Dear Architect:

Please design and build me a house. I am not quite sure of what I need, so
you should use your discretion. My house should have somewhere between two
and forty-five bedrooms. Just make sure the plans are such that the
bedrooms can be easily added or deleted. When you bring the blueprints to
me, I will make the final decision of what I want. Also, bring me the cost
breakdown for each configuration so that I can arbitrarily pick one.

Keep in mind that the house I ultimately choose must cost less than the
one I am currently living in. Make sure, however, that you correct all the
deficiencies that exist in my current house (the floor of my kitchen
vibrates when I walk across it, and the walls don't have nearly enough
insulation in them).

As you design, also keep in mind that I want to keep yearly maintenance
costs as low as possible. This should mean the incorporation of extra-cost
features like aluminum, vinyl, or composite siding. (If you choose not to
specify aluminum, be prepared to explain your decision in detail.)

Please take care that modern design practices and the latest materials are
used in construction of the house, as I want it to be a showplace for the
most up-to-date ideas and methods. Be alerted, however, that kitchen
should be designed to accommodate, among other things, my 1952 Gibson
refrigerator.

To insure that you are building the correct house for our entire family,
make certain that you contact each of our children, and also our in-laws.
My mother-in-law will have very strong feelings about how the house should
be designed, since she visits us at least once a year.

Make sure that you weigh all of these options carefully and come to the
right decision. I, however, retain the right to overrule any choices that
you make.

Please don't bother me with small details right now. Your job is to
develop the overall plans for the house: get the big picture. At this
time, for example, it is not appropriate to be choosing the color of the
carpet. However, keep in mind that my wife likes blue.

Also, do not worry at this time about acquiring the resources to build the
house itself. Your first priority is to develop detailed plans and
specifications. Once I approve these plans, however, I would expect the
house to be under roof within 48 hours.

While you are designing this house specifically for me, keep in mind that
sooner or later I will have to sell it to someone else. It therefore
should have appeal to a wide variety of potential buyers. Please make sure
before you finalize the plans that there is a consensus of the population
in my area that they like the features this house has. I advise you to run
up and look at my neighbor's house he constructed last year. We like it a
great deal. It has many features that we would also like in our new home,
particularly the 75-foot swimming pool. With careful engineering, I
believe that you can design this into our new house without impacting the
final cost.

Please prepare a complete set of blueprints. It is not necessary at this
time to do the real design, since they will be used only for construction
bids. Be advised, however, that you will be held accountable for any
increase of construction costs as a result of later design changes.

You must be thrilled to be working on as an interesting project as this!
To be able to use the latest techniques and materials and to be given such
freedom in your designs is something that can't happen very often.

Contact me as soon as possible with your complete ideas and plans.

PS: My wife has just told me that she disagrees with many of the
instructions I've given you in this letter. As architect, it is your
responsibility to resolve these differences. I have tried in the past and
have been unable to accomplish this. If you can't handle this
responsibility, I will have to find another architect.

PPS: Perhaps what I need is not a house at all, but a travel trailer.
Please advise me as soon as possible if this is the case.

Such as the Irael vs. Palestine conflict, the other arab nations against Israel, the India Hindu/Muslim wars that forced that country to split into Inida/Pakistan, the Catholic Church killing non believers during the Inquisition, and thousands of other war disputes through history that all stem from religion.

Wouldn't it be sad if religion is a big hoax in the first place? Wouldn't it be said if religion was FICTION and that these societies have been hating and killing each other over FICTION?

Guess what? Religion itself is a man made hoax created to sooth our fears of being alone in the universe, it was created so we don't feel as though we are without any greater purpose in relation to the universe.

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In Genesis, the bible states that:

"...On the third day... God said ... the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit"

However, on the "fourth day" Genesis says that God created the "SUN" (the greater light) "the stars" and "the moon" (the lesser lights of night) and set them in the firmament in order to give light upon the earth.

The only problem is that even the few closest stars are so far away that the light from them takes YEARS to reach the earth, and the vast majority of stars take hundreds, thousands, and millions of years for their light to reach earth.

Such light would not have been visible to earth back then in the beginning.

But the hoax authors who wrote the bible didn't know that at the time, they thought the earth was the center of the universe and that everything was put in place to satisfy the earth.

So that account of the bible is WRONG, and if it's wrong, how can anything be believed from the bible? God cannot be wrong, can he? God is "all knowing", so he cannot be wrong.

Also, Genesis says that "trees bearing fruit" were created on the THIRD day, but the "stars" in the heavens and the "sun" were created on the FOURTH day.

So, does that mean that fruit trees are older than the SUN and the STARS of the universe?

Interesting, I thought it was the sun that allowed fruit trees to grow. I must be mistaken

Simple biology and physics will tell you that it is not only impossible for this to be true, but it is the type of ignorant story told by our ancestors of long ago who did not have the advantage of modern physics and scientific equipment to allow them to understand the truth.

So, obviously the bible was written by our ignorant ancestors who were not inspired by God, because these errors suggest the writings of an ignorant being, and certainly if there is a God in the heavens he (or she) is not "ignorant" (if God really existed, God would be all-knowing, right?).

Not only that, but on the "first day" the bible says that "God said let there be light, and there was light ... and God separated the light from the darkness" (first day)

However, according to that same Genesis scripture it wasn't until the FOURTH DAY when God said that the SUN, moon, and STARS were created, and this indicates the writings of an extremely IGNORANT author because light is created by the SUN and the STARS, they are not two separate things to be created at different times in creation (SUN/STAR = LIGHT of day and night).

If on the "first day" God created light, then that means the sun and stars were created on that FIRST day, not the Fourth day. Which is it? Look at these wacky claims and see the ignorance of the writer.

The author of Genesis was so ignorant that they didn't understand that concept.

Also, on Noah's ark the Bible says that Noah took "two pairs" of every non-marine animal on earth into the ark, and fed them.

This would have required something like 4,000,000 different living entities on board the ark (some too small to be visible), since there are almost 1,000,000 different species living today (birds, mammals, reptiles, spiders, etc). 1,000,000 X 4 creatures each = 4,000,000

And since the bible says that after the "sixth day" creation HALTED forever, this would indicate that all of these species had to have been represented on the ark multiplied times 4 (since Noah took two pairs of each on the ark). They could not have been created after the flood, since creation halted forever after the "sixth day".

Also, what about the Dinosaurs that existed hundreds of millions of years before man and other animals?

Even if you believe that each "day" in Genesis represents 1,000 years or even 1,000,000 years, the Genesis account of creation still cannot be true if the Dinosaurs were created hundreds of millions of years ago. Why?

Because Genesis also says that (in the Garden of Eden) ADAM personally named every living species that was created on earth, and this would indicate that ADAM had to have encountered the Dinosaurs in the Garden of Eden which he could not have done for obvious geologic reasons showing that they existed long before him.

(Dinosaur fossil layers are found very deep in the layers of the earth indicating they are far older than man).

However, even if you don't believe the carbon dating and other scientific dating methods (since they surely are not perfect), the layers of earth which Dino fossils are found in are still so deep that they show millions of years have elapsed between them and us.

I don't think the Garden of Eden had a T-Rex roaming around inside it, did it?

Also, the ark supposedly rode on top of the waters that reached higher than the highest mountain on Earth (Mt. Everest), making the ark travel at an altitude of nearly 30,000 feet high.

Humans and most animals could not have survived for more than a couple days at that altitude, if that long (maybe a few birds could exist at that altitude, but nothing else). This is why airplanes are pressurized.

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Anyway, my main point of this post is to argue to ALL OF YOU that Jewsish people, Muslims, Christians, Catholic Christians, Hindu's, and all other religions are all based on books of FICTION.

ALL religions are HOAXES! Pure fiction.

And yet societies and countries are killing each other over fictitious matters of religion since each person believes their religion is the only true religion.

Isn't it a shame that we are killing each other over FICTION writings that were written by our IGNORANT ancestors who knew nothing about the earth?

The Egyptians created the Sun God, the Romans had other Gods, and "man" has been creating FICTITIOUS GODS since the beginning of his ignorant existence.

Why?

Because people need to find a way to help ease the fear of being alone in this universe, we are so desperate for seeking a higher "purpose" that we create our own gods to pray to.

Why do you think God will never show himself?
Why do you think God has only shown himself "a long time ago" back when no television cameras existed? Why do you think God will NEVER show himself like that again, now that television cameras exist? How convenient for spreading this myth!

Because he (or she) doesn't exist.

The bible is FICTION. If one statement in the bible is false then all have to be false, because God is said to be "all knowing" and "perfect" and God cannot be wrong about the creation scriptures of Genesis if he really exists. And since those scriptures contradict science and common sense, therefore God doesn't exist.

Case closed

Therefore, why do we, as societies, keep arguing over religion when it is a big hoax? Please answer that.

Anyway, the below quote was meant to be removed by me before posting (that quote below about fruit trees is made elsewhere in my post. So disregard that particular first quote about fruit trees, it has nothing to do with my point about the stars - mentioned after it.

quote:

"...On the third day... God said ... the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit"

Comparing science with religion will only complicate your thinking. There are those that would say that the earth as we know it was created as it suggested in the bible - thus the explanation of such things as trees before light, dinosaurs before known animals and that earth being the civilized earth thus the tallest mountain in the region of the "civilized world" or that world of beleif in God...but now I'm sounding preachy

[This message has been edited by OAC (edited 02-06-2001).]

John - occurs on the day before Passover
Matthew, Mark & Luck - occurs on the day after the Passover

Matthew & Mark - last words are "My God, my God, why wast thou forsaken me?"
Luke - "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit"
John - "It is finished"

Not to mention all the works that were edited out of the Bible (Council of Hippo in 393) because they were at even further odds with the already inconsistent "facts" that the Bible was reporting.

As a condition to your employment, paid or unpaid, you agree to provide ongoing maintenance of the hosue plans including, but not limited to, additional children born or adopted by our family, changes in space requirements for any current or future hobbies engaged in, or changes in lifestyle.
This ongoing service will be considered to have been paid for in the initial contract.

quote:

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Anyway, my main point of this post is to argue to ALL OF YOU that Jewsish people, Muslims, Christians, Catholic Christians, Hindu's, and all other religions are all based on books of FICTION.

ALL religions are HOAXES! Pure fiction.

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There are over 1 billion Catholics and 800,000 Protestants in the world. There are over 1 billion Muslims. Over 90% of the world believe in God.

The belief in God and religion is a matter of faith. That's the bottom line.

"Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see."

Faith is hope in something that we cannot see, but something that we hope for.

quote:

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Because he (or she) doesn't exist.

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You cannot prove that God does NOT exist. How can you? Do you propose you know 100% of everything there is to know in the universe?

The fact that you believe that God does not exist is a matter of faith, just the same faith that is needed to believe that He does exist. Think about it.

Not faith, Logic.

I have totally embraced this reality. And here are my suggestions...

1) Think up a compensation plan that is compatible with this reality. Perhaps ask for a percentage of sales!!! They might say yes. I personally think that is the future; us being a new breed of commissioned web-salespeople. It makes me much more willing to jump through hoops.

2) Work with a system that deals with the fluxuating blueprints. I've separated a site’s directory structure from its textual-content from its look & feel. I can remix them into an infinite variety of sites and wedge any 3rd party technology into it I like, such as Flash, JavaScript, etc. I can also park a site on domain A for the boss, and another on domain B for his wife with marginally more effort.

3) And for the “not paying for it issue”, domains are $15 a pop these days. Make one main corporate domain that remains theirs, but make all the really exciting stuff take place on domains you personally register and maintain ownership of. If they like the benefit you provide, they’ll pay. If not, you can take your toys and go home.

Sorry to address issues in an otherwise fun-filled thread! Please quip on...

Logic cannot be used to either prove or disprove the existence of God. Logic is a philosophy based on the teachings of Aristotle. It uses mathematical constructs to prove the validity of an argument. It has nothing to do with TRUTH.

The argument against the existence of God presented in this thread is manifestly invalid. Its premises are faulty.

The basic argument presented here is:

things that cannot be seen do not exist
God cannot be seen
therefore: God does not exist

In mathematical terms, the argument is:

all things belonging to the group of things that cannot be seen belong to the group of things that do not exist

God belongs to the group of things that cannot be seen

Therefore: God belongs to the group of things that do not exist

If you think that this proves that God does not exist, you also believe that there is no such thing as air, or wind, or atmospheric pressure. None of these things can be seen (unless, of course, you live in Los Angeles, in which case you can definitely see air), yet they all exist. The major premise of the argument is, therefore, faulty, and the argument is invalid.

If you don't believe in God, just say so. Please don't attempt to use LOGIC to prove He doesn't exist. It can't be done.

You must agree to scrap and rebuild the house about every 6-months -- before anyone has a chance to see if the first one was any good.

quote:

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If you think that this proves that God does not exist, you also believe that there is no such thing as air, or wind, or atmospheric pressure. None of these things can be seen yet they all exist. The major premise of the argument is, therefore, faulty, and the argument is invalid.

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Sorry, but you are mistaken, you failed to understand my main point.

I am not disputing the existence of God based on his invisible presence or his lack of being seen by anybody per se (that is just one of many reasons).

I am showing that God is a HOAX because he supposedly left a WRITTEN WORD which is called the BIBLE which CAN BE SEEN AND READ, and compared to simple FACTS OF THE UNIVERSE.

The bible is not invisible like air, please deal with that aspect.

For example, Genesis just isn't correct according to what we now know about the earth, and the contradicting statements made in Genesis can be seen and touched by humans (ink can be touched ). Those scriptures are God's written word yet they are wrong, can God be wrong about anything and still be God? I thought God was all-knowing and perfect?

According to the bible, we know that God is said to be "all knowing", so if God exists then how can he be wrong about how the Earth was created.

And what about how Dinosaurs throw a wrench into the bible's false fairy tale suggesting how Adam named every living creature that has ever existed, in the Garden of Eden?

Adam, Noah, Moses, and Jesus were just regular men who were able to convince the ignorant masses that they represented God's word.

Just as Mohammed was basically a great 'negotiator' (well liked orator) who was good with people, and after a fairy tale dream (that he had one night) he then convinced the middle eastern world that he was the word of God, based on his great ability to get people to listen to him (a talent which he was known for before his dream). I am ashamed that masses of people could follow the fairy tale dream of one man.

The scriptures of the bible are NOT invisible like air is, so your attempt to sway emotions into my simple analytical argument just didn't "pan out" (sorry ). Nice try though

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Guess what? I believe that cows can fly on their own, I have faith that cows can fly, and the fact that nobody has seen one fly doesn't "prove" they can't fly, right?

Prove me wrong? Prove to me that the Roman War God was a fabrication? Prove that the Egyptian Sun God is a fabrication?

Can you prove these other gods false? If not, then does that mean those Roman and Egyptian gods are just as legitimate as Jesus and Mohammed, and your God?

Do you see your twisted logic, disguised as "faith"?

The laws of physics which prove a cow cannot fly also do not prove anything according to your logic, because those same laws of physics prevent men from walking on water too. Bango!

Faith is nothing more than wishful thinking. I can believe that cows fly, but that doesn't make it a possible reality.

FAITH = Psychological need to make sense out of something that fears us, such as the "unknown" origins about our planet.

Giving the Bible as evidence of the nonexistence of God is also flawed. The Bible was not (and has never been claimed to have been) written by God. It was written by men. The vast majority of it is allegory, not history (although there is substantial historical evidence of some of the events chronicled in it). The only portion of the Bible that scholars know for certain was written by an actual participant in events is the Epistles of Paul. The Gospels quoted earlier were written about 100 years after the crucifiction, so the author(s) could not possibly have known what, if anything, Christ said.

Those of us who participate in organized Christian religions know and accept that the Bible is NOT the verbatim word of God. It is the chronicle of our faiths. It contains the outline of a way to live our lives, and documents some historical events. We understand the difference between allegory used to make a point, and historical fact documenting events.

Can we use logic to prove that God exists? No. Can you use logic to prove that he does not? No. You either believe in God or you don't.

Not even the Catholic church states, categorically, that God exists. It doesn't ask its members to state that, either. When I go to mass and recite the Apostles' Creed, I say "I believe in God", not "God exists". The simple fact is that no one knows whether or not God exists. I believe He does, I hope He does, but I do not, and cannot, know He does. Neither can you know that he does not.

I need evidence - whether it is a burning bush outside my house or someother evidence - I need evidence.

I have had "spiritual" experiences - but they were in no way at all christian, and I still look at them from a scientific view point - trying to see how science can explain them - while still acepting that I have had the experience and that it was real.

Once, we considered lightening to be the thunderbolts from the gods - then science showed us that they are electrical discharges. Such evidence does not diminish our awe at lightening, or caused it to go away.

One day we will look back on religion as some wierd aberation in society - and that day will be when science has explained the bio-chemical reaction that caused religious experience and has "bottled it" for resale in chemists.