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Faith is not evidence. This is why atheism has more of an advantage.
- Thread starter Berlin
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Michael1981
Member
This is what makes absolutely no sense and employs a vast array of assumptions. You cite ignorance as proof and ignore pure logic. You absolutely, positively ignore it.
Just look at creation, the symmetry of it, the laws that govern it. There is purpose behind everything! There is a reason I have two opposable thumbs; there is a purpose even for manure, which creates life in a beautiful cycle. Look at music, the undeniable brilliance of its laws, or mathematics, which held true far before we ever knew even a portion of the discipline, and which continues to produce marvels to this very day and will continue to do so into the future. Even COOKING. Look at the myriad ingredients and methods of creating food, the infinite possibilities that exist simply due to the fact that the potential for harmony of taste and texture is there in such rich quantities as to hardly be imagined.
I've run into your like before, those who cite ignorance as knowledge. There may be no origin? Tell me, how do you get something from nothing? It just isn't possible. Nothing doesn't just materialize, nothing has no will or desire to become anything else; nothing is quite simply nothing. Everything has a source, that is, everything governed by our physical laws. And why would God be subject to laws He Himself created? He is no more subject or limited by His creation than a painter is subject to his canvas. Why is that so difficult to grasp?
And yet people will somehow argue (not saying you are, but many prominent atheists and scientists do) that a haphazard explosion of gases created these perfect laws, this extraordinary symmetry, this incredible beauty that exists outside of the corruption of men.
That explanation is not as good as God because it makes no sense whatsoever. Everything just "is"? That is pure insanity, and nothing short of it. God had no beginning and, unlike the universe, which is subject to the first law of thermodynamics (and therefore couldn't have been created and can't be destroyed absent a supernatural event), God is subject to nothing. He is Almighty, plain and simple. Unimaginable power, far beyond anything our minds can conceive.
And surely, the existence of God does raise many questions. What are yours? Click on the link to the site in my signature if you want to know; the answers are there (or, I should say, The Answer is there) if you can receive them.
Why wouldn't we fare better in another life, if God loves us? If Jesus Christ is our Savior, then won't He save us from failing at some point?
Cary Cook
Member
If you find that convincing, you're welcome to it. I don't.
Exodus is conventionally dated c.1440 - 1280BCE. Nomads leave little evidence behind except latrines and fire pits, which would not last 3000 years - especially in a desert.
And 2 million is undoubtedly an exaggerated number.
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
If you think that 2 million is an exaggerated number your problem is with the Bible, not with me. Please note it tells you how many able bodied men left Egypt. Two million is a moderate deduction of how many total people.
And archaeologists disagree with your claims. They know that they would find evidence of such a movement since they can find evidence of smaller, older, and shorter ones.
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
Mere belief is almost always weaker than knowledge. As a famous man likes to say "if you know it you can show it". Proper knowledge is never dogmatic since it is demonstrable. Dogma is a fault of theists.
Got it. I think literalists are a small minority these days.
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
Unfortunately not on the interwebs. But then forums do tend to attract extremists more than those in the middle.
You will probably find some here that will tell you to your face that you are not a "true Christian" if you do not accept a literal interpretation of Genesis.
I’ve been on this forum for well over ten years. But I’m sure you’re right. There’s a variety of thought out there.
Sapiens
Polymathematician
Given the accepted numbers and timescale there would have been a fire pit in each and every 200 meters square of all of Sinai, not to mention the kitchen middens, burials, etc. There is not such evidence.
How Many In The Exodus?
by Wayne Blank (From Daily Bible Study)
"These are the names of the sons of Israel [see Children of Jacob] who came to Egypt with Jacob, each with his household: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin, Dan and Naphtali, Gad and Asher. All the offspring of Jacob were seventy persons; Joseph was already in Egypt." (Exodus 1:1-5 RSV)
Despite their eventual hardships, the Israelites had large families and grew very numerous:
"But the descendants of Israel were fruitful and increased greatly; they multiplied and grew exceedingly strong; so that the land was filled with them." (Exodus 1:7 RSV).
Although there is no record of the precise number that left Egypt in the Exodus, a military census taken not long after listed the number of men 20 years of age and older who could serve in the army as 603,550 (Exodus 38:26). From that number, the total Israelite population of that time has been estimated at approximately 2 to 3 million.
How can a small group become a nation of millions in just over 4 centuries? A simple bit of arithmetic shows that it was easily possible. If the average Israelite family consisted of 4 children by the time the parents were 27 years old (the Bible record shows that families then were actually much larger), that would provide for a doubling of the population every 27 years (2 children to replace the parents, and 2 children to account for population growth). 430 years divided by 27 years is about 15 generations during the time Israel was in Egypt.
Beginning with the original 70 people, growth of the Israelite nation using our factors above would have been:
- 140 people after 27 years
- 280 people after 54 years
- 560 people after 81 years
- 1,120 people after 108 years
- 2,240 people after 135 years
- 4,480 people after 162 years
- 8,960 people after 189 years
- 17,920 people after 216 years
- 35,840 people after 243 years
- 71,680 people after 270 years
- 143,360 people after 297 years
- 286,720 people after 324 years
- 573,440 people after 351 years
- 1,146,880 people after 378 years
- 2,293,760 people after 405 years
Hear! Hear!
Next (I expect) to be treated to a denial the Hebrews wandered for 40 years, that'll wreck the story too.
If this analysis gives you hearburn, don't complain to me, or other skeptics, take it up with your Bible and with Wayne Blank of Daily Bible Study.
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If there is purpose behind everything what is the purpose behind your god?
Well, George Lemaître, the originator of the Big Bang theory, was a Belgian Catholic Priest who knew not to mix science with religion... Georges Lemaître - Wikipedia
OK let me get this straight... believing that everything just "is" is pure insanity? But your god is included in everything meaning believing your god just "is" is pure insanity?
So you think you know more than Father Lemaître himself? "We may speak of this event as of a beginning. I do not say a creation." Library : The Faith and Reason of Father George Lemaître
A Vestigial Mote
Well-Known Member
Logic? Not hardly. That there IS something proves only one thing... that there IS SOMETHING. It doesn't have to have an instantiator, and even that assertion is COMPLETELY LOGICAL. Do you know why? Because NO MATTER HOW FAR YOU GO DOWN THIS HOLE - YOU HAVE TO ADMIT THAT YOU REACH A POINT AT WHICH THE "SOMETHING" YOU ARE WITNESSING DIDN'T HAVE A CREATOR!! Even you, yourself ADMIT this very fact - by positing "God" as the uncreated source. Don't call me illogical for claiming "no creator", and then completely commit the same "sin" yourself in the same message - saying God is without creator. And you have the audacity to call me "ignorant." Something about a log in your own eye... isn't it?
Another grand assumption. Only because we are sentient/aware/conscious do we find any "purpose" in things. Without an entity capable of perception, there is no "purpose" to anything. There is only what is present or happening, and what isn't. Take gold, for example, or diamonds. Of what objective value are either of those things? We prize them - jewelry is "pretty" and gold is a good conductor, and diamond is incredibly strong even when sharpened. But what does a dog think of gold? It is garbage - something more in the world to have to step over, or around. Ignored. Who cares that our "purpose" for gold or diamonds is deemed greater than a dog's? God? Haha... that is a laugh.
Yes, there is purpose for those thumbs... they helped us as a species survive even though our physical prowess in anything/everything was awful. The evolution of our intelligence and our thumbs allowed us to survive and become the examples of the species we are today. So we are agreed on our mutual, subjective value of thumbs.
EVERYTHING on this planet consumes things much like itself in order to grow and create more of itself. Even plants, who take in nutrients from the soil - which has come to include a great many such nutrients in the form of dead worms, decayed leaves, etc. The cycle is completely necessary, obviously... but what does its presence PROVE? Certainly not the existence of a God. Nor even the existence of a creator. Look at it this way... the creator would have to know that, billions of years ago, if He instantiated life on Earth, that those billions of years later, the soil would be fertile enough to support crop in many places of the Earth for His precious humans to cultivate. Because let's be straight here... nutrient-rich soil simply wasn't a thing "in the beginning." So let's pretend that the creator DID understand this, and that's how it went. Wait... isn't He "all powerful?" Why wait? Why not just start the Earth out with fertile soil? What sense does it make to wait billions of years if the ultimate goal is to populate the Earth to sustain humanity? Is the answer that we "can't understand God and His plan?" Then why go so far as to "worship" Him? Why praise Him if we can't understand Him? You certainly wouldn't vote for a political candidate you couldn't understand. No answer to that question is acceptable.
So you think music existed from the very beginning? What?
Our sensory receptors of touch, taste and smell produce all of the qualia you're describing... and the hilarious part is that our tastes and "refinement" are limited to our own species. You know what flies like to eat, right? Crap. Straight fecal matter, day-in and day-out. They can't get enough of the stuff. To us it even smells nearly toxic. And get this... that cheese you likely just love to eat up? That is, no lie, bacteria poop. We humans infest milk with a bacteria FROM WITHIN THE COW'S OWN STOMACH (called "rennet" in case you are interested in looking up the truth of this statement) and then let that bacteria have an absolute feeding orgy. They all run around in the milk, eating and crapping themselves silly until the entire substance of the milk is processed into solid bacteria waste. That's cheese. in the animal kingdom, one man's waste is another man's banquet... literally. To the point that, there is no "magic" involved in what tastes good to us, and what our bodies are primed to desire to consume. Our senses have been attuned to what is good for us over many hundreds of thousands of years of evolution. Same reason a polar bear will eat the fat of a seal and ignore the muscle. It needs it's own fat stores to insulate against the cold... so in its evolution, the bears that lived best to reproduce were those who had a penchant for eating fat. Fast-forward to generations later and fat is the most delicious substance it can find on its prey. It can all be traced back to evolution,and natural processes that got us here. Again, if this was "God's plan" - why the billions of years in the making?
Is that what I claimed? Hmm... interesting. I seem to only remember calling claims like yours out as the opposite of "knowledge."
I never made the claim that you can get something from nothing. Again - that there IS something proves that there has always been SOMETHING. That is a fact you can't deny... because you believe that there was always at least "God", right? Right??? I mean please... this is another case where you are ignoring the OBVIOUS fact in your own statements. IF EVERYTHING HAS TO HAVE HAD A BEGINNING THEN SO DID YOUR PRECIOUS GOD. And then where do we go from there? Whatever created God had to have a beginning, and so on... backward... for eternity. At some point things just "exist", without the need for explanation. Is it impossible that our universe and the material in it IS that base of existence?
And yes, I did see the part in red above where you tried to dismiss the idea that God had to also have a creator. I simply refuse to accept that ridiculous statement because you are sitting here appealing to "logic", stating that "everything has a source" - and then completely breaking that, and proving yourself completely illogical by asserting that you know God has no creator or source, and that He exists in some realm alternate to our own - FOR WHICH YOU HAVE NO PROOF OR UNDERSTANDING. It's like me asserting that vampires can't be killed by conventional weapons, but do, indeed, suffer death from a wooden stake to the heart. How do I know this? Is this something I have first hand knowledge of, do you think? Do I have any proof at hand? I'll admit that I don't... and yet what if I assert it is true and completely logical? Would you consider me to be in my right mind?
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A Vestigial Mote
Well-Known Member
Yeah, I don't argue that. The "Big Bang" is complete conjecture... much like God. Though I will give its proponents credit that at least the theory's formulation is wrought from evidence grounded in REALITY - very unlike the theory of God.
Umm... why? Because the prospect scares you too much? Much like theists like to credit atheists maintaining atheism because they want to continue in their lives of sin, I like to think your actual reason is that you can't dare to think of a universe without yourself in it, and therefore emotionally NEED to believe in God so that you have some shot at an afterlife. I don't understand at all why positing that the matter of the universe simply always has been around is "insanity." What is insane about it? it certainly fits all observable criteria in leaps and bounds over the proposition of "God." I mean, right here in front of us, at all times, is the substance of the universe. We can interact with it, view it, we ARE it. Where's God? Where's the proof for God? In that same material, is it? Can you measure God? No? Can you detect God? No? Would anything be different in a universe where God simply doesn't exist? Hmm... how would we EVER know? The reality is, you can't know... because God never, ever makes Himself obvious. How much more insane is it to insist that a presence you can't detect, that you have never seen, that has never interacted with most people, that most people on Earth don't even believe in (etc.) is there in everything that exists?
Highly doubtful.
And here it is... all the answers are available... but only for those willing to look "sincerely." What a cop out. I know you have no answers. And you claiming you do is an insult to my intelligence. What about all the others who "know" the answers because they subscribe to a different faith than yours? You insult their intelligence also. I am completely capable of coming to my own conclusions about things, and don't need your "help" (amazing that this is truly what your ilk think it is) in any way, shape of form. Not even your "God" has the power to change my mind. Interesting that, isn't it?
So, if God makes himself well known in the "next life", you're saying everything is just hunky dory from that moment on? No more need to question, or do anything outside of bask in His presence? Will everyone feel the same way? Or do you somehow get re-absorbed into "The All?" and therefore lose your individuality anyway? Can you sense things in the next life? Even without the only tools we have ever known to produce sensual qualia like eyes, ears, nose or nerves? Hmm... how does one enjoy anything if there are no sensors to deliver pleasure? Or even pain... to know its difference from pleasure? That said, what of good and evil? Isn't it a main argument of many theists that "evil" exists so that we can know the "good?" If no evil exists in the afterlife, then how do you even know that what you are experiencing is "good?" By retention of earthly memory? I don't think we get to take our brains into the afterlife, do we? And it has basically been proven that memory is stored in actual physical locations within the brain. So... no memory in the afterlife either, I would assume. Seems enjoyment of the afterlife is a bit more problematic than it might be convenient to assume. Oh well. Glad I won't be going there.
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If we go back to OP “Not one shred of proof has been shown that proves the existence of God. People only know what they've been told and shown in a book.”
And comparing this to science.
“Science has testable evidence that is in your face daily. For me, following science makes sense.”
By means of saying “Science has testable evidence” meaning it’s the only proof he needs so he could say God does not exist at all, right?
So, going back to my question again, “So, how science disprove the existence of God, again?”
Was it because “Science has testable evidence” and this proved that God does not exist at all?
And went on in details about the parting of the red sea, and Noah with the animals in the Ark and among other things which he said: “This is physically impossible”. Was there an observation and experiment on this? NONE! So, there is a possibility until proven wrong, right? Now, what if an observation and experiment proved that all these are physically possible, was it enough to say that God really exist?
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
No, it is not. You are jumping the gun. He is merely explaining why he does not believe in a god, that is not the same as saying that god does not exist. Let's take the example of a flipped coin. A person flips a fair coin, it has exactly a fifty fifty chance of being either heads or tails. Another person claims that by using his "ancient powers" that he knows that the coin is heads. Would you believe that he knows? I wouldn't. Saying I don't believe does not mean that you are saying that the coin is tails. But I am not going to believe that the coin is heads and base my life upon that either. When a person makes a claim that claim needs to be tested to see if there is any validation for it. The purported psychic needs to be right more than just once. The same applies to god believers. Being right occasionally when many predictions are made is only to be expected. Until someone on your side supplies reliable evidence the nonbelievers will simply withhold belief.
It does not need to and that is an improper attempt to shift the burden of proof. The burden of proof is upon those that believe in a god. Substitute the word "pixies" for "God" and that should become apparent to you. Science cannot "disprove the existence of pixies" either.
No one has claimed that.
Here is the good news: The refuted myths of the Bible do not disprove the existence of God. It may disprove the existence of specific versions of God but it does not disprove the existence of a God itself. Your question is rather pointless and a bit of a strawman since no one is making the argument that you seem to think that they are making.
If your God depends upon a literal interpretation of the Bible and that God is honest it can easily be shown that that "God" does not exist. That of course does not mean that all versions of God do not exist. But when a person wants to claim that such a God exist he is taking on the burden of proof. The burden of proof is not upon the person that does not believe.
Science hasn't. Nor does it need to. The job of science is not to disproove religious beliefs, but to explain how the universe works and how it got to be this way.
Although you might be correct, you have no way of knowing that you are, and there is no reason to believe that you are.
The reason may be the combination of genetic variation subject to natural selection. If you've already ruled that out, then you've done so without sufficient evidentiary support. You've taken a leap of faith.
I find the god arguments to be the least convincing as well as the least likely. Naturalistic explanations seem to have done a pretty good job over the last several centuries. Adding gods to them gives them no more explanatory or predictive power, just unnecessary complication.
Faithofchristian
Well-Known Member
There has been proof given that God exists.
But seeing no matter how much proof is given, you like all other Atheists, can not handle the proof, all because it makes you look silly and out of touch with reality.
Let's say your life depended on you to give up a lie or die for a lie, What would you do?
Now seeing your life hangs in the balance of you holding on to the lie or die for it.
But you know it's nothing more than a lie, Now would you be willing to die for the lie.
Knowing factual it is no more than a lie?
How many people do you suppose would be willing to die for a lie, knowing factual it's nothing more than a lie ?
Let's turn back to the days of Christ Jesus and there after.
What we find is all those people who followed Jesus, giving up their life, So either they died for a lie or for the truth which they all held.
Human nature, tells us, that when your life hangs on you giving up a lie or die, you will give up the lie, that's human nature.
So either those followers of Jesus died for a lie or for the truth they all held.
As it is human nature tells us, that people will give up the lie.
There were many Christians that were taken to the Roman Colosseum and put with wild animals to tear them apart, either they confess everything was a lie or die by wild Lions, Tigers, But yet they died by Lions and Tigers, and many were burned at the stake.
But as we know human nature tells us, that when your life hangs in the balance you will give up the lie.
But yet many Christians died by Lions and Tigers and burned at the stake in the Roman Colosseum. All because they would not confess what they had was a lie.
There's your proof, of the existence of God and Christ Jesus.
But as it is, even you will still deny it no matter how much proof is given.
All because for you to accept it, would be you accepting truth.
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Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
Sorry, if there was proof that a god exists there would be no question. And Pascal's wager is a failed argument.
You seem determined not to learn and you can only spout nonsense that you can't support. Why are you even here in the first place?
Tell me, what is the "proof" of God's existence? It can't be prophecy since you ruined that as an argument for yourself. It can't be science based since you do not understand science. And it can't be evidence based since you do not understand the nature of evidence. So what is your "proof"?
And there are countless people that have died for a lie. Meanwhile you have no idea how many people were martyrs for Jesus in the early days of Christianity.
Michael1981
Member
You called yourself ignorant when you said you didn't know (using words like "may" mean you don't know, thus you are ignorant of the truth).
And there is an obvious difference between the two arguments. On the one hand, you are discussing things from a perspective based on laws and limitations, i.e. the natural. I am talking about God here, Who is supernatural and not subject to laws or limitations. He can have no beginning; creation cannot. You MUST follow everything that doesn't have the power to create back to a creator, and that creator MUST be supernatural, in order to not be subject to the natural (laws). It's a perfectly logical explanation that you're throwing out the window because you simply can't, or refuse, to process it.
If God intended we should have proof, then we would have it. We're not supposed to have proof, therefore you will never find it.
I won't argue that our being who we are gives purpose to things, but that doesn't invalidate my argument at all. If God created us to, for example, like diamonds and prize them to the point that we'll pay for them with blood, then diamonds were still created for a purpose, which would be as a vehicle to reveal our evil via greed, or perhaps to reveal the pride of women who flaunt their diamonds/riches. That's not even to mention their myriad industrial uses.
Don't you find it compelling that there is pretty much nothing that is useless? If we came to exist by chance, don't you think there would be a ton of stuff that's just totally useless? But the Lord made all things useful, and our economies so intricate and ever-expanding that when one takes into account all of the purposes of things and how they're utilized, it's truly amazing. Mind-boggling. Do you not agree?
Sorry, but how do YOU know that he didn't just start the Earth out with fertile soil? How can you have any idea at all how the Earth was created when all men can do is theorize? If God is omnipotent, then you need to take that into account when you start using words like "can't". His power is beyond our comprehension.
Sure it did, why would you think it didn't? Do you think the first human beings couldn't sing or create rhythms? Not that I even said that, but your question is bizarre so I thought I'd respond.
This paragraph was just a rant...so what if animals taste things differently? So what if flies are attracted to feces? And again, billions of years in the making is conjecture.
Of course, you'll come back and say, look at carbon dating and all of that. I'm not going to get into all of that with you or anyone else. It's junk science that only works when assumptions aren't made to do the dating. That's another argument that you can have with someone who finds the discipline credible, because I don't.
These are your own words right here: We don't have any clue the origins of the "laws" that govern this universe. There may be no origin.
What KenS said may have been poorly worded, but what he said does make perfect sense. You said it makes no sense whatsoever that the existence of laws implies the necessity of a Creator, and then your argument is "we don't have any clue." So yeah, I'd call that citing ignorance as knowledge. If you have no knowledge, then how do you have any right to even participate in an argument?
We DO have a clue, because logic tells us absolutely, positively and even demonstrably that something cannot come from nothing, and that therefore the origin of matter and everything that comes with it had to come from a Creator. God necessarily exists. To say otherwise is, as I've said, insanity.
As I mentioned earlier in this post, you're completely ignoring the fact that God, being omnipotent, is not subject to the same laws of His creation. I never said that everything has to have had a beginning, by the way. Obviously if I'm making this argument, then God is exempt.
And yes, it is impossible that our universe and the material in it is the base of existence. That simply makes absolutely no sense. Why would matter just "be there"? The notion is patently absurd!
I will give you that it's a difficult thing for our minds to comprehend that God had no beginning. It's almost a frightful thing when we consider it. What sort of power would such a being have? How long is an existence that has no beginning?
When you throw out phrases like "your precious God," and I could be wrong here, but I get the impression that you're either searching for an answer because you genuinely want to know, or you're searching for an excuse to ignore Him.
Either way, the reason you don't know is because you've not sought Him with all your heart:
"You will seek Me and find Me, when you seek Me with all your heart." (Jeremiah 29:13)
The good news is that everyone has to go through what you're going through, and eventually, one way or another, you'll come to see the truth, because God has determined "that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.…" (Philippians 2:10) One day, He will be your "precious God" as well, and in fact He already is.
Michael1981
Member
The Big Bang Theory runs into the same problem that every other theory that doesn't include God in the equation does. You must explain the origin of matter. Failure to do so makes all of the rest of no consequence whatsoever.
The absence of God's existence never scared me. In truth, I never really thought of the world in those terms. I did very much prefer to think of Him as distant and uninvolved with our daily lives, because I was quite ashamed of myself in pretty much all respects, and because I preferred to stay in my sins. We all prefer autonomy and being our own god, it's no state relegated solely to atheists.
There was a point when I came to believe and actually accept that although I knew God was going to save me eventually, that I was going to die a painful death and go to Hell, and that there I would suffer for however long I needed to before I'd paid my last pennies. I had absolutely no hope in this world.
Shortly afterward, He revealed Himself to me. Yes, I know that God exists, it's no longer a question of "if" in my mind. I know 100,000% that He is real, that He is intimately involved in every aspect of everyone's lives, and that we have no power to discover Him until He chooses to reveal Himself to us. Even searching for Him with all your heart is a gift, and His work, not our own.
I DO have many answers, but whether or not you can receive them is another matter entirely.
And I understand that many people claim to know. It surely does create problems. You have to decide for yourself and on a case-by-case basis which claims are worth investigating and which aren't. I can't help you there.
There is no reason to believe that the afterlife will be much different in the physical sense. However, no, everything is not "hunky dory" in the next life if you die unsaved.
Everyone has to take up their cross at some point. You will take up yours either in this life or the next; it's unavoidable:
"...strengthening the souls of the disciples and encouraging them to continue in the faith. 'We must endure many hardships to enter the kingdom of God,' they said." (Acts 14:22)
"Then Jesus said to all of them, “If anyone would come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me.…" (Luke 9:22)
Oh and as for evil, I would refer you to this paper on the subject:
The Purpose of Evil
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