God. We have a problem, or do we?

[HornOnTheBayou 8947]

20 hours ago, sidis said:

Cracked skin on her thumb. Would not (be with her in a living arrangement that is not Biblical).

[GringoSalado 1652]

22 hours ago, sidis said:

from an anecdotal perspective, this chick disagrees. 

I'm not seeing where she says that. Obv she chose to put herself in that position, so she at least, at one time, believed in what the letter says. I was thinking perhaps she was an employee for a sec., (eta) and that would be fucked up, but it doesn't appear that way.

Edited April 1, 2021 by GringoSalado

[landman 559]

Not a church goer, because they have gotten so far from what they should be.  But I do believe, wife and I say the blessing each night at dinner, and I pray fairly often.

I will say I feel that as society slides further away from religion - be it church attendance or simply believing and following the principals taught, it slides further away from morality, teaching what is right, honor, respect, good deeds, etc.  Just my opinion. 

[BearSchlong 8114]

When the weather is nice, I will go many Sundays without church and instead take my elderly dad fishing. And when I return and people ask where I've been, I tell them the truth, no fucks given. Dads health could fail at anytime and I'm not giving up the chance to let him catch specks.

That letter pisses me off everytime I see it. Those elders are assholes.

[DonkeyCigars 143]

In the eleventh century, St. Anselm of Canterbury proposed an argument for the existence of God that went roughly like this: God is, by definition, the greatest being that we can imagine; a God that doesn’t exist is clearly not as great as a God that does exist; ergo, God must exist.

[DonkeyCigars 143]

On 3/31/2021 at 5:44 PM, sidis said:

but it may apply to both depending on who and what you think truly authored it both physically and metaphysically.  any sane person with a remote familiarity of history and specifically, the history of the bible in the formation of the torah, the gospels over the following centuries, paul's work, and the early catholic church understands the history of how it came to be and that the physical manifestation of it was not only human, but also subject to human processes including politics...but one cannot ignore the association with the sacred text as being anywhere from written by to endorsed by the supreme being of choice...and the expectation that such a thing would be separate from human social development. 

anyway, if i dwell in this thread much longer, my good friend axiom of choice will undoubtedly smell it from some other corner of the internet and i will get drawn into playing the role of kant to his godel and leibniz to debate the nuances of the third and fourth axioms of the ontological and cosmological arguments for the thousandth time on this site and its predecessors so i am going to eject from this...

Nice try, Axiom of Choice. Besides we all know William Sidis died at the age of 46 in 1944 from a stroke.

[Lurch 5931]

[Blotto 23579]

On 4/1/2021 at 3:47 PM, landman said:

I will say I feel that as society slides further away from religion - be it church attendance or simply believing and following the principals taught, it slides further away from morality, teaching what is right, honor, respect, good deeds, etc.  Just my opinion. 

Not a believer, never have been, but I see little evidence that religion in this country has fuck all to do with  morality, teaching what is right, honor, respect, good deeds, etc. Those are concepts that can exist completely outside the constructs of religion. 

[956 Worldwide 34785]

On 3/31/2021 at 6:25 AM, NWBuck said:

Not that this is unique to Christianity, but it seems that the current moment is yet another example of a faith/religion of based on sacrifice and selflessnes initially being co-opted by power and prestige and then discovering that they liked it. At some point it became addicted to the power and compromised foundationally to maintain it.

As true with Constantine and the (Holy) Roman Empire, so to with the Religious Right. In order to protect themselves (from persecution from Rome, from the "godlessness" of the cultural revolutions of the 60s and 70s), many literally sold their souls rather than trust that the message they preached was true.

When it came down to it, it was easier to trust in chariots and horses than in the name of the Lord their God.

Constantine gets a bad rap (and had nothing to do with the Holy Roman Empire). As an ancient, his thinking is foreign to us but he wasn’t a religious zealot or particularly despotic by the standards of his time. He was highly capable and by some measures brilliant, and had a near impossible job.

The Council of Nicea is subject to almost the same amount of propaganda against it as for it.  It wasn’t some devious plot to crush the heretics, much less turn tables on the pagans.  The losing, Arian, side wasn’t suppressed by unfair means by some vastly more powerful cabal. They controlled vast swathes of the Christian areas of the empire and had their own bishops and hierarchy as well. We are projecting when we frame them as proto-Protestants or even worse, the 3rd century equivalent of “spiritual but not religious.” Constantine was fed up with his subjects quarreling violently over what were, to him, inscrutable points of doctrine and made all the bishops show up, hash things out, and then he enforced the decisions they all made. And it was what we’d call a “command performance.”

Constantine settled on Christianity for a good reason and by the 4th Century it was already an organized Church with lots of adherents and a reasonable potential unifying force. It had grown the hard way— missionary work and being in general an attractive alternative to various official and non- official forms of paganism. And after 300 odd years of varying degrees of being shit on by the ancient world’s hegemon. The early Church rightly viewed his patronage as a welcome break in what had been a dreary few centuries of oppression. 

[Anastasis 23484]

[workswithseed 2111]

4 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

I don't know the Eastern Christians under Chinese, and Muslim rule look more like the Chad Christian. Western Christians though...

[GringoSalado 1652]

21 hours ago, Blotto said:

Those are concepts that can exist completely outside the constructs of religion. 

Don't disagree but would they exist at all w/out religion of some kind? Didn't religion create this morality?

[sidis 9832]

On 4/5/2021 at 12:55 PM, GringoSalado said:

Don't disagree but would they exist at all w/out religion of some kind? Didn't religion create this morality?

stop clicking the link to this thread, me. -me

Edited June 27, 2022 by sidis

[crash_davis 23115]

1 hour ago, GringoSalado said:

Don't disagree but would they exist at all w/out religion of some kind? Didn't religion create this morality?

fucking lulz. the ignorance and myopic arrogance of religion. I'd argued that morality created religion.

billions of people for thousands of years around the world who didn't and don't worship on sundays are doing just fine without religion. 

[Goredho 17421]

Every day I take a few minutes to count my blessings, reflect on recent events where I should have been better, tell my dead father I miss him, wish for peace to anyone I may be in conflict with and ask any higher power capable of tuning into my thoughts to help me be a better father, husband, man and human than I have been at times in the past.

Turns out that’s all the religion I need to be at peace with myself and the world around me.

Edited April 5, 2021 by Goredho

[crash_davis 23115]

1 minute ago, Goredho said:

Every day I take a few minutes to count my blessings, reflect on recent events where I should have been better, tell my dead father I miss him, ask for peace to anyone I may be in conflict with and ask any higher power capable of tuning into my thoughts to help me be a better father, husband, man and human than I have been at times in the past.

Turns out that’s all the religion I need to be at peace with myself and the world around me.

spirituality. you think there's something there. does it matter? not really. whatever it is, it comforts you and my even provide some self directed guidance in times of struggle. spirituality is different for everyone, just as religion is different for everyone.

i like spirituality. it's peace without the externally induced guilt.

[Goredho 17421]

2 minutes ago, crash_davis said:

spirituality. you think there's something there. does it matter? not really. whatever it is, it comforts you and my even provide some self directed guidance in times of struggle. spirituality is different for everyone, just as religion is different for everyone.

i like spirituality. it's peace without the externally induced guilt.

Yep, I think the main thing for me is that it is  introspective and centered on myself and what my shortcomings are vs anyone else’s.  It’s taking spiritual responsibility for myself and what I am in control of and leaving everyone else to do the same.

[BabaYaga 15321]

This thread is a giant @crash_davis created straw man.....and I love every bit of it.  

[crash_davis 23115]

2 minutes ago, BabaYaga said:

This thread is a giant @crash_davis created straw man.....and I love every bit of it.  

Almost as yuge of a strawman is Christianity. You are born of sin so you need religion to free you of it. You didn't actually commit the sin. Come to my church every week and pay my $9.95 to fix it for you. But you won't know if it's fixed until you're dead.

That's the greatest sales job that there is.

 

[BabaYaga 15321]

Just now, crash_davis said:

Almost as yuge of a strawman is Christianity. You are born of sin so you need religion to free you of it. You didn't actually commit the sin. Come to my church every week and pay my $9.95 to fix it for you. But you won't know if it's fixed until you're dead.

That's the greatest sales job that there is.

 

Simplifications are cute

[crash_davis 23115]

4 minutes ago, BabaYaga said:

Simplifications are cute

as opposed to a giant book full of fantastic stories which may or may not be the word of god. you get to choose which are his words to believe and which words can be ignored. sounds like a wonderful book to hold in high regard.

Edited April 5, 2021 by crash_davis

[GringoSalado 1652]

1 hour ago, crash_davis said:

fucking lulz.

Truly hilarious.

[Gatorubet 30317]

I'm not seeing where she says that. Obv she chose to put herself in that position

Non-missionary position. Hence the wrath.

[Guest]

On 3/31/2021 at 5:44 PM, sidis said:

but it may apply to both depending on who and what you think truly authored it both physically and metaphysically.  any sane person with a remote familiarity of history and specifically, the history of the bible in the formation of the torah, the gospels over the following centuries, paul's work, and the early catholic church understands the history of how it came to be and that the physical manifestation of it was not only human, but also subject to human processes including politics...but one cannot ignore the association with the sacred text as being anywhere from written by to endorsed by the supreme being of choice...and the expectation that such a thing would be separate from human social development. 

anyway, if i dwell in this thread much longer, my good friend axiom of choice will undoubtedly smell it from some other corner of the internet and i will get drawn into playing the role of kant to his godel and leibniz to debate the nuances of the third and fourth axioms of the ontological and cosmological arguments for the thousandth time on this site and its predecessors so i am going to eject from this...

I don't think there can be any actuality without consciousness.  Consciousness is what converts the potential to the actual.  In other words, nothing is real unless it is real to some mind. My view is that ontological bedrock is both mind and possible rule systems (i.e. games), and these are distinct things.  Actuality or reality is made when possibilities within given games are selected and experienced by minds.  Our universe without minds is just a set of rules and exists in no more meaningful sense than any other set of rules.  A game played and a possible game are different things, and only conscious entities can play/experience games. Consciousness is what "breathes fire into the equations," to use Hawking's words.

If one assumes the above and runs it back with some diligence, then one will arrive at the existence of the game of games and the existence of the supreme eternal mind.  The laws of physics are a possible subset of the game of games and our minds have some similar properties in limited degree to (i.e. made in the image of) the supreme mind.  Maybe one day we get to ascend to the game of games.

I think the above independent of any sacred text.  Many ancient cultures and philosophers arrived at similar views, or at least some of the core principles outlined above.  If there was some cataclysmic event and all history and writings were erased, they would again emerge.  Of course, that doesn't make the viewpoint true; my point is that the worldviews that contain some or all of the elements given above can be held and argued absent any sacred text and in my view it is better to discuss it independently like any other worldview.     

[Anastasis 23484]

 

[Guest]

37 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

 

Thanks. Internet seems angrier than when I left.  I don't think independents can make it.  Hopefully a forum gang will adopt me, or at least tolerate me enough to provide some cover.  Should be possible if I stick to metaphysics and coffee.

[SHOOTER12 8830]

On 4/1/2021 at 2:26 PM, HornOnTheBayou said:

Cracked skin on her thumb. Would not (be with her in a living arrangement that is not Biblical).

That whole nasty ass hand needs to be cut off before I'd have anything to do with her...

[Murfdogg21 4430]

On 4/5/2021 at 3:14 PM, crash_davis said:

as opposed to a giant book full of fantastic stories which may or may not be the word of god. you get to choose which are his words to believe and which words can be ignored. sounds like a wonderful book to hold in high regard.

I don’t speak for all Christians, but I take the Bible more as a guide and historical reference than a rule book. 

[Anastasis 23484]

1 hour ago, axiom of foundation said:

Should be possible if I stick to metaphysics and coffee.

I'd like to read some of y'all go back and forth on the metaphysics of natural law and natural rights. There is some particular timely relevance. But coffee posts are certainly a more stable ground. It's too bad that Quacks never made it through the reboots.  

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

I'd like to read some of y'all go back and forth on the metaphysics of natural law and natural rights. There is some particular timely relevance. But coffee posts are certainly a more stable ground. It's too bad that Quacks never made it through the reboots.  

Agreed on the bold.  It's important to be able to discuss foundational views that underlie our positions without necessarily discussing the end positions themselves.  A certain topic that shall not be named is a perfect example.  Perhaps the granddaddy of all ethical questions in the world today (also strongly dependent on one's metaphysical views on existence and nature of soul and its acquisition) at front and center stage, but focus seems to be mostly on very specific legal procedure, at least from what I've read.  That's understandable to a degree given the circumstances, but it would be good to have a place to talk about ideas and their roots without immediate move to explicit application and the talking past one another that typically follows.   

On natural law & rights, I get why people argue and disagree on exactly what one's natural rights are in detail, but it's a bit baffling to me that people argue that there is no such thing as absolute natural rights - only whatever we agree as a society.  Society often agrees upon things that are unjust.  What does one appeal to when claiming society is unjust if there is no such thing as natural law?     

[Bookman 4642]

2 hours ago, axiom of foundation said:

 On natural law & rights, I get why people argue and disagree on exactly what one's natural rights are in detail, but it's a bit baffling to me that people argue that there is no such thing as absolute natural rights - only whatever we agree as a society.

Because nature does not enforce any of those rights.

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, Bookman said:

Because nature does not enforce any of those rights.

By nature do you mean the physical laws of the universe?  If so, then no, of course not.  The whole point of discussing rights and ethics is to discuss the way things ought to be, not the way things are.  And we know that the way things ought to be does not align with what actually occurs.  So what is it we reference when we discuss the the way things ought to be, or when we say something is unjust? It can't be simply the laws of physics, because there is no oughts or injustices in physics.  There is only what happens.   

[Bookman 4642]

7 hours ago, axiom of foundation said:

By nature do you mean the physical laws of the universe? 

Sure, as well as nature, gods, whatever. God certainly isn't out there enforcing any natural rights.

[Guest]

50 minutes ago, Bookman said:

Sure, as well as nature, gods, whatever. God certainly isn't out there enforcing any natural rights.

There is a difference between the enforcement of rights and the existence of rights.  Injustice is the gap between natural rights and the enforcement of those rights.  If some of our rights are not being enforced, we say our rights are being denied.  

[Goofyboy 3297]

Question: Who decided that Christian’s were to stop following the Old Testament? Or do folks pick and choose from there what they follow?

My understanding is that the first commandment is you can’t worship anyone over god (Yahweh). anyone that worships Jesus as their lord and savior is breaking Rule #1 and will have their soul destroyed (since hell does not exist in the original bibles).

So, does everyone just pick and choose and build their own faith that they then believe will still get them to Heaven?

[Bookman 4642]

2 hours ago, axiom of foundation said:

There is a difference between the enforcement of rights and the existence of rights.

It’s not a right if it’s not enforced. 

[sidis 9832]

17 hours ago, axiom of foundation said:

I don't think there can be any actuality without consciousness.  Consciousness is what converts the potential to the actual.  In other words, nothing is real unless it is real to some mind. My view is that ontological bedrock is both mind and possible rule systems (i.e. games), and these are distinct things.  Actuality or reality is made when possibilities within given games are selected and experienced by minds.  Our universe without minds is just a set of rules and exists in no more meaningful sense than any other set of rules.  A game played and a possible game are different things, and only conscious entities can play/experience games. Consciousness is what "breathes fire into the equations," to use Hawking's words.

If one assumes the above and runs it back with some diligence, then one will arrive at the existence of the game of games and the existence of the supreme eternal mind.  The laws of physics are a possible subset of the game of games and our minds have some similar properties in limited degree to (i.e. made in the image of) the supreme mind.  Maybe one day we get to ascend to the game of games.

I think the above independent of any sacred text.  Many ancient cultures and philosophers arrived at similar views, or at least some of the core principles outlined above.  If there was some cataclysmic event and all history and writings were erased, they would again emerge.  Of course, that doesn't make the viewpoint true; my point is that the worldviews that contain some or all of the elements given above can be held and argued absent any sacred text and in my view it is better to discuss it independently like any other worldview.     

i am thoroughly confused.

you are replying in this thread to a post that was pursuant to a discussion (albeit over a year old) explicitly about biblical exegesis.  responding to my post by pivoting a discussion of a specific sacred text into a non-sequitur discussion of philosophical arguments about consciousness/solipsism fundamentally proving the existence of an abstract supreme being/programmer of games completely independent of sacred texts...while very on brand...is extraordinarily confusing.

it seems that maybe you want to have another ontological discussion and just quoted a post of mine to kick it off but i just want to make sure i'm not missing something about your post that is responsive to the quoted post.

Edited June 27, 2022 by sidis

[Guest]

14 minutes ago, Bookman said:

It’s not a right if it’s not enforced. 

If that's the case, then it's not possible to violate anyone's rights.  Do you believe that human rights violations exist?  If so, what is being violated?  

 

11 minutes ago, sidis said:

i am thoroughly confused.

you are replying in this thread to a post that was pursuant to a discussion (albeit over a year old) explicitly about biblical exegesis.  responding to my post by pivoting a discussion of a specific sacred text into a non-sequitur discussion of philosophical arguments about consciousness/solipsism fundamentally proving the existence of an abstract supreme being/programmer of games completely independent of sacred texts...while very on brand...is extraordinarily confusing.

it seems that maybe you want to have another ontological discussion and just quoted a post of mine to kick it off but i just want to make sure i'm not missing something about your post that is responsive to the quoted post.

Yes, the bold part.  I just quoted that post as a tag since it mentioned the ontological arguments.  As you said, it was a beacon for me.  Nothing in the post was intended as a counter point to your post.  My fault for diving in without any explanation.

So we got anastasis and sidis, now we just need cactus, F250, and formermav.

[sidis 9832]

3 minutes ago, axiom of foundation said:

Yes, the bold part.  I just quoted that post as a tag since it mentioned the ontological arguments.  As you said, it was a beacon for me.  Nothing in the post was intended as a counter point to your post.  My fault for diving in without any explanation.

So we got anastasis and sidis, now we just need cactus, F250, and formermav.

makes more sense.

and i make no promises without shipments of long dark roast beans.  not to mention that my antivirus lights up like the vegas strip every time i click into this thread for some reason.

[Sbbruin 21894]

Not going to read through all of this, but it gets you thinking.  Say you believe in God.  God created the universe.  The universe is so vast it is virtually incomprehensible in both distance and quantity of planets and stars.  There is zero point zero percent chance that life hasn't found a way many times over throughout the universe.  I personally think we haven't/won't encounter any of it, as the distances are too great.  But God created man in his image.  SO are beings on other planets just like us?  Did Jesus go visit all of these other planets too, and that's why it is taking so long for him to return?  Christians don't believe God is only God of our planet, right?  So damn, God has a lot of territory to cover.

And what's the deal with airplane food? 

[Sbbruin 21894]

18 hours ago, axiom of foundation said:

I don't think there can be any actuality without consciousness.  Consciousness is what converts the potential to the actual.  In other words, nothing is real unless it is real to some mind. My view is that ontological bedrock is both mind and possible rule systems (i.e. games), and these are distinct things.  Actuality or reality is made when possibilities within given games are selected and experienced by minds.  Our universe without minds is just a set of rules and exists in no more meaningful sense than any other set of rules.  A game played and a possible game are different things, and only conscious entities can play/experience games. Consciousness is what "breathes fire into the equations," to use Hawking's words.

If one assumes the above and runs it back with some diligence, then one will arrive at the existence of the game of games and the existence of the supreme eternal mind.  The laws of physics are a possible subset of the game of games and our minds have some similar properties in limited degree to (i.e. made in the image of) the supreme mind.  Maybe one day we get to ascend to the game of games.

I think the above independent of any sacred text.  Many ancient cultures and philosophers arrived at similar views, or at least some of the core principles outlined above.  If there was some cataclysmic event and all history and writings were erased, they would again emerge.  Of course, that doesn't make the viewpoint true; my point is that the worldviews that contain some or all of the elements given above can be held and argued absent any sacred text and in my view it is better to discuss it independently like any other worldview.     

[Guest]

13 minutes ago, sidis said:

makes more sense.

and i make no promises without shipments of long dark roast beans.  not to mention that my antivirus lights up like the vegas strip every time i click into this thread for some reason.

Ha, well I'm settling in to more medium to medium dark these days.  I like the flavor of light roast, but it is harder on the stomach when drinking lots of espresso.  If I dial in to anything particularly noteworthy I'll send some your way.  Quality coffee supply is limited these days so I'm doing my best to make do with current availability.

 

8 minutes ago, Sbbruin said:

Not going to read through all of this, but it gets you thinking.  Say you believe in God.  God created the universe.  The universe is so vast it is virtually incomprehensible in both distance and quantity of planets and stars.  There is zero point zero percent chance that life hasn't found a way many times over throughout the universe.  I personally think we haven't/won't encounter any of it, as the distances are too great.  But God created man in his image.  SO are beings on other planets just like us?  Did Jesus go visit all of these other planets too, and that's why it is taking so long for him to return?  Christians don't believe God is only God of our planet, right?  So damn, God has a lot of territory to cover.

And what's the deal with airplane food? 

I agree, this is a very interesting question.  I'm not sure it is a certainty there is other sapient life out there in our universe.  Best we can tell, life is very improbable and exceedingly rare.  But let's assume there are many planets with sapient life.  Theologically, I don't think serious problems are posed by the existence of extraterrestrial sapient life.  God would have interactions and expectations for them as with us.  Being eternal and infinite, this could occur infinite times simultaneously.      

[Sbbruin 21894]

3 minutes ago, axiom of foundation said:

Ha, well I'm settling in to more medium to medium dark these days.  I like the flavor of light roast, but it is harder on the stomach when drinking lots of espresso.  If I dial in to anything particularly noteworthy I'll send some your way.  Quality coffee supply is limited these days so I'm doing my best to make do with current availability.

 

I agree, this is a very interesting question.  I'm not sure it is a certainty there is other sapient life out there in our universe.  Best we can tell, life is very improbable and exceedingly rare.  But let's assume there are many planets with sapient life.  Theologically, I don't think serious problems are posed by the existence of extraterrestrial sapient life.  God would have interactions and expectations for them as with us.  Being eternal and infinite, this could occur infinite times simultaneously.      

Statistically, even if the conditions need to be perfect, those conditions have to exist billions of places.  There are an estimated 2 TRILLION galaxies in the observable universe.  There are somewhere between 2 to 3 TRILLION planets in just the Milky Way galaxy.  The numbers are just too inconceivably massive.  Anyone who thinks we are that unique in the universe has a pretty high estimation of themselves.  Life has had to find a way in many of those cases.  

My head hurts.

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, Sbbruin said:

Statistically, even if the conditions need to be perfect, those conditions have to exist billions of places.  There are an estimated 2 TRILLION galaxies in the observable universe.  There are somewhere between 2 to 3 TRILLION planets in just the Milky Way galaxy.  The numbers are just too inconceivably massive.  Anyone who thinks we are that unique in the universe has a pretty high estimation of themselves.  Life has had to find a way in many of those cases.  

My head hurts.

Extraterrestrial sapient life is not something I would argue against for the reasons you stated, but my view it is that it is not something we can claim with confidence due to the unknown probabilities involved.  To give an example, if we take every deck of cards with the 52 card format ever shuffled thoroughly and dealt in all of human history, what do you think the odds are that the same deck order has been dealt twice?  Imagine all the casinos dealing cards and home games being played thousands of times per day.  You would think that some deck order has been dealt twice.  But the answer is that it has almost certainly never happened before.  52! is such a big number that it dwarfs all the decks dealt.  

[Cacti 191]

5 hours ago, Sbbruin said:

There is zero point zero percent chance that life hasn't found a way many times over throughout the universe. 

Here’s a dated, but still relevant link I posted several years ago in a similar thread. We just don’t have enough information to put a probability on whether sapient life does or doesn’t exist elsewhere.

Quote

An astrophysicist says extraterrestrial civilizations “almost certainly” existed at one time or another. Here’s what’s wrong with his argument.

 

[Bookman 4642]

6 hours ago, axiom of foundation said:

If that's the case, then it's not possible to violate anyone's rights. 

 

Yes, make that argument to a judge and let me know how it goes.

[High Plains Drifter 11052]

On 3/30/2021 at 7:09 PM, Nicole44 said:

I absolutely believe in God. That terrifies me. 
 

There's a passage that I got memorized, seems appropiate for this situation: Ezekiel 25,17. "The path of the righteous man is beset of all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil me. Blessed is he who, in the name of the charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee.

 

Now... I been sayin' that shit for years. And if you ever heard it, that meant your ass. You'd be dead right now. I never gave much thought to what it meant. I just thought it was a cold-blooded thing to say to a motherfucker before I popped a cap in his ass.

 

[Sbbruin 21894]

1 hour ago, Cacti said:

Here’s a dated, but still relevant link I posted several years ago in a similar thread. We just don’t have enough information to put a probability on whether sapient life does or doesn’t exist elsewhere.

 

Well, if life rudimentary life exists in inummerable places, and life evolves and mutates to gain reproductive advantages, then it would seem that it is almost inconceivable when we are talking about 10 to the 25th power number of planets that life hasn't evolved to the sapient level somewhere.  Seems far more likely that it has happened many, many times over.  And the way we are going, not sure we've really evolved to the sapient level. 

[Wulaw Horn 19152]

The central question in all of human existence, to me, is how did we get here and why are we here. There just isn’t any answer for that question that’s satisfactory. Say you believe in the Big Bang. Ok, cool, how did that matter get in a ball to explode and form the universe in the first place. 
We have never observed (to my knowledge at least) something coming from nothing. God similarly doesn’t answer that question. How can he be in being outside of time and space and what was there before him?  How can anything exist?

The multiverse or the idea of a simulation doesn’t answer this question as it’s reductive. We don’t exist except as a computer game, we exist everywhere, our conception of God is a programmer in another dimension. Our life is all a lark. Our planet is one of many with intelligent or more intelligent life on it and planted by aliens. 
Seriously, I don’t care what your answer to the question is- it sucks and it demonstrates how feeble and clueless we are and will likely always be as a species. 
I hope my faith is right and that there is a world behind this outside of time and space with a God that created me and loves me and that someday I will the answer to that question but if there isn’t we will never know, imo, because in all of our natural law and observations of the Universe something can’t come from nothing, yet every hypothesis and answer begs that question of where it came from originally. 

[sidis 9832]

12 minutes ago, Wulaw Horn said:

The central question in all of human existence, to me, is how did we get here and why are we here. There just isn’t any answer for that question that’s satisfactory. Say you believe in the Big Bang. Ok, cool, how did that matter get in a ball to explode and form the universe in the first place. 
We have never observed (to my knowledge at least) something coming from nothing. God similarly doesn’t answer that question. How can he be in being outside of time and space and what was there before him?  How can anything exist?

The multiverse or the idea of a simulation doesn’t answer this question as it’s reductive. We don’t exist except as a computer game, we exist everywhere, our conception of God is a programmer in another dimension. Our life is all a lark. Our planet is one of many with intelligent or more intelligent life on it and planted by aliens. 
Seriously, I don’t care what your answer to the question is- it sucks and it demonstrates how feeble and clueless we are and will likely always be as a species. 
I hope my faith is right and that there is a world behind this outside of time and space with a God that created me and loves me and that someday I will the answer to that question but if there isn’t we will never know, imo, because in all of our natural law and observations of the Universe something can’t come from nothing, yet every hypothesis and answer begs that question of where it came from originally. 

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/infinite-regress/