That sucks, man. Best of luck in that it isn't cancer, and if it is, hope they caught it early enough to warrant treatment.

I'm not going to plug my beliefs on the matter because this isn't a time to be doing so.

If you want my personal reason, it turned me from a depressed, assholish teenaged atheist into an accepting, quiet-about-it Christian.

At its simplest, I was drawn to my church because the people there are genuinely better people than the people I grew up with out of church. Where the members of my church accepted an a somewhat-standoffish atheist into their congregation with open arms and patience, my "friends" at school instantly abandoned me the instant I mentioned I went to church on Sunday. Where my reverend says we should be accepting of everyone's beliefs, whether quiet or loud, some atheists I personally knew would mock anyone who said "bless you" out of habit when someone sneezed (and this is really strange because I live in a very rural area. My school district doesn't really fit the stereotype). The worst Christians I can list were the Jehovah's witnesses that showed up at our house from time to time, but while pushy and annoying, they were at least courteous and pleasant people.

Now, anyone could argue that this is just my experience, and that there are plenty of people within the non-theistic community who behave in the same fashion as my congregation, and that is correct, but that is just what attracted me to the church. In the end, after all of the complicated explaining and personal discoveries I could list, it boils down to me finding a purpose in my life again after realizing that others appreciate a pat on the back or helpful hand every now and again. While I still believe in a higher power of some kind, believing in a god has become less about fearing and worshiping an omnipotent being and more about living out the ideals of your chosen faith. It's about believing in the messages of your god, to be a better person by example. It's comforting to believe that my efforts to be a better person might be rewarded after my life has ended, and if it's not, at least I made the lives of other people a bit better.

To me, it doesn't matter in the end if God is real or not, it's the lessons of equality, acceptance, and patience I learned through my faith that truly matter in life.

Now, if you want to know, beyond ideals, why I believe in an all-powerful creator god, it's just a choice I've made. There is nothing I can say to sway non-believers and nothing I can say that fellow believers don't know when it comes to the simple question "do you believe in a higher power?". There is no evidence that brought me to this conclusion, no miracles that made me switch on sight, nothing. It's a moral choice, that's it.

It wouldn't matter. As good as we think that the Earth would be without us, everything will be dead in less than a billion years when the Sun heats up.

Think about it. If humans continue to exist until such a time, we may have spread throughout space and managed to save billions of potential species of life from our planet. If we never existed, everything WILL die no matter what.

Samurai Jack is my favorite, followed very closely by The Simpsons and FMA. Looney Tunes is somewhere up there.

They're fascinating... for the most part. Always loved observing how they fit into the Western PA norm.

Despite living in a VERY rural area (my neighbors are amish), my school saw many exchange students. 2 Belgians, a Canadian, 4 Japanese kids, a kid from Israel (he was muslim, strangely), a Greek, and a German.

The Belgians were just normal. If they didn't have accents, never would have guessed they weren't from around here. They were rural kids, brothers, and assimilated instantly. They even picked up on the local dialect after a few weeks.

The German girl came in when I was a Junior and was your Hollywood style supermodel-type Aryan chick. Yeah, she was hot. Yeah, everyone loved her BECAUSE she was German and hot. I personally thought she was a bit of a douche, but I never talked to her until the holidays. She ended up becoming good friends with my cousin and showed up to a family party we were having for Christmas a few days before she went home to celebrate Christmas with her family. Turned out she was huge into Pokemon and we spent an hour or 2 talking about our favorite gens and pokemon before she left. She was alright once I found some common ground.

The Canadian was just odd. Best way I can describe him is just he was... REALLY proud to be Canadian and REALLY excited to show other kids what that meant. Got along with him just fine because he loved hockey.

The Japanese kids were all students from the same school who came over to study English as part of a 6 week program, though they could speak it pretty fluently if you asked me. All of them were from Tokyo and had never really left the city before, so being in a rural school district in the most remote part of my county, surrounded by kids who spend their free time working on farms and care for little else, with the closest large town being 15 miles away, they were REALLY out of their element. One of them was staying with a family of mine a mile up the road, so she rode my bus everyday. She was hysterical about the cornfields, wanted to take pictures of all of the farm animals, and fell in love with our accents. Being from my area, we have a slight variation of the Appalachian accent most of you might know as Pittsburghese. We used words they had never heard before and sounded not too far off from the people in the movie "Deliverance". They were just fascinated with every little bit of our lives in the area. A friend of mine owns a llama farm just down the road from me, and the girl would show up every few days to pet, feed, and take pictures of and with the llamas. She didn't expect to see animals like that in our area, so he was unsurprising ecstatic. They were a blast to have around and everyone felt bad when they had to leave.

The Israeli kid took some flak his first few days when people found out he was muslim, but that died down and he just went about with his business. He wasn't in any of my classes, so I never got to talk with him.

The Greek kid came in when I was in 2nd grade. His family had initially moved here when his dad got a job over here, but they moved to Cleveland after a few months. I don't remember too much about him, but we thought he was awesome simply because he had an awesome accent. From what I remember, he was a pretty ok kid.

The white hurts my eyes.

Most brass instruments and mallet percussion, but I'm best on the trumpet. Being as I'm not in school, I haven't played the thing nearly as much as I should, but I do occasionally pick it up for a video game remix, like this one.

How dare this cretin obstruct the trumpet arts. As a fellow trumpeter, I am appalled.

"Men's drinks" are often bitter, strong, or plain.

"Women's drinks" are often light, fruity, or fancy and decorative.

Just another stigma to add onto social norms. Doesn't matter much to me, I personally think alcohol tastes like gasoline smells (and I can't stand that perfumey aftertaste it leaves). I go to bars for the food. I love me some $.20 wings.

Tenaka, to be religious is simply believe that their is more to life than the natural world beyond what humans can comprehend.

To be judgmental is to be lacking in reason and logical thought. You, of all people, should know that making claims as pure fact without overwhelmingly substantial evidence is a pretty short-sighted move.