Why do you believe what you believe?

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I don't really believe in a god right now but I won't say that one doesn't exist. There just seems to be a more scientific explanation for just about everything but science can also be completely wrong. I was raised in the Mormon church so I know a lot about their background and beliefs. Their are a very interesting group to research because of their interesting background. When the Mormon church was formed in the first half of the 1800s they had to constantly move because they were kicked out by people who wanted them killed. Shortly after their first leader was murdered they traveled west for about 2 years and many died in the long journey. Eventually they found a peaceful place to live in what is now Salt Lake City, Utah. Anyway, I left the Mormon church when I was about 13 because the particular church building I went to was filled with idiots and I couldn't believe that a true church could be filled with so many wicked people. Looking back at it all though I think the Mormon church had many important moral values in their teachings and I'm happy I was there for some time because it's helped me become a better person then many other idiots my age. So yep... longest post I've made in a while...
 
Yugi2, what you describe is pretty much how I felt in the past. Even when I did believe god existed, I couldn't believe he was interfering in our lives at all. It never made sense to me that god would perform miracles for some people and not others, even those just as devoutly religious.

I also considered deism as an alternative to atheism, but not for long. With all that science has discovered, I think we've all but eliminated the need for a creator. Plus, the deist god wouldn't care either way if you believed in him or not.
 
Tets said:
Torgo said:
When reading the Bible, one of the things you have to consider is the context of the passage in the culture and the time it was written and who it is written to.
An interesting first link you provided, but it doesn't convince me in any way that somehow the slavery back then was "good". It still isn't relevant in today's society, and what I wonder is why religious people can discard those things but still cling to other beliefs such as homosexuality being a grave sin. Also, the second link is broken.

Sorry about that, it seems to not like the period I put in that sentence. I fixed it now.

About the slavery thing, yeah it isn't relevant to the US and other slave free countries out there (I think there are a few that still exist). The difference is that the bible doesn't say you need to have slaves. It just says to treat them right.

It does say homosexuality is a sin, just like how lust, lying and various other sins that I am guilty of, as well as other people. What my point here is that homosexuality shouldn't be treated as a super sin. I also think that the people practicing homosexuality shouldn't be hated either. There is a huge difference between hating the action and hating the person doing that action. In fact the bible commends to love the people that transgress against us and him.

A quick comment about arf's video. I didn't really watch the whole thing, but a small chunk, so I don't know if this was actually addressed in the video. The part where it says about all these other myths using December 25 as a birthday is invalid, as well as the 3 wise men. Jesus's exact birthday is not known. If I remember correctly, it was sometime in the summer. The whole December 25 thing was taking from these myths and used for celebrating his birthday. The bible never says how many wise men there when they visited him (which was way after his birth). It just says there were three gifts.
 
Once again, people, this isn't the thread for a debate. If that's what you want, take it elsewhere. It isn't going to end well, though.
 
Wwwwait, I think I read that sentence wrong. I'm still not sure what it means, so I'll just edit that out now. Sorry!
 
I'm a scientologist!

Religious is an awkward issue for me, since I believe what I personally feel is right (which is not the same of what I "want" to believe, mind you) and not what everyone else tells me to believe. That kinda kills the "idea" of a religion in society, but whatever.

I was raised Catholic, but I really do not like to relate to the Church at all. This was basicially due to self-realization occuring moreso around middle school time and thusly I thought a lot more liberally than I used to. I felt the way the Church expressed God as an essentially spoiled dictator was a total insult to what I feel he honestly is... The Church also seems to pick and choose what they feel is more important in the bible; I recall my grandmom telling me that it was actually wrong to try to interprete the bible beyond what was taught of her. Half of the Old Testament is abused to prove themselves while totally ignoring the other half saying it's irrelevant, and some of the principles taught in the New Testament are generally ignored (we're not supposed to judge people, but lol!)

Basicially, I try to confer my own answer about God as per what I personally experience. I believe that as long as one believes she has good intention in the world (even if it was "corrupt" action being taught as "good", see terrorists), she will be due for a wonderful afterlife. I believe there isn't one magical set of morals to dicate you either, beyond having respect for everyone's individual self and beliefs in turn. Denying or ignoring God's gift of free will is what I feel is the biggest disrespect/"sin" for God, whether it'd be revoking your own personal self in favor of what everyone else wants or removing another's out of silly prejudice or similar issue.

In some ways, I'm similar to your usual Catholic - I'm pro-life as I believe that taking a life of another homo sapien is the exact denial I mentioned earlier and I'm against forced secularity - but in other ways I'm the opposite, such as issues on homosexuality and letting people believe whatever religion they so desire without "deserving" disrespect.

Personally, a lack of a God figure makes no logical sense to me beyond asking for denial on my part - and I'd gladly choose the painful, logical truth over forced, convenient bullcrap. However, fallibility is always a nice idea. :)
 
There is a short and important answer to the original question; then there is a longer and less important answer; the latter might, somewhat unfairly, prove more interesting.

The short answer: I do not believe in God through any sort of heroic effort of my own; rather, I believe in Him because He, through His grace, instils that faith in me. Faith is one of the three theological virtues (along with hope and charity) which we can't increase through any work of our own, but which is infused by God. But we can resist.

So why do I (try) not (to) resist?

This is the longer answer, and I can't hope to begin to do it justice here. I am not at all qualified to do so with the sole exception of the fact that I happen to be sitting here at the moment. I'll cover things more or less as they come into my head.

Miracles

Certainly not the best reasons, and no use as a foundation for faith, but very helpful for giving us a kick up the posterior, giving lie to our naturalist-materialist-nihilist philosophies and shoving us in the right direction. Every canonised saint has two miracles attributed to their intercession after their death, at least since whenever the regulations were last changed; these are often of the sudden-cure-of-terminal-disease sort. Some Wikipedia articles on more recent and dramatic miracles:

Our Lady of Fátima
Padre Pio
Our Lady of Lourdes

We can always dismiss miracles, and in fact we are right to be sceptical, since for every genuine one (begging your indulgence), there are countless mistakes, frauds, or indeed deceptions of the Enemy. But we can't discount them a priori.

Right, I'm running out of time now, so what follows will just be sketches.

Sense of the numinous

Sometimes we have an indescribable sensation of the divine. Maybe we see the lives of other people who believe in God and recognise something utterly foreign to our own but for some reason we can't quite place, eminently good; or we experience something beautiful. Now left undirected, this can lead us wildly astray. I mean, Palestrina's Missa Papae Marcelli is beautiful, and Bach's Fugue in A Minor is beatiful, but Palestrina was Catholic and Bach was Lutheran, so they can't both be right. But these sorts of things are beginnings, not ends. They bring us to the first realisation that we are not our own gods, that we should not be burning incense on the altars of our own thoroughly fallible and capricious reason; and God does the rest. On the subject of beautiful things, I particularly like the introit for the feast of the Immaculate Conception.

The lives of the saints

There are lots of people who lived and died before us who believed in God. Many of them did extraordinary things; so many martyrs could have saved their earthly lives by one small capitulation, one denial; but they chose rather to endure death at the hands of their persecutors out of love for their Creator.

Okay, that was ramshackle. Please point out the holes and I'll try to patch them up.

EDIT: Oh, afterthought, in response to earlier stuff. This is just for the record, and I'll talk more about it if anyone asks, but there is no selective use of Scripture in (authentic) Christianity; it's either all or nothing, and I contend that it ain't nothing. Also, the prohibition against judgement means we shouldn't presume to judge subjectively whether a sin is committed, but it doesn't mean we can't say that stealing is wrong. Stealing is wrong, and someone who steals is objectively a thief, but maybe they're insane or so poorly formed that they don't realise what they're doing is wrong (which is very different from having convinced themselves that what they're doing is okay). But we still have the right, and indeed the obligation, to teach that stealing is wrong and to punish thieves. Condemn the sin, not the sinner: God will do the latter if he deserves it; we aren't able to tell in this life.
 
Oogaland said:
The short answer: I do not believe in God through any sort of heroic effort of my own; rather, I believe in Him because He, through His grace, instils that faith in me.
Am I to understand this means you believe because you're predisposed by your creator to do so? I hope I've simply misread, because it seems like a cop-out the way I'm interpreting it.

I have a lot of respect for you, Oogaland, but I can't take miracle stories seriously. I have yet to read about or witness for myself a "genuine" miracle. If god were to descend from the heavens and put and end to all the suffering in the world, then I might reconsider (and since he is alleged to be omnipotent, I have to wonder why he doesn't). But isolated incidences of mysterious divine sightings or miraculous healings do little to convince me.

It bothers me that every time something unexplainable happens, the faithful look at it and proclaim, "science can't explain this, so it falls under the realm of god." Plenty of what were previously considered to be miracles have already been debunked by logical reasoning and the advancement of science. The person who believes in god simply because he sees miracles is losing his reason for belief little by little every day.

I'm going to end this reply here, because it's beginning to venture too close to a full-on debate. The thread has been going well so far and I don't want to jeapordize it.

Edit: I watched the Zeitgeist movie and have to say, upon review, that I am almost wholly unimpressed with it. I found myself mostly in agreement with it in the first part, but looking back I realize it relies heavily on blind assumptions, and it comes off as being no different from religious dogma in my eyes. The second and third parts seemed more like I was watching The Da Vinci Code for the amount of paranoid delusion that was being spouted out.
 
Tets said:
Oogaland said:
The short answer: I do not believe in God through any sort of heroic effort of my own; rather, I believe in Him because He, through His grace, instils that faith in me.
Am I to understand this means you believe because you're predisposed by your creator to do so? I hope I've simply misread, because it seems like a cop-out the way I'm interpreting it.
Up to a point that is what I mean; however, faith is given to all of us in the measure that we need it, if we would co-operate with it. So it doesn't dodge the problem that we're addressing here: we have the ability to accept or refuse the necessary grace.

There's a lot to be said about the other points you raise -- as I'm sure you appreciate, these are not new objections! -- but as you rightly point out this topic doesn't seem to be the place to discuss them.
 
  • Faith is something that is probably underestimated even by many of those that believe they understand what it means and includes. As with everything else, a simple definition or explanation is not quite enough to understand it because its effects and nature are varied and profound. The question of why one has faith is even more complex, especially when your definition of faith attributes it to religious beliefs.

    At first, my religious beliefs were what they were because of my parents. I wasn't familiar with the Bible, and I never paid attention during Mass. However, I was taught the aspects of the religion my parents gave me and the importance of religion in one's life. My family had been pretty loose in general with regards to our religion, although after a time we discovered that there was more to it than we first thought. My mother's tendency to go to the extreme left me confused by the fact that the Church had dumbed down the rite to the point where it hardly seemed to have the same significance.



    The Catholic Church has a sacrament called Confirmation, in which the recipient confirms his faith, and will receive the strength to live out his faith through the future. Do note that this is not a complete explanation, there is much more to it than that, but it is necessary to know that it is a moment when a young adult chooses the faith as his own.
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  • My choice was influenced by the beauty that accompanied the old Tridentine Rite, and the presence I felt at Mass was enough for me to make that choice.
    As I continue to mature and learn more, I will still learn more about it which would strengthen my resolve. Most notably, I have been able to appeal to reason, where I can base what I believe on what I may logically deduce. All that I believe now, I believe because through reason, I can see it as the closest to the truth. I definitely do not have the wisdom to know the full truth, but I can know that what I believe is part of the truth.

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    [list:7a91704b05]At this point I want to make it clear that when I say that all that I believe I have through reason, it does not mean that I do not "believe" things but simply observe, know, and understand, and neither does the other extreme, by which I proclaim that trying to learn more is unnecessary because of faith, apply. I mean that what I "believe" can be connected to a logical process as true as I can form it.
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To go completely into the logic that I have behind my "beliefs" would add unnecessary content and length to this message, however some of the chiefest factors of this logic (with variance in application) is my skepticism towards "chance", my observations of human nature, and personal experiences.

My skepticism towards chance extends to a point where I have doubts as to just how much is possible without some intervention or design of another individual. Chance itself is an extremely insignificant factor compared to the effects of the deliberate, and when the probability gets to a certain stage, I find it hard to accept that something deliberate did not at least help the situation.

My observations on human nature are limited and mostly personal. Being born with a mental peculiarity, my attention on my own thoughts and feelings is much more focused. I can tell, however, that identifying others through what I can see and feel can give me a slight impression of others, but even moreso it gives me a respect for what I cannot understand in another person. Thus I will place my faith in humanity, though not without knowledge of the worst possible effects, and this is because I know that everyone has their own individual emotions and thoughts that extend beyond my comprehensibility (for I cannot comprehend how/why I feel or think) and have the ability to choose to do good or evil. With such complexity, it is impossible to try to judge one man or a group of many, so I will neither assume them to do evil, or to do good... but I know they can.

My personal experiences are such that you could not understand them because they had happened to me. However, things have happened that just seemed too fortunate for chance. I personally doubt that whether I would have made it through the turmoil I experienced over my teenage years without the help of some presence and support which is immaterial and indescribable. Many events have caused me to come closer to an understanding of what I should do in life. Again, these references are far too general to properly describe them, but the specific occasions are far too personal to mean anything to another individual.[/list:u:7a91704b05]

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  • I have participated in a few arguments, and some of you who have been willing to follow them, although they are long and sometimes not so well organized, probably know my state of mind. I have participated in these arguments as anonymously as I could, and have never declared my beliefs or faith. My reason was that I feared that by allowing myself to be given a label, my opinions would be generalized and ignored. However, I realize now that this was foolish, because any ignorant enough to label me without a second thought wouldn't bother reading my posts anyway. If one does not generalize me according to my association, they will according to my argument. And those smart enough to actually contribute to the debate will know enough not to do so.

    I despise generalization, because you are attributing to each person the best and the worst of their "label". Humans are not perfect, so just because someone believes in the truth doesn't mean they'll show exemplary behavior. There are many radical Christians who have presented themselves very poorly, and subjected their faith to ridicule. I do not doubt they had true enough intentions, but I would not want anyone to generalize "religious fanatics" and treat me with unnecessary interpretations. Nor am I as knowledgeable as others that carry the same faith. Therefore I do not wish anyone to assume I am as knowledgeable of some of the intricate matters of my faith as others may be.

    Therefore, I ask that you take this argument as one representative of only myself. Some of you may be familiar with my Creed, and others may share it. However, because of the variance of the human individual, my understanding is independent to myself.

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  • I hope you will forgive me if I re-emphasize my statement, so as to prevent confusion.

    I have chosen my beliefs out of my own free will because of the presence of an inexplicable, intangible, immaterial beauty I felt in participating in the Mass after reaching the age of maturity.
    I do not condone ignorance on behalf of faith, I have myself continued to learn more and seek answers. Doing so, I have strengthened my faith based on my doubts concerning chance, my understanding of human nature, and certain personal experiences.
    My understanding is my own, and should not be labeled amongst others. It may be imperfect or improperly portrayed, and undesirable preconceptions may lead to you not giving proper attention to my actual argument.

    Because of what I can understand, I place my trust in the Catholic Faith. Although I may sometimes feel overwhelmed in the midst of those who strongly believe otherwise, as I continue learn more, and as more takes place during my life, my faith has only been strengthened.
 
I personally am an Athiest.

I could never really get into religion, because I have a really nasty habit of finding loopholes in everything. I could never put my faith into something without direct, solid proof that it exists. It seems illogical to me. I have read the Catholic bible before, just as I have read the Satanic Bible before. And on the subject of Satan, I didn't find that one to be believable either. I find the whole concept of "good" and "evil" to be moral restrictions set by society. The way I see it, things fall as Decision and Consequence, nothing more, nothing less. I will be completely honest, I feel that I should be allowed to live my life the way I want to. If god gave us freedom to live our life the way we wish, we should be allowed to live it the way we want, even if that means not believing in him, otherwise he's being hypocrytical. As far as death, I believe that you die, and you just fade out of exsistence. It doesn't scare me, as I see it as a natural process that we will all eventually undergo. I of course don't wish for it to come soon, but I know it'll happen one day, so why should I be afraid of it? I just make the most of my time, everyday, anytime. And I see a lot of hypocracy in churches as well. People put more emphasis on some bible laws and rules than others, and are leniant on some rules while others are enforced like it's life or death. Rules are set to be followed, regardless. If you're only going to enforce some rules, then why set them in the first place? Life will go as it will go, the way I see it. And I don't see God intervening in any way these days, so...yeah. Also, I DO however believe we originated somehow, we just don't know what it is yet. Everything has it's origin.
 
Tets said:
I have yet to read about or witness for myself a "genuine" miracle. If god were to descend from the heavens and put and end to all the suffering in the world, then I might reconsider (and since he is alleged to be omnipotent, I have to wonder why he doesn't). But isolated incidences of mysterious divine sightings or miraculous healings do little to convince me.
That's asking quite a bit from the big guy dontcha' think? Just because we are his children doesn't mean he has to come save our sorry butts every time.

Shrike said:
I personally am an Athiest.

I could never really get into religion, because I have a really nasty habit of finding loopholes in everything. I could never put my faith into something without direct, solid proof that it exists. It seems illogical to me. I have read the Catholic bible before, just as I have read the Satanic Bible before. And on the subject of Satan, I didn't find that one to be believable either. I find the whole concept of "good" and "evil" to be moral restrictions set by society. The way I see it, things fall as Decision and Consequence, nothing more, nothing less. I will be completely honest, I feel that I should be allowed to live my life the way I want to. If god gave us freedom to live our life the way we wish, we should be allowed to live it the way we want, even if that means not believing in him, otherwise he's being hypocrytical. As far as death, I believe that you die, and you just fade out of exsistence. It doesn't scare me, as I see it as a natural process that we will all eventually undergo. I of course don't wish for it to come soon, but I know it'll happen one day, so why should I be afraid of it? I just make the most of my time, everyday, anytime. And I see a lot of hypocracy in churches as well. People put more emphasis on some bible laws and rules than others, and are leniant on some rules while others are enforced like it's life or death. Rules are set to be followed, regardless. If you're only going to enforce some rules, then why set them in the first place? Life will go as it will go, the way I see it. And I don't see God intervening in any way these days, so...yeah. Also, I DO however believe we originated somehow, we just don't know what it is yet. Everything has it's origin.
Actually.... you are free to live the way you want. You must be reading the Old Testament too much too believe that God would hate you being the way you are. God loves us all no matter what, and now I'm not trying to convert you, but just consider that God doesn't expect us to be perfect little angels. We are all flawed, but he calls us perfect anyway. You see, we humans are ignorant and stupid. We all believe in something "different" even in religion despite the fact it's pretty much the same concepts.

And creation... Origin.... Believe what you want, but for me: screw the Big Bang theory. It's God's work that we're here in this universe. Most of us don't understand, but how could we? Mere humans? Bah.... that's one thing that irritates me about ourselves: we always overthink things and look for an explanation. Sometimes... There's no better explanation for stupendous things that happen in the universe or in people's lives. As said in every Sonic game since Heroes: It's simply a miracle. No better explanation. What? You guys really hope to understand how forces work? Bah.... Forget that! We shall never understand, for sometimes the answers right in front of your face.

You guys and your science and everything. Evolution happened alright, but still.... you guys try to overexamine everything. Your just as bad as... well.... me.
So what if I have an overworking mind? Still....

I'll just leave my post as that.
 
It's just an example, greg, I don't really expect god to do that (at the same time though, if has has the power, why not?) What I do expect is more than mere faith. That's what it always comes back to. Don't get me wrong, I do think faith is a good thing to have. I have faith in my friends and family, for instance, but that's faith supported by precedent, not blind faith.

Regarding your reply to Shrike (and this is going slightly off topic, but bear with me) I want to remind you that there's a difference between ignorance and stupidity. Ignorance is simply not knowing something, and we're all going to be guilty of that until the day we die. Stupidity is not knowing something and refusing to learn. I'd like to think a good number of us, at least in this thread, aren't the latter, and I also see no reason humans shouldn't be capable of understanding the origins of life as we know it.

To JEV3, that's good wall of text. I'm going to have to go over a few more times to really take it in though. Thanks for taking the time to post.

I'm happy with the direction this thread is taking so far. Something occurred to me today, all of the accounts I've heard or read from the religious regarding their respective beliefs have been from those who inherited their parents' faith. Is there anybody out there brought up in a family with no particular religious following who then later converted? Basically I'm talking about the opposite of probably every atheist who has posted thus far, the "found Jesus" kind of guy. That could prove to be an interesting read.
 
I don't believe in god. Even though I think something had to start existence, I doubt it was a "GOD". The only thing I do believe in though, is ghosts. (We had one in the bathroom for a while)
 
Tets said:
It's just an example, greg, I don't really expect god to do that (at the same time though, if has has the power, why not?) What I do expect is more than mere faith. That's what it always comes back to. Don't get me wrong, I do think faith is a good thing to have. I have faith in my friends and family, for instance, but that's faith supported by precedent, not blind faith.

Regarding your reply to Shrike (and this is going slightly off topic, but bear with me) I want to remind you that there's a difference between ignorance and stupidity. Ignorance is simply not knowing something, and we're all going to be guilty of that until the day we die. Stupidity is not knowing something and refusing to learn. I'd like to think a good number of us, at least in this thread, aren't the latter, and I also see no reason humans shouldn't be capable of understanding the origins of life as we know it.
Oh.... I was confusing the two terms together wasn't I... Silly me.
Glad to know this topic hasn't become a waste of space.
 
I believe in God because I was born and raised Christian. I grew in the beliefs of my mom and dad, which I grew into. I started to think it made sense, but then, as I grew older, I realized how much God and Science clashed. So, I tried thinking if there was a way that the two could be intertwined. Therefore, I thought to myself that God created the Big Bang, the large ball of molten rock now known as Earth, the meteor that smashed it and created our Moon, the bacteria that evolved into the complex creatures of today, the oceans where most animals now live, and the extra-terrestrial areas of the cosmos. I thought about my theory and it started to make sense to me: God was the being that started everything in Christian faith. However, in science, creatures and the earth itself were, at one time, at a primordial state unlike the current being (as in everything was a whole lot different than what it is at the moment). So, if God was the creator, and we have evidence that life started from evolution of primitive organisms, then God must have created the start of the universe. This clashes with the "Adam and Eve" thing, but I believe that they were the first humans that evolved from the Ape.

Anyway, that's why I think what I think. :3

EDIT:

greg said:
And creation... Origin.... Believe what you want, but for me: screw the Big Bang theory. It's God's work that we're here in this universe. Most of us don't understand, but how could we? Mere humans? Bah.... that's one thing that irritates me about ourselves: we always overthink things and look for an explanation. Sometimes... There's no better explanation for stupendous things that happen in the universe or in people's lives. As said in every Sonic game since Heroes: It's simply a miracle. No better explanation. What? You guys really hope to understand how forces work? Bah.... Forget that! We shall never understand, for sometimes the answers right in front of your face.

Even to this day I try to wonder what happened before I was born. It's just so strange: one "moment" I don't even exist: the next I'm crying. The most I remember (and this is strange) is that, once I was born, I heard my mom say something like "You're a little baby boy" or something like that. After that, I think I turned out to be 3. Yeah, a whole 3 years of my life seemed to pass in 3 seconds. It's very, very strange. but, it is what it is. I'm not gonna remember it, and it probably serves no purpose for the better of anything. I just get ainxaity (I need help spelling this word) thinking about it and should just stop.

...Why am I telling you this? o.o
 
I see no proof for any God, or similar, being. Strictly an atheist; I believe there is no God. Too much reason to believe this; people starving in the millions, wars, disease. Science has pretty much proven the universe.

Hell, maybe we're the by-product of some alien experiment in another universe. Or the creation of a Hiroshima-like situation. Certainly not a God.

I'm open to some theories, though "God" isn't one of them. I'll just think it through, until I reach my own conclusion.
 
I think most atheists started by wondering why there's so much suffering. I've yet to hear a good explanation for that. It's always a variation of "god works in mysterious ways", which doesn't provide any answers at all. So thinking back on it, that was probably the main driving force behind my "conversion". I wanted answers, and god wasn't willing to give me any.

It seems to me that a lot of religious people, for all the faith they profess to have, don't have much faith in humanity itself. The most devout of believers always seem convinced that humans are inherently incapable of understanding the workings of the universe. To me that's nothing but insulting, especially after you consider all the incredible discoveries, scientific and otherwise, that have been made in all the time that we've been around.
 
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