BLAISE PASCAL - (pascal computer language named after him)

wrote a lot about gambling and Christianity - i think he loved both.

he invented the roulette wheel.?

he said it wasn't the winning or losing it was the act of gambling that gave the thrill.
whether it was a pittance or a large sum put down by a prince it was the same thrill to both.
It's a way of employing your time on earth. As valid as any other pursuit.
I personally look at mountain climbers and explorers as tools. They'll see me as a tool for gambling. we're all tools wasting time before the grave hits us on the face. the dangers of gambling seem less severe - less of the deathwish, more a gradual waning.

We don't have any evidence. Zorro says he believes it ? that's not evidence.
No one has any evidence of anything supernatural happening, now, or last year, or at any time in the history of the world.
Those are the facts.
However we are here now, and we are alive and that is very mysterious in itself.
No one knows why.

If we look at religions we can see something puzzling.
people are prepared to believe them without any need for evidence no matter how bizarre they may be.
Look at the bald facts in relation to the Mormon religion :

In the 1820s Joseph Smith claimed he had been directed by an angel to a spot where he dug up gold plated on which was written text in an ancient script and language, which he found he could mysteriously translate.
The plates had since, he said, been put in a chest,...but the angel had told him to show them to nobody...hmmmm
Instead he had to publish a translation.

Now of the two possibilities - that this is true, or that Joseph Smith made it up - one is far more plausible than the other.
Yet thousands of people believed him and do so to this day. This is the nature of religious people, and non religious people also, often they will be preoared to believe anything because they are dishonest , intellectually and morally.

The desire to believe shapes the outcome.
Sounds like the story of the Holy Lance that empowered believers to fight harder but when tested with fire turned out to be scrap.

I've often heard statements like 'God knows how much you can handle'
Well if that's true he also knows what I need to believe.
To suggest God has tried and I have chosen to not listen isn't the case, I don't actively avoid believing, I listen to all but just because I can't accept what I hear, why is that my fault?

Last summer I was bitten by a ladybird (yeah I didn't know they bite either) and looking down I had the chance to kill it with vengeance, but the ladybird knew no better so I let it fly off....I essentially forgave it.
So I'm the insect to God, if I don't understand and make the mistake why punish me?

The sin of the father was cast upon his son and absorbed in name of us all, and you show love and are free to continue to sin?
Ok sign me up.

I prefer zorros story, besides Im a fully fledged member of the happy clappers now

Carry on chaps, I'll keep looking in occasionally.

Barabbas Barabbas - they're still picking Barabbas.

God gave Adam a six thousand year lease on the earth. The EDENIC covenant. the plan is like craetion done in six days and one day rest. A day is like a thousand years to the lord.

Here is how the ARSES read the bible - six thousand years, you say the world is six thousand years old - your an idiot.

First - God created the world in six days. It's poetic language. He is not going through a physics lesson with Henry the eighth or any individual in history he's speaking to all humanity through six thousand years.
secondly he created the world then rested. That meant that seven thousand years had past already  then history started - so that would be 13,000 years. At minimum.
But again this is literal thinking.
was the speed of light at the universal constant that we say it is today? the new theories on universal constants say they don't exist. everything is variable.
Then there is a lot that is left out of the start of the book - it's hints only that are in there at the start. Adam and Eve had lots of children but they bred with other tribes. So why didn't the book give us more details of the other tribes. Perhaps God did not rate them. Perhaps they are mark one prototypes that are inferior? It's not explained? I expect if you are really really curious you could ask him. Adam and Eve had souls, perhaps that is what man is? a soul. and the other tribes were just animals?
Lots of questions there - when i watch jaws on tv and he goes into the shop to buy gear for the boat, I want to stop and chat with the shop owner for a few hours get all the useless details coz i'm a dipstick that can't move on without knowing every little detail.

God can you provide me with your working schematics and your full plan in triplicate by the end of the day... if not... your a big phoney?  I want all the knowledge of the universe at my feet. do it now.. doesn't he know who I am?

I think you are presuming too much mr ant.

YOU are looking for proof - the exam is called Faith. Christians have faith.

those that pass faith live forever. Immortal for eternity with God. God gives those that pass the faith test a new house - an oikiterion. The angels left their first estate and fell to earth. They left their glorified body. God is giving us brand new bodies free from corruption. Free from the curse of death that Adam caused. the dead rise up to glory or shame. they receive their new glorified bodies first.

Now there are those that want proof - these are called Greeks in the bible?
where's the proof Gov'ena? you is shining us on... they failed the faith test. so there will be a resitting exam. called testing your new found faith.
lots of bad stuff to go through before you'll be believed. Should have read the course work sooner. avoided this test. those that pass this test live for a 1000 years. lack of faith. needed proof.

Sorry Dusty, you don't get the virgins, monogamy is the word in this heaven. You need the other guy for that. Sorry mate.

...maybe a sweat stain then....
In fact I used to have this thought when I lived in a flat years ago that it would be funny to decompose in bed and seep through into the bedroom below and drip into their mouth.

Is that a bit too much for you lot zorro?

Dario Argento is my favourite horror movie director.
Alejandro Jodorowsky made a few blasphemy films which were watchable.
seen Eraserhead in my teens.

My old job was lovely - from 16 to 30 -
auctioneers sent us out to empty houses of the recently deceased.
we encountered maggots, blood stains all manner of gruesome.
one job they sprayed the entire flat in orange disinfectant.
the man had died and lay there for a month before they found him.
we lifted the carpets and the orange fluid drained out of the carpet.
the carpet was last in the van and the liquid poured out the seam in the door.
every job had a different outcome. there were patterns in how people lived.
the houses with mini bars and double glazing with lots of stuffed toys that were
repossessed by the queen - QEII written on the door in chalk.
the houses with lots of booze. or **** ends on the carpets.
the houses with gay porn stashes. or guns under the beds.
it was very educating.
paintings worth 100,000 pounds. estates of the lords.
statues, pianos.
i once tallied the number of pianos I helped to move - 2,500 pianos.
seven in one day.
the last vestige of people's lives erased - carpets lifted - floors swept
nothing of them left.
the horror....... the horror.
another one bites the dust..

My mate worked in the hospital morgue who had to come ant take the dead into the basement.
He was a bit fu ckin daft in the noggin too

i'm sorry Dustybin.
really sorry i lost my temper there.
you did a good wind up job.
there's still a bit of me that's a hammerhead.
that wants to fight.
i'm gonna concede the win to you.
quite what you win i don't know? you tell me.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus

wiki says your wrong Dusty.

Research in the historical Jesus has taken several positive steps in recent years. …. the persistent trend in recent years is to see the Gospels as essentially reliable, especially when properly understood, and to view the historical Jesus in terms much closer to Christianity’s traditional understanding

Prof Craig Evans, Arcadia Divinity College, Arcadia University, in What are They Saying about the Historical Jesus?

So in one sense I think I’m not alone in feeling that to show the ill-informed and illogical nature of the current wave of “mythicist” proponents is a bit like having to demonstrate that the earth isn’t flat, or that the sun doesn’t revolve around the earth, or that the moon-landings weren’t done on a movie lot.

Larry Hurtado, Emeritus Professor, Edinburgh University

Have they found an eighth fore skin proportion get to be his yet?

Today, nearly all historians, whether Christians or not, accept that Jesus existed and that the gospels contain plenty of valuable evidence which has to be weighed and assessed critically.

The late Graham Stanton, Cambridge University

According to New Testament scholar James Dunn, nearly all modern scholars consider the baptism of Jesus and his crucifixion to be historically certain.[58] He states that these "two facts in the life of Jesus command almost universal assent" and "rank so high on the 'almost impossible to doubt or deny' scale of historical 'facts' they are obvious starting points for an attempt to clarify the what and why of Jesus' mission."[58] John P. Meier views the crucifixion of Jesus as historical fact and states that based on the criterion of embarrassment Christians would not have invented the painful death of their leader.[76] The criterion of embarrassment is also used to argue in favor of the historicity of the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist as it is a story which the early Christian Church would have never wanted to invent.[77][78][79] Based on this criterion, given that John baptised for the remission of sins, and Jesus was viewed as without sin, the invention of this story would have served no purpose, and would have been an embarrassment given that it positioned John above Jesus.[77][79][80]