American Eagle wrote:
So do you hide your kids in the basement, or do you and Jessica really not have any?
Most of the younger ToO members are actually our children.
But otherwise, we really don't have any. >_>
I would say once we move out of our tiny apartment the possibility of having children would increase to some extent. I am the youngest in my family and if I IMMEDIATELY THIS MOMENT CONCEIVED A CHILD I would be older than my dad was when I was born by the time my first child was born. I think the fact of my age makes me sort of want to have kids, however I don't think not wanting to be an old father is the best reason to have children, so...
Knight Fisher wrote:I have won the astonishing game. Am I safe from Goombas?
I am proud of your achievement!
You are safe for now. However the makers of the game have promised Version 2.0 will be out by April, so once the new release is out (a couple new characters added to choose from, new powerups added, lots and lots of alternate skins), you will be in danger once again.
After THAT update the promise to do completely new levels (Well, not NEW new, just as the current version replications Super Mario Bros. in its entirety, they will also add Super Mario Bros. 2 [the Japanese version that was basically an expansion of the original, not the Super Mario Bros. 2 that we got in the United States] for players to have a new challenge), as well which will be pretty cool but that is an unknown amount of time down the road.
Gaius wrote:*adds another question*
What is your view on the Rapture?
Ah, good question.
I will give the "at work, don't have time to look things up" version...
To this day there is certainly degrees of disagreement on End Times related things, and specifically the rapture, however the rapture HAS become a very common and popular view... I don't have stats at hand but in my experience it seems to be very widely accepted and the majority of evangelical Christians agree at least with the basic premise of the rapture. It is important to note, however, that our current interpretations of both the End Times as a whole as well as the rapture are all relatively new in the grand scheme of things. What we call the rapture wasn't even thought of or taught until the 1800's, and there has always been significant debate among church fathers if the book of Revelations should even be included at all (Martin Luther, for one, was against the inclusion of the Revelation of St. John). Of course, the concept of the rapture isn't even found in Revelations, but in Paul's letters, and both Jesus and the old testament prophet Daniel and I believe others discuss the End Times. I point out the issues with Revelations just to show that basically all concepts of the end of the world have been heavily debated forever and only recently has a consensus (which still meets with disagreement from a fair number) come into being.
While some would say its all very allegorical in nature and not to be taken literally, I have come to be very open to a lot of the popular end time theories as it pertains to a world leader such as the antichrist and such, however I am not convinced that things will occur the way it seems 90% of current Christian teachings make them out to seem.
It may not be the best argument, but if things occur exactly like all the novels and such have said, and there is a big rapture of all the Christians, I just don't think the antichrist would be able to take hold because it would just be too obvious that what was going on was exactly like what everyone had been saying--therefore unsaved people who had decent knowledge of typical Christian lore and the Left Behind novels would totally see what was going on and it just... couldn't all happen as seemlessly as the Bible says it will.
I have also heard the simple argument that "Well, God wouldn't let His people suffer." A good friend of mine once told me that in a discussion on the subject recently. My answer is, "Okay. Look at Israel's history." Israel has had a wee bit of problems over the years, and even if you argue "Okay, but they were astray and God used a tragedy or attempted genocide to get them back on track." Fair point, I actually agree, but look at a specific example like Job. Job was totally a good guy doing the right thing. He lost everything. Ignore Job if you want, the apostles almost all met terrible persecution and death. Read Fox's Book of Martyrs. BAD THINGS GOING ON TO CHRISTIANS. The Bible is pretty clear that it rains on both the just and the unjust. I do think that in the End Times God's wrath will NOT be poured on the Christians and they will be spared from that, however I do believe that they will be present during the rapture and have to deal with the persecution of the powers of the world at that time.
Again, realize this isn't the best possible answer and I'm just going off the top of my head during a slow moment at work--feel free to ask for better specifics on things and I'll do my best to reply. I come to my view after considerable years of research, and while I don't expect everyone to just say, "Okay cool, I agree with you now." I do hope that I get people to really think about things and not be content to believe the "typical Christian response" on this issue or any other. I have come across many people who don't really even know their Bible, they just know what their parents and/or church taught on a certain matter--while those teachings had some biblical grounding generally, there are often other views that are just as grounded in scripture and I think its important for people to be open minded and willing to test their beliefs against different interpretations of scripture.