Pastor Dave

Interesting read, but I'm not sure how it directly relates to the story.

Interesting that you, an atheist, and I, a Christian, can see the same thing in this story.

Let's try this experiment with a little different criteria. Take something you know nothing about, and is unimportant to your life. What if I tell you I live in a white house situated on a hill. You can choose to believe it or you can choose not to believe it or you can choose not to make a choice. The choice is yours. If belief is not a choice then you will automatically know whether my house is white .... or green.

Ok I have another piece of ancient Jewish wisdom to share. Let's see what you all think of this story. It's been a few years since I heard this one, and it's probably written down somewhere but I can't find it. Forgive me if you know the story and I get anything wrong. There was a Rabbi who upon coming home found that there was a thief in his house robbing him. When the thief heard the Rabbi come in he fled with whatever he already had. The Rabbi ran after him and yelled to the thief, "You can have it". In doing so the Rabbi had released the man from the guilt of his actions.

Thanks for the clarification Jonathan. When I read the first one I thought maybe you had changed your mind about me. LOL

Von, Yes, the New Testament does teach "give and you will receive". In the religious circles I am connected to it is known as a "spiritual law". Spiritual laws, in our circles, are said to work for everyone just as natural laws, like gravity, work for everyone.

LOL Jonathan, I think the reason I posted it is because of the truth of it. Many folks perform acts of kindness out of a sense of religious duty or obligation. That can't be said for athiests, although meredog did make some good points.

Since Love tops my list, I would have to say that a sense of humor is in the top 5 for sure. Many years ago my beautiful wife, whom I love and who loves me, told me that my wit was one of the first things that attracted her to me.

LOL I'm not commenting on the accuracy of the study, .... it's just that this conversation was talking about lucid dreams and this happened to show up on facebook.

So ..... this has shown up twice in the last couple of days on my facebook feed, from two different people, so I thought I'd share it with you all. There is a famous story told in Chassidic literature that addresses this very question. The Master teaches the student that God created everything in the world to be appreciated, since everything is here to teach us a lesson. One clever student asks “What lesson can we learn from atheists? Why did God create them?” The Master responds “God created atheists to teach us the most important lesson of them all — the lesson of true compassion. You see, when an atheist performs and act of charity, visits someone who is sick, helps someone in need, and cares for the world, he is not doing so because of some religious teaching. He does not believe that god commanded him to perform this act. In fact, he does not believe in God at all, so his acts are based on an inner sense of morality. And look at the kindness he can bestow upon others simply because he feels it to be right.” “This means,” the Master continued “that when someone reaches out to you for help, you should never say ‘I pray that God will help you.’ Instead for the moment, you should become an atheist, imagine that there is no God who can help, and say ‘I will help you.’”

Technique to induce lucid dreaming

If that is the second position he chooses to take I would be willing to offer up a few of the things that I find persuasive. He may well choose to go with Agnostic and Atheist as the two positions to present.

Spiritual things can not be proven with scientific tools. Science can not be proven with spiritual tools. It's kind of like me asking you to measure a football field with a measuring cup or how much water is in a pool with a geiger counter. It just can't be done. Just my 2 cents worth.

Oh, I should have said check with local authorities.

Your ordination is legit. The legality of your ordination is determined by where you are. Some locations recognize ULC and some don't. Yes, I do believe the ULC does allow you to baptize, make sermons, celebrate Eucharist, and perform funerals.

Ask away Greg. The answers you get may express a variety of opinions though.

I'm 15 miles from a Redbox. The wife's car gets a little over 30 mpg. That's a gallon to pick up a movie from Redbox and bring it home, and another gallon to return the movie and make it home.

Yeah, I didn't even consider the gas & time to return the movie. Now, thinking of that, it becomes even more logical to rent online. Two gallons of gas pretty much covers the whole rental fee.

I think the last one around here closed about 5 years ago. My wife and I were talking the other day and Redbox may be on the way out for us too. Even though Netflix, Amazon, Hulu and others charge $4.99 for a movie rental it's probably worth it to us. We live 15 minutes from the nearest Redbox, so by the time you add 30 minutes of our time plus the gallon of gas round trip the $4.99 doesn't look quite as high.

Sorry, it double posted.

Good advise from our respected Rabbi. We may not agree with everything everyone else here says, but we do seem to respect each others right to have a differing opinion. Oh, it seems a lot of topics wander off of the subject of the OP. That's just the way discussions go.

There are still video stores where you live?

prayers

Hmmm, I saw this and thought, I've heard that there were flood stories from all over the world. So I did a quick Google search and came up with this. The story of the Great Flood plays a dramatic role in Chinese mythology, and its various versions present a number of examples of the flood myth motif around the world. IndiaThe Matsya avatar comes to the rescue of ManuManu and Matsya: The legend first appears in Shatapatha Brahmana (700–300 BCE), and is further detailed in Matsya Purana (250–500 CE). Matsya (the incarnation of Lord Vishnu as a fish) forewarns Manu (a human) about an impending catastrophic flood and orders him to collect all the grains of the world in a boat; in some forms of the story, all living creatures are also to be preserved in the boat. When the flood destroys the world, Manu – in some versions accompanied by the seven great sages – survives by boarding the ark, which Matsya pulls to safety.Puluga, the creator god in the religion of the indigenous inhabitants of the Andaman Islands, sends a devastating flood to punish people who have forgotten his commands. Only four people survive this flood: two men and two women.

Thought I'd add this. I'm not well versed in other religions so I did a quick search and found this on other versions of "hell". Islam The Muslim belief in jahannam (an Arabic transliteration of the Hebrew ge-hinnom) resembles that of other Abrahamic religions. In the Quran, the holy book of Islam, there are literal descriptions of the condemned in a fiery Hell, as contrasted to the garden-like Paradise enjoyed by righteous believers. Chinese and Japanese religions The structure of Hell is remarkably complex in many Chinese and Japanese religions. The ruler of Hell has to deal with politics, just as human rulers do. Hell is the subject of many folk stories and manga. In many such stories, people in hell are able to die again, but no one seems to care about the apparent contradiction. (Note: the strong influence of Buddhism (see below) on Chinese and Japanese Hells means that this is not necessarily a contradiction.) See Feng Du for more information on Chinese Hell. Other religions Buddhism acknowledges several hells, which are places of great suffering for evildoers. Like all the different realms within cyclic existence, an existence in hell is temporary for inhabitants. Those with sufficiently negative karma are reborn there, where they stay until their specific negative karma has been used up, at which point they are reborn in another realm, like humans, hungry ghosts, animals, demi-gods or gods - all according to their karma. Bahá'ís do not accept Hell as a place, but rather as a state of being. "Heaven is nearness to Me and Hell is separation from Me." – Bahá'u'llah Taoism has a slightly nebulous version of Hell. Some claim it has no Hell at all, but - particularly in its home country China - popular belief endows Taoist Hell with many deities and spirits who punish sin in a variety of horrible ways. (See Feng Du.)