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Author Topic:   Confession of a former christian
Taz
Member (Idle past 3292 days)
Posts: 5069
From: Zerus
Joined: 07-18-2006


Message 1 of 219 (465258)
05-04-2008 2:27 PM


If I didn't know any better, I would have thought that it was my voice telling my former life's story. I'm just curious to see how many former christians here relate to this confession?

I'm trying to see things your way, but I can't put my head that far up my ass.

Replies to this message:
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Grizz
Member (Idle past 5471 days)
Posts: 318
Joined: 06-08-2007


Message 2 of 219 (465272)
05-04-2008 4:52 PM


My loss of faith was not as dramatic or all-encompassing.
My faith in Christianity slowly phased out over time and was the result of rational skepticism. There was no questioning of morals or the problem of evil. I think my doubt started somewhere in the fifth grade at, of all places, St Robert's Catholic grade school. We started to learn a bit more about chemistry and I remember asking a question about what our bodies were made of. I had a hard time with the answer and couldn't figure out how we could be made of the same 'kinds' of atoms as one would find in inanimate things like rocks or water. That kind of blew my mind. Things kind of went downhill from there.
My faith was kind of on the periphery for a while until a freshman in High School, when I read Robert Jastrow's book God and the Astronomers and started watching Cosmos on TV. More stuff that blew my mind and I started becoming really interested in science and wanted to be an Astronomer for a while. The final nail in the coffin for my Christian faith was again, of all places, as a freshman at Notre Dame, where I took a course on the Historical Jesus. End of Story.
Right after I graduated, I had a brief stint with Buddhism, but that got a bit too dogmatic and I finally morphed into my current state, which is Agnostic.

Replies to this message:
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Straggler
Member
Posts: 10333
From: London England
Joined: 09-30-2006


Message 3 of 219 (465273)
05-04-2008 4:56 PM
Reply to: Message 2 by Grizz
05-04-2008 4:52 PM


Grizz, what major subject did you study at college?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 2 by Grizz, posted 05-04-2008 4:52 PM Grizz has not replied

bluescat48
Member (Idle past 4190 days)
Posts: 2347
From: United States
Joined: 10-06-2007


Message 4 of 219 (465282)
05-04-2008 8:17 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Taz
05-04-2008 2:27 PM


Re: Confession
Very similar, especially the "conversion" by studying the history of Christianity and reading the entire Bible (about 20 times) and drawing the same conclusion.
Edited by bluescat48, : spelling

There is no better love between 2 people than mutual respect for each other

This message is a reply to:
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New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member


Message 5 of 219 (465352)
05-05-2008 11:23 AM
Reply to: Message 2 by Grizz
05-04-2008 4:52 PM


The final nail in the coffin for my Christian faith was again, of all places, as a freshman at Notre Dame, where I took a course on the Historical Jesus. End of Story.
What did you learn about the Historical Jesus that put the final nail in the coffin and ended the story?

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Taz
Member (Idle past 3292 days)
Posts: 5069
From: Zerus
Joined: 07-18-2006


Message 6 of 219 (465379)
05-06-2008 12:29 AM


What nailed the coffin for me...
For me, the thing that nailed the coffin of my christian faith was the realization that all my life I had been condeming/hating people because of my religious beliefs. More specifically, I simply couldn't figure out a way to both have my christian faith AND love my gay neighbors as I would have myself. In the end, the christian faith had to go because, well, loving people is simply better.
I guess I could still reconsider going back to exploring my spiritual side if mainstream christianity could show me that it could make peace with gay people. In the mean time, no thanks on the hate part.
PS - Even after years of consciously forcing myself to be an atheist, I've often found myself wanting to pray/talk to god, the god that is suppose to be nonexistent. Perhaps this is why I still regularly go to church?

I'm trying to see things your way, but I can't put my head that far up my ass.

Replies to this message:
 Message 7 by iano, posted 05-06-2008 9:28 AM Taz has replied

iano
Member (Idle past 1941 days)
Posts: 6165
From: Co. Wicklow, Ireland.
Joined: 07-27-2005


Message 7 of 219 (465398)
05-06-2008 9:28 AM
Reply to: Message 6 by Taz
05-06-2008 12:29 AM


Re: What nailed the coffin for me...
Taz writes:
More specifically, I simply couldn't figure out a way to both have my christian faith AND love my gay neighbors as I would have myself. In the end, the christian faith had to go because, well, loving people is simply better.
As I understood it, the only thing you couldn't get your head around was the idea that it is not unloving to maintain the view that sin is sin.
Did Jesus love that woman caught in adultery? If love is action and his action saved her life (whilst risking his own) then love her he did. Indeed, the general picture is that he loved all sinners more than himself in laying down his life for them. At the same time as he loved that woman he told her that her sin was sin.
Given that the Christian definition of loving others doesn't preclude calling sin other than sin I can't see why you couldn't figure out that it was possible to love your homosexual neighbour (in Christian fashion) whilst maintaining their sin to be sin. If you were to take unChristian views on what sin and loving others mean then you might well be expected to get into difficulties. That isn't leaving the Christian faith however. It's leaving whatever idea of Christian faith you were labouring under.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 6 by Taz, posted 05-06-2008 12:29 AM Taz has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 8 by Taz, posted 05-06-2008 11:22 AM iano has replied

Taz
Member (Idle past 3292 days)
Posts: 5069
From: Zerus
Joined: 07-18-2006


Message 8 of 219 (465405)
05-06-2008 11:22 AM
Reply to: Message 7 by iano
05-06-2008 9:28 AM


Re: What nailed the coffin for me...
Haha, iano you just confirmed my atheism again. Yup, that's why I'm an atheist.
By the way, Mildred Loving just died last friday. Did you know that it was a sin for interracial couples to marry each other? It wasn't hate, you see. It was just sin.
Iano, you can hide behind your "it's a sin" thing all you want. It's people like you that have caused much misery throughout our entire history. It's people like you that have caused many societies in eastern europe to continue to deny that gay people were victims of the holocaust. Why? Because I guess it was rightful to kill gay people? "It's a sin" my ass.
If society didn't progress the way it did, you'd probably be advocating rounding up and jailing gay people for loving each other like you did with interracial couples. I'm willing to bet the only thing holding you back from commiting atrocities is because it's considered a taboo nowadays to be a bigot or to "hate". You have the same attitude. You're just calling it something else. Heck, I've personally talked to KKK members and most of them have denied "hating" black people. They just want to keep the races seperate, you see. Some of them have even tried to convince me that god intended for the races to be seperate and that it's a sin to mix them together.
Oh, by the way, the KKK is entirely made of christians.
Anyway, the point is I really am tempted from time to time to talk/pray to god. In fact, sometimes in times of distress I really do find comfort in talking to god. But all I have to do is think about what you (yes, you personally) say on these boards and then I'm an atheist again. But you really shouldn't worry. People like me who have seen through the bullshit are in the small minority.
Edited by Taz, : No reason given.

I'm trying to see things your way, but I can't put my head that far up my ass.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 7 by iano, posted 05-06-2008 9:28 AM iano has replied

Replies to this message:
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 Message 19 by Buzsaw, posted 05-07-2008 10:12 AM Taz has replied
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iano
Member (Idle past 1941 days)
Posts: 6165
From: Co. Wicklow, Ireland.
Joined: 07-27-2005


Message 9 of 219 (465406)
05-06-2008 11:59 AM
Reply to: Message 8 by Taz
05-06-2008 11:22 AM


Re: What nailed the coffin for me...
Iano, you can hide behind your "it's a sin" thing all you want.
...and your response to the points made regarding your position?
{AbE}
Out of interests, what do you suppose mainstream Christianity should do regarding this matter. Should they:
- interpret the Bible in such a way so that homosex ceases to be considered sinful?
- stop considering the Bible to be Gods revelation to man?
- do something else?
Edited by iano, : No reason given.
Edited by iano, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
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dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 10 of 219 (465408)
05-06-2008 12:23 PM
Reply to: Message 8 by Taz
05-06-2008 11:22 AM


Re: What nailed the coffin for me...
Anyway, the point is I really am tempted from time to time to talk/pray to god. In fact, sometimes in times of distress I really do find comfort in talking to god.
You might appreciate the conclusion of a Unitarian Universalist call to prayer:
quote:
... knowing that prayer does not change things, but rather prayer changes us and we are the agents of change.
In my case, our family didn't attend church so I grew up going to church with our next-door neighbors. Around the age of 10 after a Billy Graham revival I was baptized and after a year I decided that I should take a more active role, buckle down, and learn what I was supposed to be believing. So I started reading the Bible from beginning to end. Didn't make it very far (I don't remember, but I'm sure I didn't reach Genesis 19). I was applying a nave literalist approach and the more incredible I found it. And so I finally had to decide that since I couldn't believe any of what I thought I was supposed to believe, I would have to leave. Which I did.
That was about 45 years ago and I've been an atheist ever since. In high school I started to learn more of the history of Christianity, which made me more thankful for my decision. Going into college, the Jesus Freak movement broke out and, since a number of friends converted, I became something of a "fellow traveller" (McCarthy-era reference to those non-Communists who nevertheless associated with Communists). In that status, I was exposed to a lot of their teachings, most all of which made me ever more thankful that I was an atheist.
I was first exposed to "creation science" at that time (circa 1970) in the form of two claims (the living mollusk carbon-dated to thousands of years old and the story of the NASA computer finding Joshua's Lost Day) and immediately saw them both to be ridiculous and rejected the whole idea. The next time I encountered "creation science" was in 1981 at which time I was surprised that it was still around and, thinking that there might be something to it after all, I started studying it. It didn't take very long to discover that all it had going for it was lies and deception. After more study, I entered into creation/evolution discussion and ended up being very active on CompuServe (some of the essays on my web site I had originally posted on CompuServe). At first I thought that creationists just didn't realize the truth about their claims and that, once educated, their Christian values of seeking and serving the truth would kick in. Instead, they fought fiercely against the truth, resorting to conduct that one would navely call "un-Christian". And, from these fruits, we see that their Christian theology fails the Matthew 7:20 test.
So I see my decision of 45 years ago confirmed almost daily. Even though it was arrived at for the wrong reasons, it was the right decision.

{When you search for God, y}ou can't go to the people who believe already. They've made up their minds and want to convince you of their own personal heresy.
("The Jehovah Contract", AKA "Der Jehova-Vertrag", by Viktor Koman, 1984)
Humans wrote the Bible; God wrote the world.
(from filk song "Word of God" by Dr. Catherine Faber, No webpage found at provided URL: http://www.echoschildren.org/CDlyrics/WORDGOD.HTML)
Of course, if Dr. Mortimer's surmise should be correct and we are dealing with forces outside the ordinary laws of Nature, there is an end of our investigation. But we are bound to exhaust all other hypotheses before falling back upon this one.
(Sherlock Holmes in The Hound of the Baskervilles)
Gentry's case depends upon his halos remaining a mystery. Once a naturalistic explanation is discovered, his claim of a supernatural origin is washed up. So he will not give aid or support to suggestions that might resolve the mystery. Science works toward an increase in knowledge; creationism depends upon a lack of it. Science promotes the open-ended search; creationism supports giving up and looking no further. It is clear which method Gentry advocates.
("Gentry's Tiny Mystery -- Unsupported by Geology" by J. Richard Wakefield, Creation/Evolution Issue XXII, Winter 1987-1988, pp 31-32)
It is a well-known fact that reality has a definite liberal bias.
Robert Colbert on NPR

This message is a reply to:
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Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


Message 11 of 219 (465409)
05-06-2008 1:19 PM


For me it was a combination of many factors.
Growing up, I was taught about Christian beliefs and read bits of the Bible almost daily. My grandfather was the principal of a midwestern Christian school that my parents both attended. Instead of Dr. Seuss, I was read Bible stories at bedtime. I went to Bible camp every summer (thankfully not as bad as the documentary "Jesus Camp" or anything like that). I attended a Christian preschool and kindergarten. I went to public elementary school, but it was conservative enough that pocket-New Testament Bibles were handed out every year, even though I learned later that this was obviously illegal.
So I always took my faith for granted, and I never even once questioned anything. It never even occurred to me to see if reality reflected the stories like the Flood, or to think about how to reconcile a "good" deity with the slaughter of the Egyptian firstborn in Exodus. Most of the Bible was glossed over, and I never questioned what might be in the passages that were never mentioned in sermons.
Even after High School, I somehow maintained a compeltely contradictory belief in both evolution and 6-day Creation. I simply never even considered that the two might not be compatible. For me, my faith was literally a no-brainer: rational thought never intruded on my religious beliefs.
My family was not outwardly judgmental; we and our church never specifically said anything like "homosexuality is a sin," or anything like that. I had always been taught that all people were equal becasue we were all created by God. So, when I first heard Christians who did speak out against homosexuality or non-Christians, I was appalled and simply thought they they were "bad Christians." I remember my first experience with ne of these, in fact. I was in Boston on a class trip, and some friends and I had just purchased a book on Buddhism from a man on the street because we were all interested in religions and mythology. A Christian came over, shoved Jack Chick tracts into our hands, and said "you know you boys are wasting your time with that garbage, right?" Such outright hostility towards a different faith was horribly offensive to me, becasue I had always been taught to be accepting of other people's beliefs.
A few years ago, I finally noticed the disparity between Creationism and the scientific models of the age of the Universe, the age of the Earth, and evolution. I concluded that the Flood could never have happened, Exodus could never have happened as portrayed, 6-day Creationism was false, etc. Immediately, I determined that the Biblical stories must have been allegorical - I could have no faith in something that contradicted reality, and like many other Christians I decided that the "message" could remain intact even if the story was not literally true.
Not long after, I found several websites, including this one, that encouraged me to actually think critically about my beliefs for the first time in my life (older members may remember that when I first joined here, I was still a non-literalist Christian). It's embarrassing to admit that I had never really done so before, but that's the way my faith worked - I had always been taught that questioning God was wrong.
I began to read the parts of the Bible that had never been taught in Sunday School or brought up in sermons. I read the parts condemning homosexuality. For the first time, I read many of the stories containing atrocities and actually considered how this related to my view of a "good" God. I determined that a "good" God would not do evil things...but right there in the Bible I read of many instances where God indiscriminately killed people by the thousands, where God's "chosen people" raped, murdered, or enslaved entire nations, and I considered the full meaning of Revelations and Hell.
I concluded that there was a great deal of ethically repulsive content in the Bible, most of it committed directly by God, and most of the rest in his name. This did not fit with my conception of a loving, benevolent deity. At all. This was very difficult for me to deal with, so I once again determined that many of the stories must have been allegorical and not literally true, I concluded that some of the others must have been the result of history being "spun," where the offenders claimed God "told them to do it." After all, we have people even today who drown their children and claim "God told me to do it."
Then I looked into the actual history of the text, reading books like "Misquoting Jesus." I saw direct evidence of the Biblical text being purposefully altered, passages changed or deleted or added. I learned about the vast time difference between the oldest versions of the Gospels and the events they supposedly describe, and I read more about the differences between each of the sotries. I concluded that they were not the "same story from different perspectives" as I was always taught, but rather they were written for entirely different audiences and different purposes, portray Jesus in completely different ways, and directly contradict each other at several points. I read about the texts that were not included in the KJV Bible, and about the various early Churches and their varying beliefs, and how changes were actually made to the Biblical texts specifically to eliminate competing views, which is akin to planting evidence on an innocent victim.
I finally asked myself why I believed at all. The answer came out to be pretty pathetic - I had faith not becasue I was convinced by any form of evidence, but rather because my parents raised me to believe, and becasue of vague emotional "feelings." My "answered prayers" consisted of the most trivial matters, and I noted that prayers for anything of consequence were almost never answered - the incidence of answered prayers was identical to random chance.
My final conclusion was that, sicen I no longer had any reason to beleive, I could no longer believe. Some people may be able to have faith and believe something despite a complete lack of evidence or even in spite of contradictory evidence. I determined that I could no longer be one of them. Giving up my faith was one of the hardest things that's ever happened to me. My entire world-view was turned upside-down, I now face discrimination at work (my boss has quoted the Bible at me in performance reviews), and my family will disown me if I ever let them know that I no longer believe in God. But I feel better about myself, I value life much more now that I accept that this one is the only one we get, and I actually treat people far better than I ever did as a Christian.

Replies to this message:
 Message 12 by iano, posted 05-06-2008 7:17 PM Rahvin has replied

iano
Member (Idle past 1941 days)
Posts: 6165
From: Co. Wicklow, Ireland.
Joined: 07-27-2005


Message 12 of 219 (465420)
05-06-2008 7:17 PM
Reply to: Message 11 by Rahvin
05-06-2008 1:19 PM


Rahvin writes:
I determined that a "good" God would not do evil things...but right there in the Bible I read of many instances where God indiscriminately killed people by the thousands, where God's "chosen people" raped, murdered, or enslaved entire nations, and I considered the full meaning of Revelations and Hell.
Everyone is killed by God and unless he decides today's your day, you certainly ain't gonna die on it. Not unless you're correct in being inclined towards supposing that God could be taken by surprise that is. Taken by surprise by a drunk driver for instance.
Otherwise God is completely fair and impartial. That means that there is but one (physical) death per person - irrespective of race, religion, sexual orientation, creed*. Nor is it that only the good die young either.
-
God didn't instruct his chosen people to rape. I've debated the Numbers case (where Moses instructs that the "Midianite women and children be slain and only the virgins are to be taken") a number of times and no one has managed to make the rape charge come even close to sticking. It doesn't take all that much to make a tabloid front page (as you do here) but rape is a criminal charge and any argument made in that direction is reminded that criminal is the class of argument to be approached here - not tabloid charge.
Ditto murder...
-
Not that a murder charge has a snowballs chance in Hell mind...
Murder is essentially defined as: "unrighteous/unlawful killing". But if God instructs his chosen people to slaughter millions then no murder can have been committed by them. They executed their orders under instruction from the lawgiver as do armies in general. They would be but bullets in God's gun in that case, instruments of his warfare.
The difficulties become insurmountable when it comes to God-in-the-dock (were it that a doc could be found for God to stand in - but let us suppose Alice-in-Wonderland for a moment). How could a righteous killing (sinners promised death-by-God > sinners get death-by-God) ever be proven unrighteous? Is there a lawyer in the house?
Enslavement. Could it be punishment for sin? Should sinners be punished in Gods way and at Gods time?
-
The general trouble with your POV Rahvin, is that is doesn't stop to consider things in anything like the depth due to the God you suspect might exist. It's fast and loose ... and might well attract a PotM from a nodding donkey. But your POV stumbles badly at the fences of a Sovereign and Holy God. One who owns you and me. And whose will will be done in both our lives.
Like it or not.
Edited by iano, : No reason given.
Edited by iano, : No reason given.
Edited by iano, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 11 by Rahvin, posted 05-06-2008 1:19 PM Rahvin has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 13 by Rahvin, posted 05-07-2008 12:22 AM iano has replied
 Message 15 by bluegenes, posted 05-07-2008 5:56 AM iano has not replied
 Message 23 by Straggler, posted 05-07-2008 5:10 PM iano has replied

Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4032
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 9.2


Message 13 of 219 (465439)
05-07-2008 12:22 AM
Reply to: Message 12 by iano
05-06-2008 7:17 PM


I didn't make a post to be preached at, iano. I know where to go to hear that.
I'm not going to give you a full reply, because actually discussing the theological issues is not the topic of this thread.
Suffice it to say that I find your moral system repugnant. You determine morality based on the Authority, and whatever the Authority says is "good," even if the same act from anyone else would be "evil." It's literally might makes right - whoever has the bigger stick is "good," regardless of what he does.
You equivocate with legal definitions when the discussion is one of morality. Ethics is != laws, and only in primitive legal systems are the lawmakers exempt from their own rules.
Your attempts to refute my interpretation of the Bible are moot. If you are correct, your God is one that I would actively refuse to worship, as I find him to be a despicable cosmic psychopath.
But if you had really read my post, you would realize that my final conclusion was due not to moral concerns, but evidence. My moral compass prevents me from ever worshiping the same god you do, iano, but it's the lack of evidence for any deity that prevents me from believing in one. It is not in me to have faith.
The general trouble with your POV Rahvin, is that is doesn't stop to consider things in anything like the depth due to the God you suspect might exist. It's fast and loose ... and might well attract a PotM from a nodding donkey. But your POV stumbles badly at the fences of a Sovereign and Holy God. One who owns you and me. And whose will will be done in both our lives.
Like it or not.
The problem with yours, iano, is that it can be dismissed easily with two very simple words:
Prove it.
I have no reason whatsoever to believe anything you say, because the only thing you can back up your beliefs with is a musty old collection of books that is contradicted by reality at every turn.
Your faith, and your words, are meaningless to me until you can back them up with some sort of objective evidence. That is the reason for my Atheism.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 12 by iano, posted 05-06-2008 7:17 PM iano has replied

Replies to this message:
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dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 14 of 219 (465455)
05-07-2008 3:20 AM
Reply to: Message 13 by Rahvin
05-07-2008 12:22 AM


Suffice it to say that I find your moral system repugnant. You determine morality based on the Authority, and whatever the Authority says is "good," even if the same act from anyone else would be "evil."
An excellent course for a parent-to-be is developmental psychology. Early in our marriage, my much-later-ex-wife had taken it for her elementary-education degree and recommended I do the same, which I did.
One chapter of the textbook covered moral reasoning. Moral reasoning is eventually to reach the stage where the person considers the consequences of one's actions. But a much earlier stage is reached at a very young age: "rules-based morality". Where an authority sets arbitrary rules and the right-or-wrong is determined by whether or not the rules are followed and all responsibility for the consequences belong to the authority who sets the rules. As infamous experiments show (where adult subjects were instructed by an authority figure to administer potentially lethal electrical shocks to other subjects, even after said subjects no longer responded (ie, were probably dead or near death -- ie, after having informed the subject administering the shocks of a heart condition), this kind of morality allows the followers to commit unconscionable acts so long as the authority figure takes the resposibility for the consequences.
So if God made the rules and somebody dies, or worse, because of it, then it's not my responsibility but rather God's. He made the rules, after all. Ich befolgte bloss meine Befehle (the classic Nrnberg defense: "I was only following orders." Which is an inadmissible defense). And which is sadly where too many Christians are trapped, at the moral level of a five-year-old.
Edited by dwise1, : No reason given.
Edited by dwise1, : No reason given.

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bluegenes
Member (Idle past 2477 days)
Posts: 3119
From: U.K.
Joined: 01-24-2007


Message 15 of 219 (465461)
05-07-2008 5:56 AM
Reply to: Message 12 by iano
05-06-2008 7:17 PM


iano writes:
Murder is essentially defined as: "unrighteous/unlawful killing". But if God instructs his chosen people to slaughter millions then no murder can have been committed by them. They executed their orders under instruction from the lawgiver as do armies in general. They would be but bullets in God's gun in that case, instruments of his warfare.
Considering the well evidenced human tendency to invent Gods and their actions and laws, then a genocide for which supernatural excuses are offered is the same as any other. Only the delusional will argue otherwise.

This message is a reply to:
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