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Gnarly Gnu

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Guest Deskpilot1
Facthunter said

"Something like a deathbed conversion, or NDE.. "Oh God I'm coming" ."

 

In bed with god??.

Why not, aren't we all gods in our own minds. (I believe yes, we are god but that's too controversial for this thread)

 

 

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Had an interesting philosophical chat with a work mate today about whether the universe is deterministic or not. (My view is, of course, "not"). Point being, you go far enough back... basically to the big bang... then we hit a wall in our knowledge. That's when the nominally religious folks say "well god made the big bang". (I say nominally, because the true literalists of course think the big bang is fiction). Of course there's no way to peer over that wall, but the fact that time/space/matter/energy came into existence in a single event is no reason to believe an intelligent being made it happen. My favourite theory on the matter is that universes are popping into being all the time like bubbles in a pot of water - some with slightly different laws of physics which result in an even spread of cool dust instead of stars, or no matter at all, or gravity force so great that the big bang collapses back into itself. Just so happens that in an infinite number of new universes, there had to be one with the initial factors exactly like ours, which led to the possibility (probability?) of life on not just our planet but a very large number of others too.

 

In the event of this being true, god is not only irrelevant but entirely unlikely. Have spirituality by all means... "Mindfulness" (whatever that is) seems to be popular these days, some buddhist meditation or Indian yoga is probably healthy - but a bipolar anthropomorphic god of fire and brimstone / love and eternal hymns? Really?

 

 

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They made the God-character too powerful. In particular being able to see the future makes nonsense of a lot of their own stuff.

 

How could God have possibly got angry if he had known before he made these humans that they would eat the apple etc?

 

But they are not he only ones. There was a Harry Potter movie in which a girl could do time-travel to solve a timetable problem, but they didn't think to use this trick to go back and see who actually did a crime.

 

There is less excuse for the Harry Potter scriptwriters than for those bronze-age superstitious scribes.

 

 

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Interesting Bruce, I'd never thought of that. So the big guy gives us free will knowing full well that Eve would eat the apple and that Adam and the rest of us would be punished for all time and that Joe Stalin and Adolf Hitler would use theirs to ensure 100 million people met an untimely and violent death. Surely he would realise (in advance) that the design of humankind was badly flawed? But then why would an omnipotent being create a life form that clearly was so imperfect that there was every likelihood that they would wipe out not just many other species but their own?

 

Sounds like a malicious child who builds up a toy block wall only to smash it down for the fun of it.

 

Perhaps we need a new prophet (sorry mohammed you may not be the last) with a better imagined God Mk II. And perhaps this new prophet won't have a predilection to marry a 9 yo girl?

 

 

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With apologies to the Gnarly one . . .

 

A Rabbi, Hindu priest and tele-evangelist are driving through the country when their car breaks down. They walk to a farmhouse and ask the farmer if they can have shelter for the night. He says yes but explains that there is only room enough in the house for two of them, someone will have to sleep in the barn.

 

The Hindu priest says he will do it and walks out to the barn. A few minutes later there is a knock at the farmhouse door. The farmer opens it and the Hindu is standing there. He explains that there is a cow in the barn and because cows are holy to him he can't sleep in its presence.

 

The Rabbi hears this and states that he will gladly take his place and leaves. A few minutes later he too returns explaining that there is a pig in the barn and his religion prohibits him from associating with what they consider an unclean animal.

 

The tele-evangelist says that he'll go sleep in the barn and leaves. A few minutes later there's a knock at the door. The farmer opens it and sees the cow and the pig...

 

 

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Unfortunately, the reverse is also often true!! (Just remembering my grandfather saying that dinosaur bones were a hoax planted by godless scientists. Apparently (well before I was born) he also said that god would never allow mankind to reach the moon. Oops!)

 

 

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Yeah, strong beliefs can make you ignore the facts. The human mind is an excellent filter which unfortunately works against us as often as it works for us.

 

It's all about balance of evidence and credibility of evidence. Working that out is where many people stumble.

 

In a sense I don't really care when people believe demonstrably untrue stuff or stuff which isn't credible, as long as they keep it inside their own little bubble. It's when it adversely affects others that I start having problems with it.

 

 

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