Coalesce's reply history at Help.com

Love is choosing.

We can always choose to leave, choose to cheat, choose to lie or betray. We can choose to play at love while letting the emptiness inside us fester. We can choose to stay while holding another in our hearts.

Or, we can choose, choose to love, and surrender, and be loved in return.

For being anonymous? Dunno :)

I don’t believe in fate, but I certainly believe in people. People can do extraordinary things.

If you really feel it is worth becoming closer to him, to see what it could become, then go for it!

The Epic of Gilgamesh speaks of many of the same things the Christian Bible does, all of this roughly 2,020 years before the Old Testament (Pentateuch/Septaguint) was in existence and roughly 2,200 years before the New Testament. Manicheanism and Zoroastrianism both have many of the same tenets as Christianity with technical differences in doctrine. If I believe one without any evidence, why shouldn’t I believe in all of them without evidence? Thus, to my mind it is best to reserve belief for those things that have evidence, rather than to believe in many things without evidence, or in one thing preferentially with a bias against many other things that have as little and as much evidence as my belief.

Regarding a definition of good, I would say there are many different definitions of good. I think it largely depends upon the individual and their culture/society what they would consider good. Here in the US, we can’t decide if it is ‘good’ to allow abortions or not. Not too long ago, we couldn’t decide if it was ‘good’ to keep slaves or not. Hell, we even had a bit of a war associated with the issue (though I recognize that it was not the direct cause or issue at hand). My best stab at a personal definition of good would be a small axiom: “Take what you want, and pay for it.”. I feel that lying, cheating, stealing, being mean, crude, insensitive, or lacking compassion are in most cases ‘bad’. In the vast majority of cases, the consequences of say theft are not worth it. The harm it does to the person (potential for jail) and the harm it does to society (lack of rule of law and trust) are too high a cost to pay. But… in cases, the cost is worth it. If I were a prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp, and I could steal a loaf of bread from a Captain’s desk to feed my family… it would be worth paying the price. Basically, I believe in doing no harm to others or to society as a whole whenever it is practicable. But… when homedude is trying to rape someone I care personally for… doing harm to others may be necessary.

Note: Many people exclaim to me “You don’t believe in god? If no one believed in god the world would be full of rapists, murderers, and theives!”
I disagree, god is to your soul as your father is to your backside. In fact this parallel in relationship is pretty explicit in the bible. If you papa slappin’ your backside didn’t stop you from smoking then god damning your soul ain’t gonna stop you from whatever else you’re going to do. Besides, if the only reason the person saying this to me hasn’t stabbed me, stolen my wallet, and raped my corpse is that they are afraid of a heavenly father… I would rather not be around them. Many people are ‘good’ to their own standards without the threat of damnation. Some standards of ‘good’ vary, some being loose enough to allow ‘bad’ by my opinion, but the same can be said of religion. Many religions allow you to beat people to death with big friggin rocks because they mouthed off, or didn’t dress properly.

Evil is intentionally doing the opposite of ‘good’. Thus, stealing when it isn’t justified or necessary. If I steal food to save lives, and I accept the consequences of my actions, this isn’t evil by my beliefs. If I steal a CD from WalMart and raise hell when I get caught, this is evil. Evil ranges, obviously lifting a CD is a very small evil, whereas genocide would be an extreme of evil.

Absolute good and evil? I think they exist as concepts, like the concept of justice or freedom or love. I don’t believe that they physically exist though.

There are to my mind examples of good and evil in nature. Some dogs will sacrifice their food to a sick mate, others will push the sick mate out of the way and eat their food. The dog didn’t have to give up its food, and didn’t have to steal it from the other. This to me would be the same as ‘good’ or ‘evil’.

Sorry it was too wordy, and may be too long to read for many… but I liked the topic and thought I might explore it a bit. Happy Holidays all! :)

Well, concerning how to label beliefs there are several modifiers to consider:

1) Agnostic vs. Gnostic (not Gnostic as in Gnosticism or the Gnostic Gospels, Gnostic as in ‘Gnosis’)
-Agnosticism is a viewpoint that the existence of god is either unknown or unknowable.
-Gnostic belief is that the existence of god can be ‘known’.

2) Atheist vs. Theist
-Atheism is the belief that god does not exist.
-Theism is the belief that god does exist.

It is possible to be an Agnostic Theist (one who has FAITH in the existence of god even though they believe that it is impossible to KNOW if god exists or not) just as it is possible to be a Gnostic Atheist (one who believes it is possible to KNOW if god exists and believes that they KNOW god does not exist).

After these modifiers are ‘filled in’ then we can move on to denomination (the cultural practice of the belief itself).

I would place myself as an Agnostic Atheist. Meaning that I don’t claim to KNOW whether or not god exists. It is my estimation or best guess based upon the currently available information that god does not exist… but this is merely a best guess. I haven’t seen or heard of anything that would lead me to firmly believe that god does or does not exist. Without some form of evidence, the only things that would lead you one way or another would be faith and/or opinion. Faith is belief that extends beyond the available information. I don’t have a belief for or against the existence of god that extends beyond the currently available information, thus, I have no faith. Without faith then, I have no ‘knowledge’ of the existence, or lack of existence of god.

As far as my slight leaning towards a lack of belief in god, without the evidence of somethings existence I find myself skeptical and reserved regarding the belief in it. Humans have believed in many different gods, deities, powers, ghosts, spirits, superpowers, alien beings, etc for thousands of years. Without evidence for this or that god, what’s to say that one is more likely than the other?

Carebear: VOTE STARE!

The Challenger Deep of the Mariana Trench. :)

I write :) See my ‘Help me with:’ below? :)

It’s up to the person, my friend Mookie meets girls online all the time… though his is I would suppose a cautionary tale if you had met these women. I swear one showed up wearing stretch latex garments studded with tin, in a semi-beehive, with garish clown makeup (think Mimi from the Drew Carey show) and with a whip handle dangling out of her purse… That, and her physical stature and appearance were categorized as ‘Beefalo’ by my other friends.

But, then again my buddy Joe-Ball met a girl on the internets, drove across the country to meet her, and ended up staying and living with her. I think they are married now.

Long story short, works for some, not for others. Personally it’s not my style. While I am a fanatic of rampant geekistry, I’d rather meet the ladies on campus.

Shannalamadingdong

http://www-ai.ijs.si/eliza/eliza.html
http://www.elbot.com/

Give the person these links.

What is the deepest part of the ocean called?

Challenger
(Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench)

I love carlo rossi!

It’s the basis of all lifeforms. We exist because we were better at f*&#ing and fighting than the next species. Gotta figure, after 4 billion years of practice we are standing at the top of the pyramid… we are awfully god **** good at f*&#ing and fighting.