How to disprove God to a believer? (no really)...

[Windwalker]

It's not about security, it's about unity - that's the whole point of Christianity, to be united with one heart, and one mind - see one another face to face... disagreement is being disconnected - the opposite of love.

You're right in the first part, and mistaken in the last. Disagreement does not equal disconnected. Racial equality, for instance, does not mean everyone becomes white. You mistake uniformity with unity. There is a big difference. To have true unity, you have to have diversity. A marriage is not losing differences, but bringing those differences together in harmony. A song is not a single note that everyone sings.

People who feel a need to get others to think like themselves, are generally uncomfortable with others being different than themselves. That is the opposite of unity.

 

[FranklinMichaelV.3]

Hi, Franklin

If you accept, as I do, that God cannot be objectively observed, we need not concern ourselves with what either we or the ancients "knew". When it comes to building a better mousetrap, knowledge and historical experience are certainly useful; but in trying to understand eternity, these things do us little good. Nevertheless, the Apostle Paul said,

Romans 1
[19] Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.
[20] For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:
[21] Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
[22] Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools...

Notice that Paul said, "...from the creation of the world..." God existed before the "beginning" of Gen. 1, and will continue to exist after the world as we know it grows old and dies. We don't know much about God; but we can get a good idea of His nature just by observing the world around us -- the same world that the ancients saw. Consider some of those things, and the conclusions drawn:

1. The ancients understood, and many of us also understand, that the world was crafted by, and is held together by, wisdom. Sir Isaac Newton, a devout Bible-believer as well as the greatest scientist of all time, demonstrated this by describing the immutable laws of Physics. One might think, as Sir Isaac himself thought, that our faith in an All-Wise God would increase with this knowledge. Quite to the contrary, though, men in these most modern times postulate a world brought about by random interractions and happenstance. We have more knowledge than our predecessors, yet we reject it.

2. The ancients believed that the world did not create itself; but that it was created through a supernatural agency. That is simply common sense: WE create things of rather simple intricacy, but those things cannot create themselves. Today, we can even create things that can create things (robots); so we ought to understand more than the ancients: We ought to understand that we are able to create because God CREATED us with the ability to create. Many of us don't believe this, though; we think instead, that man evolved without design from unthinking cosmic goo.

3. The ancients believed that the divine beings were more powerful than humans. This also was merely common sense. Today, we understand that the universe is far greater and more complex than the ancients ever imagined; yet many of us do not think of God as being so much more immense and powerful. Instead, some of us think of Him as not existing at all.

We KNOW much more than our ancestors did; but this hasn't profited us much in the matter at hand.

I would say most disagree with the concept of God that is put forward that still follows the ancient way of thinking.

I.E. an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent free will driven being, who exists outside of time yet can influence it. Who exhibits great wrath and great love, and other variety of emotions between and beyond. Given those criteria and the huge complex variety of religions that have existed, many people would chalk it up, to imagination and along the same route as vampires, werewolves and chupacabra's.

 

[Sir Doom]

I do not. I would never presume to alter whatever you believe as "true".

Really.

But you seem to be rejecting my answer for the reason I stated.

That I prefer is that you directly address the OP. This is not a "piety test"

I did. If god appears and god gets killed... well, that is undeniable proof that god no longer exists. See how that works? Dead god = not god.

Whatever you insist upon as "truth" is not at issue here... ie., it's not about "you" ")

Its always about me, chief. Besides, I don't even know what truth you are talking about that I am insisting on.

I find it perplexing is that is all that you can divine (no pun) from the OP...

I didn't divine that from the OP. It was observed directly in the comment that I responded to in which you described god as the master/controller of time itself. I don't think god is that at all. Why do you think that? You're an atheist. God should be master/controller of a big steaming glass of nothing at all.

 

[idea]

Also no Communist killed in the name of atheism.....nobody has significantly..

"Religion is the opium of the people". ..."Communism begins from the outset (Owen) with atheism;" - Karl Marx

"A Marxist must be a materialist, i. e., an enemy of religion, but a dialectical materialist, i. e., one who treats the struggle against religion not in an abstract way, not on the basis of remote, purely theoretical, never varying preaching, but in a concrete way..." - Vladimir Lenin

Underground Christians fear China crackdown - CNN.com



A Century of Violence in Soviet Russia - Alexander N. Yakovlev - Google Books


On Compromise in the Hierarchy During the Communist Yoke: Excerpts from Two Books by Fr. Roman Braga


Korean Reds Targeting Christians - The New York Sun


China: Christians Tortured While Under Arrest | The World Now has moved! -- TheWorldNow.org



... sorry, atheists seem more violent than religious people to me.

 

[Sha'irullah]

"Religion is the opium of the people". ..."Communism begins from the outset (Owen) with atheism;" - Karl Marx

"A Marxist must be a materialist, i. e., an enemy of religion, but a dialectical materialist, i. e., one who treats the struggle against religion not in an abstract way, not on the basis of remote, purely theoretical, never varying preaching, but in a concrete way..." - Vladimir Lenin

Underground Christians fear China crackdown - CNN.com



A Century of Violence in Soviet Russia - Alexander N. Yakovlev - Google Books


On Compromise in the Hierarchy During the Communist Yoke: Excerpts from Two Books by Fr. Roman Braga


Korean Reds Targeting Christians - The New York Sun


China: Christians Tortured While Under Arrest | The World Now has moved! -- TheWorldNow.org



... sorry, atheists seem more violent than religious people to me.

??? You bring political actions? Communism and authoritarianism?

It is like Rome all over again and its execution and hunting of Christians. People in which the Romans thought were barbarians who drowned(baptized) and ate the body of zombies(communion) and loved death and martyrdom. They also thought Christians would invade and take over as Jesus claimed that "I come not to bring peace, but to bring a sword" (Matthew 10:34)

No authoritarian society benefits from an anti authoritarian religion.....which Christianity sure is.

You still cannot separate politics, secularism and a theism apart. This is the basics to understanding society and government and you contentiously fail based upon knowledge that is self refuting.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/01/2013121392698654.html

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/0...-to-assess-reports-that-lord-resistance-army/

 

[lewisnotmiller]

The atheist communist regime is responsible for the most murders in history, so if it's the protection of life that you're after, perhaps you should be focusing on those who do not yet hold life to be a sacred gift.

That's one way to interpret history. A different way would be to suggest that fundamentalist belief in anything has long been an excuse for people to avoid personal responsibility and adhere to mob mentality, whether that fundamentalism is religious or political/ideaIogical.

How else do you prove that your ultimate truth is superior to all the other ultimate truths?

What say you?

 

[idea]

... fundamentalist belief in anything has long been an excuse for people to avoid personal responsibility ...

Yes, when someone thinks it's more important to preserve an idea than to preserve a life people die... are there any ideas worth dieing for? worth killing for? Who said "I would rather die free than live as a slave" for instance. strange - most of the ideas worth fighting and dieing for are ideas that are supposed to preserve life.


Although there are some militant religious groups, I think the vast majority of religious people are proselyting humanitarian pacifists, and I think religion has done far more good than evil in the world.

How else do you prove that your ultimate truth is superior to all the other ultimate truths?

While an ultimate truth might exist, I do not believe that anyone currently knows "the whole truth and nothing but the truth". We all have pieces of the puzzle, and I try not to be a dualist...

I'll post this again:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_G._Perry

"The Perry scheme is a model for understanding how college students come to understand knowledge, the ideas they hold about "knowing", and the ways in which knowing is a part of the cognitive processes of thinking and reasoning.[3] Perry (1970) proposed that college students pass through a predictable sequence of positions of epistemological growth. Fundamental to the Perry scheme is a student’s nine-position progression from dualist to relativist epistemologies. Learners move from viewing truth in absolute terms of Right and Wrong (obtained from “Good” or “Bad” Authorities) to recognizing multiple, conflicting versions of “truth” representing legitimate alternatives."

I really do think it is important for everyone to recognize Perry levels, to pry themselves away from the dualst right/wrong lower levels cognitive processing stages and progress towards accepting the reality of uncertainty, and learning how to appropriately make decisions and commitments in the face of uncertainty.

 

[FranklinMichaelV.3]

Yes, when someone thinks it's more important to preserve an idea than to preserve a life people die... are there any ideas worth dieing for? worth killing for? Who said "I would rather die free than live as a slave" for instance. strange - most of the ideas worth fighting and dieing for are ideas that are supposed to preserve life.


Although there are some militant religious groups, I think the vast majority of religious people are proselyting humanitarian pacifists, and I think religion has done far more good than evil in the world.



While an ultimate truth might exist, I do not believe that anyone currently knows "the whole truth and nothing but the truth". We all have pieces of the puzzle, and I try not to be a dualist...

I'll post this again:
William G. Perry - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"The Perry scheme is a model for understanding how college students come to understand knowledge, the ideas they hold about "knowing", and the ways in which knowing is a part of the cognitive processes of thinking and reasoning.[3] Perry (1970) proposed that college students pass through a predictable sequence of positions of epistemological growth. Fundamental to the Perry scheme is a student’s nine-position progression from dualist to relativist epistemologies. Learners move from viewing truth in absolute terms of Right and Wrong (obtained from “Good” or “Bad” Authorities) to recognizing multiple, conflicting versions of “truth” representing legitimate alternatives."

I really do think it is important for everyone to recognize Perry levels, to pry themselves away from the dualst right/wrong lower levels cognitive processing stages and progress towards accepting the reality of uncertainty, and learning how to appropriately make decisions and commitments in the face of uncertainty.

Until the 20th...maybe 19th century. Most conquerors, rulers, maniacs and the likes...were Religious.

They may not have been all Christians but they have been religious or had some religious upbringing. If you account all the acts of war done by religious people, and then compared it to acts of war done by non religious people, I'm not sure you would find the numbers work out to the idea you're trying to push.

It seems more accurate to say that the average individual, be they atheist or not, desires to be left alone in peace with their families and love ones. In which case it's the fundemntalist on either end of a spectrum which are responsible for these things.

 

[idea]

Until the 20th...maybe 19th century. Most conquerors, rulers, maniacs and the likes...were Religious.

They may not have been all Christians but they have been religious or had some religious upbringing. If you account all the acts of war done by religious people, and then compared it to acts of war done by non religious people, I'm not sure you would find the numbers work out to the idea you're trying to push.

It seems more accurate to say that the average individual, be they atheist or not, desires to be left alone in peace with their families and love ones. In which case it's the fundemntalist on either end of a spectrum which are responsible for these things.

Atheist regimes actually have killed more people - orders of magnitude more people - then everyone else combined. You could argue this is just because they had access to more advanced ways of killing people, but comparing straight death tolls, atheists are the biggest murderers of history.

Napoleon Bonaparte was an atheist “all religions have been made by men” he said. He killed around 6 million Europeans.

Than Shwe - typical atheist dictator of Myanmar/Burma -

Kim Jong Il - leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea - has killed at least 4 million of his own people (we'll never know how many for sure)

Benito Mussolini - Fascist atheist dictator of World War II - he invaded Ethiopia, using poison gas, bombing Red Cross hospitals and concentration camps to kill civilians and destroy “inferior” cultures...

Mao Zedong - atheist leader who killed 20 to 67 million of his “comrades”.

Pol Pot - Atheist Prime Minister of Cambodia - estimated to have killed around 2 million Cambodians (approximately one third of the population)

Joseph Stalin - estimates of the total number murdered under Stalin’s reign, range from 10 million to 60 million. His government promoted atheism with mass propaganda in school, and held a terror campaign against the religious. He crushed the Russian Orthodox Church, leveling thousands of churches and shooting more than 100,000 priests, monks and nuns...


and then of coarse there are the crazy atheist cult individuals like:

Jeffrey Dahmer (who was an atheist - he said “if a person doesn’t think that there is a God to be accountable to, then what’s the point of trying to modify your behavior to keep it within acceptable ranges?&#8221

Jim Jones - Atheist who in 1978, who led 909 people at the restricted communist “sanctuary” he presided over in Jonestown, Guyana, to commit “revolutionary suicide” at his command....


There are crazy extreme people on either side of the fence of coarse, but atheists win if you want to start counting how many people they have killed in the name of their secularist beliefs.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

Yes, when someone thinks it's more important to preserve an idea than to preserve a life people die... are there any ideas worth dieing for? worth killing for? Who said "I would rather die free than live as a slave" for instance. strange - most of the ideas worth fighting and dieing for are ideas that are supposed to preserve life.

Yes, in my opinion there are things worth dying for. But not many. You're view seems to be that a religious Viewpoint has a higher opinion of life than an atheistic one (whatever that is), but personally ) place a high value on life. There is nothing else. The concept of an eternal soul, and for judgement after this life can provide different imperatives. It would really come down to what it is you think would be judged as worthy behaviour , I suppose.

Although there are some militant religious groups, I think the vast majority of religious people are proselyting humanitarian pacifists, and I think religion has done far more good than evil in the world.

Your entitled to your opinion. I would think that over history that view is entirely debateable.

While an ultimate truth might exist, I do not believe that anyone currently knows "the whole truth and nothing but the truth". We all have pieces of the puzzle, and I try not to be a dualist...

To be VERY clear, I don't believe in 'Ultimate Truths'. My comment was supposed to be ironical about the ******* match that occurs between people believing they 'know'. Again, regardless of whether its religion or ideology ' were looking at.

I'll post this again:
William G. Perry - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"The Perry scheme is a model for understanding how college students come to understand knowledge, the ideas they hold about "knowing", and the ways in which knowing is a part of the cognitive processes of thinking and reasoning.[3] Perry (1970) proposed that college students pass through a predictable sequence of positions of epistemological growth. Fundamental to the Perry scheme is a student’s nine-position progression from dualist to relativist epistemologies. Learners move from viewing truth in absolute terms of Right and Wrong (obtained from “Good” or “Bad” Authorities) to recognizing multiple, conflicting versions of “truth” representing legitimate alternatives."

I really do think it is important for everyone to recognize Perry levels, to pry themselves away from the dualst right/wrong lower levels cognitive processing stages and progress towards accepting the reality of uncertainty, and learning how to appropriately make decisions and commitments in the face of uncertainty.

I was a psych major, and I'm familiar with Perry's work. I actually think you need to re-assess your insistence on dividing human behaviour along theist/atheist lines, and your talk of 'the other side of the fence' in relation to it.

 

[Sha'irullah]

Atheist regimes actually have killed more people - orders of magnitude more people - then everyone else combined. You could argue this is just because they had access to more advanced ways of killing people, but comparing straight death tolls, atheists are the biggest murderers of history.

Napoleon Bonaparte was an atheist “all religions have been made by men” he said. He killed around 6 million Europeans.

Than Shwe - typical atheist dictator of Myanmar/Burma -

Kim Jong Il - leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea - has killed at least 4 million of his own people (we'll never know how many for sure)

Benito Mussolini - Fascist atheist dictator of World War II - he invaded Ethiopia, using poison gas, bombing Red Cross hospitals and concentration camps to kill civilians and destroy “inferior” cultures...

Mao Zedong - atheist leader who killed 20 to 67 million of his “comrades”.

Pol Pot - Atheist Prime Minister of Cambodia - estimated to have killed around 2 million Cambodians (approximately one third of the population)

Joseph Stalin - estimates of the total number murdered under Stalin’s reign, range from 10 million to 60 million. His government promoted atheism with mass propaganda in school, and held a terror campaign against the religious. He crushed the Russian Orthodox Church, leveling thousands of churches and shooting more than 100,000 priests, monks and nuns...


and then of coarse there are the crazy atheist cult individuals like:

Jeffrey Dahmer (who was an atheist - he said “if a person doesn’t think that there is a God to be accountable to, then what’s the point of trying to modify your behavior to keep it within acceptable ranges?&#8221

Jim Jones - Atheist who in 1978, who led 909 people at the restricted communist “sanctuary” he presided over in Jonestown, Guyana, to commit “revolutionary suicide” at his command....


There are crazy extreme people on either side of the fence of coarse, but atheists win if you want to start counting how many people they have killed in the name of their secularist beliefs.

The issue is that there has been no Atheist regime. Religion has been so violent and evil throughout history and has causes so many divisions it was anti Communist as Communist want 1 people and 1 state.

So it was removed. Not because atheism is violent but because religion is violent.

“Our program necessarily includes the propaganda of atheism”. Vladimir Lenin

There was a reason for this conclusion and that is because that religion divides people and look at Christianity now in America.


All of the wars we have going on now are being endorsed by highly religious people involving Muslims and Christians.
While more atheists stand on the liberal side and declare war as destructive.

 

[s2a]

As a believer I would agree that the above are untrue or unproven

If only your proclamation(s) could be deemed insightful...

...which they are not


Care to address that actual OP, one more time?

Still an open thread ya know?

 

[FranklinMichaelV.3]

Atheist regimes actually have killed more people - orders of magnitude more people - then everyone else combined. You could argue this is just because they had access to more advanced ways of killing people, but comparing straight death tolls, atheists are the biggest murderers of history.

Napoleon Bonaparte was an atheist “all religions have been made by men” he said. He killed around 6 million Europeans.

Than Shwe - typical atheist dictator of Myanmar/Burma -

Kim Jong Il - leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea - has killed at least 4 million of his own people (we'll never know how many for sure)

Benito Mussolini - Fascist atheist dictator of World War II - he invaded Ethiopia, using poison gas, bombing Red Cross hospitals and concentration camps to kill civilians and destroy “inferior” cultures...

Mao Zedong - atheist leader who killed 20 to 67 million of his “comrades”.

Pol Pot - Atheist Prime Minister of Cambodia - estimated to have killed around 2 million Cambodians (approximately one third of the population)

Joseph Stalin - estimates of the total number murdered under Stalin’s reign, range from 10 million to 60 million. His government promoted atheism with mass propaganda in school, and held a terror campaign against the religious. He crushed the Russian Orthodox Church, leveling thousands of churches and shooting more than 100,000 priests, monks and nuns...


and then of coarse there are the crazy atheist cult individuals like:

Jeffrey Dahmer (who was an atheist - he said “if a person doesn’t think that there is a God to be accountable to, then what’s the point of trying to modify your behavior to keep it within acceptable ranges?”)

Jim Jones - Atheist who in 1978, who led 909 people at the restricted communist “sanctuary” he presided over in Jonestown, Guyana, to commit “revolutionary suicide” at his command....


There are crazy extreme people on either side of the fence of coarse, but atheists win if you want to start counting how many people they have killed in the name of their secularist beliefs.

Actually no.

Are you accounting for all the empires that had existed from the Egyptians, to the Sumerians to the Greeks, to the Babylonians, to the Persians, to the Romans, including the Mongols and so on and so forth that had beliefs in a god?

Of course while those men you listed may not have believed in a god, it's not a belief in a god that inhibits people from conquering and slaughter. Plenty of Southern Slave owners were christians who mistreated their slaves. Plenty of Spanish Conquistodors were christians who massacered indigenious groups. Plenty of Muslims were involved in the slaughtering of Hindu's, and vice versa.

Like I said if you took all the people who had ever believed in a god, and added up their kill counts versus those who didn't you'd find the number rather skewed towards those who believe in a god versus those who don't.

 

[BlandOatmeal]

I would say most disagree with the concept of God that is put forward that still follows the ancient way of thinking.

I.E. an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent free will driven being, who exists outside of time yet can influence it. Who exhibits great wrath and great love, and other variety of emotions between and beyond. Given those criteria and the huge complex variety of religions that have existed, many people would chalk it up, to imagination and along the same route as vampires, werewolves and chupacabra's.

Various polls worldwide have showed that belief in God is a majority opinion. Europe and its colonies, and the former Communist Bloc are exceptions, along with Japan.

 

[BlandOatmeal]

I would say most disagree with the concept of God that is put forward that still follows the ancient way of thinking.

I.E. an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent free will driven being, who exists outside of time yet can influence it. Who exhibits great wrath and great love, and other variety of emotions between and beyond. Given those criteria and the huge complex variety of religions that have existed, many people would chalk it up, to imagination and along the same route as vampires, werewolves and chupacabra's.

Various polls worldwide have showed that belief in God is a majority opinion. Europe and its colonies, and the former Communist Bloc are exceptions, along with Japan.

 

[nazz]

To answer your question I first have to give you my most minimal definition of "God":

1. The source of everything that exists

2. That which I experience internally as God

That said there is really nothing I can think of that would change my view regarding the first part of my definition as I accept as an incontrovertible truth that all things must have a source of their existence.

As for second part of my definition likewise nothing would prevent me from continuing to call those internal experiences "God". However if it were somehow revealed to me that these experiences were being artificially pumped into my consciousness in some version of the Matrix and/or by highly evolved alien beings it would change how I viewed those experiences.

That's all I got.

 

[FranklinMichaelV.3]

Various polls worldwide have showed that belief in God is a majority opinion. Europe and its colonies, and the former Communist Bloc are exceptions, along with Japan.

So are beliefs in Vampire like creatures, zombies, and werewolves. Those of course have gone to the way of myths, with most people not believing in them, but you will find forms of them in all societies. You'll see the same in relation to gods. I think you would be hard press to find a culture/society that did not have some belief in a powerful diety of some sort.

The human attempt to understand God has fluctuated for millenias. I think God just sits there and laughs at our attempts.

 

[BlandOatmeal]

So are beliefs in Vampire like creatures, zombies, and werewolves. Those of course have gone to the way of myths, with most people not believing in them, but you will find forms of them in all societies. You'll see the same in relation to gods. I think you would be hard press to find a culture/society that did not have some belief in a powerful diety of some sort.

The human attempt to understand God has fluctuated for millenias. I think God just sits there and laughs at our attempts.

I think Dracula, Frankenstein, zombies and werewolves are largely an early 20th Century film phenomenon -- arguably, extensions of the Jewish Golem. We also have Peter Lorre, the quintessential Jewish scary guy of bête noire film culture.

It is obvious, therefore, that scary monsters are the product of Judaism -- and, to a lesser extent, Christianity (Phyllis Diller being a case in point). Pagan ogres have nothing on them. I don't know of any Islamic monster movies, but then... (humor is forbidden... humor is forbidden...). These are just personal observations, of course, not hard, scientific evidence.
​

 

[FranklinMichaelV.3]

I think Dracula, Frankenstein, zombies and werewolves are largely an early 20th Century film phenomenon -- arguably, extensions of the Jewish Golem. We also have Peter Lorre, the quintessential Jewish scary guy of bête noire film culture.

It is obvious, therefore, that scary monsters are the product of Judaism -- and, to a lesser extent, Christianity (Phyllis Diller being a case in point). Pagan ogres have nothing on them. I don't know of any Islamic monster movies, but then... (humor is forbidden... humor is forbidden...). These are just personal observations, of course, not hard, scientific evidence.
​

I actually figured they were older then even that. Ideas of vampires, werewolves, zombies are found in a lot of cultures, varying in how they feed off humans, but the idea is usually focused in the case of the vampire as draining life-force (either blood or chi). Werewolves may be more recent, but zombies I think are related to the idea of spirits.

 

[BlandOatmeal]

I actually figured they were older then even that. Ideas of vampires, werewolves, zombies are found in a lot of cultures, varying in how they feed off humans, but the idea is usually focused in the case of the vampire as draining life-force (either blood or chi). Werewolves may be more recent, but zombies I think are related to the idea of spirits.

Frankenstein's monster was a take-off on the Jewish "Golem of Prague". Dracula, with his archetypal Jewish features and his habit of drinking blood, is a take-off on the antisemitic Blood Libel. As for Jewish werewolves,

read THIS.

Of course, every culture has its demons and monsters. The Jews have the distinction of being CONSIDERED monsters by a large portion of mankind, which may explain their disproportionate representation in bête noire horror films. Besides that, the Jews have had 2000 years of experience, having to deal with real-life monsters such as Hitler, Arafat and Khameini.

Leaving off the subject of monsters, which I posted about in dark humor, I should note here that the Jewish people are themselves the greatest proof that the God of Israel exists, and that He is greater than all other gods. Every culture has had its own gods; and those gods have nearly all deserted them. Emperor Hirohito had to renounce his divinity after WWII, to the dismay and disillusionment of his subjects. American Indian tribes, and other peoples (including the Chinese and Indians), found their gods unable to save them from Christian colonialism. The Jews, on the other hand, spent 1900 years in exile from their homeland, clinging tenaciously to a promise by their God that He would restore their fortunes; and they were not disappointed in their hope. Today, the ungodly world seems determined to snuff out that hope by destroying Israel -- and, presumably, their God. We'll see how the contest pans out (Zechariah 14). My money is on the Jews and their God.

Shalom shalom :balloons:
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