The rope...

You are the only one within smelling range, so go ahead, Domenic.

I don't believe in Satan, so I can't answer your question,

Domenic Pappalardo wrote:

Alice, dkc, as Rhett Butler said in the book, Gone with the Wind, "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn." Think what you will. Should I pass more wind?

As you wish!

The thread is begining to take on the tone of, "Burn the Bible. Down with God...we want to direct our own life." I think it was satan who said that.

Shelagh wrote:

You are the only one within smelling range, so go ahead, Domenic.

I don't believe in Satan, so I can't answer your question,

Et Tu Brute?

Domenic Pappalardo wrote:

The thread is begining to take on the tone of, "Burn the Bible. Down with God...we want to direct our own life." I think it was satan who said that.

No, Domenic, I very much want God to direct my life. It is your direction I refute.

Domenic Pappalardo wrote:

323 people have viewed this thread...only a few have made comment. I do understand why.

Let me explain how this works, Domenic, because it's simple. Seven members have posted on this thread: Domenic, Alice, Ann, DK, zizban, Abe, and me. Presently there are fifty-three posts. If each member checked the thread (one new view) every time a new post appeared, the number of views would be 7 x 53 = 371 views. But the number of views (including those since you made the above post) is only 360. This means that some of the members who posted on this thread viewed the thread after a number of posts had been added. There are not hundreds of outsiders viewing this thread. There will be some non-posters viewing but they are few.

alice wrote:

Domenic Pappalardo wrote:

The thread is begining to take on the tone of, "Burn the Bible. Down with God...we want to direct our own life." I think it was satan who said that.

No, Domenic, I very much want God to direct my life. It is your direction I refute.

Refute means to disprove. What did you disprove Alice?
Thank you for the numbers Shelagh...I guess not so many people look in on the forum after all.

Domenic,

You should read Mr. Planemaker's Flying Machine.

“This is the universe,” Mr. Kidd explained. “You are two tiny people standing on a star surrounded by millions of stars.”

“Is this what you meant by ‘above’?” Dell asked.

“Yes,” Mr. Kidd replied.

“But where do the orders for the customised computers come from?”

“From the sky; through the Internet.”

“Oh, why didn’t you say that people order their computers on the ’net?”

“Well, it’s not quite that simple. I do receive orders via the Internet, but people don’t order them directly.”

“So, who does?”

“You’ve met Mr. A. Leon Spacemen, who travels throughout the universe helping people to search for answers to their questions. You haven’t met Mr. Bigga Bang—everyone calls him Big Bang. He’s responsible for everything in the universe.”

“Did he order this computer?”

“Oh, Mr. Big Bang is responsible for everything that was ever created in the universe.”

“All these stars?”

“Yes. The light from some of the stars has taken so many years to reach earth that, although they no longer exist, you can still see the light.”

“What do you mean?” Emmelisa joined in the conversation.

“Stars burn brightly for billions of years and then die. The light you can see from the stars that you see in the sky has travelled through space for a number of light years to arrive within sight of earth. So, even though a star may die, the light from that star can still be seen for as many years as it takes for the light to travel through space.”

Emmelisa thought about this for a few seconds and then said, “That doesn’t make sense.”

“Why does that not make sense?” Mr. Kidd challenged Emmelisa.

“Because when people die, you never see them again.”

“People never really leave you, Emmelisa. They are always there in your mind. If someone dear to you is out of sight, you still believe they exist—even though you can’t see them.”

Emmelisa frowned as Mr. Kidd continued, “If Dell goes out to play football with his friends or your mother goes shopping or your grandparents are at home, although you can’t see them, you know that they exist.”

“Yes,” Emmelisa replied, “but you said that you can see stars after they’ve died. When people die, you never see them again.”

“No,” Mr. Kidd agreed, “you can’t see people after they’ve died but you don’t see stars after they’ve died. You can only see the light from the star.”

“So,” Emmelisa said slowly as she tried to organise her thoughts, “are you trying to say that people leave something like a trail of light after they die?”

“Well, it seems to me that you’re almost as bright as the stars in the sky, young lady,” Mr. Kidd said with obvious admiration. “Very few people would make such a wonderful assumption. There is no evidence to suggest that people leave anything as tangible as a trail of light. But if you believe that someone—who was important to you and guided you in the things you did—can still be part of your life even though they no longer exist, then a ‘trail of light’ would be an excellent way of describing that influence.”

Dell wouldn’t have dared look at Emmelisa with the same amount of admiration as Mr. Kidd, but inside he was very proud of his little sister.

“You mean Dad, don’t you, Lisa? Dad has left a trail of light for us to follow.”

Chapter Eleven A Trail of Light Mr. Planemaker's Flying Machine © Shelagh Watkins

Mr. Bigga Bang is God. He didn't just create the Earth, he created the Universe.

http://www.unc.edu/courses/2010spring/law/357c/001/internetharassment/internet-harassment.html



Your sexual interpetations, explanations and probings.

Next I expect you five will say you are doves. I am flying with the wrong type bird here. I leave you to your own Bliss.

A few excerpts from THE VIRGINIAN: A Horseman Of The Plains by OWEN WISTER published 1902, and now public domain.

Quote :

And now that talking part of the Virginian, which had been nine days asleep, gave its first yawn and stretch of waking. Without preface, he suddenly asked me, "Would you be a parson?" I was mentally so far away that I couldn't get back in time to comprehend or answer before he had repeated: "What would yu' take to be a parson?" He drawled it out in his gentle way, precisely as if no nine days stood between it and our last real intercourse. "Take?" I was still vaguely moving in my distance. "How?" His next question brought me home. "I expect the Pope's is the biggest of them parson jobs?" It was with an "Oh!" that I now entirely took his idea. "Well, yes; decidedly the biggest."
"Beats the English one? Archbishop--ain't it?--of Canterbury? The Pope comes ahead of
him?" "His Holiness would say so if his Grace did not." The Virginian turned half in his saddle to see my face--I was, at the moment,riding not quite abreast of him--and I saw the gleam of his teeth beneath his mustache. It was seldom I could make him smile, even to this slight extent. But his eyes grew, with his next words, remote again in their speculation. "His Holiness and his Grace. Now if I was to hear 'em namin' me that-a-way
every mawnin', I'd sca'cely get down to business." "Oh, you'd get used to the pride of it." "'Tisn't the pride. The laugh is what would ruin me. 'Twould take 'most all my attention keeping a straight face. The Archbishop"--here he took one of his wide mental turns--"is apt to be a big man in them Shakespeare plays. Kings take talk from him they'd not stand from anybody else; and he talks fine, frequently…... How many religions are there?" "All over the earth?" "Yu' can begin with ourselves. Right hyeh at home I know there's Romanists, and Episcopals--" "Two kinds!" I put in. "At least two of Episcopals." "That's three. Then Methodists and Baptists, and--" "Three Methodists!" "Well, you do the countin'." I accordingly did it, feeling my revolving memory slip cogs all the way round. "Anyhow, there are safely fifteen." "Fifteen." He held this fact a moment. "And they don't worship a whole heap o' different gods like the ancients
did?" "Oh, no!" "It's just the same one?" "The same one." The Virginian folded his hands over the horn of his saddle, and leaned forward upon them in contemplation of the wide, beautiful landscape. "One God and fifteen religions," was his reflection. "That's a
right smart of religions for just one God." This way of reducing it was, if obvious to him, so novel to me that my laugh evidently struck him as a louder and livelier comment than was required. He turned on me as if I had somehow perverted the spirit of his words. "I ain't religious. I know that. But I ain't unreligious. And I know that too." "So do I know it, my friend." "Do you think there ought to be fifteen varieties of good people?" His voice, while it now had an edge that could cut anything it came against, was still not raised. "There ain't fifteen. There ain't two. There's one kind. And when I meet it, I respect it. It is not praying nor preaching that has ever caught me and made me ashamed of myself, but one or two people I have knowed that never said a superior word to me. They thought more o' me than I deserved, and that made me behave better than I naturally wanted to. Made me quit a girl onced in time for her not to lose her good name. And so that's one thing I have never done. And if ever I was to have a son or somebody I set store by, I would wish their lot to be to know one or two good folks mighty well--men or women--women preferred." He had looked away again to
the hills behind Sunk Creek ranch, to which our walking horses had now almost
brought us. "As for parsons "--the gesture of his arm was a disclaiming one--"I reckon some parsons have a right to tell yu' to be good. The bishop of this hyeh Territory has a right. But I'll tell yu' this: a middlin' doctor is a pore thing, and a middlin' lawyer is a pore thing; but keep me from a middlin' man of God."…

*******************************************

I had been aware of Trampas's quite proper departure during the talk; and as he was leaving, I seemed also to be aware of his placing the coil across the cantle of its owner's saddle. Had he intended it to fall and have to be picked up? It was another evasive little business, and quite successful, if designed to nag the owner of the rope. A few hundred yards ahead of us Trampas was now shouting loud cow-boy shouts. Were they to announce his return to those at home, or did they mean derision? The Virginian leaned, keeping his seat, and, swinging down his arm, caught up the rope, and hung it
on his saddle somewhat carefully. But the hue of rage spread over his face. >From his fence the [visiting preacher] now spoke, in approbation, but with another strong, cheerless smile. "You pick up that rope as if you were well trained to it." "It's part of our business, seh, and we try to mind it like the rest." But this, stated in a gentle drawl, did not pierce the missionary's armor; his superiority was very thick. ….Meanwhile, the
Virginian rode beside me, so silent in his volcanic wrath that I did not perceive it. The missionary coming on top of Trampas had been more than he could stand. But I did not know, and I spoke with innocent cheeriness. "Is the parson going to save us?" I asked; and I fairly jumped at his voice:"Don't talk so much!" he burst out. I had got the whole
accumulation! "Who's been talking?" I in equal anger screeched back. "I'm not trying to save you. I didn't take your rope." And having poured this out, I whipped up my pony. But he spurred his own alongside of me; and glancing at him, I saw that he was now convulsed with internal mirth. I therefore drew down to a walk, and he straightened into gravity. "I'm right obliged to yu'," he laid his hand in its buckskin gauntlet upon my horse's mane as he spoke, "for bringing me back out o' my nonsense. I'll be as serene as a bird now--whatever they do. A man," he stated reflectively, "any full-sized man, ought to own a big lot of temper. And like all his valuable possessions, he'd ought to keep it and not lose any." This was his full apology. "As for salvation, I have got this
far: somebody," he swept an arm at the sunset and the mountains, "must have made all that, I know. But I know one more thing I would tell Him to His face: if I can't do nothing long enough and good enough to earn eternal happiness, I can't do nothing long enough and bad enough to be damned. I reckon He plays a square game with us if He plays at all, and I ain't bothering my haid about other worlds."…..

***********************************************************

. I left the ladies, and sought the bunk house. I had heard the cheers, but I was curious also to see the men, and how they were taking it. There was but little for the eye. There was much noise in the room. They were getting ready to come to church,--brushing their hair, shaving, and making themselves clean, amid talk occasionally profane and continuously diverting. "Well, I'm a Christian, anyway," one declared. "I'm a Mormon, I
guess," said another. "I belong to the Knights of Pythias," said a third. "I'm a Mohammedist," said a fourth; "I hope I ain't goin' to hear nothin' to shock me." And they went on with their joking. ….I was not in that mood which best profits from a sermon. You will therefore understand how Dr. MacBride was able to make a prayer and to read Scripture without my being conscious of a word that he had uttered. It was when I saw him opening the manuscript of his sermon that I suddenly remembered I was sitting, so to speak, in church, and began once more to think of the preacher and his congregation. ….He made his selection from another of the Psalms; and when it
came, I did not dare to look at anybody; I was much nearer unseemly conduct than the cow-boys. Dr. Mac Bride gave us his text sonorously, "'They are altogether become filthy; There is none of them that doeth good, no, not one.'" His eye showed us plainly that present company was not excepted from this. He repeated the text once more, then, launching upon his discourse, gave none of us a ray of hope. I had heard it all often before; but preached to cow-boys it took on a new glare of untimeliness, of grotesque obsoleteness--as if some one should say, "Let me persuade you to admire woman," and forthwith hold out her bleached bones to you.

"so silent in his volcanic wrath that I did not perceive it"

masterful!

Wow! For a man who thought poop was an inappropriate word, you certainly have passed a lot of gas.

Love,

Betty

Betty Fasig wrote:

Wow! For a man who thought poop was an inappropriate word, you certainly have passed a lot of gas.

Love,

Betty

Betty,



You are so right! Too bad you didn't come while he was still here!

He will be back.

8/17/2011


I guess he hasn't read about the beauty of the
Ancient Egyptian religion, they were awesome..


Cheers..Joe

I wonder what kind of birds he thinks we are.

8/17/2011


Read on....Ancient Egypt's Awesome Religion


http://www2.sptimes.com/Egypt/EgyptCredit.4.3.html



Cheers..Joe

I prefer Billy Graham's sermons to Domenic's.



Just me.

8/17/2011


This is a religious goddess...

Joe,



I thought you were Catholic.

My professor for a middle-east history course in college (history was my minor) told us a funny story about the Egyptian cat goddess. Her name was Bas-Thet. He learned about her in high school, and decided to name his own cat after her. A few weeks later, though, his parents called him in for a conference, and told him he would have to change the cat's name. "Son," his father told him, here in Southern Mississippi, when you go out to the back porch to call her in for dinner, all of our neighbors think you are saying something entirely different."

Ann

8/17/2011


Ann..

That's funny !


ALice..

Yes , so called Catholic....I believe in God
and you can talk to him any place, anytime, he
always hears you....

Cheers..Joe

Does anyone feel enlightened, uplifted or energized by this tread?



I don't thrive on vulgarities and put downs.



Just curious. as usual.

I agree with you, Alice, that it is unpleasant when people attack and use language that is not proper for a civil exchange. However, I think the majority of those making comments were seriously exploring the matter at hand and sharing information and ideas.

DK,



As usual, you are 100% CORRECT.