# Do you believe in Heaven?



## Sunshine009 (Sep 21, 2008)

There was one on the other place so its natural to do this one.


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## MindOverMood (Dec 12, 2009)




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## Hank Scorpio (Oct 28, 2008)

Even if there was an afterlife I'd definitely bet against heaven.


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## SilentLoner (Jan 30, 2006)

No.


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## flyinginside (Jan 19, 2010)

No, although it would be nice if there were such a place.


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## BetaBoy90 (Jan 5, 2010)

Heaven sounds like a great concept, but as from my experience on earth I realise nothing is 100% good or 100% bad. I just don't believe in such a thing after death, I do feel I could be reincarnated into a different world though...:um


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## millenniumman75 (Feb 4, 2005)

*Yes!*


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## OregonMommy (Mar 3, 2010)

Would like to believe there is, I used to. I'm more of a realist now. If there is, then great! If not, that's okay, too, just trying to create some heaven here on earth, but nothing is in black and white, just focusing on the here and now.


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## Duke of Prunes (Jul 20, 2009)

Nope. When you die, that's it. There's no heaven or hell.


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## Futures (Aug 27, 2005)

No


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## Just Lurking (Feb 8, 2007)

I'd like to believe.


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## Toad Licker (Nov 2, 2007)

Hell No! :evil


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## estse (Nov 18, 2003)

No.


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## shyvr6 (Feb 18, 2008)

If I say yes, will I go to heaven? What if I say pretty please, hehe?


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## power2theweak (Jan 2, 2009)

Absolutely!!!


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## bowlingpins (Oct 18, 2008)

I don't. Except for stories, there is zero proof that a place like heaven exists. Why should I believe in it?

http://www.newsweek.com/id/235462

There are those who believe that science will eventually explain everything-including our enduring belief in heaven. The thesis here is very simple: heaven is not a real place, or even a process or a supernatural event. It's something that happens in your brain as you die.

I first encountered this idea as I was researching my new book, Heaven: Our Enduring Fascination With the Afterlife. I was having lunch with my friend and colleague Christopher Dickey, who told me that his father, the writer James Dickey, had a fantasy of heaven in which all of his closest friends were sitting around a swimming pool, chatting. "There was nothing special about the pool itself," wrote Chris in Summer of Deliverance: A Memoir of Father and Son. "Nobody walked on the water. And he never told me who the friends were ... But what he took away from the dream was a sense of contentment, of being at ease with himself and the world, as if he had gotten a preview of heaven. He called that place 'The Happy Swimming Pool.' " Chris believes that everything we think we know about heaven happens in the moments before death. After that, there's nothing.

Science cannot definitively proof or disprove Chris's theory, but some scientists are willing to take guesses. And these guesses are based, in part, on a growing body of research around near-death experience (NDE). According to a 2000 article in The Lancet, between 9 and 18 percent of people who have been demonstrably near death report having had such an experience. And surveys of NDE accounts show great similarities in the details. People who have had NDEs describe-like some religious visionaries-a tunnel, a light, a gate, or a door, a sense of being out of the body, meeting people they know or have heard about, finding themselves in the presence of God, and then returning, changed.

Andrew Newberg is an associate professor in the radiology department at the University of Pennsylvania who has made his reputation studying the brain scans of religious people (nuns and monks) who have ecstatic experiences as they meditate. He believes the "tunnel" and "light" phenomena can be explained easily. As your eyesight fades, you lose the peripheral areas first, he hypothesizes. "That's why you'd have a tunnel sensation." If you see a bright light, that could be the central part of the visual system shutting down last.

Newberg puts forward the following scenario, which, he emphasizes, is guesswork. When people die, two parts of the brain, which usually work in opposition to each other, act cooperatively. The sympathetic nervous system-a web of nerves and neurons running through the spinal cord and spread to virtually every organ in the body-is responsible for arousal and excitement. It gets you ready for action. The parasympathetic system-with which the sympathetic system is entwined-calms you down and rejuvenates you. In life, the turning on of one system prompts the shutting down of the other. The sympathetic nervous system kicks in when a car cuts you off on the highway; the parasympathetic system is in charge as you're falling asleep. But in the brains of people reporting mystical experiences-and, perhaps, in death-both systems are fully "on," giving a person the sensation both of slowing down, being "out of body," and of seeing things vividly, including memories of important people and past events. Does Newberg believe, then, that visions of heaven are merely chemical-neurological events? He laughs nervously. "I don't know." He laughs again. "It's, um &#8230; I don't think we have enough evidence to say."

Since at least the 1980s, scientists have theorized that NDEs occur as a kind of physiological self-defense mechanism. In order to guard against damage during trauma, the brain releases protective chemicals that also happen to trigger intense hallucinations. This theory gained traction after scientists realized that virtually all the features of an NDE-a sense of moving through a tunnel, and "out of body" feeling, spiritual awe, visual hallucinations, and intense memories-can be reproduced with a stiff dose of ketamine, a horse tranquilizer frequently used as a party drug. In 2000, a psychiatrist named Karl Jansen wrote a book, Ketamine: Dreams and Realities, in which he interviewed a number of recreational users. One of them, who called himself K.U., describes one of his drug trips this way: "I came out into a golden Light. I rose into the Light and found myself having an unspoken interchange with the Light, which I believed to be God." Dante said it better, but the vision is astonishingly the same.


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## Neptunus (Oct 29, 2007)

"Yes, probably so." Or, more accurately, "yes, hopefully so."

Either way, heaven for me would involve the end of suffering. So, if we cease to exist when we bite the dust, I'm fine with that. In the same vein, if there is an actual afterlife, I lean towards the belief that people go to the paradise promoted by their religion or in agreement with their own spiritual views. After all, that's the paradise you're aiming for, so why wouldn't it be granted? Of course you could just be reincarnated until you reach a point of being more spiritually pure, then gain entrance to, or reach a state of paradise, as per some of the Eastern faiths. :stu Heh, we'll all find out in the end!


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## UltraShy (Nov 8, 2003)

NO


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## kindasorta (Apr 20, 2009)

I'm a radical atheist. So my answer is no.


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## Cerz (Jan 18, 2010)

No, scientifically impossible.
Of course we would all like it too be real, but it's not.


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## Cerz (Jan 18, 2010)

MindOverMood said:


>


Neither is a dictionary :teeth


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## anonymid (Oct 16, 2005)




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## zomgz (Aug 17, 2009)

millenniumman75 said:


> *Yes!*


^^ what he said lol :]


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## Paul (Sep 26, 2005)

After a little research, I've determined that Heaven does exist. It's a small town in China. It sounds underwhelming but I trust it's better than Hell, Michigan.



kindasorta said:


> I'm a radical atheist.


Does that mean you go around blowing stuff up, or just that you're really cool?


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## bsd3355 (Nov 30, 2005)

I gusss I'll find out when I'm dead. :idea

I really do love the idea of it but it doesn't seem realistic, especially since Jesus ain't never talked to me.... like... ever.


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## heyJude (Aug 1, 2009)

I like to think there is.


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## SilentWitness (Dec 27, 2009)

I'd like to believe there is such a place but it would be safer to say probably not, I don't know, and to be honest, most days I don't even care.


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## Ambivert (Jan 16, 2010)

We should focus on making this planet a heaven instead of waiting for one that does not exist when we die


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## TheCanadian1 (Sep 14, 2009)

Yes, but it's not in the "you get whatever you want, floating above the clouds" sense.

I also believe in reincarnation.

Like other's have said... I guess I'll find out one day!


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## Emptyheart (Sep 15, 2009)

Sure do and I'll be seeing you all there one day


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## Mc Borg (Jan 4, 2008)

Yup, I have an aunt who's a Curondera and is in tune with God/the spiritual realm. She's told me things that only God and I would know, one thing specifically was something that happened to me throughout the 7th grade that caused me the worst depression of my life. There is no way she could've possibly known, as obviously I have SA, and would never have told her, plus I don't even know her that well.

Not to mention my own personal experiences with the paranormal.

None of you will believe me, and I really don't care. lol


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## gandalfthegrey (Feb 14, 2010)

nah religion was created to give people hope and a meaning to life


wasnt the bible invented by a crazy woman i saw a documentary about it


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## bowlingpins (Oct 18, 2008)

What proof is there that heaven exists? This is a genuine question not meant to offend anyone. I want to believe in heaven but I can't convince myself it exists.


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## shyvr6 (Feb 18, 2008)

There really isn't any proof that heaven exists unless you believe what they said in your religious book to be true or people's stories that have had NDE's.


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## kindasorta (Apr 20, 2009)

Hoth said:


> After a little research, I've determined that Heaven does exist. It's a small town in China. It sounds underwhelming but I trust it's better than Hell, Michigan.
> 
> Does that mean you go around blowing stuff up, or just that you're really cool?


It just means I'm super cool. I don't hassle religious people. Live and let live. I got the term "radical atheist" from Douglas Adams who described himself as one. I'm pretty much on par with him I think in that aspect. Here's some quotes:



> Adams described himself as a "radical atheist", adding "radical" for emphasis so he would not be asked if he meant agnostic. He told American Atheists that this made things easier, but most importantly it conveyed the fact that he really meant it. "I am convinced that there is not a god," he said. Despite this, he remained fascinated by religion because of its effect on human affairs. "I love to keep poking and prodding at it. I've thought about it so much over the years that that fascination is bound to spill over into my writing."


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## Roscoe (Apr 21, 2009)

proof? i cant imagine how the red blood cells in my body feel. for all they know theres nothing greater than them.


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## Dane (Jul 27, 2009)

Yes. There's no way to prove it, and I can't say that I'm 100% convinced myself, but I believe in it instinctively. Besides, I'm an optimist.


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## metallica2147 (Feb 15, 2010)

No. I believe it's just like it was before we were born: nothing. It would be nice though.


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## Witan (Jun 13, 2009)

I put probably not, but that I don't know. I mean that in the same way that I don't know that there isn't a gigantic pink elephant living on the far side of the moon. But I consider them both to be equally unlikely.


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## 4realguy (Mar 11, 2010)

yes for sure


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## Groundskeeper (Feb 6, 2010)

*Yes!!! :boogie
*


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## Fitzer (Feb 13, 2010)

No, if something sounds too good to be true, it usually is. Who wants to live forever anyway? Heaven would just be eternal boredom. No thanks


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## lyssado707 (Oct 29, 2004)

I don't know. I don't think u can know those sorts of things for 100% sure until u die.


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## matt404 (Feb 8, 2006)

I don't have any belief in an afterlife, so I went with "No." If someday I get some evidence that I find compelling which points toward the existence of an afterlife, I might change my views. As it is, the idea of "heaven" sounds a lot like something humans invented to make the frightening unknown of death seem a little less frightening.


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## Cleary (Nov 10, 2007)

No.


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## Hamtown (Jun 10, 2010)

No way but if there is one i think a god could appreciate the fact i only want to know this life for the time being.The concept of heaven is too much of a "la la land" for me, i think to accept imperfections in this world as they are is a perfection in itself.


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## Haydsmom2007 (Oct 16, 2009)

absolutely not


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## Keith (Aug 30, 2008)

No, i do believe in an afterlife though kinda a blend of eastern and pagan beliefs. Heaven just seems too unrealistic.


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## crayzyMed (Nov 2, 2006)

I wish it existed. (just living on the planet earth like now is heaven for me, if only i didnt die!!)


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## Manfi (May 30, 2010)

lol **** no


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## NVU (Jul 1, 2010)

I don't get how people can give a solid answer, or say it's 'scientifically' impossible. I'm not religious but lets be real, science is all theory when it comes to this stuff. Life somewhere else doesn't necessarily mean it's life as we know it. Who's to say there's only one universe, maybe life exists elsewhere a million times bigger or smaller. I'm open to pretty much anything, if it's unproven it's a possiblity.


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## Sameer (Feb 2, 2010)

There ain't no Heaven / Hell / God. All those exists...only for religious people.


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## poeticinjustice (Jul 3, 2010)

I believe in heaven. we're only on earth 70-80 years.... where are we the rest of the time?


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## jim_morrison (Aug 17, 2008)

_probably not, I don't know_


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## mountaindew (Jul 5, 2010)

I used to, no longer do. I also don't believe in Narnia or Neverland.


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## Skip_DJ (Jan 30, 2010)

Nope. No such thing as Heaven, only a defense created by humans because they are not strong enough to accept that all things come to an end. Nothing lives forever, and if it did, It'd become torture; no worse a hell imaginable once all is said and done and known and seen over 49382940830480.4 years and yer stuck in an eternal boredom, like being trapped in an infinite waiting room you can't leave, knowing very well that your name will NEVER be called.

I think that's the reason we bear children. We cease to be, but our kids are us, minus the memories, yet they mix with others to create new people. I think to the universe, we as seperate individuals are meaningless; we're not owed anything like eternal life or happiness.


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## jim_morrison (Aug 17, 2008)

Basically the way I see it is that I don't remember existing before I was born, and I assume that death will be exactly the same.


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## cookiedough (Jul 9, 2010)

I was brought up believing in heaven (having 2 immediate family members die when I was very young)
When I was around 13 I stopped believing then I was thinking you know how we dream? that's kind of magical (yeah you can get all scientific with me and explain that it's just the brain doing blahblahblah I don't wanna hear it, cause it's magical to me)

Well sometimes dreams are *really* vivid and you wake up wondering whether that just really happened or not...

Well I think that when we die yeah all our organs stop working brain etc but maybe our souls just go into one big vivid dream for eternity?

Also my Nana had quadruple heart surgery and she said when she was under she saw a white light (I know cheesy) and her mom said "It's not your time yet" (Meaning she still had many more years to live)

Sorry if this doesn't make sense I haven't slept for almost 2 days x)


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## Deathinmusic (Jun 5, 2009)

Sure don't. I actively disbelieve in god, heaven, hell, demons, angels... In fact anything supernatural.


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## Lasair (Jan 25, 2010)

It is hard to believe in Heaven - If it is a place where all is good and we all get along what about the people we do not like or have hurt us...do we end up being friends and getting along, that's not an ideal heaven


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## Georgina 22 (Jan 4, 2009)

I'm supposed to be a christian but even then it's hard to believe if there is a heaven


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## hoddesdon (Jul 28, 2011)

Mc Borg said:


> Yup, I have an aunt who's a Curondera and is in tune with God/the spiritual realm. She's told me things that only God and I would know, one thing specifically was something that happened to me throughout the 7th grade that caused me the worst depression of my life. There is no way she could've possibly known, as obviously I have SA, and would never have told her, plus I don't even know her that well.
> 
> Not to mention my own personal experiences with the paranormal.
> 
> None of you will believe me, and I really don't care. lol


 I believe you. I was thinking today about an avatar belonging to someone on a similar website who lives in the same city as I do. Someone on that other website made a comment about it. That same avatar appears on this thread.


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## leave me alone (Apr 1, 2011)

No.


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## One Man Wolfpack (Aug 11, 2011)

There is a heaven but you only get to go there if you don't believe in it.


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## shelbster18 (Oct 8, 2011)

**** no!


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## RUFB2327 (Sep 28, 2008)

Tough one. It would be nice if it did exist, but it's hard to believe in something when you have no actual proof of its existence.


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## estse (Nov 18, 2003)

Do dogs eat cat feces?


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## huh (Mar 19, 2007)

Yes, it has a stripper factory and a beer volcano. Can't wait..


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## MobiusX (Nov 14, 2008)




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## The Lost Boy (Nov 23, 2011)

No. Death is alot like what you are before you are born, nothing. Without a mind and self consciousness to understand time and the space around you, there is nothing. You just dont exist, its difficult to imagine, even I want to think there is more. In reality though our species isnt very important and we will not be rewarded with eternal bliss.


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## northstar1991 (Oct 4, 2011)

I would like to believe there's a heaven!


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## i just want luv (Feb 13, 2011)

Yes without a doubt.


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## prudence (Jan 31, 2010)

*Is there a heaven?*

I'd put "I don't know" without the "probably yes or no".


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## Tugwahquah (Apr 13, 2011)

There is heaven right here on earth. I experience heaven every-time I take a Calgon bath, eat really good tasting foods, touch nature, sleep-in, and snuggle-up in my Snuggy.

The heaven you all speak of proceeding death, does not exist.


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## bsd3355 (Nov 30, 2005)

Wait, I was told I was going to meet Barney in heaven!? Will it happen you think?


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## Fantas Eyes (Mar 23, 2011)

I believe there is a place that the righteous go to be with God for eternity, but I don't call it "heaven".


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## MobiusX (Nov 14, 2008)

Where is the heaven supposedly located? We haven't found anything in space that fits the description of heaven found in the bible.


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## The Lost Boy (Nov 23, 2011)

ShinAkuma said:


> Where is the heaven supposedly located? We haven't found anything in space that fits the description of heaven found in the bible.


 Some people are too afraid to embrace the nature of reality. They want to think they are apart of a divine purpose and that they will be rewarded with eternal bliss. Nothing wrong with that but its holding back our species imo


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## Addler (Apr 28, 2011)

I don't think so. Part of me hopes yes, that it gets better after death in some experiential way; another part of me just wants to end consciousness.

Besides, you know how crowded the afterlife would be? That'd be hellish for someone with SA.


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## Jinxx (May 10, 2011)

I'm Agnostic so I'm not going to deny anything cause I simply don't know. However, I don't have much belief of a Heaven's existence. I lean more towards Reincarnation.


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## DazdNConfuzd (Jul 11, 2011)

The question in the title is not the same as the question in the poll.


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## AnAngelsLove (Aug 2, 2010)

Yes ʚįɞ


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## Marleywhite (Aug 24, 2012)

I believe in a chocolate heaven


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## mattigummi (Aug 26, 2012)

Nope!


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