Did any one ever tell you that Jesus Christ was butt ugly
— christian2017
Yes. The original followers of Jesus were Jews. And Jesus rebuked a gentile woman : “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” (Matt. 15:24) But Saul/Paul (not Jesus) was rejected by the Jews, so he took his message of the Messiah to the Greeks. Centuries later, Paul's gentile-friendly version of Jesus/Judaism was adopted by the Roman Emperor, who made it the Imperial Religion. This mashup of Roman polytheism and Jewish monotheism is what modern Christians have inherited. It has little to do with the actual mission of Jesus. :cool:

mythical Roman Christ? My assumption is you mean a Catholic bastardization of who Jesus Christ is?
— christian2017
Yes. The "suffering servant" prophesied by Isaiah "had no form or comeliness". But the same was said of the Greek "Jesus", Socrates. Plato emphasized that he was "butt ugly" in a society obsessed with beauty. It was intended to show the irony of a beautiful message in an ugly vessel. :nerd: — Gnomon

Isaiah chapter 53 KJV says he was Butt ugly

I disagree i think the writings of Paul were meant to be in the Bible. The Catholic church has always been atleast a little divided and many modern catholics to some extent reject Pauls books. I'm not going to go indepth in this right now. To say Paul doesn't belong in the Bible is a common thing said among a subset of christians.

My belief in aliens is due to something i read in "a brief history of time" by Stephen Hawkings. He said if you roll a trillion sided dice (die) a trillion times you should expect to roll an 18 if your desire was to roll an 18.
— christian2017
So, you are playing long odds that aliens are real and relevant??? :joke: — Gnomon

lol.

But i believe in Jesus Christ. lol.
— christian2017
I believe in the apocalyptic Jewish preacher, but not in the mythical Roman Christ. :cool: — Gnomon

mythical Roman Christ? My assumption is you mean a Catholic bastardization of who Jesus Christ is?
Members of my family are catholic but i don't consider them not christian. Millerism and theologians that went before that contributed some of Millerism theology, believe the Roman Papacy was the anti-christ or a form of it. Millerism has aspects that aren't true or were shown to be false over time based on historical events. I'm not a big roman papacy fan. I'm sure you are aware of all there scandals. I can't go into alot of detail regarding christian theology ("escatology or study of the end times) because i would be breaking forum rules. If you are interested send me a private message. I have a video that would be more interesting then reading what i have to write, plus i don't feel like writing it right now but i will if you want me to.

No wrong answer. I'm tired.

Did any one ever tell you that Jesus Christ was butt ugly, do a google search for ugly jews pics or ugly jesus pics. There is a Bible verse about that but i'm not going to share it right now because that would be breaking forum rules.

Based on the differences between the Talmud and Old Testament, i agree.
— christian2017
Although it claims roots in ancient Jewish wisdom traditions, the Kabbalah is a post-Christian scripture. It implies that those ancient scriptures were written in code, so only a select few adepts can understand it. That's one thing I don't like about magical cults, they are proudly occult, and keep important stuff secret from ordinary people like me. By contrast, Science is conducted out in the open, where it can be skeptically criticized to weed-out the bad stuff. Unfortunately, most people tend to take anything remotely sciency on faith in authorities, without critical thinking. So, they can't tell the difference between reasonable Facts and irrational BS. :cool: — Gnomon

more or less i agree. I have people in my family who are lower level free masons, i'm not. Some christians claim there is a close connection between free masonry and Kabbalah. My assumption is that is true.

cool. Considering i believe in aliens, i don't think this is entirely unplausible.
— christian2017
Modern Aliens are equivalent to ancient Angels. They are messengers from the great beyond, but they are very secretive, and only appear to a select few people. Have you ever seen one? Have you received a message of peace, or a warning for us to stop sinning against Nature or God? :joke: — Gnomon

My assumption is the first part of the statement your being serious or atleast mostly serious.

I see wierd things every day. Typically i attribute them to Jesus Christ.

My belief in aliens is due to something i read in "a brief history of time" by Stephen Hawkings. He said if you roll a trillion sided dice (die) a trillion times you should expect to roll an 18 if your desire was to roll an 18. Its commonly said earth, couldn't have this happen because there is 1 in large number for it to happen and that means God.... I believe in God/Jesus Christ for other reasons but not that. What i'm getting at is there are ridicoulous number of galaxies and even more stars (quick google or bing search). Over X time, with a trillion dice rolls, i would imagine on one of those solar systems there would be intelligent life similar to us. As i told you before just about everything or everything in the Bible can be explained with Aliens.

But i believe in Jesus Christ. lol.

Considering physics and particles determine the behavior of a car, why wouldn't it determine the behavior of a human?

It's what comes from a thoughtless application of formalisms. The premise "Whatever should be done can be done" is only plausible in the context in which choices exist (whatever we take choices to mean). The corollary of this statement is "Whatever should not be done can be done." Taken together, these two statements express the idea that a moral should only makes sense when you have a choice between what should and what should not be done. If you have no choice, then moral considerations are irrelevant.

If you plug in the corollary "Whatever should not be done can be done" into the argument alongside the second premise and thoughtlessly crank the handle, then you can end up with this absurdity: determinism supposedly implies that you always do what should be done and what should not be done, all at the same time. Of course, if you remember that choice (supposedly) does not exist under determinism, then you will not get yourself in trouble like that. But this is why it makes no sense to extend the argument past the second premise. — SophistiCat

First of all most people would agree most if not all people do what they "should" do and very often 10 mintues later do what they "should not" do. Perhaps we should view people like ants or mice or dogs, in that we are dumb and we make decisions that scientifically determined or determined by dna and the situations we are put in. Whatever it is that matters to each individual dog (some argue sex, food whatever) is only dependent on nurture versus nature and/or scientific determinism. Perhaps we take ourselves to seriously & at the each moment if our desire is to make better future decisions, we should try to recall from past experience and apply that knowledge and/or logic to attempt (attempt) to make better future decisions.

In summary perhaps we should view ourselves as animals that are unlikely to have alot of control over what happens next.

It seems to me awkward to say that science is devoid of metaphysics.

We have the simulated reality hypothesis, that is seemingly unverifiable yet makes total sense from a scientific perspective.

Thus, is science really devoid of metaphysics? It would seem to me that no, science is not devoid of metaphysics, and also has some theories that pertain to the domain of metaphysics.

Would you agree with this? — Shawn

i agree with this. Einstein used meta-physics as you well know. Modern Physics has alot more equations and tests involved, but all the information at our disposal has made progress like Einstein's much harder. I don't think this is a testimony to the lack of intellect among modern scientists, but information grows exponentially as the internet has shown us.

Modern scientists have to sift thru alot more information than they did 100s of years ago.

In 1000 years who know what scientists will believe. Sometimes a minor detail changes a whole equation or system completely.

The universe and reality is a chess board with trillions of trillions of spaces on the board.
— christian2017

Not really. Every game is inherently deterministic. Reality seems to have an element of non-determinism in it. — Shawn

thats fair.

now i'm going to look up Alan Watts and Bruce Lee. I once saw a quote of Bruce Lee to the effect of "be careful of those who listen and pay attention". I couldn't find the quote as of now so i'm sure i butchered the quote.

the relationship between two things might have a different intensity of connection (or graph or equation) based on what level or aspect that you are dealing with. A relationship between two things might have different levels or contexts that need to be analyzed.

I would like to be able to create examples relevant to whichever discussions I engage in - much like I have seen Alan Watts and Bruce Lee do.
What information can you provide that would aid me? — Intermittent

Everything or almost everything is connected or has a relationship. There are 1 to 1 (a type of linear), linear, inverse exponential, exponential and so on relationships. When two things have a relationship, they effect each other in a certain way and in different aspects of life or reality.

Reality and Life is a giant web of interactions.

Read alot of books and if you lose interest in a book read the first 4 chapters and then for the rest of the book read the many summaries of the subject online to get a summary of the rest of the information. Most authors put most of their effort into the first 4 chapters to sell books. Reading how text is written will help you structure sentences but it'll also encourage you to read quality material and expose yourself to concepts outside of things like youtube.

Apples and Oranges do have a relationship but it is not a close relationship. Whence "thats like comparing apples and oranges" with the cliche meaning the two things don't have a relationship.

There is absolute truth but it is very hard to find.

I actually didn't know you didn't like the Kabbalah, i don't like the Kabbalah either. I don't like the talmud but i didn't want to bore you with that right now. It deals with the way it is worded in relation to the old testament.
— christian2017
I don't dislike the Kabblah more than any other ancient scriptures. But I am wary of how people get sucked-in to the vortex of magic & mysticism. Like Gnostics, they believe they know secrets that give them supernatural powers. But they're just fooling themselves and others. The Kabbalah is definitely not compatible with Christianity, or even with second temple Judaism, for that matter. :gasp: — Gnomon

Based on the differences between the Talmud and Old Testament, i agree.

Based on this post of yours, could someone go far as to say with the creation of the universe it was inevitable that a being that has feeling and/or consciessness would come to exist? Or is that a stretch?
— christian2017
Yes. I have concluded the the emergence of intelligent creatures was programmed into the Singularity that caused pure Energy to complexify over time into Matter, and eventually into Minds. I don't know for sure where we go from here, but I'm pretty sure that 21st century humanity is not the final solution to the intention behind evolution.

Teilhard deChardin imagined that evolution was essentially developing the Big Bang embryo into a child of god, that he referred to as the Cosmic Christ. More secular scientists, think that robots will replace humans as the pinnacle of Natural and Cultural evolution. But I just don't have enough information to predict the future course of world-building. So, I tend to focus on the here & now. :nerd: — Gnomon

cool. Considering i believe in aliens, i don't think this is entirely unplausible.

So perhaps with "god of philosophers", the main god intended philosophers and/or people to discover him through deep thought?
— christian2017
As a rule, philosophers such as Spinoza, don't make any attempt to read the mind of G*D. They merely assume the existence of an intentional creator of the world as an Axiom, upon which they build a worldview. But they are still free to try to interpret the intentions of the creator from the way the world works.

For example, evolution seems to be causing the physical world to change in the direction of increasing complexity and intelligence. This was not apparent to the ancient priests & prophets, before the advent of scientific investigation. So the concept of Evolution or progressive change would not have occurred to them. Yet now we can look back at the Big Bang and follow the emergence of organization from energetic atoms to living organisms, and eventually to thinking beings. And some of those thinkers may conclude that their personal interpretation of divine intentions is the true Will of G*D. But I am not that confident in my sign-reading abilities. So my relationship to G*D is not a personal friendship, but more like developing a rapport with Nature, that makes my life more meaningful. :cool:


Rapport : relation; connection, especially harmonious or sympathetic relation: — Gnomon

thats fair.

now that i think about it i never read alot about game theory and college only offered the banal example. I don't understand your OP.

In any sufficiently complex game, given enough iterations, it can be demonstrated that both players become hyper-rational, and thus a winning strategy cannot be entertained.

Analogously, think about chess for a moment. Given that chess is the oldest game in human history, and given that it is deterministic, then through enough iterations it can be demonstrated that both players, given a sufficiently long backlog of past historical games, are going to face situations where winning becomes... impossible.

What is left to entertain is simply a mistake committed by either player to ensure victory. Since both players, given enough iterations, become hyper-rational, then winning becomes impossible, and the game looses its "fun-factor".

I believe the analogy can be demonstrated for ANY deterministic game, and thus, game theory has been refuted for any deterministic game.

Thoughts? — Shawn

Chess to some measure is confined to a chess board. The universe and reality is a chess board with trillions of trillions of spaces on the board. Victory or defeat out here is much more of a spectrum. I understand chess is extremely complicated though.

I half way understand what you are saying. If you are saying the theory is atleast slightly flawed, i'm not sure any of us could argue with that.

When i was in college they gave us a very banal explanation of the theory using prisoners and testimonies. Lets not forget when one guy goes to prison he might find a real nice friend (unlikely) and enjoy his meals for whatever reason. lol

The point is its possible to not completely lose or completely win.

Have a good day, Sir!

Well, I remain unconvinced. Let's imagine the professor in the example says something like "well you should have killed your neighbors and stolen their car". This works as a case for premise 2. It's not an impossible request, just an absurd one. But it doesn't work for premise 3 for any number of realistic circumstance, like if we assume the student is an ordinary law-abiding citizen and being on time isn't a matter of life and death. In a deterministic world, the request would never be fulfilled, so in that sense it cannot happen.

It's also telling that the conjunction of premises 2 and 3 is that, if determinism is true, everything that should happen does happen. That requires us to equate "should" with "can", which turns the second premise into a tautology (and also invalidates the first premise). — Echarmion

lol. nice.

How does it implies the existence of anything? Premise 2 simply says that for any x, if x should be done, then x can be done. It doesn't even imply that there is something that should be done, nor that there is something that can be done. It is simply a universally quantified conditional sentence, without existential implications.
— Nicholas Ferreira

So the argument can be expressed less rigorously as:
1. We should believe true statements
2. If we should believe true statements, we can.
3. In a deterministic world, it follows that we believe true statements.
4. I believe in free will.
5. Therefore, if the world is deterministic, free will is true, a contradiction.

2. Says that we can do what we should do. That seems unwarranted. Say I am an alcoholic. I should quit drinking. But perhaps I cannot.

I think what's happening here is that two different meanings of "can be done" are conflated. 2. Would be true if expressed as "whatever should be done is theoretically possible to do". But 3. uses can in the sense of "what is practically possible". Even for a determinist, the set of theoretically possible events does not equal the set of actual events. — Echarmion

thank you for posting this and translating the thing. I agree.

The argument goes as follows:

1. With respect to the free-will issue, we should refrain from believing falsehoods. (premise)
2. Whatever should be done can be done. (premise)
3. If determinism is true, then whatever can be done, is done. (premise)
4. I believe minimal free-will. (premise)
5. With respect to the free-will issue, we can refrain from believing falsehoods. (from 1,2)
6. If determinism is true, then with respect to the free will issue, we refrain from believing falsehoods. (from 3,5)
7. If determinism is true, then MFT is true. (from 6,4)
8. Minimal free-willis true. (from 7)

I got it from "Proof of Free Will", by Michael Huemer. — Nicholas Ferreira

You posted a long mathematical/symbol proof. However most of us are just going to gloss over that because we have better things to do. You want to write out that "mathematical proof" in plain english, all 50 steps, so that we can critique it better. You realize scientific determinism arose out of people analyzing Newtonian Physics and stuff like that.

Math symbols can infact be unpacked and put into plain english for dumb people like us

So if you want us to take you seriously go ahead and start unpacking all 50 lines of that "math proof".

You asked what i mean by this, some say Joshua shouldn't have killed the children (assuming he did and i assume he did) of the cities he conquered (book of joshua old testament), had he not killed them the parents would have a strange conversation with their adopted children when they became teenagers. Also child sacrifice was common among amorites in canaan as well as in ancient iraq. Hammurabi was actually an amorite just in case you didn't know.
— christian2017

I see. I’m not interested in the justification, or lack there of, of Joshua’s actions.

If you would like me to go on and on about the culture of canaan i can. Territories in history have certainly been conquered over much lesser crimes.
— christian2017

That’s not necessary.

If you disagree with these things in that you don't find them to be corruption, either my concept of reality is severely flawed or yours is and there is no point in us trying to convince each otherwise. I wouldn't be surprised if at this point we get into a discussion about post-modernism.
— christian2017

I’m not trying to move into post-modernist territory. I agree that the things you mentioned are bad, but bad doesn’t equal corrupt, at least not in my view. I see corruption to mean something like changing the meaning of what a particular holy book/passage/ doctrine says so that it suits your needs. Pretending to be doing “God’s will,” but actually pursuing your own selfish needs. The problem is we can’t simply ask the authors what they meant, so it is left for the rest of us to interpret. Also, there is the problem of contradictory passages in religions texts. One passage says “love thy neighbor,” while others promote violence, such as the one Bitter Crank provided above. Some followers practice the former, while some practice the latter. So which group is corrupt, and which is not? Each group will just point the finger at the other group, and, as @Wayfarer mentioned, there is no objective way to settle the dispute. Do you have a solution?

Also, I promise my comments are sincere. If my questions seem stupid it is due to my lack of understanding. I simply ask because I want to learn.
10 hours ago
Pinprick
96
But as others have pointed out, the corruption of religious institutions is a fact of history; I think as soon as something becomes an institution, then it implements a power-structure, and wherever there's power, there's the possibility of corruption.
— Wayfarer

I essentially agree with this. However, I’m questioning how you, or anyone else, can know that these power grabs that you’re describing aren’t the intended consequences of the founder of the religion? I assume that these theocrats would provide some scripture to justify their actions. Just as I assume that that there would be scripture against their actions. The inherent contradictions in these texts is a big part of the issue.

There is no detached, objective or scientific way to determine it.
— Wayfarer

Then you accept that your claim that religions have been corrupted is only an opinion? If not, on what do you base your belief upon?

from the viewpoint of secular culture, it's impossible to make value judgements about the overall veracity of different religions - say, scientology, Santeria, and Catholicism.
— Wayfarer

Isn’t calling a religion corrupt a value judgment? — Pinprick

Well i agree judging someone's character (or discerning someones character) is extremely difficult to do accurately. Self doubt and extreme self doubt very often leads to excessive suffering but in the end i would argue leads to great results. These are things i avoid as much as possible.

Just as atheists in government judge/discern people and even have political power, so do christians who have a certain amount of power.

The simple matter of the thing is only time will tell.

The medieval peasant being oppressed by the medieval church, had to wait for his/her day. Perhaps that day never came.

In some ways for you to accept my explanation of corrupt religion you would first have to believe there is a possibility that there is a religion that is not corrupt.
— christian2017

If you try, I could be persuaded. Of course, I’m not implying that the founders of any religion were corrupt, I don’t think that’s even possible, unless we have different ideas of what corrupt means.

However for the fun of it i'll play this game anyway. A corrupt religion might have temple prostitution like ancient iraq, founders of the religion who were severe sex offenders (i'm sure you'll ask me to define sex offender), child sacrifice, unwarranted decimation of cities (Joshua didn't commit genocide because he didn't target the amorites in ancient iraq), rejection of just laws, rejection of their own key holy books and i could go on but i'll stop for now.
— christian2017

With the exception of rejecting their own holy books, none of these things necessarily make a religion corrupt. If the founder of the religion intended for its adherents to practice temple prostitution, sex abuse, etc. then those practices would be completely in line with that religions doctrine. Have there been religions that have rejected their own holy books?

In addition to this i would like to add that if you murder someones parents and the adopt them you shouldn't tell them "i murdered your parents but when you are a teenager you'll understand all of these adult things".

Were there adoption agencies in 1300 BC?
— christian2017

I literally have no clue what you’re trying to get at here... — Pinprick

"In addition to this i would like to add that if you murder someones parents and the adopt them you shouldn't tell them "i murdered your parents but when you are a teenager you'll understand all of these adult things".

Were there adoption agencies in 1300 BC?"

You asked what i mean by this, some say Joshua shouldn't have killed the children (assuming he did and i assume he did) of the cities he conquered (book of joshua old testament), had he not killed them the parents would have a strange conversation with their adopted children when they became teenagers. Also child sacrifice was common among amorites in canaan as well as in ancient iraq. Hammurabi was actually an amorite just in case you didn't know.

If you would like me to go on and on about the culture of canaan i can. Territories in history have certainly been conquered over much lesser crimes.


In regards to what is below:

However for the fun of it i'll play this game anyway. A corrupt religion might have temple prostitution like ancient iraq, founders of the religion who were severe sex offenders (i'm sure you'll ask me to define sex offender), child sacrifice, unwarranted decimation of cities (Joshua didn't commit genocide because he didn't target the amorites in ancient iraq), rejection of just laws, rejection of their own key holy books and i could go on but i'll stop for now.
— christian2017

With the exception of rejecting their own holy books, none of these things necessarily make a religion corrupt. If the founder of the religion intended for its adherents to practice temple prostitution, sex abuse, etc. then those practices would be completely in line with that religions doctrine. Have there been religions that have rejected their own holy books?"


___________________________________

If you disagree with these things in that you don't find them to be corruption, either my concept of reality is severely flawed or yours is and there is no point in us trying to convince each otherwise. I wouldn't be surprised if at this point we get into a discussion about post-modernism.

You could be laughing at me behind your computer know full well you do find these things are corruption. Why would i try to convince you of these things. To me this is like trying to convince you that 1 + 1 = 2.

However only time will tell which one of us is correct. Perhaps these things i label or call "the corruption of religion" don't matter and as Paul in the Bible says "if we are wrong about what we believe, we are the lowest among all people". I'm sure i butchered that verse a little bit.

this may sound stupid and i knew this day would come buti'm at 666 and i would like to move to 668 for superstitious reasons (mentions). Help a buddy out lol. Have you ever seen the movie Pi (same guy who made "Requiem for a dream")?
— christian2017
If you are already at "666" then there's no hope for you. The devil's gonna get you. But then, PI is an endless string of numbers, so maybe all you have to do is move-on to the next digit in your imagination.

Yes, I saw the movie. And it's based on Jewish numerology. But you should avoid getting ensnared in such Kabbalistic nonsense. It could make you as crazy as the protagonist (lit. one torn by inner conflict). :cool:

PI : Max Cohen is a number theorist who believes everything in nature can be understood through numbers. — Gnomon

I actually didn't know you didn't like the Kabbalah, i don't like the Kabbalah either. I don't like the talmud but i didn't want to bore you with that right now. It deals with the way it is worded in relation to the old testament.

I find the movie Pi entertaining though.

I did eventually move to 668 and beyond so i guess i'll be alright. lol.

I read what you said about this top mind not being a creator and i can kind of see why thistop mind wouldn't have to be a creator, but why is it a stretch to say primitive people who believed in religion weren't in some sense (some sense) refering to this top mind or cosmic mind?
— christian2017
The universal mind imagined by AI enthusiasts is a creation of the universe, not the creator of it. They assume that the physical universe itself is eternal, and operates via inherent logic. Some religious people do indeed accept that the whole world is gradually becoming conscious.

Omega Point : The Omega Point is the belief that everything in the universe is fated to spiral towards a final point of unification.[1] The term was coined by the French Jesuit Catholic priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin . . . [Chardin sometimes referred to the Omega Point as "The Cosmic Christ". But this is not a biblical exegesis] — Gnomon

Based on this post of yours, could someone go far as to say with the creation of the universe it was inevitable that a being that has feeling and/or consciessness would come to exist? Or is that a stretch?

ol. Uhhhhhh. When you use G-d (which is a jewish way of saying God), and then you go on and on about G-d being a creator but also not a creator, and then the fact that this whole philosophy/science thing your explaining is your idea................ and your accusing me of acting on faith? Any time you've concieved of an idea and have yet to prove your idea, to some extent you can be accused of acting on faith.
— christian2017
I coined the term "G*D" for a completely different reason from that of the Jews. They were afraid of offending their tyrannical God by using his personal name "Yahweh", instead of the obsequious "your Lordship". My G*D has no personal name, and is unlikely to be offended by such effrontery. I added the asterisk merely to indicate that I was talking about a different god-model from that of traditional religions.

Where did you get the idea that I was ambiguous about G*D being the creator of the universe? I sometimes use other terms, such as "Programmer". But creation is the essential function of the "First Cause" in my thesis. The only alternative I'm aware of is an eternal Multiverse, which must be self-existent --- like a god.

When did I "accuse" you of acting on faith? We all act on faith for things we take for granted without bothering to look for proof. Even scientists take some things for granted. They're call Axioms. I refer to my G*D theory, not as a proven fact, but as a Axiom from which I developed a worldview that explains aspects of reality that are excluded from the materialistic paradigms.

The Enformationism idea, that I "conceived", is a theory, not a doctrine. It's the result of reasoning from modern evidence, not taken on faith in ancient revelations. Enformationism is a philosophical thesis, not a scientific paradigm. So it's supported by arguments, not experiments. The website and blog are extensive arguments that present the reasoning process for coming to the conclusion that the Big Bang was an act of creation. And that Information is the "single substance" of reality. Four centuries ago, Spinoza reached a similar conclusion, but he had no concept of Information in the Shannon sense, or of thinking machines that process information. So I have just updated his philosophy.

FWIW, my god-model is not appropriate for religious faith. Instead, its equivalent to the "god of the philosophers", based on reasoning and skepticism. :nerd:


Spinoza single substance : https://www.iep.utm.edu/spinoz-m/

Effrontery : insolent or impertinent behavior.

Axiom : a statement or proposition which is regarded as being established, accepted, or self-evidently true. [i.e. not based on physical evidence]

God of the Philosophers : "The God of the philosophers, Pascal remarked, is not the God of Abraham and Isaac" [His argument was directed toward the Deists of his day]
https://maritain.nd.edu/jmc/etext/AAP04.htm — Gnomon

So perhaps with "god of philosophers", the main god intended philosophers and/or people to discover him through deep thought? Jacob's name was changed to Israel. Israel means "one who wrestles with the divine", (Jacob literally wrestled either an angel or the god of the Bible himself) wrestling and even combat does have some similarities to mental anguish related to abstract or deep thought. As to the rest of what you said, i don't entirely disagree.

brb i'm in the middle of something.

Would any of you care to explain what a corrupt religion is, and how you determine it to be so? What is your method for distinguishing what is exactly meant in any religions holy book? I assume that you all mean that a religion is corrupted when people use it to justify doing despicable things to those that they oppose. However, often when people do that sort of justifying, they present specific passages from their holy book. So how do you know that what they present as justification for their actions is not what the actual author of the text meant, or would nonetheless condone? — Pinprick

In some ways for you to accept my explanation of corrupt religion you would first have to believe there is a possibility that there is a religion that is not corrupt.

However for the fun of it i'll play this game anyway. A corrupt religion might have temple prostitution like ancient iraq, founders of the religion who were severe sex offenders (i'm sure you'll ask me to define sex offender), child sacrifice, unwarranted decimation of cities (Joshua didn't commit genocide because he didn't target the amorites in ancient iraq), rejection of just laws, rejection of their own key holy books and i could go on but i'll stop for now.

In addition to this i would like to add that if you murder someones parents and the adopt them you shouldn't tell them "i murdered your parents but when you are a teenager you'll understand all of these adult things".

Were there adoption agencies in 1300 BC?

how the universe managed to expand and break free from gravity in the "beginning"?
— christian2017

From the perspective of a high school physics 20 years old and odd bits of physics knowledge, this is an insightful remark. The gravity of even supermassive black holes probably pale in comparison to the Big Bang singularity and yet matter managed to escape the latter; quite spectacularly I must say. If even light can't escape a run of the mill black hole it would imply that when the Big Bang occured, matter would've achieved superluminal velocities to overcome the "infinite" gravity therein active.

I guess there's a perfectly good and singularly boring explanation for this.

If you will allow me a guess, it isn't the case that matter actually flew/is flying apart from the Big Bang singularity like a shrapnel when a grenade explodes. What actually happened and is happening is space is expanding. That way we could have the Big Bang without violating the Einsteinian speed limit. We're still inside the singularity. :scream: That means the structure of this universe is actually that of a singularity :scream: — TheMadFool

I've heard this sort of thing before. I only half way understand the concept. Considering i only half way understand the concept, i can't say you are wrong. There are too many variables for me to claim you are wrong or right. This is on top of the fact that i'm not all that great at math.

Considering you believe in scientific determinism or determinism, i'm sure you believe in absolute truth, that being said i do attempt to word things in such a way that i believe conforms to cliches. I do try to use cliches when possible. To be honest, when out it public i do stretch the truth alot and use polymorphism. The Bible (atleast the KJV and Hebrew) uses alot of polymorphism. Lying and stretching the truth aren't the same thing. If stretching the truth was lying we couldn't justify getting out of bed in the morning.
— christian2017

Oh. :rofl: it's great to know someone who values truth and consistency. — TheMadFool

:)

True. But how would you expect these early hunter gatherers to make this leap without alot of knowledge considering they didn't have a writing system.

Have you ever read Noah Harrari's "Sapiens". He argues one of the things that enabled cohesion on a massive scale among humans was fictional concepts like money(gold) and religion.
— christian2017
Sure. Humans are a different type of social animal. Do you think that this cohesion would have happened on a massive scale if humans didn't have large brains and opposable thumbs? — Harry Hindu

Yeah definitely. Elephants have large brains but they don't talk in complex ways. The opposable thumbs things does help quite a bit though.

Considering this is conjecture on both our parts, how would either of us prove it either way. The forum topic was food for thought. But once again neither of us can prove to what extent they understood death. To some measure they did, because understanding is a spectrum.
— christian2017
I see philosophers throw around these terms, "knowledge" and "understanding" without any clear meaning to those terms. What do you mean, "understanding is a spectrum"? You can be aware of something, but until you come up with an explanation of what you are aware of, then you can't say that you have an understanding of what it is you are aware of. Understanding is derived from explaining. How did they explain death? — Harry Hindu

How did they explain death?

How would i answer that? Do you want me to post verbatim the conversation they said to each other? There isn't much information i have available beyond the OP and what is written in the book called "Sapiens" mentioned earlier.

I understand there can be a difference based on context, however self-centered is sometimes used to mean selfish.
— christian2017
Google "selfish vs self-centered". — Harry Hindu

nope, they mean the same thing atleast in alot of circles or at the very least they have overlapping definitions to the extent that if someone is self centered they very often act selfishly.

Your welcome to post the definitions you retrieved from the internet.

I wasn't saying there was an error, my implication was the ancient shaman is severely flawed in comparison to the scientist but they have similar goals and each is somewhat right. My assumption is you agree with that to some extent.
— christian2017

I wonder if the answers actually differ as they appear to in our eyes. Is one true and the other false or are they just different points of view? Thus my emphasis on the question rather than the answer. — TheMadFool

Considering you believe in scientific determinism or determinism, i'm sure you believe in absolute truth, that being said i do attempt to word things in such a way that i believe conforms to cliches. I do try to use cliches when possible. To be honest, when out it public i do stretch the truth alot and use polymorphism. The Bible (atleast the KJV and Hebrew) uses alot of polymorphism. Lying and stretching the truth aren't the same thing. If stretching the truth was lying we couldn't justify getting out of bed in the morning.

probably one of the more plausible conspiracy theories.
— christian2017

Is it a conspiracy theory? No truth? Not even a teensy weensy bit? You needn't answer. — TheMadFool

I believe alot of conspiracy theories are true. I guess we are defining conspiracy theory differently.

I looked it up. Some Physicists do believe that its possible for when two black holes collide for them to explode.
— christian2017

[citation needed]

Stephen Hawkings believes a black hole is like a star that is so dense that the gravitational pull won't let light to escape.
— christian2017

That’s the normal idea of a black hole yeah.

Did you read the article? What do you think caused the universe to expand intinitally (initially) or what do you think allowed the big bang?
— christian2017

I didn’t read the article because it sounds like just a pop sci retelling of something I already know.

According to the eternal inflation model, which I tentatively accept as the best science we have at the moment, nothing caused the universe to expand initially because there is no initiation, runaway expansion has always been the normal state of the universe going back potentially forever. The big bang was a random temporary slowdown of a small part of it, which became our known universe, which has been slowly accelerating back up ever since and will someday resume that runaway expansion like everything else beyond it. — Pfhorrest

You said the OP article was pop sci, how familiar are you with calculus, newtonian physics and for lack of a better way to put this more advanced physics subjects?

In order to assess an article on physics i would think you would have to atleast have a moderately strong mathematical background. Do either one of us have that. I'm ok with Calculus but that really isn't saying much considering there are higher levels of Calculus let alone mastering linear algebra can be quite tricky.

I would argue reading the OP article is important for critiqueing the forum topic, but i could be wrong. Notice i didn't post a video. Videos are much harder to critque because they hard to divide up and analyze piece by piece.

I'm curious as to what that loop hole is.
— christian2017

I have no idea. Nevertheles, if Godel was right, it exists, waiting to be discovered by a person who means business as far as making faerself an absolute dictator is concerned. — TheMadFool

probably one of the more plausible conspiracy theories.

I actually almost completely agree with this. A regular engineer has 94.blah blah blah percent accuracy and a NASA engineer is above 99. blah blah blah percent accuracy. Minor details can destroy a system. The modern scientist while much less prone to error can still make huge mistakes by missing critical details. NASA isn't perfect its just much much much less prone to error.
— christian2017

Well, I was hoping you'd say the error in the answer was less important than the question itself. — TheMadFool

I wasn't saying there was an error, my implication was the ancient shaman is severely flawed in comparison to the scientist but they have similar goals and each is somewhat right. My assumption is you agree with that to some extent.

Perhaps if we come at this from a Q & A perspective, it'll leave us with a different impression.

The Q, the question, is simply, "whence all this?" This question seeks, if nothing else, an explanation, for all there is - the whole of existence from the atom to the universe - and the evidence, that this was the burning issue for "primitive" people, is that early religions were simply personifications of nature (nature worship?)

The A, the answer, depends on our place in the timeline of history. For "primitive" people, god(s) was/were the perfect answer(s) to the question posed above. Not so for the modern man who, on the whole, finds the divine explanation less than satisfactory and seeks answers elsewhere - perhaps in science.

Ergo, in terms of the question, there's no difference between a shaman living 10,000 years ago and a modern, highly educated scientist but only in terms of the answer, does the distinction "primitive" vs "modern" make sense. — TheMadFool

I actually almost completely agree with this. A regular engineer has 94.blah blah blah percent accuracy and a NASA engineer is above 99. blah blah blah percent accuracy. Minor details can destroy a system. The modern scientist while much less prone to error can still make huge mistakes by missing critical details. NASA isn't perfect its just much much much less prone to error.

How do you feel about the US Constituion and the Bill of Rights? I understand its not perfect but how do you feel about the document itself rather than how history played out?
— christian2017

Sorry. I'm too ignorant to make a sensible comment on the US constitution and the Bill of Rights. All I know is Kurt Godel, the mathematician, is believed to have discovered a loophole in the US constitution that could change the world's greatest democracy into a totalitarian dictatorship. He is said to have tried to make this known to the judge responsible for his US citizenship but was talked out of it by Albert Einstein who thought it would upset the judge and make Godel lose his chance to become an American citizen. Perhaps it's apocryphal. I don't know but you never know... — TheMadFool

How do you feel about the US Constituion and the Bill of Rights? I understand its not perfect but how do you feel about the document itself rather than how history played out?
— christian2017

Sorry. I'm too ignorant to make a sensible comment on the US constitution and the Bill of Rights. All I know is Kurt Godel, the mathematician, is believed to have discovered a loophole in the US constitution that could change the world's greatest democracy into a totalitarian dictatorship. He is said to have tried to make this known to the judge responsible for his US citizenship but was talked out of it by Albert Einstein who thought it would upset the judge and make Godel lose his chance to become an American citizen. Perhaps it's apocryphal. I don't know but you never know... — TheMadFool

I would argue its very hard to write an air tight legal code that has removed 100% of loop holes. It would be funny if one day a future despot used that loop hole and a subset of the US population to on the philosophical level over throw the rest of the constitution and i guess hypothetically a large subset of the US population. I'm curious as to what that loop hole is.

I think we continue to make the mistake of assuming that ‘prior’ to the Big Bang, everything still needs to be explained in relation to spacetime. We’re talking about potential energy and ‘interacting’ fields of quantum potentiality, after all - none of which need pertain to four-dimensional spacetime in order to exist.

My grasp of the physics in all this is not great, I’ll admit. But it seems to me that most of the issues might be resolved by proposing a fifth-dimensional aspect, which manifests an unfolding, observable universe (including spacetime itself) out of relating field potentialities and/or values regardless of spatial or temporal properties.

We commonly reduce potentiality to four, three, two and even one-dimensional information in order to make use of it, but each time we do that we effectively ignore the relativity of that information to all aspects of reality: we’re assuming at least one aspect relates with a zero, identical or constant value instead of a relative variable. And then we forget to take that into account when we apply the concepts back to reality, because the majority of our interaction occurs below conscious awareness of a fifth dimension. That is, we experience ‘reality’ in time, in space, as shape and at distance, but we think of potential or value as something else entirely.

As far as I can see, the ‘multiverse’ has no spatio-temporal properties. What’s more, space and time have only potentially infinite values... — Possibility

thats fair.