Hmm, good grief you believe that something came from absolutely nothing.

No, I believe that something was there before it, that it has always existed, that we are just a byproduct of part of it being recycled. You, on the other hand, believe in something for which there is nothing but your own belief concerning ancient superstitions hiding something that is absolutely nothing; what can I say.

Energy can neither be created or destroyed but you think it just suddenly exploded into existence from magic.
Ya sure you bet.

Energy can locally run out – witness an exhausted battery, or the fact that the Sun will eventually die. Care to explain where their energy went?

And where did you come from – did your god magically zap you into existence or was there some embarrassing biological process involved that creates believers and non-believers alike?
Are you saying your god isn’t magic? Walking on water – not magic? Feeding hundreds of people from next to nothing – not magic? Causing the sick to walk – not magic? All just conjuring tricks conspiring to fool the gullible – now that’s magic!

We have evolved from crawlers via knuckle-runners to be able to stand and move on two legs and we shall, eventually, develop well padded backsides due to our habit of sitting down in front of screens. This process has been well documented and is understood by enlightened members of the human race; not creationists, obviously, and probably one or two other aspects of the god-bothering fraternity might lop off heads in an effort to prove that we are not evolved from apes (who have never developed the ability to manage wide scale slaughter over little things like differences of opinion regarding religion) but the process is there whether you want to believe it or not. Just because you don’t want to believe it does not make it any less real; I once stood and chatted with a man who honestly believed that dinosaur bones were products of 1930’s Hollywood, buried to try and break the spirit of believers, and he was sure that no one of faith would fall for that trick – although he was a little flummoxed when I asked how his theory could explain all the dinosaur skeletons found prior to the 1930’s… Can you explain dinosaurs?

Oh, oh yeah, hmmm, proof yah sure, as persons in my area of the U.S. are often quoted as a saying in both a positive and negative at the same time.

So others have also dealt with you? You must be used to it by now…

God may have used a big bang, possible, and then it may be people seeing what they want to see, aka, a mirage but I suppose science can now accurately measure to any time scale they choose to suit their ego.
If it IS the big bang they are hoping for, for it to be the beginning of one humungous accident totally by chance, science says it must be as there is no god for most, well I have always wondered how science, which studies the procedure necessary for a process to proceed, put all it faith into some mystical multiple random occurrences which by scientific standards even less believable than a mystical god.

More men and women of appropriate learning have reached a conclusion that concurs with the big bang theory rather than one that agrees with that that comes from fictional historical representations supposedly given by gods or their earthly representatives – unless you include those religious bigwigs with a vested interest in maintaining a hold on the hearts and minds of their followers and an observance of their sacred commandments amongst those of appropriate learning.

Well if one has to choose between a god that has always been there performing tasks with energy that has always been there – vs. – energy always being there suddenly for no reason chaotically goes boom and over time creates a myriad of functional precise systems by chance the choice is easy by simple logic not to say mathematical odds.

Logic involved with a mythical god? Good grief…whatever next.
Always been there? You have nothing to convince us and yet we are told that this god has always been. What energy are you talking about here? I don’t expect you to provide anything that might be proven because you have none, but nevertheless something that would be understood to be tangible would be nice.
And the energy represents what, exactly? Father, son and holy ghost? Some sort of god? Why do you believe that this apparent energy is a force for good? There must be just as big a chance that something that cannot be proven and exists within your mind is the same thing that exists in the minds of those who claim they slaughtered innocents on the word of god but which others (of a more distrusting bent) swear is the work of the devil. What do you think?
Heaven? Hell? You believe? It further amuses me that Heaven used to be (might still be for all I know – not my scene, I’m afraid) the name of a gay night club in London and Hell is a town in Norway, frequented by tourists all eager to be photographed next to the name-sign on its outskirts – cold days in Hell are not as rare as people seem to believe…

Broccoli!

Dear Brad Pitt.

WW2 tank commanders were generally in their early twenties or younger.

You are 51

Can you see the problem?

Moggy

Ageist.

Problem is that so few agents, let alone publishers, want to commit themselves to new writers these days: to them it is essentially gambling with a minuscule chance at getting a return, especially from an unknown author. A better bet is, as Charlie says, to go via the net so that you can – if nothing else – prove that you have the potential to carry a tale and grab the readers attention (or have room to improve with the help of a good editor). If what I’ve heard is correct then it is practically free, unlike entry level publish-it-yourself printing where you would be expected to place an order for the books yourself (I met someone who had done that in the run up to Christmas last year, she was selling her childrens book at an Xmas fayre and, although the book was nicely bound and full of colour, it was rather expensive – something like three times the cover price of a similar book).

Based on nothing, really. So therefore, with no proof that a ‘creator’ was created other than in the minds of those seeking to control the populous through fear and bribery, it cannot have happened. QED did/does not exist.

Personally, I agreed wholeheartedly with the indoor smoking ban; even if I (or the bar staff) didn’t contract cancer through secondary smoke it used to make my clothes stink.

Remember Roy Castle?

Castle was found to have lung cancer in January 1992. He was predicted to live only another 6 months. He underwent chemotherapy and radiotherapy and went into remission later that year. A non-smoker, he blamed his illness on passive smoking during his years of playing the trumpet in smoky jazz clubs. On 26 November 1993, Castle announced that his illness had returned, and once again underwent treatment in the hope of overcoming it…

…He died in Buckinghamshire on 2 September 1994, two days after his 62nd birthday.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Castle#Illness_and_death

In addition, about 11 or 12 years ago I was in a bar somewhere in Brighton that had a memorial on the wall to a previous – apparently non smoking – landlord who had died of lung cancer about 10-15 years previous. Who knows how many pub and bar staff have died over the years of lung cancer acquired or, if they were already smokers, exacerbated by working in a smokey atmosphere?

Here in America we have people trying to tell us how to eat.

Uh oh…

Yes, some people eat stupidly….

It isn’t just an American thing though.

Most famously, the mayor of New York wanted to ban large soft drinks…(but not large beers). I know we need to watch calories…but anyone who was really thirsty (say after working outside in the summer) could just buy 2 soft drinks.

Oh come on, if you are really that thirsty then your body will be dehydrated so drinking one soft drink is hardly going to be of much use, and two would be overkill in filling you up and making your body excrete even more of the electrolytes your system needs: a fizzy, sugary, cold drink is not going to replace them. Drinking alcohol would be even worse.

I can see a day when meat is banned for environment (cow gas) and animal rights issues.

Never happen. Not unless the world collectively made that decision and that is as likely as ISIS developing a guilty conscience.
If it did happen…most of the species currently being bred for consumption would die out – they wouldn’t be needed and having no other use would be deemed uneconomic to maintain.

I’m not sure the men who died fighting for our freedom from tyranny would be amused by this turn of events.

Why not get out your ouija board and ask them? In the meantime get real and join those of us who understand that tyranny is not someone telling you to wear a seatbelt, not to smoke or what you can and cannot eat and instead try sparing a thought for those actually living in the ‘luxury’ of a real life tyranny, for example North Korea (other tyrannies are available), and not those whose biggest gripe is the fact that they cannot pollute the restaurant with cigarette smoke, are being forced to wear that fashion faux pas the seat belt against their wishes, and can’t wash the dust from their mouths with a bucket of Coke before tucking into a burger – with all the trimmings – of such proportions that it would feed a family of starving Africans for a week…

Oh, such are the many perils of living in the first world?