at the time of christ, 3 cities in the roman empire had the most dominant effects on christianity: rome, italy, alexandria, egypt, and antioch, syria.

rome was the capital of the roman empire. it, as today, was the epitome of form, legalism, and tradition. by the very essence of tradition, rome has known to constantly add to the bible. examples? the apocrypha and its 14 books. or the constant traditions that were emphasized such a purgatory or the chanting of the rosary, that are seen in today's roman catholic church. though rome didn't exactly create any corrupt bibles, they took the corrupt versions from alexandria, and added their traditions to them; they used ecclesiastical interpretation. the bible constantly speaks negatively about rome, whom it constantly compares to as babylon.

alexandria, like much of the world today, was the epitome of education; science, scholarship, knowledge. the like-minded minds of Origen dominated these areas. like as now, education and science took away from the Word of God. most biblical corruptions that are seen in the codex sinaiticus(codex aleph), codex vaticanus(codex B), and the septuagint originated from this region. allegorical interpretation were taken at the bible; ie compare what YOU believe as truth to what the bible says. the bible consistently speaks negatively about egypt.

antioch was the origin of early work by the apostles. known for her luxury and cosmopolitan flavor, but also for its incredible trust in the bible. antioch was the only place where the bible was interpretted literally. the "textus receptus" was the products of many copies of scripture that came from here, all in agreement w/each other. as is the masoretic hebrew old testament. the natives of antioch were from Shem, one of the sons of Noah, whom Noah blessed himself(not Japhethities of Europe, and not Hamites of Africa)

i'm eager to post more, but anymore statements, and i would be essentially plagerizing someone else's work: read more here

trust me when i say, this wormhole goes a lot deeper than you think; just saying "you should just read the bible in the original hebrew language or greek if you want THE authentic bible" isn't gonna cut it.

all these predictions of "spurs in 6" is depressing me... no respect for detroit.

i wanna trash talk so that if the pistons surprise everybody once again, i'll look good... but if they lose, i'll just look even more like a loser.

the good thing is that detroit seems to thrive on their underdog status.

i guess i'll have to see the recaps after games 1 and 2 first to make a sound judgment.

note that pistons lost to spurs at the sbc center during the regular season, but it was only by 3 pts.

apparently, some stuff to try next time i play t3 bryan:

ws+1+2: 11 frames, 1~4 guarenteed on hit? it was in ttt and beyond (12+21=33 pts)

1,2 and ws+4: 1~4 guarenteed on hit? might be a range issue

d+3+4; haven't really fooled around w/this low

and oh yea; qcb,2-> 1~4-> f,f+2 is HARD... i should try the tech trap instead; f,f,df+3 instead of f,f+2, since 1~4 knocks them in the air; more damage anyways.

i gotta get down COM throw; it can be buffered outta anything; so maybe next time i'll try df+2, then d,df,d,DF, wait til df+2 ends, then press 1+2 right when bryan starts to crouch; i might not even need to do d,df,d,DF; just df,d,DF

Shoryuken.com Forums - Virtua Fighter 4:Evolution at Best Buy new for $10

oh shit...

the number 1 play for last night's top 10 on sportscenter was ben wallace slashing and giving one of the heat(sorry jerm, wasn't shaq) a facial... i love the quip at the bottom: "fear the fro, san antonio." number 3 was prince w/the two-hand putback(makes me wonder if that was prince's 1st putback ever... looked sweet... i stood up from eating dinner when i saw that one)

btw, creed's greatest hits is just a flat out awesome cd. i was lucky enough to get it during memorial day weekend at circuit city, when all their cds were only 9.99. came w/a dvd featuring all their music videos and 2 live performances, and the other was a music cd featuring all their number 1 hits(but i wanted "hide" to be on that cd, oh well). i love creed when i was growing up so much; maybe they were why i got so much started on trying to play lead guitar instead of just power chords. their songs were awesome, when everybody else's rock band was punk. at some point, i kinda gave up on creed b/c i was into the "christian rock" stage, but after awhile, you realize most christian rock bands can't play guitar at the mark tremonti level; maybe 12 stones, but they've gone downhill after the 1st album.

although, after listening to alter bridge, if you listen to creed, it feels a bit more shallow; withheld talent. like mark tremonti was holding back his full guitar potential. basically, i can play creed. i canNOT play alter bridge(hope to someday). i still love both bands though, and i'm glad stapp and the others split up; stapp became a christian, and tremonti produced better music; win-win situation.

my bible study leader's a sellout... she's from the bay area, likes the kings, doesn't like the warriors...
you do the math.

but anyways, i like this matchup... too bad i won't be watching too much of it; we have things called "finals" too.

of course, you know who i'll be rooting for...

i'll concede though that spurs have the edge, but it's not a HUGE edge... 6-4 in spurs' favor

both teams play hard on both ends, and both teams have very good balance.

both teams also have truly great coaches.

semi-short rundown:

spurs:
advantages:
+arguably the best power forward in the league; don't even question tim duncan; i love kg, but in the timmy vs kg debate, i stand on the side of timmy.
+two great slashers in the backcourt
+defensively, spurs have one of the best perimeter defenders in the league; bruce bowen is EVERYWHERE, and they have tim duncan
+a stronger, deeper bench
+overall, no "weak player" on this team; i think this is THE deepest team in the league
+a coach w/more championship wins
disadvantages:
-lack of good 3 pt shooters; manu and tony have improved, and to be fair, spurs are good at shooting threes. but they don't seem to be able to be a team that can rain them down at will when they need to; this MIGHT be key to how detroit wins over them, if they get their 4th ring
-main shot creators on this team are duncan, parker, and maybe manu
-gregg poppavich looks like his face had a pimple invasion

main key for spurs to win: superb performance from duncan and parker(i love manu, but i think the offense runs a lot more thru parker than manu)
main x-factor: brent barry

pistons:
advantages:
+arguably the best starting 5 in the league on both ends of the court
+two great shooters in the backcourt
+two of the starting 5 can actually light it up beyond the arc consistently, and i'll give you a hint; one of them is NOT rip
+defensively, pistons have ALSO, one of the best perimeter defenders; tayshaun prince just does NOT let you get by him, and wallace times two are a definite help threat
+slightly more athletic starting 5 than the spurs; i think a lotta ppl take the athleticism of the pistons a bit for granted, thinking they use it all on the defensive end, but it's true, these guys can RUN the fastbreak. in fact, i enjoy watching their offense as much as their d. i could be stretching it by saying this as a pistons fan, but i think i've seen more alley-oops done by the pistons in a game than by any other team. pistons, in a lotta ways, end up looking like the kings with hardcore d.
+a coach w/more experience
disadvantages:
-bench... that's not to say detroit's bench isn't bad. but it certainly isn't the deep bench they had last year. they still kept some key pieces, such as lindsey and campbell, and picked up some nice additions like arroyo and mcdice. they just have no overall complete package in one single bench player that shows up every single night. the two they kept from last year are flat-out better defenders and their d always shows up every night, but they can't shoot well. i guess the main key is whether arroyo can play d.
-main shot creators on this team are billups and rip
-larry brown never ever shows any emotion other than "monotonous gameface"

main key for detroit to win: backcourt has to be on FIRE
main x-factor: rasheed

of course, in the keys to win, i didn't say defense, for both teams, but you know it's true. pistons vs spurs w/o d would be like um, kings vs, um, kings. i just highlighted the main offensive key.

this has the potential to turn into an ugly matchup, due to the hardcore d, but i think defensive bball is just as beautiful as well-executed offense. winning bball is always beautiful to me. maybe it's just cause i love the shot block and the hustle play, but i think these things are so underrated and underappreciated by the average fan.

feel free to tell me how far off wrong i am with my rundown...

btw, is it true that tony parker's girlfriend is eva longoria? and i thought she was only rooting for the spurs b/c she was a texas native!

try googling these if you're bored:

martial artist: cung le (if you can stand watching kickboxing, this guy's awesome... throws all over the place; his style is san shou kung fu, which is a type of kickboxing allowing throws; interesting, b/c they teach that here @uc davis... i think i'll take it sometime next school year)

newest tennis phenom: rafael nadal (man was this guy awesome; incredible defense, ran his opponents down, had the most incredible saves)

comedian: keith robinson (just plain funny)

i hope detroit wins game 7 and shuts all the laker fans in davis up.