norton65ca

why if I have to get out of my chair..............................

lol, that's what they were saying about McLeish before he got hired "It's Just folks playing the numbers and putting a cheeky bet on, nothing in it." no, please no

I agree but the layout I find to be just awful ;-) It's a freaking labyrinth, the digital equivalent of the Mines of Moria!

You are probably quite right. He was in my opinion an opportunistic bandwagon jumper who saw the writing on the wall. critical mass had been reached and he simply switched sides. http://tinyurl.com/rmn4a

links updated to reflect site guidelines

http://tinyurl.com/zrvw8 terribly poorly laid out website but an absolute goldmine of information http://tinyurl.com/cxjzao3 another very good resource. http://tinyurl.com/fplbh and another... (I hope these links are short enough??) OzV, if, like many Christians, you refrain from accessing non Christian sources, then: a) your fear of deception is stronger than your faith or you're not being an honest researcher. Your faith should, if it has any validity at all, be able to deal with honest and sincere questions and objections. "Come let us reason together saith the Lord" The Book of Job somewhere, can't remember the chapter and verse...

http://tinyurl.com/cpwbnye beware, reading this will cause you trouble OzVillan. just sayin' ;-)

basically one has to jump in with both feet. The bible must be accepted as a divinely inspired narrative otherwise the faith has no foundation. This was the crippler for me, once the validity of the foundational texts was called into question, the faith had nothing to stand on. One can take away some of it as moral tales, lessons, metaphors, but not all of it, and where does one stop? Example, right at the beginning: Adam and Eve and the garden story. We (I would hope) can conclude that this is a common creation tale similar to (and probably adapted from) The Epic of Gilgamesh. That being said, it leaves Christian theologians with a bit of a problem. The entire Christian tale is based on the fall of Mankind, and original sin. If the fall never occurred, and there is no original sin, then it follows logically that there is no requirement for a saviour. Paul referred repeatedly to Adam's disobedience and the concept that through one man's rebellion sin came into the world and through one mans obedience sin shall be conquered. If Adam and Eve are myths, then so is the fall. Big Problem for theologians that one. jesus dies for nothing if there is no original disobedience resulting in the banishment from the garden. It simply won't hold water. Oz, here's a phrase you must be experiencing to some degree or another: cognitive dissonance. I know it well. If you are an honest, thinking human being, you must admit that there are aspects of the faith that trouble you, you couldn't be human and deny it. D'you really think that we could possibly be joyful through all eternity knowing that our friends, relatives and loved ones are off being tortured and burned eternally for simply being human? It's barbaric and wicked. I tired universalism for a while, it seemed the only way to get around this abominable hideous and downright sick doctrine. It lasted all of two weeks before I threw the entire thing in the trash and walked away. OzV, we were had. It's hard to deal with that, I know, but it's true, we were had by the oldest team of snake oil salesmen the world has known. But there have been millions before us. The truth is though, we are not ignorant illiterate folk from the middle ages, we are modern people who live with the benefits of science and a wealth of educational information available to us, there is no longer any excuse for squeezing our eyes shut and jamming our thumbs into our ears because what we see and hear goes against the indoctrination we have received. It's time to grow up as a human race and put benighted fantasies and old tales back where they belong, on a bookshelf with all the Greek myths, the Norse legends and yes, the Epic of Gilgamesh.

...and for those of you complaining as to why one only gets the nutty Christians and why not some "mainstream" ones, the truth of the matter is, historically speaking, for 2000 years the definition of a christian has always been one who reveres the bible as the word of god in all of its super naturalness, because it reveals the "offensive" idea that almighty god, invaded history in the form of his only begotten son, fully god/fully man, supernaturally revived after experiencing real death on a real cross, and really physically resurrected out of a real tomb and really left here for somewhere "else". The essence of Christianity is this. The "moderns" who avoid the rather more outrageous aspects of the faith as delineated above, are really fooling themselves, liberal Christianity is Christianity lite, it's had its guts taken out and is a hollow philosophical shell. Christianity has always been militant, intolerant, exclusive and unrepentant. It is, by definition, a profoundly supernatural religion and when that is removed, it is, for want of a better word, nothing.

even the Josephus fragment referring to Jesus has been revealed to be a later surreptitious addition of dubious origins.

^^^ This. OzVillan, I was for 29 years exactly where you are at. It all fell apart when I finally could not avoid the conclusion that the Bible (what I had heretofore accepted was the divinely inspired Word of God) was a flawed collection of narratives that were not what they appeared to be, and were not what they were represented to me to be. It didn't fall apart because I wanted it to, in fact I was doing everything within my power to prevent that from occurring, to be honest, but when one discovers something is not true which one had believed to be so, no amount of mental gymnastics could bring the belief back. Oz, I am not ashamed to admit I shed many tears (as a 48 year old man that can be difficult to admit in an open forum...) but I had staked my eternal soul (or what I thought was an eternal soul) on the concept that the cross on Calvary's hill and what happened around it was the central fact of existence and the centre of all history. I had given my life over to God in the form of his son, crucified in order that I might be free from sin and its consequences and free to live an abundant and meaningful life. For 29 years I lived this reality. but from the beginning, there were a number of fundamental issues. The exclusivity of the plan of salvation for one. I could not accept that any god could hold his creations responsible ETERNALLY for finite temporal sins. It was profoundly repulsive to my moral centre. For years I thought to myself that I was not seeing everything, being mortal and that one day I would understand and all would be made clear. That day shall never come now. The bible isn't the Word of God, because there are far too many errors. How is it possible to accept the written scriptures as the Word of God when for example it states plain as the nose on your face that Abraham used domestic camels for example, 2500 years BC, when they weren't domesticated yet? How come the Genesis account and Exodus refer to towns and cities that weren't even built at that time? How come, if there were hundreds of thousands of Israelites trooping around Sinai for 40 years there's not a single crumb of evidence? I tried, OzV, I really **** tried to keep the faith, but I'm a man who doesn't like pat answers and I research. the research I made led me to the inescapable conclusion that the bible is a fabrication, written after the Babylonian captivity around 700-350 BC, not 2500 BC, and the New testament, well that's another matter entirely, a carefully planned and well constructed theological document collection purposely put together to found a new religion. Jesus might well have been a great guy, but in all likelihood, he never existed. I could go on for hours about this but it's midnight here on Vancouver Island. PM me if interested in chatting further about this, I am not joking, I was "saved" at 19 years of age when I first hit the wet coast and was deeply and fully immersed in a gospel street ministry for a long time. I have studied Christian apologetics, Church history, I have studied biblical matters till I'm blue in the face, I've read everything CS Lewis ever wrote about the faith, William Barkley? check. AW Tozer? check. Charles Finney? Check. Francis Schaeffer? check. been there, done that. street evangelism? yes. Prayer groups, yes, all night vigils? yes. serving the poor? yes. Not tooting any horns here, I'm just simply saying Iwas there in a real way for a huge chunk of my adult life, but I'm done now. I'm not in the business of anti evangelizing, but if you study the bible honestly and are prepared to really examine it while being prepared to remove blinders and be honest, you'll likely come to similar conclusions.

1. Andreas Villas-Boas 2. Brendan Rodgers 3. Paul Lambert 4. Gus Poyet 5. Roberto Martinez 6. Roberto Di Matteo 7. Gianfranco Zola Don't care for Rafa and don't think he'd come, Moyes isn't on the list cos he ain't comin'

GTFO pronto

funny ole game innit?

QPR equalize

bye McLeish you pathetic sock puppet

PussEKat, that kind of thing will dissipate once the culture becomes accustomed to it. Read my earlier comments re:bullying. Yes, the vanguard of the movement will experience some bullying, but it won't take long before that fades away. Already, here in Canad, straight kids are sticking up for gay friends, they've already decided as a youth culture they won't be having any of it.

the Wenger one is priceless.

Mods, please forgive this monumental slide off topic

well, here's the thing. I don't believe we could separate under the terms within which the NHL is governed to be honest. The teams are the PROPERTY of the league from what I understand. Canadian teams have always been in the minority but in terms of influence they were usually top dogs, look at the trophy cabinet of the Montreal Canadiens for example. When big money began to have a bigger effect, the picture changed and we haven't had a Canadian champion in about 20 years or more. The money now is firmly in American hands and if we were to leave, the best players would probably move where the money is and the Canadian teams would be a shadow of where they were. Our best opportunity is to stay but where a Stanley Cup will come from I have no idea, only two Canadian teams made the playoffs this year and quite frankly, they stunk and were out in the first round. We have a Canadian gridiron league and it's pathetically small time in comparison to the NFL. Money, just like in English footie, has certainly changed everything.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ Bettmann that is all. but yes, you are absolutely right. There needs to be another Quebec team (Nordiques) , a Hamilton team and maybe a maritime team but the fan base out there might be problematic. (small market)

speaking for the moment as a "devil's" advocate, the Xtian response to that is "Your God is too small, mine is intimately aware and interested in us all, and interjected himself into history in order to prove it". That is what I used to say in answer to those sorts of statements. Omnipotence and omniscience do allow for the deity to be completely and absolutely particular in terms of each and every living being in the entire cosmos. Load o bollocks of course but that would be the Xtian response to your statements I would think.

...and in other news, Romney called to account for teenage gaybashing and holding a young long haired guy down while his bigoted buds cut his hair off. teenage hijinks or gaybashing bullying?

I'd be interested in some actual real studies re: step kids, to be honest, I'm a stepson, I'm a stepdad and my son is a stepdad. three generations without a trace of anything untoward, only love and care. You may be onto something but I'm not at all certain

Tbh the ground location means little. Most fans do not live near the stadium. I only quote this for the remarkable irony factor ;-)