An easy way to promote IPv6 would be if it were know or assumed that Google assigns higher pagerank to sites using IPv6 addresses. Then it would be something that customers of hosting companies would insist on, at least.

Whoa, that's brilliant! How about you call up the record industry executives to suggest they do just this! Obviously, none of them has ever thought "DUH, how about if WE jack up the prices?!?!?".

Or it might just be that you're not looking at the whole picture and the only value of your analysis is that it demonstrates how a generally valid theory leads to woefully wrong conclusions if boundary conditions aren't taken into account.

Why would it matter to you what most Christians believe? Are they God? Do they decide who will go to Hell and who won't?

Hell is mentioned throughout the Bible as a place where people burn:

Mark 9:43 And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched:
Mark 9:47 And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire:

In Matthew as well (although it's a furnace here):

Matthew 13:50 And shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.

In Revelation, we find this:

Revelation 20:14 And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.
Revelation 20:10 And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.
Revelation 20:15 And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.

It seems pretty specific, no?

Do you honestly believe God purposely tricks us by writing one thing in the Bible while *meaning* something else? The Bible ascribes such trickery to Satan, not to God.

And the atheists have formed their own religion.

No: if you group people by what they *don't* believe in, then that's the only common factor. They may very well believe in non-religious supernatural claims like all the paranormal mumbo-jumbo. A religion formed on that basis would be very fragile at best.

Like all religions it makes its members feel good by telling them they're better than everyone else.

It's much easier to think in simplistic caricatures, huh?

We probably agree on a lot more -- I think all supernatural claims, including those in the Bible are complete BS.

If one actually reads the Bible with something else than whiteout and scissors, one might see it's a horrible book with insanely crooked morals.

It's no wonder that so-called Christians are so spastic about metaphorical interpretation. It's the only way to make it look like anything remotely reasonable. For instance, I've never ONCE heard a Christian comment on Lot being *raped* by his two daughters after the genocide at Sodom at Gomorroh. What they extract is that gays are bad somehow. And that the OT is irrelevant, except if you can twist it to mean that gays are bad. Etcetera.

And that's my gripe: people make all sorts of claims in the name of God, but they cannot even back up those claims with scriptural references.

As you've seen in some replies, they prefer to attack *the person* instead of the argument.

It also seems these days that so-called "Christians" don't even bother to cite scripture anymore. They just make a bunch of statements about God without any scriptural backing whatsoever.

Then a minute later, another "Christian" comes along saying something completely different. With equal conviction.

The Christian God has been turned into a puppet. If it wasn't so already.

Never met anyone with the same viewpoint tho.

That's because it's not a viewpoint held by real Christians.

Well, to be fair: given that the Bible is a collection of translations of translations, etc... pretty much everything is a "version".

My point here is that if the meaning of a single ambiguous word in the whole translation chain can change the entire meaning of one of the most important sections of the Bible, then how seriously can we take the Bible in the first place?

If it's a guide to something, then to what exactly? Our pre-conceived notions perhaps? Then the Bible is nothing more than an enabler for the intellectually lazy.

Unfortunately, the so-called "Christians" seem to prefer persecuting the messenger... typical of false wannabee Christians.

I think we're in general agreement though :-)

My comment wasn't aimed at him.

If you hadn't been so quick to try to insult me, you would have found that out for yourself.

But hey, feel free to persecute me for telling the truth.

Unless you're posting under different names, my comment wasn't aimed at you.

In fact, I thought your comment was pretty good.

Sorry for any confusion.

Not all churches are the same. Not all Christians are the same. And not all Christians are Christians.

I appreciate that you took the time to write all the things you wrote, but.... where's the scripture? Or references that I can check for myself?

You're telling me to read the Bible. Well, I did. The KJV 1611 Bible to be exact. And I came to the conclusion that if people inject their own opinions, then the Bible is essentially worthless.

Christian A can say X about Christianity.
Christian B says !X about Christianity.

Which one shall I believe?

Obviously, I'll believe the one whose claims can be verified using scripture.

So how does "over 6 figures" minus "low 90's" equal $8k? You can't be much over 6 figures then.

Also: it's only reasonable that someone with 0 years of experience gets lower pay than someone with several years. The difference will be smaller by the year.

If $8k *annually* counts as a "significant" amount, then you're not making much...

"...you're pretty much saying that the Bible is BS"

I address the logical ramifications of his reasoning. If you can go either way with a verse depending on what *you* want it to mean, then the Bible is nothing more than an sort-of inspirational book.

"Why are you so offended by the Bible that you have to dismiss it so?"
Logical inference: why would he dismiss the Bible? What offends him?

"an you or can you not back up your claim with scripture?"....

Valid question: he has indeed failed to produce a single line of scripture. Instead, he picked a single meaning from the dictionary. Certainly, a rather intellectually limited defense, wouldn't you agree?

I am not really a Bible person, but it looks like he 'backed up' himself pretty well in the initial post.

So you admit that you're not knowledgeable, yet you wish to express your *opinion* ? Your opinion isn't worth more than *verifiable* facts, sorry.

I have been thinking of joining a church to learn about god, but sure don't want to be in one that produces petulant fundies like you.

Right. So instead of addressing the argument, you call me a "petulant fundie". Very mature of you, friend.

See that even though you're pretty negative with me, I still take the effort of actually addressing your points instead of just calling you names? That's what mature and intelligent people do, my friend.

And FYI: I don't mean the word "friend" sarcastically. Stop being so negative.

Anyhow the definition (and the existance) of hell is disputed among the denominations, so it would be better to skip it entirely, otherwise this is going to be a long and worthless debate.

Why? It's *clearly* described in the Bible as a lake of fire. It's where unbelievers, adulterers, etc go. There are lots of specifics on what it's like, who will go there and why.

Of course, the whole concept of Hell is pretty barbaric. It's one of those "hard parts" that some "Christians" like to pretend doesn't exist.

But the joke is on them: the more they go around claiming Hell doesn't exist, the higher the chance they'll find out themselves.