That is EXACTLY what religion expects of the misguided! And the amazing thing is the large number of gullible people who believe all that stuff. The sad thing is that some people use their religion as an excuse to start a conflict, even a war. Normally I don't care what other people think or do, but if I am inconvenienced by a war, that's not fair.

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I said 566

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566

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Utterly

and enjoy ice cream at the same time!

She knows who she is

No question about it - most certainly I would, if that were possible.

Perhaps I'm lucky, but the sort of strange things discussed here have never happened to me. There has always been a simple explanation to things that at first seem a little odd.

It's all gone very quiet.

At my age the answer is chocolate, but I am open to suggestions...

Sassy

nah

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Poor old Boris, I feel sorry for him. He has promised he will leave with ot without a deal, but MPs have now made that impossible. His own brother has abandoned him, which is very unkind. He wants to call a General Election and while Labour have been saying for a long time that is what they really want but they are offered the chance the decline to vote for it.

It looks like Boris has been forced to request an extension, the very thing that May kept doing and the very thing he absolutely refused to do. I guess the only thing left would be to resign as PM and that means the Gove would be likely to take over. But what would he do that is different from Boris? Probably go for an extension - AGAIN!!!

Actually, it is 564 now

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It's OK to define God in your own way, just so long as you make it clear that you are 'borrowing' another word with a well-understood meaning for describing the unknown. I can't see the point of doing that, but each to their own.

I'm not sure I follow your reasoning that we must be the earliest civilisation to have developed. That means all aliens that might exist anywhere must be younger than us.

Why?

My suggestion referred to an alien civilisation that sprung up before we did. The universe is believed to be about 35 billion years old. If another civilsation started a million years or so before us, think where they would have got by now. Perhaps they have spaceships that can travel faster than light, or travel though wormholes. Perhaps some of the exploits of Star Trek are only fiction at the moment and might become reality in our future. Or are already reality for another species. These are the aliens to which I was referring in my last post.

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Easy enough to win when there are not enough men!

I totally agree that humans have the knack of assigning unknowns to a divinity. But why lump all those unknowns together and give them a name that is so easily confused with the name given by Christians, and others, to the divinity in which they believe?

I prefer the simpler approach. Call a spade 'a spade', a monkey 'a monkey' and call the unknown, 'unknown'. After all, each of these various unknown forces might have a totally different explanation. No doubt over time science will find the answers, just as the unknown problem of the monkey and the offering could be solved by patient waiting and watching after putting the sacrifice on the table. After a time you catch and kill the monkey. Then you might have to wait and watch for a long time before another monkey, or a rabit, comes along and eats the offering. A proper scientific study would have large numbers of people putting out sacrifices and watching to see what happens. It would soon be discovered that the sacrifice is only taken by an animal, every time. Of course you could conclude that the animals are various forms of God.........

I do accept that there *might* be a higher power. It is one of the possibilities that science might ultimately be able to explain. It is certainly arrogant to assume that we know everything. We are continually making new discoveries and I greatly doubt we will ever reach that point when we really do know and understand 'everything'.

If I had to guess, I would think the higher power might be an alien existence very far in advance of us, perhaps watching us, perhaps interfering in a very small way so as to guide us. Or perhaps just curious to see how long it will be before we totally destroy ourselves in a nuclear war. Perhaps taking bets on the date.

But for now, all that is, in my mind, just 'unknown'.

I respectfully suggest that I do fully understand the laws of physics as regards chance, statistics and luck. It's great that you survived, but don't make too much of it. Chance alone is enough to explain that the missile followed the laws of physics exactly and hit those who were in its path and missed you. No other explanation is needed. Why did your god not save the others who were killed? I doubt their families share your belief.

Did it take this event to give you a belief in god? Or did you believe before the event? There is actually an official definition of a miracle and the events you describe do not make it a miracle.

I'm not putting you down, just hoping you will understand that you were very, very lucky that day. And those with you were not lucky.

Presumably the person who pushed the button to fire that missile fully intended to kill people. He suceeded in killing some and probably wished he had killed many more. Is this the right way for "God's people" to behave? Killing other people?

If there is a God, she is not very clever at teaching us humans to obey the bible and not kill other humans. Very sad.

I would be a great deal more impressed if I met a pacifist who left the army because he was suddenly unable to push the button that would fire a missile. Instead he had a powerful feeling that it was wrong to kill anyone, as it commands in the bible. People would have been killed if he had fired that missile, but because he didn't, many people survived.

Some people accept that what happens is sometimes down to others and sometimes just bad (or good) luck. If you win the lottery, it is no more than random chance that gave you the good luck to have the right number. If you pass a bus at the time a tyre bursts, the bus might swerve resulting in your death. Where is this 'god' then? It would be nothing more than bad luck if a pure accident like that resulted in your death.

People who believe in god because of some dramatic event (good or bad) are shallow and cannot face the reality that there really is no such thing. Human beings really are very arrogant in thinking there is anything at all after the point when life ends. When life ends, it is the same for humans as for all animals. All that is left is a body and memories.