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<blockquote data-quote="scamper" data-source="post: 76955923" data-attributes="member: 445889"><p>This chapter is concerned with how gamblers think</p><p>and evaluate situations. Most people just tend to gloss</p><p>over ideas and issues. Gamblers don't think that way.</p><p>They like to get into the details of how things work,</p><p>the in's and out's and they like</p><p>to become familiar with the cause and effect</p><p>relationships. They like to think</p><p>about things that most people just ignore.</p><p>Take UFOs for example. If you ask the</p><p>average person if they exist you will</p><p>get a 'yes' or 'no' answer and not</p><p>much else. A gambler, on the other</p><p>hand, would be more inclined to begin</p><p>a conversation about why do you</p><p>think they would come here? How</p><p>much better is their technology then</p><p>ours? How long do you think they</p><p>have been visiting our planet?</p><p>Gamblers try to wrap their</p><p>heads around an issue, to look at</p><p>it from all angles.</p><p>So, let's try to look at a very deep</p><p>question, "Why are we here?"</p><p>You don't have to agree with my</p><p>opinions. It really doesn't matter</p><p>does it? I'm just illustrating how</p><p>a gambler might unravel this mystery.</p><p>Think about life for a moment. There</p><p>is only one way to get into this world</p><p>and that is to be born. There is also</p><p>only one way to get out of it and that</p><p>is to die. There are lots and lots of people</p><p>that help you get from birth to adulthood.</p><p>Did you ever wonder if you are part of</p><p>a very complex and controlled scientific</p><p>experiment? One that is very complicated</p><p>and well thought out perhaps. What are the</p><p>odds of all this just being happenstance?</p><p>I'm fairly certain that I did not accidentally</p><p>create the universe. Additionally, I'm pretty sure</p><p>that you didn't either. So, if I didn't do it</p><p>and you didn't do it, perhaps God did. For</p><p>the time being, why don't we go with that</p><p>assumption.</p><p>The bible says that God created the universe in</p><p>six days and he rested on the seventh day. Hm,</p><p>that tells us two things initially. God works and</p><p>God rests. It also indicates that God must be very</p><p>powerful because the universe is a very, very big</p><p>place with billions of galaxies. It is virtually</p><p>impossible to calculate the time it would take</p><p>to go from one end of the universe to the other</p><p>end at the speed of light. To think God created</p><p>all this in just six days. Impressive huh?</p><p>The bible also says that He is the only God.</p><p>Now let's think about this. He is the beginning</p><p>and the end. Perhaps we can restate this without</p><p>messing things up. Could it not be said that He</p><p>is the only God that we will ever know? Doesn't</p><p>really change the original concept much does it?</p><p>If we run with this one, we can ask additional</p><p>questions about God. For example, where did</p><p>He come from? Are there other Gods that</p><p>we are not unaware of and are they aware of us?</p><p>Is our God young or old for being a god? Does</p><p>He have a mate or friends? We can already</p><p>ascertain that His eternity is not our eternity.</p><p>He was here before us and He will be here</p><p>after us, supposedly. Is He the only god left?</p><p>We are made in his image, whose image is</p><p>He made from?</p><p>The big question is, "Is God alone?" If He</p><p>can create the universe and all of us, then why</p><p>didn't He create a partner of some sort?</p><p>If He can create the universe, then is He</p><p>capable of creating other gods?</p><p>Interesting question, isn't it? Let's try and</p><p>figure out the universe then. For example,</p><p>let us assume, so we can understand this</p><p>at our intelligence level, that God is a</p><p>multi-dimension video game developer.</p><p>Suppose in his world, he has a free afternoon</p><p>and decides to create our universe and</p><p>everything in it to pass the time. It seems</p><p>as though our perception of time is not</p><p>his reality of time. So, consider that our</p><p>eternity can exist in His one afternoon, for</p><p>example. He could create our universe and</p><p>our perception of eternity within a few hours</p><p>of His time.</p><p>So, In terms of us, He always was and always</p><p>will be. He would be the only God that we</p><p>would ever be aware of.</p><p>The bible tells us that God does not live here</p><p>on earth. He resides in a place known as</p><p>heaven. Where is heaven? No one knows.</p><p>However, we do know that He is not alone</p><p>in heaven. There are angels and animals of</p><p>some sort there as well. And it also appears</p><p>that he does not stay in heaven all the time.</p><p>There is an old saying, 'When the cat's away,</p><p>the mice will play.' Lucifer was a high ranking</p><p>angel in heaven. Evidently, he formed a</p><p>mutiny and convinced one third of heaven</p><p>to follow him. They all left heaven and wound</p><p>up on earth, or so it seems. Now then, to convince</p><p>a large segment of the population to turn against</p><p>God and to put Lucifer in power is an epic chore.</p><p>Especially considering they were already in</p><p>heaven, a perfect place with near perfect angels.</p><p>With God present, I believe it would have been</p><p>impossible for Lucifer to have accomplished</p><p>that feat. To me, it seems that God was not</p><p>present in heaven at the time Lucifer was planning</p><p>and plotting for all this to occur.</p><p>This brings up to another topic, aliens.</p><p>Since angels are not human, and they come</p><p>from beyond our planet, can they not be</p><p>considered aliens? Also, how do they get here?</p><p>It is speculated that some, but not angels, have</p><p>wings. Assuming some could</p><p>fly, most would need to be brought here, perhaps</p><p>by a vehicle similar to a spaceship.</p><p>Makes sense except for the fact, that if heaven is</p><p>not close to earth, it would take a very long time for</p><p>them to reach the planet. We live in the Milky Way</p><p>galaxy. It takes approximately 100,000 years traveling</p><p>at the speed of light to get from one end to the other.</p><p>Star Trek fans know that the federation only travels</p><p>in the small alpha quadrant of the galaxy. Star Trek's</p><p>Voyager was cast thousands of light years into the</p><p>delta quadrant of the galaxy. Considering that the</p><p>speed of light is as fast as you can travel and that</p><p>there are billions and billions of galaxies in our</p><p>universe, logistics becomes a major problem.</p><p>Any space vehicle used to transport angels would</p><p>essentially have to exceed the speed of light to</p><p>be functional. Or could they just imagine themselves</p><p>from one place to another, who knows?</p><p>Now it is time to discuss the major players God</p><p>has sent up for earth. Of course, Himself and</p><p>Lucifer who commands the fallen angels (demons)</p><p>on the planet. What is their role? They influence</p><p>humans to make wrong and evil decisions.</p><p>Lucifer has only appeared to God and Jesus. Lucifer</p><p>is incapable of appearing in the flesh in this world.</p><p>Same thing goes for his demons. He used a serpent</p><p>to talk to Adam and Eve because he couldn't do</p><p>it by himself. So how does he influence humans?</p><p>He can't kill us, he can't appear before us? He</p><p>can't hold a conversation with us?</p><p>He can't cause any physical destruction or intervention.</p><p>So how does he and his demons ruin our lives? I'm</p><p>not really sure, but it does seem as though they</p><p>do a pretty good job of it.</p><p>So, Lucifer and his demons can be thought of as aliens.</p><p>What about Adam and Eve? God created Adam from</p><p>the earth and Eve from Adam's rib. Why? Well, it seems</p><p>as though to allow the games of life to begin. Adam and</p><p>Eve were created as adults, they could converse, they</p><p>were intelligent and they could fully function as human</p><p>adults from the get go. But didn't it have to be this way?</p><p>Evolutionary theory states that life could automatically</p><p>begin on earth. Okay, but we live in a practical world.</p><p>Tell me how a baby could survive on it's own without</p><p>any intervention. If you have ever had children of your</p><p>own, the answer is obvious. The creation story actually</p><p>does make sense when you look at it in those terms.</p><p>Evolution does not make sense. The eye lens requires</p><p>96 perfect states to work properly. Charles Darwin was</p><p>well aware of this fact but merely chose to ignore it.</p><p>How convenient to be inconvenient.</p><p>Scientists tend to ignore the technical aspects</p><p>of evolution and only consider the biological</p><p>ones. The discovery of DNA really screws things up</p><p>for evolution. Cells can be considered to be</p><p>computers and DNA can be considered to be their</p><p>programs. DNA consists of millions</p><p>of lines of code, basically, instructions to tell</p><p>the cells what to do. Not a computer person,</p><p>then consider a cell to be like a television set.</p><p>The DNA part would be the shows that you can access</p><p>and watch. Without the shows, nothing</p><p>is seen and nothing happens.</p><p>Another problem with evolution is the human eye</p><p>once again. To simulate 10 milliseconds of the</p><p>complete processing of a single nerve cell from</p><p>the retina would require the solution of approximately</p><p>50,000 equations. Considering there are at</p><p>least 10 million such cells interacting with</p><p>each other, it would take a minimum of 100</p><p>years to simulate on a super computer what</p><p>takes place in your eye many times every second.</p><p>------------------------------------------------------------------</p><p>Adam and Eve are from this world but they were not born.</p><p>That leaves us, we are born, we live and experience</p><p>life to a certain point, and then we die. But we aren't</p><p>the only ones. The earth is full of animals, both wild</p><p>and domesticated. It appears that they were here even</p><p>before we were. So, I think it can be safe to say that</p><p>God enjoys all creatures, great and small, on land and</p><p>in the sea. We have our pets which mostly consist of</p><p>little dogs and cats, God had his which included dinosaurs</p><p>and raptors. Hmm, makes you wonder doesn't it?</p><p>A couple of side notes. The Christian concept of God</p><p>is the Holy Trinity: three gods in one. How can that be?</p><p>Well, actually there is a physical example that we can</p><p>used to illustrate this. If you heat water to 212 degrees</p><p>fahrenheit, water becomes ice, steam and water all</p><p>at the same time. Further, there is the law of physics</p><p>that states that energy cannot be created or destroyed,</p><p>only transferred. So why is this important? Because</p><p>God promises all of us eternal life, which I interpret</p><p>as self-awareness after we die. The energy within</p><p>our bodies doesn't end, it simply changes states.</p><p>We have identified heaven, we are on earth, so now let's</p><p>try and find hell. All humans are given free choice to</p><p>believe in God. No one can force you, it is entirely</p><p>your decision. It costs you absolutely nothing and</p><p>guarantees you a happy eternal life.</p><p>On the other hand, if you chose not to believe in</p><p>God then what happens? Well, some believe that</p><p>you simply fall asleep and never wake up again.</p><p>It's my believe that at the end of our eternity,</p><p>that probably does happen.</p><p>However, until then, one would seem to have a</p><p>whole lot of time to kill. Catechism states that hell</p><p>is defined as the absence of God. So, if you are</p><p>self-aware and, let's say, are not on God's team,</p><p>hell might be described as waiting, by yourself,</p><p>for eons and eons, possibly in light or darkness,</p><p>being self-aware and maybe even being aware</p><p>of other beings that also exist. More on this in</p><p>the next chapter.</p><p>Then why does God give all of us free will?</p><p>He wants us to believe in Him without proof.</p><p>He wants to be the good guy. I can understand</p><p>that concept. Is that the only reason? I don't</p><p>think so. It seems to me each one of our</p><p>lives is a story, a movie perhaps. God seems</p><p>to enjoy good stories, especially the ones</p><p>where there is struggle and the good guy</p><p>wins in the end.</p><p>Why are we here? To have an opportunity to</p><p>be the good guy in the end and to believe</p><p>in a God that we can't prove exists. Hmm,</p><p>perhaps it's not about being the richest,</p><p>the best looking, or the most successful.</p><p>Your choice.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="scamper, post: 76955923, member: 445889"] This chapter is concerned with how gamblers think and evaluate situations. Most people just tend to gloss over ideas and issues. Gamblers don't think that way. They like to get into the details of how things work, the in's and out's and they like to become familiar with the cause and effect relationships. They like to think about things that most people just ignore. Take UFOs for example. If you ask the average person if they exist you will get a 'yes' or 'no' answer and not much else. A gambler, on the other hand, would be more inclined to begin a conversation about why do you think they would come here? How much better is their technology then ours? How long do you think they have been visiting our planet? Gamblers try to wrap their heads around an issue, to look at it from all angles. So, let's try to look at a very deep question, "Why are we here?" You don't have to agree with my opinions. It really doesn't matter does it? I'm just illustrating how a gambler might unravel this mystery. Think about life for a moment. There is only one way to get into this world and that is to be born. There is also only one way to get out of it and that is to die. There are lots and lots of people that help you get from birth to adulthood. Did you ever wonder if you are part of a very complex and controlled scientific experiment? One that is very complicated and well thought out perhaps. What are the odds of all this just being happenstance? I'm fairly certain that I did not accidentally create the universe. Additionally, I'm pretty sure that you didn't either. So, if I didn't do it and you didn't do it, perhaps God did. For the time being, why don't we go with that assumption. The bible says that God created the universe in six days and he rested on the seventh day. Hm, that tells us two things initially. God works and God rests. It also indicates that God must be very powerful because the universe is a very, very big place with billions of galaxies. It is virtually impossible to calculate the time it would take to go from one end of the universe to the other end at the speed of light. To think God created all this in just six days. Impressive huh? The bible also says that He is the only God. Now let's think about this. He is the beginning and the end. Perhaps we can restate this without messing things up. Could it not be said that He is the only God that we will ever know? Doesn't really change the original concept much does it? If we run with this one, we can ask additional questions about God. For example, where did He come from? Are there other Gods that we are not unaware of and are they aware of us? Is our God young or old for being a god? Does He have a mate or friends? We can already ascertain that His eternity is not our eternity. He was here before us and He will be here after us, supposedly. Is He the only god left? We are made in his image, whose image is He made from? The big question is, "Is God alone?" If He can create the universe and all of us, then why didn't He create a partner of some sort? If He can create the universe, then is He capable of creating other gods? Interesting question, isn't it? Let's try and figure out the universe then. For example, let us assume, so we can understand this at our intelligence level, that God is a multi-dimension video game developer. Suppose in his world, he has a free afternoon and decides to create our universe and everything in it to pass the time. It seems as though our perception of time is not his reality of time. So, consider that our eternity can exist in His one afternoon, for example. He could create our universe and our perception of eternity within a few hours of His time. So, In terms of us, He always was and always will be. He would be the only God that we would ever be aware of. The bible tells us that God does not live here on earth. He resides in a place known as heaven. Where is heaven? No one knows. However, we do know that He is not alone in heaven. There are angels and animals of some sort there as well. And it also appears that he does not stay in heaven all the time. There is an old saying, 'When the cat's away, the mice will play.' Lucifer was a high ranking angel in heaven. Evidently, he formed a mutiny and convinced one third of heaven to follow him. They all left heaven and wound up on earth, or so it seems. Now then, to convince a large segment of the population to turn against God and to put Lucifer in power is an epic chore. Especially considering they were already in heaven, a perfect place with near perfect angels. With God present, I believe it would have been impossible for Lucifer to have accomplished that feat. To me, it seems that God was not present in heaven at the time Lucifer was planning and plotting for all this to occur. This brings up to another topic, aliens. Since angels are not human, and they come from beyond our planet, can they not be considered aliens? Also, how do they get here? It is speculated that some, but not angels, have wings. Assuming some could fly, most would need to be brought here, perhaps by a vehicle similar to a spaceship. Makes sense except for the fact, that if heaven is not close to earth, it would take a very long time for them to reach the planet. We live in the Milky Way galaxy. It takes approximately 100,000 years traveling at the speed of light to get from one end to the other. Star Trek fans know that the federation only travels in the small alpha quadrant of the galaxy. Star Trek's Voyager was cast thousands of light years into the delta quadrant of the galaxy. Considering that the speed of light is as fast as you can travel and that there are billions and billions of galaxies in our universe, logistics becomes a major problem. Any space vehicle used to transport angels would essentially have to exceed the speed of light to be functional. Or could they just imagine themselves from one place to another, who knows? Now it is time to discuss the major players God has sent up for earth. Of course, Himself and Lucifer who commands the fallen angels (demons) on the planet. What is their role? They influence humans to make wrong and evil decisions. Lucifer has only appeared to God and Jesus. Lucifer is incapable of appearing in the flesh in this world. Same thing goes for his demons. He used a serpent to talk to Adam and Eve because he couldn't do it by himself. So how does he influence humans? He can't kill us, he can't appear before us? He can't hold a conversation with us? He can't cause any physical destruction or intervention. So how does he and his demons ruin our lives? I'm not really sure, but it does seem as though they do a pretty good job of it. So, Lucifer and his demons can be thought of as aliens. What about Adam and Eve? God created Adam from the earth and Eve from Adam's rib. Why? Well, it seems as though to allow the games of life to begin. Adam and Eve were created as adults, they could converse, they were intelligent and they could fully function as human adults from the get go. But didn't it have to be this way? Evolutionary theory states that life could automatically begin on earth. Okay, but we live in a practical world. Tell me how a baby could survive on it's own without any intervention. If you have ever had children of your own, the answer is obvious. The creation story actually does make sense when you look at it in those terms. Evolution does not make sense. The eye lens requires 96 perfect states to work properly. Charles Darwin was well aware of this fact but merely chose to ignore it. How convenient to be inconvenient. Scientists tend to ignore the technical aspects of evolution and only consider the biological ones. The discovery of DNA really screws things up for evolution. Cells can be considered to be computers and DNA can be considered to be their programs. DNA consists of millions of lines of code, basically, instructions to tell the cells what to do. Not a computer person, then consider a cell to be like a television set. The DNA part would be the shows that you can access and watch. Without the shows, nothing is seen and nothing happens. Another problem with evolution is the human eye once again. To simulate 10 milliseconds of the complete processing of a single nerve cell from the retina would require the solution of approximately 50,000 equations. Considering there are at least 10 million such cells interacting with each other, it would take a minimum of 100 years to simulate on a super computer what takes place in your eye many times every second. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Adam and Eve are from this world but they were not born. That leaves us, we are born, we live and experience life to a certain point, and then we die. But we aren't the only ones. The earth is full of animals, both wild and domesticated. It appears that they were here even before we were. So, I think it can be safe to say that God enjoys all creatures, great and small, on land and in the sea. We have our pets which mostly consist of little dogs and cats, God had his which included dinosaurs and raptors. Hmm, makes you wonder doesn't it? A couple of side notes. The Christian concept of God is the Holy Trinity: three gods in one. How can that be? Well, actually there is a physical example that we can used to illustrate this. If you heat water to 212 degrees fahrenheit, water becomes ice, steam and water all at the same time. Further, there is the law of physics that states that energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transferred. So why is this important? Because God promises all of us eternal life, which I interpret as self-awareness after we die. The energy within our bodies doesn't end, it simply changes states. We have identified heaven, we are on earth, so now let's try and find hell. All humans are given free choice to believe in God. No one can force you, it is entirely your decision. It costs you absolutely nothing and guarantees you a happy eternal life. On the other hand, if you chose not to believe in God then what happens? Well, some believe that you simply fall asleep and never wake up again. It's my believe that at the end of our eternity, that probably does happen. However, until then, one would seem to have a whole lot of time to kill. Catechism states that hell is defined as the absence of God. So, if you are self-aware and, let's say, are not on God's team, hell might be described as waiting, by yourself, for eons and eons, possibly in light or darkness, being self-aware and maybe even being aware of other beings that also exist. More on this in the next chapter. Then why does God give all of us free will? He wants us to believe in Him without proof. He wants to be the good guy. I can understand that concept. Is that the only reason? I don't think so. It seems to me each one of our lives is a story, a movie perhaps. God seems to enjoy good stories, especially the ones where there is struggle and the good guy wins in the end. Why are we here? To have an opportunity to be the good guy in the end and to believe in a God that we can't prove exists. Hmm, perhaps it's not about being the richest, the best looking, or the most successful. Your choice. [/QUOTE]
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