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But it seems by your logic you also don't know if you're in a debate. You don't even know if you're talking just because you're senses are telling you you are doesn't mean it's actually happening. You also don't know if the person you're talking to is listening, or if they can listen, it could be chance that they are saying the proper things to follow the conversation. You also don't know if there is any air in the room to vibrate to make your sound move to his ears, maybe there is a wall of vacuum between the two of you that appeared for a second and muffled everything you said before it got to him. You also don't know if you're really a brain in a jar or a coma patient or a sea sponge. You also don't know if you're not god.

So it seems by you're "we can't know anything for sure!" debating tactic you shouldn't even have bothered posting in this thread because you can't have an opinion, there are just too many unknowns!!

re: unicorns. a horse with a carrot on it's head is not a unicorn. If someone makes a claim that a Unicorn is a horse like creature with a horn in it's forehead, a lion's tail, a goat's beard and cloven hooves and that the horn can neutralize poison, also sometimes only virgins can see them. There are claims that you can then refute. If someone presents you with a unicorn of classical definition, you look at it and see that a carrot is glued to it's head you can then state "This is a horse and there is a carrot glued to it's head" You're skipping the whole hypothesis part of your argument that anything can be true.

CJ is a black woman from the depths of the sea. Do you think this can be proved wrong, Lionmonkey?

The article says it was a mathematical exercise to model the spread of infections diseases and zombies were used as part of it. It's serious research with a quirky twist, sheesh!

http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/bigcartel-create-online-store-free/

http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/fatfreecart/

found these

also, as an aside, Brad Sucks is some awesome music, check it out

Ok thanks! Rereading your post I see I somehow skipped the one sentence in the middle of a paragraph where you already said the pope would go to prison, sorry!

I chose the pope because if I were to post a link to news articles of people who have killed their children or other people and said God told them to do it one could say they were crazy or not a true believer but the pope... If one doubts his faith I don't know where to go from there!

But just because God demanding murder isn't mentioned in the new testament means nothing, right? God didn't say "Alright, I'm done asking people to kill for me!" and he didn't say "I'm done killing children to prove a point!" he only said he'd never flood the world again. God can do whatever he wants whenever he wants and just because there's no record of him asking people to kill for him in the new testament doesn't mean he isn't doing it right now, right?

One last modifier, what if your father/mother/wife/child killed someone and told you God told them to do it? What if you heard words in your head telling you to kill someone and they identified as God? Sorry if these questions are boring but I am truly extremely interested and not trying to be a jerk or anything.

So again, to clarify, should the Pope be arrested for killing people and saying that God told him to do it?

MrMatti: Balls! As I was typing Astronomy I thought in my head "now don't confuse the two! That would be hilarious!" and there I went!

Once again, if he has permission and ONLY if he has permission.  I don't know why God would allow the devil to do these things and most likely he wouldn't but if he did, I am sure there would be a reason.

Ok then, let me maybe sum up what I've learned so far... God does things, only he knows why, humans can NOT know his plan. If God does it it is Good. God can not do bad. The devil can interfere with humans but ONLY IF God allows him to. If the devil does it it is Bad. HOWEVER because God allowed it to be done then it is Good because God can not do Bad. So the devil's actions are Good.

Did God allow the snake to tempt Adam and Eve?

What if it's in God's plan to give North Korea nuclear weapons but the devil has tricked the leaders of other countries into thinking it's a bad idea? If God does it it isn't bad so you can't say North Korea getting nuclear weapons is a bad thing.

I have to say here that while there is a plan that God has it does not mean that people don't have free will, people can make horrible decisions and do horrible things.  Ultimately I would have to say that I don't what god's plan is or even how he decides what it is.

Ok, so there is a possibility that God wants North Korea to have a nuclear weapons program, there is also a possibility that the devil wants North Korea to have nuclear weapons but if that's the case it is only because God allows the devil to want that. There is also the possibility that North Korea wanting nuclear weapons has nothing to do with God's plan and is just people making decisions. HOWEVER from North Korea's perspective, having nuclear weapons is a good thing so therefore they would see it as part of God's plan to have nuclear weapons. Sheesh!

If you love your neighbor as you love yourself then you will try to do good for people. 

Has God ever been directly responsible for the deaths of humans? Now sure, because he did it it was a Good thing but I'm curious, in the Bible has God ever told anyone "Kill these people" or "You will win this war by my blessing but you owe me a sacrifice afterwards!" or where he just kills babies by himself? It's hard to understand that commandment when He can reverse it at His whim. Especially when you can't know God's plan and someone kills someone else and says God told them to do it. You can't know if they're telling the truth, right? There is no way to test for God influence but there is precedence in the Bible that God has asked people to kill. So how do you commit someone on Earth of a crime they claim was demanded by God? And if God is asking it, it is Good so what is the crime? There has to be more to this than "Well they weren't a true believer" because how do you test for that? If the Pope single handedly murdered 6 people tomorrow and then said "God told me to do it." Are you totally fine with that or do you demand he is arrested?

Shouldn't you be very interested in what the devil is trying to do because not everyone will resist him? Can the devil interfere with humans? Can the devil talk to humans? Can the devil start a forest fire by making lightning strike a tree? Can the devil give someone cancer? Can the devil start a forest fire which happens to burn down a house but turns out the owner had a huge insurance policy on the house and now they get millions of dollars? What if it's in God's plan to give North Korea nuclear weapons but the devil has tricked the leaders of other countries into thinking it's a bad idea? If God does it it isn't bad so you can't say North Korea getting nuclear weapons is a bad thing. You can't say anything is a bad thing because you don't know if it's part of god's plan or not, right?

I just want to say that I have ALWAYS wanted to ask someone questions like these and I thank you a lot for taking time to answering them!

Modern medicine, science, history, biology, chemistry, geology, astronomy and other various sources all get together and make up my lack of faith in any deity, sure.

However, I don't know if my point is being made clear enough... I guess I'll ask a more direct question, what has the devil done recently?

What if modern medicine was given to us by the devil? How do you know it wasn't? How do you know it's God's solution?

"Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows." (James 1:17)

I don't see any way that saving someone's life can be seen as a bad gift, it is a good gift.  To expand more on this point

Matthew ( 16-18 )
" By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?  Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit.  A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit."

Jesus says directly here that a bad tree cannot bear good fruit, therefore the devil which by definition is an entity that works for evil cannot bear good fruit so it is impossible that any sort of innovation that causes good things can come from the devil.

What if I told you modern medicine was a direct contributing factor into me not believing in God? That's pretty bad right? What a great trick the devil pulled to draw people away from god.

Is all modern medicine good and from god? What about Embryonic Stem Cell research? What about things that are bad but we thought were good? Did god give us full frontal lobotomies? Doctors really thought they were doing good with those but oh man...

I think if you refuse to take a solution that God has given for and instead ask him to give you things. (Like refusing medicine) Then he will not give it to you because it is not really faith.  You can give a child medicine and still pray.

What if modern medicine was given to us by the devil? How do you know it wasn't? How do you know it's God's solution?

RE: Roswell.
But Roswell has nothing to do with aliens from outerspace crashing on the planet. It has everything to do with the Cold War and the US versus Russia. Do you agree or disagree?

RE: That red picture.
I don't know. I can't know. That's the point. I don't have context. I don't have the education. What does the next frame look like? Are they still there in the next frame? Is this a single frame anomaly? What is the official story for what those are? Is this a common error? Can you answer any of these questions? If not, why not? Read the BadAstronomy link, he explains that these aren't just cameras from the store.

RE: The clouds.
This is the problem Mark... Those are nebula. Scientists have known about them for years. They found them, did tests to analyze them and now know exactly what they are. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebula This is what people with education on the subject and context to the photo do, they explain the truth.

We have known about nebula since the 1700s! http://www.astronomycafe.net/qadir/q1087.html You've never heard of them so instead of doing research or asking for more information you just dropped it. If I google image search for Space Clouds it even tries to correct me "Related searches:  nebula"

http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&safe=off&q=space%20clouds&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi

I show you a picture that you don't have context to and you assume it's scientists lying to you when for the last 300 years scientists have told you the truth about nebula. You had no education on the subject and no context so you didn't and couldn't know. You said yourself that you've never seen anything like these SOHO images, maybe that's a clue that they're out of your knowledge range and research is needed. For instance, I just read about nebula, neat!

I guess this is the problem. You are of the mindset that everyone but TruthLuver42 on youtube is lying to you or being paid off. NASA is an institution run by the United States Government, do you think the US Government is in any kind of habit of letting information out into the public because if it's found out that they lied it would be more damaging to them?! One of our Presidents illegally wire tapped the Whitehouse, they didn't release these recordings because they were nervous if someone found out they'd get in more trouble! Why would NASA act any differently than these supposed black ops alien hiding shadow governments?

Oh, I just want to add one more thing. That LASCO image is related to a new(ish) story about a possible collision with the Sun by a comet/dwarf star/object... Apparently this will happen on August 22nd and many of us will be fried to a crisp. All just hype? Who knows...the LASCO and SOHO images in the last few days have been weird enough to back it...

It's August 21st right now, are you worried? Are you honestly worried? These people and their predictions have been wrong since the dawn of time. When has a doomsday scenario ever been predicted correctly? What happened to that Lovegood woman or whoever she was, the one claiming aliens would show themselves? Why do these people get free passes at being wrong? How many times must people be wrong before you stop listening to them?

Alright alright, I need to give some reason why I'm writing so much. It's obvious to me that you love this. You love writing about, making movies about and thinking about the possibility that there are alien visitors here doing... something. I fear contrary opinions are dismissed in favor of supporting arguments. I fear you trust people will a youtube account more than the people who built the camera that is giving you the photos. I am waiting for the evidence that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt [and well beyond a shadow government] that there are extra terrestrials visiting the planet. The SOHO pictures are interesting but after some research it is pretty clear that they are not sufficient evidence for me.

I guess the only thing I hope to gain from discussing this is maybe convincing you to approach your evidence differently? Ask more questions of it. Only by weeding out the fake evidence do we get at anything real and if these SOHO pictures are mundane we can forget about them and look for better evidence. Like how Roswell has been explained for the awesomely "mundane" story that it is so we can stop using that in our examples of alien visitation.

Anyway, I don't mean to offend, it's obvious we both are passionate about this subject and through my passion I hope to not have stepped out of line.

Sorry, what images are you talking about specifically? You linked a lot of videos and I don't know what you're talking about exactly.

Even so, I'm not qualified to comment on what is in those images. Pareidolia and general ignorance would make me leap to conclusions that are unfounded.

http://www.xanaduobservatory.com/VeilFitsLibFirstTry.jpg
http://www.freewebs.com/girlpuck/Eagle%20Nebula.jpg

For instance, look at these pictures, first off, why are there clouds in space, I thought scientists said that there is no atmosphere in space! It's a vacuum so why are there clouds?!

All of these questions have been answered by the people who know how to even begin answering the questions. I'm sorry to say that there are answers to the questions you seek but you don't like them because they are seemingly mundane. There was a video I posted a while back about what really happened at Roswell as explained by a Professor Muller during a lecture on sound waves. He explains the sound channel in the water and Sofar spheres, he explains the sound channel in the sky, all discovered by humans and used by humans. When you hear the story Muller tells about how all of these incidents come together to equal a crashed "flying disc" in New Mexico, it's amazing! It's a great story and it's true! But because it isn't aliens it is seen as mundane. That's too bad.

Will every picture of something in the sky be explained, of course not, and it's silly for anyone to think so. But every sound outside your house at 3am is also not explained but chances are that it's something mundane and not Bigfoot. So again, when you take the holy grail of UFO stories, Roswell, and you learn the backstory from people who know how to interpret the data, you get the truth. So when someone then shows me a picture of something without the advanced knowledge on how to interpret the photo, I can't and should not believe them. Hence, SOHO photos.

Is that really the most likely answer to them not emailing you back, though? Why put the images on the internet for all to see if they are trying to hide something?

Reading up on these images it seems they are taking pictures of stars, the center spot in the images is an occluder that blocks out the light from the star so you can see what is happening around the star and not have your images washed out from the light of the star. They are also pretty open about what they are doing and there are many articles online describing the process, the reason and even mathematical formulas for how they dealt with distortion in the images and other things. They release the images on the internet even when these so called anomolies appear, no one had to steal them and release them to the people, no one had to file a Freedom of Information Act to get them released. The Soho space craft is a joint effort between NASA and the European Space Agency. They seem to be looking into space with an EXTREMELY SENSITIVE CAMERA and directly at stars and our sun. Is there even the slightest possibility to you that you are looking at images that you do not understand but the people who built this thing know full well are just bad pictures where the calibration was off or any number of problems when pointing a camera into space directly at a star?

http://lasco-www.nrl.navy.mil/

This is a site run by the US Military, they provide images for anyone to look at, even movies for free! Not very hush hush about this stuff if they release it for free.

http://sungrazer.nrl.navy.mil/index.php?p=cometform

Here's a site to explain how to spot comets, according to a NASA website the SOHO spacecraft has accounted for approximately one-half of all comet discoveries with computed orbits in the history of astronomy. Many of the discoveries by amateur astronomers. This site helps explain to amateurs how to spot comets and not be confused by the countless problems and errors in taking a very sensitive camera and pointing it at a star in space.

Neat, even Phil Plait explains what the images are. He is an astronomer and in my opinion extremely reliable:

http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/planetx/soho.html

in short:

"The point here is that people ... have no experience with digital astronomical cameras, and assume they simply take pictures. CCDs are far more complicated than that, and in fact I have just scratched the surface here with what you need to know to interpret CCD images."

I guess in conclusion... I, Eric Feurstein, can NOT WAIT for an alien spaceship to appear in our orbit. I also CAN NOT WAIT to find a microbe on another planet. I CAN NOT WAIT for us to find some algae under the ice of Europa, will it have DNA?!? HOLY CRAP! Imagine if it didn't have DNA and it was completely separate from our evolution, holy shit. The thing I ultimately can't wait for is evidence of aliens that is not easily explained by people who know what they are looking at. SOHO images are well documented on what they are, how they work and how to interpret them. THAT is how I can look at these and not be convinced, Mods, not because I'm willfully averting my eyes and rejecting evidence.

I'm curious, do you know what the official story is for these images? How many people who are looking at these images know what they are looking at? What do the experts who built it say these images are of?

Well then you get into the wondering what God's plan was for 2 people in a garden. Would man eventually have built... cities?

If God had a plan for 2 people in a garden then that plan was changed which raises more questions about the fallibility of an omnipotent presence and his ability to plan. One of the major questions being, was man set up to fail?

I dunno, I still like the idea of Necessary Sin, it ties nicely in to the myth of Prometheus disobeying the Gods and stealing fire from them.

I enjoy the thought of being banished from the garden as a Necessary Sin. If man didn't disobey god then we would not be here. No one would be here. There never would have been computers or airplanes or pictures of the Earth from the surface of the Moon or Chow Chows

Does it not seem then that you'd have to thank adam and eve for original sin or you'd never have been born?

This of course presupposes a belief that not only does God exist but that the Bible is a literal telling of events...

Ok, thank you.

But the religious president ordered it be made.

So Miguel, why would a religious president drop an atomic bomb on a city full of innocent people?

I think it's a valid question even for a believer in ghosts, Mods. What makes those aliens visiting the planet and not ghosts of dead relatives floating in space? If I were to follow contemporary pop culture they are not ghosts because ghosts live in old houses and don't float thousands of miles into the sky. But is that reason enough to dismiss them as ghosts? To dismiss them as ghosts you'd have to have some other evidence that makes them corporeal or binds ghosts to a set of rules, I think. Right now there is just footage of something moving.

Personally for me there are a lot of unsolved UFO cases not because there is evidence for UFOs in the case but because there isn't enough evidence for anything. These people filmed something in the sky, I guess that's really as far as we can go with this video. There is no more reason to think they are extra-terrestrials from another planet visiting us than there is to think it's ghosts in space than there is to think it's something more natural. I'm not trying to discount your beliefs I'm just curious how you'd refute the idea that they are ghosts in the space. Conclusions are an interest of mine I guess!