The Greatest Story Ever Told

[swbluto]

Yeah, I say it's probably one of the great unprovables if there's a "god", in whatever beyond-reality incarnation. You can't prove something doesn't exist if it's not part of reality but yet you can't prove it does exist if it offers no discovered evidence in reality. Another theoretical problem with the typical "See I can do magic, therefore everything I say afterwards is true" logic is that, well, beyond the obvious logical disconnectedness behind my paraphrased logic, is that it is theoretically possible to manipulate a given being's perception to the most minute level so that wouldn't discredit the possibility that your perception isn't being directly manipulated to produce such inexplicable artifacts and experiences. It's like Descartes with his "brain in the vat" - If you're the brain in the vat whose sensory information is being fed to in whatever way, then you wouldn't be able to discern a direct feed into your perception versus a "true act of god"(Unless you consider the "sensory feeder" as some form of god since, well, it would be manipulating your senses. But would you consider time travelers from the future with advanced technology as gods when unseen advances should be expected?).

Anyways, these "irrefutable acts of god" really just represent unexperienced perceptual patterns we couldn't conceivably think a human could perform or some understandable mechanism could explain. That doesn't mean that the perceptual pattern implies godliness because we could just be ignorant... (Let's count how many times humans have been ignorant before...)

 

[Anonymous]

What's been done?

 

[mrgarci1]

Bluto, your point on Descartes is well taken. I was simply pointing out that if you call yourself a rational being, then you have to allow some case in which you might be proven wrong. Maybe water into wine isn't a good example, and perhaps any perceptual proof wouldn't be sufficient - it might even be an internal searching, as the OP mentioned. But I know, for me, that as much as I don't believe, I am open to the possibility of a God, were it demonstrable (what kind of proof would be acceptable is a whole other topic).

One final point on this (the origin of which I can't remember, but greater philosophers than I were involved):

A rational, benevolent god would not provide no evidence of his existence, and then punish those who had reacted to that non-evidence with non-belief by sending them to Hell. Further, the argument could be made that a rational, benevolent God that INTENTIONALLY provided no evidence of his existence MUST look favorably on those who don't believe, as a sort of test of our rationality and "human-ness," while condemning those who believe blindly. This assumes that God created humans as rational actors in his image. So in the case described, we have a rational, benevolent God (but no evidence thereof), and only rational non-believers would go to heaven, while those who do not question God would go to hell. Just a thought.

If anyone can remember who the philosopher was who originated the above idea (I think it was shown in terms of a matrix of possibilities for the nature of god), please feel free to enlighten/correct me.

 

[XRuss]

Really hard for me to look at this without wondering what the heck it's all about. ?????

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap090510.html

 

[TylerDurden]

If anyone can remember who the philosopher was who originated the above idea (I think it was shown in terms of a matrix of possibilities for the nature of god), please feel free to enlighten/correct me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicurus

 

[bobmcree]

Voltaire said "if god did not exist it would be necessary to invent him"

St. Thomas Aquinas wrestled with the problem and concluded that the intricacy of nature was evidence enough: “For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse”.

The current "intelligent design" movement would seem to base their arguments on this idea. It certainly is convincing. If i found a wonderfully ornate timepiece built with such craftsmanship i could not completely understand its workings, would i conclude it had just arranged itself there because that is the nature of matter and energy, or because someone incomprehensibly more advanced than i had made it? I think this argument can be carried out infinitely, so that the origins of the object in question are shrouded by more mystery the deeper i look.

Everywhere we look we keep finding more stuff. smaller stuff. cooler stuff. then somewhere around 10 to the minus 36 seconds, or the time between the big bang singularity and when it expanded to the diameter of a hydrogen atom, it gets fuzzy. i'm sure if we keep looking we will find more cool stuff. we will not find god. if he is in there he is still hiding from us. that's just the way it works. would anybody really want it to work any differently?

Paul in Romans 1:18-19 said proof was that god punished bad people. “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.”

I'm not sure what saint paul said about god punishing good people or bad things happening to them. i suppose he had faith that they must have been wicked or they would not have been punished.

I'm not sure who first articulated the idea "if i believe in god and he does not exist i lose nothing, but if i do not believe and he does exist i am screwed", but i think it was the nuns. they also came up with the idea of embedding a metal strip in the edge of their rulers.

It took me many hours of study and lots of chemicals to come to my current understanding, which i am sure is infinitely flawed. I believe the existence of god is unknowable - at least to me. I have studied religion, scripture, and the lives of many good and evil people, and i have come to the conclusion that for me it does not matter. i will behave the same way either way. it just seems so obvious what is right and what is wrong, at least in terms of my own actions. i am way too uninformed to judge all the actions of others, though there are certainly some that seem obviously right or wrong. Fortunately i am male so there are some decisions i do not have to make; i leave them up to the other sex and to people i hope are smarter than me.

 

[Deepkimchi]

Jesus Christ and him crucified...

Hasn't got anything to do with declining brain power. After having a hotel (Taba Hilton) in Egypt blown out from under me, and the end of the building sheared off about 20 ft from where my wife was, without breaking the glass of the shop she was in (notta scratch)...hey

Believed before then and still believe. That's something you can't force people to accept....

Bryan

 

[julesa]

Voltaire said "if god did not exist it would be necessary to invent him"

I have had some religious experiences. I have no evidence they were anything more than chemical reactions in my brain. But I also have no evidence that love is anything more than a chemical reaction in my brain, and yet I believe love is more than that. Irrational? Maybe. As far as I'm concerned it doesn't matter whether those experiences have any objective reality outside of my imagination, because they affect who I am as a person, my perspective, my ethics, and my behavior. Is there any Beauty in objective reality? Truth? Justice? Or are these things only in our heads? Does it matter?

St. Thomas Aquinas wrestled with the problem and concluded that the intricacy of nature was evidence enough: “For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse”.

The current "intelligent design" movement would seem to base their arguments on this idea. It certainly is convincing. If i found a wonderfully ornate timepiece built with such craftsmanship i could not completely understand its workings, would i conclude it had just arranged itself there because that is the nature of matter and energy, or because someone incomprehensibly more advanced than i had made it? I think this argument can be carried out infinitely, so that the origins of the object in question are shrouded by more mystery the deeper i look.

There's a flaw in this argument: If we assume that there is a threshold of complexity beyond which a Creator becomes necessary, that raises another question. Certainly the Creator himself would exceed that threshold of complexity, so who created the Creator?

I'm not sure who first articulated the idea "if i believe in god and he does not exist i lose nothing, but if i do not believe and he does exist i am screwed", but i think it was the nuns.

Blaise Pascal, "Pascal's wager."

It took me many hours of study and lots of chemicals to come to my current understanding, which i am sure is infinitely flawed. I believe the existence of god is unknowable - at least to me. I have studied religion, scripture, and the lives of many good and evil people, and i have come to the conclusion that for me it does not matter. i will behave the same way either way. it just seems so obvious what is right and what is wrong, at least in terms of my own actions. i am way too uninformed to judge all the actions of others, though there are certainly some that seem obviously right or wrong. Fortunately i am male so there are some decisions i do not have to make; i leave them up to the other sex and to people i hope are smarter than me.

Me too. I think it is unknowable. I'm not a very faithful person by nature. Maybe some faith would do me good.

 

[bobmcree]

Blaise Pascal, "Pascal's wager."

thanks i thought so but i was too lazy to look it up.

I'm not a very faithful person by nature. Maybe some faith would do me good.

One of Arthur C. Clarkes 3 basic laws is "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." I meant to include that in my last epistle. My response to the conundrum of "who created the creator" would be that it happened in that fuzzy period of time we cannot see into yet so we cannot know if reality is self-replicating because that is the way it is or if somebody built it all who is so much smarter than we are that they built it with sufficiently advanced technology that we cannot know. at least not yet.

My parents found comfort in their faith when my brothers were killed suddenly, and started going back to church. there was no comfort for me there. the catholic church and i have no future together, and i suppose that has soured me on religion in general, but during times of great personal sorrow the only comfort i have found is that there may still be wonders to be revealed here and there is no possibility for me to learn about them after i am dead.

 

[julesa]

One of Arthur C. Clarkes 3 basic laws is "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." I meant to include that in my last epistle.

Yeah! I love that line.

My response to the conundrum of "who created the creator" would be that it happened in that fuzzy period of time we cannot see into yet so we cannot know if reality is self-replicating because that is the way it is or if somebody built it all who is so much smarter than we are that they built it with sufficiently advanced technology that we cannot know. at least not yet.

You've probably heard this one before: A well-known scientist (Bertrand Russell?) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the center of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise." The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is the tortoise standing on?" "You're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down!"

My parents found comfort in their faith when my brothers were killed suddenly, and started going back to church. there was no comfort for me there. the catholic church and i have no future together, and i suppose that has soured me on religion in general, but during times of great personal sorrow the only comfort i have found is that there may still be wonders to be revealed here and there is no possibility for me to learn about them after i am dead.

I'm sorry for your loss, and your parents' loss. I've found no comfort in any churches either.

 

[bobmcree]

actually, i have found some comfort in one church. http://www.subgenius.com/warning.html

 

[julesa]

Snort. The Sales Force is strong with this one. Hail Bob. :lol:

 

[bobmcree]

Snort. The Sales Force is strong with this one. Hail Bob. :lol:

HAIL BOB! May the farce be with you!

anyone not familiar with the church of the subgenius and the legends around bob is missing out on one of those wonderful things life has to reveal every day i was talking about.

 

[dnmun]

acid is the most religion most people need. if that doesn't make you turn to the straight and narrow, not much else will.

if you haven't tried it, you should. rather than live in some ill begotten fear of how you will rot in hell or somehow be turned into a vegetable.

some cultures incorporate the psychedelic experience in the coming of age ceremonies. we did it for the experience. everything else was social.

thankfully the new drug czar is calling a halt to the war on our own citizens and will push for treatment programs rather than longer jail terms for people who become addicted to real drugs. too bad they don't include alcohol and cigarettes in the category of hard drugs and restrict them, since they are the worst, and the initial drugs of choice for those who later become addicted to opiates and meth. alcohol is the gateway drug. period.

religion is a conspiracy of those who profit from it, and use it to support their own interests.

bertrand russel also wrote a book called "why i am not a christian". ever wonder why someone would write such a book? especially the author of the principia?

 

[bobmcree]

acid is the most religion most people need. if that doesn't make you turn to the straight and narrow, not much else will.

agreed but it is more religion all at once than they can handle for some people. i advise looking over the FAQ page of the Church of Bob to see if it might just be the catalyst needed to make the change.

http://www.subgenius.com/slaq.htm

btw i was briefly banned from the church when i was "outed" after my SAT score showed that i am NOT a true sub-genius. i became a member of a rival church. anyone with an SAT score above 1300 before '74 or 1250 from '74-' 94 qualifies for membership in MENSA and is by definition no longer a sub-genius. I converted from MENSA back to the church of bob after killing adequate brain cells. I do not recommend this for everyone, but the members of COB are much more fun.

 

[mud2005]

YES, HAIL BOB

 

[Link]

You guys are a terrible influence, you know that? >_>

http://www.subgenius.com/warning.html

what is this i dont even

 

[julesa]

At first I was like wat
but then it settled into my brain like /b/
and then I had slack

course this was long before /b/ existed

 

[bobmcree]

You guys are a terrible influence, you know that? >_>

http://www.subgenius.com/warning.html

what is this i dont even

if you read the warning file carefully and then agree to rent out your soul to the church of bob in return for our protecting you from all need for individual thought and worry, press the I DO button at the bottom. do heed the warning about the material within possibly ruining your understanding of reality and causing the best flashbacks ever. Your name will also very likely be added to the Homeland Security Watchlist.

if you are not ready to go that far, look up "the church of bob" in wikipedia or google it, but to truly experience the wonder of robert dobbs and his followers you MUST enter the site and read. here is an actual example of the kind of highly subversive material you will find there:



ALBERT EINSTEIN'S RIDDLE

ARE YOU IN THE TOP 2% OF INTELLIGENT PEOPLE IN THE WORLD? SOLVE THE RIDDLE AND FIND OUT.

There are no tricks, just pure logic, so good luck and don't give up.

1. In a street there are five houses, painted five different colours.
2. In each house lives a person of different nationality
3. These five homeowners each drink a different kind of beverage, smoke different brand of cigar and keep a different pet.

THE QUESTION: WHO OWNS THE FISH?

HINTS

1. The Brit lives in a red house.
2. The Swede keeps dogs as pets.
3. The Dane drinks tea.
4. The Green house is next to, and on the left of the White house.
5. The owner of the Green house drinks coffee.
6. The person who smokes Pall Mall rears birds.
7. The owner of the Yellow house smokes Dunhill.
8. The man living in the centre house drinks milk.
9. The Norwegian lives in the first house.
10. The man who smokes Blends lives next to the one who keeps cats.
11. The man who keeps horses lives next to the man who smokes Dunhill.
12. The man who smokes Blue Master drinks beer.
13. The German smokes Prince.
14. The Norwegian lives next to the blue house.
15. The man who smokes Blends has a neighbour who drinks water.


(if you give up the answer is here http://www.manbottle.com/trivia/einstein_s_riddle

 

[bobmcree]

At first I was like wat
but then it settled into my brain like /b/
and then I had slack

course this was long before /b/ existed

SLACK is what we can give you at COB. Nowhere else can you get the pure grades of SLACK that make life possible and always have.

(i figured now that my affiliations are out in the open it was time to reveal my true self in my avatar)

 

[Link]

if you read the warning file carefully and then agree to rent out your soul to the church of bob in return for our protecting you from all need for individual thought and worry, press the I DO button at the bottom. do heed the warning about the material within possibly ruining your understanding of reality and causing the best flashbacks ever. Your name will also very likely be added to the Homeland Security Watchlist.

Well SHIT, now I read it in detail.

At first I was like wat
but then it settled into my brain like /b/
and then I had slack

course this was long before /b/ existed

Rules 1 and 2.

Re. the riddle:

View attachment riddle.JPG

Took me like 10 minutes, I think. Seemed like longer, though. I only got 4 hours sleep, though, so yeah.

 

[bobmcree]

you will very likely be approached soon by some men in dark suits who will invite you to join MENSA. don't be fooled. do as i did and get to work on those brain cells before they lock you up in a think tank somewhere for the good of homeland security. you have been warned. get yourself some SLACK quickly.

for those of you who think i may have finally gone over the edge i should explain. three days ago they used microwave energy (about 8 watts for 90 seconds in 6 locations guided by x-ray and my screams) to cook the nerves to the damaged section of my back; pain that has been sucking the life out of me for over 20 years is essentially gone and will continue to improve. My back does not feel great, but the pain level has been reduced by so much i am walking on air. I have been able to cut my need for narcotics in half after only 3 days and will be off them soon. yay! so i am having a little fun with this thread; i hope everyone else is as well.

i do not mean to belittle anyone's faith. i have often wished i had it and i respect the rights of others to find their own peace with their understanding of the greatest story.

 

[Reid Welch]

THERE IS NO DOG

reality check dyslexic reid

))))))))))))))))))))))))))))
EDIT COPYRIGHT 'cos I want to be the only asshole with such a shirt:

Front: THERE IS NO DOG

BACK: SUPPORT DYSLEXIA RESEACH (and provide genuine number or weblink)

_______________________

EDIT ADDENDUM, EVILE:
weblink. close ur eyes. you are getting sleepy
http://www.landoverbaptist.net/index.php?s=66ec25d2a69b49e602263dc36e70b777

 

[Reid Welch]

you will very likely be approached soon by some men in dark suits who will invite you to join MENSA.SNIP!!!!

IT was fully thirty years ago. A beat-up, rusted-out Chevy Caprice in the stalled traffic just ahead of me.
The bearded, fat driver sat with his bearded, fat wife.

Bumper sticker I do not make these things up:

PROUD MEMBER OF MENSA



Proud IQ 118 Reid. Thank LSD for that.

 

[Dee Jay]

look up "the church of bob" in wikipedia or google it

dig...

I read about it on wiki and was reminded why I loved Devo and David Bryne so much... the things they sang about were so cryptic and their off centered (but danceable) sounds, combined with excellent sound engineering made their images so crystal clear... they swam around in your friggin' head. I didn't really understand it all in one sitting but I knew there was something about it that made me giggle and wanted to explore more. Eventually those images settled like pieces of puzzles to reveal the "big picture" .

No wonder Mark Mothersbaugh became so successful, he was "out his box"! and he (they) tried to tear everyone else out of theirs, and rattle some cages along the way.. LOL!

causing the best flashbacks ever

Ab-sko-lutely... but I was sober back then, sheesh . ..

As for the Bob image, the only time I'd seen it was from a Devo album but didn't know what to make of it and then rediscovered it only now. Cheers, bob mcree!


J