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The one question all atheists fear

(2:36) You've got to wonder why God picks stupid people to fight his case. How can you prove something does not exist? Discuss.

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Guest: EjMan (438 days ago)

Silliness.

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Guest: a Christian (437 days ago)

A lot of the non-believers here seem to mix up religion with Christianity and Christianity with creationism. There has always been religion in some form or another. Long before Jesus Christ people were worshiping different things. But the atheists on here seem to only have a problem with Christianity. But then again most seem to be American so that would explain a lot. Looks like we are still being persecuted.

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Guest: ItsOnlyAGuide (437 days ago)

when is everyone going to realise that religion is only a guide for you to better your life, you either choose to believe in it or not. if you have common sense, sensible and kind to others and dont need to follow a guide book because you are not lost or dont need help finding your way. wakey wakey its not hard. the confusion people are having is taking the characters literally, like a kid believing that there actually is a father christmas (which as we all know was saint who took the form of an over weight, white beardy man whom coka cola designed to make money). There you go everyone, the answer! you can go back to sleep now and stop fighting and start loving. Peace

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Guest: gman1983 (436 days ago)

You can try to play it down and make little of this big problem, but the fact is religeon is very bad, it lies to you that something is true, when its not. The only wakey wakey moment will come, is when people stop being cowards and challenge this utter madness full on. peacefully would be prefered, but try talking about there being no god to an american, you'l get the most violent reaction, its awfull. The (its only a guide) is a bit of a con to get people to follow your religion. lots of people cherry pick the best parts of the bible and say, its not so bad. but then you read the rest of it and say "dam that books crazy". not my kind of guide to life, more like a guide to fear, guilt and eternal pain. nice.

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Guest: wow (434 days ago)

Atheists fear this question because it will take a looooooong time to explain to you, from scratch, how the universe works.

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Guest: A Scientist (433 days ago)

YOU CANNOT PROVE A NEGATIVE, only a positive. For example negative claim: "water is unaffected by magnets" i.e. hold a magnet above water and nothing happens. 100 yrs ago everyone accepted the negative, but no-one actually proved it. Then along came NMR medical imaging. And guess what, it works because water is highly affected by magnetism. Ref: link Thus it is only the positive that water is affected by magnets that has been proven.

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Guest: Antisamit (438 days ago)

One prove that the christian god does not exist: Prayer doesn't have a statistical effect.

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glortman (437 days ago)

Harris and others (1999) found in a study of 990 cardiac care patients, that those who received prayer healed more quickly than those who did not. Neither group knew whether or not they were being prayed for. This is statistical evidence in favour of the power of prayer, but neither proves nor disproves the existence of God.

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Guest: www (434 days ago)

have you heard of the placebo effect? It's just that, nothing supernatural.

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glortman (433 days ago)

No placebo. The groups did not know they were being prayed for. With 990 patients, and p = .04, that means that with a similar group there are only 6 chances in a hundred that the results could be repeated by chance... so it is also not chance. I still don't think it proves or disproves any god, but it is statistical evidence about the efficacy of prayer. I understand there is other evidence against, but one cannot say there is none in favour.

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Guest: (436 days ago)

Even if there were statistical evidence in favour of prayer, what would this help prove? That god decides to give one group of people a slightly better survival rate, entirely because, unbeknownst to them, they were randomly selected to be prayed for, by complete strangers. Doesn't seem very fair (not that fairness is a christian trait), nor would suggest that being religious and praying actually affects one's own survival chance.

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Guest: Antisamit (437 days ago)

"Other studies have found no apparent benefits to being prayed for, and in one, prayed-for patients actually fared worse, Dr. Herbert Benson said." In general prayer doesn't work. The christian god said it would. Either he was lying, which he said he wouldn't, or he doesn't exist.

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slicksps (437 days ago)

A counter paper was published showing how Harris' results could easily be explained by chance. Other tests weren't scientific enough to be given enough ground. Any test which goes the other way is ignored because they don't show anything conclusive. The problem I have with this is that nobody prays for me. Nobody prays that I live a long and healthy life, frankly most people wound't care. But here I am, alive and well. I've been incredibly lucky with my health and my business just about keeps the bills paid. I have a lovely wife and amazing dogs. Meanwhile my grandfather was a deeply religious man. His whole family were, when he first showed signs of cancer, everyone prayed for him. The cancer spread and people kept praying; even I was praying at this point! He was on every painkiller and drug under the sun to the point he hallucinated. Despite the praying, he gradually go worse and worse and died in agony not long past 60. If every single patient in these studies showed improvement then you may have a result, if a large proportion still got worse while some of the control group got better; you have probability and chance.

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glortman (433 days ago)

What's the citation on that paper slicksps? I would like to have to have a look.

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Guest: DeltaWhisky (438 days ago)

This guy believes in a god, but I don't. I couldn't be less interested in 'believers' trying to bait me into discussing why they are right and I'm not (in their blinkered opinions). I simply reserve the right to disagree with them, but not to have to justify or explain my position.

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Guest: (437 days ago)

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Guest: FCUK RELIGION (437 days ago)

Get off the internet you ignorant human. Religion is outdated!! You site the 'facts' the 'Evidence'.....erm no you don't. All you have found are records of peoples stupidity. Brilliant. Religion single handily has done the most destruction to human civilization! GET RELIGION OFF THIS PLANET!!!

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Guest: kat (434 days ago)

Did my brother, who was 14 years of age and hit by a car and and died, who didn't really know much about god. Is he in hell? Of course he must be if didn't go to his grave believing in god. How ridiculous. Unfortunately for all religions, people are questioning mor and more instead of believing without explanation, in the old days they would have been put to death. GOD HAS NO RELIGION!

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Samsgimp (437 days ago)

That blank stare isn't fear - its despair! you deluded dough-ball. Despair that a vast number of folk on this doomed planet are still using this hackneyed circular non-argument to drown out the unbearable voice of doubt and reason in their own tiny little minds. Is that the best believers of any flavour have to offer? - Pathetic.

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Guest: Whamo (438 days ago)

"It was a blank stare..." Erm... PRATT! I would like to meet this strawman atheist who stomps on Christians and kittens (and Christian Kittens) and then shuts down when you ask them to prove God doesn't exist. Prove Allah does not exist - and I mean really prove it 100%, not "but Muslims do bad things", because every argument you will use to refute the existence of Allah can be used against Christianity and Jesus. Prove that right now you are not really a brain in a jar on the planet Glorbran dreaming that you are a human on Earth. If you can't prove it then I am a brain in a jar because my ancestor said so 1000 years ago and passed down the knowledge in a book.

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Guest: WisdomOfOld (437 days ago)

Is god willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God? - Epicurius.

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Guest: (437 days ago)

What can you do with people like this? I have actually given up asking for proof from religious people as they have none, or the evidence they offer is in no way proof of a god but they like to think it is. If you claims something is true, it is up to YOU to prove it, not for others to disprove it... oh i give up!

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Guest: RichardJN (438 days ago)

Imagine in 100 years, finding a copy of the Harry Potter series but which is missing the cover (i.e. not explicitly identified as fiction). Many people would conclude that it really happened. After all, there are thousands of copies and translations, learned articles, books about the series, 3rd party re-tellings [fan fiction], documentary evidence [wikipedia is really well crossreferenced], and it is embedded into the history of the time. Everyone writing about HP (now) knows it is fictional, so they don't always begin with the disclaimer "in the fictional universe of JKR...": it's obvious to the reader. But in 100 years time, maybe it won't be... This is why atheists tend to reject "Biblical evidence"

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Guest: Submitted as a guest (438 days ago)

Religion is the kind of stuff that makes you wonder, that a big fat lie can still count as a valid argument in a enlighten society.

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glortman (437 days ago)

I feel the same way about capitalism.

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Guest: Submitted as a guest (437 days ago)

..in a non religious way.

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Guest: Submitted as a guest (437 days ago)

Amen

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Guest: Vincent (158 days ago)

Latest comment: Some atheists are deep rooted because they have a problem with God because God has not done this and He has not ... there's a lot of murmuring and complaints. Many are are called but not many are chosen. That's the problem. Even Dawkin would have answered, "I'd ask, “Sir, why did you go to such lengths to hide yourself?” " God has not been willing to reveal Himself to His believers. That is no good. However, the Intelligent Design has shown that it was impossible for the Earth to create creatures from just energy and materials. Because, information had to come from somewhere or someone where or who is responsible for life to exist. This is perhaps the way God is answering to those who want to believe and to continue to believe.

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Guest: Anti Theist (436 days ago)

I've figured it out! What Christians fail to comprehend is the meaning of the words 'evidence' and 'proof' - and guy's.....a moron like this, doesn't help fight your corner!

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LogicIsPower (437 days ago)

Council of Nicaea, there was a vote on the Divinity of Jesus. prior to that most Christians followed Jesus as a Prophet. Not a God.

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glortman (437 days ago)

I would agree that the Council of Nicea codified Jesus' divinity, but there is also very strong and clear evidence in the Epistles of the bible and related letters and early church documents that people were following him as God as early 50 CE.

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Guest: Pope JP (438 days ago)

Innocents in pain, wars, landmines, starving babies, torture, female circumcision, overpopulation, disease, slavery. If this world exists, YOUR specific, omniscient, omnipotent, benevolent god cannot exist. Proof...Bitch. Owned.

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Guest: (438 days ago)

if God created the universe just for us, didn't he go a little bit over the top creating 7,000,000,000,000,000,000 ,000 stars when just one would have been enough?

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MissAlanius (438 days ago)

He needed something to practice on

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glortman (437 days ago)

First of all, why do you give someone a dozen roses when one would show you care? Second, why should we ever suppose that any deity who would create so many stars would only have evolution on just one world?

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slicksps (437 days ago)

We give a dozen roses because of marketing, film and media. God must have been visited by one hell of a salesman!!! "Just one star sir? we have a great offer on!"

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glortman (437 days ago)

That was funny, slicksps. However extravagance and proliferation are more than just marketing: In entities they are considered marks of love, creativity, generosity, possibility, fascination, power, diligence and constancy. If there is a God who is worthy of the concept, I would expect no fewer stars.

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slicksps (437 days ago)

Very poetic answers; but Jesus never gave anyone flowers despite loving everyone and being the alleged epitome of everything you mentioned. The flower giving tradition also pre-dates the Bible. Evidence of flower giving has been found in pre-historic times!

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Guest: greenman (437 days ago)

Getting away from religion, how can you say(not actually YOU) that there is evidence of flower giving in pre-historic times? Surely the archaeologists are only guessing this because they find things that leads them to jump to this conclusion

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Guest: anon123 (436 days ago)

Yes, flowers in graves mostly

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glortman (437 days ago)

The reference to 'flowers' was not meant to refer any alleged act of Jesus, just a general reference to the idea of superfluous behaviour

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Guest: kat (434 days ago)

Well said Tiny Tim. I particularly liked the documents that are 2000 or 20 years old. What happened to all the people that existed BEFORE god was invented? Did all those people go straight to hell because they didn't worship god? So did all the people 1990 years ago who didn't know about god? Did a child 1900 years ago who didn't know about god, did they go to hell? With Roman Catholics, once it was a sin to eat fish on a Friday (I think) so all those people did eat fish on a Friday and went to hell. Now it is allowed to eat fish on a Friday, are they released from hell? Religion is ridiculous concept, it causes most wars and is mainly run by men. Only men could have egos big enough to think that they could have written down what god said. What happened to the approx 70 billion years before the bible? Religion was invented to keep the masses under control. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Look at the cover up that the Vatican sanctioned to protect child molesters, again and again and still to this day.

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Guest: Brisbane (437 days ago)

leprechauns exist because i have a book all about them, oh hang on a minute.............. The onus of proof is on you as you are saying somrthing does exist, talking about texts and books is NOT proof as I have just demonstrated.

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Guest: (438 days ago)

Another fine example of circular reasoning.

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Guest: Steve_B (438 days ago)

Delusion does not constitute evidence

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Guest: ItsOnlyAGuide (437 days ago)

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glortman (437 days ago)

I am not sure the guy in the video is entirely wrong. All hypotheses must be subject to falsifiability. The theist holds the hypothesis "There is a God". The atheist: "There is no god". Neither hypothesis can be tested with repeatable results opposing the hypothesis. Even mountains of evidence may be inadequate for disproof: PopeJP offers suffering, but that doesn't disprove a God, benevolent or otherwise. It only suggests the evil of people in spite of the character or existence of God. Perhaps the existence or absence of a deity cannot be disproved experimentally, however maybe some questions (even some very important ones) are not subject to scientific tests.

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MissAlanius (437 days ago)

An atheist does not say "there is no god" - an atheist says "there is no credible evidence for the existence of god". The reason why you can't prove that god does not exist, even if there is no credible evidence, is that you can never be sure that tomorrow he won't suddenly decide to reveal himself.

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MissAlanius (437 days ago)

The closest we can get to proving there is no god, is to show how the universe and everything in it can exist without the need for a supernatural power. But even if this is proven, we can still never be sure that god isn't actually quite shy, and has planted evidence to fool us into believing he does not exist.

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slicksps (437 days ago)

Burying fossils to throw us off the scent, that one was genius! Proof of a divine intelligence!

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TheBob (437 days ago)

If God's so shy, she's probably a woman

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MissAlanius (437 days ago)

Exclaiming "OMGoddess!" would be a bit weird

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Guest: Funky (438 days ago)

Same evidence that was used to determine that there were Weapons of Mass Destruction, albeit Weapons of Mass Delusion....

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belchnasty (438 days ago)

Man, you're thick

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Guest: Nutter (438 days ago)

Prove the tooth fairy doesn't exist. Prove Big Foot doesn't exist. Prove Thor does not exist. Oh, they must all exist then.

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Guest: (438 days ago)

*exactly before the anally linggwistik amung u pounse on mi speling! pmsl

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Guest: (438 days ago)

Excactly. Well put Nutter.

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Guest: JFC (435 days ago)

OK, So we are both BLIND !!

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Guest: ItsOnlyAGuide (437 days ago)

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Guest: J H F Christ (437 days ago)

I have as much faith in the non-existence of God as this man has tot he opposite. Neither case can be proven, however, I can admit my belief is only a theory based on my personal experience.

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slicksps (437 days ago)

Evidence God doesn't exist? Fossils, geological history pre-dating the 'creation of the planet'. Proof of evolution negating creationism. The absence of the rest of the universe in scriptures... there's plenty of evidence...

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glortman (437 days ago)

None of your evidence disproves God, although it points out the limits of the bible as a book on astrophysics and cosmology.

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slicksps (436 days ago)

Given that the only evidence that God is a consciousness, created the Earth and watches over us all is in that book, and there's plenty of evidence to suggest large portions of it are plain wrong and often contradictory... there is no evidence to prove that God exists. If God exists, he loves everyone and wants us all to be good and join him in Heaven. So why does he allow good, law abiding, neighbour loving atheists to go to hell just for not acknowledging his existence. Why can't he just appear and say "Here I am, you don't have to love me, but those Christians were right all along" but he doesn't; he just lets us form opinions and fight over who's right and wrong and let's the majority of the Earth's population go to hell for not believing. If God does exist, he doesn't sound very accepting, loving, or forgiving. It actually sounds like a child with a magnifying glass and a nest of ants...

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glortman (436 days ago)

slicksps, overall, I would argue that the bible neither proves nor disproves the existence of God. In your original post you seem to want the bible to be an astrophysics textbook, but it was written for farmers and fishermen. Regardless of your other feelings about the bible, that expectation is not even remotely reasonable. Moreover, if compared with contemporaneous creation accounts, the bible is incredibly progressive and advances a comparatively accurate cosmology, which while by no means Hubble perfect, doesn't claim that the earth is a turtle, or that the stars are dead relatives, but rather views each as celestial bodies. Furthermore, the bible is a collection of stories, allegories, poems, laws and historical documents. Some writings are descriptive, some are prescriptive, and some are warnings. I could be wrong, but it is my guess that the bible is a book you are judging without having studied it. You might never be inclined to read it, and that is fine. However, when I meet Christians who criticize Darwin without having read or understood his work, I suggest to them that their arguments about evolution have no weight or value. I might offer a similar suggestion here. As to your point about hell (whatever hell might be), I don't think any loving God would force anyone to spend eternity with him unless they made the choice. If hell can be defined as absolute separation from whatever deity might exist, then it is a reasonable, fair and desirable place for atheists, and Christopher Hitchins is happily ensconced there now.

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Guest: Mmm (435 days ago)

Glortman, I've enjoyed and respect your contributions to this thread. As someone who has studied the bible I'd like to throw in my tuppence worth; Religion and religious texts are the cornerstones of our civilization. As a young man living in the UK today I'm in awe of the role Christianity has played in creating the society and the world I live in, but today many of us know better than to still follow it. In the story of humankind's collective consciousness I personally believe it is a chapter which is now drawing to a close. Remember that humans once worshiped the sun; it was the most immediate way to make sense of their world and their lives. We eventually moved beyond this, as we will move beyond the Abrahamic and Dharmic religions. Change is a visitor that knocks on every door. - The wise welcome it.

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Guest: Mmm (435 days ago)

Or maybe I should say; - The wise invite it in and hear what it has to say.

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Guest: Tiny Tim (438 days ago)

It is not for me to prove that something does NOT exist, but for YOU to prove that something you say exists DOES exist. You are also incapable of showing me that proof. Science will agree with you when the existance of a god is proven with measurable and repeatable evidence. Text written several thousand years ago, or 20 years ago does not constitute proof that something exists without stipulating how a phenomenon can be found, measured, found again and measured again. Walking into a church or mosque or temple does not show me a god. Reading a 'holy' book shows me some good moralistic stories which may or may not include real people who were alive at the time. Religion originally came about to explain the unexplainable. Now that all of those inexplicable phenomena have been explained scientifically, all you can say about your god is 'He must exist because some text says so'. Well if you want to put your faith in a story, then you are welcome to do so. But remember...there is more than one religion out there, more than one god is worshipped. Which is the right one? Everyone with a faith will say it's theirs. You can't be all correct. I think that none of you are correct.

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Guest: pablo W (433 days ago)

got my vote

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Guest: JFC (435 days ago)

Well said Tim.

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Guest: Yahweh (438 days ago)

Umm..... I do exist. If I did not exist, I could not write this. There - PROOF!

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