Jonathan H. B. Lobl

Minister is the basic ULC designation. The title used is Reverend. For a small donation, a different designation or title is possible. Please. Stop shouting. It's rude.

Seriously, my Brother. If there's no place to go -- because I'm already there -- why would I search? What is there to climb? Where must I go? I have climbed that mountain. Been there. Done that. I've past the finish line. I can stop running. Meditation and contemplation are still part of my life. I'm cultivating awareness. Like a garden. My external search is done.

The Honorary Doctor of Divinity degree is not a problem. It is clearly an honorary degree. As such, it is court tested. If you want to put an "earned" doctoral degree into your resume -- when you have done no doctoral level work to "earn" it -- Good luck to you. Depending on what you do with it, you may have no problems at all. Depending on what you do with it. It might be up to a District Attorney or a judge to decide whether or not your intentions are fraudulent. I don't care what's in your heart. The law is a mine field. By all means, if you're convinced in the rightness of your case -- you go for that walk. Watch your step. Please, don't type with all caps. It's commonly understood as shouting.

This is starting to go off the rails. Are we still talking about objective evidence for God?

For this I apologize. I seriously got your intentions all wrong.

This thread has grown cold. I'm still here if anybody wants to talk. Lately, I've been working more with qigong than Reiki. The qigong is doing more for my arthritis.

You think that emoji was smiling? I took it as disdain.

Free speech is an important right. The people behind that billboard had every right to use it to proclaim their message. The people that the message was aimed at, are under no obligation to respect the message. Neither you nor meredog know anything about my understanding of Reiki. Belief is misleading and insulting. Having someone misrepresent my understanding, as belief, is very, very, annoying. All the more so, when it comes from the man who cares about precise use of language. Or says he does. This is the man who gets incensed over the use of a capital "A" for Agnostic -- talking about my beliefs. Billboards are a means of selling products to a potential customer. If people want to sell Jesus in the same manner as a laundry product -- the potential customer has the right to form an opinion, as to the quality and trustworthiness of that product. To decide if the goods are genuine or fraudulent. "Let the buyer beware." This is not an attack on Christians. It's a purchasing decision. Yes. I said that the product being sold on this particular billboard was fraudulent. Perhaps everybody would have been more happy, if I had said "shoddy" instead? No fraud intended? Just a bad product? Unworthy of purchase, but not fraudulent? Does that make you happy? Probably not. Does that make meredog happy? Probably not. But I will concede the point. Shoddy would have been a better word.

Atheists do not worry about Heaven.

"The Holy Father was not teaching anything new. In fact, this hope that all who do not yet know God are not only capable of doing good - " How kind of the Holy Father to note, that Atheists can do good. I'm underwhelmed by his generosity of spirit. "The Church wants all men and women to be saved." Well, glory glory. The Church wants to save our souls. Who would have guessed? Two thousand years of persuasion didn't get the job done -- but he still wants to save our souls. Of all the smug, arrogant, condescending ............. Really, you impress too easily. Which part of this is new? Aside from the overt threat of violence being muted. The church has been declawed. It's still the same church otherwise.

The feature might not work. "Ignore" is still an option.

Thank you for the confirmation. I was wondering if I had over reacted.

Lighthearted? This is what you do with personal information?

meredog knows from previous discussions that I have a background in Reiki. From the manner in which meredog intrudes Reiki into this thread, it was clearly a shot at me. The question is why. Now, I'm waiting to see if he had a reason beyond annoying me. I have grown accustomed to his pushing intellectual purity beyond all reason. This is personally insulting aimed at me.

What are you doing?

There is nothing new about fraudulent advertising, for misleading or defective products -- with unproven claims.

Perhaps, "synchronicity". These billboards were put up by the same mindset. The mindset that looks at a star filled night -- and says -- "Look! Proof of God!!". Star filled skies fill me with awe also. It is the natural. Not the supernatural. People do not understand the meaning of evidence.

You have a lengthy history of asking "what if" questions about God. You have been confusing me for years. I finally understand -- I do mean finally -- that you were not speaking of your own perspective. You are a master of language. Please be more careful. All this time, I thought what you were doing was pushing intellectual purity as an agnostic. Now, I find that I have been misunderstanding you. In future, I will try to ask better questions. My own expectations probably contributed to the miscommunications.

That is not how it came across. Please be more careful.

Your historian also has much to say about Noah's Flood. You have been explicit that this was a regional occurence.

It's even worse, when faith is more important than fact. When faith over rides fact.

When was the Exodus? Under which Egyptian Pharoh? Why is there no historic mention of the ten plagues? Or the Egyptian army being drowned? It never happened.

The obscurity in this case is coming from abstraction. So, a quick review of how we got here. From my own biased perspective. I said that there was no objective, verifiable evidence for God. Dan challenged me. He said he had such evidence. I asked Dan to produce said evidence. Said evidence turned out to be -- surprise -- Scripture. I rejected this as objective, verifiable evidence. Dan insisted that the Bible was objective, verifiable evidence, for the believer. This was rejected by me -- and others -- as subjective evidence and not useful. This was when things started getting confusing. meredog went off on a speculative pleading about the nature of God. Strange for an atheist, but that's meredog. Things got intense and I dropped out for a while. Now, I'm lost. The thread is a tangle and I'm not understanding any of it.

At this point, I'm confused. Are we talking about being fair? Or are we talking about evidence? It's getting obscure.

It's a variety of smugness that these groups indulge in. When Atheists come together -- they're like any other group. It's a form of elitism. I have outgrown religion. I know better. They need religion. They need prayer.