True in a number of cases. However, Jesus is the only "spiritual teacher" who came back from the dead, in physical form, and stayed with his followers 40 days.

Make no mistake, it was an ignominious death. Crucifixion was like a Roman "public service announcement." By the standards of the world, Jesus had lost. He was finished. That would be the end of the movement started by Jesus.

Only it wasn't, for one simple reason: Jesus came back from the dead. Eyewitness accounts are recorded in the Gospels, and Paul had his own encounter--sorry there were no video cameras back then.

From the Crucifixion and Resurrection until the destruction of the Temple in A.D. 70, strange things happened in the Temple, as recorded by the non-Christian Jews. The record of these events is undisputed. These non-Christian Jews had no reason to advance the cause of Christianity. No one has ever successfully challenged the authenticity of the Jerusalem Talmud.

Now, Serenity, if you are right, then the universe will continue to expand, all of the stars will eventually burn out, the last proton will decay into nothingness, and there won't be any trace of our existence. Our lives will have been entirely meaningless.

If I am right, what happens to the physical universe or multiverse will not affect those who have chosen to accept and serve God.

I choose to belief that my life has meaning, that this life is not everything there is, and that there is a Supreme Power who cares about us.

One is a cheerless philosophy. The other offers love and hope for all humanity.

These are the reasons I abandoned my own "atheistic stage" long ago.

Christ rode a donkey into Jerusalem. A conqueror would have ridden a horse. If the story were embellished, a woman would not have been the first to see the risen Jesus. And the Apostles would not have been ordinary men, but the intelligentsia of their day. And a fiery chariot would have taken Him into heaven before He could have been crucified. You get the picture.

Don't worry about inconveniencing the store's employees. Like Pepper said, they are already looking for their next job, as retail totally and completely sucks.

I also advise people to check out a device called "Sentry." You can get it from Amazon. It attaches to your phone line. It stops the robocalls, and also gives a message to any telemarketer calling manually to bug off. Life in the States is miserable if you have a landline and do not have one of these devices. Imagine--mine kept me from getting bugged over 5,000 times!

It eases the boss's mind when he or she becomes convinced that YOU also have the best interests of the enterprise at heart, when your loyalty to the boss and the enterprise are assured . . . when the boss is convinced that you are someone who cares and can be counted on--and are not just somebody looking for a paycheck.

Lastly, those who do not have God still have a god. Ponder that for a while.

Of course I believe in evolution--but I also believe that evolution got "tweaked" a number of times. Zillions of times. Consider wings. Before being fully developed, wings could be a hindrance. How about color rods in our eyes? How does the creature's body KNOW that there is some advantage that could be added? What is the mechanism for designing complex bodily structures and getting them encoded into the DNA? How would color rods evolve on their own?

Like I said before, the truth is out there. Read the Jerusalem Talmud for starters. HOW do you explain those strange happenings in the Temple--which are recorded by people who did not even like Jesus? Ask yourself WHY the gods of the Assyrians, ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans, and Canaanites are in the dustbin of history now--while there are 1.2 BILLION Christians and some 20 million Jews?

You assume that God lives right in your own neighborhood, and that if you can't find His house on YOUR block, he does not exist. You assume He also exists in your own dimension and slice of the multiverse and in your own time continuum. That's like saying if you don't find a grizzly bear living on your block that they don't exist.

God exists outside of time and space and all the dimensions. He will not magically appear in front of you to do handstands or pull bunnies out of hats.

In 2000 years, it will be difficult to find proof of your existence and proof of my existence. There will be wars and natural disasters. Then, when some record is found, people could pooh-pooh it just like you are doing now. You should read this article about proof of people mentioned in the Bible--particularly about Jesus: https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/peopl...

You will not find Jesus as the result of some scientific experiment. You will be able to communicate with God when YOU go to the place where God wants you to be.

EVERYONE is traveling on the road to Damascus. We can be receptive to an encounter with the Almighty, or we can shrug it off. The Apostle Paul became a believer as a result of HIS encounter.

And, have you ever considered this---in all other religions, humankind is reaching out to God. Christianity and Judaism are accounts of God reaching out to humankind. THIS is the single, greatest and most fundamental difference in all the world's religions.

What he said! /\

Soco, your vast knowledge impresses me!

We are no different than our pets, really. Want your cat or dog to do something? You must offer a reward. Want yourself to do something? You must also offer a reward!

Promise yourself something you want and give it to yourself upon completion of the task!

Well, the Wahhabism seed was always there, just waiting for conditions that would allow it to germinate. Oil wealth was one of those factors--perhaps the principal factor.

It's true that the mujahadeen in Afghanistan were supported by the CIA. I have talked to many of them. When I advised the Afghan Ministry of Defense, there were generals I advised who had been on opposite sides during the civil wars there. Now they had to work together to defeat a common enemy, the Taliban.

The Taliban--believe me when I tell you this--was the creation not of the CIA, but the ISI in Pakistan. It is the ISI that supports the Taliban even now.

When I visited Pakistan years ago, an ISI agent trailed me to Paris. He tried to engage me in conversation to find out the reason for my mission. I "busted" him when he couldn't answer a question about Brussels that everyone living in Belgium--as he claimed he did--would know.

The rockets, explosives and heavy weapons used by the Taliban come from Pakistan. The Taliban are also assisted with battlefield intelligence by the ISI.

Years and years ago, the slaves owned by Arabs found out that Muslims were not supposed to keep Muslims as slaves. So they "converted" to Islam. Their owners prevented their escape, however, by "adopting" them as sons and daughters, and using their new "paternal authority" to keep them from leaving.

When you have a fanatical movement that comes into power, it brings the psychopaths out of the woodwork--like Himmler in Germany, and the many fanatical leaders we see of radical Islam today. In normal times such people would have had careers as serial killers or would have simply been dormant psychopaths. But when you get a movement that lets you kill and torture and be rewarded for it, then you will have an unending supply of murderers and torturers.

I think we will have to kill the leaders and their followers en masse, although it is morally distasteful to me, for the simple fact that one more psychopath always steps up when a leader is killed. We are going to have to go through several layers. It's kind of like dealing with fire ants--you don't want to just try to kill the queen, as others will take her place--you want to wipe them out to the last ant.