Ahh, the chutzpah, the effrontery, the gall, the delusions of grandeur...

Don't try to tell me that you could not at least keep the oceans clean if you had his "POWERS". Anyone could.

And I am not delusional, I just know how fucking great I am. >:)

Makes you want to read Joseph Campbell!

Is he the soup guy? X-)

Parts of Genesis, Exodus, and Numbers were probably the oldest parts. They may have been written by Israelite and Judahite priests stitching together both region's traditions

Several African origins myths are almost exactly like genesis, and hundreds if not thousands of years earlier.

However, the Biblical text is revelatory - its aim is to reveal many things that are hidden.

This is only your opinion of what the bible is, how you interpret it. Personally I think the bible means to say exactly what it says and anything you add to it as "meaning" is actually a corruption of the original writing. Not that I actually believe a word of it.

People that try to find hidden meaning in things can be found by the dozen in museums, looking at the paintings of long dead artists and telling anyone that will listen what the paint was actually trying to express in the work. They have not got a bloody clue either.

Do you think you could do any better with no experience of the job?

The last bloody thing I would want would to be a god. But I would bet that given his supposed powers I could probably do better.

If it wasn't the valid word of God, then there wouldn't be any reason to struggle to get it right for 3,000 years.

If it was the valid word of some god, don't you think he would have made it absolutely obvious what he wanted from us and for us instead of letting a bunch of ignorant, illiterate barely out of monkey stage goons decide what it meant for him?

The funny thing about the bible is that the only people that even bother to discuss its meaning are the ones that believe it to be the word of god, and by doing so call into dispute its validity and his all-mightiness.
Who in his right mind would follow a god that could not even speak clearly enough so that his words would be completely and clearly understood. A god that leaves his followers in a daze about what he meant should be disqualified as a god for incompetence.

I was listening to an online radio yesterday, they played hours of music from '65 and '66.
I remembered my first days in New Orleans, late '65 when they played "Desolation Row" by Bob Dylan.
I was an almost 12 year old from England that had only ever seen a few people with dark skin, and most of them were Indians or Pakistanis. Lots of things came as a shock to me and in my ignorance / innocence I made some mistakes. Looking back, some were funny others not so.

There was a sign on a laundromat door "whites only". "Mom, we cannot wash my trousers here"

There was a separated coffee bar for colored people in the supermarket. "Why can't I have a coke?"

I stood up to let a lady sit down on a bus and she got scared and moved away from me. She was black.

Once I accepted and loved myself almost unconditionally

I like how you put the "almost" in there. I think that one has to put some conditions on loving oneself, other wise I would be happy to accept myself in any condition even if I know it is wrong for me.
I have to be happy with myself before I can love me.

Just mix in something about politics and race and you'll get a nice FB discussion going.

There is no way giving this kind of advise is going to get you the last word. :-|

Do you think it is a necessity to wish good for the person you love (unconditionally) to claim that you love that person?

But why would anyone not wish good for the person they love?
And yes, the unconditional part is bullshit, never can happen, is impossible for a sane person.

Each step would represent a boundary breach of the step before. — MikeL

Each level represents a boundary that has to be breached. The top level is where you get to be creative.

I don't really think these represent the boundary breaches I had in mind although the triangular shape is appropriate. — MikeL

If you look at this as a step up sort of process then it is as if you are breaking a boundary. You cannot do anything in the level above you if you have not completed the level below and the one you are on.

It seems as though you are going along the line of Maslow.

Talking about weather forecasting and me saying that some hurricanes are starting to go south.

Check out the track on this one.

https://www.wunderground.com/hurricane/atlantic/2017/hurricane-jose

Are you watching the wrath of Mother Nature? — ArguingWAristotleTiff

Oh yeah, she is the queen and she knows it. Don't no one screw around with her and expect to win.

I was shitting myself when Harvey passed here, some of these recent hurricanes have been known to turn south. That would have been another disaster for us.

That is what I hate about competitions, they only have one winner that is usually called the best.

A bunch of football teams spend all year playing against each other to win a championship, only one winner. So the rest are losers, second rate teams. And maybe the "best" team got there by making a mistake or getting lucky.

What do you think about trying to become the best? — 12paul123

Personally, I don't waste my time trying. Either what I do is the best that I can do or I will not bother doing it. I don't try to make myself into the best at anything.

Your nursery rhymes and song tidbits will not claim the Last Word - I will make sure of it! — CasKev

Gotcha covered on that,

Completion is not synonymous with perfection. — Samuel Lacrampe

So it is possible for something to be perfect even if it is incomplete?

Jesus died for our salvation. — Samuel Lacrampe

Not worked out too well yet though has it? When are we supposed to be saved?

Running water.

I accept your definition of 'quality', but reject your definition of a 'perfect being'. — Samuel Lacrampe

If we were talking about a car I would agree, but this is supposed to be a complete being, so I would guess he needs to have every single possible property. And it could not be a contradiction because after all he is a god, and gods are capable of being everything they want to be.

A perfect being is one that possesses all good qualities and no bad ones. — Samuel Lacrampe

Sending your only son to die is a good quality?
Letting "your favorite group of people" wonder around a dessert after being slaves for a long time is a good trait?
Letting some nitwit that is not nearly as powerful as you bully you into letting him tempt your creation into doing bad is a good quality?

And the list goes on and on.

I guess that you are not planning on having kids soon then.

? I can't make sense of your statement — Modern Conviviality

There is no answer to your claim that you are paying for someone else's sins. If you want to be religious, you just have to live with it.

Fessing up to a priest will get you saved for eternity, at least that is what they say. Believe that if it makes you happy.

This still does not answer the ethical problem of my being condemned on behalf of another. And my eternal need to be saved thereafter. — Modern Conviviality

There is no answer to that so just confess and suck up life like a man. That way you will be reborn when the time comes, maybe anyways.

I did and also ordered a container of Häagen-Dazs to make White Russians with instead of the cream. — ArguingWAristotleTiff

I'll be there in a while to help you give it a warm welcome when it arrives. X-)

Well, I figured I would get the last word in before I head out for the weekend. Soccer tournament! Or football, for you British blokes! — CasKev

I'm British and I think that the whole soccer/football thing is a crock of shit.

22 full grown men running around a pieces of grass trying to kick a poor little ball to death. And when they actually manage to put the bloody thing in the box at the end of the field all those sweaty bodies start hugin and kissin each other and touchin each others arses.

No thanks.

Weakness and shyness are not qualities, are they? They are properties that are considered negative, like ugliness and laziness. The perfect being would not possess these. — Samuel Lacrampe

Weakness and shyness are not qualities.
Quality:
An essential and distinguishing attribute of something or someone
A characteristic property that defines the apparent individual nature of something

They are qualities because they help to define, explain or describe what things are like.

The fact that you consider them as negative attributes makes no difference they are still qualities.
And surely the perfect being would be a combination of ALL possible properties. A being that only held the quality of boldness would be flawed.

Are you REALLY going to risk denying me chocolate? — ArguingWAristotleTiff

Hey lady, calm down. Eat a Snickers, they say they are good for removing grouchiness, relieving dramatic seizures and a whole bunch of other things.

Better yet, have 2. Hanover will pay for them.

Why was the philosophy forum so nice to lie in?

It had a high thread count! :D — CasKev

OK, now I think I am going to vote for the thumb down button.

Because Eternal Death is the prospect that renders EVERY SINGLe lived experience you ever experienced - your every magical, miraculous moment of awareness in lived phenomenal consciousness your every: CONVIVIALITY, every love, every sadness, every joy, every triumph, every poignancy, every tenderness, every pang of the bitter-sweet, every sorrow, every remorse, every striving, every unguarded smile, every soaring of , and song in, your heart, every fervent hope, every act of kindness or charity you have offered, or gift of compassion you have received, every noble dream, every cherished thing or moment, ALL for naught. — John Gould

All for naught. Even if that is true, so what?
But how could it even be for nothing? All of those things make up MY life. When I go, what good are they to anyone else?
It is not the memories of the things that has value, it was actually doing them. I had those experiences myself, no one has any right to them except me. So when I die I will take them into the big dark void of emptiness, the stone- cold, perfect stillness of oblivion, the nothingness with me. And the rest can keep their own lives.

YOU , and your own life on this Earth- the lives of your wife, your children, those you love and care for; are you and they nothing more, ultimately, than meaningless, worthless, purposeless biological automata wandering aimlessly here and there - Lumps of organic matter whose destiny and sole raisin d'etre was always to be no more , in the end, than fodder for the grave worm? — John Gould

Did you not read in the bible the bit about ashes to ashes, dust to dust?

This thread almost made it to the fourth page. Someone might try to declare themselves a winner if that were to happen! — CasKev

This quote is on page 19 according to my counter?

So I had better call myself the winner and the rest of you can just piss of and play around in another thread.

You could start by looking at yourself critically.
What am I good at?
What am I good for?
What pleases me?
What would I like to end my life as?
What do I want to avoid?

Questioning yourself will help more than questioning others.

But to condemn the human race collectively (original sin) and then swoop in later to save the human race is not glorious, its illogical. — Modern Conviviality

Amen to that brother. >:)

Get an arrow and "this way up" on your ass.

God revealed God's humanity , for instance, in the incarnation , life, teaching and resurrection ( as Christ) of Jesus of Nazareth — John Gould

OK, so now all that is left is to prove that Jesus existed and that he was god's son. That should not be a big problem.

I'll check back later for your reply.

For one thing, we can know what he is not: If he is perfect, then he has no properties that are imperfect (weak, shy, ...). — Samuel Lacrampe

If he were perfect, would he not have all of these qualities? How can a perfect being be missing qualities?

Posty McPostface is a Greedy Gus. There. I said it, it can't be unsaid, and it is what it is. He wanted the Last Word, but he can't have it! — CasKev

Yeah, he is tricky like that isn't he.

But what is not shall not be.

The small sticks came from the branches that came from the trees that came from the ground that came from the earth that came from the sky that came from the cat that came from the book that came from the man with the mangled hand who hung out in the garden waiting for the cart full of the weeds that had been pulled and were on their way to the simmering pile by the brook where no man dare tread.

That's where the sticks came from.

Duh. — Hanover

Hey OK, I only asked. Don't get your knickers in a twist.

Ahh but is it a problem if she took me in out of pity? After all, out of all men in the world, she took pity on me and on no other! That is great! :D — Agustino

If you can live with that,who am I to say anything about it.