I heard that in a movie, and it's true! The point of life is to try your best. It's about having fun, having responsibilities, and helping people.

I believe God has a plan for us all and each of us has a special purpose that fits into His plan.

Take me for example. I believe God has called me into politics so that I may humbly represent the people who support me and thus minister to their needs. All I do, I do for God.

Anyway, that is what I believe and I believe it to be the truth.

God bless you,

JAD <><

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For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.

quote:

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Originally posted by retarded_brat:
yeah that may be so for you ephasians, but i don't believe in a god or a holy spirit, or "god's plan" for us all.
and i know nothing in life is certain....but whatever certainities or uncertainities we face, what's it all for in the end?....that's my question....i mean, does it all really matter?

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I can only tell you what I believe to be true. In the end, those of us who accept Christ's gift of salvation and ask God's forgiveness of our sins, will go to Heaven.

Again, that's what I believe to be true.

JAD <><

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For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Personally, I don't try and figure out what it all means. I think we're here just to be here, and i believe we don't serve any greater purpose than a flower or a the sky. We're just here to live, and that's what i'm doing.

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'You've got the eyes of ten women. Not in a jar! I wasn't accusing you. I just mean your eyes are really nice'-coupling

Well, she just asked for input and I gave mine. I wasn't trying to press my beliefs on anyone else.

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'You've got the eyes of ten women. Not in a jar! I wasn't accusing you. I just mean your eyes are really nice'-coupling

quote:

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Originally posted by Celtic Daisy:

Personally, I don't try and figure out what it all means. I think we're here just to be here, and i believe we don't serve any greater purpose than a flower or a the sky. We're just here to live, and that's what i'm doing.

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I think, however, we are more significant than a flower or the sky, or even an animal because we have the most advanced brain, and we have something that plants and animals don't have: a conscience - an inner being that tells us what is right and wrong. this alone, I think tells us that we are significant beings, and that there is more of a purpose to life than to simply "exist".

Another thing that tells us this is the way people react to suicide. If people just existed, and then could choose to cease existing, and that was all there was, it wouldn't be such a big deal when someone made such a choice.

quote:

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Originally posted by Celtic Daisy:
No no no, that's not what i was saying at all. I just meant be careful what you get defensive about because you could just be reading something the wrong way. I didn't mean to imply that i thought you were trying to push your beliefs on her, i just meant that i didn't think it was necessary for you to get defensive with her when she said she didn't believe in god.

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I wasn't trying to be defensive or anything. I was simply restating that those were my personal beliefs. I had no idea that she was an atheist. Furthermore, I apologize if I sounded defensive.

JAD <><

quote:

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Originally posted by retarded_brat:
different religions tell us different things i guess...and we have no idea which is right and which is not.

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This is where the idea of having a "faith" comes in. Nobody can ever know for sure what is right, but they can make a leap of faith that what they are believing is true. And those that openly state that they have no idea are not atheists, but rather, agnostic.

You may not believe in faith, or worshipping or whatnot, but they do, and you must respect that.

Everyone is entitled to their own beliefs and opinions.

i did not bring down their religion and i did not say i don't respect the fact that they worship and have faith, or whatnot. i know that everyone is entitled to their own beliefs and opinions. please do not misunderstand what i said.

quote:

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I think, however, we are more significant than a flower or the sky, or even an animal because we have the most advanced brain, and we have something that plants and animals don't have: a conscience - an inner being that tells us what is right and wrong. this alone, I think tells us that we are significant beings, and that there is more of a purpose to life than to simply "exist".

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Personally, I don't think we are more significant than a flower or an animal, in fact we are less significant. No other species kills its own kind deliberately, no other species lives by destroying its environment (except stuff like bacteria that break things down, but that's to keep things going). In the words of Agent Smith
"You Humans are a disease, a cancer of this planet.... a plague."

quote:

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Originally posted by AlwaysWorried:
No other species kills its own kind deliberately, no other species lives by destroying its environment

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You're kidding, right?

Have you never seen animals fight with one another? Have you forgotten about parasites, which survive by thrashing their environment just enough to ensure that the host stays alive but is miserable?

All this sort of populist "humans are a plague" stuff really makes me scratch my head. We're not perfect creatures, and we leave a lot to be desired...but I've never seen a paramecium paint the Mona Lisa. And I've never heard an antelope play Moonlight Sonata. There's enough beauty and goodness in all things to go around, and that includes human beings too.

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BruinDan, "Number Three," FHOM

Ya'll remember zebra's? Kind, horse-like stripped quadropeds that live in Africa?

If a new alpha male comes into the herd when there are foals, he'll kill the foals because they are the descendents of the previous male. Nice, huh?

In fact, many herd or grouping animals do that. It's how they play the survival game.

Early neanderthals would commit infantcide because there wasn't enough food and the mother was not able to hunt.

Read the Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins and let me know what you people think!.

[edited because we like to keep the boards free of violence and all of its depictions. and because we'd much prefer not to have swear words peppered into our posts. and because caps lock can be reealllyyy hard on the eyes.]

Okay, so when life began on Earth 4 billion years ago, the atmosphere was very different. It was very much like what Jupiter is today, air was full of methane and ammonia and CO2 etc. There was also tons of lightning too. These were the atmospheric conditions of prebiotic Earth. So under these conditions, molecules such as amino acids, purines and pyrimidines formed. These same conditions have been simulated in lab experiments, and these same molecules formed.

So now we have molecules that were slightly more complex than before being formed. Big deal?. Not yet. Big deal is when these molecules somehow attained an ability to replicate themselves. This is not as incredible as it sounds. What if a certain molecule had the ability to attract complimentary or similiar molecules towards it, and then cause these molecules to line up and align themselves accordingly?. (This is what happens when DNA replicates). So now we have a new class of molecules with a unique ability to replicate themselves. (lets call them replicons)

But as with all copy systems, errors do occur, and if an error occurs, it follows on to the next generation. Thus it's possible to have variances between these replicating molecules and they are not all the same. So now we have a population of replicating molecules, each having small differences.

As with Earth today, the resouces are not unlimited. The raw materials required to make these replicons were finite. Thus as more and more replicons appeared, the raw materials started getting more scarce. Thus evolved competition. Competition for raw materials.

What factors make one replicon better than the others?. If a certain replicon A had the ability to replicate faster than the others, then it would be at an advantage, and the population would soon have an abundance of molecule A. Similarly, if a certain replicon B had the ability to break down a different kind of replicon and then use the raw materials from that molecule to make another replicon B, it would be at an advantage as it would have found a source of raw material, and it would also be eliminating one of it's competitors. Say if yet another replicon C evolved a protein coat around it, that would protect it from such would-be predators. It would then be at an advatage and it would survive into the next generation to replicate itself.

So now we have a whole population of more and more elaborate replicons, replicons that are continuously evolving new ways to propogate itself. Natural selection favours the replicon that has used it's surrounding conditions to it's best advantage, and thse replicons become more abundant. Natural selection penalises replicons that have not made the best use of it's surrounding conditions and these gradually "die out". Thus, things can only improve. There is no room for error. So these ancient replicons evolved and became even more elaborate of using the resources, and eliminating it's competitiors, and propogating itself. They are absolutely selfish, their only interest is in spreading themselves, and it's this single minded-ness that makes them so ruthless, so selfish.

Where are they now?. They are inside all of us. They have long ago given up the free-living lifestyle they once led, and they live hidden inside us, having evolved elaborate and tedious and long-winded means of communicating with each other. Everything we have been programmed to do is for the good of THEIR own selfish propogation. They are our genes.