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Religion is full of infinite regresses in which the only terminator, as they see it, is God. I also hate the "can't have happened by chance" thing, because for one, natural selection is not chance, and secondly, it's far more statistically probable than a god(s). Chance? What's God then?

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Religion is full of infinite regresses in which the only terminator, as they see it, is God. I also hate the "can't have happened by chance" thing, because for one, natural selection is not chance, and secondly, it's far more statistically probable than a god(s). Chance? What's God then?

God? God is the guy you call when you want to

a kraken. (2:08)

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Religion is full of infinite regresses in which the only terminator, as they see it, is God. I also hate the "can't have happened by chance" thing, because for one, natural selection is not chance, and secondly, it's far more statistically probable than a god(s). Chance? What's God then?

I wrote this a loooong time ago to make fun of someone, still find it cool unlike most of the things I wrote at that time :P

You are going to go to hell !

Am I ?

Yes, for your sins

Oh, then you must be god, nice to meet you !

No, I'm not

Oh but you must be, I thought only god could judge me and tell if I was to go to hell or Heaven.

Yes, god's the only one who can judge, but if you sin, you won't go to heaen, therefore you will be cast into hell

Oh is that so ? Then is god an automated process ?

What ?

Is god a computer ?

No of course not !

Then is god subjective ?

Yes he is, he can be

Then is god flawed, fallible ? Can he be tricked ?

No he is not, he can't

Then if he can not be wronged, and always reacts the same way by making a sum of all your actions to determine which side you'll go, Why do you need a god ? A Machine would perfectly do the job, it would have to be a divine machine but can't this be ?

God is the only one who knows everything

If god knows everything, does it not include knowing how to make such a device ?

Yes, but he would not want it that way, he is the only one who can judge

If he chooses by himself to remain in command and judge by his will, what happens when you die on sunday ?

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urgh... being home for summer and having nothing to do, nor any money is not fun. I'm so bored it is actually making me feel melancholy. I got burnout paradise on monday and have almost got the burnout licence. Any one wanna give me a job... no, back to boredom.

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I've decided to try a change in career. Still applying for security jobs, but am filling in an application as an outreach worker for a local charitable trust that works with learning disabled. The pay is 1/5 of what I'm used to but feel really positive about the decision, more positive than I've felt for years about a job. I might not like it, but feel I owe it to myself to give it a good go. Plus, I will actually doing something useful to other people, rather than enriching some CEO dick. :)

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Yeah, Scrobbs, that sounds fantastic. (Out of interest, how ill you handle the less-money-part? 1/5 sounds like not very much. Or was your former job disgustingly well paid?) But, money-shmoney, you rock, and I hope it goes well.

Patters, have you tried sports? Might sound lame, but it worked for me in a similar time. For some months I went bouldering (climbing small heights without rope) a lot, mostly to drive away the bad stuff in my head. It was something I could do alone, and afterwards I felt physically exhausted but quit good most of the time.

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That's a good call. I went through an unemployment spell last year that was greatly helped by the fact that a week before losing my job I joined a soccer team. Even that one game a week did wonders to lift my spirits.

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Rather than scuffling with the extreme-right or thinking of ways to repel supporters from their ranks wouldn't we better served by trying to fix the moderate political terrain to re-attract the people who feel unrepresented, impotent and angry. Fighting and marginalising the groups will push people on the fringes further into it and likely swell their numbers.

You're absolutely correct (IMHO) :tup:

Ossk, you're wrong: You can't change how people think, but you CAN address their concerns and frustrations. Ignoring them will lead them to seek other, uglier, alternatives.

(Edit: Please ignore the above if the dust in this argument has settled... I haven't been in this thread for a while.)

Also: Just broke up with my fiance :(

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Castor - my previous job was fairly well paid, and am now in a great position. All I really need is money for food and bills. More cash would be nice, but at the moment having a job that I actually enjoy is more important to me than what I take home. I don't know I will enjoy it of course, I only know that I feel ridiculously more positive about this decision than any interview I've had over the last 3 months. So positive that I had to say it twice. :) Just finished the 'Supporting Info' bullshit for the app form as well, something which I hate doing!

Thunder, I feel for ya. Broken hearts suck - it's hard to know what to say but only that no matter how bleak it looks now, you will bounce back. :yep:

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I'm always right whatever you say so fuck you is my first answer !

You can't change how people think, but you CAN address their concerns and frustrations. Ignoring them will lead them to seek other, uglier, alternatives.

You can, but I guess when you address a concern, another will arise from it. We moderate can always try and solve everything, there will always be bad stuff happening from you trying to resolve problems.

Therefore, the code and rules and stuff gets more and more complicated to account for borderline cases and off limit events. That's when the code or law or rules gets impersonal, does not react as a person and produces people who think the whole system is to throw to the trash.

That's your extremist no matter what end of the spectrum he is on, he'll just lie and say it could be so much more simple if (insert here the element you wish to remove from the system, includes foreigners, money, boss, vote, woman's right).

Now I'm really sorry to hear the Fiance thing, it sucks, how did it happen ? Mutual consent ? Tim did something he regrets like inventing the atomic bomb ?

If I'm too curious you can send me to hell :)

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Castorp - my previous job was fairly well paid, and am now in a great position. All I really need is money for food and bills. More cash would be nice, but at the moment having a job that I actually enjoy is more important to me than what I take home. I don't know I will enjoy it of course, I only know that I feel ridiculously more positive about this decision than any interview I've had over the last 3 months. So positive that I had to say it twice. :) Just finished the 'Supporting Info' bullshit for the app form as well, something which I hate doing!

As you've said, great position to be in. Right now I am still a dirty student, and what comes after that, I have no idea. But I guess, money for food and shelter and living will come into conflict with a fulfilling job, at least at the start of my 'career'. On the other hand, maybe I'll take advantage of the freedom I enjoy not having a family to support – the freedom to be poor.

Sucks, Thunder.

Was it the cuddling with David Simon? (Mh, maybe its to early for bad jokes.)

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Also: Just broke up with my fiance :(

I know it sounds really lame and platitudinous, but you have my sympathies chap. I really wish I could say something that didn't sound so empty, but everything else I considered sounded even worse.

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The harmful fuckheads tend to be a minority.
Not my experience

I have to say that your experience sounds skewed to me. Perhaps you don't consider the moderate people to be properly religious or something, but in a whole lot of demographics religious people are the majority, and the majority are certainly not harmful fuckheads. All sorts of people in my life are religious, and barely any of them are harmful fuckheads. Which is pretty great, I guess.

The minority who do stuff like that taint the whole affair, which isn't fair on everyone who just wanted to make their point peacefully.
But if powers do know that they risk nothing from the population, what will they care if you're marching or not. Consciously or not governments are afraid of a revolution and (rightfully) not of people saying what they think.

But I thought the march was against Nazis, not the government. Unless they were marching to convince the government to take some sort of action against the Nazis, I'm not sure what the government has to do with it in the first place. I thought it was more a matter of representing the public opposition of the Nazi demonstrators, and thereby presenting an alternative (and hopefully more reasonable) perspective to those who are watching. In short, I thought the public were the target, and that this was a publicity affair. Perhaps I'm wrong.

I'm really not sure people are going to be particularly effective at convincing a Western* government that revolution is on the cards without getting pretty intense with their protesting, and at that stage they'll be pursued as terrorists. Since when did smashing things up win the government over to your way of thinking? Did kicking a few bank windows in convince anybody to give up capitalism or whatever it was those guys were trying to say?

So not talking about self defense, where is the legitimate violence ? Because you can, in a case of self defense draw a very clear line : the one who hits first had it coming whatever he might say.

I would pretty much draw the line at self-defence, and say that anyviolence that can't in some way be framed as self-defence is not legitimate. Of course, when you try to account for indirect self-defence or pin down who exactly crossed the line and became "the aggressor", it all becomes very hazy and complicated, but I think I can stand by the principle. If you are not in some sort of real and potentially grave danger, do not resort to violence. At least, that's what I think I think...

Castorp, if I haven't already acknowledged this sufficiently, I would like to make clear that I realize that I don't know the specifics of the situation, and as such cannot fully condemn what happened, but I would maintain that acts of violence and destruction almost always introduce a negative and undesirable element to a situation.

The smashing causes expenses of time and money for the owner, and I hope it strengthens the impression that he and his kind are really not welcome in our town and that he will have a hard time staying in business.

This is exactly the kind of language used by racists trying to drive minorities out of town. Of course, I don't want to equate those who hold Nazi beliefs (something upon which they have an influence) with the targets of racism (who have no influence on the reason for persecution), but it's certainly a very dangerous road to walk down. If bricking a Nazi's shop can be said to be an effective way of driving him and his associates out of town, can bricking a non-white person's shop or home also be described as such? Clearly I don't think the complaints are equal in their legitimacy, but I don't think we should imagine we're above the law, nor that holding a belief is a crime. Acting on it may be, of course.

The thing is, most people flat-out refuse to think about it, but for some reason it's taboo to question that. Live and let live I suppose, but it infuriates me when people consider themselves religious and are half assed and ignorant about their apparent beliefs.

It may be patronizing, but the way I see it, since I believe that no religion is actually right, it doesn't matter how historically accurate somebody's religious belief is, as none of it's actually true, anyway. If people want to ignore the bits of their religion that they find unpalatable, fine; if I find them unpalatable too, great! They're not subscribing to something I dislike. It may not be consistent with the supposedly "authentic" version of their religion, but what's authenticity when it's all fiction?

Then again, people do on occasion (disappointingly frequently) hand-pick a selection of the worst parts. Still, I don't think religion causes them to think any odious things they didn't already have the capacity to think.

I must also confess to being quite irritated by the New Age habit of picking and choosing one's favourite parts from a bunch of religions and spiritual belief systems. I realize that that's exactly the sort of thing I was talking about a couple of paragraphs ago, but it seems so fashionable and self-centred that it really grates me. I won't judge it on a moral level, but I will look down on it in terms of taste.

I guess my point is really that the implication that people haven't read up on what they believe suggests that they're capable of believing something without knowing what it is. What they believe is dependent on their conception of their religion, and I don't think that's especially particular to religion. It would good for people to do research in as much as it would expand their knowledge, but who's to say whether the mutation of a religion through the ages diminishes it from the truth, or refines it towards it? Well obviously I think it's neither.

I don't know, perhaps I'm being too defensive for laziness and ignorance (not least because I'm lazy and ignorant myself), but it kind of bothers me when people act as though to believe something one has to study it academically. I believe all sorts of things I haven't really learnt about in any formal setting or researched thoroughly.

"But it's all about faith!" What the fuck is faith? Nothing, a big, belly-button fluff metaphysical get-out clause of shit.

Perhaps, but why does that bother you? It's not like anyone's killing science with it or anything. I guess in some places religious people are influencing schooling in some pretty nutty ways, which is bad, but it's the act that's bad, not the belief behind it.

I think religion is mainly a response to uncertainty and the unknowable. People are unsettled by the prospect of things being out of their hands, and beyond even their powers of prediction or comprehension, so they invent ideas that bring order to the orderless. This might not be particularly intellectually rigorous, but I think it's an entirely understandable and sympathetic response to a world that is indifferent and at times chaotic.

Perhaps I'm being soft. I don't see what's particularly logical or noble or advantageous about worrying about other people's beliefs are, though.

For the record, I used to be somewhat militant in my atheism, but I came to find that stance arrogant and obnoxious. Who gives a shit that I think I've got all the answers?

Religion now. Declaration of interests; I'm what some would call a "militant" atheist, though I've flirted with the thought of pantheism or naturalism.
Me too, I've been at public protest for the separation of church and state to make cults pay taxes.

I wouldn't say that that makes you a militant atheist. Both of those things are compatible with respect for those who hold religious beliefs.

Also, I would hesitate before conflating religions and cults, even if they do share many characteristics.

I should probably proof-read this mess, but it's late and I have work in the morning.

_______________

* I'm not sure how the situation differs in less stable countries

__________________________________________________

EDIT:

A) Sorry for that wall of tripe being a wall of tripe.

B) Sorry for bringing up stuff that people were probably already bored of before they finished talking about it.

C)

Just broke up with my fiance :(

Sorry for that even though I'm not your fiance. Seriously, the best of wishes to you. I guess it's better this happen now than later, but I doubt that makes it feel any better. My condolences.

Edited by JamesM

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I have to say that your experience sounds skewed to me. Perhaps you don't consider the moderate people to be properly religious or something, but in a whole lot of demographics religious people are the majority, and the majority are certainly not harmful fuckheads. All sorts of people in my life are religious, and barely any of them are harmful fuckheads. Which is pretty great, I guess.

Hmmmm... Experience might have a different meaning in french and it tricked me, what I meant to say is that although I know that they are a minority (the hamfull duckheads that is) in my experience of the thing, meaning in what I have seen in my lifetime of the matter, they are more than the other, (the unharmful fuckheads).

On the

But if powers do know that they risk nothing from the population, what will they care if you're marching or not. Consciously or not governments are afraid of a revolution and (rightfully) not of people saying what they think.

thing it's just a missunderstanding, I was talking about the G20 protests that somebody mentioned before. I think that violent protest can raise the attention of people, why are they so angry that they are smashing things ? That never got us anywhere did it ? Wait, it did !

This is exactly the kind of language used by racists trying to drive minorities out of town. Of course, I don't want to equate those who hold Nazi beliefs (something upon which they have an influence) with the targets of racism (who have no influence on the reason for persecution), but it's certainly a very dangerous road to walk down. If bricking a Nazi's shop can be said to be an effective way of driving him and his associates out of town, can bricking a non-white person's shop or home also be described as such? Clearly I don't think the complaints are equal in their legitimacy, but I don't think we should imagine we're above the law, nor that holding a belief is a crime. Acting on it may be, of course.

Hmmm... Don't you dare be a relativist around me boy ! The fact that it applies to nazis and anti-nazis alike doesn't make it less true. It might be not the right thing to do but saying it is nonetheless true. For or against it, still true :P

It's not like anyone's killing science with it or anything.

HA HA HA... That is not true. At least not in the UK, not in France not in the US.

I wouldn't say that that makes you a militant atheist. Both of those things are compatible with respect for those who hold religious beliefs.

Being a militant Atheist is compatible with respect in my opinion at least, and I now lack the patience to respect grown ups thinking fairy tales are true. You don't know ? Neither do I, but at least I don't pretend like I do.

Edit:

I realise that what I said makes me a HUUUUUUUGE asshole but the more I learn about the world, the more I feel like it would be a better place without religion and most of all organized religion.

Edited by OssK

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I THOUGHT YOU GUYS WERE TAKING THIS DEBATE OVER TO THE 'UNIVERSE AND EVERYTHING' THREAD?

Ahem.

My life's pros:

Amazing girlfriend

Exciting job (film/tv)

Releasing next adventure game in the next few days

My life's cons:

Girlfriend living an hour's train journey away for a few months

Living hand to mouth, with not much work and no immediate way to climb up to the next highest position (from floor runner to 3rd AD).

Your lives' cons:

Will soon be getting spammed about my next adventure game :buyme:

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Hell, long as you keep the quality up we're good. At least you have a sense of shame about the whole thing. That, as well as your not being a robot, mean that I'm far more likely to take it as pride rather than spam when you plug your games.

Just got my first week's schedule for the theater. Everything is coming together nicely. Even going to be able to make GTA on the 30th!

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BTDT was awesome. A new adventure game by you is not a con at all!

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(Babble on religion/militant atheism/faith incoming on the universe thread).

Patters Yeah, go outside. Take up distance running or something. What kind of area do you live in? Bouldering as castorp suggests would be good (though perhaps not if you live in Kansas).

Thunderpeel Aw man, I'm sorry to hear that :-(

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Shit. Shooting on the production I'm currently working on may be indefintely postponed, due to cast illness, which will leave me without money for rent.

Everyone donate hundreds of pounds to Zombie Cow, with the stipulation that it all go towards my rent, please!

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urgh... being home for summer and having nothing to do, nor any money is not fun. I'm so bored it is actually making me feel melancholy. I got burnout paradise on monday and have almost got the burnout licence. Any one wanna give me a job... no, back to boredom.

Hey Patters, hang in there buddy! I've been there. Do you have Burnout for the 360? If so, we should play online so that I can make terrible jokes and awkwardly try to cheer you up.

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Hey Patters, hang in there buddy! I've been there. Do you have Burnout for the 360? If so, we should play online so that I can make terrible jokes and awkwardly try to cheer you up.

haha, sure will do, think was just in a shit mood with lack of sleep and being in my room for a whole day due to idiots being in my house who I didn't want to start a fight with.

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