04-02-2007, 06:21 PM | #121 | |
Elf Lord
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It sounded to me like he was saying that I was stating my conclusions about the evidence rather than showing the evidence on which those conclusions are based, and hence he couldn't argue with me. If that was all I did, and the claims of mine he quoted were all I said, then his response is fully valid. But I explained my failure to present evidence in my post, so criticizing it without mentioning my explanation is not particularly fair. That's just my own interpretation of what he meant, though. I might indeed be wrong.
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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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04-02-2007, 06:27 PM | #122 | |
Elf Lord
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Hum. Where does the confusion arise?
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A worldview is more than a bumpersticker list. It's not "Honk if you love Jesus" and "I brake for animal rights activists". So when you say you "take a person's worldview beliefs", I say, you are only generalizing from a tiny slice of them. So you can't use them to evaluate their applicability to reality. It's like food (LOL, I can make anything into a food discussion ). You hear me say "Carrot juice is good for you" and start saying, "carrots are very high in sugars, for a vegetable. Carrots have too much Vitamin A for a steady diet." You don't see everything ELSE I eat. So it is with worldviews. They're not only composed of the things we know we bwlieve, but of our life experiences, against which they've been tested. Without those, you don't have the whole picture. People born on a boat don't believe in deserts. |
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04-03-2007, 01:16 AM | #123 | |
Dread Mothy Lord and Halfwitted Apprentice Loremaster
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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 |
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04-03-2007, 01:18 AM | #124 | |
Dread Mothy Lord and Halfwitted Apprentice Loremaster
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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 |
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04-03-2007, 01:16 PM | #125 | |
Advocatus Diaboli
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I get the feeling sometimes that you are so married to your view of reality that any alternative will always be something less, or just plain wrong, in your view. Add to this the fact that any so-called "logic" in these kind of debates is completely relative to what unprovable premises one chooses to accept, and you end up in a place where one is simply championing their own point of view and trampling upon those of others. I certainly have my own point of view, that there is no creator or greater meaning, and all that we are is the result of natural interactions of matter and energy with no intelligence behind it. That said, I don't view my life, or those of others, as "meaningless". My meaning doesn't rely on where we came from, or where we are going to, but on the day to day interaction with one another. It's like enjoying a book by a wonderfully talented writer, even if you don't particularly like the ending. All that said, I still try to respect those who choose to believe in things like god and free will (with varying success ). They are perfectly acceptable premises that give those belief systems an internal logic of their own, much like mine. It's why I can firmly disbelieve such ideas, yet not call them "terribly faulty" or "clouded". They are simply different interpretations of the unknown. In the recent discussion, I can even accept your idea of what is more or less a completely predetermined universe. As I said, it is close to my own belief, other than the god part. My problem was more with your idea of applying both predestination and responsibility to humanity. If humans are predestined to either receive salvation or not receive salvation, that's fine. It would certainly be crazy for any human to claim credit for his own salvation in such a universe. But it would also be crazy for any human to claim any true responsibility in such a universe. So, I guess what I was really debating wasn't so much your premises, as I can accept them while not believing them, but the internal logic, if you accept those premises.
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Your reality, sir, is lies and balderdash and I'm delighted to say that I have no grasp of it whatsoever. |
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04-03-2007, 04:05 PM | #126 | |
Half-Elven Princess of Rabbit Trails and Harp-Wielding Administrator (beware the Rubber Chicken of Doom!)
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But since I have both the time and the inclination today ... 1. limited - this is in reaction to people who say "we can do anything we set our minds to!" and seem to believe it in other than a poetic sense. Come on, now! Just plain untrue. Although we can do an incredible amount of things, though. I think I should change it from "limited" to "grand smorgasbord", though, because that's closer to how it is 2. wave/particle - From my physics classes at uni, where sometimes it's handy to view light as a wave (wavelengths, frequency, etc) and sometimes as a particle (photoelectric emission). Wiki worded it well - "In physics and chemistry, wave-particle duality holds that all objects in our universe exhibit properties of both waves and of particles. A central concept of quantum mechanics, duality addresses the inadequacy of conventional concepts like "particle" and "wave" to meaningfully describe the behaviour of quantum objects." It seems to me that free will is like that - in order to be fully and meaningfully described, it needs to be defined in terms of things that are supposedly opposites. And it seems a reasonable thing to me to hold a duality position that we do indeed have free will, but an all-knowing God who is outside of time and space knows what we're going to do, and even "predestines" it (technically, by his very act of creating). It's also kind of like riding a bike - you can know that the pedals have to be pushed by your feet, but if you say, "I'll push one inch at a time and then stop and analyze it for a few seconds, then push another inch," it ain't gonna fly! It seems like free will is kind of like that - a fluid, moving thing that needs to be analyzed on the fly, as it were. It's like trying to fully understand an animal by dissecting a dead one - can't be done. 3. dolphin/eagle - this is where my practical mother side kicks in. One should only be allowed to angst over this so much before receiving a sound smack upside the head and a stern injunction to "get out there and LIVE!" If a person just wants to complain that things are predestined so there's no free will, then to me it's like an eagle complaining that he wasn't made a dolphin and refusing to fly ("I can't swim and jump in the waves like that dolphin! I'm just going to sit here on the cliff and complain!") Our lives are glorious things, and to our understanding, we have choices - go out and MAKE 'em! and make 'em for glorious things! 4. marriage-bed - This wasn't in the original list, but I'm adding it. Lief and I have talked about this subject before, and one of the biggest objections I have to his author/character analogy is this: as far as I can remember, God doesn't use it when He talks about His relationship with us. The analogy that God uses most often? Marriage, and very often the sexual aspect of it. He uses it time and again. Really, what a mind God has! (I just bust up when people think God is a prude - hey, who INVENTED those parts, after all?! ) When I am in a certain, er, mood, and I walk into a room and see the man I love and am married to, and also see some books, I go for my husband, not the books And that's why I think Lief's analogy, though somewhat illustrative, is a pretty poor one for the total picture. I want someone that interacts with me; not someone that I control every move of. I think the author/character illustration totally loses the forest for one pretty small tree. 5. little/much - also an addition, but I think an important one. I think when reading the Bible, you need to apply "interpret the few in light of the many" rule. And the references to predestination are very few - but the references to choice are many, MANY, MANY. I bet I could point out at least an indirect reference to choice on every page of the Bible, and could point out thousands of direct references to choice. 6. knife-wielding - This is a true story that I think is applicable here. As most of you know, our middle son has some physical disabilities and is in a wheelchair. He is the cutest thing, though - blonde hair, BIG blue eyes (once a total stranger walked up to him and said, "Look at the orbs on that guy!") and just very cute (tho I do say it myself! ) Anyway, people will often come up to him when we're out and about (like the "orb" guy). One day, I was out with him, and this man walked up to us. Fine - that's totally normal, like I said. But that's where the normal stopped - the guy pulled out a knife and went for my son. I'm talkin' KNIFE - sharp, scary, dangerous. What would you guys have done in my place?
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. I should be doing the laundry, but this is MUCH more fun! Ñá ë?* óú éä ïöü Öñ É Þ ð ß ® ç Ã¥ â„¢ æ ♪ ?* "How lovely are Thy dwelling places, O Lord of hosts! ... For a day in Thy courts is better than a thousand outside." (from Psalm 84) * * * God rocks! Entmoot : Veni, vidi, velcro - I came, I saw, I got hooked! Ego numquam pronunciare mendacium, sed ego sum homo indomitus! Run the earth and watch the sky ... Auta i lómë! Aurë entuluva! Last edited by RÃan : 04-03-2007 at 04:29 PM. |
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04-03-2007, 04:18 PM | #127 | |
Half-Elven Princess of Rabbit Trails and Harp-Wielding Administrator (beware the Rubber Chicken of Doom!)
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and a general comment on the logic/God and the faith/illogical thing:
I like how R.C. Sproul puts it - Quote:
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. I should be doing the laundry, but this is MUCH more fun! Ñá ë?* óú éä ïöü Öñ É Þ ð ß ® ç Ã¥ â„¢ æ ♪ ?* "How lovely are Thy dwelling places, O Lord of hosts! ... For a day in Thy courts is better than a thousand outside." (from Psalm 84) * * * God rocks! Entmoot : Veni, vidi, velcro - I came, I saw, I got hooked! Ego numquam pronunciare mendacium, sed ego sum homo indomitus! Run the earth and watch the sky ... Auta i lómë! Aurë entuluva! |
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04-03-2007, 04:30 PM | #128 | |
Elf Lord
Join Date: Jan 2007
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.
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04-03-2007, 05:02 PM | #129 | |
Advocatus Diaboli
Join Date: Dec 2001
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Quote:
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Your reality, sir, is lies and balderdash and I'm delighted to say that I have no grasp of it whatsoever. |
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04-03-2007, 08:13 PM | #130 | |
Cardboard Harp of Gondor Join Date: Sep 2001
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Maybe Lief is into kinky book-love. Who do you think you are to deny him that, Rian?!!?! o(>.<)O I'm sorry, I really have nothing to add. I just couldn't help it. |
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04-03-2007, 09:41 PM | #131 |
Half-Elven Princess of Rabbit Trails and Harp-Wielding Administrator (beware the Rubber Chicken of Doom!)
Join Date: Sep 2002
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*bops Tessar with a ... book!*
__________________
. I should be doing the laundry, but this is MUCH more fun! Ñá ë?* óú éä ïöü Öñ É Þ ð ß ® ç Ã¥ â„¢ æ ♪ ?* "How lovely are Thy dwelling places, O Lord of hosts! ... For a day in Thy courts is better than a thousand outside." (from Psalm 84) * * * God rocks! Entmoot : Veni, vidi, velcro - I came, I saw, I got hooked! Ego numquam pronunciare mendacium, sed ego sum homo indomitus! Run the earth and watch the sky ... Auta i lómë! Aurë entuluva! |
04-04-2007, 01:22 AM | #132 |
Cardboard Harp of Gondor Join Date: Sep 2001
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o.O
O.o o.o |
04-04-2007, 01:24 AM | #133 | ||||||||||||||||||
Elf Lord
Join Date: Dec 2000
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I have to live in this world, so I have to assume that what I experience makes a kind of logical sense. That's my assumption, and I think not making that assumption and instead saying to myself, "hey, the world might be flat!" would get me nowhere fast. I'm pretty rigid in my belief that God exists for the same reason as I'm pretty rigid in my belief that my brothers exist. I have had ample daily experience with him of a very compelling nature. There are many other reasons too, why I'm rigid in this particular belief. As for other beliefs that I hold, beliefs that aren't derived from Christianity, on most of them I'm less rigid and could conceivably be talked out of my position. I believe that lack of bias means lack of opinion, and lack of opinion means lack of education. So though I know I'm now biased toward one perspective, a Christian worldview, I think that that's rational and the result of education. This doesn't mean that I can't think over opposing arguments rationally, I hope. Quote:
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In the same way, I don't take God as a premises in reality, but only took him and some of his attributes as a premises for the sake of that discussion. I find the existence of God and his nature and personal qualities to be very strongly supported by evidence, however, and assuming them is not necessary. Quote:
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God might make people deserving of destruction, and bear their contemptibleness. He might create people to be deserving of judgment and hard justice because their natures absolutely reject God and goodness. If he makes people evil and deserving of judgment because of being evil, he has the right. He has the right to have mercy on whom he will, and to harden whom he will, for his purposes. He is fully loving and good, and all-knowing, and so knows that this course of action is best and will have very good results. Quote:
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When I believed in free will, I always said the soul. But what is the soul? Don't get me wrong, I still believe in it and I suspect that I believe in it in the same sense that you believe in it. I think of it as including the personality, emotions, decision-making faculties, intelligence, etc. Even if I'm wrong about some of these parts of what's in the soul, and I may well be, it's irrelevant to the point I'm going to make. My belief is that our predestination is to behave in accord with who we are, with our own personalities, that our personalities determine who we are and what we will decide. "Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks." Do you believe that factors such as personality, genetics, environment and other such parts of us that make us up merely influence our decisions, or, in your opinion, do they actually determine it? If things like personality and the rest do not determine our choices, how are our decisions made? How are our decisions made, if all the different aspects of us that impact our decision-making don't determine our decisions, but only influence them? Quote:
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But some scriptural analogies are pretty close, and the author analogy is actually used on rare occasion. Here's an example of a passage that's pretty close: Quote:
As for the book example: Quote:
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A human controlling a human would undoubtedly produce a very meager result from his efforts. He isn't anywhere near imaginative, knowledgeable, powerful or good enough. The result would be pathetic. I don't know if you're understanding what I mean by divine control. God creates people's personalities and leaves people the freedom to act in accord with those personalities. People have the freedom to be themselves. They don't have the freedom to be other than themselves, however. I can't think fully like you and speak fully like you and act fully like you. Our physical bodies aren't the only differences between us- our whole psychologies, souls and everything else are different. We may have some similarities, but we will each behave like ourselves and not like one another. We do not have the freedom to be one another, but only to do what is natural to our personalities and who we are to do. Divine control is in the fact that while we do everything we want, God does everything he wants through us simultaneously. God is in complete control and we are in complete control. Our control cannot defy God's power, because he is supreme and in the final analysis, he is the one who decides exactly what everyone will do and what they will be. God makes each person for a purpose and that person will accomplish God's purpose to the final detail, but as the person fulfills God's purpose, the person also is doing exactly what he or she wants. What he or she wants and chooses comes from God. Quote:
God may know everything and have planned everything, but he couldn't interact with us if he just said, "you will do this and this and this, and I will do this, and then you will do this." Neither can he tell you right now, "congratulations, you will get married next year!" For even though he right now IS back in the time a year before you got married presently, it would be meaningless from your current perspective, where you are now. So God can't speak to us where he is and make sense. He has to speak to us where we are and speak in a way that's meaningful to us, within the finite limitations he has created for us. God can't speak to us in past or future tense, as even though it's all now from his perspective, our perspectives are very different. And even though from his perspective we have made our choices (IMO, in accord with his will and our own, and not really choices at all, but expressions of who we are), from our perspective we have not, so he'll speak to us where we are. Except occasionally when he gives prophecies and other such words. God could say to us, "you chose to reject me three years from 'now', or where you presently see yourself to be, so I punished you with a plague and then you repented, and for the next three years you obeyed, but then you sinned again! Shame on you!" From his perspective, it has all already happened, but his talking to us in that way wouldn't have much meaning for us. It would be very weird to us. God talks to us in the present tense almost all the time (prophecies are an exception) and talks as if we have choices because that is what we experience, and it is where we are. From our limited reference frames and perspectives, we have choices. From God's perspective, those choices are already made, and IMO, they aren't really choices. They are from our perspectives though, and he speaks to us where we are. Conversation would be impossible if he spoke to us fully from where he is rather than from where we are. None of the choice passages you've ever shown me have implied to me that free will, as the term is currently used, exists. It's more a matter of God in his omniscience speaking to those he has made where they are, rather than where he is, as you already know he does by not referring to us in past or future tense, which he could do with equal validity from his eternal perspective. 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." Last edited by Lief Erikson : 04-04-2007 at 01:51 AM. |
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04-04-2007, 09:41 AM | #134 | |||
Elf Lord
Join Date: Jan 2007
Posts: 4,535
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Can't slog through this whole morass.
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If you haven't pre-judged something, if you wait for evidence, you lack education. I'm sure it's a sin, and I believe it should be illegal, to leave a child with this level of ignorance as part of his/her worldview. Quote:
How about the possibility that any generation of "meaning" increases the total amount, and so moves the curve, as it were, towards Heaven. It's the spiritual response to Entropy. Quote:
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04-04-2007, 01:45 PM | #135 | |
Half-Elven Princess of Rabbit Trails and Harp-Wielding Administrator (beware the Rubber Chicken of Doom!)
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Lief - the guy was definitely going for my son, and my husband (all 6'2" of him, and very strong and savvy) wasn't there.
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. I should be doing the laundry, but this is MUCH more fun! Ñá ë?* óú éä ïöü Öñ É Þ ð ß ® ç Ã¥ â„¢ æ ♪ ?* "How lovely are Thy dwelling places, O Lord of hosts! ... For a day in Thy courts is better than a thousand outside." (from Psalm 84) * * * God rocks! Entmoot : Veni, vidi, velcro - I came, I saw, I got hooked! Ego numquam pronunciare mendacium, sed ego sum homo indomitus! Run the earth and watch the sky ... Auta i lómë! Aurë entuluva! Last edited by RÃan : 04-04-2007 at 02:04 PM. |
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04-04-2007, 02:10 PM | #136 |
Quasi Evil
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Location: Maryland, US
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Geez I would sure hope my wife would do whatever it took to keep a man from attacking my child with a knife whether shes big or small or blind as a bat for that matter. I dont even see where calling for your husband would even enter into it even if he was right next to you... Its definitely a sexist way of thinking. Not everything is "PC" just because you think its ok you know.
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"People's political beliefs don't stem from the factual information they've acquired. Far more the facts people choose to believe are the product of their political beliefs." "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." |
04-04-2007, 02:21 PM | #137 | |
Advocatus Diaboli
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Quote:
The question is, what did you do?
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Your reality, sir, is lies and balderdash and I'm delighted to say that I have no grasp of it whatsoever. |
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04-04-2007, 03:34 PM | #138 | |
Elf Lord
Join Date: Jan 2007
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Get over it, sister.
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I know 20 woman who could take Lief in a fight. No contest. So, although I might seek refuge with men if I needed assistance, the word "Tailhook" should tell you why I might not. @@ |
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04-04-2007, 04:08 PM | #139 |
Half-Elven Princess of Rabbit Trails and Harp-Wielding Administrator (beware the Rubber Chicken of Doom!)
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"if that was a word"? I'm well aware that it's not a word, thank you, but "PC-ness" is a good enough term for our friendly conversations at Entmoot. I would highly doubt that anyone had difficulty understanding what I meant by that term.
Thankfully, friendly conversations are the norm here at the Moot, and I just get irked by the personal insults and condescension that I sometimes see from you (things like "by a rational person, and I know that leaves some of the current company out") and not from the other people in this conversation. *shrug* So no, I won't "Get over it, sister".
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. I should be doing the laundry, but this is MUCH more fun! Ñá ë?* óú éä ïöü Öñ É Þ ð ß ® ç Ã¥ â„¢ æ ♪ ?* "How lovely are Thy dwelling places, O Lord of hosts! ... For a day in Thy courts is better than a thousand outside." (from Psalm 84) * * * God rocks! Entmoot : Veni, vidi, velcro - I came, I saw, I got hooked! Ego numquam pronunciare mendacium, sed ego sum homo indomitus! Run the earth and watch the sky ... Auta i lómë! Aurë entuluva! Last edited by RÃan : 04-04-2007 at 04:09 PM. |
04-04-2007, 04:30 PM | #140 | |||||
Half-Elven Princess of Rabbit Trails and Harp-Wielding Administrator (beware the Rubber Chicken of Doom!)
Join Date: Sep 2002
Location: Not where I want to be ...
Posts: 15,254
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. I should be doing the laundry, but this is MUCH more fun! Ñá ë?* óú éä ïöü Öñ É Þ ð ß ® ç Ã¥ â„¢ æ ♪ ?* "How lovely are Thy dwelling places, O Lord of hosts! ... For a day in Thy courts is better than a thousand outside." (from Psalm 84) * * * God rocks! Entmoot : Veni, vidi, velcro - I came, I saw, I got hooked! Ego numquam pronunciare mendacium, sed ego sum homo indomitus! Run the earth and watch the sky ... Auta i lómë! Aurë entuluva! Last edited by RÃan : 04-04-2007 at 04:33 PM. |
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