I ride my horses. I work out. Both legs work, I am therefore NOT lame.

Always up for a good debate... if only one would show its face.

How about current theories as to the creation of the Universe... you know, the Big Bang?

the other side eh? i been there once, cold place, not much to look at, makes you crave all the feeling and happiness you had in the real world... wait, wrong otherside, nevermind...

Hmm... there isnt anything on the otherside, thats just a ploy to get people to die so space isnt taken up...I mean, i dont want to say there is not heaven, and there is no hell, but you know, its all so subjected to ones own personal feelings, One mans paradice, is another mans eternal damnation...

I was referring to the Big Bang and being facetious, hehehe.

BUT: in reference to the Big Bang and the "other side" question, why it's obvious:

There is simply the lack of space and time on the "other side." Space and time are created by the expansion of the universe, which began at the moment of the Big Bang.

The question is: will the universe expand forever, or will it slow down and contract back in on itself again, and thus pave the way for another Big Bang?

There is really no concrete answer to any debate. It is just a matter of two (or more) sides presenting their opinions supported by fact; whoever has the most persuasive factual evidence wins.

I personaly, as ive said before, am against all forms of organized religion, if you want to believe, believe what you discover yourself, and not some half @$$ opinion given to you by some guy that decided to get out of needing to work by becoming a minister and opening a church...

its my personal opinion that most people that follow an organised religion, such as christianity, catholisism, and all that stuff are just mindless morons, most of them dont even understand the idea of faith, yet go to church every sunday, and get pissed off if you say anything bad about god, yet at the same time, they believe that there religion is the only right one, and that anyone against that will go to hell because they want to convert you, and scare you into doing so, its the ministers, they do that to them...

Today in US history we did a little experiment, we played "telephone" the teacher wrote a message and it was passed around the room for 10 minuts, now, we had INSENTIVE to get it right, if we could get the message at least 80% right, we all got A's for the ENTIRE year... Ok, we went from a 30 word paragraph, to a 5 word sentance... Now, if thats in 10 minutes, with insentive to get it right, how close do you think the bibble is to correct? i got to say, its probably not right at all...

As for what IVE been taught... I was taught very little, i actauly have spent a lot of time asking my friends quesitons about there faith, and have come to a 99% garontee, that if you ask one of them a question that would require for them to actauly THINK, then they just repeat what they have already told me over and over again... Yes, i know im blind-sighted when i come to this topic, ill admit to it, but the thing is, there is a lot of wrong stuff out there...

If any of you have seen the movie "dogma" i have a close agreement with some of the stuff in there, yes, its a bit of an odd movie, but it gets a lot of facts put through, there has been a lot of things in religion that started as a good idea, but then people just took it to far.

So that's why we go. And praise and worship is also a big thing, but that's a DEEP topic, so I'll skip that.

...and now I'll go way back and answer Anakin's question back there somewhere, which asks if one cannot have a debate about religion.

Ummm... in my personal views, AND THAT'S PERSONAL VIEWS, FOLKS! ~ no. Debates need fact, PERSUASIVE EVIDENCE to support them. I mean, by definition that's what a debate is all about. So until someone can come up with hard evidence, let's just say we can discuss religion based on everyone's personal beliefs. Which vary. And make it tough.

I tend to agree with Entaris. People are brought up believing what they are taught, and from what I've observed for the most part just at face value, never searching any deeper for any true facts to support what they have been told. Whether they want to take it all "on faith" is all well and good, but to me it's kinda like: "I'm gonna jump out in front of this semi blasting down the highway and take it on faith that due to the spontaneous disappearance of the particles from which it is made, it's not going to crush me but will disappear before it has the chance to do so."

Hehe. Physics. Ya gotta love it.

Anyhoo, gimme the glory of the stars -- which made us, folks! Gimme the wonder of the expansion of the universe -- which is measurable; all that is debatable is how old it really is and what is to become of it. Gimme something I can physically prove to exist... like the great molecular clouds which are creating new stars even now, and the old globular clusters with little heavy metals, those being the first bunch to come down the pike and who congregate about galaxies.

Give me those billions upon billions of galaxies... and the (highly likely) speculation of the civilizations which are out there.

I have an "feeling" that people will begin saying, "we think Noah's Ark has been found," or "the Ark of the Covenant is in secrecy in" (wherever it is in the Mideast, I saw the special and can't remember the name, but they wouldn't let anyone in to see it, so as far as that goes I'm from Missouri....) and "they found Jesus's brother's grave" and all that kind of thing....

WELL. I NEVER said they didn't live. There is evidence to support the Great Flood as being more along the lines of the flood release of glacial Lake Missoula in eastern Washington/western Montana during the Pleistocene... pretty big flood, created ripple marks on the order of 20 feet from trough to trough; anyhoo, there is evidence in the Mideast that a similar glacial lake was "released" by the degradation of a damming glacial lobe, which would release a HECKUVA LOTTA water... and from the miniscule view of man would be seen as "THE FLOOD TO END THE WORLD." I also believe Jesus did live... as did many of those names handed down so carefully through the Bible. I truly think all in the Bible is as true as interpretations and re-interpretations, and selective omission of books by the "Bible-building" authorities through the ages can make it.

I just question the "mystical" aspects of it all. So I can say, it LOOKS like there was a flood in the Mideast at one point in time; it LOOKS like Jesus really did exist, and it LOOKS like someone did build an ark to carry early and revered scrolls in.

I also know the human mind has limitless imagination, and anyone can write anything, and in an earlier and simpler age it is easy to say, "it is an act of god..." and be believed as that, for in not understanding their physical environment, what else could things be chalked up to BUT a god, and who would want to risk making the god/s angry?

Thus are religions formed....

In reply to Mara's first post, but not necessarily to Mara:

It's all good and well that you go to church to learn about your religion. But back to my initial point, most people take what their parents lay out for them. Learning about the faith, and questioning whether it's true are two different things.

For example, we all feel that when radical muslims are completely wrong. Some kids go to the mosque and learn about their religion, but they only learn what "they" want them to learn. Therefore, many people in the middle east think all Americans are evil.

You're being brainwashed to believe what you believe, the same way many muslims are brainwashed into thinking we're evil. Only when you step out of the box of religion and look back in at all the different ones, put your beliefs in Jesus aside, don't think "this might make god mad" (if he exists, he'll understand what you're doing), just step out, and only then would it not be following blindly.

But as I've said one million and twenty four times, try not to attribute "god" to what you don't understand. Early civilizations have since been proven wrong at their assumption that the sun was a god.

We're still looking for evidence to support the hopeful contraction, said evidence in the form of dark matter, specifically superstrings and the elusive Higgs boson.

Does anyone else like to debate things as much as me? I ought to join a debate club, but in real life I'm not as open and confrontational with things. I guess by that I mean you all can't hit me when I call you stupid...

Here's two interesting topics. We know almost for a fact that North Korea has a couple of nukes, even though they signed a treaty in 1994 with us saying they wouldn't. They broke the treaty and did it anyway. I would compare Iraq and NK, but I don't think that would be a logical thing. Iraq has more of a chance to hand over a little of their stuff to the terrorists. The leadership there is much.....(I'm gonna go into this issue big time here) much less hesitant to mess with the West than North Korea (they're capitalists). North Korea wouldn't hand over anything without a giant price tag, and even then, knowing the position they'd be in, it's doubtful they'd sell. Here's the question, do we pull an Iraq and take military action against North Korea, knowing of their hostilities towards the South and the general hostile-ness towards the West?

You might say, do it through the UN. I want to point out one thing, no one listens to the UN. We saw how long and what it took for the UN to do something when Iraq broke their rules, who's to say North Korea will listen, considering they already broke our treaty.

Looking at the huge picture spanning a hundred years, what would be better for our great-grandchildren? A world with a dictator in Iraq, and communism in North Korea, or a world with democracy in both? Not to say democracy solves everything, we just have to look at our own nation to see that, but what would be better? What would be safer?

To me, it's one of those things that you just hate hate hate to start, but know when it's over and done with, you'll feel a whole lot better.

Ok, I'm done with that one. If you have an opinion, let's hear it. You don't have to agree with me, just have a little bit of logical behind your thoughts...

However, that has no relevance to my opinion on how the problem needs to be solved. To tell the truth, North Korea is self destructing, just like the Soviet Union did. And I don't just mean the similarities between the crapiness (I couldn't think of a better word) of their two economies. The situation is bad in North Korea, and several of their citizens continue to jump ship and defect.

I think the North Koreans have begun to finally acknowledge the desperateness (is that even a word? i'm on a roll today!) of their situation. They've actually laid plans to create a "special economic zone" in one of their cities to allow free trade in that zone with other nations, etc, etc. I think this will only bring more capitalistic and democratic ideals into the North Korean population. Try as they may, they won't be able to stop the people from seeing the prosperity and freedom of other nations.

So, basically, I say we let them self destruct. If anything, we give them a little 'push', maybe, because in my opinion, the communist government may be out in a couple of years.

But then again, North Koreans are known for being stubborn bastards, so I may be wrong. And after all, they can always suppress a revolt with their huge army, who seem to be the only ones getting fed there. But I'm going to stop, because I'm not even sure about my "solution", and this post is on the verge of turning into a rant about how I hate North Korea.

Wow, I feel incredibly stupid. I put down the wrong link. Here's the correct one.
http://asia.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiapcf/east/09/23/nkorea.economic/index.html