sunman

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Posts posted by sunman

  1. Exe,
    You seem to have made some assumptions about me that simply are not true. You seem to think that I never had an understanding of my faith or theology or that I've never read anything by Josh McDowell. Quite the opposite. First of all, let's just say that MANY people have made the search that McDowell has made and have come up with different conclusions. There's a book called "The Historical Jesus" by Crossan that is very interesting. There is also a book called "Who Wrote the Bible" that exposes the four different source documents buried in the Torah, and shows how the first part of the bible, at least, is authored by imperfect men for their own purposes. The point is that many different people write many different books, and it would be retarded to put your faith in any one of these authors. I am trying to look into discoveries and theories made by both christians and non-christians alike so I can make an informed decision.

    Quote

    "Christianity is not centered around tradition, nor did it evolve out of it. Christianity is about having a relationship with God, through the person of Jesus.



    You sound just like I used to sound. I used to live in a christian bubble and think that this was it, this is the truth. And I'll admit that the christian worldview makes perfect sense when you're in the thick of it. But when I poked my head out of that bubble and looked back at it, it didn't ring true with what I saw in reality. I don't see a cosmic struggle between good and evil. I just see people trying to live their lives, that's all.

    Well, I'd love to continuing chatting, but it's a beautiful Wednesday morning and I have to go jump out of an airplane.

    Later.

  2. Quote

    My prayer is that Christ will shine through me in actions and words, yet I never seem to do it well enough.


    This is my point. If Christ really were alive in you, it wouldn't be that hard to do, would it? This Christian struggle that you have is not about the angel and demon on your shoulder. It's about the church repressing you and calling the things that you really want to do "sin", and then you do those things BECAUSE A PERSON IS SUPPOSED TO DO THOSE THIGNS AND THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH IT, and you think you're not being a good christian or something. One day I just said "fuck it" and I decided to do what I wanted for a change. (That was around the time I started skydiving.) I figured if sin is really that bad, then I'll come back to God. So I got drunk. I got high. I got laid. And you know what? It definately was not bad. Now I realize that I had been repressed my whole life, and I just wish I had gotten drunk, high and laid more often when I was younger. Oh well. I have the rest of my life to make up for lost time.

  3. Quote

    But there seems to be a lot of the “I like to think of God as…” type views.

    This only leads me to one of 2 conclusions.

    1. That ‘God’ or one’s view on ‘God’, is strictly a psychologically developed opinion to suit one’s own needs. If one ‘likes to’ think of God as one thing, than that is what God is. In short, There is no ‘God’, but only a reflection of ourselves that we like to portray as ‘God’. In this view, God is still ‘narrowly defined’, only, God is defined by the person who he is created by. There is no such real being as God…. People are free to assign whatever attributes they would like in a God… and that is what becomes reality.

    2. God is a real Being. There are specific attributes to Him. When he is ‘narrowly defined’, it is because he has defined attributes. God likes and dislikes certain things. He is one, specific, personal, and relational being whom we can not simply assign attributes to, but must accept or reject Him for who and what he is.



    I agree with you that people define God based on what they believe him to be. But isn't that what you do as well? Your image of God is based on the traditions of early mesopotamians known as the Israelites. This tradition of beliefs changed and evolved to suit people's needs, and eventually we have a branch of this tradition ending in evangelical christianity. I know because I used to be what people called a "religious fanatic". But when I looked into it, I mean REALLY looked into it, christianity is just another religion. When I failed to see even one occurance of anything truly supernatural in my life, I began to wonder if I was just brainwashed. I used to be quite the "christian apologist", one of those people who can give you 100 reasons why the bible must be true. But you know what? Can't be proved. Know what else? These concepts of heaven and hell, angels, demons, the Holy Spirit, a man-god named Jesus who dies for the sin of the world, and God creating the world in 7 days... do you know how ridiculous that sounds to people who don't believe? What's even more ridiculous is the fact that I had to believe that everybody who does not believe in Jesus is going to spend an eternity in hell. This is a huge ignored logical contradiction! I mean, supposedly, God is perfect, and I'm slime. Actually, I can be a real dick sometimes, but I would never send anybody to hell for eternity just because they chose the wrong religion! But according to the bible, God will. How does that make him perfect? Now I know why whenever I shared my faith people laughed at me. It seems like some crazy made-up story. Maybe that's because it is. The bible is not perfect. Even when I was a christian I knew that. But those apparent contradictions were always cleverly explained away. Well there's a better explanation. If this was a book inspired by God, then there would be no contradictions. The contradicitons are there because it was a book written by men and inspired by their own motives. How am I supposed to believe that the God that designed the universe expects me to believe that he authored or inspired a book that is full of mistakes? And how I am supposed to believe that if despite those mistakes, if I don't place my faith in the God that is described in that book, I go to hell forever? How am I supposed to believe that?

    Whoa, I got a long winded there, sorry about that.

  5. I don't know how much you know about music theory, but your inquiry seems like one that needs a music theory response. So put on your hip waders, we're going deep.

    The first thing to do would be to figure out every single chord that fits in the key of E. If you think of the 7 scale degrees in any key, you can build a chord on any one of those notes. If we number the notes of a major scale 1-7, then build a triad on each one of those notes, we get seven different chords that can be used in that key. The I, IV, and V chords are major (thus the capital Roman numerals), the ii, iii, and vi chords are minor (thus the lower case Roman numerals). The seven chord is diminished, and it is not used very often, so we'll ignore it. The E major scale is: E, F#, G#, A, B, C#, (and D#). So if you build a chord on each one of those notes (except D#) you get E, F#m, G#m, A, B, and C#m. Or you could think of them as the I, ii, iii, IV, V, and vi chords. Try those chords first, then try "borrowing" chords from other keys like A or Em(which is where your G came from).

    Having a knowledge of music theory really helps me in my guitar playing. It's all just a formula.

  6. Whenever it's on, it zooms in very slowly, and I have no control over the zoom, either manually or by remote. It has performed flawlessly since I bought it six months ago, and I use it a lot. This just started happening suddenly today. Any help is appreciated.

  9. Quote

    I guess it shows you when your time is up, it's up.



    Or, it could just be that freak accidents happen once in a while. The odds of this happening are slim, but not so slim that we have to attribute this to the supernatural.

  11. I sold my boat a while ago so I could afford eye surgery. The only person who wanted to buy it was this lady that wanted to make payments on it. Now normally I wouldn't do something like this, but this is the Keys, and it's not uncommon for people to make these kind of agreements. A marine mechanic once let me take my boat home before I paid him for service, for example. I'm not completely retarted, however, so I did make her sign a contract. She had a down payment of $675, then $300 per week until the boat is paid off ($3000 total). She holds the boat, I hold the title until it is paid off. In the contract I included a $5 per day late fee for any payment not received in time, and (this is the important part) if any payment is more than ten days late, I get to keep all the money and the boat. I put those clauses in there just to make sure she would make payments on time. I never thought I would actually have to repo the boat. But here I am on the eve of DAY 11, the day when one payment is over 10 days late. She is $750 behind in payments plus late fees, getting money from her has been nothing but a pain in the ass, she moved without telling me and I had to track her down, and my patience is wearing thin. She's paid about $1700 for the boat so far. Should I feel like a total dick when I repo the boat tomorrow, or does this lady deserve what's coming? What if she has a good amount of money and can come current on payments tomorrow? Should I take the boat anyway? I have the title and a contract that she signed, so she can't do anything about it, right?

    By the way, the boat is a 20 ft. Checkmate with a Johnson 225. It's insanely fast and cool as hell.

  15. Quote

    Might I suggest that the reason you have so many liberals at your dropzone is because you live in California? It might be the state, not the sport

    In my observation, travelling to different dropzones in different states, there are more right-wing, gun-totin' skydivers than free-love, liberal skydivers. But not in California


    Agreed. I've done most of my jumping in Michigan and North Carolina, and I've met far more gun freaks than liberals. Hell, one of my old dzo's is a militia member with an arsenal like you wouldn't believe. Needless to say, nobody ever fucked with him.

  16. Quote

    Quote


    . . . a financial genius . . .



    Uh, got URL? Please, just one? Please show me anybody credible that really thinks Schwarzenegger is "a financial genius".


    Excuse my overstatement. The man is good with money. He has taken his movie and endorsement money and done smart things with it.

    Thank you for responding to the least important part of my post and ignoring the rest of it. Like I said, politics as usual.

  17. Quade,
    Who give a shit? I remember a few years back during the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal, all the democrats stuck up for Clinton, saying what he did with his dick was none of our business and that he was still a good president (but maybe not a great husband). Now the democrats are being total hypocrites, going after a man for what he did with his dick (and the stupid things he said) some 2-3 decades ago.

    Shouldn't we make our decisions based on the issues, or do you want it to be politics as usual, where we just fling crap at each other? I respect Arnold. He is a self-made empire and a financial genius, and I like where he stands on many issues. I'm not even saying I would vote for the guy, but I would give him a chance.

  19. Here's how to buy a diamond:

    1. Go to the jewelry store, and pay thousands of dollars for a rock that is worth about 100 bucks at most (the diamond trade is a monopoly, after all).

    2. Try to sleep at night with the knowledge that an estimated $300-$500 million worth of diamonds is being used every year by rebel armies to buy weapons and fight wars in Africa. An estimated 500,000 innocent civilians have lost their lives over the past decade in the diamond wars of Angola, Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

  20. Don't get worked up over it. If you get too defensive, you're going to look like you have something to hide. Be completely honest about everything. The truth will set you free, even if it means you get dumped. Any chick who would dump you because of some baseless rumors is not worth wasting time and money on anyway.

  21. I'm gonna have to agree with everyone else on this one. It doesn't look good. Get rid of all unnecessary space between the camera and the helmet, even if it's only an inch. An inch is A LOT when we're talking about a riser strike. Why have all that junk that just puts the camera (and your life) in harm's way? If I were you I'd remove everything you have and just put an L-bracket or a D-box in it's place. Or better yet, get an actual camera helmet with a flat side. But since you're using a Canon, I'm assuming that your trying to do this on a budget. Just consider the options. Bonehead D-box can replace everything you have for about $175. A bonehead L-bracket (they are NICE, just got one for my optik, and it comes with everything you need) is only $75. If you do that I would recommend blocking off what little space there is with some sort of thick, high strength epoxy so the riser can't wedge in there.

    Take my advice for what it's worth. I tried to go cheap on my first setup and I had a camera come off my head at 3000 feet. My friends recovered it the next day and get this - it still works! But mine was a Sony, so I don't think you would be that lucky (no offense). Needless to say, I'll never jump anything but a Sony, and I'll only put it on a high quality camera helmet.

  23. Quote

    I hear a lot of complaints, but only rhetoric, not alternatives.


    Here are some alternatives. Leave the rest of the world alone except for when they ask for our help, or when we are directly threatened. End the war on drugs and put the money into education and health care. Stop taxing the hell out of us for every fucking thing imaginable. In other words, stop doing the things that are causing way more harm than good, and focus on making life better, first for Americans, then for the rest of the world.

    Wow. That's three very firey political posts from me in less than an hour. I'm sorry, world.

  24. Quote

    Maybe not his best speech, but he still has my vote. Time is running out for the Democrats to bring forth a formidable candidate. To quote Rhino....Tic, Toc, Tic, Toc.


    You mean it always comes down to two candidates? Ever consider voting for somebody who is neither a democrat nor a republican? People need to start thinking outside the box. This two party system is going to be the death of our country, as taxes will do nothing but increase and our freedoms will do nothing but decrease.

    http://www.vote-smart.org/election_president.php
    Find a candidate who doesn't suck balls.

  25. Nicely put Bill. I usually like to keep my posts short and to the point, and I try to stay away from the political stuff. But oh well. Here's my rant.

    I'm no democrat, and I'm no liberal, but GWB is one shitty president. His "no child left behind" (teachers call it "no school left intact") program has robbed needy schools of money. He has spent unreal amounts of money after giving huge tax cuts. I'm all for giving tax cuts, but common sense would dictate that one must spend less after giving tax cuts. His diplomacy is a joke. He aliented the rest of the world and the UN when he rushed into war, and now he wants their help. Remember just after 9/11 when the rest of the world showed their sympathy and love for the US? Why is it that just 2 years later, we have more enemies than ever? Maybe because the rest of the world wanted to "give peace a chance", so we told them to fuck off? Or maybe they saw how stupid is was to get attacked by Bin Laden, then justify that as a reason to attack Saddam Hussein? And as much as I hate Saddam Hussein, the war in Iraq has little justification. If we really wanted to liberate people, then why have we done nothing for our close neighbor to the south, Cuba? Life is so bad there that people risk their lives every day, crossing 90 miles of ocean in home-made rafts for the chance to live in the US. Here in Key West where I live, we had 20+ people land here this weekend alone. GWB recently made a speech in south Florida and talked about his vision for a free Cuba. Right. The day W helps people without personal gain is the day I eat my own shit. Maybe someday we'll figure out how to help people without bombing them and killing a bunch of them.

    Even with all that, I could still have an ounce of respect for the man if he would just once take personal responsibility for what is happening. But what does he do? He shifts the blame. "The economy is in the crapper because of the war, not because of me!" Well excuse me W, but it's your war, your responsible for everything associated with it. He wants to take all the glory for a "free" Iraq, but he doesn't want to take the responsibility for the side-affects of that victory. All he would have to do is own up to the damaged he has caused, and maybe I wouldn't hate him. But that would mean going to Iraq and explaining to little children who have had their limbs blasted off by our bombs why their parents are dead. The day he apologizes to them and explains this war to them is the day he becomes human again. But I still won't vote for him.