God
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Topic: God
Posted By: condor
Subject: God
Date Posted: October 18 2017 at 16:45
| What does the word god mean to you?? |
Replies:
Posted By: siLLy puPPy
Date Posted: October 18 2017 at 19:14
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Nothing. I pray to dog because i'm dyslexic -------------  https://rateyourmusic.com/~siLLy_puPPy |
Posted By: Vompatti
Date Posted: October 19 2017 at 00:13
| the Supreme Being and the principal object of faith |
Posted By: Man With Hat
Date Posted: October 19 2017 at 00:27
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you rang? ------------- Dig me...But don't...Bury me I'm running still, I shall until, one day, I hope that I'll arrive Warning: Listening to jazz excessively can cause a laxative effect. |
Posted By: Tom Ozric
Date Posted: October 19 2017 at 00:51
| Who ?? |
Posted By: Sean Trane
Date Posted: October 19 2017 at 01:03
| leave me out of this, you heathen |
Posted By: Icarium
Date Posted: October 19 2017 at 01:05
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god (n.)Old English god "supreme being, deity; the Christian God; image of a god; godlike person," from Proto-Germanic *guthan(source also of Old Saxon, Old Frisian, Dutchgod, Old High German got, German Gott, Old Norse guð, Gothic guþ), from PIE *ghut-"that which is invoked" (source also of Old Church Slavonic zovo "to call," Sanskrit huta-"invoked," an epithet of Indra), from root*gheu(e)- "to call, invoke." But some trace it to PIE *ghu-to- "poured," from root *gheu- "to pour, pour a libation" (source of Greek khein "to pour," also in the phrase khute gaia "poured earth," referring to a burial mound; see found (v.2)). "Given the Greek facts, the Germanic form may have referred in the first instance to the spirit immanent in a burial mound" [Watkins]. See also Zeus. In either case, not related togood. Popular etymology has long derived Godfrom good; but a comparison of the forms ... shows this to be an error. Moreover, the notion of goodness is not conspicuous in the heathen conception of deity, and ingood itself the ethical sense is comparatively late. [Century Dictionary, 1902] Originally a neuter noun in Germanic, the gender shifted to masculine after the coming of Christianity. Old English godprobably was closer in sense to Latinnumen. A better word to translate deusmight have been Proto-Germanic *ansuz, but this was used only of the highest deities in the Germanic religion, and not of foreign gods, and it was never used of the Christian God. It survives in English mainly in the personal names beginning in Os-. I want my lawyer, my tailor, my servants, even my wife to believe in God, because it means that I shall be cheated and robbed and cuckolded less often. ... If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him. [Voltaire] God bless you after someone sneezes is credited to St. Gregory the Great, but the pagan Romans (Absit omen) and Greeks had similar customs. God's gift to _____ is by 1938. God of the gaps means "God considered solely as an explanation for anything not otherwise explained by science;" the exact phrase is from 1949, but the words and the idea have been around since 1894. God-forbids was rhyming slang for kids ("children"). God squad "evangelical organization" is 1969 U.S. student slang.God's acre "burial ground" imitates or partially translates German Gottesacker, where the second element means "field;" the phrase dates to 1610s in English but was noted as a Germanism as late as Longfellow. How poore, how narrow, how impious a measure of God, is this, that he must doe, as thou wouldest doe, if thou wert God. [John Donne, sermon preached in St. Paul's Jan. 30, 1624/5] Related Entriesdemigodfoundgiddygod-awfulgodchildgod-damngod-daughtergoddessgodfathergod-fearinggodforsakengodfreygodheadgodismgodlessgodlikegodlygodmothergodparentgodsendSee all related words (30) Share Alphabetical list gobo gobsmacked goby go-by go-cart god god-awful godchild god-damn god-daughter goddess ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ IntroductionSourcesLinks 词根词源词典 App微信公众号 Who did thisFollow us on Facebook Donate with PayPalYe Olde Swag ShoppeSponsored Words Web design and development by MaoningTech. © 2001-2017 Douglas Harper -------------  
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Posted By: Blacksword
Date Posted: October 19 2017 at 03:21
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I usually use the word as part of cursing to be honest. The concept of a god is meaningless to me. I'm as connected to religion as I am to the illuminati or the flat Earth brigade. ------------- Ultimately bored by endless ecstasy! |
Posted By: Saperlipopette!
Date Posted: October 19 2017 at 05:00
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The dumbest invention of mankind - apparently Gods is a better idea than A God. Hell (also a bad idea), even the atom bomb is a better idea. ------------- 
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Posted By: David64T
Date Posted: October 19 2017 at 05:53
Ten minutes plus of guitar insanity courtesy of http://www.metalmusicarchives.com/artist/coloured-balls" rel="nofollow - Lobby Loyde , also known as Guitar OverDose. Fortunately I was way way way too young to ever attend any of the (many) infamous live performances... ------------- Seasons Of Change - weekly programme on community radio: https://seasonsofchangeradio.blogspot.com.au/" rel="nofollow - http://seasonsofchangeradio.blogspot.com.au/ |
condor wrote:Posted By: SteveG
Date Posted: October 19 2017 at 06:50
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For the thousandth time, Jimi Hendrix. ------------- This message was brought to you by a proud supporter of the Deep State. |
Posted By: chopper
Date Posted: October 19 2017 at 09:46
| A John Lennon song. |
Posted By: Frankh
Date Posted: October 19 2017 at 11:04
| The Gates Of Delirium |
Posted By: npjnpj
Date Posted: October 19 2017 at 15:19
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deleted |
Posted By: The T
Date Posted: October 19 2017 at 15:55
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It's dog spelled backwards ------------- 
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Posted By: Logan
Date Posted: October 23 2017 at 10:49
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While my temptation -- not like the last temptation of Christ -- would be to merely pull a dictionary definition of God, I perceive God as a fabricated construct of man that can lead to, and be a part of, dangerous delusions. I'm an agnostic atheist, by the way, although I'm quite a hard atheist, as I can't say with certainty that a god in some form could not exist, but I don't believe that God is a necessary assumption and see God as a persistent notion of stone age thinking when man understood much less about the cosmos. The vaguer the conception of god the more likely (I could posit), but one can, in a sense, define God into existence. Condor, what does God mean to you? ------------- Just a fanboy passin' through. |
Posted By: CosmicVibration
Date Posted: October 23 2017 at 17:56
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The Nameless Absolute |
Posted By: Tillerman88
Date Posted: October 23 2017 at 18:03
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^hell yeah absolutely nothing ------------- The overwhelming amount of information on a daily basis restrains people from rewinding the news record archives to refresh their memories... |
Posted By: Mellotron Storm
Date Posted: October 23 2017 at 18:08
Endless Love  ------------- "The wind is slowly tearing her apart" "Sad Rain" ANEKDOTEN |
Posted By: Tillerman88
Date Posted: October 23 2017 at 18:19
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Something For Nothing all the way ------------- The overwhelming amount of information on a daily basis restrains people from rewinding the news record archives to refresh their memories... |
Posted By: CosmicVibration
Date Posted: October 23 2017 at 18:38
Nothing and everything.. Being and non being.. He is many He is One He is many He is None I know, the concept of a Nameless Absolute is unfathomable by our human intellect. However, God can be perceived by the little mind as a triune nature consisting of: Consciousness Existence Bliss (Love perfected) |
Posted By: Tillerman88
Date Posted: October 23 2017 at 18:52
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In nothing you can have everything, science proved it. Nuff said! Have a good night ------------- The overwhelming amount of information on a daily basis restrains people from rewinding the news record archives to refresh their memories... |
Posted By: YESESIS
Date Posted: October 25 2017 at 16:48
I like that!
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Posted By: YESESIS
Date Posted: October 25 2017 at 16:52
| I definitely believe in God and have even been shown His existence(not that I think anyone on here will believe that). |
Posted By: lazland
Date Posted: October 25 2017 at 23:06
Some of us might, but slightly more detail would be required, perhaps?  ------------- Enhance your life. Get down to www.lazland.org |
Posted By: Vompatti
Date Posted: October 26 2017 at 02:53
| I would assume that many if not most of the people who believe in God, whatever that means, implicitly define Him so that His existence, whatever that means, is true by definition. |
Posted By: YESESIS
Date Posted: October 26 2017 at 17:44
One afternoon I was very depressed, and frustrated, and disbelieving(about God).. And I just started praying, really pouring my heart out to Him with a lot of emotion and I asked God to give me some kind of a sign that He really DOES exist. So then that very night I turned on the tv and BAM, there was a show right there all about proving the existence of God!!! And it was very convincing btw, it talked about how if future aliens or something came upon this planet uninhabited and found a watch on the ground they would examine it and know for sure that intelligent life had been here(there is no other explanation for a watch). Then it talked about how the human body(especially the brain) is literally TRILLIONS of times more sophisticated than a watch is. So anyway that was enough for me. I thanked God profusely and have been an absolute believer ever since. I even recorded the date June 18th, 2009.
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Posted By: Blacksword
Date Posted: October 27 2017 at 06:24
I can't work out if you're entirely serious or not, but if you are then I respect the fact that it must have been quite amoment for you. It doesn't constitute proof though... ....However, recalling a nice anecdote from a friend of mine who I have known from childhood: She was feeling very low indeed, and had been attending a church with a friend for a few months attempting to find some meaning to everything. One day on a trip to a local garden centre with her young son, she thought to herself how much she'd like some red hot pokers for her garden, but couldn't afford them. Half an hour later, she arrived back home to find 10 red hot pokers laying on the doormat by her front door. She hadn't said anything to anyone either that day or in the preceeding weeks about RHP. That was strange enough, and she couldn't figure out how this astonishing coincidence could have come about. Later that night she was reading the bible in bed. She opened it at a random page and started reading. The passage (I couldn't tell you which) seemed very apt to her state state of mind, very reasuring and inspirational. She smiled at the coincidence, but thought little more about it, although was still somewhat confused by the red hotpokers on her doorstep! The next day she was on 'Second Life' A text box appeared at the bottom of the screen, randomnly displaying the exact same passage she had been reading in the bible the night before. I don't know Second Life, maybe it was a random message in a chat app (??) She tried to take a screen shot, but it wouldn't paste into any document. By now she was fairly freaked out by the string of coincidences. It was a nice story, if a little creepy, but I remain a non believer. ------------- Ultimately bored by endless ecstasy! |
Posted By: Sean Trane
Date Posted: October 27 2017 at 07:21
it's tough to be adored by masses of gullible idiots and arseholes uh??
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Posted By: Logan
Date Posted: October 27 2017 at 08:19
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Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. That watchmaker analogy (known as a teleological argument or argument from design) offers a very poor analogy and I don't think many logical people would be swayed by it unless they were looking to be and prepared to be swayed by it. Especially if the aliens they had had had some sort of parallel technology (rather than, say bio-tech, which I'll leave the possible implications out for now), then the aliens would very easily recognise the watch to be a mechanism/ artifact with a designer rather than of natural causes. The brain's development, on the other hand, being organic/ biological can be explained by natural evolution (technology vs. biology). If the brain is a trillion times more complex than a watch, and you think that because the watch required a more complex designer than itself (which it did), then wouldn't the designer of the human brain also be more complex than the human, and so by following the argument, wouldn't the designer being much more complex than the human require another designer and so on (ad finitum -- infinite regress)? Linked is the first cause argument, which is a Philosophy 101 thing. if the comsos required a designer, what was required to create God? The counterargument from theists often being God always is and always was, or one could say that God exists outside of time and space and outside this universe across the multiverse and other planes of existence do not need to operate according to the laws of our universe. Perhaps we are bio-technology designed by aliens, who knows? Or computer simulations? Anyway, I don't want to negate your experience, but I do believe that it says far more about your own psychology, biases and persuadability than the existence of God. I once heard a voice seemingly not my own in my head which I equated with God which said, "You must die before you live". A Christian friend was excited when I told her and said that was a true sign from God that I should become born again. I say it was a neurological event. Don't know if you've seen this, but this banana one is amusing: ------------- Just a fanboy passin' through. |
Posted By: Jeffro
Date Posted: October 27 2017 at 09:03
iddqd ------------- We all live in an amber subdomain, amber subdomain, amber subdomain. My face IS a maserati |
Posted By: YESESIS
Date Posted: October 27 2017 at 17:45
I joke around on here a lot so I understand that with me sometimes it's hard to tell, but yes the previous post from me was/is 100% serious. And thank you for sharing your friend's experience with us as well. Some pretty big coincidences there for sure, but then of course that's all they were. Couldn't possibly be that it was anything more than that.
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Posted By: YESESIS
Date Posted: October 27 2017 at 18:11
In your video Kirk Cameron talks about the human eye.. Which happens to be a great example of the awesome power of our brains. http://www.livescience.com/3919-human-eye-works.html" rel="nofollow - https://www.livescience.com/3919-human-eye-works.html - The last sentence under the section "The retina" But of course no intelligent design went into this, it.. it developed by random chance. Yeah that's the ticket, that has to be it. Actually, why does ANYTHING exist at all? Shouldn't there just be absolute nothingness... forever!? Wouldn't that make the most sense? Oh well, maybe the 'Row Your Boat' song had it right all along. |
Posted By: Tom Ozric
Date Posted: October 27 2017 at 18:47
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I believe in good and bad, not ‘God’ and ‘Satan’. These are Philosophical / Psychological concepts only....... .........” The brainwashed do not know they are brainwashed “.......... |
Posted By: twseel
Date Posted: October 28 2017 at 08:09
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I don't have a grudge against religion but I don't understand how the concept of 'God' even came about, I have as far as I have noticed no spirituality in me and I really don't see why it wouldn't just make sense that we came from natural chaos and only look for meaning because that's a useful way of thinking for our survival, and that doesn't mean it has any use on a metaphysical level. The too-much-of-a-coincidence argument bothers me because of that, it's reverse logic; if you look at every possible reality, and it doesn't even have to be a real multiverse, just a hypothetical one, most would be pretty empty, to our 'meaning' at least, and the rare ones where conscious thought does take form will all have the conscious thinkers realize how much of a coincidence it is that they exist, while all being created at random. ------------- 
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Posted By: CosmicVibration
Date Posted: October 28 2017 at 09:43
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The mathematical probability of an eye by random chance is astronomical. The probability of the entire human body is almost nonexistent; within our 14 billion years. Who knows, someday we may even figure out the mechanics of the universe and reach a type 5 civilization. Possessing the knowledge not only to harness the power of planets, stars and black holes but having the ability to manipulate the entire universe. Intro to the Kardashev civilization scale: https://futurism.com/the-kardashev-scale-type-i-ii-iii-iv-v-civilization/" rel="nofollow - https://futurism.com/the-kardashev-scale-type-i-ii-iii-iv-v-civilization/ Even at this grandest of junctions man will still not be able to create anything; not a single blade of grass. We can use, transform and manipulate but we cannot create or destroy. The first law of thermodynamics holds true. Likewise, at the god like status of a type 5 civilization, possessing the knowledge of the entire universe, the human intellect will still not be sufficient enough to fully comprehend a mere grain of sand. So does this mean that all is lost? Not at all… to be continued. |
Posted By: Logan
Date Posted: October 28 2017 at 10:21
^ Good point about nothingness and every possible reality, tweeel, I was going to touch on the same.
I'm agnostic on the matter, but I don't think that intelligent design is a necessary assumption to explain us or the cosmos. If our complexity requires an intelligent designer, might not that intelligent designer also have needed another intelligent designer to become into being and so and so on in an infinite regression? I don't know of evolutionary biologists think that it is just random chance (incidentally, in a sense being a determinist I believe in less chance than most, although that mainly come up in free will arguments). Natural selection supports the survival of mutations that provide an advantage -- mutations may be chance in a sense, especially if one considers chaos theory, but mutations that are not advantageous are less likely to be passed on (for reasons that should be quite obvious). So it's not just some accident that the eye developed how it has. Theories of evolution, by the way, have "evolved" a lot since Darwin made that statement. As for the banana analogy, bananas were not always shaped that way -- the modern banana is a hybrid developed through cultivation by man. If one accepts the mutliverse, then yes there can be universes without matter or energy, but to say to absolutely nothing implies even a lack of space (no an emety void that goe on forever, but not even a void, total non-existence). There's an interesting hypothesis, by the way, that before our universe came into being (cosmic inflation) there was literally nothing (no universe where ours exists), not even space, and that early on our universe was spatially minute. By the way, if only nothingness existed nothing would make sense becaue nothing could make sene of anything. Which reminds me of an old "mutton is better than heaven" joke my dad told me (quite irrelevant, but has nostalgic value for me): Mutton is better than Heaven because nothing is better than Heaven and a leg of mutton is better than nothing. On another note: I'd think it less presumptuous to believe in some vague Spinoza-like conception of god than a belief in a personal God that answers prayer, which requires yet more assumptions. I wonder if you are also an atheist when it comes to other conceptions of God? Do you believe in Zeus, for instance? Not all atheists deny the possibility of God and one could even be a deistic atheist because theism commonly implies a personal god. Many religious people buy into a whole lot of mythology (mythology that conflicts with other mythologies and conceptions of God or gods). In the video Cameron says it takes more faith to be an atheist (atheist simply mean without theism), and that is a bogus claim. Agnosticism is a form of atheism, and not all atheists are hard atheists that claim that there can be no God, it simply says a lack of belief in God. The atheist sees a lack of evidence to assume that God exists, the theist commonly claims that the atheist is blind to the evidence. Knowing something that can not be proved requires more faith than not knowing. Furthermore, it requires more faith to believe in a specific God and follow a particular faith than believe in vaguer conceptions of god. Religious people commonly not only believe in God, but they think that they know what God wants of us and follow texts that claim to know God's will. Theism requires more assumptions than atheism, and hard atheism is more of a belief system than soft atheism (agnostic atheism) as it entails a belief in the non-existence of God. I used to call myself an agnostic but that implies that we cannot know and never can know if God exists. I doubt that there is a God, but I don't know (there may be out there in the multiverse, if the multiverse exists, and we might have been created by some superior intelligence, our universe could be some cosmic experiment). ------------- Just a fanboy passin' through. |
Posted By: YESESIS
Date Posted: October 28 2017 at 19:49
I think you're like me in that to you the existence of a higher intelligence(than us) is incredibly obvious. Obvious as the nose on your face, so to speak. Some don't see it though and I'm not a big believer in, "I'm right, you're wrong" thinking. I just know what I believe and is obvious me, and others can either agree or disagree. That was a fascinating article btw, thanks for sharing.
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Posted By: YESESIS
Date Posted: October 28 2017 at 19:55
Haha, oh that's great. I see where you get your cleverness from.
Not necessarily. Suppose well in the future, when technology is far superior to what it is today, we are able to create a race of "Super Robots." And then at some point we become extinct but the robots remain. Then, many years after that, one of them asks if they were created by a higher intelligence and another one says, "no, because then.." And I think that there are two issues going on at this point. One is the question of a "Christian God" who answers prayers and all that.. Then the other being, is there a higher intelligence out there(somewhere). It sounds like the ladder you are quite willing to consider. I mean if time and space are infinite. And by space I don't mean "outer space" but just "space" like the space remaining in your duffle bag for more cloths. Just space. Then, I would think, more than likely SOMEWHERE there probably is. You and twseel both mention "every possible reality." Like people used to talk about if you put a bunch of monkeys in a room with lots of typewriters and paper for all of eternity, EVENTUALLY they would end up composing every major literary work known to man. I'm sure you've heard something similar. So that's infinite time. If "space" is also infinite.. What do you think the odds are that there's higher intelligence(than us) SOMEWHERE? One last thing. Speaking of odds, on June 18th 2009 I made a really heartfelt prayer and then that night when I turned on the tv BOOM, a show completely all about trying to prove the existence of God. Now I don't recall any other time in my life turning on the tv and right there is a show about proving God's existence. I'm 46 years old now, so not sure how many days that means I've been alive but needless to say, really long odds.
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Posted By: twseel
Date Posted: October 29 2017 at 06:13
But using the same metaphysical sense of 'higher intelligence' they would be at the same plane of intelligence; earthly consciousness, even if they are smarter
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Posted By: Logan
Date Posted: October 29 2017 at 09:51
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I should try to quote, but Captcha hates code in my posts. This will not be terribly coherent. I have just woken up and am in a rather delirious state (fun time to write). Yes, I have thought that if such a higher intelligence r power existed that could create our universe likely would be outside it and would be more likely to be on a plane of the "metaphysical". Another dimension perhaps outside of time and space, or perhaps, to come across as rather metaphorical and fanciful, the Divine is the resonance of the strings in the String hypothesis, or we and this universe are merely a part of the body of God, but this wouldn't imply intelligent design -- it would be an unintentional biological process. I don't think to have an intelligent designer one must necessarily need a designer for that the designer that designed us -- especially if that designer operates somewhere else (such as the metaphysical plane that twseel speaks of) or elsewhere outside of space-time which doesn't operate according to our physical laws (the interstices of dimensionality or void perhaps, which can bleed into our reality -- a little like the Upside Down). There might not be just a huge and mysterious universe out there, but a huge and mysterious multiverse and other planes of existence. When you're dealing with the infinite (even if our particular universe is finite), things can be infinitely possible. I suspect that there are being that are more intelligent out there and there could be something divine that corresponds to a deology or theology (or every theology and deology -- something like Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land conception perhaps where all Gods/ religion can exist for the individual). As for the robot analogy, I see what you're getting at, but I'm going to expand on this in whatever stranger directions my mind takes me. The question that super robot A might ask is "Is there evidence that we may have been created by a higher intelligence?" So Robot B says, "No, there is no evidence for that because then that which created us would need a creator" (okay, to explore your notion I don't need to mention evidence, but....) It's an interesting analogy and interesting that the robot's "first" cause was a creature of less intelligence and biological than likely mechanical. I say first cause since people might have created programs to design those robots (they may have been designed by, say, AI, which was designed by other AI but we got it started, or for today's Theist, God got it started). I suspect that AI will eclipse us in generalised intelligence and already technology is being used to create better programs. The robot may have been designed by AI, which may have been designed by other technology, which may have been designed by humans. A question would be, is there physical evidence that the robots are not "natural" (not that the robot might use the term, but in our terms)? Do they believe or know about biological life? Could they assume that a biological lifeform would be capable of creating them? Is there evidence to assume that they could be a technological construct that could not have developed naturally/ is there physical evidence that our design ("our" is me speaking as a robot) could be a natural phenomenon. What limitations they have to work with depends on their environment and their programming. I'm differentiating this from purely ontological reasoning and I don't know that one can argue for God without taking an ontological approach. Interesting to think that if super robots could have been create by inferior intelligences, then could humans have been created by an inferior intelligence? Another example instead of mechanical devices would be genetically engineered lifeforms since they might be less distinguishable from the so-called natural world (although the robot one works especially if the natural world is gone or inaccessible so less evidence to work with). Perhaps later I'll try to write something more coherent. Even without quotes Captcha still thinks I'm a robot -- perhaps I am of a sort. ------------- Just a fanboy passin' through. |
Posted By: Icarium
Date Posted: October 29 2017 at 14:57
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^ to quote Brian Wilson "God only knows" -------------
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Posted By: YESESIS
Date Posted: October 29 2017 at 17:19
I think you've hit on it there.
There you go. Or why not a combination of both? Just think what technology might be able to do 500 years from now.. I mean 500 years ago was 1517. There wasn't even electricity back then, or cameras, or radios, or phones, etc. So 500 years in the future.. God only knows what all there'll be! Again my thing is I, very sincerely, asked for a sign and then that night I got one! So I'm not going to now say, "no you know what.. that wasn't good enough. I need more." No, I asked for something and got it. So for me God is real, period. And I know the rest of you will find that out as well eventually. All I ask is just be open to it.  |
Posted By: Logan
Date Posted: October 29 2017 at 17:53
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Cyborgs, bio-technology, lots of possibilities.... It certainly might seem ungracious to pray hard for a sign and then casually reject it. The setting: a sunny day in parched lands. Moses wanders alone. Moses: "Yahweh, give me a sign!" God conjures up a rainbow Moses: "I don't find that sign very convincing. It could be a natural phenomenon. Give me another sign!" God sets a bush alight Moses: "That could still be down to natural causes. Give me another sign!" God: "Oh for heaven's sake!" [strikes Moses down with lightning] Moses [badly singed]: "Yeah, I think that will do, erm even if it... [Moses thinks better of it as thunder rumbles] No, never mind, that will do very nicely thank you." ------------- Just a fanboy passin' through. |
Posted By: YESESIS
Date Posted: October 29 2017 at 19:50
lmao.. exactly. |
Posted By: Tillerman88
Date Posted: October 29 2017 at 20:06
Still trying to understand how can an individual figure what's God if we can't even fathom out the Universe we live in.......
"Nothing” is every bit as physical as “something,” especially if it is to be defined as the "absence of something.” It then behooves us to understand precisely the physical nature of both of these quantities. And without science, any definition is just words. So, there comes the quantum gravity, which not only appears to allow universes to be created from nothing -- in this case the absence of space and time -- , it may also require them.... 'Nothing’ -- in this case no space, no time, no anything! -- is absolutely unstable..... . ------------- The overwhelming amount of information on a daily basis restrains people from rewinding the news record archives to refresh their memories... |
Posted By: Logan
Date Posted: October 29 2017 at 21:50
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The religious person might say we can know God through revelation. Interesting post; it makes me we wish I could jot down some meaningful equations. I've mostly heard Lawrence Krauss talk about this universe from nothing. Nothing (the absence of something including space, time, any sense of dimension, energy, no physical laws, no quantum gravity) is physical in a sense, in an another sense it's not concrete. Of course when talking science one should try to speak in scientific terms and nothing is not just some philosophical concept, of course, it's very much a concept of science.. If nothing is non-existence, it can be described as non-physical (its certainly not quantifiable) but it can also be described physically. Quantum gravity, of course, is still very much a work in progress, and I'd need to brush up on the theoretical frameworks (just understanding general relativity relatively well took time). Nothing is considered unstable in this and indeed it's said that instability gives rise to something frequently due to the laws of quantum mechanics (gravity plus quantum mechanics can create space itself). Incidentally, I wish I hadn't talked about a universe without matter or energy in the multiverse (there are requirements to have space itself and things come into being....). ------------- Just a fanboy passin' through. |
Posted By: Logan
Date Posted: July 21 2018 at 09:12
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A little bump since I think Condor came up with an interesting topic here, but my babble may have maimed this thread. I've been thinking more about concepts of the divine of late. ------------- Just a fanboy passin' through. |
Posted By: SteveG
Date Posted: July 21 2018 at 10:46
------------- This message was brought to you by a proud supporter of the Deep State. |
Posted By: Logan
Date Posted: July 21 2018 at 11:19
Not rambling at all, and I agree with this. I can understand why Dean hates philosophy, but I do think that it's in our nature to question even that which cannot be answered, partially because we're pattern-seeking animals. Of course some people think such things can be answered, but that takes a so-called leap of faith or a belief in dogma. ------------- Just a fanboy passin' through. |
Posted By: Logan
Date Posted: July 30 2018 at 12:50
While I'm agnostic (a soft atheist), this is the conception of "God" that I would like to believe in. ------------- Just a fanboy passin' through. |
Posted By: The Dark Elf
Date Posted: July 30 2018 at 17:00
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In the beginning Man created God; and in the image of Man created he him. 2 And Man gave unto God a multitude of names,that he might be Lord of all the earth when it was suited to Man 3 And on the seven millionth day Man rested and did lean heavily on his God and saw that it was good. 4 And Man formed Aqualung of the dust of the ground, and a host of others likened unto his kind. 5 And these lesser men were cast into the void; And some were burned, and some were put apart from their kind. 6 And Man became the God that he had created and with his miracles did rule over all the earth. 7 But as all these things came to pass, the Spirit that did cause man to create his God lived on within all men: even within Aqualung. 8 And man saw it not. 9 But for Christ's sake he'd better start looking. ------------- ...a vigorous circular motion hitherto unknown to the people of this area, but destined to take the place of the mud shark in your mythology... |
Posted By: micky
Date Posted: July 30 2018 at 18:38
What is God... let me start with what God is not haha
I sure as hell would not... many say Religion is an opiate and that is exactly why and that is misconception Greg is one of most religions greatest failings.. and leave people asking while clutching their bibles.. why would God allow this (pick your choice of whatever great tragedy) to happen. God is not about love..goodness, fairness nor compassion or any of that sh*t. God is a creator.. and a destroyer. God is impersonal and could give a f**k about you, me, or any of us. It is all about the cycle of life. That is what God is all about. That is the God I believe in... ------------- The Pedro and Micky Experience - When one no longer requires psychotropics to trip |
Posted By: Logan
Date Posted: July 30 2018 at 18:57
First off, I will mention that I'm about as hard a soft atheist as one could be without being a diamond or a porn star (I don't believe that God exists, but I can't say with absolute certainty that no God exists). I think that God is an unnecessary and unwarranted assumption, and I think that religion can be very dangerous. I think that God and religion is man-made. I do also think that such hope can be dangerous, as I think that what matters is what we do in this life, and too many are just waiting for the afterlife (some are hoping that this world will end faster). Religion is not only an opiate, but it can be used to pacify the masses, it can stir them to hate, and its divisive. Religion has been used, and continues to be, used as a control mechanism. I think there's something dangerous about how these beliefs cause people to suspend their rationality too. Religion and a belief in the afterlife can be very comforting, but it can mean that people don't value this life and this planet as much, and it can stupefy the masses to ill end. I know well the problem of evil. How could an omnipotent and omniscient loving God allow so much suffering in the world? Well, noting again that I don't believe in God, perhaps it is all-loving, but not all-powerful, or perhaps, though this seems very unlikely too, an all-loving God would allow such pain because not only that which doesn't kill us makes us stronger, but that which kills us makes us stronger. I don't buy any of that, but if there were some supernatural being, I would rather it be loving but impotent in this plane of existence than be, well, something to be feared, allows harm to its children, unfeeling or angry, causes floods etc., and just wishes to be praised. Basically, a God that does not operate with the morals, decency, and care that we would expect of a loving father. If there is a God that can act in our world, your conception makes more sense to me. ------------- Just a fanboy passin' through. |
Posted By: Catcher10
Date Posted: July 30 2018 at 19:09
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I can see what micky wrote above and agree with some, not all of it, but because I am Catholic and have stronger more positive feelings about God. God is the Creator, he created the earth, heavens and man and so to understand this one I think would have to understand the universe, which will never happen. I believe this is why God created Jesus in our form, to then come down to earth and tell people about Him, as God has no form to show himself to us he could not. God is about love, you know the saying "if you love something set it free and it will come back to you". You go back to something because you like it or love it, not because you hate it. -------------   
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Posted By: micky
Date Posted: July 30 2018 at 19:14
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I agree with a great many of your points. and yes I do believe strongly first there is a God, and yes he does act in our world. not directly but indirectly through us my friend..... human beings capable of such creating such wonder and beauty.. and capable of creating living nightmares and terror. As is said as it is true. There is no good without evil there is no life without death, there is no creation without destruction. In my believe system those that realize that simply fact become truly enlightened, casting away the ignorance that athiests and agnostics have, and the delusions and illustions that God is good and will save you that are prevalent in most religions, specifically Christianity. and those that don't.. there is no red figure with a pointed tail to punish you. Oh no, there is a worse fate that a fiery pit drinking budweiser for all eternity .. it is rebirth into the true hell. Life on earth with its uncertainty, pain, suffering, and misery. personally I find religion and all that jazz to be a fascinating topic. But much like politics, it is so hard to really discuss for most are not open minded to discuss things they don't want to hear notions different or ones that conflict with their belief systems. ------------- The Pedro and Micky Experience - When one no longer requires psychotropics to trip |
Posted By: Logan
Date Posted: July 30 2018 at 19:37
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To resurrect this Bertrand Russell quote: "The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt." The vaguer the conception of God, the more likely to me. It's a concept that we can define into existence. To mix up Orwell's 1984 slogans: Ignorance is strength. I see both the firm belief and dogma of the orthodox as weakness, and I see the ignorance of those who don't claim to know as a strength.... ------------- Just a fanboy passin' through. |
Posted By: Catcher10
Date Posted: July 30 2018 at 19:39
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Well I am good with religion, I don't have any theological learning don't profess to know about other religions or how most came to be. I know what I was taught and reading the Bible, I do not have any negative feelings about other religions especially understanding they can be littered with hate and death and all sorts of ill will thoughts. But I think that is because religion is probably the most NOT understood belief we have as humans. Why do we believe? Basically back in the day, it was "my way or your head was chopped off!" LOL. So I think people did what others said, and educated people were not as prevalent back in the day. I can't argue that God is all of us, the world. I remember reading that over 80% of the world has a belief in God.....Why? Until we found out for ourselves, most if not all children believe in Santa Claus. There is hard proof that how children believe he exists is false, so children stop believing. We do not have hard proof that God does not exist. It's possible the only ones that know are the dead, and again we will never find out as living people. You can't argue what one believes, only try and understand why they believe......but just like we will never know, never find out if there is another planet like ours out there, we will never know if a God exists. I truly believe this planet will end without knowing those two answers. -------------
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Posted By: Logan
Date Posted: July 30 2018 at 19:48
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I have studied various religions and I am much more okay with some religious belief systems than others. I grew up going to Church and I consider myself to be a cultural Christian, by the way. ------------- Just a fanboy passin' through. |
Posted By: Catcher10
Date Posted: July 30 2018 at 20:32
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Me too....did all the Catholic stuff as a kid. Of course baptized. Followed by first communion and then confirmation. Going to religious classes 2x a week after school and of course mass on Sunday. Catholic wedding, and all my kids the same process....... I believe. -------------
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Posted By: tempest_77
Date Posted: July 30 2018 at 21:00
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My God is Casey Crescenzo. ------------- I use they/them pronouns (feel free to ask me about this!) Check out my music on https://tempestsounds.bandcamp.com/" rel="nofollow - my bandcamp ! |
Posted By: micky
Date Posted: July 30 2018 at 22:19
oh no Greg. Don't make the same mistake Doc did earlier in confusing philosophy with politics.... or in this case with religion. Religion is all about faith. If you don't' have faith, really believe in it, and you are full of doubt? Well that is not a sign of being intelligent that siimply means.. well... you simply don't have faith. The real problem I have is not that people want to believe differently or not at all. Life is a nasty business, believe (or not) what you want to try to get through it. I really have a big problem.. big as in BIG with f**king evangelicals for whom is not merely enough to believe in what they believe in but to feel as if they have to spread it and feel others who have different beliefs are on the road to hell or whetever dire fate Democrats, non whites, and unbelievers go to when cast out among the Sodomites of today's society haha. ------------- The Pedro and Micky Experience - When one no longer requires psychotropics to trip |
Posted By: Logan
Date Posted: July 31 2018 at 08:33
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I don't think I'm making a mistake, but I remain agnostic on all matters. I don't think I'm confusing anything. Politics, philosophy, arts, sciences, religion all intersect (that is a "revelation" that I had in college). There is a oneness to the universe in my mind. Various cognitive scientists say that there is a religious component to our brains and with some people it's much more active than with others. So some people are hardwired for it and they may be very intelligent, but I suspect that many of those people would overcome it. Religion and faith can by synonymous. While I wouldn't say that religion is "all" about faith even if often religion is considered to be organised faith (disorganised religion can have disorganised "tiafh" -- that's "faith" in a disorderly fashion), since religion is a set of beliefs, and those beliefs commonly require faith, faith is at the least an important component. An individual could be religious without faith (follows the ritualistic practices and considers themselves to be a member of that community), as faith is something internal. Within a church, people commonly have different levels of faith, and different sorts of faith, and I have known many who belong to the Anglican Church who consider themselves to be Christian yet have no faith. I still go to Church now and then, and we recite the Apostles' Creed (I know it by heart): I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth. I believe in Jesus Christ, God's only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried; he descended to the dead. On the third day he rose again; he ascended into heaven, he is seated at the right hand of the Father, and he will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen. It seems hypocritical of me to say it, and take communion, when I don't believe it, but even the minister told me that he doesn't literally believe it. As to an earlier post, I had both of my children baptised at the church where I was baptised. Anyway, I know that I'm digressing from your point, which can be horribly frustrating in conversation. While someone can be intelligent who has faith, not only do I not think that faith (a belief that lacks scientific evidence, or lacking proof in the logic sense) is a sign of intelligence (not that you are saying that it is), but I think that it shows a lack of rationality, and often a lack of education (I don't mean formal, as one can become educated in many ways). "I believe because the Bible tells me" I have often heard from people (my wife was a Born Again Christian, and I was at an evangelical church event yesterday). Questioning is a sign of intelligence, and I do think that buying dogma wholesale which religion often expects, shows a lack of intelligence and intellectual rigour. I've dealt with a lot of evangelicals, and they often seem to have a mind-block when it comes to even questioning some of the dogma that they believe in, and I have found and their attitudes often unethical (according to my standards) and lacking compassion. Such rigidity of thinking I do think shows a lack of intelligence, whereas an open mind is a more dexterous mind. Just for fun, on faith, by one of my favourite atheists, Douglas Adams: "Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mind-bogglingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as the final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God. The argument goes something like this: "I refuse to prove that I exist,'" says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing." "But," says Man, "The Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED." "Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic. "Oh, that was easy," says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing.” EDIT for typos and to mention my and my kids baptisms. My eldest brother became an atheist right after going through confirmation. ------------- Just a fanboy passin' through. |
Posted By: YESESIS
Date Posted: June 18 2019 at 17:52
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TODAY is the 10 year anniversary of the day that God revealed Himself to me. June 18th, 2009. So huge day for me obviously. |
Posted By: omphaloskepsis
Date Posted: June 18 2019 at 18:24
Happy Anniversary Yesesis!
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Posted By: Logan
Date Posted: June 18 2019 at 18:42
I once asked God for a sign and he hit me with a billboard. ;) I won't ask for details or what he looked like since you already explained on page two. I'd still put it down to some coincidence and confirmation bias. If your TV was set to a channel that tended to play religious programs at that time when you turned it on, then it would be less coincidental than if it popped up on Hustler TV. Had you not been looking for and praying hard for a sign, or if you were Richard Dawkins, then I personally would find it rather more compelling, but only marginally. Assuming there is a God, I'd be surprised if He/She/It would find that watchmaker analogy (that teleological argument or argument from design) convincing. But hey, if your belief makes you happy and does no harm to others, and does not affect your rationality in other areas.... ------------- Just a fanboy passin' through. |
Posted By: YESESIS
Date Posted: June 18 2019 at 18:59
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Thank you everyone. Logan, I certainly understand your skepticism but for me it comes down to math. That was the only time that's ever happened(turned on the TV and there's a show right there all about proving the existence of God). I'm 48 years old, so how many nights have I been alive? So what are the odds it will happen that very night that I ask for a sign? It never happened before or since. I've never seen that show again. |
Posted By: Jaketejas
Date Posted: June 18 2019 at 19:12
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There are matters of fact (one can prove by scientific methods within the known universe) There are matters of opinion (I like prog. Prog is nice.) And there are matters of faith (if God exists, must be outside the known universe, undetectable by scientific methods.) Then we are left with other arguments. If there is good and evil, it is reasonable that there exists a 100% good and a 100% evil. Or the life came from life came from ... extrapolate to the year dot. Or the hey your conscience is gently whispering to you from some source. Those are all decent starting points for logical reasoning, methinks. |
Posted By: YESESIS
Date Posted: June 18 2019 at 19:28
The bolded part I can definitely identify with. Or has anyone ever experienced when you're in bed thinking all these thoughts, and then suddenly you get this rush of thoughts that totally don't seem like your own. It's like you've tapped into some sort of Internet of mind or something. I know people will say it's just your mind starting to slip into the dream state, but still it's pretty wild when it happens. |
Posted By: patrickq
Date Posted: June 18 2019 at 20:38
| Personally — not that anyone asked — I believe in the Abrahamic God about as much as I believe in the Tooth Fairy. On the other hand, there’s a sh*tload that we humans don’t understand about reality, so who knows? |
Posted By: Jaketejas
Date Posted: June 18 2019 at 21:42
| I guess my point is that it is an exercise in futility to try to justify the existence of God by scientific methods. It is a matter of faith. It is not a matter of scientifically justifiable fact (using the methods and instruments at our disposal) and it is not a matter of opinion. Reasoning comes into it and you draw your own conclusion. You can't choose free will. Rather, you exercise your free will. |
Posted By: Polymorphia
Date Posted: June 18 2019 at 21:54
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It's been a while since I've seen a good ol' condor thread. I've mentioned before that I'm a Christian myself, so that sort of answers that (if not really in depth, but it's late and I'm not inclined to write an essay). Also, Ica's post on the first page is one of the finer copy paste spam imitation posts on the forum.
------------- https://dreamwindow.bandcamp.com/releases" rel="nofollow - My Music 
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Posted By: Jaketejas
Date Posted: June 18 2019 at 22:16
| I presume that you mean that you don't believe in the Tooth Fairy and you don't believe in the Abrahamic God. Had you said that you believed in the Abrahamic God as much as you believe in Santa Claus, then it would be difficult to infer your meaning. Christians believe in life after death and St. Nicholas was a real person living from AD 270 - 342. |
Posted By: Logan
Date Posted: June 18 2019 at 22:55
I've observed what have seemed to be various amazing coincidences, but I have never attributed any supernatural causation to any of those incidents. Occam's razor, the conclusion that requires the minimum number of assumptions tends to be the most likely. Accepting God is an assumption, accepting the Christian God is another one, accepting that that experience was something more than a naturally occurring event with no profound significance is another one. Perhaps in your low state and feeling a sense of desperation (my depression and anxiety affects my perspective) you were susceptible to the idea that this is more than coincidence and that the evidence was more compelling. The fact that you felt such a need does render it more likely that you would be swayed more easily. Of course I won't claim that it was not an act of the divine, I have no reason to believe that it was and reasoning to believe it wasn't. Not only is it not a necessary explanation, it doesn't seem the most likely explanation (or at all likely to me). I'm your age. If you're like me, and I don't know that you are, then you have prayed and asked for a sign many times in your life. In my case math would indicate that it's not that improbable that something would happen that might be perceived to present confirmation at some time over many years. Most of the time it wouldn't. I'm reminded of when people say God answered my prayers, but then you wonder how many times did God not seem to answer their prayers. If it happened to me, I might momentarily be convinced, but thinking further I would recognise that supernatural causation would not only not be the only explanation, but it would not be the most likely explanation as it is not the simplest explanation in Occam's razor terms. In fact, if one wants to get fanciful or not, there are many unfalsifiable explanations. Your desire to be convinced is a factor. "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" (Hebrews 11:1). People of many faiths have similar experiences even regarding different gods, but then people of no faith also have rather similar experiences (maybe not in terms of something supernatural, but some confirmation of something one needs answering and we all experience coincidence, and we notice them more because we are pattern-seeking animals).
As a determinist I don't believe in free will (not in the way I define it), but that's http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=47173" rel="nofollow - another topic .... ------------- Just a fanboy passin' through. |
Posted By: BaldJean
Date Posted: June 19 2019 at 05:39
such a revelation is a singular incident; there is no room for doubt when it happens. but it is up to anyone him- or herself what to call it - God, the great oneness, nirvana, Gaia or whatever; it doesn't really matter. you just know for certain there is someone or something out there that gives a meaning to life, universe and the rest. but this can not be understood by anyone who has not had such a revelation him- or herself -------------  A shot of me as High Priestess of Gaia during our fall festival. Ceterum censeo principiis obsta |
Posted By: someone_else
Date Posted: June 19 2019 at 08:52
48 years = 17532 days. Fill in the details .------------- 
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Posted By: Polymorphia
Date Posted: June 19 2019 at 10:53
or televisiological? Sorry, I'll be out the door. ------------- https://dreamwindow.bandcamp.com/releases" rel="nofollow - My Music
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Posted By: Erenan
Date Posted: June 19 2019 at 11:02
To me the word God roughly means something like "a being who objectively has ultimate authority." In other words, God answers to no one and has as much authority over all other beings as is logically possible, and this fact is true irrespective of what anyone thinks or believes or feels or etc. (something like that, the details are a bit fuzzy)
------------- https://lukesimpsonmusic.bandcamp.com" rel="nofollow"> 
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Posted By: Jaketejas
Date Posted: June 19 2019 at 11:31
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I appreciate your sharing different viewpoints, and that you put up with my attempts at humor. Don't you think that Occam's Razor (or the related law of simplicity) is rather limited? Taking those laws as a basis, none of us should exist here and now. Yet, here we are, and it is a humbling experience. |
Posted By: Logan
Date Posted: June 19 2019 at 11:55
I've had quite a few revelatory, mystical experiences myself, and I've experienced things that seemed amazing but I put down to coincidence. On a number of occasions I've felt like I experienced the oneness of the universe, the interconnectedness of all things, and have profoundly grokked (to borrow a term from one of my favourite novels). Alone after a long hike sitting by a lake I experienced myself moving through the roots of the trees, up through the tress, and expanding outward. That sort of experience has happened to me a few times. I've had "mystical" experiences in nature, once at a church, at a Buddhist temple in Japan, and some different seemingly supernatural things. I have felt that I knew there was something bigger and there was some purpose (though this didn't require a god). While I found such things profound at the time, I put it down to my brain chemistry. As I mentioned earlier in this thread, I also thought I once heard God tell me "You must die before you live". While it was startling at the time, I have no reason to think that was really God and not an inner voice coming from me. I was very exhausted at the time and had been spending a lot of time around Christian fundamentalists. When I told some Christians about it they got all excited, if I spoke to a crisis line, they would more likely see it as suicidal ideation. I've often had audio hallucinations of an ilk, such as hearing Beethoven's 9th seemingly blasting from some external source when in fact it was all in my head. Of a different sort, I've also thought that I've seen and experienced ghosts, a Sasquatch, a Wendigo, a sense of evil in certain places, and alien spacecraft. When my thyroid is out of whack these experiences happen more. I've had some really weird experiences that I won't go into now, and it may be that there is some truth to the supernatural, although I would expect that there are things we don't understand that are part of the natural world/ universe/ multiverse and don't need to be described as outside of nature, or that one can say that science can never be used to explain these phenomena. I have often experienced a sense of the numinous, and still do despite my atheism. My brand of atheism does not claim that there is no God or gods, but I don't believe in God as I have not been convinced that such an entity is necessary or likely. Often people believe what they want to believe, often against all rationality. Personally, I have a much bigger problem with many religions than I do with the simple idea that a god or Gods exist. Not only do I find much religious belief deeply irrational, and ideas harmful, but I find an arrogance amongst various religious people who claim they know the truth and everyone else is wrong. Worse, there are those that feel that non-believers are deserving of hell, they are the chosen people, and that non-believers deserve punishment and even death in this earthly world. A lot of religious beliefs seem profoundly immoral to me (I like humanism), and various conceptions of God paint it as what I would deem immoral. Some of them would then claim that God is the very definition of morality, so God cannot be immoral. God s the definition of good, so God must be good.... I find a lot of circular reasoning when it comes to such issues and arguments from ignorance and incredulity, as well as wishful and magical thinking. I find Christian and Islamic apologists defy good reasoning and clearly often have a serious lack of understanding when it comes to science and various academic pursuits. I certainly don't paint all religious people with the same broad brush, but religion is generally far too promoting of tribalism (you either believe with us or you're against us) I'm a seeker of a sort, and have my own sense of spirituality. I'm interested in knowledge and epistemology. I'm interested in truth-seeking, but I accept that we can't know everything/ we are all ignorant when it comes to many things, and that we shouldn't put too much faith in our intuitions or accept things as true without sound reasoning. While I'm not absolutely certain of anything, I very strongly believe in a great many things. ------------- Just a fanboy passin' through. |
Posted By: BaldJean
Date Posted: June 19 2019 at 12:17
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it seems to me that you have a kind of odd definition of God, at least in my opinion. you seem to think that God would have to be some kind of extraneous phenomenon and in contradiction to the laws of physics or at least in contradiction to scientific thinking. but that is not so at all. somehow you remind me of a certain joke: a very pious man is out with his boat which somehow acquires a leak, and he is about to drown. being a pious man he prays to God to rescue him. a ship appears, and the captain offers to take him aboard, but he says: "no, God will save me". a helicopter appears with a rope ladder to save him; again he says: "no, God will save me". a fisher boat appears to rescue him; again he says: "no, God will save me". finally he drowns. after his death he meets God and complains to him: "I am a pious man and prayed for your help. why did you not save me "? answers God: "I sent you a ship, a helicopter and a fisher boat; what more do you want"?
------------- A shot of me as High Priestess of Gaia during our fall festival. Ceterum censeo principiis obsta |
Posted By: Logan
Date Posted: June 19 2019 at 12:59
Also known as the law of parsimony. Among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions is the one that should be selected (and/or most likely). And it also relates to something I said earlier in this thread, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof". No I don't, and I find your application problematic. Occam's razor is predictive, and if none had existed, none would be making the predictions and presenting competing hypotheses. When working with Occam's razor, you start with known quantities for hypotheses, and you weigh them up. Saying that "Taking those laws as a basis, none of us should exist here and now" is an assumption of yours, and I don't believe that it is a good or really relevant use of the principles/methodology of Occam's razor. Does our non-existence require less assumptions at any time? Would it ever have been predictable, and to who? Is this an anomaly? As a determinist, I think that we were bound to exist, but there is quantum fluctuation to consider, but that's another matter. I exist and expect that before that I didn't exist and at a later date I won't exist (at least in this state). I'm not sure why that must be humbling either. ------------- Just a fanboy passin' through. |
Posted By: Logan
Date Posted: June 19 2019 at 13:11
You got me wrong, I'm not an absolutist and would never say that God must be this, or must be that. There are many different definitions of god, and I don't work with just one. We had a very long conversation/ semi-debate on this before some years ago (unless it was Friede), wish I could remember the thread, but I guess I didn't make myself clear enough on my beliefs and non-beliefs. Because I married a born again Christian, I often do operate in the context of what they've told me about about what they think God is, but I know many different people have different ideas. Personally, I think that if there is a God, then God would be part of the "natural" universe or multiverse and tend to prefer the Spinoza conception of God. ------------- Just a fanboy passin' through. |
Posted By: TCat
Date Posted: June 19 2019 at 13:23
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God in popular practice nowadays is mostly just a mascot of religion. Religion is just a way for mostly dirty old men (I say mostly because some of them are dirty young men) to control society.
------------- https://ibb.co/8x0xjR0" rel="nofollow">  |
Posted By: Cristi
Date Posted: June 19 2019 at 13:29
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Posted By: Polymorphia
Date Posted: June 19 2019 at 13:34
The conclusion with the fewest assumptions, in the physical world, is pretty much synonymous with the cause event which takes up the shortest length of time and smallest amount of space using the weakest force (relative to the energy of its proposed source). Imagine that you were weighing the guilt of two defendants against one another. And hour before the crime occurred, defendant A was identified in the area and defendant B was identified an hour's drive away. In this case, according Occam's Razor, it is more likely that defendant A committed the crime, even though it is still possible that Defendant B is guilty, no?* I have a point with this, but I want to know if you agree thus far. *Obviously the evidence is circumstantial so the argument would not work in court, but "innocent until proven guilty" is only a dialectic methodological assumption based on the premise that it is ethically preferable for a guilty party to go free than for an innocent party to be punished. To boot, we are only weighing probability here, not sentencing someone to death; geez, lighten up. Edit: for precision ------------- https://dreamwindow.bandcamp.com/releases" rel="nofollow - My Music
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Posted By: gr8dane
Date Posted: June 19 2019 at 14:20
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God saves you for $29.99 a month.
------------- Shake & bake. |
Posted By: Argo2112
Date Posted: June 19 2019 at 14:36
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While I am certainly open to the concept of some higher power I don't subscribe to any specific religious doctrine. Some things are just beyond our understanding. The problem with people is they always think they know all the answers, and if they don't they'll make something up. We should be smart enough to know that we are not smart enough to know all the answers. BTW, God is a cosmic tarantula named Fred, I know, I met him once.
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Posted By: BaldFriede
Date Posted: June 19 2019 at 15:41
As to quantum
fluctuation: According to very recent research results this quantum
fluctuation is not quite as random as scientists believed so far. Some
quantum events appear to be more likely than others (somehow this
reminds me of "all animals are equal, but some or more equal than the
others"). Maybe there is a hidden variable after all, as Einstein always
believed. On June 4th I received this e-mail from a science blog that I
suscribe to: -------------  BaldJean and I; I am the one in blue. |
Posted By: BaldFriede
Date Posted: June 19 2019 at 15:44
 ------------- BaldJean and I; I am the one in blue. |
Posted By: Logan
Date Posted: June 19 2019 at 16:23
If you don't mind, I'm putting in the parts that you edited out, since otherwise context can be lost, and one might miss the point of what I'm responding to as this is about how Occam's razor relates to our existence, or something. For this reason I tend to quote in full. I know I didn't answer it at as well as I should have, and I'm hoping that where you are going will respond to Jaketejas' comment as well as my response to it. Hopefully he'll elaborate too on his concept. I would be interested to know from your perspective how there can be no possible relation between Occam's razor and the extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence quote. Of course I never said it's the same, but to find no relation between the concepts? But you said that would get to that. Maybe I'm someone who find thinks more interrelated than they actually are (I have a holistic sort of perspective and am definitely a pattern-seeking animal). I expect one wouldn't make such a statement without having tried to think it out from various angles to try to find some relation. As a non-absolutist, I avoid such absolute statements. They relate to me and they both relate to what I've been saying since page two of this thread. We should not be trying to look for overly complex solutions to problems, but instead we should be looking for simpler solutions that fit the circumstances that require less assumptions and less extraordinary reasons (was it a coincidence or Divine intervention, something else....? to get to the start of this avenue). Of course Occam's razor is not the be all and end all, and is often a good starting point for our approach when choosing betwixt competing hypotheses without sufficient evidence to make a claim. To believe extraordinary claims often requires making extraordinary assumptions, so one demands extraordinary evidence. They are both approaches to seeking truth or likelihood as I see it, but then that would be a relation.. As to your example, I get how it logically follows from your prior description, and knowing that it's not enough reason to make a determination or even that I would think that Occam's razor should be consciously applied there (the razor should be used with caution as it's quite sharp), nor that it would work in a court of law, then fine I will say that suspect A is the more likely candidate based on what we know so far based on your framing, especially since to quote Aristotle, "Nature operates in the shortest way possible." I'll probably get the quoting wrong and have to edit. ------------- Just a fanboy passin' through. |
Posted By: Jaketejas
Date Posted: June 19 2019 at 16:46
| So you believe that it is possible to predict your existence from "the beginning" using Occam's Razor? I find my existence in the universe at this time and place a humbling experience "for me" was implied. If you are a determinist, whether or not you find it humbling is already calculated for you and I'm afraid you really have no choice in the matter (unless you get whapped by a quantum fluctuation). |
Posted By: Jaketejas
Date Posted: June 19 2019 at 16:58
| Is that what you believe? |
Posted By: Logan
Date Posted: June 19 2019 at 17:13
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No, I don't. It is a heuristic method to choose between competing hypotheses based on what data one has, and it works well as a starting point for choosing which avenues are best to investigate. It works for competing hypotheses that have the same predictions, but doesn't do away with the hypotheses that make different predictions. Between several hypothesis that make the same prediction or have the same result, the one that makes the least number of assumptions is generally best. It's rather "liberating" to be a determinist, I can blame it all on causal chains (heredity and environmental factors). ;) ------------- Just a fanboy passin' through. |
Posted By: BaldJean
Date Posted: June 19 2019 at 17:22
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you are aware though that there is by no means a necessity for this. especially since not all assumptions are equal; there are some assumptions that are more reasonable than others, though they may of course be false (and a seemingly less reasonable assumption may be right). it might even be that for some topics a heuristic approach is not the best at all ------------- A shot of me as High Priestess of Gaia during our fall festival. Ceterum censeo principiis obsta |
Posted By: Logan
Date Posted: June 19 2019 at 17:30
Absolutely. And some assumptions are more extraordinary than others, and will remain unfalsifiable (just to tie it in with something I said earlier). ------------- Just a fanboy passin' through. |
Posted By: Jaketejas
Date Posted: June 19 2019 at 17:44
| That seems very useful for predicting the weather (to a point) ... and perhaps in the future volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and large meteorite collisions with earth. But, do I want to base my beliefs on that for my life and for those whom I love? I think that a philosophy like that for life could be dangerous if you approach life always thinking ... with what probability can I get ahead if I do such-and-such, especially at the expense of others. That's what I mean by that gentle whisper of the conscience that I just can't deny. |
Posted By: Logan
Date Posted: June 19 2019 at 18:49
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Would you need to? I think you're conflating things that need not be conflated. Recognising a deterministic universe needn't make one a prick and needn't define one. I have a moral code. I have a system of ethics, a sense of right and wrong. I don't like to take advantage of people, and I feel guilty when I do wrong even if unintentional. I believe in the least amount of suffering and the greatest well-being. I have a conscience and empathy, I love, I care about caring, and I suffer when others suffer. I also value the pursuit of knowledge and truth and the principle of charity, both in and outside of debates. I'd be interested to hear more about your beliefs as I'm feeling like we're not really understanding each other, and I wouldn't want to make assumptions or draw hasty conclusions about your "philosophy" or psychology. ------------- Just a fanboy passin' through. |
Posted By: Jaketejas
Date Posted: June 19 2019 at 19:05
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Nor I yours to be be sure! I value your thoughts and am happy that you are sharing them. I am really just trying to see, as much as I can, your point of view. The question I wonder now is ... what is your basis for right and wrong? And, if you are a determinist, how does that work? It seems that you are now considering moral law. |
Posted By: YESESIS
Date Posted: June 19 2019 at 19:26
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Wow, this thread has kind of exploded since I posted that last night. Anyway, I might have asked before for some sign but it certainly wasn't with as much outpouring of emotion as that day, of that I'm sure. And again no other night of my life have I turned on the TV and right there is a program trying to prove the existence God(I don't remember it that well now, only saw it the one time). But that night it felt very strongly like God was answering me. That's what I believe happened, and great point by BaldJean that it maybe can't truly be understood by someone who didn't experience the same thing.
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