blasphemy to believe in miracles, prophecies and magic, when that would mean that God would be breaking way with the very laws of nature that he himself made? Isn't that blasphemy?... unlike some of the fantastic charges of blasphemy so many Christians seem content to throw at fellow believers and non-believers?
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"Well, thief! I smell you and I feel your air. I hear your breath. Come along! Help yourself again, there is plenty and to spare." Last edited by Coffeehouse : 06-09-2008 at 10:25 AM. |
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06-10-2008, 02:07 AM | #607 | ||||||||
Elf Lord
Join Date: Dec 2000
Location: Fountain Valley, CA
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The decimal notation of pi is just one of the ways God speaks through nature. I'm sure he speaks through math in many other ways too, that other people have observed. St. Augustine didn't know about this thing with pi and yet he said that number was one of God's voices to humanity. There are symbolic parallels to God's higher truths in heaven all over the place in nature. If one looks at nature more carefully, there is plenty of powerful evidence there implying many things about the nature of God. I'm not saying that pi alone should convince you. I'm just saying I personally find it one of many beautiful images of God's nature, and I thought other Christians here might appreciate it too . Quote:
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But . . . *yawns* I haven't found anyone here who will really be convinced by it yet. You know, much of what one thinks depends on what one comes into the piece of knowledge with. If one comes into it with serious biases, one won't be able to accept perfectly logical conclusions. If one moves into it with those biases shaken, dismantled, or reversed, one might behave very differently. So debate is almost pointless, except as a way of following up an impact that has already been made by other means. Quote:
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And it doesn't concern me if the nature of God is in some ways "mindbending" to you. It would concern me if our God was simple enough for you to easily understand. In some ways, he can be understood relatively easily, because we are made in his image and thus have parallels to his nature. In other ways, he is very hard to understand, because he is so much greater and wiser than us, and therefore does things differently than we would at times. That's actually logically necessary. If God did things the same as we would do them all the time, he would be no wiser than us . Quote:
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If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." |
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06-10-2008, 03:00 AM | #608 | |||||||
Elf Lord
Join Date: Dec 2000
Location: Fountain Valley, CA
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There is certainly a common human consensus that God(s) exists, that the supernatural exists, and the major religions acknowledge that it can intervene in human affairs. The pre-Christian religions believed in vast pantheons of gods, just as Christians believe in a vast array of demons and angels, and Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism concur, though again, naming these beings differently. Each sect includes its own religious practitioners of these powers, and in the monotheistic religions, those who wield these powers outside of the orthodox belief system will often be seen as practicing witchcraft. So there often is an acknowledgement of the real power of witchcraft, there. Quote:
1) Prov 3:11-12 (NIV) My son, do not despise the Lord's discipline and do not resent his rebuke, because the Lord disciplines those he loves, as a father the son he delights in. There are times when we are disciplined for things we do wrong. There are also times when we don't seem to have done anything wrong by any normal human standards, and aren't aware at the moment of any personal sins, but things have been just going really badly in our lives no matter how we pray against it. In the scripture, God's process of purifying us is called a "refining fire." It can be searingly painful, but Christians who have suffered greatly often are some of the most loving people of all. Suffering tends to bring out the true character of a person. If that person is Christ, the person will rise to new heights of purity through the experience. With other people, suffering will bring out vengefulness, unforgiveness, hate, and other evils. One starving man will snatch food from another and kill him for it. Another starving man will give his last loaf of bread to his family and then die himself. God can use pain to bring people to godliness, which ultimately brings them greater happiness. He can also use pain for other good causes which are mysteries to us, such as Jesus' crucifixion- a terrible mystery to his disciples until he rose from the dead and revealed the great purposes of his grace for which he suffered so deeply. Suddenly, "by his wounds, we are healed," and the one completely innocent man on Earth, who deserved suffering least, revealed that his suffering was a good thing for everyone. Yet God answered Jesus' prayers, providing miracles to keep him alive when attacked on more than one occasion, to keep his foes at bay until his ministry was done and the time had come for his final sacrifice. God also told St. Paul in visions how much he would suffer, even though he saved Paul's life with miracles from time to time too, and Jesus predicted to Peter how he would die for Christ (crucified upside down) long before it happened. Peter later went to prison and was saved from prison by an angel, because his time had not yet come according to God's plan. And when the time did come, he was martyred. According to human plans, his time had come a long time ago in prison, but this had not been true according to God's plan. God had much more to do with Peter on Earth before allowing him to endure the purifying fire of martyrdom, the horrific experience which creates liquid love in the devoted soul. God has a plan for when and how we will die, and there is a purpose for it. People who are united with his will very closely might pray more successfully in accordance with that will, thus fleeing martyrdom or resisting it with miracles when they know their time has not come, and humbly submitting to it when God calls them to their eternal home. And then there are accidental deaths, car crashes, logging accidents, etc. These too can be used to God's glory in his own mysterious ways. He has a will for each human, and the more we become united with it by following God, the better we will understand it, the more we will pray in accord with it, and the more our prayers will be answered. Usually we aren't in sufficient unity with God's will to know when he wants someone to die. So we just pray for their safety, and then death happens. Much of the time, God's will is not for the person to die yet, so our prayers are answered. Other times, it may not be God's will that the person die, but it might not be our will either and we might have prayed, and there might be another factor at work, like prayer or lack of faith, or flippancy, or who knows what else. There are lots of factors at play- it's a complex world and God is a complex God. The best thing we can do is seek God and by so doing gain greater unity with his will, that we might serve him better and pray more effectively, and become as loving and good people as we possibly can be. Quote:
However, the world is so vast and complex and there is so much in it that we don't know that it seems absurd to reject a spiritual layer's existence in it too. Quote:
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But in fact, spiritual experiences are very common to humanity, not freaks of nature, but a part of nature that has been an observed and recognized part of reality for humanity from our origins all the way to the present. It's only the nonsense nowadays of a philosophy that only accepts material things because they can be verified by material means, but won't accept spiritual things because they can't be verified by material means, that is weakening this general acknowledgement in parts of the West. When spiritual means are used to expose spiritual realities, results are forthcoming, and they can be accompanied by powerful evidence for the person they reveal themselves to. Quote:
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The appearance of these charges as fantastic only comes from a point of view that denies the faith from which these charges spring. Deny the fundamental beliefs, and obviously the logical following forms of reasoning that follow from those beliefs look off-track. Even crazy. On the other hand, denial of those fundamental beliefs might itself appear crazy to someone with a different initial vantage point. You would look crazy to many believers, just as they might look crazy to you. That's a matter of perspective.
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If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." |
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06-10-2008, 03:50 AM | #609 |
Elf Lord
Join Date: Dec 2000
Location: Fountain Valley, CA
Posts: 6,343
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I thought of one more point about science and the spiritual world that I wanted to call to your attention, Coffeehouse, before I go to bed.
I don't know what your major is, what your expertise is, but there is no mathematician who knows everything that all other humans know about mathematics. Some know some things that mathematician X doesn't know, no matter how good he is, because there are so many different fields of math or different ways of applying math that X can't be familiar with them all. The same is true with physicists and biologists. Sociologists and psychiatrists, doctors and engineers, people of all kinds of expertise are limited in their knowledge of their own expertise, and VERY limited in their knowledge of many other major subjects. Some doctors are far from expert physicists. Some neurosurgeons are far from expert skyscraper engineers. We take it on faith that other humans are making accurate assessments in those fields, because we don't know enough to make those judgments ourselves. These "pillars of science" are in fact primarily believed on because of faith. That faith is based on multitudes of physical evidence, but any individual is only expert enough to analyze and offer educated approval of a handful of those evidences, so one is always relying, in faith, on the expert analysis of loads of other people. Our lives are based on faith. We turn on the car without more than a few faint clues (if that) as to how it works inside, and an engineer assembles the car in the first place without more than a few faint clues as to how the metal producers and factories produced those pieces in the first place. The natural world is full of faith-based relationships, based on various evidence. The spiritual world is similar. There are superb truths, massive Laws of God, like there are laws of science, which are acknowledged as true amongst all the faithful. Countless different believers have enormous reason to believe that various parts of it are true, have a keen logical understanding of that truth, and often have various evidences to draw from with which to demonstrate that truth. No one sees the whole picture. There are many things that are mysteries. Christians can admit the existence of those mysteries, while acknowledging that other believers have greater insight on many matters, while various errors are made too. Secularists too can admit the existence of scientific mysteries (How in the world is it that cars work?), and while they have a little bit of knowledge about science, as each Christian has a little bit of knowledge about God, they admit that other people might know more about cars. They admit the existence of the mystery, believe that this is only a mystery to himself and not a mystery without any answer, and then they turn the key and drive the car. You only know the car works for sure because you turn the ignition in faith and then drive it, even though you don't know all the answers, just as you only know God exists for sure because you come to him in faith and then follow him, even if you don't know all the spiritual answers you have questions for. I use the words "for sure," a little loosely, for in truth, no one knows anything "for sure." You believe your car works because you've experienced driving it. I believe the Christian God is real because I've experienced knowing him and have experienced a great deal of personal, experiential intimacy with him (along with a lot of other reasons, as it happens). It would be futile for me to throw my ignorance at Christianity to try to disprove it, just as it would be futile for me to throw my ignorance of car-construction at my car to try to disprove it. God is far higher above me than all the combined knowledge that went into making the car is beyond me. And just as it would be vain to think that because I don't have the answer about the car, no one has the answer about the car, it would be vain for a person to think that because he or she has no answer about some particular Christian mystery, no one has that answer.
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If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." |
06-10-2008, 10:04 AM | #610 |
Entmoot Minister of Foreign Affairs
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: Copenhagen
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I think you're car analogy is a moot point. Here's why:
A car isn't some mystery object with inner workings that only a few individuals have access to. If you want to find out how a certain car works or want to know what the inside of a car's engine looks like, you need only look it up and all the information is available (on the Internet for example). Turning the ignition key on a car and expecting it to start is natural, because the car always started, just as pulling the leverage on your toilet is done in expectance of a subsequent flushing of the said toilet. This isn't faith per se, but an expectancy that things should work the way they are built to work, and if they don't work, there is a trust issue. That does not stand in remote comparison to religious faith. Will be sure to post a longer answer to the rest of your arguments, later today perhaps
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"Well, thief! I smell you and I feel your air. I hear your breath. Come along! Help yourself again, there is plenty and to spare." |
06-10-2008, 10:12 AM | #611 |
Elf Lord
Join Date: Jan 2007
Posts: 4,535
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See, this is the scary part, for me. Lief believes that his "faith" that when you turn the key the car will start is the same kind of "faith" that is a religious thing.
As the descendant of many generations of religious activists (all different branches of my family came to this country for its religious freedom) I would say that whole business with the bread and the wine was 'witchcraft" and represntations of Jesus on the cross was 'idolatry'.Those were two big no-nos, last I checked. But I'm okay with it. God sorts it out, not me. For myself, man's imperfect understanding of God says nothing about God. I don't share Lief's prejudice that makes his one copy of one sacred book the only source of information about God's nature (because that strikes me as silly.) and it fascinates me how he cherry-picks among other cultures. (Some "African's" believe in witchcraft, therefore there is really witchcraft, but their belief in water spirits means nothing about the existence of water spirits.) This persistant Fundamentalist equivalence of faith and science is really EVIL in my experience, however. They do bad things with it.
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That would be the swirling vortex to another world. Cool. I want one. TMNT No, I'm not emo. I just have a really poor sense of direction. (Thanks to katya for this quote) This is the best news story EVER! http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26087293/ “Often my haste is a mistake, but I live with the consequences without complaint.”...John McCain "I shall go back. And I shall find that therapist. And I shall whack her upside her head with my blanket full of rocks." ...Louisa May |
06-10-2008, 11:24 AM | #612 | |||
Kraken King
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Location: Under the sea
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Sis- Excellent point about the "pick and choose" attitude f many in the religious comunity.
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One of my top ten favorite movies. "You ever try to flick a fly? "No." "It's a waste of time." "Can you see it?" "No." "It's right there!" "Where? "There!" "What is it?" "A crab." "A crab? I dont see any crab." "How?! It's right there!!" "Where?" "There!!!!" "Oh." -Excerpts from A Tale of Two Morons |
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06-10-2008, 12:55 PM | #613 |
Cardboard Harp of Gondor Join Date: Sep 2001
Location: IM IN UR POSTZ, EDITIN' UR WURDZ
Posts: 6,433
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Mod. Note
I appreciate that everyone is being polite, but lets be careful about how we refer to other people's beliefs . I see a few comments that are edging the borderline of being flameworthy, even if only a matchstick instead of a flame thrower .
Carry on. o(>.<)O |
06-10-2008, 05:39 PM | #614 | |
Entmoot Minister of Foreign Affairs
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Location: Copenhagen
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People are called blasphemic when they question the the script of the Bible, question the authoritarian voice (like the Vatican) and it's interpretation. Blasphemy is called all around, albeit the word blasphemy isn't the choice of word these days (not politically correct!). I question then: isn't it more blasphemic to believe that one has a special ear to God, the almight God who loves us all equally? Isn't it then blasphemy to speak of witchcraft and demons when it would neccessitate that God isn't at all in control of his universe? Isn't it blasphemic to judge that the laws of nature (that means EVERYTHING, don't read nature too literally. It's everything) Let's say the Laws of our Solar System just to be sure. And these laws, God-created, can somehow be bent? They can be twisted? Spirits can pop up here and there, demons can take hold of peoples? Isn't beliefs in supernatural things like this an aggressive kick in the groin to God's perfectly crafted world? A planet, a solar system, that can be explained by pure mathematics. Symmetrical, beautiful, complete. It should not be blasphemy to see the world, take it for what it is and use its tools, but blasphemy to add on supernaturals that can't be explained and can't be assessed by all. Blasphemy to assume certain peoples have a bette understanding of God than others. Why would God pick a person? Why not tell everyone! It's God!
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"Well, thief! I smell you and I feel your air. I hear your breath. Come along! Help yourself again, there is plenty and to spare." |
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06-10-2008, 05:47 PM | #615 | |||||||
Elf Lord
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Location: Fountain Valley, CA
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As it happens, the Bible, Church and Tradition have little to say about water spirits . That doesn't mean they don't exist. Consequently, I keep an open mind about them. Besides, the Book of Revelation actually talks about four angels in the River Euphrates, as it happens. Which is interesting. I don't come from the view that if it's not in the Bible, it's not real. Otherwise I'd have to say electric computers and computers aren't real, since they aren't in the Bible. The Bible never claims to be an encyclopedia of everything that exists in the universe. However, because the Bible is God's perfect and sacred Word, I will say that anything that contradicts the Bible isn't true.
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If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." Last edited by Lief Erikson : 06-10-2008 at 05:59 PM. |
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06-10-2008, 06:08 PM | #616 | |
Entmoot Minister of Foreign Affairs
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Impossible.. the Earth is a sphere. A contradiction of the Bible.
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"Well, thief! I smell you and I feel your air. I hear your breath. Come along! Help yourself again, there is plenty and to spare." |
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06-10-2008, 06:10 PM | #617 | |
Elf Lord
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If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." |
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06-10-2008, 06:21 PM | #618 | |
Elf Lord
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Even in the time of Jesus, everyone knew that no mountain could show the entirety of the world. They knew about the Mediterranean Sea, about the Roman Empire, etc. So we know that they weren't trying to say that because of the mountain's height, he was able to see all the kingdoms. It makes more sense to say that he climbed up a mountain and saw all the kingdoms of the world in a vision. That probably is what they meant, in my view. You have to prove a contradiction, not prove that there might be a contradiction, if you're going to invalidate my statement. Though even supposed evidence of a contradiction isn't likely to make error clear, as new things might turn up that show otherwise. Like it did with the Hittites. German skeptics said a long time that because there was no evidence of the Hittites, the Bible was false, but then their civilization turned up because they dug in the places the Bible said they were and they dug long enough to find them.
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If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." Last edited by Lief Erikson : 06-10-2008 at 06:27 PM. |
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06-10-2008, 06:24 PM | #619 | |
Entmoot Minister of Foreign Affairs
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Quote:
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"Well, thief! I smell you and I feel your air. I hear your breath. Come along! Help yourself again, there is plenty and to spare." |
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06-10-2008, 06:31 PM | #620 |
Elf Lord
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Location: Fountain Valley, CA
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It doesn't say how many times Jesus blinked while he was wandering in the wilderness either. That doesn't mean it's saying he never blinked.
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If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." |
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