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digitalmars.D - [~ot] why is programming so fun?

reply BCS <ao pathlink.com> writes:
I can't remember where, but I recall hearing that people are most effectively 
motivated to do something by giving them random rewards for the doing what 
you want (only reward them some of the time). This sounds kind of like the 
software development process, particularly when working on the hairy edge 
of your ability or when "hacking it" without a real design.

Might this explain why this development style is so prevalent? Also it would 
tend to indicate that for a language to be successful, it should make it 
easier to get the last little bit working by just trying it rather than by 
thinking it out all the way. This would be because it will provide a bit 
of randomness ("I think this will compile") in the reward ("Ah! yes it did").
May 27 2008
next sibling parent reply Gregor Richards <Richards codu.org> writes:
BCS wrote:

 I can't remember where, but I recall hearing that people are most 
 effectively motivated to do something by giving them random rewards for 
 the doing what you want (only reward them some of the time). This sounds 
 kind of like the software development process, particularly when working 
 on the hairy edge of your ability or when "hacking it" without a real 
 design.
 
 Might this explain why this development style is so prevalent? Also it 
 would tend to indicate that for a language to be successful, it should 
 make it easier to get the last little bit working by just trying it 
 rather than by thinking it out all the way. This would be because it 
 will provide a bit of randomness ("I think this will compile") in the 
 reward ("Ah! yes it did").
 
 


I'm very stringent in my programming practice. I never hack systems 
together, I always spend time (often weeks or months) designing things 
in my head before I write a single line of code. That's just my nature. 
However, I still get a great thrill of accomplishment when I finish 
writing something.

A result of this mentality is that I very rarely fail to accomplish what 
I've intended to, since anything beyond my abilities or that I would 
burn out on is usually scrapped before I've even written anything down. 
By the time I'm actually writing the code, the code itself is a menial task.

A negative result is that I don't like maintenance :)

The point is, I get a very consistent reward from programming because of 
my more stringent programming practice, but I don't do this /for the 
reward/, I do it because it's how I think. This leads me to believe that 
the usual hack-it-together standard comes from a mentality, not a 
feedback loop.

  - Gregor Richards
May 27 2008
parent BCS <ao pathlink.com> writes:
Reply to Gregor,


 I'm very stringent in my programming practice. I never hack systems
 together, I always spend time (often weeks or months) designing things
 in my head before I write a single line of code. That's just my
 nature. However, I still get a great thrill of accomplishment when I
 finish writing something.
 
 A result of this mentality is that I very rarely fail to accomplish
 what I've intended to, since anything beyond my abilities or that I
 would burn out on is usually scrapped before I've even written
 anything down. By the time I'm actually writing the code, the code
 itself is a menial task.


<not_joking>It's nice to known someone does it that way</not_joking>
<joking> Has NASA tried to hire you yet? </joking>


 
 A negative result is that I don't like maintenance :)
 


who does?


 The point is, I get a very consistent reward from programming because
 of my more stringent programming practice, but I don't do this /for
 the reward/, I do it because it's how I think. This leads me to
 believe that the usual hack-it-together standard comes from a
 mentality, not a feedback loop.
 


I think you are looking at a much longer loop than I am, The loop I'm thinking 
about can be as short as 30 seconds. I don't think anyone can avoid it either 
(unless you can compile code in your head). Most people don't bother catching 
every last error before they compile. And IMHO they shouldn't. A number of 
errors are just so much easier to let the compiler catch that even if you 
can, it's not worth the time.

On the other hand the stuff I really like working with is so far out on the 
edge, and in the corner cases, that you can't really design it because the 
only way to find out the "landscape" out there is to try it. After you feel 
around for a while you can go back and redesign, it but not as a first pass.


 - Gregor Richards
May 27 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent reply sclytrack <sclytrack pi.be> writes:
It is like playing with lego blocks but you won't be accused of being a kid.

  Sclytrack
May 27 2008
next sibling parent reply Alexander Panek <alexander.panek brainsware.org> writes:
sclytrack wrote:

 
 It is like playing with lego blocks but you won't be accused of being a kid.


Ha, definitely!
May 30 2008
parent Tom S <h3r3tic remove.mat.uni.torun.pl> writes:
Alexander Panek wrote:

 sclytrack wrote:

 It is like playing with lego blocks but you won't be accused of being 
 a kid.


 
 Ha, definitely!


*Sigh* ... kids.


-- 
Tomasz Stachowiak
http://h3.team0xf.com/
h3/h3r3tic on #D freenode
May 30 2008
prev sibling parent reply BCS <ao pathlink.com> writes:
Reply to sclytrack,


 It is like playing with lego blocks but you won't be accused of being
 a kid.
 
 Sclytrack
 


Every one in a while I hear about someone who want to "make programming like 
putting together Logos" e.i. "just snap them together and your done!"

It just occurred to me, 99.9999% of the ways you can snap Logos together 
are neither useful, nor good looking. The same is true of programming. It' 
easy to make a system that lets you snap together a program if it don't have 
to do anything useful.
May 30 2008
parent reply Clay Smith <clayasaurus gmail.com> writes:
BCS wrote:

 Reply to sclytrack,
 

 It is like playing with lego blocks but you won't be accused of being
 a kid.

 Sclytrack


 
 Every one in a while I hear about someone who want to "make programming 
 like putting together Logos" e.i. "just snap them together and your done!"
 
 It just occurred to me, 99.9999% of the ways you can snap Logos together 
 are neither useful, nor good looking. The same is true of programming. 
 It' easy to make a system that lets you snap together a program if it 
 don't have to do anything useful.
 
 


I'd consider libraries to be like "lego blocks," and people manage to 
make lots of useful programs with them.
May 31 2008
parent reply BCS <ao pathlink.com> writes:
Reply to Clay,


 BCS wrote:
 

 Reply to sclytrack,
 

 It is like playing with lego blocks but you won't be accused of
 being a kid.
 
 Sclytrack
 


 Every one in a while I hear about someone who want to "make
 programming like putting together Logos" e.i. "just snap them
 together and your done!"
 
 It just occurred to me, 99.9999% of the ways you can snap Logos
 together are neither useful, nor good looking. The same is true of
 programming. It' easy to make a system that lets you snap together a
 program if it don't have to do anything useful.
 


 I'd consider libraries to be like "lego blocks," and people manage to
 make lots of useful programs with them.
 


take a random lib, start writing code (don't even check to see what the lib 
does) keep slapping in function (auto compleat may help) call random methods, 
add some loops and if's. Heck, throw in a goto or three. Then run it, tweak 
it till it compiles, then tweak it till it doesn't crash. I'll bet you a 
dollar it does nothing useful. If it does, you cheated and tried to make 
it do something useful.

Yes libs can make useful programs, but just because you use a lib, doesn't 
say your program will be useful without skill and effort.
May 31 2008
parent reply Gregor Richards <Richards codu.org> writes:
BCS wrote:

 Reply to Clay,
 

 BCS wrote:


 Reply to sclytrack,


 It is like playing with lego blocks but you won't be accused of
 being a kid.

 Sclytrack


 Every one in a while I hear about someone who want to "make
 programming like putting together Logos" e.i. "just snap them
 together and your done!"

 It just occurred to me, 99.9999% of the ways you can snap Logos
 together are neither useful, nor good looking. The same is true of
 programming. It' easy to make a system that lets you snap together a
 program if it don't have to do anything useful.


 I'd consider libraries to be like "lego blocks," and people manage to
 make lots of useful programs with them.


 
 take a random lib, start writing code (don't even check to see what the 
 lib does) keep slapping in function (auto compleat may help) call random 
 methods, add some loops and if's. Heck, throw in a goto or three. Then 
 run it, tweak it till it compiles, then tweak it till it doesn't crash. 
 I'll bet you a dollar it does nothing useful. If it does, you cheated 
 and tried to make it do something useful.
 
 Yes libs can make useful programs, but just because you use a lib, 
 doesn't say your program will be useful without skill and effort.
 
 


Now, write a program to modify code randomly and select based on a 
fitness function, and feed it with 100 of this program you just wrote, 
and you've got a genetic algorithm! Give it a few generations, and it'll 
do something useful.

:P

  - Gregor Richards
Jun 01 2008
next sibling parent BCS <ao pathlink.com> writes:
Reply to Gregor,


 BCS wrote:
 

 take a random lib, start writing code (don't even check to see what
 the lib does) keep slapping in function (auto compleat may help) call
 random methods, add some loops and if's. Heck, throw in a goto or
 three. Then run it, tweak it till it compiles, then tweak it till it
 doesn't crash. I'll bet you a dollar it does nothing useful. If it
 does, you cheated and tried to make it do something useful.
 
 Yes libs can make useful programs, but just because you use a lib,
 doesn't say your program will be useful without skill and effort.
 


 Now, write a program to modify code randomly and select based on a
 fitness function, and feed it with 100 of this program you just wrote,
 and you've got a genetic algorithm! Give it a few generations, and
 it'll do something useful.
 
 :P
 
 - Gregor Richards
 


<G>

OTOH it may well take more skill and intellect to create said fitness function 
than it would the make a "reasonably good" solution by hand.

"Programing is HARD" --many people
Jun 01 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent reply "Me Here" <p9e883002 sneakemail.com> writes:
Gregor Richards wrote:


 BCS wrote:

 Reply to Clay,
 

 BCS wrote:






...

 
 Now, write a program to modify code randomly and select based on a fitness
 function, and feed it with 100 of this program you just wrote, and you've got
 a genetic algorithm! Give it a few generations, and it'll do something useful.
 
 :P
 
  - Gregor Richards


Circa. 1980. Doing some work for my college professor on a 'fully-configured'
(48K) Apple ][ (kept locked in a cupboard because it ws so expensive!), the
proffesor came up with the idea that as all 6502 op-codes were 8-bit and there
were very few adressing modes, filling the (then massive) 48K with legal,
randomly generated machine code and jumping to the start address, it shouldn't
take long to recreate VisiCalc, or something more remarkable.

The program to generate the prgrams tooks less than 4k. It took some effort to
cause the trapping address to be saved to floppy disk, but we did that. Then
the next generation could reload the non-trapping code from floppy, append new
random code to the end, and iterate. That program ran for an entire 8 week
period over summer holidays. Our main fear was that the cleaner we had arranged
to swap the second (data) floppy on a (week) daily basis would forget, and we
would miss an amazing program.

The result: After 8 weeks and 40 floppys, we failed to create a single program
that ran for more than 2k of machine code before trapping.

A few years later when I related the story to a friend (autodiadactic genius),
he compared the scenario to switching a TV to a untuned channel and watching
the patterns created by the white noise. He suggested that if, in the course of
my life time, I ever saw a picture of something recognisable, form, that was
the equivalent of our "remarkable program".

He calculated the odds using an HP-41C. and then attempted to write the number
on a piece of A4 paper. He started out using fairly standard sized handwritten
zeros, but ended up with tiny, almost dot-sized ones. Needless to say. it was a
very large number. He then tried to describe the time it would take for the
energy contained in the solar system to decay to zero...I didn't understand.

b.
--
Jun 01 2008
next sibling parent reply BCS <ao pathlink.com> writes:
Reply to Me,


 Circa. 1980. Doing some work for my college professor on a
 'fully-configured' (48K) Apple ][ (kept locked in a cupboard because
 it ws so expensive!), the proffesor came up with the idea that as all
 6502 op-codes were 8-bit and there were very few adressing modes,
 filling the (then massive) 48K with legal, randomly generated machine
 code and jumping to the start address, it shouldn't take long to
 recreate VisiCalc, or something more remarkable.
 
 The program to generate the prgrams tooks less than 4k. It took some
 effort to cause the trapping address to be saved to floppy disk, but
 we did that. Then the next generation could reload the non-trapping
 code from floppy, append new random code to the end, and iterate. That
 program ran for an entire 8 week period over summer holidays. Our main
 fear was that the cleaner we had arranged to swap the second (data)
 floppy on a (week) daily basis would forget, and we would miss an
 amazing program.
 
 The result: After 8 weeks and 40 floppys, we failed to create a single
 program that ran for more than 2k of machine code before trapping.
 
 A few years later when I related the story to a friend (autodiadactic
 genius), he compared the scenario to switching a TV to a untuned
 channel and watching the patterns created by the white noise. He
 suggested that if, in the course of my life time, I ever saw a picture
 of something recognisable, form, that was the equivalent of our
 "remarkable program".
 
 He calculated the odds using an HP-41C. and then attempted to write
 the number on a piece of A4 paper. He started out using fairly
 standard sized handwritten zeros, but ended up with tiny, almost
 dot-sized ones. Needless to say. it was a very large number. He then
 tried to describe the time it would take for the energy contained in
 the solar system to decay to zero...I didn't understand.
 


The chances of life happening by chance are something like that, if not worse. 
You could probably calculated a relative number for it with quantum physics 
and/or information theory and/or string theory or some such. IIRC there is 
a theory about how much info can be in a given volume.
Jun 01 2008
next sibling parent reply Chris Wright <dhasenan gmail.com> writes:
BCS wrote:

 The chances of life happening by chance are something like that, if not 
 worse. You could probably calculated a relative number for it with 
 quantum physics and/or information theory and/or string theory or some 
 such. IIRC there is a theory about how much info can be in a given volume.
 
 


I don't think anyone has come close to describing the odds of abiogenesis.
Jun 02 2008
next sibling parent reply Fawzi <fawzi gmx.ch> writes:
Chris Wright Wrote:


 BCS wrote:

 The chances of life happening by chance are something like that, if not 
 worse. You could probably calculated a relative number for it with 
 quantum physics and/or information theory and/or string theory or some 
 such. IIRC there is a theory about how much info can be in a given volume.


 
 I don't think anyone has come close to describing the odds of abiogenesis.


definitely OT, but
 J. Maynard Smith, Ers Szathmry: The Major Transitions in Evolution. New York
1995, Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-850294-X
contains several interesting thoughts about it :)
Jun 02 2008
parent reply BCS <ao pathlink.com> writes:
Reply to Fawzi,


 Chris Wright Wrote:
 

 BCS wrote:
 

 The chances of life happening by chance are something like that, if
 not worse. You could probably calculated a relative number for it
 with quantum physics and/or information theory and/or string theory
 or some such. IIRC there is a theory about how much info can be in a
 given volume.
 


 I don't think anyone has come close to describing the odds of
 abiogenesis.
 


 definitely OT, but
 J. Maynard Smith, Ers Szathmry: The Major Transitions in Evolution.
 New York 1995, Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-850294-X
 contains several interesting thoughts about it :)


Link by any chance?
Jun 02 2008
parent Fawzi Mohamed <fmohamed mac.com> writes:
On 2008-06-02 17:46:37 +0200, BCS <ao pathlink.com> said:


 Reply to Fawzi,
 

 Chris Wright Wrote:
 

 BCS wrote:
 

 The chances of life happening by chance are something like that, if
 not worse. You could probably calculated a relative number for it
 with quantum physics and/or information theory and/or string theory
 or some such. IIRC there is a theory about how much info can be in a
 given volume.
 


 I don't think anyone has come close to describing the odds of
 abiogenesis.
 


 definitely OT, but
 J. Maynard Smith, Ers Szathmry: The Major Transitions in Evolution.
 New York 1995, Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-850294-X
 contains several interesting thoughts about it :)


 
 Link by any chance?


Sorry It is a paper book.

http://www.amazon.com/Major-Transitions-Evolution-Maynard-Smith/dp/019850294X
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Major_Transitions_in_Evolution

 Being old it is not so cheap.
The same authors have also published a newer book on a similar theme 
which might be good, and is very cheap, but I haven't read it.

http://www.amazon.com/Origins-Life-Birth-Origin-Language/dp/019286209X/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_b

Anyway 

the question for the origin of life it isn't how to create a cell by 
chance, but how to create the simplest auto replicating blocks on which 
then evolution can kick in, and one can imagine some situation in which 
this can happen, improbable for sure, but not impossible...
Jun 02 2008
prev sibling parent reply Simen Kjaeraas <simen.kjaras gmail.com> writes:
Chris Wright Wrote:


 BCS wrote:

 The chances of life happening by chance are something like that, if not 
 worse. You could probably calculated a relative number for it with 
 quantum physics and/or information theory and/or string theory or some 
 such. IIRC there is a theory about how much info can be in a given volume.
 
 


 
 I don't think anyone has come close to describing the odds of abiogenesis.


I did some fun calculations after being given a book by Jehovah's Witnesses, as
I've always been of the opinion that life being created by some higher being is
less probable than it occuring naturally.

Way I figured was, I get 1 cubic centimetre of the simplest, carbon-based,
self-replicating molecules, on this planet of 1 trillion cubic kilometers (one
cubic centimetre was chosen as some arbitrary amount that might come into being
by chance). Not by any chance a big chunk, but is it enough for life to
survive? Let's first see how many self-replicating molecules we can fit into my
small cube - 1.6 quintillion. That ain't half bad. (Actually, I think the
number was 1000 times bigger, but I don't remember the name of that number
[Hexillion?], plus you can think of it as a bit of safety :p)

Now, spread that evenly across the world (258 billion square kilometers), and
you get 162 such molecule for every square meter. With enough resources nearby,
I'd give it a fairly good chance of survival.

-- Simen
Jun 02 2008
parent reply BCS <ao pathlink.com> writes:
Reply to Simen,


 Chris Wright Wrote:
 

 BCS wrote:
 

 The chances of life happening by chance are something like that, if
 not worse. You could probably calculated a relative number for it
 with quantum physics and/or information theory and/or string theory
 or some such. IIRC there is a theory about how much info can be in a
 given volume.
 


 I don't think anyone has come close to describing the odds of
 abiogenesis.
 


 I did some fun calculations after being given a book by Jehovah's
 Witnesses, as I've always been of the opinion that life being created
 by some higher being is less probable than it occuring naturally.
 
 Way I figured was, I get 1 cubic centimetre of the simplest,
 carbon-based, self-replicating molecules, on this planet of 1 trillion
 cubic kilometers (one cubic centimetre was chosen as some arbitrary
 amount that might come into being by chance). Not by any chance a big
 chunk, but is it enough for life to survive? Let's first see how many
 self-replicating molecules we can fit into my small cube - 1.6
 quintillion. That ain't half bad. (Actually, I think the number was
 1000 times bigger, but I don't remember the name of that number
 [Hexillion?], plus you can think of it as a bit of safety :p)
 
 Now, spread that evenly across the world (258 billion square
 kilometers), and you get 162 such molecule for every square meter.
 With enough resources nearby, I'd give it a fairly good chance of
 survival.
 


Someone once told me that if you take all the ways that you can assemble 
the parts of the simplest form of life and put them in once place, the ball 
would be something like the size of earth. (I havn't checked the math or 
anything like that)
Jun 02 2008
parent reply Gregor Richards <Richards codu.org> writes:
BCS wrote:

 Reply to Simen,
 

 Chris Wright Wrote:


 BCS wrote:


 The chances of life happening by chance are something like that, if
 not worse. You could probably calculated a relative number for it
 with quantum physics and/or information theory and/or string theory
 or some such. IIRC there is a theory about how much info can be in a
 given volume.


 I don't think anyone has come close to describing the odds of
 abiogenesis.


 I did some fun calculations after being given a book by Jehovah's
 Witnesses, as I've always been of the opinion that life being created
 by some higher being is less probable than it occuring naturally.

 Way I figured was, I get 1 cubic centimetre of the simplest,
 carbon-based, self-replicating molecules, on this planet of 1 trillion
 cubic kilometers (one cubic centimetre was chosen as some arbitrary
 amount that might come into being by chance). Not by any chance a big
 chunk, but is it enough for life to survive? Let's first see how many
 self-replicating molecules we can fit into my small cube - 1.6
 quintillion. That ain't half bad. (Actually, I think the number was
 1000 times bigger, but I don't remember the name of that number
 [Hexillion?], plus you can think of it as a bit of safety :p)

 Now, spread that evenly across the world (258 billion square
 kilometers), and you get 162 such molecule for every square meter.
 With enough resources nearby, I'd give it a fairly good chance of
 survival.


 
 Someone once told me that if you take all the ways that you can assemble 
 the parts of the simplest form of life and put them in once place, the 
 ball would be something like the size of earth. (I havn't checked the 
 math or anything like that)
 
 


I love that all arguments against natural abiogenesis come down to an 
argument from ignorance. The fact is that we haven't got the foggiest 
bit of a clue what the entire range of things that could have 
/potentially/ formed life are, we just happen to have been formed from a 
particular set of amino acids. We like to believe that only amino acids, 
or even only the set of amino acids life on Earth are based on, could 
form life, but that's just stupid. Given the uncountably many planets in 
the universe, life has probably come into existence and evolved in ways 
we could never remotely predict, and idiots on their planets are saying 
"The chances that a simple life based on hexavalent chromium would form 
naturally are so unlikely, we must have been created by some higher 
intelligence!" As it turns out, when you consider your very low but 
extremely ignorant statistic given the number of planets in the 
universe, and the potentially huge number of possible ways life could 
form (a number we can't even begin to fathom), it turns into 
99.9999999999%. Unfortunately, the general populous doesn't understand 
statistics even in the slightest, and so they think "Wow, given the 
extremely low odds that a protozoan would appear by random chance, we 
must have been created by a higher power!" Idiots.

  - Gregor Richards
Jun 02 2008
next sibling parent reply Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:
Gregor Richards wrote:

 and so they think "Wow, given the 
 extremely low odds that a protozoan would appear by random chance, we 
 must have been created by a higher power!" Idiots.


My difficulty with the higher power explanation is one is left wondering 
  how the higher power came to be. Did a higher higher power create it? 
And you know where that is going <g>.
Jun 02 2008
next sibling parent reply aarti_pl <aarti interia.pl> writes:
Walter Bright pisze:

 Gregor Richards wrote:

 and so they think "Wow, given the extremely low odds that a protozoan 
 would appear by random chance, we must have been created by a higher 
 power!" Idiots.


 
 My difficulty with the higher power explanation is one is left wondering 
  how the higher power came to be. Did a higher higher power create it? 
 And you know where that is going <g>.


This argument is rather easy to answer <g>, as it is based on assumption
that "higher power" has to have beginning. If you remove this assumption
your question would become pointless. (Christians claims indeed that God
has no beginning). Additionally you can ask similar question: what was
before 'Big Bang' and you have same problem to answer it.

Removing assumption about beginning of "higher power" shouldn't be so
strange. Materialists also formulated theories that universe has no
beginning. So why such theory ("matter is everlasting") is better than
"God is everlasting"? Maybe "natural" state of universe is 'spirit' not
'matter'?

I probably will not continue replying on NG, but if anyone wants to
contact me and discuss further - feel free to do it:

Marcin Kuszczak
aarti interia.pl
www.zapytajmnie.com
Jun 02 2008
next sibling parent reply BCS <ao pathlink.com> writes:
Reply to Aarti_pl,


 Walter Bright pisze:
 

 Gregor Richards wrote:
 

 and so they think "Wow, given the extremely low odds that a
 protozoan would appear by random chance, we must have been created
 by a higher power!" Idiots.
 


 My difficulty with the higher power explanation is one is left
 wondering how the higher power came to be. Did a higher higher power
 create it? And you know where that is going <g>.
 


 This argument is rather easy to answer <g>, as it is based on
 assumption that "higher power" has to have beginning. If you remove
 this assumption your question would become pointless. (Christians
 claims indeed that God has no beginning). Additionally you can ask
 similar question: what was before 'Big Bang' and you have same problem
 to answer it.
 


nice. One view even holds that the concept of "everlasting" with it's inherent 
binding to time is inapplicable to god. Like the god as an author model (see 
my other reply); Where was the author before the first page of the book, 
and where does he go after the last page? The question is as meaningless 
as; what is the conversion rate from the color red to US dollars?
Jun 02 2008
next sibling parent reply "Bruce Adams" <tortoise_74 yeah.who.co.uk> writes:
On Mon, 02 Jun 2008 22:12:57 +0100, BCS <ao pathlink.com> wrote:


 Reply to Aarti_pl,


 Walter Bright pisze:


 Gregor Richards wrote:


 and so they think "Wow, given the extremely low odds that a
 protozoan would appear by random chance, we must have been created
 by a higher power!" Idiots.


 My difficulty with the higher power explanation is one is left
 wondering how the higher power came to be. Did a higher higher power
 create it? And you know where that is going <g>.


 This argument is rather easy to answer <g>, as it is based on
 assumption that "higher power" has to have beginning. If you remove
 this assumption your question would become pointless. (Christians
 claims indeed that God has no beginning). Additionally you can ask
 similar question: what was before 'Big Bang' and you have same problem
 to answer it.


 nice. One view even holds that the concept of "everlasting" with it's  
 inherent binding to time is inapplicable to god. Like the god as an  
 author model (see my other reply); Where was the author before the first  
 page of the book, and where does he go after the last page? The question  
 is as meaningless as; what is the conversion rate from the color red to  
 US dollars?


Not quite as meaningless. If you go with the author theory then you can  
learn
about the universe outside the universe that you thought was all there was.
Though there's only so much you can tell about the author without finding  
a way
to escape the book. Putting the analogy back into physics (as opposed to  
meta-physics)
the universe could be embedded in a metaverse along with many others. The  
physics
of such a metaverse is difficult for us to fathom at present but some  
progress seems
to have been made.
Jun 02 2008
parent reply BCS <ao pathlink.com> writes:
Reply to Bruce,


 On Mon, 02 Jun 2008 22:12:57 +0100, BCS <ao pathlink.com> wrote:
 

 nice. One view even holds that the concept of "everlasting" with it's
 inherent binding to time is inapplicable to god. Like the god as an
 author model (see my other reply); Where was the author before the
 first  page of the book, and where does he go after the last page?
 The question  is as meaningless as; what is the conversion rate from
 the color red to  US dollars?
 


 Not quite as meaningless. If you go with the author theory then you
 can learn about the universe outside the universe that you thought 
 was all there was. Though there's only so much you can tell about 
 the author without finding a way to escape the book.


OTOH, everything in the "book" is created by the author therefor you can 
learn a lot about him by reading the "book" and seeing what he created.
Jun 02 2008
parent reply janderson <askme me.com> writes:
BCS wrote:

 Reply to Bruce,
 

 On Mon, 02 Jun 2008 22:12:57 +0100, BCS <ao pathlink.com> wrote:


 nice. One view even holds that the concept of "everlasting" with it's
 inherent binding to time is inapplicable to god. Like the god as an
 author model (see my other reply); Where was the author before the
 first  page of the book, and where does he go after the last page?
 The question  is as meaningless as; what is the conversion rate from
 the color red to  US dollars?


 Not quite as meaningless. If you go with the author theory then you
 can learn about the universe outside the universe that you thought was 
 all there was. Though there's only so much you can tell about the 
 author without finding a way to escape the book.


 
 OTOH, everything in the "book" is created by the author therefor you can 
 learn a lot about him by reading the "book" and seeing what he created.
 
 


I knew it,  I knew it.  As soon as I saw the original question "why is 
programming so fun?" I knew it would end in a discussion about god and 
the evolution.  All such questions end that way, the D community should 
know that by now.

"why is programming so fun?" = Evolution || God;

-Joel
Jun 02 2008
next sibling parent Robert Fraser <fraserofthenight gmail.com> writes:
janderson wrote:

 I knew it,  I knew it.  As soon as I saw the original question "why is 
 programming so fun?" I knew it would end in a discussion about god and 
 the evolution.  All such questions end that way, the D community should 
 know that by now.
 
 "why is programming so fun?" = Evolution || God;
 
 -Joel


I was expecting ninjas vs. pirates, but this is just as relevant & less fun.
Jun 03 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent reply BCS <ao pathlink.com> writes:
Reply to janderson,


 BCS wrote:
 

 Reply to Bruce,
 

 On Mon, 02 Jun 2008 22:12:57 +0100, BCS <ao pathlink.com> wrote:
 

 nice. One view even holds that the concept of "everlasting" with
 it's inherent binding to time is inapplicable to god. Like the god
 as an author model (see my other reply); Where was the author
 before the first  page of the book, and where does he go after the
 last page? The question  is as meaningless as; what is the
 conversion rate from the color red to  US dollars?
 


 Not quite as meaningless. If you go with the author theory then you
 can learn about the universe outside the universe that you thought
 was
 all there was. Though there's only so much you can tell about the
 author without finding a way to escape the book.


 OTOH, everything in the "book" is created by the author therefor you
 can learn a lot about him by reading the "book" and seeing what he
 created.
 


 I knew it,  I knew it.  As soon as I saw the original question "why is
 programming so fun?" I knew it would end in a discussion about god and
 the evolution.  All such questions end that way, the D community
 should know that by now.
 
 "why is programming so fun?" = Evolution || God;
 
 -Joel
 



seen anything go that way befor.
Jun 03 2008
parent muffles <sgtmuffles myrealbox.com> writes:
BCS Wrote:


 Reply to janderson,
 

 BCS wrote:
 

 Reply to Bruce,
 

 On Mon, 02 Jun 2008 22:12:57 +0100, BCS <ao pathlink.com> wrote:
 

 nice. One view even holds that the concept of "everlasting" with
 it's inherent binding to time is inapplicable to god. Like the god
 as an author model (see my other reply); Where was the author
 before the first  page of the book, and where does he go after the
 last page? The question  is as meaningless as; what is the
 conversion rate from the color red to  US dollars?
 


 Not quite as meaningless. If you go with the author theory then you
 can learn about the universe outside the universe that you thought
 was
 all there was. Though there's only so much you can tell about the
 author without finding a way to escape the book.


 OTOH, everything in the "book" is created by the author therefor you
 can learn a lot about him by reading the "book" and seeing what he
 created.
 


 I knew it,  I knew it.  As soon as I saw the original question "why is
 programming so fun?" I knew it would end in a discussion about god and
 the evolution.  All such questions end that way, the D community
 should know that by now.
 
 "why is programming so fun?" = Evolution || God;
 
 -Joel
 


 

 seen anything go that way befor.

 
 


I'm pretty sure he was being sarcastic. At least I hope to God/Darwin he was...
Jun 04 2008
prev sibling parent reply Simen Kjaeraas <simen.kjaras gmail.com> writes:
janderson Wrote:


 BCS wrote:

 Reply to Bruce,
 

 On Mon, 02 Jun 2008 22:12:57 +0100, BCS <ao pathlink.com> wrote:


 nice. One view even holds that the concept of "everlasting" with it's
 inherent binding to time is inapplicable to god. Like the god as an
 author model (see my other reply); Where was the author before the
 first  page of the book, and where does he go after the last page?
 The question  is as meaningless as; what is the conversion rate from
 the color red to  US dollars?


 Not quite as meaningless. If you go with the author theory then you
 can learn about the universe outside the universe that you thought was 
 all there was. Though there's only so much you can tell about the 
 author without finding a way to escape the book.


 
 OTOH, everything in the "book" is created by the author therefor you can 
 learn a lot about him by reading the "book" and seeing what he created.
 
 


 
 I knew it,  I knew it.  As soon as I saw the original question "why is 
 programming so fun?" I knew it would end in a discussion about god and 
 the evolution.  All such questions end that way, the D community should 
 know that by now.
 
 "why is programming so fun?" = Evolution || God;
 
 -Joel


Actually, I believe that should be 'Any question demanding philosophical
thinking' => Evolution || God.

btw, where is Hitler in all this? (might as well invoke Godwin's law while
we're at it)

-- Simen
Jun 03 2008
parent janderson <askme me.com> writes:
Simen Kjaeraas wrote:

 janderson Wrote:
 

 BCS wrote:

 Reply to Bruce,


 On Mon, 02 Jun 2008 22:12:57 +0100, BCS <ao pathlink.com> wrote:


 nice. One view even holds that the concept of "everlasting" with it's
 inherent binding to time is inapplicable to god. Like the god as an
 author model (see my other reply); Where was the author before the
 first  page of the book, and where does he go after the last page?
 The question  is as meaningless as; what is the conversion rate from
 the color red to  US dollars?


 Not quite as meaningless. If you go with the author theory then you
 can learn about the universe outside the universe that you thought was 
 all there was. Though there's only so much you can tell about the 
 author without finding a way to escape the book.


 OTOH, everything in the "book" is created by the author therefor you can 
 learn a lot about him by reading the "book" and seeing what he created.


 I knew it,  I knew it.  As soon as I saw the original question "why is 
 programming so fun?" I knew it would end in a discussion about god and 
 the evolution.  All such questions end that way, the D community should 
 know that by now.

 "why is programming so fun?" = Evolution || God;

 -Joel


 
 Actually, I believe that should be 'Any question demanding philosophical
thinking' => Evolution || God.
 
 btw, where is Hitler in all this? (might as well invoke Godwin's law while
we're at it)
 
 -- Simen


Well Hitler is one of those topics that always leads to Evolution:

Hitler->death camps->Jews->Religion->God->Evolution

Actually probably every topic is only a few topics away from those subjects.
Jun 03 2008
prev sibling parent aarti_pl <aarti interia.pl> writes:
BCS pisze:

 Reply to Aarti_pl,
 

 Walter Bright pisze:


 Gregor Richards wrote:


 and so they think "Wow, given the extremely low odds that a
 protozoan would appear by random chance, we must have been created
 by a higher power!" Idiots.


 My difficulty with the higher power explanation is one is left
 wondering how the higher power came to be. Did a higher higher power
 create it? And you know where that is going <g>.


 This argument is rather easy to answer <g>, as it is based on
 assumption that "higher power" has to have beginning. If you remove
 this assumption your question would become pointless. (Christians
 claims indeed that God has no beginning). Additionally you can ask
 similar question: what was before 'Big Bang' and you have same problem
 to answer it.


 
 nice. One view even holds that the concept of "everlasting" with it's 
 inherent binding to time is inapplicable to god. Like the god as an 
 author model (see my other reply); Where was the author before the first 
 page of the book, and where does he go after the last page? The question 
 is as meaningless as; what is the conversion rate from the color red to 
 US dollars?


I like very much parallel with book's author. One of my favorite stories 
is about death of Ophelia in Shakespeare's Hamlet. She died because 
tree's branch have broken, she fell into stream and drown.

Let's put a scientist into Shakespeare's book of Hamlet. He will analyze 
exactly what was happening. He will measure, calculate and note 
everything down. His conclusion will be that Ophelia has drown because 
she was too heavy for this branch. He will say exactly what happened. 
And it will be true description.

But wait... We know that Ophelia died because that was decision of 
Shakespeare... He created the whole world of Hamlet, characters, trees, 
and also this unlucky tree's branch. And in fact it doesn't matter so 
much what exactly was happening with atoms and particles when Ophelia 
was falling down into stream...

Where the truth lies? How is it possible that two completely different 
explanations are not contradictory?

And what's more interesting - scientist from Shakespeare's book CAN NOT 
(logically not possible) know anything about outside world without two 
things: REVELATION and BELIEF.

Regards
Marcin Kuszczak
www.zapytajmnie.com
Jun 02 2008
prev sibling parent Chris Wright <dhasenan gmail.com> writes:
aarti_pl wrote:

 Walter Bright pisze:

 Gregor Richards wrote:

 and so they think "Wow, given the extremely low odds that a protozoan 
 would appear by random chance, we must have been created by a higher 
 power!" Idiots.


 My difficulty with the higher power explanation is one is left 
 wondering  how the higher power came to be. Did a higher higher power 
 create it? And you know where that is going <g>.


 
 This argument is rather easy to answer <g>, as it is based on assumption
 that "higher power" has to have beginning. If you remove this assumption
 your question would become pointless. (Christians claims indeed that God
 has no beginning). Additionally you can ask similar question: what was
 before 'Big Bang' and you have same problem to answer it.


Two possibilities: that before the Big Bang, the universe was not 
sufficiently formed to have a meaningful concept of "before", or that 
due to the nature of the Big Bang, there is no feasible way of testing 
any ideas about what may have come before.

Religion doesn't attempt to answer that question, by and large; science 
hasn't come up with much useful in that regard, either.
Jun 02 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Clay Smith <clayasaurus gmail.com> writes:
Walter Bright wrote:

 Gregor Richards wrote:

 and so they think "Wow, given the extremely low odds that a protozoan 
 would appear by random chance, we must have been created by a higher 
 power!" Idiots.


 
 My difficulty with the higher power explanation is one is left wondering 
  how the higher power came to be. Did a higher higher power create it? 
 And you know where that is going <g>.


/philosophical rant

This is a good question and has been in my mind for some time too. The 
same question can be asked in a different way too, "where did the 
extremely dense hot state matter that created the big bang come from?"

To give the Torah credit and answer the former question...

http://www.yhwh.com/GINGN/gingn.htm

'And God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM"; and He said, "Thus you shall 
say to the sons of Israel, `I AM has sent me to you.'"'

I figure the best answer to the question of 'who created God,' would be 
that God simply 'is.' Of course, this theory doesn't have much logic 
behind it, but it answers the question of 'how do you get something from 
nothing?' The answer would be you don't, it just simply 'is', and will 
continue to 'be.'

I also believe that humans have been 'programmed' to believe in a higher 
power or authority... either through conditioning or through genetics.
Jun 02 2008
parent reply BCS <ao pathlink.com> writes:
Reply to Clay,


 /philosophical rant
 


[...]

 'And God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM"; and He said, "Thus you shall
 say to the sons of Israel, `I AM has sent me to you.'"'
 
 I figure the best answer to the question of 'who created God,' would
 be that God simply 'is.'


I don't know if you known this (and I can't find a reference) but IIRC the 
way that "I Am" is stated there is unusual in that it is absolute. It actually 
translates as "I am, always have been and always will be"

BTW: Correct me if I'm wrong
Jun 02 2008
parent Clay Smith <clayasaurus gmail.com> writes:
BCS wrote:

 Reply to Clay,
 

 /philosophical rant


 [...]

 'And God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM"; and He said, "Thus you shall
 say to the sons of Israel, `I AM has sent me to you.'"'

 I figure the best answer to the question of 'who created God,' would
 be that God simply 'is.'


 
 I don't know if you known this (and I can't find a reference) but IIRC 
 the way that "I Am" is stated there is unusual in that it is absolute. 
 It actually translates as "I am, always have been and always will be"
 
 BTW: Correct me if I'm wrong
 
 


You are right, I don't see a difference between what I stated and what 
you stated. My point is the big bang has the same problem of 'who 
created god,' and that the best answer I can think of is that there is 
some element of the universe that 'always has been and always will be,' 
could be the universe itself, could be 'God,' could be a megaverse from 
which all universes spawn from, but the whole 'everything comes from 
something' deal has to end somewhere, where ultimately you need 
something that just 'is' from which everything was created.
Jun 04 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent BCS <ao pathlink.com> writes:
Reply to Walter,


 Gregor Richards wrote:
 

 and so they think "Wow, given the extremely low odds that a protozoan
 would appear by random chance, we must have been created by a higher
 power!" Idiots.
 


 My difficulty with the higher power explanation is one is left
 wondering
 how the higher power came to be. Did a higher higher power create
 it?
 And you know where that is going <g>.


The same question can be asked of any origin of everything theory; "where 
did that come from?"

The way I like to think of it is a higher power is, somewhat and loosely, 
analogous to the author if a book. It is totally outside the story, can know 
anything, can create anything and can do anything. However they are constrained 
by logic, consistence and, according to some authors, the 'free will' of 
the characters.

One, somewhat flawed, view is spelled out in Thornton Wilder's "Our Town" 
by an address ending in "...the Earth; the Solar System; the Universe; the 
Mind of God."
Jun 02 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent Russell Lewis <webmaster villagersonline.com> writes:
Walter Bright wrote:

 My difficulty with the higher power explanation is one is left wondering 
  how the higher power came to be. Did a higher higher power create it? 
 And you know where that is going <g>.


Remember that any system of reality has to start with one pre-existent 
entity (or collection).  If you ask where it came from, the most common 
answers are either (a) it was always there or (b) it sprang from 
nothingness into being.  The concept of God, and the concept of a 
godless universe, are both subject to the same causality paradox.
Jun 02 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent Sean Kelly <sean invisibleduck.org> writes:
== Quote from Walter Bright (newshound1 digitalmars.com)'s article

 Gregor Richards wrote:

 and so they think "Wow, given the
 extremely low odds that a protozoan would appear by random chance, we
 must have been created by a higher power!" Idiots.


 My difficulty with the higher power explanation is one is left wondering
   how the higher power came to be. Did a higher higher power create it?
 And you know where that is going <g>.


That covers the Clockmaker and the Prime Mover arguments... there are
plenty left to shoot holes in ;-)


Sean
Jun 02 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent John Reimer <terminal.node gmail.com> writes:
Hello Walter,


 Gregor Richards wrote:
 

 and so they think "Wow, given the extremely low odds that a protozoan
 would appear by random chance, we must have been created by a higher
 power!" Idiots.
 


 My difficulty with the higher power explanation is one is left
 wondering
 how the higher power came to be. Did a higher higher power create
 it?
 And you know where that is going <g>.



I wonder why you assume a higher power must be subject to the universe it 
created?  Why does it have to have a higher higher power create it? If we 
can barely figure out how this world we live in works, why are we to suppose 
that we can understand the spiritual, that which we don't see, any more so?

-JJR
Jun 02 2008
prev sibling parent reply "Me Here" <p9e883002 sneakemail.com> writes:
Walter Bright wrote:


 Gregor Richards wrote:

 and so they think "Wow, given the  extremely low odds that a protozoan
 would appear by random chance, we  must have been created by a higher
 power!" Idiots.


 
 My difficulty with the higher power explanation is one is left wondering
 how the higher power came to be. Did a higher higher power create it? And you
 know where that is going <g>.


I'm afraid mine's even more cynical than that.

If God is all powerful, and omni-present, why on earth would it be bother to
create insignificant beings like us and demand that we worship it?

There are only three possible explanations:

1/ It enjoys watching us suffer floods, plagues, earthquakes, wars, starvation
and pestilance.

Like we enjoy the trials and tribulations of the characters in soap operas.
Some will recognise this view as Greek Mythology. Kinda kicks the "benevolent
and forgiving" theory into touch.

2/ It is so ego-centric that it needs the adulation of billions (what would
this number mean to an omni-present being?), in order to feel good about itself.

Again, it doesn't quite fit with the mythology. "You have to believe without
proof otherwise it isn't true belief". Sounds like the magic circle to me.

3/ It a mechanism whereby a few strong minds effect control of large numbers of
weak minds.

"I know the will of God, and if you don't do as I advise (which includes
keeping me in good food and luxury), it'll smite you down and consine you to a
purgatory for eternity."

And there are still billions that blindly follow the "advise" of a priviledged
few.

Life is short. Live it now. You don't get a secind chance.

Metaphysically, b.
--
Jun 04 2008
next sibling parent reply e-t172 <e-t172 akegroup.org> writes:
A related citation:

"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?"
~Epicurus (341 BC - 270 BC)
Jun 05 2008
next sibling parent reply John Reimer <terminal.node gmail.com> writes:
Hello e-t172,


 A related citation:
 
 "Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
 Then he is not omnipotent.
 Is he able, but not willing?
 Then he is malevolent.
 Is he both able and willing?
 Then whence cometh evil?
 Is he neither able nor willing?
 Then why call him God?"
 ~Epicurus (341 BC - 270 BC)



Yes, this sort of debate does go waaaay back, doesn't it? :)

The above is does not disprove God.  It just shows that the writer doesn't 
appear to like the God that put him in this world, nor the universe he appears 
to be stuck in. He's quite put out about it, in fact.  God could have made 
automotons, but I suppose he figured people should have a choice in the matter. 
 

It's not really that clever for the creation to question the creator.   Much 
less to judge the Creator.  By what standard does Epicurus question God about 
evil.  This God has not only set the standard that defines evil but has also 
promised to judge all evil finally.  And he also defined how one is saved 
from this evil.   Does Epicurus decide for himself what he sees as evil in 
the process of "disproving" God?  What does Epicurus perceive "evil" to mean?

The strange thing is that people continue to complain about evil but refuse 
to turn away from it in their own lives, or to adopt the plan that frees 
them from that bondage to it.

People condemn themselves and then shake their fist at God for not making 
things the way they want.

-JJR
Jun 05 2008
parent Tower Ty <towerty msn.com.au> writes:
Yep definately a nutter

a religious nutter at that .

Thats two of my nockers proved to be so .

I hope there are not too many more on the D bandwagon .
Both John Reimer and Jesse Phillips seemed influential in the development of D .
It does not auger well if they turn out to be so, because their personal
beliefs tend to butt in at some point.

Anyway everybody has a right to believe what they like and good luck to them. 







John Reimer Wrote:


 Hello e-t172,
 

 A related citation:
 
 "Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
 Then he is not omnipotent.
 Is he able, but not willing?
 Then he is malevolent.
 Is he both able and willing?
 Then whence cometh evil?
 Is he neither able nor willing?
 Then why call him God?"
 ~Epicurus (341 BC - 270 BC)


 
 
 Yes, this sort of debate does go waaaay back, doesn't it? :)
 
 The above is does not disprove God.  It just shows that the writer doesn't 
 appear to like the God that put him in this world, nor the universe he appears 
 to be stuck in. He's quite put out about it, in fact.  God could have made 
 automotons, but I suppose he figured people should have a choice in the
matter. 
  
 
 It's not really that clever for the creation to question the creator.   Much 
 less to judge the Creator.  By what standard does Epicurus question God about 
 evil.  This God has not only set the standard that defines evil but has also 
 promised to judge all evil finally.  And he also defined how one is saved 
 from this evil.   Does Epicurus decide for himself what he sees as evil in 
 the process of "disproving" God?  What does Epicurus perceive "evil" to mean?
 
 The strange thing is that people continue to complain about evil but refuse 
 to turn away from it in their own lives, or to adopt the plan that frees 
 them from that bondage to it.
 
 People condemn themselves and then shake their fist at God for not making 
 things the way they want.
 
 -JJR
Jun 05 2008
prev sibling parent BCS <ao pathlink.com> writes:
Reply to e-t172,


 A related citation:
 
 "Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
 Then he is not omnipotent.
 Is he able, but not willing?
 Then he is malevolent.
 Is he both able and willing?
 Then whence cometh evil?
 Is he neither able nor willing?
 Then why call him God?"
 ~Epicurus (341 BC - 270 BC)


The question of "why does god allow evil?" could be rephrased as: "why does 
god allow the worst thing that can happen to happen?" If the worst that could 
happen was a paper cut, it would be the worst that could happen and we would 
see it as terrible. (This assumes, as the evidence shows, that the world 
is able to produce suffering beyond our own imagination.)
Jun 05 2008
prev sibling parent reply BCS <ao pathlink.com> writes:
Reply to Me,


 
 If God is all powerful, and omni-present, why on earth would it be
 bother to create insignificant beings like us and demand that we
 worship it?
 
 There are only three possible explanations:
 



have you ever had a pet? Which reason did you use for keeping it? 1, 2 or 3?



 1/ It enjoys watching us suffer floods, plagues, earthquakes, wars,
 starvation and pestilance.
 
 Like we enjoy the trials and tribulations of the characters in soap
 operas. Some will recognise this view as Greek Mythology. Kinda kicks
 the "benevolent and forgiving" theory into touch.
 
 2/ It is so ego-centric that it needs the adulation of billions (what
 would this number mean to an omni-present being?), in order to feel
 good about itself.
 
 Again, it doesn't quite fit with the mythology. "You have to believe
 without proof otherwise it isn't true belief". Sounds like the magic
 circle to me.
 
 3/ It a mechanism whereby a few strong minds effect control of large
 numbers of weak minds.
Jun 05 2008
parent reply "Me Here" <p9e883002 sneakemail.com> writes:
BCS wrote:


 
 have you ever had a pet? Which reason did you use for keeping it? 1, 2 or 3?
 
 

 1/ It enjoys watching us suffer floods, plagues, earthquakes, wars,
 starvation and pestilance.
 
 2/ It is so ego-centric that it needs the adulation of billions (what
 would this number mean to an omni-present being?), in order to feel
 good about itself.
 
 3/ It a mechanism whereby a few strong minds effect control of large
 numbers of weak minds.
 




Sorry BCS, but I have come to expect better arguements from you during our
breif association on this forum.

The direct answer to your question, is "none of the above". 

There is a distinct and huge difference between:

 	- "keeping a pet"--feeding it, taking it for walks, petting it. Simply
enjoying the affection it demonstrates--of its own volition-- and the
companionship it provides.
and 
	*Creating* a entire race of sentient beings, along with a million other
species, a world, and a universe containsing millions of galaxies and billions
of stars...
	And then compelling them to subscribe and adhere to a set of (variously) 10
commandments; 613 rules; etc. etc. on pain of eternal damnation if they fail to
believe, subscribe and adhere...PURELY FOR MY OWN AMUSEMENT.


And that last uppercased part is the point. Give, describe, or otherwise
elucidate *one* reason, justification or purpose to creating sentient beings,
endowing them with "free will", decrying them from using it;  and condeming
them if they do?

The *only* "explanantion I'ev ever been offereed from "believers" for this
question, is "its just an experiment".. But, if the creator is all-poerful, and
omni-present--and it must be, if it is a "god"--then it knows the outcome for
the experiment starts, so there is no purpose other than one of the 3 above,

b.
--
Jun 06 2008
next sibling parent reply Yigal Chripun <yigal100 gmail.com> writes:
Me Here wrote:

 BCS wrote:
 

 have you ever had a pet? Which reason did you use for keeping it? 1, 2 or 3?



 1/ It enjoys watching us suffer floods, plagues, earthquakes, wars,
 starvation and pestilance.

 2/ It is so ego-centric that it needs the adulation of billions (what
 would this number mean to an omni-present being?), in order to feel
 good about itself.

 3/ It a mechanism whereby a few strong minds effect control of large
 numbers of weak minds.




 
 Sorry BCS, but I have come to expect better arguements from you during our
 breif association on this forum.
 
 The direct answer to your question, is "none of the above". 
 
 There is a distinct and huge difference between:
 
  	- "keeping a pet"--feeding it, taking it for walks, petting it. Simply
 enjoying the affection it demonstrates--of its own volition-- and the
 companionship it provides.
 and 
 	*Creating* a entire race of sentient beings, along with a million other
 species, a world, and a universe containsing millions of galaxies and billions
 of stars...
 	And then compelling them to subscribe and adhere to a set of (variously) 10
 commandments; 613 rules; etc. etc. on pain of eternal damnation if they fail to
 believe, subscribe and adhere...PURELY FOR MY OWN AMUSEMENT.
 
 
 And that last uppercased part is the point. Give, describe, or otherwise
 elucidate *one* reason, justification or purpose to creating sentient beings,
 endowing them with "free will", decrying them from using it;  and condeming
 them if they do?
 
 The *only* "explanantion I'ev ever been offereed from "believers" for this
 question, is "its just an experiment".. But, if the creator is all-poerful, and
 omni-present--and it must be, if it is a "god"--then it knows the outcome for
 the experiment starts, so there is no purpose other than one of the 3 above,
 
 b.


A side note - the "modern" concept of hell is entirely Christian. the
original word in the bible is גיהנום which is a concatenation of  גיא
בן
הינום which is the valley of the son of Hinom. it's a place in Jerusalem
where lived the above mentioned family and they practiced evil acts
according to the bible. they worshiped one of the ancient idols (can't
remember now which one..) and this required sacrificing your own first
born of something of that nature. The bible uses that term to refer to a
place of pure evil and this is a real location on earth, in Jerusalem,
you can come and see it yourselves.
the word שטן (the devil) has two meanings one of which is "obstacle" and
the other refers to one of god's angels which of course never "fall from
the sky" or anything like that. Satan represents in the bible the role
of the prosecutor. God is the judge and he put Satan on the job of
pointing our faults since god is merciful and cares for his creations,
and didn't want to do it himself.
Btw, angels are _not_ people with wings. מלאך is the word in the bible
and it literally means "a messenger". they can take a form of a human
just like they can be elements of nature like wind.
"pain of eternal damnation" does not exist in the bible or in the Jewish
faith.

just wanted to give a Jewish prespective on the subject. carry on with
your debate.
Jun 06 2008
next sibling parent reply John Reimer <terminal.node gmail.com> writes:
Hello Yigal,



 "pain of eternal damnation" does not exist in the bible or in the
 Jewish
 faith.



Maybe you should have another thorough look at the Bible... and the new
testament. 
:) 

Your choice of quoted words indeed may not be there, but the concept is very 
clear throughout the new Testament.

And I do wonder at your unusual representation of Satan, God, and angels 
.  Concerning your description of Satan and his role under God, this is in 
complete contradiction to what the Old Testament (or New) says (see Job in 
old).  So I assume these are Jewish traditions compiled by Rabbis separately 
that you are referring to? 

Incidentally, some angels do have wings: the ark of the covenant was symbolic 
of that (also see Ezekial). ;)  Other than that, does it really matter if 
some do or don't.  :)  Perhaps you are just answering popular cultures
representation 
of them.

-JJR
Jun 06 2008
parent reply Yigal Chripun <yigal100 gmail.com> writes:
John Reimer wrote:

 Hello Yigal,
 
 

 "pain of eternal damnation" does not exist in the bible or in the
 Jewish
 faith.


 
 
 Maybe you should have another thorough look at the Bible... and the new
 testament. :)
 Your choice of quoted words indeed may not be there, but the concept is
 very clear throughout the new Testament.
 
 And I do wonder at your unusual representation of Satan, God, and angels
 ..  Concerning your description of Satan and his role under God, this is
 in complete contradiction to what the Old Testament (or New) says (see
 Job in old).  So I assume these are Jewish traditions compiled by Rabbis
 separately that you are referring to?
 Incidentally, some angels do have wings: the ark of the covenant was
 symbolic of that (also see Ezekial). ;)  Other than that, does it really
 matter if some do or don't.  :)  Perhaps you are just answering popular
 cultures representation of them.
 
 -JJR
 
 
 


did you even bother to read my message fully??
did you not notice I was trying to give a _JEWISH_ perspective??
and yes, the new testament is _not_ part of the bible. "The bible" means
of course the original version 1.0 Hebrew Edition. Did you ever read
that? I am. We are taught bible lessons in school (here in Israel) since
it is an integral part of our history.
I'm referring to the meaning in the bible _and_ the Jewish tradition
based on it. that meaning was either lost in translation or was changed
by Christian tradition. the issue is that your concepts which you
believe are different from similar Jewish concepts.

Did you read Job? did you read the original Hebrew version? I have at
school. we spent a whole year on that. if you want to discuss Job
further feel free to contact me personally.

many things in the bible require interpretation and are not clear to
people who speak the original language (Hebrew) and yet you claim that
your translation is more accurate? you do realize that your bible is
translated based on Jewish interpretation, right?

the most trivial example: the English bible contains the word "Lord" yet
the original does not. rather the word is יהוה which as I said in a
different post no one knows how to pronounce it or what it means.
According to Jewish translation we say אדוני when we see this word and
this is again not accurately translated to "Lord". So, now you can claim
something based on your version that doesn't even appear in the text!

Feel free to believe what you want. I do not try to convince you to
convert or anything.
Jun 06 2008
parent reply John Reimer <terminal.node gmail.com> writes:
Hello Yigal,


 John Reimer wrote:
 

 Hello Yigal,
 

 "pain of eternal damnation" does not exist in the bible or in the
 Jewish
 faith.


 Maybe you should have another thorough look at the Bible... and the
 new
 testament. :)
 Your choice of quoted words indeed may not be there, but the concept
 is
 very clear throughout the new Testament.
 And I do wonder at your unusual representation of Satan, God, and
 angels
 ..  Concerning your description of Satan and his role under God, this
 is
 in complete contradiction to what the Old Testament (or New) says
 (see
 Job in old).  So I assume these are Jewish traditions compiled by
 Rabbis
 separately that you are referring to?
 Incidentally, some angels do have wings: the ark of the covenant was
 symbolic of that (also see Ezekial). ;)  Other than that, does it
 really
 matter if some do or don't.  :)  Perhaps you are just answering
 popular
 cultures representation of them.
 -JJR
 


 did you even bother to read my message fully??
 did you not notice I was trying to give a _JEWISH_ perspective??
 and yes, the new testament is _not_ part of the bible. "The bible"
 means
 of course the original version 1.0 Hebrew Edition. Did you ever read
 that? I am. We are taught bible lessons in school (here in Israel)
 since
 it is an integral part of our history.
 I'm referring to the meaning in the bible _and_ the Jewish tradition
 based on it. that meaning was either lost in translation or was
 changed
 by Christian tradition. the issue is that your concepts which you
 believe are different from similar Jewish concepts.
 Did you read Job? did you read the original Hebrew version? I have at
 school. we spent a whole year on that. if you want to discuss Job
 further feel free to contact me personally.
 
 many things in the bible require interpretation and are not clear to
 people who speak the original language (Hebrew) and yet you claim that
 your translation is more accurate? you do realize that your bible is
 translated based on Jewish interpretation, right?
 
 the most trivial example: the English bible contains the word "Lord"
 yet the original does not. rather the word is יהוה which as I said in
 a different post no one knows how to pronounce it or what it means.
 According to Jewish translation we say אדוני when we see this word and
 this is again not accurately translated to "Lord". So, now you can
 claim something based on your version that doesn't even appear in the
 text!
 
 Feel free to believe what you want. I do not try to convince you to
 convert or anything.
 



I can only shrug at this, yigal (if there is a way to do so politely); and 
yes, I did read all of your post.  It's no wonder you chose to be athiest 
if you were taught these details from your Jewish Bible.  These are all unusual 
teachings, and, if you will pardon me, quite innacurate.  Indeed, I do believe 
that the hallmark of the Hebrew contribution to the Christian Bible is its 
extreme accuracy and astounding consistancy over several thousands of years 
of existance -- the Hebrew scholars were so accurate in copying the old
testament 
books that there is no other book or source that is comparable.  This is 
a miracle. :)

Every discovery of more scripts continues to show this accuracy.  No other 
"holy" book has this record.   And this is why the Christian, through the 
Gospel message of the New Testament, can make such claims: Christianity merely 
claims that the conclusion of the prophecies lies in Jesus Christ as the 
Messiah.  While some interpretation will be inevitable, the Bible is actually 
astoundingly clear in its message and leaves very little to imagination for 
the reader.  And while translations to other languages always causes a slight 
loss of meaning in the original, the message comes through completely intact. 
 

Forgive me if you don't convince me immediately that you are an expert in 
these matters -- use of a few Hebrew words don't astonish me -- we all have 
access to dictionaries and texts of the Hebrew source to research these things. 
 I'm sure that you know that the Jewish tradition is to reject Jesus as the 
Messiah (and all are taught to do so from a young age) even though he fit 
all descriptions and predictions by the Jewish prophets (from his birth in 
Bethlehem to his humiliation and death).  It also doesn't surprise me if 
rabbis and other teachers have offered varying definitions of the God of 
the Hebrews.  Your offering above is likely not the only one.

However you were taught, I just wanted to note that none of the doctrines 
you noted above can be found clearly represented in the old or new testament. 
 Indeed, if you feel interpretations were how they came about, I can only 
say that they would have had to be stretched very far to do so.  The Bible 
always has had a clear definition of who God is and his plan for humanity.

-JJR
Jun 06 2008
parent reply Yigal Chripun <yigal100 gmail.com> writes:
John Reimer wrote:

 Hello Yigal,
 I can only shrug at this, yigal (if there is a way to do so politely);
 and yes, I did read all of your post.  It's no wonder you chose to be
 athiest if you were taught these details from your Jewish Bible.  These
 are all unusual teachings, and, if you will pardon me, quite
 innacurate.  Indeed, I do believe that the hallmark of the Hebrew
 contribution to the Christian Bible is its extreme accuracy and
 astounding consistancy over several thousands of years of existance --
 the Hebrew scholars were so accurate in copying the old testament books
 that there is no other book or source that is comparable.  This is a
 miracle. :)
 
 Every discovery of more scripts continues to show this accuracy.  No
 other "holy" book has this record.   And this is why the Christian,
 through the Gospel message of the New Testament, can make such claims:
 Christianity merely claims that the conclusion of the prophecies lies in
 Jesus Christ as the Messiah.  While some interpretation will be
 inevitable, the Bible is actually astoundingly clear in its message and
 leaves very little to imagination for the reader.  And while
 translations to other languages always causes a slight loss of meaning
 in the original, the message comes through completely intact.
 
 Forgive me if you don't convince me immediately that you are an expert
 in these matters -- use of a few Hebrew words don't astonish me -- we
 all have access to dictionaries and texts of the Hebrew source to
 research these things. I'm sure that you know that the Jewish tradition
 is to reject Jesus as the Messiah (and all are taught to do so from a
 young age) even though he fit all descriptions and predictions by the
 Jewish prophets (from his birth in Bethlehem to his humiliation and
 death).  It also doesn't surprise me if rabbis and other teachers have
 offered varying definitions of the God of the Hebrews.  Your offering
 above is likely not the only one.
 
 However you were taught, I just wanted to note that none of the
 doctrines you noted above can be found clearly represented in the old or
 new testament. Indeed, if you feel interpretations were how they came
 about, I can only say that they would have had to be stretched very far
 to do so.  The Bible always has had a clear definition of who God is and
 his plan for humanity.
 
 -JJR
 
 


look, I do not wish to discuss religion with you. unlike BCS who's open
to other views you clearly are not, and I will not waste my time beyond
this post to argue with you. In the same way I will not waste my time
trying to explain what the color blue is to a blind man.

you have your view of the world which you think is absolute based on
your seemingly very strong faith and therefore anything I say must be
wrong. and that's based on:
"the nth-hand re-interpretations of m-times "translated" stories related
by /man/, and attributed to the will, actions or purpose of a god" as
"Me Here" put so accurately in his post.

There's a saying in Hebrew that says: "the Torah has 70 faces" meaning
that everyone can read and see a different meaning in the text and in
fact the Jewish faith expects all Jews to read and learn the bible
themselves, unlike The preachings practiced in a church.
I have my own understanding of the bible and of course I do not
necessary believe everything I read. What I said was the Jewish view
based on the very close examination of the [original!] text. as a
Christian you do not have a say in what the Jewish view should be.
your view is different based on your interpretation, sure, but have you
ever read the bible yourself? have you read the Hebrew version of it?
there is a very good reason why the pope knows Hebrew, and wares a
yarmulke (found that word in an online dictionary...).

since I'm an atheist and a Jew, please keep your Christian preaching to
yourself (in the Jewish faith preaching is a very grave sin!)
all I posted in my original view was the Jewish understanding of the
bible which is not "wrong" as you seem to imply, but merely different
(Id say more accurate based on the text in the Hebrew edition version
1.0 as I like to call it, but not an absolute truth). what your version
of the bible says is irrelevant to the Jewish perspective.
If the Christian version changed some of the concepts (for example the
'one'ness of god...) well, than it applies to Christians only.

in an analogy - you cannot say that my perfectly working D.1 based
application is wrong because your D.2 compiler does not compile it, or
even that your version is better. for example, I do not like the current
D2 const concept and do not wish to use it and you cannot claim that I'm
wrong based on your use of the D2 const. it may work for you but it
doesn't have to work for everyone.

The bible is very clear to the reader only if you read the children's
edition with illustrations. to say that "the Bible is actually
astoundingly clear in its message and leaves very little to imagination
for the reader." is like saying the D2 const regime is simple,
understandable and clear in its message.

--Yigal
Jun 07 2008
next sibling parent reply Chris Wright <dhasenan gmail.com> writes:
Yigal Chripun wrote:

 you have your view of the world which you think is absolute based on
 your seemingly very strong faith and therefore anything I say must be
 wrong. and that's based on:
 "the nth-hand re-interpretations of m-times "translated" stories related
 by /man/, and attributed to the will, actions or purpose of a god" as
 "Me Here" put so accurately in his post.


<pedantry style="misplaced">
Nitpick: the pronunciation of 'man' is /m&n/, not /man/, assuming you're 
using CXS ( http://www.theiling.de/ipa/ ); it's /m{n/ in regular X-SAMPA 
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-SAMPA ).
</pedantry>
Jun 07 2008
parent reply Yigal Chripun <yigal100 gmail.com> writes:
Chris Wright wrote:

 Yigal Chripun wrote:

 you have your view of the world which you think is absolute based on
 your seemingly very strong faith and therefore anything I say must be
 wrong. and that's based on:
 "the nth-hand re-interpretations of m-times "translated" stories related
 by /man/, and attributed to the will, actions or purpose of a god" as
 "Me Here" put so accurately in his post.


 
 <pedantry style="misplaced">
 Nitpick: the pronunciation of 'man' is /m&n/, not /man/, assuming you're
 using CXS ( http://www.theiling.de/ipa/ ); it's /m{n/ in regular X-SAMPA
 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-SAMPA ).
 </pedantry>


I do not understand any of the above signs of pronunciation and
unfortunately do not have the time to investigate the provided wikipedia
link. If I understand your point correctly you wanted to say:
"man => men", right?
anyway, I merely quoted the very well phrased snippet.
Jun 07 2008
parent Chris Wright <dhasenan gmail.com> writes:
Yigal Chripun wrote:

 Chris Wright wrote:

 Yigal Chripun wrote:

 you have your view of the world which you think is absolute based on
 your seemingly very strong faith and therefore anything I say must be
 wrong. and that's based on:
 "the nth-hand re-interpretations of m-times "translated" stories related
 by /man/, and attributed to the will, actions or purpose of a god" as
 "Me Here" put so accurately in his post.


 <pedantry style="misplaced">
 Nitpick: the pronunciation of 'man' is /m&n/, not /man/, assuming you're
 using CXS ( http://www.theiling.de/ipa/ ); it's /m{n/ in regular X-SAMPA
 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-SAMPA ).
 </pedantry>


 
 I do not understand any of the above signs of pronunciation and
 unfortunately do not have the time to investigate the provided wikipedia
 link. If I understand your point correctly you wanted to say:
 "man => men", right?
 anyway, I merely quoted the very well phrased snippet.


It was a bad joke, one that only linguists would get.

When describing how something sounds, linguists use an unambiguous 
alphabet; but there are two ways of describing it: essentially what the 
speaker thinks they're trying to say, and what they actually sound like.

To distinguish the two, the former is put in between slashes like 
/this/, and the latter is put between pipes like |this|.
Jun 08 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent reply John Reimer <terminal.node gmail.com> writes:
Hello Yigal,


 


 look, I do not wish to discuss religion with you. unlike BCS who's
 open to other views you clearly are not, and I will not waste my time
 beyond this post to argue with you. In the same way I will not waste
 my time trying to explain what the color blue is to a blind man.
 



That's fine, Yigal, but we haven't even discussed what is and isn't "blue" 
yet. I think that's important before one calls the other blind, don't you? 
Your definition might be no better than mine, at this point.  

The lack of openness on the issue comes with the same realization that while 
there will exist many renderings of what a person interprets God to be, the 
majority will be incorrect, inconsistant, or unuseful -- the usual motivation 
will be to create a God that fits ones own needs or one's cultures needs. 
 My claim is that the Christian God (originating in the old testament) is 
distinct, consistant, and accurate and works for all peoples in this world. 
If I didn't argue this way even about the Christian God, there would be little 
point in me committing to the argument at all or defending the complete
worldview 
I adhere to.  Out of necessity for a consistant universe, there must be one 
rendering of God the excludes them all.  The fanciful, and perhaps romantic, 
would love to see all religions leading to truth some way or another, but 
the Bible (old and new) repeatedly makes a claim to the contrary.  If this 
claim is true, I maintain that we must be alert to it and willing to analyze 
false representations of it.  I merely deny that your Jewish rendering works 
or is consistant with prophecies therein.  You are an athiest, so I assume 
you concluded the same and your defense of it now is probably motivated by 
my seeming insulting of your intelligence of understanding your own Hebrew 
roots.  If that was the case, I apologize for the action.  I am most certainly 
quite clumsy half the time I write.

True, I cannot decide for the Jew what Judaism thinks God to be (and even 
that varies, I'm sure).  But if that's (one of the ways) what they think 
him to be, and we are discussing the reality of God, don't you think I'm 
going to disgree with the representation or how that representation was
concluded? 
 Furthermore,  by definition, one who call himself an athiest is one of the 
least open-minded of all -- if he were not, he wouldn't be an athiest.  Perhaps 
agnostic is a better term if you want to make people think you are more
open-minded. 
 :)   The fact is very few in this discussion are really open-minded beyond 
being willing to discuss different points of view.  I certainly can't "convert" 
you either.  When it comes down to it, the choice always will be left with 
the individual to make his own inquiries into a matter and decide for himself. 
 If an individual just takes my word for it, that could be very risky indeed.



 you have your view of the world which you think is absolute based on
 your seemingly very strong faith and therefore anything I say must be
 wrong. and that's based on:
 "the nth-hand re-interpretations of m-times "translated" stories
 related
 by /man/, and attributed to the will, actions or purpose of a god" as
 "Me Here" put so accurately in his post.
 There's a saying in Hebrew that says: "the Torah has 70 faces" meaning
 that everyone can read and see a different meaning in the text and in
 fact the Jewish faith expects all Jews to read and learn the bible
 themselves, unlike The preachings practiced in a church.
 I have my own understanding of the bible and of course I do not
 necessary believe everything I read. What I said was the Jewish view
 based on the very close examination of the [original!] text. as a
 Christian you do not have a say in what the Jewish view should be.
 your view is different based on your interpretation, sure, but have
 you
 ever read the bible yourself? have you read the Hebrew version of it?
 there is a very good reason why the pope knows Hebrew, and wares a
 yarmulke (found that word in an online dictionary...).
 since I'm an atheist and a Jew, please keep your Christian preaching
 to
 yourself (in the Jewish faith preaching is a very grave sin!)



Uh oh.  I think more than one of us in trouble then. :)  May I ask where 
the preaching occurred?  What is preaching?  I'm merely arguing for the
Christian 
worldview.  I was arguing... just like ... you. :)  

I'm not sure what you are implying about Catholicism's relationship to Judaism, 
but I suppose, since you are Jewish, that you do still relate to your culture 
and defend some of it accordingly, even if it means an appeal to another 
"authority" to prove it's importance.  I don't know how relevant that is, 
but I suppose that's your right.



 all I posted in my original view was the Jewish understanding of the
 bible which is not "wrong" as you seem to imply, but merely different
 (Id say more accurate based on the text in the Hebrew edition version
 1.0 as I like to call it, but not an absolute truth). what your
 version
 of the bible says is irrelevant to the Jewish perspective.
 If the Christian version changed some of the concepts (for example the
 'one'ness of god...) well, than it applies to Christians only.
 in an analogy - you cannot say that my perfectly working D.1 based
 application is wrong because your D.2 compiler does not compile it, or
 even that your version is better. for example, I do not like the
 current D2 const concept and do not wish to use it and you cannot
 claim that I'm wrong based on your use of the D2 const. it may work
 for you but it doesn't have to work for everyone.
 



Does not an athiest see any view of God as "wrong"?  As an athiest, if you 
personally are looking at all the beliefs in a "god" as pure silliness, then 
you most certainly will believe one view of a god is no more wrong than another 
(because they apparently are all wrong).  But you most likely /will/ be most 
sympathetic to the one you identify with.  I'm pointing out that we must 
go beyond discussing mere perspectives of God and start getting a more rigid 
understanding of who he is, why we are here, and where we are going.  I claim 
that rejecting the Christian God is fatal, even if it is a choice that one 
is certainly allowed to make.  As an analogy, a murderer may have the "choice" 
to kill his victim in that he is capable of acting out the incident, but 
even so he will have to experience the consequences of that action when he 
is caught and handed over to a just judge.

If this is the case, one should be careful to investigate the Christian
worldview 
thoroughly because it defines sin, the consequences of sin, and how one can 
be saved from bondage to it.  This is in contrast to most other religions 
that may claim "all ways can lead to truth": such a statement effectively 
eliminates consequences, responsibility, and sin from the picture and renders 
this world, once again, a murky existance of subjective feelings with no 
way to be confident in anything beyond an inductive principle of undefined 
reliability.

(What follows is not preaching, but I suppose people that have had the possibly 
unpleasant experience of viewing some tv evangelists and such are senstitive 
to anything quoted from scripture): Jesus said "I am the way, the truth, 
and the life; no man comes to the Father except through Me."  This is the 
absolute claim of the Christian Bible.  This Jesus also talked about hate 
being the same as murder, adultery the same as looking on a woman to lust 
after her, and divorce and remarriage being the same as ongoing adultery. 
 These claims are important because they point out man's degenerate state, 
the need to be saved from it, the consequences of dieing in sin, and the 
only source of such salvation from that sin.  Meanwhile many people exist 
with depression, hopelessness, and disallusionment within their own worldview 
(or some claim) lack thereof ... and /still/ rail against the God of the 
Bible because they don't like the options offered or think such an existance 
is unfair.  Mostly the argument reduces to that they just don't like this 
God. It's perplexing given the fact the gift of reconciliation to this God 
is indeed amazing, and without this God, our meaning for existance is murky 
at best.



 The bible is very clear to the reader only if you read the children's
 edition with illustrations. to say that "the Bible is actually
 astoundingly clear in its message and leaves very little to
 imagination for the reader." is like saying the D2 const regime is
 simple, understandable and clear in its message.
 
 --Yigal
 



Maybe we'll be able to bring this back on topic eventually.  That was a brave 
attempt!  :-D

-JJR
Jun 07 2008
next sibling parent reply Yigal Chripun <yigal100 gmail.com> writes:
After removing all your preaching to the "only absolute god", I still
have a few of your quotes I want to address:


 My claim is that the Christian God (originating in 
 the old testament) is distinct, consistant, and accurate and works for
 all peoples in this world. 


wrong: your god is inconsistent. the Hebrew bible makes a few points
very important and clear about god, one of which is that he supposed to
be one. not have a family.
It's like the bewitched TV series where the story is based on 3 sisters
which a prophecy foretold to be the most powerful witches ever lived,
and than after a few seasons one of the actresses gets a better job so
the writers kill her character and invent a "new" half-sister.
If you take the story of Jesus and replace "Jesus" with Hercules you'll
get remarkably similar stories if not almost identical stories. your new
testament is made out of 4 different versions of the same story (chosen
arbitrarily by Constantine out of more than 18 that we know of). of
course, I do not claim that "god" has to be consistent. The Hebrew bible
of course has also some inconsistencies - there are three versions of
the story of the creation of humans, IIRC.


 I merely deny that your Jewish rendering 
 works or is consistant with prophecies therein.


they may be inconsistent with your version but they are certainly
consistent as much as possible with the Hebrew source.


 Furthermore,  by definition, one who call
 himself an athiest is one of the least open-minded of all -- if he were
 not, he wouldn't be an athiest.
 


Again, wrong. atheists rely on evidence and proof while you rely on your
[blind] absolute faith. If in the future science finds a better theory
that invalidates the theory of relativity that would be OK with atheists
since they rely on evidence and facts, and no one claims Einstein or any
other man of science to be holy. however, you deal with absolutes that
cannot be invalidated. since your god's words are absolute truth, no
matter what I say and what evidence I'll bring that will not matter to
you. so I'll say the most open minded people are in fact atheists.
Haven't you learned about what the Christian church did to the likes of
Galileo and Darwin who broke accepted consensuses of their time?


 we must go beyond discussing mere
 perspectives of God and start getting a more rigid understanding of who
 he is, why we are here, and where we are going.  I claim that rejecting
 the Christian God is fatal, even if it is a choice that one is certainly
 allowed to make.  As an analogy, a murderer may have the "choice" to
 kill his victim in that he is capable of acting out the incident, but
 even so he will have to experience the consequences of that action when
 he is caught and handed over to a just judge.
 


you assume there is a reason for our existence without any evidence.
your world view is based on a ton of unproven assumptions in contrast to
Occam's razor. Again, you preach for your absolute truths and of course
anyone who thinks differently will go to hell. why not resurrect the
institution of the inquisition if you're at it? you use the word "fatal"
and compare anyone with a different view with a murderer. is there any
wonder no sane person would want to further debate the subject with you?

 Jesus said "I am the

 way, the truth, and the life; no man comes to the Father except through
 Me."


Jesus didn't say anything, nor do we know if he actually existed. you
/believe/ he said that based on your 4 different conflicting versions
compiled 200 years after he supposedly lived.

to conclude:
a) In my original post I only talked about what is the Jewish view on
the subject, and while I appreciate it's mostly successful attempt to be
consistent with itself I do not believe the existence of it just like I
like the lord of the rings which is a masterpiece in my mind, while I
know that it's only a story (albeit a very good one) and that elves,
orcs and hobbits do not exist.
b) your post "smells" of preaching to your cause on the other hand and
as you say refusing to believe in the Christian god is fatal. At least
in Judaism no one threatens me with an eternal torture in hell if I
choose to reject the religion. I guess I should be thankful for being
born in a Jewish family...
While you were born a sinner according to your faith, I was merely born
a human being with a free will according to what should be mine. I chose
not to believe. The Jewish god is merciful and forgiving and accepts
that we are only humans and make mistakes (even the most holy of Jews,
Abraham, sinned but he repented and god forgave him. on the other hand
you are born a sinner and you will go to hell unless you'll be holier
than the pope which is an impossible jobs for mere humans. If I were
religious I wouldn't want to be born a Christian.
c) according to my Jewish upbringing I do not feel the urge to convert
the world to my faith (or lack thereof). I do not claim any absolutes
about god and faith and there are of course many things I do not like in
Judaism as well, I rather think that all religions are like Opium to the
masses (and you seems to be overdosed).
But I do keep my opinion that out of the three main monotheist religions
Christianity is the most insidious and has the worst track-record of
them all. At least Islam doesn't try to give me an eternal torture in
hell and accepts all nations who believe in Allah (god in Arabic) as
written in the Q'oran [English spelling?] in contrast to what the
terrorist extremists claim.
d) This IS my final post on the subject.

--Yigal
Jun 07 2008
parent John Reimer <terminal.node gmail.com> writes:
Hello Yigal,


 After removing all your preaching to the "only absolute god", I still
 have a few of your quotes I want to address:
 



Yigal, I suppose the only reason you think I am preaching is because I'm 
sticking to my argument?  There is no argument if I waffle back and forth 
on a matter.  I'm only staying put because that's the best way to approach 
any such discussion.  Is it because I try /not/ to patronize and placate 
you that you don't like it?  Then I suppose my social skills are lacking 
greatly, and all I had to do is add a "might" or "maybe" here and there with 
a cajoling "you have a point" now and again?  If you prefer BCS's style, 
then that's fine.  I think he stated some excellent points.  But I feel no 
obligation to change my arguments because you prefer a different style of 
argument.

On the contrary, if I believe my worldview to be true, then I will present 
what I feel might be salient points to you.  If these points clash with another 
worldview, I try to state why they do and why the other worldview doesn't 
work: thus the words "fatal" were made.  And why not?  If that is the claimed 
consequence of rejection of this worldview, is it helpful to pretend otherwise? 
  Does that immedieately close the discussion because you want me "open-minded" 
to whatever you say?  What does it mean to be open-minded to you? You needn't 
be offended or take it personally if I say that.  If you don't believe it, 
it shouldn't matter.

You have thrust many accusations against what you perceive represents the 
christian worldview.  You also have indentified things you dislike about 
Christianity, but most of the examples have no relationship to the argument 
I put forward ( I am not a Catholic, so why would I defend their empire, 
their beliefs, or their doctrine, many of which are extra-biblical? And
"science" 
has not been crushed by Christianity, but rather many important early
scientists 
and researchers were Christians and gave us a solid foundation for the process 
we use today; the fact that Catholic Empire exercised massive forceful control 
on knowledge back then has nothing to do with Christianity, but rather the 
effect of powerful men, powerful empires, and corrupting ideologies -- it 
was indeed wrong; many ideologies are prone to do the same. This continues 
to happen today even in the field of science (some of the influences of
governments, 
corporations, and academia have exercised some historically destructive control 
-- no apparent "religion" involved here; should we blame it all on science?): 
it's too simple a reduction to blame it all on some form of theistic belief 
system that you absolutely resolutely dislike. In fact, if I can't argue 
these things like that, then this discussion was over before it started. 
 If you don't like that I don't concede things, then this discussion also 
is over.

This form of discussion does seem quite hop scotch and makes for difficult 
debate because no one point is dwelled on or easily defendable: the accusation 
are thrown out far and wide...and then everybody just races forward without 
spending time proving them or defining terms.  That's partly my fault and 
due to my own inexperience. And there's danger there, I suppose, when things 
are kept either too informal /or/ too formal.  Also, since you seem to have 
taken my posts personally, please understand the my defense of Christainity 
was not meant to pick on you directly (in analogies or whatever), but rather 
I chose to address several posts that I had neither time or energy to answer 
separately.  Unfortunately you were the "lucky" one to receive the many
arguments. 
:)

I guess there's not much more to say in this kind of atmosphere, so I respect 
your decision to end the discussion there with your last words.  

Oh, and I am surprised that you show so much deference to Islam.  It does 
appear that I've irritated you much for you to say such a statement.  You 
appear to be so annoyed with me that its "anything but Christianity! Please!". 
 That's too bad.

All the best.

-JJR
Jun 07 2008
prev sibling parent Tower Ty <towerty msn.com.au> writes:
What a load of drivel this is

I see you did not dare answer me .

Just where do you think your god might be standing .
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap080606.html

I'd say if so he must be pretty busy








John Reimer Wrote:


 Hello Yigal,
 

 


 look, I do not wish to discuss religion with you. unlike BCS who's
 open to other views you clearly are not, and I will not waste my time
 beyond this post to argue with you. In the same way I will not waste
 my time trying to explain what the color blue is to a blind man.
 


 
 
 That's fine, Yigal, but we haven't even discussed what is and isn't "blue" 
 yet. I think that's important before one calls the other blind, don't you? 
 Your definition might be no better than mine, at this point.  
 
 The lack of openness on the issue comes with the same realization that while 
 there will exist many renderings of what a person interprets God to be, the 
 majority will be incorrect, inconsistant, or unuseful -- the usual motivation 
 will be to create a God that fits ones own needs or one's cultures needs. 
  My claim is that the Christian God (originating in the old testament) is 
 distinct, consistant, and accurate and works for all peoples in this world. 
 If I didn't argue this way even about the Christian God, there would be little 
 point in me committing to the argument at all or defending the complete
worldview 
 I adhere to.  Out of necessity for a consistant universe, there must be one 
 rendering of God the excludes them all.  The fanciful, and perhaps romantic, 
 would love to see all religions leading to truth some way or another, but 
 the Bible (old and new) repeatedly makes a claim to the contrary.  If this 
 claim is true, I maintain that we must be alert to it and willing to analyze 
 false representations of it.  I merely deny that your Jewish rendering works 
 or is consistant with prophecies therein.  You are an athiest, so I assume 
 you concluded the same and your defense of it now is probably motivated by 
 my seeming insulting of your intelligence of understanding your own Hebrew 
 roots.  If that was the case, I apologize for the action.  I am most certainly 
 quite clumsy half the time I write.
 
 True, I cannot decide for the Jew what Judaism thinks God to be (and even 
 that varies, I'm sure).  But if that's (one of the ways) what they think 
 him to be, and we are discussing the reality of God, don't you think I'm 
 going to disgree with the representation or how that representation was
concluded? 
  Furthermore,  by definition, one who call himself an athiest is one of the 
 least open-minded of all -- if he were not, he wouldn't be an athiest. 
Perhaps 
 agnostic is a better term if you want to make people think you are more
open-minded. 
  :)   The fact is very few in this discussion are really open-minded beyond 
 being willing to discuss different points of view.  I certainly can't
"convert" 
 you either.  When it comes down to it, the choice always will be left with 
 the individual to make his own inquiries into a matter and decide for himself. 
  If an individual just takes my word for it, that could be very risky indeed.
 
 

 you have your view of the world which you think is absolute based on
 your seemingly very strong faith and therefore anything I say must be
 wrong. and that's based on:
 "the nth-hand re-interpretations of m-times "translated" stories
 related
 by /man/, and attributed to the will, actions or purpose of a god" as
 "Me Here" put so accurately in his post.
 There's a saying in Hebrew that says: "the Torah has 70 faces" meaning
 that everyone can read and see a different meaning in the text and in
 fact the Jewish faith expects all Jews to read and learn the bible
 themselves, unlike The preachings practiced in a church.
 I have my own understanding of the bible and of course I do not
 necessary believe everything I read. What I said was the Jewish view
 based on the very close examination of the [original!] text. as a
 Christian you do not have a say in what the Jewish view should be.
 your view is different based on your interpretation, sure, but have
 you
 ever read the bible yourself? have you read the Hebrew version of it?
 there is a very good reason why the pope knows Hebrew, and wares a
 yarmulke (found that word in an online dictionary...).
 since I'm an atheist and a Jew, please keep your Christian preaching
 to
 yourself (in the Jewish faith preaching is a very grave sin!)


 
 
 Uh oh.  I think more than one of us in trouble then. :)  May I ask where 
 the preaching occurred?  What is preaching?  I'm merely arguing for the
Christian 
 worldview.  I was arguing... just like ... you. :)  
 
 I'm not sure what you are implying about Catholicism's relationship to
Judaism, 
 but I suppose, since you are Jewish, that you do still relate to your culture 
 and defend some of it accordingly, even if it means an appeal to another 
 "authority" to prove it's importance.  I don't know how relevant that is, 
 but I suppose that's your right.
 
 

 all I posted in my original view was the Jewish understanding of the
 bible which is not "wrong" as you seem to imply, but merely different
 (Id say more accurate based on the text in the Hebrew edition version
 1.0 as I like to call it, but not an absolute truth). what your
 version
 of the bible says is irrelevant to the Jewish perspective.
 If the Christian version changed some of the concepts (for example the
 'one'ness of god...) well, than it applies to Christians only.
 in an analogy - you cannot say that my perfectly working D.1 based
 application is wrong because your D.2 compiler does not compile it, or
 even that your version is better. for example, I do not like the
 current D2 const concept and do not wish to use it and you cannot
 claim that I'm wrong based on your use of the D2 const. it may work
 for you but it doesn't have to work for everyone.
 


 
 
 Does not an athiest see any view of God as "wrong"?  As an athiest, if you 
 personally are looking at all the beliefs in a "god" as pure silliness, then 
 you most certainly will believe one view of a god is no more wrong than
another 
 (because they apparently are all wrong).  But you most likely /will/ be most 
 sympathetic to the one you identify with.  I'm pointing out that we must 
 go beyond discussing mere perspectives of God and start getting a more rigid 
 understanding of who he is, why we are here, and where we are going.  I claim 
 that rejecting the Christian God is fatal, even if it is a choice that one 
 is certainly allowed to make.  As an analogy, a murderer may have the "choice" 
 to kill his victim in that he is capable of acting out the incident, but 
 even so he will have to experience the consequences of that action when he 
 is caught and handed over to a just judge.
 
 If this is the case, one should be careful to investigate the Christian
worldview 
 thoroughly because it defines sin, the consequences of sin, and how one can 
 be saved from bondage to it.  This is in contrast to most other religions 
 that may claim "all ways can lead to truth": such a statement effectively 
 eliminates consequences, responsibility, and sin from the picture and renders 
 this world, once again, a murky existance of subjective feelings with no 
 way to be confident in anything beyond an inductive principle of undefined 
 reliability.
 
 (What follows is not preaching, but I suppose people that have had the
possibly 
 unpleasant experience of viewing some tv evangelists and such are senstitive 
 to anything quoted from scripture): Jesus said "I am the way, the truth, 
 and the life; no man comes to the Father except through Me."  This is the 
 absolute claim of the Christian Bible.  This Jesus also talked about hate 
 being the same as murder, adultery the same as looking on a woman to lust 
 after her, and divorce and remarriage being the same as ongoing adultery. 
  These claims are important because they point out man's degenerate state, 
 the need to be saved from it, the consequences of dieing in sin, and the 
 only source of such salvation from that sin.  Meanwhile many people exist 
 with depression, hopelessness, and disallusionment within their own worldview 
 (or some claim) lack thereof ... and /still/ rail against the God of the 
 Bible because they don't like the options offered or think such an existance 
 is unfair.  Mostly the argument reduces to that they just don't like this 
 God. It's perplexing given the fact the gift of reconciliation to this God 
 is indeed amazing, and without this God, our meaning for existance is murky 
 at best.
 
 

 The bible is very clear to the reader only if you read the children's
 edition with illustrations. to say that "the Bible is actually
 astoundingly clear in its message and leaves very little to
 imagination for the reader." is like saying the D2 const regime is
 simple, understandable and clear in its message.
 
 --Yigal
 


 
 
 Maybe we'll be able to bring this back on topic eventually.  That was a brave 
 attempt!  :-D
 
 -JJR
Jun 07 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent reply BCS <ao pathlink.com> writes:
Reply to Yigal,



 look, I do not wish to discuss religion with you. unlike BCS who's
 open to other views you clearly are not,


one point, I have a very solid opinion on religion. I'm willing to /discuss/ 
others and even allow that the evidence doesn't support one over the other. 
But I still belive that my own in correct.


 The bible is very clear to the reader only if you read the children's
 edition with illustrations. to say that "the Bible is actually
 astoundingly clear in its message and leaves very little to
 imagination for the reader." is like saying the D2 const regime is
 simple, understandable and clear in its message.


now that is in interesting comparison <G>


 
 --Yigal
Jun 07 2008
parent reply Yigal Chripun <yigal100 gmail.com> writes:
BCS wrote:

 Reply to Yigal,
 
 

 look, I do not wish to discuss religion with you. unlike BCS who's
 open to other views you clearly are not,


 
 one point, I have a very solid opinion on religion. I'm willing to
 /discuss/ others and even allow that the evidence doesn't support one
 over the other. But I still belive that my own in correct.
 

 The bible is very clear to the reader only if you read the children's
 edition with illustrations. to say that "the Bible is actually
 astoundingly clear in its message and leaves very little to
 imagination for the reader." is like saying the D2 const regime is
 simple, understandable and clear in its message.


 
 now that is in interesting comparison <G>
 

 --Yigal


 
 


I never doubted your strong belief, but rather positively pointed out
your willingness to hear other opinions and debating the issue. if you
will read the above as:


 look, I do not wish to discuss religion with you. unlike BCS who's
 open to [listen and debate] other views you clearly are not,




at least you haven't compared me to a murderer and claimed my world view
to be "fatal" <G>
-- Yigal
Jun 07 2008
parent BCS <ao pathlink.com> writes:
Reply to Yigal,



 I never doubted your strong belief, but rather positively pointed out
 your willingness to hear other opinions and debating the issue. if you
 will read the above as:


I more or less though you did, but wanted to be shure others did as well.
Jun 07 2008
prev sibling parent Chris Wright <dhasenan gmail.com> writes:
Yigal Chripun wrote:

 The bible is very clear to the reader only if you read the children's
 edition with illustrations. to say that "the Bible is actually
 astoundingly clear in its message and leaves very little to imagination
 for the reader." is like saying the D2 const regime is simple,
 understandable and clear in its message.


I think the current D2 const regime is reasonably understandable, albeit 
quite coarse-grained to gain its simplicity. But I haven't really used it.
Jun 08 2008
prev sibling parent reply Don <nospam nospam.com.au> writes:
Yigal Chripun wrote:

 Me Here wrote:

 BCS wrote:


 have you ever had a pet? Which reason did you use for keeping it? 1, 2 or 3?



 1/ It enjoys watching us suffer floods, plagues, earthquakes, wars,
 starvation and pestilance.

 2/ It is so ego-centric that it needs the adulation of billions (what
 would this number mean to an omni-present being?), in order to feel
 good about itself.

 3/ It a mechanism whereby a few strong minds effect control of large
 numbers of weak minds.




 Sorry BCS, but I have come to expect better arguements from you during our
 breif association on this forum.

 The direct answer to your question, is "none of the above". 

 There is a distinct and huge difference between:

  	- "keeping a pet"--feeding it, taking it for walks, petting it. Simply
 enjoying the affection it demonstrates--of its own volition-- and the
 companionship it provides.
 and 
 	*Creating* a entire race of sentient beings, along with a million other
 species, a world, and a universe containsing millions of galaxies and billions
 of stars...
 	And then compelling them to subscribe and adhere to a set of (variously) 10
 commandments; 613 rules; etc. etc. on pain of eternal damnation if they fail to
 believe, subscribe and adhere...PURELY FOR MY OWN AMUSEMENT.


 And that last uppercased part is the point. Give, describe, or otherwise
 elucidate *one* reason, justification or purpose to creating sentient beings,
 endowing them with "free will", decrying them from using it;  and condeming
 them if they do?

 The *only* "explanantion I'ev ever been offereed from "believers" for this
 question, is "its just an experiment".. But, if the creator is all-poerful, and
 omni-present--and it must be, if it is a "god"--then it knows the outcome for
 the experiment starts, so there is no purpose other than one of the 3 above,

 b.


 
 A side note - the "modern" concept of hell is entirely Christian. the
 original word in the bible is גיהנום which is a concatenation of  גיא
בן
 הינום which is the valley of the son of Hinom. it's a place in Jerusalem
 where lived the above mentioned family and they practiced evil acts
 according to the bible. they worshiped one of the ancient idols (can't
 remember now which one..) and this required sacrificing your own first
 born of something of that nature. 


It was Molech. You had to throw your firstborn son into a furnace and 
perform religious ceremonies as he was burned alive.
This is where the image of flames in hell comes from.


 The bible uses that term to refer to a
 place of pure evil and this is a real location on earth, in Jerusalem,
 you can come and see it yourselves.


In later times it was used as a rubbish pit. In the New Testament's use 
of gehenna it's essentially an incinerator for evil.


 the word שטן (the devil) has two meanings one of which is "obstacle" and
 the other refers to one of god's angels which of course never "fall from
 the sky" or anything like that. Satan represents in the bible the role
 of the prosecutor. God is the judge and he put Satan on the job of
 pointing our faults since god is merciful and cares for his creations,
 and didn't want to do it himself.



 Btw, angels are _not_ people with wings. מלאך is the word in the bible
 and it literally means "a messenger". they can take a form of a human
 just like they can be elements of nature like wind.


This sounds mostly correct to me. I'm surprised John disagreed with it.
BTW, Another similar bizarre belief is that 'Lucifer' is Satan. Lucifer 
= Latin for the planet Venus, also known as the morning star. The Bible 
is very explicit that 'Lucifer' is Jesus, not Satan (see the second last 
verse of the New Testament, for example!). It's a good example of how 
common these types of misconceptions are.

(Another classic: the Bible never says that Jesus was born in a stable.
Hasn't anyone ever heard of Middle Eastern hospitality??).

Please don't assume that Christianity is based on blind faith. Those of 
us who are evangelicals are constantly trying to find the places where 
we've made mistakes, places we've ended up believing all kinds of 
rubbish. Which is why I like talking to atheists, since you can 
potentially learn the most from people you disagree with.


 "pain of eternal damnation" does not exist in the bible or in the Jewish
 faith.


Some similar concepts do, though. See the last few verses of Isaiah.


 just wanted to give a Jewish prespective on the subject. carry on with
 your debate.
Jun 10 2008
next sibling parent reply Aarti_pl <aarti interia.pl> writes:
Don pisze:

 the word שטן (the devil) has two meanings one of which is "obstacle" and
 the other refers to one of god's angels which of course never "fall from
 the sky" or anything like that. Satan represents in the bible the role
 of the prosecutor. God is the judge and he put Satan on the job of
 pointing our faults since god is merciful and cares for his creations,
 and didn't want to do it himself.


 

 Btw, angels are _not_ people with wings. מלאך is the word in the bible
 and it literally means "a messenger". they can take a form of a human
 just like they can be elements of nature like wind.


 
 This sounds mostly correct to me. I'm surprised John disagreed with it.
 BTW, Another similar bizarre belief is that 'Lucifer' is Satan. Lucifer 
 = Latin for the planet Venus, also known as the morning star. The Bible 
 is very explicit that 'Lucifer' is Jesus, not Satan (see the second last 
 verse of the New Testament, for example!). It's a good example of how 
 common these types of misconceptions are.


Well, I can not check original right now, but I would rather say that 
using 'Venus' name in Bible text can mean different things depending on 
context. Other meaning is in Is 14,12. Passage from Isaiah is often 
interpreted as description of devil's fall, although directly it is 
about king of Babylon.

This symbol is similar to symbol of 'lion': it refers sometimes to 
Jesus("Lion of Judah"), and sometimes devil eg.:
1 Peter 5:8
Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a 
roaring lion looking for someone to devour.



 (Another classic: the Bible never says that Jesus was born in a stable.
 Hasn't anyone ever heard of Middle Eastern hospitality??).
 
 Please don't assume that Christianity is based on blind faith. Those of 
 us who are evangelicals are constantly trying to find the places where 
 we've made mistakes, places we've ended up believing all kinds of 
 rubbish. Which is why I like talking to atheists, since you can 
 potentially learn the most from people you disagree with.


I agree with above. Additionally IMHO commonly existing misconceptions 
about Christianity are unfortunately very important factors, which keeps 
people away from it.

BR
Marcin Kuszczak
Jun 10 2008
parent reply Sean Kelly <sean invisibleduck.org> writes:
== Quote from Aarti_pl (aarti interia.pl)'s article

 Don pisze:

 This sounds mostly correct to me. I'm surprised John disagreed with it.
 BTW, Another similar bizarre belief is that 'Lucifer' is Satan. Lucifer
 = Latin for the planet Venus, also known as the morning star. The Bible
 is very explicit that 'Lucifer' is Jesus, not Satan (see the second last
 verse of the New Testament, for example!). It's a good example of how
 common these types of misconceptions are.


 Well, I can not check original right now, but I would rather say that
 using 'Venus' name in Bible text can mean different things depending on
 context. Other meaning is in Is 14,12. Passage from Isaiah is often
 interpreted as description of devil's fall, although directly it is
 about king of Babylon.


Oops, you're right.  That passage refers to the King of Babylon, not Jesus.
I apologize for the typo.


Sean
Jun 10 2008
parent Don <nospam nospam.com.au> writes:
 == Quote from Aarti_pl (aarti interia.pl)'s article

 Don pisze:

 This sounds mostly correct to me. I'm surprised John disagreed with it.
 BTW, Another similar bizarre belief is that 'Lucifer' is Satan. Lucifer
 = Latin for the planet Venus, also known as the morning star. The Bible
 is very explicit that 'Lucifer' is Jesus, not Satan (see the second last
 verse of the New Testament, for example!). It's a good example of how
 common these types of misconceptions are.


 Well, I can not check original right now, but I would rather say that
 using 'Venus' name in Bible text can mean different things depending on
 context. Other meaning is in Is 14,12. Passage from Isaiah is often
 interpreted as description of devil's fall, although directly it is
 about king of Babylon.





Indeed. The 'morning star', 'Venus', 'Lucifer', etc is just "the 
brightest, most spectacular star in the sky". And in reference to the 
King of Tyre, it's another way of saying "How the mighty have fallen!".
It's highly speculative (though of course possible) to associate that 
with the devil. But the notion that 'Satan was a fallen angel originally 
named Lucifer' is just bizarre. Yet disturbingly widespread.
Jun 11 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent Sean Kelly <sean invisibleduck.org> writes:
== Quote from Don (nospam nospam.com.au)'s article

 This sounds mostly correct to me. I'm surprised John disagreed with it.
 BTW, Another similar bizarre belief is that 'Lucifer' is Satan. Lucifer
 = Latin for the planet Venus, also known as the morning star. The Bible
 is very explicit that 'Lucifer' is Jesus, not Satan (see the second last
 verse of the New Testament, for example!). It's a good example of how
 common these types of misconceptions are.


To be fair, Isaiah 14:12 does suggest that the term could be applied
to the "prince of devils" as well (from the KJV).  But that section also
makes it fairly clear that Jesus is the true owner of that title.  Trust
people to ignore context when looking for stuff to quote.

Sean
Jun 10 2008
prev sibling parent Yigal Chripun <yigal100 gmail.com> writes:
Don wrote:
<snip/>

 
 It was Molech. You had to throw your firstborn son into a furnace and
 perform religious ceremonies as he was burned alive.
 This is where the image of flames in hell comes from.


that's right. I've forgot the name, thanks for the reminder :)


 

 The bible uses that term to refer to a
 place of pure evil and this is a real location on earth, in Jerusalem,
 you can come and see it yourselves.


 
 In later times it was used as a rubbish pit. In the New Testament's use
 of gehenna it's essentially an incinerator for evil.
 

 the word שטן (the devil) has two meanings one of which is "obstacle" and
 the other refers to one of god's angels which of course never "fall from
 the sky" or anything like that. Satan represents in the bible the role
 of the prosecutor. God is the judge and he put Satan on the job of
 pointing our faults since god is merciful and cares for his creations,
 and didn't want to do it himself.


 

 Btw, angels are _not_ people with wings. מלאך is the word in the bible
 and it literally means "a messenger". they can take a form of a human
 just like they can be elements of nature like wind.


 
 This sounds mostly correct to me. I'm surprised John disagreed with it.
 BTW, Another similar bizarre belief is that 'Lucifer' is Satan. Lucifer
 = Latin for the planet Venus, also known as the morning star. The Bible
 is very explicit that 'Lucifer' is Jesus, not Satan (see the second last
 verse of the New Testament, for example!). It's a good example of how
 common these types of misconceptions are.


And yet he did...
About Lucifer - this is entirely a Christian issue since it only appears
in the New Testament and therefore I don't know anything about it.


 
 (Another classic: the Bible never says that Jesus was born in a stable.
 Hasn't anyone ever heard of Middle Eastern hospitality??).


So very true! :)


 
 Please don't assume that Christianity is based on blind faith. Those of
 us who are evangelicals are constantly trying to find the places where
 we've made mistakes, places we've ended up believing all kinds of
 rubbish. Which is why I like talking to atheists, since you can
 potentially learn the most from people you disagree with.
 


well, if all Christians had a similar world view as yourself we wouldn't
have so many religious wars in our history. Unfortunately, It doesn't
seem that you are in a majority.


 "pain of eternal damnation" does not exist in the bible or in the Jewish
 faith.


 
 Some similar concepts do, though. See the last few verses of Isaiah.
 


I don't remember anything like that but the last time I read it was in
middle school so maybe I'll read it again when I'll have the time. Or I
could ask a religious buddy of mine.

Thanks for your comments. It's nice to see that not all Christians
believe in all that nonsense.

--Yigal
Jun 10 2008
prev sibling parent reply BCS <ao pathlink.com> writes:
Reply to Me,


 BCS wrote:
 

 have you ever had a pet? Which reason did you use for keeping it? 1,
 2 or 3?
 

 1/ It enjoys watching us suffer floods, plagues, earthquakes, wars,
 starvation and pestilance.
 
 2/ It is so ego-centric that it needs the adulation of billions
 (what would this number mean to an omni-present being?), in order to
 feel good about itself.
 
 3/ It a mechanism whereby a few strong minds effect control of large
 numbers of weak minds.
 




 Sorry BCS, but I have come to expect better arguements from you during
 our breif association on this forum.
 
 The direct answer to your question, is "none of the above".
 
 There is a distinct and huge difference between:
 
 - "keeping a pet"--feeding it, taking it for walks, petting it.
 Simply
 enjoying the affection it demonstrates--of its own volition-- and the
 companionship it provides.
 and
 *Creating* a entire race of sentient beings, along with a million
 other
 species, a world, and a universe containsing millions of galaxies and
 billions
 of stars...
 And then compelling them to subscribe and adhere to a set of
 (variously) 10
 commandments; 613 rules; etc. etc. on pain of eternal damnation if
 they fail to
 believe, subscribe and adhere...PURELY FOR MY OWN AMUSEMENT.
 


In my world view these is a marked similarity between the two. The sole reason 
for the creation of the universe is that god wants personal relationships. 
God is so powerful that the creation of the universe is easier for him than 
it is for us to even pick out a dog to take home. Out sole reason for living 
is to have a personal relationship with god. And as to demanding behavior 
of us; do we not do that with pets? If you had a dog that didn't obey, didn't 
come when you called and messed on the carpet would you keep it? A lot of 
places the culturally correct thing to do is shoot it. Other places you just 
give it away or kick it out. 


 And that last uppercased part is the point. Give, describe, or
 otherwise elucidate *one* reason, justification or purpose to creating
 sentient beings, endowing them with "free will", decrying them from
 using it;  and condeming them if they do?


God wants a voluntary personal relationship with us. For it to be voluntary, 
we must have to option to refuse. If we can refuse, some will. The result 
of us refusing is simply to end up without a relationship with god, to end 
up separated from god, a.k.a. in hell.


 
 The *only* "explanantion I'ev ever been offereed from "believers" for
 this question, is "its just an experiment".. But, if the creator is
 all-poerful, and omni-present--and it must be, if it is a "god"--then
 it knows the outcome for the experiment starts, so there is no purpose
 other than one of the 3 above,
 
 b.
Jun 06 2008
parent reply "Me Here" <p9e883002 sneakemail.com> writes:
BCS wrote:


 Reply to Me,
 

 BCS wrote:
 

 have you ever had a pet? Which reason did you use for keeping it? 1,
 2 or 3?
 

 1/ It enjoys watching us suffer floods, plagues, earthquakes, wars,
 starvation and pestilance.
 
 2/ It is so ego-centric that it needs the adulation of billions
 (what would this number mean to an omni-present being?), in order to
 feel good about itself.
 
 3/ It a mechanism whereby a few strong minds effect control of large
 numbers of weak minds.
 




 Sorry BCS, but I have come to expect better arguements from you during
 our breif association on this forum.
 
 The direct answer to your question, is "none of the above".
 
 There is a distinct and huge difference between:
 
 - "keeping a pet"--feeding it, taking it for walks, petting it.
 Simply
 enjoying the affection it demonstrates--of its own volition-- and the
 companionship it provides.
 and
 *Creating* a entire race of sentient beings, along with a million
 other
 species, a world, and a universe containsing millions of galaxies and
 billions
 of stars...
 And then compelling them to subscribe and adhere to a set of
 (variously) 10
 commandments; 613 rules; etc. etc. on pain of eternal damnation if
 they fail to
 believe, subscribe and adhere...PURELY FOR MY OWN AMUSEMENT.
 


 
 In my world view these is a marked similarity between the two. The sole
 reason for the creation of the universe is that god wants personal
 relationships. God is so powerful that the creation of the universe is easier
 for him than it is for us to even pick out a dog to take home. Out sole
 reason for living is to have a personal relationship with god. And as to
 demanding behavior of us; do we not do that with pets? If you had a dog that
 didn't obey, didn't come when you called and messed on the carpet would you
 keep it? A lot of places the culturally correct thing to do is shoot it.
 Other places you just give it away or kick it out.

 And that last uppercased part is the point. Give, describe, or
 otherwise elucidate one reason, justification or purpose to creating
 sentient beings, endowing them with "free will", decrying them from
 using it;  and condeming them if they do?


 
 God wants a voluntary personal relationship with us. 


What sort of "personal" relationship can *you* have with an amoeba?
How about a your bathtub full of mangrove swamp water, and each of its ~6e9
amoeboic inhabitants?

Would you care for their love lifes? Feel for them when their siblings die?
Care much if they we're individually or collectively hungry? Give a monkeys if
a few hundred or thousand fell foul of a "splashing accident"?

The word "relationship" implies two-way communication. Has your god spoken to
you? Or to anyone you know? Comforted you or your freinds with a hug or a cup
of sweet tea in times of need? And note: your /finding comfort/ in the nth-hand
re-interpretations of m-times "translated" stories related by /man/, and
attributed to the will, actions or purpose of a god, don't mean anything other
than you are capable of finding meaning in words.

So am I. Anything from Nabacov's Lolita to Golding's Lord of the Flies, pretty
much anything by Shakespeare. And yes, the Bible. And the Koran. And the
Talmud, Upanishadm, Theravada & Mahayana. Even the works of LaVey, James
Mooney, Even some of those of by Koresh, & Hubbard have some merit in part. But
then again, you can draw an aweful lot of meaning from the Life of Brian if you
go into it looking for it.

Believing does not make things so. And whilst I can appreciate, and am
genuinely happy for you, if you find meaning and purpose and comfort from your
beliefs, to espouse them as if they were fact, is not only individually
arrogant in the extreme, but diminishes them and their purpose collectively.

Please do not choose to be offended by my words. You choose to beleive, and
nothing I, nor anyone, do or say, should have the slightest affect upon those
beliefs. You are secure in the "knowledge" that whatever benefits acrue from
your beliefs, are yours for the taking. And I will get my comeuppance in due
course. I may not understand your belief, or even your need for it, but I do
respect your right to it. As long as you respect mine.

Be well, b.
--
Jun 06 2008
next sibling parent reply BCS <ao pathlink.com> writes:
Reply to Me,


 The word "relationship" implies two-way communication. Has your god
 spoken to you? Or to anyone you know?


A few days after this thread started and about a day before it went religiose. 
I was thinking about how as a Christian, I am supposed to show the world 
my faith. 

take that for what you will.
Jun 07 2008
parent reply "Me Here" <p9e883002 sneakemail.com> writes:
BCS wrote:


 as a Christian, I am supposed to show the world my faith.  


That is the crux of my personal objection to organised religion. 

The need, desire or worse, imperative, to announce or demonstrate ones "faith"
to the wider world. It leads to the need to condemn those who announce or
demonstrate a different faith, or even minor variations of the same faith. And
that leads to wars, and extremism.

Whilst faith is between the individual and their god, it affects noone, except
the individual. Hurts no one, And satisfies the criteria of most rational
reading of most every set of teachings. The individual has their relationship
with their god, and demonstrates their faith to the only two entities that
matter to that relationship, in private. Shared faith between like minded
individuals is fine, but once the need to demonstrate to non-like minded
individuals takes precedence, all hell breaks loose. (Worded carefully!)

I can accept, and even admire, when individuals reach their own level of
understanding about the teachings of their faith and choose to constrain their
own lives and deeds in the light of that understanding. The problems arise when
they seek to constrain the lives and deeds of others in the light of their
understanding.

Indeed, I would go as far as to say that it isn't true faith if there *is* a
need to demonstrate it. That smacks entirely of the need for validation of ones
ideas and understanding from other mortals. And that's not "faith".

Of course. My need to expound my thoughts on this is equally, a demonstration,
seeking (perhaps), validation. But then I make no claim to having faith.


 take that for what you will.


I take it as the conservative statements of a rational and thoughtful man who's
given the subject a lot of thought, as have I, but simply reached different
conclusions.

And, perhaps in that, we are not so dissimilar. We both, I think, allow for the
possibility that rational people can consider the same evidence (and lack
thereof) and reach different conclusions. No absolutism. And, I hope, we both
accept that neither of us will ever know the truth for sure. We may believe,
but we cannot, in this life at least, know.

Be well. b.
--
Jun 07 2008
next sibling parent Yigal Chripun <yigal100 gmail.com> writes:
Me Here wrote:

 BCS wrote:
 

 as a Christian, I am supposed to show the world my faith.  


 
 That is the crux of my personal objection to organised religion. 
 
 The need, desire or worse, imperative, to announce or demonstrate ones "faith"
 to the wider world. It leads to the need to condemn those who announce or
 demonstrate a different faith, or even minor variations of the same faith. And
 that leads to wars, and extremism.
 
 Whilst faith is between the individual and their god, it affects noone, except
 the individual. Hurts no one, And satisfies the criteria of most rational
 reading of most every set of teachings. The individual has their relationship
 with their god, and demonstrates their faith to the only two entities that
 matter to that relationship, in private. Shared faith between like minded
 individuals is fine, but once the need to demonstrate to non-like minded
 individuals takes precedence, all hell breaks loose. (Worded carefully!)
 
 I can accept, and even admire, when individuals reach their own level of
 understanding about the teachings of their faith and choose to constrain their
 own lives and deeds in the light of that understanding. The problems arise when
 they seek to constrain the lives and deeds of others in the light of their
 understanding.
 
 Indeed, I would go as far as to say that it isn't true faith if there *is* a
 need to demonstrate it. That smacks entirely of the need for validation of ones
 ideas and understanding from other mortals. And that's not "faith".
 
 Of course. My need to expound my thoughts on this is equally, a demonstration,
 seeking (perhaps), validation. But then I make no claim to having faith.
 

 take that for what you will.


 
 I take it as the conservative statements of a rational and thoughtful man who's
 given the subject a lot of thought, as have I, but simply reached different
 conclusions.
 
 And, perhaps in that, we are not so dissimilar. We both, I think, allow for the
 possibility that rational people can consider the same evidence (and lack
 thereof) and reach different conclusions. No absolutism. And, I hope, we both
 accept that neither of us will ever know the truth for sure. We may believe,
 but we cannot, in this life at least, know.
 
 Be well. b.


very well put and I wholeheartedly agree :)

  >  it isn't true faith if there *is* a need to demonstrate it.

very true indeed.
Jun 07 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent reply John Reimer <terminal.node gmail.com> writes:
Hello Me,


 BCS wrote:
 

 as a Christian, I am supposed to show the world my faith.
 


 That is the crux of my personal objection to organised religion.
 
 The need, desire or worse, imperative, to announce or demonstrate ones
 "faith" to the wider world. It leads to the need to condemn those who
 announce or demonstrate a different faith, or even minor variations of
 the same faith. And that leads to wars, and extremism.
 
 Whilst faith is between the individual and their god, it affects
 noone, except the individual. Hurts no one, And satisfies the criteria
 of most rational reading of most every set of teachings. The
 individual has their relationship with their god, and demonstrates
 their faith to the only two entities that matter to that relationship,
 in private. Shared faith between like minded individuals is fine, but
 once the need to demonstrate to non-like minded individuals takes
 precedence, all hell breaks loose. (Worded carefully!)
 
 I can accept, and even admire, when individuals reach their own level
 of understanding about the teachings of their faith and choose to
 constrain their own lives and deeds in the light of that
 understanding. The problems arise when they seek to constrain the
 lives and deeds of others in the light of their understanding.
 
 Indeed, I would go as far as to say that it isn't true faith if there
 *is* a need to demonstrate it. That smacks entirely of the need for
 validation of ones ideas and understanding from other mortals. And
 that's not "faith".
 
 Of course. My need to expound my thoughts on this is equally, a
 demonstration, seeking (perhaps), validation. But then I make no claim
 to having faith.
 

 take that for what you will.
 


 I take it as the conservative statements of a rational and thoughtful
 man who's given the subject a lot of thought, as have I, but simply
 reached different conclusions.
 
 And, perhaps in that, we are not so dissimilar. We both, I think,
 allow for the possibility that rational people can consider the same
 evidence (and lack thereof) and reach different conclusions. No
 absolutism. And, I hope, we both accept that neither of us will ever
 know the truth for sure. We may believe, but we cannot, in this life
 at least, know.
 
 Be well. b.
 




I'm not sure what you mean by organised religion, but does your dislike apply 
also to organized systems like secular humanism, naturalism, and such.  Does 
the fact that evolution, big bang theory, and other topics have been taught 
(and probably still are in many areas) as /fact/ to many elementary students 
strike you as "organized".  These things among many other things in the public 
systems have been very organized for a long time, including pervasive
humanistic 
worldviews.

If you believe the effects of indoctrination by other pervading worldviews, 
including those associated with athiesm, are dangerous, I will consider your 
above statements "consistant".  Otherwise, it would only seem that you are 
trying to pass the blame onto worldviews you personally dislike.

Incidentally, this keeps coming up: Christianity is not an organized religion 
in itself.  It is a worldview.  Roman Catholicism is an organized religion. 
 Mormonism is an organized religion...  Many forms of Protestantism are
organized 
religions.  I have a particular dislike for organized religion myself.

About "personal faith":

I primarily argue against the personal faith idea because it doesn't work 
either (otherwise translated: "if it works for you, that's cool; but that 
doesn't mean its for everybody."  Accusing all the world's problem to be 
on the head of those who try to share their faith with others is another 
over-simplification in what appears to be actively dodging reality.  If a 
worldview exists that explains the operation of this world, then it is
reasonable 
to believe that it should be shared with others so that they can understand 
how to approach the problems they face (stress: it is still a choice!).  
It is also fair to share the stated consequences of rejecting that faith. 
 The person is not obligated to believe anything that is said, but rather 
can ignore it (In fact, he isn't even obligated to listen to what you have 
to say!) - yet, those consequences should be taken seriously and if the said 
worldview is correct, rejection of it will not make the consequences any 
less untrue.  

Here's a gentler analogy:  if a person believes that a  person is about to 
walk off the end of a 1000 meter cliff that he apparently doesn't see, then 
he is showing much love and concern to introduce him to the possibility that 
sudden death is imminent.  The motivation behind sharing that worldview should 
be care for the other person... not power or control.  If he does it for 
power and control, the person sharing his faith is indeed doing a deadly 
and dangerous deed -- and in terms of Christianity is an outright fake.  
The Bible warns of these kind of people.  

One point here, though: I admit  that a worldview applied through an organized 
religion with deadly ideology is indeed dangerous.  My constant claim here 
is that Christianity is a worldview that is helpful, and not only helpful, 
but necessary for the perservation of life (spiritual), sanity, order, and 
hope. If people disagree with this (and, they do, I know), I will most
certainly 
try to point out the reason why I believe this to be so in comparison to 
other worldviews. (Incidentally, it seems popular and acceptable to disparage 
the Christain worldview, but few are allowed to undermine the other ones... 
unless he wants to be ridiculed and derided. But hey, I game. :) )

On the other hand, if we /really/ believe that having a personal faith is 
good, and keeping it to ourselves is even better, maybe we shouuld consider 
this: we actually invite significant conflict with no resolution by following 
this principle.  For example, one person's faith believes sex is ok in
marriage, 
another believes it's ok with any consenting adults, yet another believes 
it's okay to force sex; another believes homosexuality and lesbianism is 
normal; eventually another group decides that since all the other forms were 
determined acceptable, then pedaphilia must be normal too (note, I use these 
examples not to offend people, but to make stark analogies of potential
conflict). 
 Each of these groups decide that they needn't step on each other's toes 
because those things are /personal/ decisions and absolutes are a monumental 
"no-no".  Nobody says anything about the other's activities and a law of 
"moral entropy" begins to form; lives are destroyed -- venereal diseases 
and resulting cancers grow rampant among the "looser" groups; humans of all 
ages become psychologically scarred, families become non-existant; children 
of a new generation grow up ever more apathetic, ammoral and without identity 
(rotating parent syndrome); civilizations decline rapidly as abortions increase 
(similar to the historical results of child sacrifice in "pagan" religions 
of times past).  There are many historically examples of similar downward 
spirals of nations as moral decay sets in.

In summary, there is a huge cost, in itself, of pursuing "let everyone alone" 
mentality.  Whatever the case, common interest groups will inevitably form 
(incidentally, /with/ or /without/ religion) and organize.  Now, I don't 
know how long these groups can survive with "leave and let live" mentality, 
but history shows that it doesn't last forever.  This is the making of
revolutions 
and history is full of such (once again: with and without claimed religious 
basis!).  Eventually someones rights overcome anothers whether or not there 
are absolute standards to decide what is right or wrong.  Just consider how 
successfully forceful gay rights activists have been about their beliefs. 
 People continue to push against societal limits if they feel it is possible. 
 And it will be inevitable, with this mentality, that people will continue 
to push moral limits as far as the culture allows for the time. 

The bounds of morality are set for a reason in the Christain worldview.  
The Bible defines immorality, explains the distructive force of it and where 
it finally leads.  It also clearly explains why nobody is capable of overcoming 
immorality on their own strength; people condemn themselves by not accepting 
the gift offered by the Christ.  It claims that Jesus is the only source 
of that strength... and apart from him, no man is holy, can live a holy life, 
or see the Father in heaven.  The requirement is denying oneself completely.

Now, the athiest, who rejects the existance of such bounds, or says some 
bounds "exist" naturally in culture and societies natural pressure to conform, 
is left with a changing morality that really has no form, existance, or
containment: 
it is considered evolving (even though that evolution appears to be heading 
in the wrong direction that is contrary to the preservation of life!)  It 
shape shifts as society changes such that there is no real way to hold somebody 
accountable for "evil" doing - but at some point one group DOES force this 
issue and decide on what rights are real or not real... for a time.  So much 
for "leave and let live".  It disappears anyway and religion doesn't have 
anything to do with it.

Can you see where this leads? Those that propose "personal faith" as the 
ultimate way to "get along" find themselves trapped in a subjective (now 
becoming a popular accusation in this group :P) cycle and, as much as some 
would love to pass the blame, the blame is just as surely on the inactive 
and apathetic as it is on those that abuse opportunity for a "religious" 
cause.  That leads me to think that there is more to the equation than meets 
the eye.

Organization is dangerous, but please realize the source is not in mere
religion.


-JJR
Jun 07 2008
parent reply "Me Here" <p9e883002 sneakemail.com> writes:
John Reimer wrote:


 we actually invite significant conflict with no resolution by following this
 principle.  For example, one person's faith believes sex is ok in marriage,
 another believes it's ok with any consenting adults, yet another believes
 it's okay to force sex; another believes homosexuality and lesbianism is
 normal; eventually another group decides that since all the other forms were
 determined acceptable, then pedaphilia must be normal too


Utter sensationalist twaddle. 

We do not need religion in order for society to impose reasonable limits upon
personal freedom.

Secular authorities are perfectly capable and, in fact, have always been the
ones charged with enforcing laws to ensure I don't kill, rape, enslave or prey
upon others. Priests (of whatever religion) have rarely ever performed this
role. And often as not, historically and more recently, they have been the
perpetrators rather than enforcers and have justified their actions in terms of
their religion.

Almost ever sentence of your post is filled with the implicit view that you
should have the right to impose your views and opinion ("beliefs") upon others.
Hatred and intolorance for other choices that offend *your* "world view".

Your words are the very opitomy of all that is bad in reeligion. We have
nothing to discuse.

b.
--
Jun 07 2008
parent John Reimer <terminal.node gmail.com> writes:
Hello Me,


 John Reimer wrote:
 

 we actually invite significant conflict with no resolution by
 following this principle.  For example, one person's faith believes
 sex is ok in marriage, another believes it's ok with any consenting
 adults, yet another believes it's okay to force sex; another believes
 homosexuality and lesbianism is normal; eventually another group
 decides that since all the other forms were determined acceptable,
 then pedaphilia must be normal too
 


 Utter sensationalist twaddle.
 
 We do not need religion in order for society to impose reasonable
 limits upon personal freedom.
 
 Secular authorities are perfectly capable and, in fact, have always
 been the ones charged with enforcing laws to ensure I don't kill,
 rape, enslave or prey upon others. Priests (of whatever religion) have
 rarely ever performed this role. And often as not, historically and
 more recently, they have been the perpetrators rather than enforcers
 and have justified their actions in terms of their religion.
 
 Almost ever sentence of your post is filled with the implicit view
 that you should have the right to impose your views and opinion
 ("beliefs") upon others. Hatred and intolorance for other choices that
 offend *your* "world view".
 
 Your words are the very opitomy of all that is bad in reeligion. We
 have nothing to discuse.
 
 b.
 



Okay.  I accept this as an indication that you don't want to talk about it.  

There is nothing in my words of hate, nor can they be taken as such.  I'm 
afraid you just don't like my explanation.

Do I have as much right to express my views as you do to yours here, even 
though yours ridicule and accuse?  These certainly aren't forced upon you. 
 I am imposing my views no more than you are in this group.  If to present 
them or argue for a worldview is imposing, then no one should be allowed 
to say anything.

-JJR
Jun 08 2008
prev sibling parent reply BCS <ao pathlink.com> writes:
Reply to Me,


 BCS wrote:
 

 as a Christian, I am supposed to show the world my faith.
 


 That is the crux of my personal objection to organised religion.
 
 The need, desire or worse, imperative, to announce or demonstrate ones
 "faith" to the wider world. It leads to the need to condemn those who
 announce or demonstrate a different faith, or even minor variations of
 the same faith. And that leads to wars, and extremism.


I am supposed to show it to you. After that you can take it or leave it. 
It is NOT my place to force it on you, and I won't. I have gone to some effort 
to avoid going beyond explaining my belief and correcting errors in what 
people think I belive. (OK I've debated logical consequences of a few things 
but I /tried/ to stick with just logic there and not faith)

One way to look at my view is this: I, as a Christian, belive that not being 
a Christian will send you to hell (to be blunt). If someone ends up there 
because I didn't tell them about what Christianity is, then it is on my head. 
If they end up there because I told them and they reject it, then it is on 
their's.


 The problems arise when they seek to constrain the
 lives and deeds of others in the light of their understanding.
 


*I* can not and *must* not constrain /your/ life. That is your job.
Jun 07 2008
parent John Reimer <terminal.node gmail.com> writes:
Hello BCS,


 Reply to Me,
 

 BCS wrote:
 

 as a Christian, I am supposed to show the world my faith.
 


 That is the crux of my personal objection to organised religion.
 
 The need, desire or worse, imperative, to announce or demonstrate
 ones "faith" to the wider world. It leads to the need to condemn
 those who announce or demonstrate a different faith, or even minor
 variations of the same faith. And that leads to wars, and extremism.
 


 I am supposed to show it to you. After that you can take it or leave
 it. It is NOT my place to force it on you, and I won't. I have gone to
 some effort to avoid going beyond explaining my belief and correcting
 errors in what people think I belive. (OK I've debated logical
 consequences of a few things but I /tried/ to stick with just logic
 there and not faith)
 
 One way to look at my view is this: I, as a Christian, belive that not
 being a Christian will send you to hell (to be blunt). If someone ends
 up there because I didn't tell them about what Christianity is, then
 it is on my head. If they end up there because I told them and they
 reject it, then it is on their's.
 

 The problems arise when they seek to constrain the lives and deeds of
 others in the light of their understanding.
 


 *I* can not and *must* not constrain /your/ life. That is your job.
 



Our styles may differ, but I just want to point out that none of my posts 
intended to constrain anybody or to force my worldview on them (some have 
a accused me of such because the content was taken as a bitter pill, but 
this in no way forces anyone to do anything; striking at the foundations 
of any ideology is inevitably going to annoy people).  After arguing the 
point for awhile, it becomes evident that these points are not welcome... 
in which case there is nothing more to be said.  The difficulty is knowing 
when to stop, and at what point imposing is really imposing while making 
arguments on behalf of a worldview.  I believe sharing faith is intrinsically 
connected with discussing ones worldview, or arguing it, because doing so 
explains how it operates. 

With the Christian, sharing a worldview is usually done with the realization 
that he isn't the one that's able to convince or convict.  That is God's 
work, and we know in ourselves that we are only free from guilt because of 
God's love and mercy; we have no strength and no perfection in and of
ourselves. 
 We know what we once were and could continue to be without subjection to 
God. We care for the individual by expressing these views.  If it is rejected, 
we indeed have nothing further to say because biblical mandate was never 
to force beliefs on anybody, although we most certainly are to share it. 
 But this does not mean we don't state inconsistancies of other worldviews 
or even state consequences.  But that is not "force".  Imposition, on the 
other hand, can happen at any point with any person.  The mere mention of 
"sin" or "bible" might be an imposition to someone in this public group.

Imposing is ill-defined here because each of us are offering different views 
in a newsgroup that is public, where, as it has been stated by some before 
in other topics, one has a right to read or not-read posts.  Though that 
argument has generally surprised me here as incomplete, I have accepted it 
as the way the newsgroup operates and assumed it is no imposition to discuss 
ones worldview frankly (as have others).

On the other hand, the Christian worldview is not a worldview that people 
typically like to hear because it talks about a persons guilt and need for 
reconciliation with his/her Creator: this makes it difficult to express without 
offending an individual because few like being told that they are guilty 
or a sinner (it invariably insults ones pride). Naturally, most people are 
going to dislike being told such things; most other worldviews or religions 
are admittedly different in this regard in that they tend to emphasize a 
person's meaning in self alone, in which the purpose is to remove intrinsic 
feelings of guilt by justifying these feelings to themselves. 

Further, the /consequences/ stated in the Christian worldview invariablely 
rankle many people.  The problem today is that many Christians believe they 
are obligated to "sweeten" up their message in order to convince, whether 
that means removing "hell" from the picture or emphasizing the "loving" aspect 
of God in absense of his "just" and "holy" aspects.  This creates a complete 
change in the message and removes all consistancies maintained in the Bible. 
 Eventually we have a message that most here would find much more palatable 
and self-suited, but completely unhelpful.  Convincing people of something 
by mutating the message so that it is palatable is plain wrong.  I'm not 
going to express a different Gospel in order to win as many converts as
possible. 
 I'm here to state the case and let people decide for themselves: liking 
or disliking a message never disproved it's truth.  Many here voice strongly 
their dislike for the Christian worldview as presented, but that does not 
prove it untrue.  I am most certainly not here on a convert crusade.  I derive 
no personal enjoyment out of making people uncomfortable or annoying them, 
in fact my nature is to avoid that religiously ;).  But I do believe in saying 
things that must be said.

If I pursue in arguing a point, it's to try to remove some rather flippant 
accusations or assumptions made about Christianity.  I am not offended,
railing, 
or angry with anyone here and most certainly the implication of hatred, if 
anyone actually new me, is far far from reality.

BCS, thank you for stating your own point of view honestly.  This post wasn't 
necessarily all to you personally, just some thoughts/considerations I had 
overall.

All the best.

-JJR
Jun 08 2008
prev sibling parent aarti_pl <aarti interia.pl> writes:
Me Here pisze:

 The word "relationship" implies two-way communication. Has your god spoken to
 you? Or to anyone you know? 


I had one such quite striking experience. One time I was going to visit 
someone (I liked this girl quite much that time :-) ). When I was going 
there suddenly I found that there is kind of invisible wall before me. I 
felt it like the air was more and more dense so I almost couldn't move 
further... It was very strange for me, because I completely didn't 
understand what is going on. But I decided that time to go back and 
change my plans.

(for skeptics: I wasn't drunken or something like that :-) )

As I said I did not understood that experience when I was living it. 
Later I read following passages from Bible and started to understand how 
it can be realized in someone's life.

Is 30,21
21 Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a 
voice behind you, saying, "This is the way; walk in it."

Acts 16,6
6 Paul and his companions traveled throughout the region of Phrygia and 
Galatia, having *been kept by the Holy Spirit* from preaching the word 
in the province of Asia.

Besides above I have at least 3 other quite strong experiences, which 
were closely related with my faith (relation between faith and 
experience was very clear for me), but they are probably too personal 
and too lengthy to share here :-) Besides that there were countless 
other examples, where relation between faith and reality was not so 
strong, but I believe it was not just coincidence. For example we were 
coming back from weekend trip with my family lately (me, my wife and two 
daughters). When we were already on parking in a front of out flat, 
car-breaks completely failed. Fortunately there was no more danger for 
us, as we drove slowly. I think that auto-service put bad quality break 
shields during last service and due to that some other mechanism failed 
resulting in completely loosing possibility to stop the car.

Best Regards
Marcin Kuszczak
(www.zapytajmnie.com)
Jun 07 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Robert Fraser <fraserofthenight gmail.com> writes:
Gregor Richards wrote:

 I love that all arguments against natural abiogenesis come down to an 
 argument from ignorance. The fact is that we haven't got the foggiest 
 bit of a clue what the entire range of things that could have 
 /potentially/ formed life are, we just happen to have been formed from a 
 particular set of amino acids. We like to believe that only amino acids, 
 or even only the set of amino acids life on Earth are based on, could 
 form life, but that's just stupid. Given the uncountably many planets in 
 the universe, life has probably come into existence and evolved in ways 
 we could never remotely predict, and idiots on their planets are saying 
 "The chances that a simple life based on hexavalent chromium would form 
 naturally are so unlikely, we must have been created by some higher 
 intelligence!" As it turns out, when you consider your very low but 
 extremely ignorant statistic given the number of planets in the 
 universe, and the potentially huge number of possible ways life could 
 form (a number we can't even begin to fathom), it turns into 
 99.9999999999%. Unfortunately, the general populous doesn't understand 
 statistics even in the slightest, and so they think "Wow, given the 
 extremely low odds that a protozoan would appear by random chance, we 
 must have been created by a higher power!" Idiots.
 
  - Gregor Richards


Troll much?

I think most well-reasoned arguments for a higher power or powers accept 
such statistics and instead attempt to explain why the universe itself 
exists rather than life. The majority of such arguments do not seem to 
be well-reasoned, however.
Jun 02 2008
next sibling parent Robert Fraser <fraserofthenight gmail.com> writes:
Robert Fraser wrote:

 Gregor Richards wrote:

 I love that all arguments against natural abiogenesis come down to an 
 argument from ignorance. The fact is that we haven't got the foggiest 
 bit of a clue what the entire range of things that could have 
 /potentially/ formed life are, we just happen to have been formed from 
 a particular set of amino acids. We like to believe that only amino 
 acids, or even only the set of amino acids life on Earth are based on, 
 could form life, but that's just stupid. Given the uncountably many 
 planets in the universe, life has probably come into existence and 
 evolved in ways we could never remotely predict, and idiots on their 
 planets are saying "The chances that a simple life based on hexavalent 
 chromium would form naturally are so unlikely, we must have been 
 created by some higher intelligence!" As it turns out, when you 
 consider your very low but extremely ignorant statistic given the 
 number of planets in the universe, and the potentially huge number of 
 possible ways life could form (a number we can't even begin to 
 fathom), it turns into 99.9999999999%. Unfortunately, the general 
 populous doesn't understand statistics even in the slightest, and so 
 they think "Wow, given the extremely low odds that a protozoan would 
 appear by random chance, we must have been created by a higher power!" 
 Idiots.

  - Gregor Richards


 
 Troll much?
 
 I think most well-reasoned arguments for a higher power or powers accept 
 such statistics and instead attempt to explain why the universe itself 
 exists rather than life. The majority of such arguments do not seem to 
 be well-reasoned, however.


(oops)

... however  this does not mean that a higher power of some sort 
(intelligent or not) is impossible.
Jun 02 2008
prev sibling parent reply Sean Kelly <sean invisibleduck.org> writes:
== Quote from Robert Fraser (fraserofthenight gmail.com)'s article

 I think most well-reasoned arguments for a higher power or powers accept
 such statistics and instead attempt to explain why the universe itself
 exists rather than life. The majority of such arguments do not seem to
 be well-reasoned, however.


For better or worse, none of the arguments for the existence of G-d have
help up to philosophical scrutiny.  In fact, I believe philosophical circles
have long since given up on the subject, since it's basically impossible to
prove the existence of something without either epistemological evidence
or without debatable premises (in the case of ontological arguments).
That said, my personal favorites are St. Anselm's and Baruch Spinoza's:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/anselm/
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/spinoza/

Anselm for producing the first ontological argument, and Spinoza because
his argument reads much like a mathematical proof.  Spinoza's argument
is also one of the more solid ones IMO, and it may gain points in some
circles for not being aimed at proving the existence of a strictly Christian
concept of G-d.


Sean
Jun 03 2008
parent Robert Fraser <fraserofthenight gmail.com> writes:
Sean Kelly wrote:

 == Quote from Robert Fraser (fraserofthenight gmail.com)'s article

 I think most well-reasoned arguments for a higher power or powers accept
 such statistics and instead attempt to explain why the universe itself
 exists rather than life. The majority of such arguments do not seem to
 be well-reasoned, however.


 
 For better or worse, none of the arguments for the existence of G-d have
 help up to philosophical scrutiny.  In fact, I believe philosophical circles
 have long since given up on the subject, since it's basically impossible to
 prove the existence of something without either epistemological evidence
 or without debatable premises (in the case of ontological arguments).
 That said, my personal favorites are St. Anselm's and Baruch Spinoza's:
 
 http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/anselm/
 http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/spinoza/
 
 Anselm for producing the first ontological argument, and Spinoza because
 his argument reads much like a mathematical proof.  Spinoza's argument
 is also one of the more solid ones IMO, and it may gain points in some
 circles for not being aimed at proving the existence of a strictly Christian
 concept of G-d.


Looks interesting; thanks for sharing.
Jun 03 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent reply John Reimer <terminal.node gmail.com> writes:
Hello Gregor,


 BCS wrote:
 

 Reply to Simen,
 

 Chris Wright Wrote:
 

 BCS wrote:
 

 The chances of life happening by chance are something like that,
 if not worse. You could probably calculated a relative number for
 it with quantum physics and/or information theory and/or string
 theory or some such. IIRC there is a theory about how much info
 can be in a given volume.
 


 I don't think anyone has come close to describing the odds of
 abiogenesis.
 


 I did some fun calculations after being given a book by Jehovah's
 Witnesses, as I've always been of the opinion that life being
 created by some higher being is less probable than it occuring
 naturally.
 
 Way I figured was, I get 1 cubic centimetre of the simplest,
 carbon-based, self-replicating molecules, on this planet of 1
 trillion cubic kilometers (one cubic centimetre was chosen as some
 arbitrary amount that might come into being by chance). Not by any
 chance a big chunk, but is it enough for life to survive? Let's
 first see how many self-replicating molecules we can fit into my
 small cube - 1.6 quintillion. That ain't half bad. (Actually, I
 think the number was 1000 times bigger, but I don't remember the
 name of that number [Hexillion?], plus you can think of it as a bit
 of safety :p)
 
 Now, spread that evenly across the world (258 billion square
 kilometers), and you get 162 such molecule for every square meter.
 With enough resources nearby, I'd give it a fairly good chance of
 survival.
 


 Someone once told me that if you take all the ways that you can
 assemble the parts of the simplest form of life and put them in once
 place, the ball would be something like the size of earth. (I havn't
 checked the math or anything like that)
 


 I love that all arguments against natural abiogenesis come down to an
 argument from ignorance. The fact is that we haven't got the foggiest
 bit of a clue what the entire range of things that could have
 /potentially/ formed life are, we just happen to have been formed from
 a particular set of amino acids. We like to believe that only amino
 acids, or even only the set of amino acids life on Earth are based on,
 could form life, but that's just stupid. Given the uncountably many
 planets in the universe, life has probably come into existence and
 evolved in ways we could never remotely predict, and idiots on their
 planets are saying "The chances that a simple life based on hexavalent
 chromium would form naturally are so unlikely, we must have been
 created by some higher intelligence!" As it turns out, when you
 consider your very low but extremely ignorant statistic given the
 number of planets in the universe, and the potentially huge number of
 possible ways life could form (a number we can't even begin to
 fathom), it turns into 99.9999999999%. Unfortunately, the general
 populous doesn't understand statistics even in the slightest, and so
 they think "Wow, given the extremely low odds that a protozoan would
 appear by random chance, we must have been created by a higher power!"
 Idiots.
 
 - Gregor Richards
 



Count me an idiot then, Mr. Gregor. ;)

Those that claim any level of certainty of "natural" abiogenesis are subject 
to a conflict of their own making: is it better to suppose something came 
from nothing, in which no abstract physical law existed to make sure such 
processes could survive before hand; where means, motive, or reason for
causation 
apparently spontaneously self-generated from a mass of nothing?  Or is it 
more ludicrous to believe in a spritiual sphere of existance outside of time 
that is not subject to the physical law, a God that created all things for 
his Own purpose.  

Interestingly, the bizarre and unnatural is often pursued relentlessly even 
to those that aspire to "realism" and reject the existance of a God:  a look 
at modern physics theorists and science fiction to see the yearning they 
have for an existance that, while relentlessly circumventing the spiritual 
(accusing it of not being observable), still doggedly pursue ideas and
existances 
that amount to the same.  

Nothing seems to ever be adequately explained in a world that denies an
absolute 
Creator, nor is there any basis for social, ethical, or ideological
constraints, 
nor is there any meaning to existance, no motivation to hope in a future, 
no meaning or reality to respect life, no subjection to conscience, rules 
or authority, no existance of right or wrong beyond a rapidly changing social 
definition of morality; such an existance is one without laws and rules, 
self-perpetuated by survival of the fittest; no room for mercy, care, or 
gentleness in the ever "evolving" pursuit to the be the most evolved.  The 
existance of a  person who perceives himself only subject to what is "real" 
is forever without hope describing what is real or what real means, or if 
what he observes through science is really "real".  Instead, he is finally 
dominated only by a will to self-indulge and self-satisfy -- an entirely 
empty existance for anyone who has pursued that mode for any amount of time 
(most of us know what that feels like).

Evolutionary "Scientists" have long used the claim of general ignorance to 
justify their own conjectures on reality -- the masses apparently can never 
understand these higher matters, and thus we must be wrong because of knowledge 
is too hard to understand... such arrogance!  The true scientist, I think, 
is much more humble.  Their own general ignorance of what can or can't be 
possible renders them no closer to having a solid understanding of metaphysics 
than anyone else.  Science is not and never was designed for philosophical 
considerations -- that exists in parallel in the biases of the scientist's 
personal worldview.  Nor does science lend itself to making conclusions on 
the universes beginnings or development.

Evolution (abiogenesis) is not science... but merely a faith based movement, 
a philosophy, a worldview that attempts to manipulate/interpret observations 
to understand what is considered reality.  It is just as much a worldview 
as any system that believes in a God that created this world.  I would submit 
that evolution is a more "supernaturual" ideology in its incredible
something-from-nothingness 
than any idea of a Creator and a Creation.

If that makes me ignorant, so be it.  :)

My apologies if this comes across as strong statement, but hey you guys seems 
to like discussing this stuff. ;)

-JJR
Jun 02 2008
next sibling parent reply Gregor Richards <Richards codu.org> writes:
John Reimer wrote:

 Hello Gregor,
 

 BCS wrote:


 Reply to Simen,


 Chris Wright Wrote:


 BCS wrote:


 The chances of life happening by chance are something like that,
 if not worse. You could probably calculated a relative number for
 it with quantum physics and/or information theory and/or string
 theory or some such. IIRC there is a theory about how much info
 can be in a given volume.


 I don't think anyone has come close to describing the odds of
 abiogenesis.


 I did some fun calculations after being given a book by Jehovah's
 Witnesses, as I've always been of the opinion that life being
 created by some higher being is less probable than it occuring
 naturally.

 Way I figured was, I get 1 cubic centimetre of the simplest,
 carbon-based, self-replicating molecules, on this planet of 1
 trillion cubic kilometers (one cubic centimetre was chosen as some
 arbitrary amount that might come into being by chance). Not by any
 chance a big chunk, but is it enough for life to survive? Let's
 first see how many self-replicating molecules we can fit into my
 small cube - 1.6 quintillion. That ain't half bad. (Actually, I
 think the number was 1000 times bigger, but I don't remember the
 name of that number [Hexillion?], plus you can think of it as a bit
 of safety :p)

 Now, spread that evenly across the world (258 billion square
 kilometers), and you get 162 such molecule for every square meter.
 With enough resources nearby, I'd give it a fairly good chance of
 survival.


 Someone once told me that if you take all the ways that you can
 assemble the parts of the simplest form of life and put them in once
 place, the ball would be something like the size of earth. (I havn't
 checked the math or anything like that)


 I love that all arguments against natural abiogenesis come down to an
 argument from ignorance. The fact is that we haven't got the foggiest
 bit of a clue what the entire range of things that could have
 /potentially/ formed life are, we just happen to have been formed from
 a particular set of amino acids. We like to believe that only amino
 acids, or even only the set of amino acids life on Earth are based on,
 could form life, but that's just stupid. Given the uncountably many
 planets in the universe, life has probably come into existence and
 evolved in ways we could never remotely predict, and idiots on their
 planets are saying "The chances that a simple life based on hexavalent
 chromium would form naturally are so unlikely, we must have been
 created by some higher intelligence!" As it turns out, when you
 consider your very low but extremely ignorant statistic given the
 number of planets in the universe, and the potentially huge number of
 possible ways life could form (a number we can't even begin to
 fathom), it turns into 99.9999999999%. Unfortunately, the general
 populous doesn't understand statistics even in the slightest, and so
 they think "Wow, given the extremely low odds that a protozoan would
 appear by random chance, we must have been created by a higher power!"
 Idiots.

 - Gregor Richards


 
 
 Count me an idiot then, Mr. Gregor. ;)
 
 Those that claim any level of certainty of "natural" abiogenesis are 
 subject to a conflict of their own making: is it better to suppose 
 something came from nothing, in which no abstract physical law existed 
 to make sure such processes could survive before hand; where means, 
 motive, or reason for causation apparently spontaneously self-generated 
 from a mass of nothing?  Or is it more ludicrous to believe in a 
 spritiual sphere of existance outside of time that is not subject to the 
 physical law, a God that created all things for his Own purpose. 
 Interestingly, the bizarre and unnatural is often pursued relentlessly 
 even to those that aspire to "realism" and reject the existance of a 
 God:  a look at modern physics theorists and science fiction to see the 
 yearning they have for an existance that, while relentlessly 
 circumventing the spiritual (accusing it of not being observable), still 
 doggedly pursue ideas and existances that amount to the same. 
 Nothing seems to ever be adequately explained in a world that denies an 
 absolute Creator, nor is there any basis for social, ethical, or 
 ideological constraints, nor is there any meaning to existance, no 
 motivation to hope in a future, no meaning or reality to respect life, 
 no subjection to conscience, rules or authority, no existance of right 
 or wrong beyond a rapidly changing social definition of morality; such 
 an existance is one without laws and rules, self-perpetuated by survival 
 of the fittest; no room for mercy, care, or gentleness in the ever 
 "evolving" pursuit to the be the most evolved.  The existance of a  
 person who perceives himself only subject to what is "real" is forever 
 without hope describing what is real or what real means, or if what he 
 observes through science is really "real".  Instead, he is finally 
 dominated only by a will to self-indulge and self-satisfy -- an entirely 
 empty existance for anyone who has pursued that mode for any amount of 
 time (most of us know what that feels like).
 
 Evolutionary "Scientists" have long used the claim of general ignorance 
 to justify their own conjectures on reality -- the masses apparently can 
 never understand these higher matters, and thus we must be wrong because 
 of knowledge is too hard to understand... such arrogance!  The true 
 scientist, I think, is much more humble.  Their own general ignorance of 
 what can or can't be possible renders them no closer to having a solid 
 understanding of metaphysics than anyone else.  Science is not and never 
 was designed for philosophical considerations -- that exists in parallel 
 in the biases of the scientist's personal worldview.  Nor does science 
 lend itself to making conclusions on the universes beginnings or 
 development.
 
 Evolution (abiogenesis) is not science... but merely a faith based 
 movement, a philosophy, a worldview that attempts to 
 manipulate/interpret observations to understand what is considered 
 reality.  It is just as much a worldview as any system that believes in 
 a God that created this world.  I would submit that evolution is a more 
 "supernaturual" ideology in its incredible something-from-nothingness 
 than any idea of a Creator and a Creation.
 
 If that makes me ignorant, so be it.  :)
 
 My apologies if this comes across as strong statement, but hey you guys 
 seems to like discussing this stuff. ;)
 
 -JJR
 
 


Abiogenesis is life forming naturally from constituent matter, not 
existence forming from nothing. These are two completely unrelated 
arguments, and the existence-from-nothing one is one I've chosen not to 
touch at all since it cannot be reasoned about.

However, since you brought it up, sure, I'll argue.

The reason that scientists explain things in a naturalist way (that is, 
without assuming or questioning a creator) is because we cannot reason 
about a creator, we cannot make conjectures about a creator, and so we 
cannot make theories about a creator based on anything but imagination.

So, to counter some specific arguments:


 is it better to suppose
 something came from nothing, in which no abstract physical law existed
 to make sure such processes could survive before hand; where means,
 motive, or reason for causation apparently spontaneously self-generated
 from a mass of nothing?  Or is it more ludicrous to believe in a
 spritiual sphere of existance outside of time that is not subject to the
 physical law, a God that created all things for his Own purpose.


Neither is a reasonable argument. The conjecture that the universe 
objectively exists within a causal framework is not one we can argue 
about. That is to say, we have no evidence that the universe objectively 
was created at all, not to mention whether it came from nothing or was 
created by a higher being. We have no evidence to support the assumption 
that the universe itself exists within a causal context, we're just used 
to causality because it exists /within/ the universe. The big bang 
theory (which might be what you're arguing against, I have no idea) does 
not argue about /existence/ coming from /nothingness/, it explains how 
the current shape of the universe came from a singularity. It is only 
believed to be such because the evidence suggests such. So, to answer 
your fundamental question of whether it's better to suppose one or the 
other, the answer is no. It's illogical to believe either, because we
cannot argue about either. This piece of knowledge is forever beyond 
human understanding, and any arguments you make to answer it are no 
better than the foolish gibbering of a child. The usual response to this 
is "don't you want to know, doesn't your innate drive of curiosity cause 
you to try to know?" Sure, but not at the cost of reason: I will never 
sacrifice reason and accept faith.


 Interestingly, the bizarre and unnatural is often pursued relentlessly
 even to those that aspire to "realism" and reject the existance of a
 God:  a look at modern physics theorists and science fiction to see the
 yearning they have for an existance that, while relentlessly
 circumventing the spiritual (accusing it of not being observable), still
 doggedly pursue ideas and existances that amount to the same.


Scientists seek knowledge. Ultimately science seeks to have all 
knowledge, although that is of course impossible. The fact that you have 
a convenient and unprovable answer is not useful: Science seeks 
knowledge which is testable and repeatable.


 absolute Creator, nor is there any basis for social, ethical, or
 ideological constraints, nor is there any meaning to existance, no
 motivation to hope in a future, no meaning or reality to respect life,
 no subjection to conscience, rules or authority, no existance of right
 or wrong beyond a rapidly changing social definition of morality; such
 an existance is one without laws and rules, self-perpetuated by survival
 of the fittest; no room for mercy, care, or gentleness in the ever
 "evolving" pursuit to the be the most evolved.


And yet, atheists are significantly under-represented in prisons. The 
fact that you find such a universe to be distressing is irrelevant, the 
evidence should not be weighed against opinions. In all probability 
there is no purpose to life that we can discern by any means other than 
ludicrous faith. Boo-hoo, get the hell over it.


 The existance of a
 person who perceives himself only subject to what is "real" is forever
 without hope describing what is real or what real means, or if what he
 observes through science is really "real".


Our understanding of the universe is and will always be subjective. This 
is a fact. I do not claim that the universe I perceive and act upon is a 
true, shared universe, I only act within it because I have no other option.


 Instead, he is finally
 dominated only by a will to self-indulge and self-satisfy -- an entirely
 empty existance for anyone who has pursued that mode for any amount of
 time (most of us know what that feels like).


This has not happened to me. I do not believe in your bizarrely 
personified deity, nor do I believe that it is possible to reason about 
the existence of an omnipotent being, and I think that the concept of an 
omnipotent being who gives a damn about us is silly. And yet, I go 
through life without this problem you believe that I must have. This 
worldview is based on extremist individualism, not atheism.

And more importantly, again, the fact that you find it distressing is 
irrelevant. You seem to be arguing that one should believe in a higher 
being out of fear. Fear subsumes reason, and then you choose to believe 
that you have some higher purpose determined by a grand and powerful 
entity. As I've already said, I will /never/ allow reason to be overcome 
by faith. (To read the previous statement, you must realize that I 
consider faith to be a flaw, and so I spit the last word). It's possible 
that faith in general is a result of fear, but that's a whole argument 
I'm not getting into.


 Evolutionary "Scientists" have long used the claim of general ignorance
 to justify their own conjectures on reality -- the masses apparently can
 never understand these higher matters, and thus we must be wrong because
 of knowledge is too hard to understand... such arrogance!


This is a really rude and nonsensical way to describe science. You 
believe the Earth is round and orbits around the sun I presume (if you 
don't, you're beyond redemption). At a time, people believed that 
scientists were evil for conjecturing this, and yet now it's common 
knowledge. The evidence eventually outweighed the desire people have not 
to change. Yes, the majority of the population of the US disbelieves 
evolution. Yes, they are all wrong.


 The true
 scientist, I think, is much more humble.  Their own general ignorance of
 what can or can't be possible renders them no closer to having a solid
 understanding of metaphysics than anyone else.


Science does not try to explain metaphysics, that's ridiculous. Neither 
evolution nor abiogenesis are in the realm of metaphysics. Your belief 
that life has some higher purpose is not based on evidence, and there is 
plenty of evidence that life is a persistent self-replicating 
physical/chemical/electrical reaction.

The only rational belief, metaphysically, is no belief. We can, however, 
explain things that happen in the physical world, and we know evolution 
to happen in the physical world (the evidence is overwhelming). Some 
people place a line between abiogenesis and evolution (the GOD line), 
but that line is arbitrary. Until we have any evidence otherwise, we 
must investigate everything in terms of the physical universe we 
inhabit: No other arguments can be reasoned about.


 Science is not and never
 was designed for philosophical considerations -- that exists in parallel
 in the biases of the scientist's personal worldview.


Abiogenesis is not a philosophical consideration.


 Nor does science
 lend itself to making conclusions on the universes beginnings or
 development.


Of course it doesn't. There is no belief in this field based on reason, 
and so the reasonable person can not hold any belief. You seem to have 
some bizarre belief that science is trying to describe the origin of 
existence ... it is not.


 Evolution (abiogenesis) is not science... but merely a faith based
 movement, a philosophy, a worldview that attempts to
 manipulate/interpret observations to understand what is considered
 reality.  It is just as much a worldview as any system that believes in
 a God that created this world.  I would submit that evolution is a more
 "supernaturual" ideology in its incredible something-from-nothingness
 than any idea of a Creator and a Creation.


This is so stupid I can't even argue against it. First off, lumping 
together evolution and abiogenesis is like saying "I don't believe in 
gravity because it doesn't explain how matter forms." They are two 
different theories.

Evolution is based on overwhelming amounts of evidence, and yes, I'll 
say it: Anyone who does not believe in evolution when presented with the 
evidence is irreparably incompetent. I have no respect for these people. 
Evolution is repeatable, and evolution has been observed numerous times 
and in numerous situations, not just in the fossil record but in current 
times. That includes speciation, although these idiots generally choose 
to ignore all the examples of speciation.

Abiogenesis is not as well-studied a field, but attributing it to a 
higher being just because science has not fully explained it yet is 
criminally stupid and dangerous to human progress.


 If that makes me ignorant, so be it.  :)


This does not make you ignorant. The ignorant person is the person who 
has simply never been given the knowledge necessary. You clearly have 
the knowledge, but choose to attribute things to a higher power which 
have been fully explained naturally.

  - Gregor Richards
Jun 02 2008
next sibling parent reply Daniel Giddings <daniel.giddings gmail.com> writes:
Not to divert the discussion, but here's a fun little comic that 
illustrates the differences between Science and Religion quite nicely.

http://i203.photobucket.com/albums/aa74/harrowlawl/sciencevsreligion.jpg

:-) Dan
Jun 02 2008
next sibling parent Simen Kjaeraas <simen.kjaras gmail.com> writes:
Daniel Giddings Wrote:


 Not to divert the discussion, but here's a fun little comic that 
 illustrates the differences between Science and Religion quite nicely.
 
 http://i203.photobucket.com/albums/aa74/harrowlawl/sciencevsreligion.jpg
 
 :-) Dan


My favorite on the subject:

http://www.thepaincomics.com/weekly041229.htm

Enjoy.

-- Simen
Jun 03 2008
prev sibling parent BCS <ao pathlink.com> writes:
Reply to Daniel,


 Not to divert the discussion, but here's a fun little comic that
 illustrates the differences between Science and Religion quite nicely.
 
 http://i203.photobucket.com/albums/aa74/harrowlawl/sciencevsreligion.j
 pg
 
 :-) Dan
 


That is why I will never ascribe the a religion that does not encourage the 
exploration of reality by all means. (that is not an empty set BTW)
Jun 03 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent reply "Bruce Adams" <tortoise_74 yeah.who.co.uk> writes:
On Tue, 03 Jun 2008 05:50:05 +0100, Gregor Richards <Richards codu.org>  
wrote:

[snip]

While I wouldn't put it quite so vigorously, Hear! Hear!
(why deliberately throw Christians in with Lions? especially when they  
might be in the NRA)
Jun 02 2008
next sibling parent reply Nick B <nick.barbalich gmail.com> writes:
I would like to write some code using D & Tango and release it under the 
GPL version 3.  Is this possible or does Academic Free License & the 
BSD-ish license for Tango, mean this is not possible ?

cheers

Nick B
Jun 03 2008
parent reply Robert Fraser <fraserofthenight gmail.com> writes:
Nick B wrote:

 I would like to write some code using D & Tango and release it under the 
 GPL version 3.  Is this possible or does Academic Free License & the 
 BSD-ish license for Tango, mean this is not possible ?
 
 cheers
 
 Nick B


They're both GPL-compatible. Go for it. What's the project?
Jun 03 2008
parent Nick B <nick.barbalich gmail.com> writes:
Robert Fraser wrote:

 Nick B wrote:

 I would like to write some code using D & Tango and release it under 
 the GPL version 3.  Is this possible or does Academic Free License & 
 the BSD-ish license for Tango, mean this is not possible ?

 cheers

 Nick B


 
 They're both GPL-compatible. Go for it. What's the project?


It's a cognition system.

Nick B
Jun 04 2008
prev sibling parent reply John Reimer <terminal.node gmail.com> writes:
Hello Bruce,


 On Tue, 03 Jun 2008 05:50:05 +0100, Gregor Richards
 <Richards codu.org>  wrote:
 
 [snip]
 
 While I wouldn't put it quite so vigorously, Hear! Hear!
 (why deliberately throw Christians in with Lions? especially when they
 might be in the NRA)



The "science" that ascribes to abiogenisis and evolution is very much religious 
as one can see from the vitriolic outpour of its proponents; it is not science 
nor is a name-calling debate scientific.  I appreciate the fact that Gregor 
begs to differ on that statement.  But saying one places his trust in reason 
alone is rather begging the question: how does this "reason" exist in a
random-chance 
universe; did this abstract ability to reason evolve alongside everything 
else in random fashion of trial and error or did it also appear from nothing 
in the big bang; does it continue to evolve, expand, and perfect itself in 
direct conflict with entropy?  If it does, does that make it imperfect right 
now?  When will reasoning and reason be perfect?  If it isn't perfect, does 
that mean our reasoning is greatly flawed still?  Will another million years 
make it unflawed?  If it was very flawed several million years ago, what 
effect did that have on macro evolution so many years ago (or vice versa)? 
 How ever does one know his reasoning skills are reasonable in such a universe 
(sorry, Gregor... that might grate you, but I suppose we'll never see things 
the same. ;) )  This does require a very /potent/ faith to believe is such 
improbabilities and that is a faith in "reason" itself.  Should we add a 
few more billion years to try to resolve it?  Would that help? :)

Concerning Christianity and religion:

Christianity is a worldview, not a religion.  When it is adopted as a religion, 
with pompous ceremony, hypocritical action, and false motive for power... 
then perhaps it might classify as a religion... but then almost any type 
of ideology is subject to the same problem.  This world has proven over and 
over that man will use ANY means to control or gain power... the "religion" 
excuse is just one of many ideologies used as tool for manipulation.  Real 
Christianity is not so, nor does it, if any of you read the Gospel, represent 
anything of a self-centered, mass-controlling ideology designed for personal 
gain.  Separate Christianity from the religiousity and one might be able 
to evaluate the picture differently. 

My point is... you pit "science" against "religion" with the implication 
that these are "at odds" with each other, when, in fact, this is really pitting 
one form of religion against another (or if it were two worldviews: realism 
verses theism).  It's sad to see people start to believe in science as a 
self-fulfilling singular entity of truth -- that it is not. I believe strongly 
in a scientific process and /reason/, but I claim that such only make sense 
in theistic worldview in which structure and control are not based on random 
chance.  Reason continues to exist despite ones worldview, but its existance 
is ill-defined and perhaps faultily directed apart from theism.

There is no need to force such ideas on anyone, of course.... Nor is there 
a need to immediately conjure up images of NRA or terrorists to blight the 
idea of a God-centric worldview. Like I said earlier, man will perform evil 
with or without theistic worldview: they are very adept at using any ideology 
that comes in handy -- and sadly religion becomes a tool as well.  Nonetheless 
this abuse is no disproof of the validity of theism nor does it represent 
it.  It many contexts, it represents the desires of the people abusing it.  

One is entitled to perceive this universe as one likes, but that person is 
taking a monstrous chance in the sense that his misunderstanding of reality 
could result in dire consequences that could have been easily avoided:  for 
example,  the bible claims that the "wages of sin is death" and that those 
who practice lawlessness" will be subject to judgement by a holy God and 
eternal punishment.  If this claim is true, all who practice lieing, stealing, 
adultery, coveting, sexual immorality and so on will (1) experience the
consequences 
of such sins on earth and (2) will have to answer for their sin before a 
just and holy God after they die.  Now does my saying this make it so? No, 
but it certainly bares careful thought, I think, especially given the fact 
that these sins repeatedly (and probably testably) do result in corruption, 
depression, and disaster in one's life and those he or she touches.  And 
not just for those that reject a theistic worldview, but even more so for 
those that call themselves "Christians" but act otherwise.  

And this is the problem we face today where there is a struggle to represent 
a theistic worldview in any good light because so many claim a form of it 
but putrify the reality of it with abuses of self-service, power, immorality, 
and religiousity.  This is a hypocracy that has no part in Christianity: 
for example, divorce and remarriage (called adultery in the bible -- marriage 
is for life) being one of the biggest issues of our age is "re-molded" and 
redefined as natural and normal.  The result? Today's "Christians" are indeed 
becoming the more guilty and hypocritical in that they absolve their sin 
amongst each other, meanwhile promoting a false salvation from sin... and 
in the process single-handedly become the greatest argument against their 
"apparent" worldview by presenting to the world that sin isn't really sin.

I claim that their is a truth here that is not represented by our culture 
anymore, but is easily found if one searches for it honestly.  I write just 
as openly as anyone here that would offer a view of their own philosophy 
of life. It is not forced, racist, biggoted, based on vitriol, or uncaring... 
but rather is offered because I do earnestly hope people will find truth 
and the meaning of "reality".  It is a belief, yes belief, that life is more 
than this little span of time on earth, that there is hope-- not based in 
evolutionary survival of mechan-electro-chemical random reactions --  and 
that death to self and subjection to a loving God through Jesus Christ and 
his offering of salvation is the fundamental key to understanding what life 
trully means and is a escape from the addictions and corruptions that will 
most certainly enslave and destroy us.

Take it or leave it. :)

-JJR
Jun 03 2008
next sibling parent reply Chris Wright <dhasenan gmail.com> writes:
John Reimer wrote:

 Hello Bruce,
 

 On Tue, 03 Jun 2008 05:50:05 +0100, Gregor Richards
 <Richards codu.org>  wrote:

 [snip]

 While I wouldn't put it quite so vigorously, Hear! Hear!
 (why deliberately throw Christians in with Lions? especially when they
 might be in the NRA)


 
 
 The "science" that ascribes to abiogenisis and evolution is very much 
 religious as one can see from the vitriolic outpour of its proponents; 
 it is not science nor is a name-calling debate scientific.  I appreciate 
 the fact that Gregor begs to differ on that statement.  But saying one 
 places his trust in reason alone is rather begging the question: how 
 does this "reason" exist in a random-chance universe; did this abstract 
 ability to reason evolve alongside everything else in random fashion of 
 trial and error or did it also appear from nothing in the big bang; does 
 it continue to evolve, expand, and perfect itself in direct conflict 
 with entropy?  If it does, does that make it imperfect right now?  When 
 will reasoning and reason be perfect?  If it isn't perfect, does that 
 mean our reasoning is greatly flawed still?  Will another million years 
 make it unflawed?  If it was very flawed several million years ago, what 
 effect did that have on macro evolution so many years ago (or vice 
 versa)? How ever does one know his reasoning skills are reasonable in 
 such a universe (sorry, Gregor... that might grate you, but I suppose 
 we'll never see things the same. ;) )  This does require a very /potent/ 
 faith to believe is such improbabilities and that is a faith in "reason" 
 itself.  Should we add a few more billion years to try to resolve it?  
 Would that help? :)


You're asking: how can we trust logic to be accurate?

Try doing otherwise for a day. You can't. You depend on it to survive.

If logic is not accurate, and if your memory is not accurate to some 
reasonable degree, you can't guarantee that anything in the universe is 
consistent. You can't reason about anything. You might as well give up, 
crawl in a hole, and die. Though in that case, you might have a tough 
time killing yourself -- logically, you can't live with your head 
separated from your shoulders, but we said we can't trust logic. And 
even if you seem to experience dying, that's no guarantee that you won't 
continue in the same fashion.

You can't come up with an argument that proves that human logic is 
correct. Arguments require logic; you have to assume logic to argue. So 
if you come up with an argument for logic, you've essentially come up 
with "If logic is accurate, logic is accurate".

You can come up with an argument that proves that human logic is 
incorrect. Since, in order to argue, you must start with the assumption 
that logic is correct, if you come up with a conclusion that logic is 
incorrect, then you've got a proof by contradiction.

But if you assume logic is not trustworthy, and act accordingly, you 
simply can't survive.

I hate these types of philosophical arguments because you might well 
conclude that everyone's deluding themselves, but even if you do, *it 
changes nothing*.
Jun 04 2008
parent reply John Reimer <terminal.node gmail.com> writes:
Hello Chris,


 John Reimer wrote:
 

 Hello Bruce,
 

 On Tue, 03 Jun 2008 05:50:05 +0100, Gregor Richards
 <Richards codu.org>  wrote:
 
 [snip]
 
 While I wouldn't put it quite so vigorously, Hear! Hear!
 (why deliberately throw Christians in with Lions? especially when
 they
 might be in the NRA)


 The "science" that ascribes to abiogenisis and evolution is very much
 religious as one can see from the vitriolic outpour of its
 proponents; it is not science nor is a name-calling debate
 scientific.  I appreciate the fact that Gregor begs to differ on that
 statement.  But saying one places his trust in reason alone is rather
 begging the question: how does this "reason" exist in a random-chance
 universe; did this abstract ability to reason evolve alongside
 everything else in random fashion of trial and error or did it also
 appear from nothing in the big bang; does it continue to evolve,
 expand, and perfect itself in direct conflict with entropy?  If it
 does, does that make it imperfect right now?  When will reasoning and
 reason be perfect?  If it isn't perfect, does that mean our reasoning
 is greatly flawed still?  Will another million years make it
 unflawed?  If it was very flawed several million years ago, what
 effect did that have on macro evolution so many years ago (or vice
 versa)? How ever does one know his reasoning skills are reasonable in
 such a universe (sorry, Gregor... that might grate you, but I suppose
 we'll never see things the same. ;) )  This does require a very
 /potent/ faith to believe is such improbabilities and that is a faith
 in "reason" itself.  Should we add a few more billion years to try to
 resolve it?  Would that help? :)
 


 You're asking: how can we trust logic to be accurate?
 
 Try doing otherwise for a day. You can't. You depend on it to survive.
 
 If logic is not accurate, and if your memory is not accurate to some
 reasonable degree, you can't guarantee that anything in the universe
 is consistent. You can't reason about anything. You might as well give
 up, crawl in a hole, and die. Though in that case, you might have a
 tough time killing yourself -- logically, you can't live with your
 head separated from your shoulders, but we said we can't trust logic.
 And even if you seem to experience dying, that's no guarantee that you
 won't continue in the same fashion.
 
 You can't come up with an argument that proves that human logic is
 correct. Arguments require logic; you have to assume logic to argue.
 So if you come up with an argument for logic, you've essentially come
 up with "If logic is accurate, logic is accurate".
 
 You can come up with an argument that proves that human logic is
 incorrect. Since, in order to argue, you must start with the
 assumption that logic is correct, if you come up with a conclusion
 that logic is incorrect, then you've got a proof by contradiction.
 
 But if you assume logic is not trustworthy, and act accordingly, you
 simply can't survive.
 
 I hate these types of philosophical arguments because you might well
 conclude that everyone's deluding themselves, but even if you do, *it
 changes nothing*.
 



Ah... I must not be making this clear (wouldn't be the first time)... perhaps 
because I fail to emphasize a point with clarity.  I am not trying to disprove 
the existance of reason or logic.  They most certainly do exist (in my
worldview, 
at least :) ) and are very necessary for our daily operation.   But what 
I am trying to compare here is the reliability of worldviews:  I am trying 
to show that within a purely materialistic worldview, these abstract ideas 
find no real meaning and would be clearly unreliable... and thus those that 
trust these tools within a worldview that has difficulty defining them are 
rendered subject to a kind of "faith" in them that would seem to be unsound. 
 I believe, though, that their existance must be based in a theistic worldview 
in order for them to be shown why they can work reliability.  

Frequently, people will say "No, but I can reason and logic things so these 
tools do exist", but this is where I'm trying to point out that it's begging 
the question.  If we are trying to go back and show that our worldview 
describes 
our universe accurately, we had better try to make a strong argument for 
why we think the tools we use will operate in such a universe.

-JJR
Jun 04 2008
parent Chris Wright <dhasenan gmail.com> writes:
John Reimer wrote:

 Ah... I must not be making this clear (wouldn't be the first time)... 
 perhaps because I fail to emphasize a point with clarity.  I am not 
 trying to disprove the existance of reason or logic.  They most 
 certainly do exist (in my worldview, at least :) ) and are very 
 necessary for our daily operation.   But what I am trying to compare 
 here is the reliability of worldviews:  I am trying to show that within 
 a purely materialistic worldview, these abstract ideas find no real 
 meaning and would be clearly unreliable... and thus those that trust 
 these tools within a worldview that has difficulty defining them are 
 rendered subject to a kind of "faith" in them that would seem to be 
 unsound. I believe, though, that their existance must be based in a 
 theistic worldview in order for them to be shown why they can work 
 reliability. 


You say that there is someone who created logic, and therefore it exists 
and is usable and accurate.

I have no idea whether logic is accurate, but without it, I wouldn't be 
able to consider my existence and what I perceive, so I shall pretend 
that it works.
Jun 05 2008
prev sibling parent reply Tower Ty <towerty msn.com.au> writes:
I knew there was something amiss with you and now it falls into place.

Ask yourself
How can it be that each and every religion beleives that only itself, and its
own beliefs, are true and correct and all the others are wrong or misguided?

What is the likelyhood of your beliefs being the correct one?

More likely they are all stupid beliefs against reason . Trust me I am right
type of reasoning

Science consistently proves them wrong!






John Reimer Wrote:


 Hello Bruce,
 

 On Tue, 03 Jun 2008 05:50:05 +0100, Gregor Richards
 <Richards codu.org>  wrote:
 
 [snip]
 
 While I wouldn't put it quite so vigorously, Hear! Hear!
 (why deliberately throw Christians in with Lions? especially when they
 might be in the NRA)


 
 
 The "science" that ascribes to abiogenisis and evolution is very much
religious 
 as one can see from the vitriolic outpour of its proponents; it is not science 
 nor is a name-calling debate scientific.  I appreciate the fact that Gregor 
 begs to differ on that statement.  But saying one places his trust in reason 
 alone is rather begging the question: how does this "reason" exist in a
random-chance 
 universe; did this abstract ability to reason evolve alongside everything 
 else in random fashion of trial and error or did it also appear from nothing 
 in the big bang; does it continue to evolve, expand, and perfect itself in 
 direct conflict with entropy?  If it does, does that make it imperfect right 
 now?  When will reasoning and reason be perfect?  If it isn't perfect, does 
 that mean our reasoning is greatly flawed still?  Will another million years 
 make it unflawed?  If it was very flawed several million years ago, what 
 effect did that have on macro evolution so many years ago (or vice versa)? 
  How ever does one know his reasoning skills are reasonable in such a universe 
 (sorry, Gregor... that might grate you, but I suppose we'll never see things 
 the same. ;) )  This does require a very /potent/ faith to believe is such 
 improbabilities and that is a faith in "reason" itself.  Should we add a 
 few more billion years to try to resolve it?  Would that help? :)
 
 Concerning Christianity and religion:
 
 Christianity is a worldview, not a religion.  When it is adopted as a
religion, 
 with pompous ceremony, hypocritical action, and false motive for power... 
 then perhaps it might classify as a religion... but then almost any type 
 of ideology is subject to the same problem.  This world has proven over and 
 over that man will use ANY means to control or gain power... the "religion" 
 excuse is just one of many ideologies used as tool for manipulation.  Real 
 Christianity is not so, nor does it, if any of you read the Gospel, represent 
 anything of a self-centered, mass-controlling ideology designed for personal 
 gain.  Separate Christianity from the religiousity and one might be able 
 to evaluate the picture differently. 
 
 My point is... you pit "science" against "religion" with the implication 
 that these are "at odds" with each other, when, in fact, this is really
pitting 
 one form of religion against another (or if it were two worldviews: realism 
 verses theism).  It's sad to see people start to believe in science as a 
 self-fulfilling singular entity of truth -- that it is not. I believe strongly 
 in a scientific process and /reason/, but I claim that such only make sense 
 in theistic worldview in which structure and control are not based on random 
 chance.  Reason continues to exist despite ones worldview, but its existance 
 is ill-defined and perhaps faultily directed apart from theism.
 
 There is no need to force such ideas on anyone, of course.... Nor is there 
 a need to immediately conjure up images of NRA or terrorists to blight the 
 idea of a God-centric worldview. Like I said earlier, man will perform evil 
 with or without theistic worldview: they are very adept at using any ideology 
 that comes in handy -- and sadly religion becomes a tool as well.  Nonetheless 
 this abuse is no disproof of the validity of theism nor does it represent 
 it.  It many contexts, it represents the desires of the people abusing it.  
 
 One is entitled to perceive this universe as one likes, but that person is 
 taking a monstrous chance in the sense that his misunderstanding of reality 
 could result in dire consequences that could have been easily avoided:  for 
 example,  the bible claims that the "wages of sin is death" and that those 
 who practice lawlessness" will be subject to judgement by a holy God and 
 eternal punishment.  If this claim is true, all who practice lieing, stealing, 
 adultery, coveting, sexual immorality and so on will (1) experience the
consequences 
 of such sins on earth and (2) will have to answer for their sin before a 
 just and holy God after they die.  Now does my saying this make it so? No, 
 but it certainly bares careful thought, I think, especially given the fact 
 that these sins repeatedly (and probably testably) do result in corruption, 
 depression, and disaster in one's life and those he or she touches.  And 
 not just for those that reject a theistic worldview, but even more so for 
 those that call themselves "Christians" but act otherwise.  
 
 And this is the problem we face today where there is a struggle to represent 
 a theistic worldview in any good light because so many claim a form of it 
 but putrify the reality of it with abuses of self-service, power, immorality, 
 and religiousity.  This is a hypocracy that has no part in Christianity: 
 for example, divorce and remarriage (called adultery in the bible -- marriage 
 is for life) being one of the biggest issues of our age is "re-molded" and 
 redefined as natural and normal.  The result? Today's "Christians" are indeed 
 becoming the more guilty and hypocritical in that they absolve their sin 
 amongst each other, meanwhile promoting a false salvation from sin... and 
 in the process single-handedly become the greatest argument against their 
 "apparent" worldview by presenting to the world that sin isn't really sin.
 
 I claim that their is a truth here that is not represented by our culture 
 anymore, but is easily found if one searches for it honestly.  I write just 
 as openly as anyone here that would offer a view of their own philosophy 
 of life. It is not forced, racist, biggoted, based on vitriol, or uncaring... 
 but rather is offered because I do earnestly hope people will find truth 
 and the meaning of "reality".  It is a belief, yes belief, that life is more 
 than this little span of time on earth, that there is hope-- not based in 
 evolutionary survival of mechan-electro-chemical random reactions --  and 
 that death to self and subjection to a loving God through Jesus Christ and 
 his offering of salvation is the fundamental key to understanding what life 
 trully means and is a escape from the addictions and corruptions that will 
 most certainly enslave and destroy us.
 
 Take it or leave it. :)
 
 -JJR
Jun 04 2008
parent reply BCS <ao pathlink.com> writes:
Reply to Tower,


 I knew there was something amiss with you and now it falls into place.
 
 Ask yourself
 How can it be that each and every religion beleives that only itself,
 and its own beliefs, are true and correct and all the others are wrong
 or misguided?
 What is the likelyhood of your beliefs being the correct one?
 
 More likely they are all stupid beliefs against reason . Trust me I am
 right type of reasoning
 
 Science consistently proves them wrong!
 
 John Reimer Wrote:
 


"If everyone thinks they're right, than no one is right" Hogwash.

With 6 billion people out there, either someone is right or we will never 
get it. In the first cases, the assertion is wrong, in the second it is
irrelevant.
Jun 04 2008
parent reply Robert Fraser <fraserofthenight gmail.com> writes:
BCS wrote:

 With 6 billion people out there, either someone is right or we will 
 never get it. In the first cases, the assertion is wrong, in the second 
 it is irrelevant.


Or someone in the future will "get it", but no one has yet.
Jun 04 2008
parent reply BCS <ao pathlink.com> writes:
Reply to Robert,


 BCS wrote:
 

 With 6 billion people out there, either someone is right or we will
 never get it. In the first cases, the assertion is wrong, in the
 second it is irrelevant.
 


 Or someone in the future will "get it", but no one has yet.
 


The likelihood of that is only a few orders of magnitude better than
spontaneous 
generation of life. a.k.a. Darn small. (but it might be true)
Jun 04 2008
parent Robert Fraser <fraserofthenight gmail.com> writes:
BCS wrote:

 Reply to Robert,
 

 BCS wrote:


 With 6 billion people out there, either someone is right or we will
 never get it. In the first cases, the assertion is wrong, in the
 second it is irrelevant.


 Or someone in the future will "get it", but no one has yet.


 
 The likelihood of that is only a few orders of magnitude better than 
 spontaneous generation of life. a.k.a. Darn small. (but it might be true)


Why would you say that? There's a large sample space of possible reasons 
the universe exists - either infinite or certainly larger than the 
entire human population that has been able to write in some capacity. In 
addition, how many such systems of universal creation do you (or anyone 
else) know about? Most people don't ask the question, but accept an 
existing one. Maybe there's 10,000 different systems bing actively 
believed (perhaps with some variation) by every human living on Earth today.

In particular, with scientific advancement at the rate it's going right 
now, it might be possible to find additional scientific evidence that 
suggests a different theory on the existence of the universe.

I believe the opposite: that it's nearly impossible for such a system 
that is correct to have already been found or imagined, but it's very 
possible that a system will be found some time in the future. But 
probably not within the lifetimes of anyone positing on this thread.

(Note that I'm not trying to say "science is the answer", just saying 
that scientific advancement may suggest addition systems of belief. In 
the end, IMO, it all comes down to having faith in one such system.)
Jun 04 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent Fawzi Mohamed <fmohamed mac.com> writes:
It is clear that the existence of god cannot be directly neither proved 
nor disproved.

It is also clear that a fact alone has no direct consequence on wether 
something is good or bad (morality lives in another plane, but a fact 
within a given morality framework can indirectly have consequences).

I think that there is so much discussion about evolution because it 
explains how many things can be explained without the need of god, but 
this does not prove or disprove anything about the existence of god.

A good read for those really interested in this subject is

Created from Animals: The Moral Implications of Darwinism
by James Rachels

http://www.amazon.com/Created-Animals-Implications-Darwinism-Paperbacks/dp/0192861298/ref=sr_1_14?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1212486983&sr=1-14

Fawzi
Jun 03 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent Chris Wright <dhasenan gmail.com> writes:
Gregor Richards wrote:

 Evolution is based on overwhelming amounts of evidence, and yes, I'll 
 say it: Anyone who does not believe in evolution when presented with the 
 evidence is irreparably incompetent. I have no respect for these people. 
 Evolution is repeatable, and evolution has been observed numerous times 
 and in numerous situations, not just in the fossil record but in current 
 times. That includes speciation, although these idiots generally choose 
 to ignore all the examples of speciation.


A large number of people go out of their way to remain ignorant of such 
evidence. They put their trust in people who have an emotional stake in 
the matter to give them accurate answers rather than spending weeks or 
months of effort researching the matter sufficiently to come to a 
conclusion. Though I'm sure, given the chief arguments from each side, 
one could efficiently verify it. -- I suppose that means that evolution 
is in NP.
Jun 03 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent reply BCS <ao pathlink.com> writes:
Reply to Gregor,


 John Reimer wrote:
 



 Abiogenesis is life forming naturally from constituent matter, not
 existence forming from nothing. These are two completely unrelated
 arguments, and the existence-from-nothing one is one I've chosen not
 to touch at all since it cannot be reasoned about.
 
 However, since you brought it up, sure, I'll argue.
 
 The reason that scientists explain things in a naturalist way (that
 is, without assuming or questioning a creator) is because we cannot
 reason about a creator, we cannot make conjectures about a creator,
 and so we cannot make theories about a creator based on anything but
 imagination.
 


Going back the "book" model. If the world was entirely created by a single 
inelegance, would you not expect to be able to learn something about it by 
examining the world? Can you not tell something about the people who write 
programs by examining the programs they write? In all human tasks, the "thumb 
print" of the maker is stamped on the work. I would find it more of a stretch 
for this to NOT be true of a created universe.


 So, to counter some specific arguments:
 

 is it better to suppose
 something came from nothing, [...]  Or is it more ludicrous to believe 




in a

 spritiual sphere of existance outside of time that is not subject to
 the
 physical law, a God that created all things for his Own purpose.




[...]

 So, to answer your fundamental question of
 whether it's better to suppose one or the other, the answer is no.
 It's illogical to believe either, because we cannot argue about
 either.


it is not illogical to believe without evidence or argument. That in fact 
is faith. At least in the canonical way, illogical asserts that something 
is opposed to logic. By your own assertion, logic can't prove either conclusion 
so neither can be counter to logic. You might have a case for unlogical (the 
neutral assertion) but that is unavoidable


 This piece of knowledge is forever beyond human understanding,
 and any arguments you make to answer it are no better than the foolish
 gibbering of a child.


I will agree with part of what you claim, It is my belief that it is
fundamentally 
impossible to prove this question one way or the other, and that this is 
intentional. However I also belive that anyone willing to accept the existence 
of a higher power will eventually conclude that one exists, as a mater of 
faith.


 The usual response to this is "don't you want to
 know, doesn't your innate drive of curiosity cause you to try to
 know?" Sure, but not at the cost of reason: I will never sacrifice
 reason and accept faith.
 


Belief at the expense of reason is stupidity. Faith is belief beyond reason, 
belief where reason is mute.


 Interestingly, the bizarre and unnatural is often pursued
 relentlessly even to those that aspire to "realism" and reject the
 existance of a God:  a look at modern physics theorists and science
 fiction to see the yearning they have for an existance that, while
 relentlessly circumventing the spiritual (accusing it of not being
 observable), still doggedly pursue ideas and existances that amount
 to the same.
 


 Scientists seek knowledge. Ultimately science seeks to have all
 knowledge, although that is of course impossible. The fact that you
 have a convenient and unprovable answer is not useful: Science seeks
 knowledge which is testable and repeatable.
 


Evolution is convenient and not provably wrong (short of some sort of second 
coming or the like)


 absolute Creator, nor is there any basis for social, ethical, or
 ideological constraints, nor is there any meaning to existance, no
 motivation to hope in a future, no meaning or reality to respect
 life, no subjection to conscience, rules or authority, no existance
 of right or wrong beyond a rapidly changing social definition of
 morality; such an existance is one without laws and rules,
 self-perpetuated by survival of the fittest; no room for mercy, care,
 or gentleness in the ever "evolving" pursuit to the be the most
 evolved.
 


 And yet, atheists are significantly under-represented in prisons.


[[citation needed]]


 The
 fact that you find such a universe to be distressing is irrelevant,
 the evidence should not be weighed against opinions. In all
 probability there is no purpose to life that we can discern by any
 means other than ludicrous faith. Boo-hoo, get the hell over it.
 

 The existance of a
 person who perceives himself only subject to what is "real" is
 forever
 without hope describing what is real or what real means, or if what
 he
 observes through science is really "real".


 Our understanding of the universe is and will always be subjective.
 This is a fact.


You contradict your self in that statement.


 I do not claim that the universe I perceive and act
 upon is a true, shared universe, I only act within it because I have
 no other option.
 

 Instead, he is finally
 dominated only by a will to self-indulge and self-satisfy -- an
 entirely
 empty existance for anyone who has pursued that mode for any amount
 of
 time (most of us know what that feels like).


 This has not happened to me. I do not believe in your bizarrely
 personified deity, nor do I believe that it is possible to reason
 about the existence of an omnipotent being, and I think that the
 concept of an omnipotent being who gives a damn about us is silly. And
 yet, I go through life without this problem you believe that I must
 have. This worldview is based on extremist individualism, not atheism.


That is not necessarily a counter argument. The fact that the bulk of the 
world does /not/ act like that might be taken to be evidence that there /is/ 
a higher power because, if there were not, why would people not act like 
that?


 
 And more importantly, again, the fact that you find it distressing is
 irrelevant. You seem to be arguing that one should believe in a higher
 being out of fear. Fear subsumes reason, and then you choose to
 believe that you have some higher purpose determined by a grand and
 powerful entity. As I've already said, I will /never/ allow reason to
 be overcome by faith. (To read the previous statement, you must
 realize that I consider faith to be a flaw, and so I spit the last
 word). It's possible that faith in general is a result of fear, but
 that's a whole argument I'm not getting into.
 


You have a point, but only if you equate fear and terror or phobias. A
(reonable) 
fear of hights is not a bad thing. A fear of danger (again within reason) 
is a *good* thing. A well behaved dog fears displeasing you (this is distinct 
from fearing your reaction to it) more than anything else, otherwhise they 
would disobey you the first time somthing scares them.


 
 We can,
 however, explain things that happen in the physical world, and we know
 evolution to happen in the physical world (the evidence is
 overwhelming).


IIRC there is a $10K prize for the first person to prove evolution. The juges 
are secular and last I heard, no one had clamed it.


 Evolution is based on overwhelming amounts of evidence, and yes, I'll
 say it: Anyone who does not believe in evolution when presented with
 the evidence is irreparably incompetent. I have no respect for these
 people. Evolution is repeatable, and evolution has been observed
 numerous times and in numerous situations, not just in the fossil
 record but in current times. That includes speciation, although these
 idiots generally choose to ignore all the examples of speciation.
 


The only reasons that evolution can claim "overwhelming amounts of evidence" 
is because the counter evidence is considered one piece at a time and
discarded. 
If you look at all the evidence that has been discarded a flukes and anomalous 
data, evolution begins to seem no more persuasive than the alternative. I 
wont even bother stating any of it as Google should find more links than 
you have time to read.


 
 - Gregor Richards
Jun 03 2008
parent reply Gregor Richards <Richards codu.org> writes:
BCS wrote:

 Reply to Gregor,
 

 John Reimer wrote:


 

 Abiogenesis is life forming naturally from constituent matter, not
 existence forming from nothing. These are two completely unrelated
 arguments, and the existence-from-nothing one is one I've chosen not
 to touch at all since it cannot be reasoned about.

 However, since you brought it up, sure, I'll argue.

 The reason that scientists explain things in a naturalist way (that
 is, without assuming or questioning a creator) is because we cannot
 reason about a creator, we cannot make conjectures about a creator,
 and so we cannot make theories about a creator based on anything but
 imagination.


 
 Going back the "book" model. If the world was entirely created by a 
 single inelegance, would you not expect to be able to learn something 
 about it by examining the world? Can you not tell something about the 
 people who write programs by examining the programs they write? In all 
 human tasks, the "thumb print" of the maker is stamped on the work. I 
 would find it more of a stretch for this to NOT be true of a created 
 universe.


However, a universe created by a (perhaps partially random) algorithm 
would leave the algorithm stamped on the work in the same way. Whether 
we can determine the difference between the algorithm and a personified 
god is a whole different argument, and whether there actually is a 
difference is an entirely different one. If one is willing to accept 
that a being is nothing more than an (potentially extremely complex) 
algorithm, then the laws of physics and god are the same thing, one is 
just a person-centric view where the other is an algorithm-centric view. 
I don't think that most people would accept this view of life though.


 

 So, to counter some specific arguments:


 is it better to suppose
 something came from nothing, [...]  Or is it more ludicrous to believe 




 in a

 spritiual sphere of existance outside of time that is not subject to
 the
 physical law, a God that created all things for his Own purpose.




 [...]

 So, to answer your fundamental question of
 whether it's better to suppose one or the other, the answer is no.
 It's illogical to believe either, because we cannot argue about
 either.


 
 it is not illogical to believe without evidence or argument. That in 
 fact is faith.


Faith is illogical. I don't feel like arguing this, since any arguments 
I make will go nowhere against a person who believes otherwise.


 At least in the canonical way, illogical asserts that 
 something is opposed to logic. By your own assertion, logic can't prove 
 either conclusion so neither can be counter to logic.


Exactly. Because logic cannot prove or disprove either, it is illogical 
to believe either: That is, it is only logical to believe what 
perception, reason and yes, logic itself can show us.


 You might have a 
 case for unlogical (the neutral assertion) but that is unavoidable
 

 This piece of knowledge is forever beyond human understanding,
 and any arguments you make to answer it are no better than the foolish
 gibbering of a child.


 
 I will agree with part of what you claim, It is my belief that it is 
 fundamentally impossible to prove this question one way or the other, 
 and that this is intentional. However I also belive that anyone willing 
 to accept the existence of a higher power will eventually conclude that 
 one exists, as a mater of faith.


An unprovable assertion.


 

 The usual response to this is "don't you want to
 know, doesn't your innate drive of curiosity cause you to try to
 know?" Sure, but not at the cost of reason: I will never sacrifice
 reason and accept faith.


 
 Belief at the expense of reason is stupidity. Faith is belief beyond 
 reason, belief where reason is mute.


If you choose to believe something in the realm that reason cannot by 
definition touch, fine. Such beliefs often, as is proven by history, 
branch into the realm of the physical world, and that is when they 
become dangerous to human progress. This is why I'm biased against them.


 

 Interestingly, the bizarre and unnatural is often pursued
 relentlessly even to those that aspire to "realism" and reject the
 existance of a God:  a look at modern physics theorists and science
 fiction to see the yearning they have for an existance that, while
 relentlessly circumventing the spiritual (accusing it of not being
 observable), still doggedly pursue ideas and existances that amount
 to the same.


 Scientists seek knowledge. Ultimately science seeks to have all
 knowledge, although that is of course impossible. The fact that you
 have a convenient and unprovable answer is not useful: Science seeks
 knowledge which is testable and repeatable.


 
 Evolution is convenient and not provably wrong (short of some sort of 
 second coming or the like)


Let's break evolution down to look at how it could be proven wrong. 
Evolution by natural selection comes down to three components: 
Reproduction, variation, selection.

Reproduction: We'll ignore this one :)

Variation: Proof that variation cannot create useful results. 
Admittedly, it's difficult to prove anything with "cannot" in the 
definition, but it's moot since there are numerous examples of positive 
variation. My favorite is the lizards relocated to test evolutionary 
change which gained a new component in their digestive tract for the new 
food supply. I don't have a link to the paper off the top of my head, 
but I can dredge it up if need be. Since such things are easy to find, 
anti-evolutionists keep moving lines arbitrarily (where's the line now, 
wings?), but unless a line can be defined clearly instead of 
arbitrarily, it's not useful. Suffice to say that any arbitrarily 
invented line has a different proof.

Variation (take 2): Anti-evolutionists have this bizarre notion of 
"macro" vs "micro" evolution. There is no useful definition of "species" 
however, so we'll need that first. The simplest definition (ability to 
reproduce) results in a form of speciation that's been observed numerous 
times, particularly in plants. Anyway, if a useful definition of species 
was produced, a useful way to disprove it could be generated.

Selection: Again this is completely moot, as selection is quite easy to 
observe and known to happen.


I suppose you could try to argue that the sum cannot be disproved, but 
it can be simply simulating the three constituent parts and showing that 
result does not evolve. Ever implemented a genetic algorithm?



 

 absolute Creator, nor is there any basis for social, ethical, or
 ideological constraints, nor is there any meaning to existance, no
 motivation to hope in a future, no meaning or reality to respect
 life, no subjection to conscience, rules or authority, no existance
 of right or wrong beyond a rapidly changing social definition of
 morality; such an existance is one without laws and rules,
 self-perpetuated by survival of the fittest; no room for mercy, care,
 or gentleness in the ever "evolving" pursuit to the be the most
 evolved.


 And yet, atheists are significantly under-represented in prisons.


 
 [[citation needed]]


All over the place:
http://www.holysmoke.org/icr-pri.htm
http://www.rationalresponders.com/forum/sapient/atheist_vs_theist/4149
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080226173812AApM54e

That was just the first three results from Google. Admittedly they're 
all sites biased towards that, but the statistics are straight from the 
bureau of prisons.

(That's just the US, I'm not sure if similar studies have been done 
elsewhere)


 

 The
 fact that you find such a universe to be distressing is irrelevant,
 the evidence should not be weighed against opinions. In all
 probability there is no purpose to life that we can discern by any
 means other than ludicrous faith. Boo-hoo, get the hell over it.


 The existance of a
 person who perceives himself only subject to what is "real" is
 forever
 without hope describing what is real or what real means, or if what
 he
 observes through science is really "real".


 Our understanding of the universe is and will always be subjective.
 This is a fact.


 
 You contradict your self in that statement.



  parent reply BCS <ao pathlink.com>  writes:


Reply to Gregor,

 BCS wrote:

 Reply to Gregor,


 If one is
 willing to accept that a being is nothing more than an (potentially
 extremely complex) algorithm, then the laws of physics and god are the
 same thing, one is just a person-centric view where the other is an
 algorithm-centric view. I don't think that most people would accept
 this view of life though.
 


I see in the universe a creator that has attributes like humor, an appreciation 
for beauty and an interest in relationships. If a random algorithm has those 
attributes than the difference between it and god not only may be impossible 
to detect, but be utterly irrelevant.


 At least in the canonical way, illogical asserts that something is
 opposed to logic. By your own assertion, logic can't prove either
 conclusion so neither can be counter to logic.
 


 Exactly. Because logic cannot prove or disprove either, it is
 illogical to believe either: That is, it is only logical to believe
 what perception, reason and yes, logic itself can show us.


You assert that you can't know if there is or is not a god, so you refuse 
to act on either and in effect chosen to act as if there were not (how would 
you act different if you /had/ chosen this?). You have chose this without 
a logical bases because, as you asserted, there is no logical bases for this 
choice. The only way to not act on faith (choice without evidence) is to 
never ask the question and practically everyone over the age of three has.

By that you, and in fact practically everyone on the planet, is acting
"illogically" 
(but not anti-logically).


 You have a point, but only if you equate fear and terror or phobias.
 A (reonable) fear of hights is not a bad thing. A fear of danger
 (again within reason) is a *good* thing. A well behaved dog fears
 displeasing you (this is distinct from fearing your reaction to it)
 more than anything else, otherwhise they would disobey you the first
 time somthing scares them.
 


 I have a fear of heights. It happens to correspond with reason: If I
 fall a long distance, I will in all likelihood not enjoy the result
 :P. But resting a fear of the unknown with knowledge you haven't
 gained by any legitimate means is allowing that fear to subsume
 reason.


Then what is your point? I have no fear of the unknown. If there is no higher 
purpose then "eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die" and who cares? 
The only fear around here is a result of faith (I fear hell to put it bluntly) 
not a cause of it.
 

 IIRC there is a $10K prize for the first person to prove evolution.
 The juges are secular and last I heard, no one had clamed it.
 


 Ha. Ha. Yeah, I've seen this. Two problems:
 
 1) There is no such thing as scientific proof.


put species A in a box, don't let in anything else, pull out species B. q.e.d.


 2) You cannot convince them of evolution, because they're not
 unbiased.


IIRC the judges are from groups like NSF and the Smithsonian. Hardly unbiased 
I'll agree...



 Jun 03 2008



 next sibling parent  terranium <spam here.lot>  writes:


BCS Wrote:


 1) There is no such thing as scientific proof.


 put species A in a box, don't let in anything else, pull out species B. q.e.d.


I'm affraid judges won't accept this as a proof. As David Hume pointed out, a
law can't be verificated by single facts.



 Jun 04 2008



prev sibling  parent reply Chris Wright <dhasenan gmail.com>  writes:


BCS wrote:

 I see in the universe a creator that has attributes like humor, an 
 appreciation for beauty and an interest in relationships.


Where?



 Jun 04 2008



  parent reply BCS <ao pathlink.com>  writes:


Reply to Chris,


 BCS wrote:
 

 I see in the universe a creator that has attributes like humor, an
 appreciation for beauty and an interest in relationships.
 


 Where?
 


Go take a look at a Paleontology reference and look at all the odd things 
that have lived on this planet. Then read Gen 2:19:

"Out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every 
bird of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. 
And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name."

I can just see it, God and the angles are sitting around and one of the angles 
says: "Now make one with 5 horns and see what he calls it!" Even without 
the bible reference, I can't think of any reason for some animals except 
as a fantastic joke. I'm a little surprised that The Far Side never did that 
one.



 Jun 04 2008



  parent reply Chris Wright <dhasenan gmail.com>  writes:


BCS wrote:

 Reply to Chris,
 

 BCS wrote:


 I see in the universe a creator that has attributes like humor, an
 appreciation for beauty and an interest in relationships.


 Where?


 
 Go take a look at a Paleontology reference and look at all the odd 
 things that have lived on this planet. Then read Gen 2:19:


I was thinking that you went somewhere in the universe and there you saw 
a physical manifestation of a creator. I take it you aren't suggesting 
that, say, Sidneyia inexpectans is or was a creator with a sense of 
humor and aesthetic. The only things that Sidneyia made were excrement 
and other creatures similar to Sidneyia.



 Jun 04 2008



  parent  BCS <ao pathlink.com>  writes:


Reply to Chris,


 BCS wrote:
 

 Reply to Chris,
 

 BCS wrote:
 

 I see in the universe a creator that has attributes like humor, an
 appreciation for beauty and an interest in relationships.
 


 Where?
 


 Go take a look at a Paleontology reference and look at all the odd
 things that have lived on this planet. Then read Gen 2:19:
 


 I was thinking that you went somewhere in the universe and there you
 saw a physical manifestation of a creator. I take it you aren't
 suggesting that, say, Sidneyia inexpectans is or was a creator with a
 sense of humor and aesthetic. The only things that Sidneyia made were
 excrement and other creatures similar to Sidneyia.
 


Ah. That interpretation does make a 'wee bit' of difference<g>. To clarify: 
"I see, in the attributes and 'charter' of the universe,..."



 Jun 04 2008



prev sibling  parent reply Aarti_pl <aarti interia.pl>  writes:


Gregor Richards pisze:

 Evolution is based on overwhelming amounts of evidence, and yes, I'll 
 say it: Anyone who does not believe in evolution when presented with the 
 evidence is irreparably incompetent.


Did you read this?:
http://www.forbiddenarcheology.com/

I found also movie:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opX5s57MKIk

Although I don't support author's religion world view, his book is 
strong position *against* evolutionary view of humans origins. It's not 
just sweet "bla bla" it's scientific monumental work, which definitely 
should be seriously taken into consideration.

A good question is why still so many scientists don't want to think 
about alternatives to theory of evolution? In my case when I got older I 
lost my naive point of view that everyone just tries to discover the 
truth. Also scientists have their presumptions, emotions, careers, 
religions (including atheism ;-) ) and it influences heavily their work, 
  way of thinking and conclusions they make. Especially in areas of 
knowledge which from definition are not as repeatable as simple physical 
experiments.

Best Regards
Marcin Kuszczak
www.zapytajmnie.com



 Jun 04 2008



  parent  Fawzi Mohamed <fmohamed mac.com>  writes:


On 2008-06-04 10:44:56 +0200, Aarti_pl <aarti interia.pl> said:


 Gregor Richards pisze:

 Evolution is based on overwhelming amounts of evidence, and yes, I'll 
 say it: Anyone who does not believe in evolution when presented with 
 the evidence is irreparably incompetent.


 
 Did you read this?:
 http://www.forbiddenarcheology.com/
 
 I found also movie:
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opX5s57MKIk
 
 Although I don't support author's religion world view, his book is 
 strong position *against* evolutionary view of humans origins. It's not 
 just sweet "bla bla" it's scientific monumental work, which definitely 
 should be seriously taken into consideration.
 
 A good question is why still so many scientists don't want to think 
 about alternatives to theory of evolution? In my case when I got older 
 I lost my naive point of view that everyone just tries to discover the 
 truth. Also scientists have their presumptions, emotions, careers, 
 religions (including atheism ;-) ) and it influences heavily their 
 work,   way of thinking and conclusions they make. Especially in areas 
 of knowledge which from definition are not as repeatable as simple 
 physical experiments.
 
 Best Regards
 Marcin Kuszczak
 www.zapytajmnie.com


I find very difficult not to believe in some form of evolution once you 
understand how it works.

1) there are some sort of things that we identify as individuals.

2) these individuals can in some way reproduce themselves, and produce 
other individuals

3) the offspring of the individuals are similar to those that have 
generated them, but not identical, some small variations can enter 
(hereditariness and mutation)

4) individuals can die

that's it, if you accept these things then you have some sort of evolution:
individuals that are better adapted to the environment are more likely 
to have more offsprings and live longer, so slowly you have evolution.
Those are extremely weak assumptions, and this is an argument that is 
quite difficult to discard... and in fact there is also plenty of 
evidence and experiments done today that shows that this happens in 
reality.

What the anti-darwinists normally do in this case is to say that the 
variability has to be only limited to a small parameter set (what they 
call micro evolution), or that some things are exempt from evolution.
Depending on who you ask you get different answers with respect to what 
is fixed (maybe the species, which is a concept that doesn't apply so 
well to everything).
But actually there is no need for artificial bounds on what can be 
changed, the only thing that happens if there are no bounds is that 
sometime some modification gives you a flawed individual that cannot 
form/grow/or dies early... which happens....

Can I show that there are no bounds (other than the physical laws) on 
the modifications that the evolution can do? Obviously not, but I never 
saw anything like them and it is much more economical to think that 
there none if it fits the observation (occam razor).

Once one accepts this kind of evolution one can begin to look at the 
details of how it works, and how it can explain what we see.

For example it is clear that isolation (physical, due to food source, 
behavioral,...) makes for a statistical higher probability of having a 
smaller part of the population that has mean characteristic that are 
different from the "normal" and can magnify special characteristics and 
branch away the population.

What is normally misperceived about evolution is how the population 
evolves, do the stronger individuals survive? the more selfish? the 
better ones? not necessarily, it depends on the environment, as strong 
selfish individual might be less adapt than a group that collaborates 
with themselves. Any kind of simple definition that is not circular 
(those that survive are those that survive) is fallacious, even the 
"better" individuals might have costs (energetic,...) that do not 
offset their usefulness...

One thing that the evolution has is the strong preference for small 
improvements (that are more likely) over big changes, so to really 
understand how a big change can happen one should find a "path" of 
small changes (that give and advantage).
There are signs of this (for example birds have the same basic skeletal 
structure as ourselves, only highly deformed), still there are some 
things for which no clear way is known, and some hypothesis on how  it 
could have happened are discussed in the book I had cited (The Major 
Transitions in Evolution).

And God?
Well this doesn't rule out the existence of God, neither it does 
demonstrate it.
I know very good people both religious and not, and have respect for 
them. For some people believing in God gives them energy to act well.
Personally I am very suspicious of absolute truths, especially when one 
thinks that he has to convince  others of his idea at all costs, 
respecting the others and being tolerant is one of the most important 
things in my opinion, intolerance is the thing I tolerate less :).
I define myself agnostic: I think that one cannot really answer that 
question one way or another, and actually it isn't the most relevant 
question.
More important is how one lives and what he does.
I think that if God exists than he should also care more about that, 
and if he doesn't, and cares more if one worships him or not, then it 
isn't a God that I want to worship ;).

Definitely OT, I will try restrain myself next time ;)



 Jun 04 2008



prev sibling  parent  Manfred Nowak <svv1999 hotmail.com>  writes:


John Reimer wrote:

[...]

 a God that created all things for his Own purpose.   


I once pulled a lithified fern out of the slate behind a waterfall of a 
creek. This pointed me to two alternatives:
1) disbelief in the existence of such a purpose
2) belief in the existence of a malevolent structure, with such a 
purpose

-manfred



 Jun 04 2008



prev sibling next sibling parent  Tower  Ty <towerty msn.com.au>  writes:


I see who the one word poster is now !



Gregor Richards Wrote:


 BCS wrote:

 Reply to Simen,
 

 Chris Wright Wrote:


 BCS wrote:


 The chances of life happening by chance are something like that, if
 not worse. You could probably calculated a relative number for it
 with quantum physics and/or information theory and/or string theory
 or some such. IIRC there is a theory about how much info can be in a
 given volume.


 I don't think anyone has come close to describing the odds of
 abiogenesis.


 I did some fun calculations after being given a book by Jehovah's
 Witnesses, as I've always been of the opinion that life being created
 by some higher being is less probable than it occuring naturally.

 Way I figured was, I get 1 cubic centimetre of the simplest,
 carbon-based, self-replicating molecules, on this planet of 1 trillion
 cubic kilometers (one cubic centimetre was chosen as some arbitrary
 amount that might come into being by chance). Not by any chance a big
 chunk, but is it enough for life to survive? Let's first see how many
 self-replicating molecules we can fit into my small cube - 1.6
 quintillion. That ain't half bad. (Actually, I think the number was
 1000 times bigger, but I don't remember the name of that number
 [Hexillion?], plus you can think of it as a bit of safety :p)

 Now, spread that evenly across the world (258 billion square
 kilometers), and you get 162 such molecule for every square meter.
 With enough resources nearby, I'd give it a fairly good chance of
 survival.


 
 Someone once told me that if you take all the ways that you can assemble 
 the parts of the simplest form of life and put them in once place, the 
 ball would be something like the size of earth. (I havn't checked the 
 math or anything like that)
 
 


 
 I love that all arguments against natural abiogenesis come down to an 
 argument from ignorance. The fact is that we haven't got the foggiest 
 bit of a clue what the entire range of things that could have 
 /potentially/ formed life are, we just happen to have been formed from a 
 particular set of amino acids. We like to believe that only amino acids, 
 or even only the set of amino acids life on Earth are based on, could 
 form life, but that's just stupid. Given the uncountably many planets in 
 the universe, life has probably come into existence and evolved in ways 
 we could never remotely predict, and idiots on their planets are saying 
 "The chances that a simple life based on hexavalent chromium would form 
 naturally are so unlikely, we must have been created by some higher 
 intelligence!" As it turns out, when you consider your very low but 
 extremely ignorant statistic given the number of planets in the 
 universe, and the potentially huge number of possible ways life could 
 form (a number we can't even begin to fathom), it turns into 
 99.9999999999%. Unfortunately, the general populous doesn't understand 
 statistics even in the slightest, and so they think "Wow, given the 
 extremely low odds that a protozoan would appear by random chance, we 
 must have been created by a higher power!" Idiots.
 
   - Gregor Richards





 Jun 04 2008



prev sibling  parent reply Georg Wrede <georg nospam.org>  writes:


Gregor Richards wrote:
...

 intelligence!" As it turns out, when you consider your very low but 
 extremely ignorant statistic given the number of planets in the 
 universe, and the potentially huge number of possible ways life could 
 form (a number we can't even begin to fathom), it turns into 
 99.9999999999%. Unfortunately, the general populous doesn't understand 


While you're using 99.999999% better here than most do in newsgroups, 
the average case is like "99.9999999999% of the time I win everybody".

In the late seventies I had a newsgroup reader to which I had attached a 
filter that went like (vi code here):

%s/ 99\.9+\%/ many/g

and it turned out that it not only improved the quality of what I read, 
it also improved my responses to it.


 statistics even in the slightest, and so they think "Wow, given the 
 extremely low odds that a protozoan would appear by random chance, we 
 must have been created by a higher power!" Idiots.


Correct!!!!!

Not that I could say I'm any less of an idiot, at least after I've tried 
to do some (really more modest) calculations, every once in a while ever 
since teen-age.

Let's be overly modest, and just try to get a probability for something 
vastly "smaller", and therefore easier(?) to understand.


For example, what are the odds that I got born at all? Even /given that/ 
human beings already have existed here for some 4 million years?

I can't be born at all if my mother had died before she got me. Same 
goes for my father. And their parents and their's.

One might take a male or a female tack on this one. Let's take the 
female tack:


Assume that it takes 20 years on average to get a child. Of course, now 
we have statutory rape laws and people used to start earlier, but 
nowadays it's not even uncommon to have first kids in the very late 
thirties. But, hey, one has to pick some age.

Now, considering the odds of accidentally dropping your daughter, her 
getting into any other accident, infant mortality, plagues, ordinary 
diseases or cancer, and women not getting married and/or not having 
children. What would be the probability that your daughter eventually 
bears you a granddaughter? Let's say it's 75%. But since I'm being 
/nice/ here, make it 99%.

In 4 million years we have 200000 generations. If even any /single one/ 
of your grandmothers fails, then the rest become unborn, so the only way 
your mother could have come to existence is that /all/ of them 
succeeded. Since they're independent (as a statistical sample), the 
formula would be:

P = (1 - 0.99) ^ 200000

which ought to be (er, now my calculator shows an error! ...I had to do 
it via logarithms), equal to:

10 ^ -400000

which is pretty damn close to zero.


OR we could do it the male way:

Ignoring all infant mortality, etc. (Just for the heck of it. This of 
course does weakens my point substantially, but boy, can I afford it! As 
you'll see.) Let's say that the average number of sperm at a go is:

20million/ml * 2ml = 40M
(from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semen_analysis#Sperm_count)

So, one could say that the probability of your father having been born 
(from that particular copulation) is

(1/ 40M) / 2

the "/2" being for only half of them are male. Again, I had to resort to 
logarithms to force a non-error result, which was

P = (1/80M) ^ 200000 = 10 ^ -1580618

This time the answer is even more preposterously small. Especially 
considering that any "real" quantity (like counting the electrons in the 
entire known universe), that can be said to have any meaning, can be 
done with a calculator that has a range of 10^-99 to 10^99. A quantity like

10^-1600000

is "99.9999%" smaller than I can imagine. Therefore I'm an idiot. :-)

Now, combining my mother with my father (and /really/ stupidly 
considering me having born to them as P=1), we get

10 ^ -(1.6M + 0.4M) = 10^-2M

which is a nice round figure. Ok, the math here has been sloppy, the 
prerequisites and estimates are all off-the-hat, but the end result 
should be "in the ballpark". At /least/ for proving that this simply is 
out of mental reach.


With this same logic, one might want to know the probability of the 
first human being having been born from animals that existed at the time 
of dinosaurs (a lot more than 4M years and 200k generations), or that 
animal from the first vertebrate, or that one from the first two-sex 
animal, or that one from the first multicellular animal, or that one 
from the first reproductive organism.

Compared to that, I think that the odds of life itself developing are 
just child's play. -- So, where I really need God is not to explain to 
me the existence of life on Earth, but to explain to me how come I 
personally exist at all.

Arrgghh. I just remembered that the odds of God someday explaining this 
to me are smaller than my existence (they equal zero). Ah, and since my 
existence (already within our current universe, not to speak of the 
infinite number of universes before ours, and those after ours), itself 
is smaller than I care to understand, I suddenly understood: it's 
guaranteed to get fixed within the next hundred years. Then I'll be long 
gone, and this (from my point of view, once in a lifetime (not mine, but 
that of the entire history of universes, come and gone)), aberration 
will be restored, once and for all.

That is pretty much the same as if I'd never been born to begin with. 
Compare that to the age of the universe(s), and the total probability 
starts to make sense. Hmm. Should one commit oneself to the funny farm 
if it suddenly makes sense, or if it doesn't?


I HOPE that nobody really starts to ponder on these things! One of my 
girlfriends was a nurse at a mental asylum, and she told me (years ago) 
that quite a lot of the inmates are physically normal people, who just 
by bad luck had started to try to understand things like this or the 
Meaning of Life or why we exist. She used to say "it's burned their 
circuits".

I think that is a succinct way of putting it.


After all this, things like elementary particles popping in and out of 
existence out of nowhere in empty space and on the surface of black 
holes, really doesn't sound all that exotic. :-)



 Jun 04 2008



 next sibling parent reply Manfred Nowak <svv1999 hotmail.com>  writes:


Georg Wrede wrote:


 10 ^ -(1.6M + 0.4M) = 10^-2M


Now estimate the expectancy of a structure, that has no notion of 
itself and self-preservation but is so powerfull, that it can create a 
continuum with time and put itself into that continuum.

-manfred
 



 Jun 04 2008



  parent reply John Reimer <terminal.node gmail.com>  writes:


Hello Manfred,


 Georg Wrede wrote:
 

 10 ^ -(1.6M + 0.4M) = 10^-2M
 


 Now estimate the expectancy of a structure, that has no notion of
 itself and self-preservation but is so powerfull, that it can create a
 continuum with time and put itself into that continuum.
 
 -manfred
 


No notion of itself?  

Why must God exist in the continuum he created or be subject to it?  These 
are strange conjectures.  I don't think the Bible makes any such claims about 
God, unless you are referring to the period of time that Christ was on earth. 
:)  Believing in a God may seem too "easy", but it is logical given the
conclusion 
that structure and design, and the laws that rule them, were created in place 
to govern the creation.  That's not a very chancy existance.  I also ask 
you how you think God is computable since most here like to say that concept 
of God is not testable; do you think he is any more calculable?

So may I ask you do the same calculations for any theory that purports that 
this universe appeared out of nothing ala "big bang" by random chance.  I 
don't think there is a way for that to be done.  Or have we already been 
over this already? :)  But I suppose this is the tendency of the materialist 
to enlist numbers to conjecture these things before he even knows that his 
ability to conjecture (in his universe) is even reliable.

It's rather interesting that there is a strong tendency here to rely on
statistics 
and other such calculations of chance as reliable measurement for these things. 
 It once again presumes much about the accuracy of your reason.  Don't you 
think you would be lucky that "2+2=4" occurs consistantly in a random chance 
universe.  

Then again, say I give you that your statistics are reliable in your universe: 
it then also presumes all factors are understood for those chances to exist 
-- which I'd say is rather presumptuous given the fact that scientists don't 
even know how much more there is to know about this universe.

Have such statistics been testable?  Why are they counted reliable?  Why 
in a worldview that depends on chance are such calculations even found to 
be reliable?  In the materialistic worldview of millions of random
electro-chemical 
reactions, it appears you've merely chosen a non-personal, invisible "god" 
of your own making to keep things running and to make sure those chance events 
repeatedly hit on the right combination.

-JJR



 Jun 05 2008



  parent  Manfred Nowak <svv1999 hotmail.com>  writes:


Hey John.

I am not reasoning about a God, but about a structure, which seems 
likely to be not a God.

You wrote:

 Why must God exist in the continuum he created or be subject to it?


I see no reason for such a duty for a God. But why should a God be 
disallowed to put himself into a continuum he created?

-manfred



 Jun 05 2008



prev sibling next sibling parent  Chris Wright <dhasenan gmail.com>  writes:


Georg Wrede wrote:

 I HOPE that nobody really starts to ponder on these things! One of my 
 girlfriends was a nurse at a mental asylum, and she told me (years ago) 
 that quite a lot of the inmates are physically normal people, who just 
 by bad luck had started to try to understand things like this or the 
 Meaning of Life or why we exist. She used to say "it's burned their 
 circuits".


Indeed! So stop thinking about the nature of existence, and stare at 
pretty pictures:

Anomalocaris: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/dp5/cambrian4.jpg
Marella: http://paws.wcu.edu/dperlmutr/Marella2.JPG
Opabinia: http://faculty.virginia.edu/bio202/Opabinia.gif

I believe those are all drawn by Marianne Collins.



 Jun 05 2008



prev sibling  parent  Sean Kelly <sean invisibleduck.org>  writes:


== Quote from Georg Wrede (georg nospam.org)'s article

 I HOPE that nobody really starts to ponder on these things! One of my
 girlfriends was a nurse at a mental asylum, and she told me (years ago)
 that quite a lot of the inmates are physically normal people, who just
 by bad luck had started to try to understand things like this or the
 Meaning of Life or why we exist. She used to say "it's burned their
 circuits".


Its a bit unrelated, but "Pi" is an excellent movie.


Sean



 Jun 05 2008



prev sibling  parent reply BCS <ao pathlink.com>  writes:


This is what I so like about this group. A topic is posted that is off topic 
to begin with, goes not only more OT but right into a minefield and not only 
does the thread stay interesting but it remains civil despite some
diametrically 
opposed views.

Damn I like this group.

<G>



 Jun 03 2008



  parent reply Yigal Chripun <yigal100 gmail.com>  writes:


BCS wrote:

 This is what I so like about this group. A topic is posted that is off
 topic to begin with, goes not only more OT but right into a minefield
 and not only does the thread stay interesting but it remains civil
 despite some diametrically opposed views.
 
 Damn I like this group.
 
 <G>
 
 


Just to add some relevant facts:
the article above about YAWEH is Christian nonsense. Since this article
derives everything from English translations made 1000s of years after
the original was written in Hebrew, it is based solely on that English
translation and _not_ on the original text.
Fact is Ancient Hebrew didn't have vowels and the bible (the original
Hebrew version 1.0) contains here and there words that we do not know
how to read. most of the Bible does have Nikud (marks for vowels in
modern Hebrew) since the knowledge of how to read it was preserved but
here and there there are words and phrases we do not know how to
pronounce. In order to be able to read the bible there were added
explanations in the margins (most of the time, it's quite clear that
some word simply contains some typo, or that the letters only have one
way to be pronounced) but the original text is not changed since it's
considered holy.
This is a long explanation to the simple fact that the pronunciation of
"יהוה" got lost in time in the same way, and since it's not a simple
case of a typo, we simple do not know how to pronounce it. Hebrew
speakers (like myself) read this word as "adoni" or "Lord" in English
and this is in fact how it's translated in the [much later] English version.

about statistics:
a friend showed me a graph online showing an inverse relation between
the number of pirates and rising temperature due to global warming. his
conclusion is that to stop global warming we need more pirates at sea.
I hope we all see how silly this is. one simply cannot derive a
conclusion based on something like that. statistics are much the same,
they tell us nothing since we do not know what a full definition of life
is, as Gregor said. how can you measure what's the odds are to get life
on a planet without knowing what a full definition of the concept of life?

about the big-bang:
the big bang created our space-time, so it's illogical to ask what was
before time began.


one last thing, let's consider god from a logical POV:
god is all powerful => God can create a rock no-one can lift => god
cannot lift the rock or god cannot create such a rock => contradiction

--Yigal



 Jun 03 2008



 next sibling parent reply BCS <ao pathlink.com>  writes:


Reply to Yigal,



 Just to add some relevant facts:
 the article above about YAWEH is Christian nonsense.


What about it is nonsense? You seem to be making a point about how the word 
sounds. Are you claming that that there is some ambiguity regarding which 
spoken word it is being written?


 Since this
 article derives everything from English translations made 1000s of years
 after the original was written in Hebrew, it is based solely on that English
 translation and _not_ on the original text.
 Fact is Ancient Hebrew didn't have vowels and the bible (the original
 Hebrew version 1.0) contains here and there words that we do not know
 how to read. 


A while back I was talking to a Hebrew scholor and I seem to reacal that 
there is even some question as to where the word breaks are.


 most of the Bible does have Nikud (marks for vowels in
 modern Hebrew) since the knowledge of how to read it was preserved but
 here and there there are words and phrases we do not know how to
 pronounce. In order to be able to read the bible there were added
 explanations in the margins (most of the time, it's quite clear that
 some word simply contains some typo, or that the letters only have one
 way to be pronounced) but the original text is not changed since it's
 considered holy.
 This is a long explanation to the simple fact that the pronunciation
 of
 "יהוה" got lost in time in the same way, and since it's not a simple
 case of a typo, we simple do not know how to pronounce it. Hebrew
 speakers (like myself) read this word as "adoni" or "Lord" in English
 and this is in fact how it's translated in the [much later] English
 version.


Interesting, I remember hearing that the choice to use adoni was because 
it ensured that the original name is never corrupted. Actually, come to think 
of it, I seem to recall that the name was actually not written to avoid
spelling 
it wrong by accident


 one last thing, let's consider god from a logical POV:
 god is all powerful => God can create a rock no-one can lift => god
 cannot lift the rock or god cannot create such a rock => contradiction


That assumes that god is inside the universe. That in and of it's self is 
a problem. When you start dealing with absolutes and infinities things fall 
about in all domains of logic. 

Look up Russell's paradox or the halting problem for some real examples of 
where this happens in domains that are not theological.


 --Yigal
 





 Jun 03 2008



  parent reply Yigal Chripun <yigal100 gmail.com>  writes:


BCS wrote:

 Reply to Yigal,
 
 

 Just to add some relevant facts:
 the article above about YAWEH is Christian nonsense.


 
 What about it is nonsense? You seem to be making a point about how the
 word sounds. Are you claming that that there is some ambiguity regarding
 which spoken word it is being written?
 

 Since this
 article derives everything from English translations made 1000s of years
 after the original was written in Hebrew, it is based solely on that
 English
 translation and _not_ on the original text.
 Fact is Ancient Hebrew didn't have vowels and the bible (the original
 Hebrew version 1.0) contains here and there words that we do not know
 how to read. 


 
 A while back I was talking to a Hebrew scholor and I seem to reacal that
 there is even some question as to where the word breaks are.
 

 most of the Bible does have Nikud (marks for vowels in
 modern Hebrew) since the knowledge of how to read it was preserved but
 here and there there are words and phrases we do not know how to
 pronounce. In order to be able to read the bible there were added
 explanations in the margins (most of the time, it's quite clear that
 some word simply contains some typo, or that the letters only have one
 way to be pronounced) but the original text is not changed since it's
 considered holy.
 This is a long explanation to the simple fact that the pronunciation
 of
 "יהוה" got lost in time in the same way, and since it's not a simple
 case of a typo, we simple do not know how to pronounce it. Hebrew
 speakers (like myself) read this word as "adoni" or "Lord" in English
 and this is in fact how it's translated in the [much later] English
 version.


 
 Interesting, I remember hearing that the choice to use adoni was because
 it ensured that the original name is never corrupted. Actually, come to
 think of it, I seem to recall that the name was actually not written to
 avoid spelling it wrong by accident
 

 one last thing, let's consider god from a logical POV:
 god is all powerful => God can create a rock no-one can lift => god
 cannot lift the rock or god cannot create such a rock => contradiction


 
 That assumes that god is inside the universe. That in and of it's self
 is a problem. When you start dealing with absolutes and infinities
 things fall about in all domains of logic.
 Look up Russell's paradox or the halting problem for some real examples
 of where this happens in domains that are not theological.
 

 --Yigal


 
 


My claim here is simple: no one knows how to pronounce יהוה so reading
it as "YAWEH" is a blind guess. Since we do not know how to pronounce
this word, we can't read it, and we do not know its meaning. As I said
(and you agree with me, from your reply) we read it as adoni and it's
translated roughly to "lord" in English. adding any other meaning to the
word as the article linked in this thread tries to do is based only on
that author's personal beliefs and has nothing to do with the actual
word as it is written in the bible - hence nonsense.
in the same way, I can claim יהוה means "cat", and write a long article
explaining that.

about that logical claim of god:
everyone has his own view of what god is. the problem is with _your_
definition of what god is. besides, I wrote it only half seriously (I
probably should have mentioned not to take it that seriously in the
original reply, though)

a general reply to anyone claiming that being atheist is a religion:
religious people assume that everyone must have a faith in something so
they interpret an atheist as someone who believes in a lack of a higher
power, a belief of realism, a belief in logic and causality, etc..
this is false.
atheist means without a faith. not a faith in an opposite claim.
it is the same as asking a healthy person what is his sickness. He is
not ill with a lack of a disease, he simply has no disease.
religious people think that our world view must be based on some faith
be it a faith in god or a faith in reason. well, that's wrong. a world
view can be based on facts alone without any faith underlining it.
I don't believe in reason or causality, it is just an observable fact of
the world we live in, it simply exists in the universe we occupy.
we know for a fact that some things cause other things in our universe.
there are other things that are not caused by anything and are random.
those are just observable facts. not a belief of existence of causality.

to summarize:
A->not(B) is not equivalent to not(A)->B where:
A is "I/an atheist believes"
B is "god exists".

--Yigal



 Jun 04 2008



  parent reply BCS <ao pathlink.com>  writes:


Reply to Yigal,


 a general reply to anyone claiming that being atheist is a religion:


Nor, arguably, is Christianity, they are both systems of faith.


 religious people assume that everyone must have a faith in something
 so they interpret an atheist as someone who believes in a lack of a
 higher power, a belief of realism, a belief in logic and causality, etc..
 this is false.



 atheist means without a faith. not a faith in an opposite claim.


I claim that the question of the existence of god is relevant in every life. 
The atheist says "I think there is no god" and acts on that assumption. The 
theist does the reverse. Neither has proof yet both act (because you can't 
/not/ act). Therefor both act on faith (belief without proof). I don't see 
any functional difference regarding faith.



 Jun 04 2008



  parent reply Yigal Chripun <yigal100 gmail.com>  writes:


BCS wrote:

 Reply to Yigal,
 

 a general reply to anyone claiming that being atheist is a religion:


 
 Nor, arguably, is Christianity, they are both systems of faith.


It seems that your definition of a religion is different than mine. in
that case - s/religion/faith/ and my argument is just as valid as before.

 

 religious people assume that everyone must have a faith in something
 so they interpret an atheist as someone who believes in a lack of a
 higher power, a belief of realism, a belief in logic and causality, etc..
 this is false.


 

 atheist means without a faith. not a faith in an opposite claim.


 
 I claim that the question of the existence of god is relevant in every
 life. The atheist says "I think there is no god" and acts on that
 assumption. The theist does the reverse. Neither has proof yet both act
 (because you can't /not/ act). Therefor both act on faith (belief
 without proof). I don't see any functional difference regarding faith.
 
 


your claim proves my point. As a theist person you assume that "the
question of the existence of god is relevant in every life.".
As an atheist I can tell you that it is not.
Occam's razor basically states that the more assumptions you have the
higher the chance of you being wrong. and you just added such as assumption.
again, Atheism is not a faith based on "I think/believe there is not
god". the question of the existence of god is irrelevant since atheists
do _not_ upon this assumption.
There is a difference between assuming (believing) that god does _not_
exist and act based on that vs. _not_ assuming anything about this
question (since as stated before it's not relevant) in the first place.
I still act, yet I do not assume anything about this question. The end
result for you would be that since I do not act based upon the existence
of god, you see it as if I deny such existence. even though the result
looks very similar, the cause is fundamentally different.

A blind person from birth acts without any assumption of colors or light
and the concept is meaningless to him. his is not acting based on the
assumption of a world without color but rather he acts _without_ the
assumption of color. in the same way, a healthy person does not act
based on the assumption of a strange "disease" of "a lack of illness".

The same reasoning of Occam's razor applies for example to the idiotic
Intelligent design (ID) "theory". "theory" in the context of science is
a very strong concept [much stronger than conjecture, for example] and
implies the ability to have predictions based on it that can be
validated, and the ability to test it in the real world. ID is *not* a
theory in the scientific sense of the word since it requires one to
believe the existence of a higher power which cannot be proven to exist.
since it does not provide any way to test it but rather it depends on
the faith of humans, it is not a theory but rather a faith.
therefore, scientists avoid arguing against it because trying to prove
it wrong is also treating it as a scientific theory, which it's not.



 Jun 04 2008



  parent reply BCS <ao pathlink.com>  writes:


Reply to Yigal,


 BCS wrote:
 

 I claim that the question of the existence of god is relevant in
 every life. The atheist says "I think there is no god" and acts on
 that assumption. The theist does the reverse. Neither has proof yet
 both act (because you can't /not/ act). Therefor both act on faith
 (belief without proof). I don't see any functional difference
 regarding faith.
 


 your claim proves my point. As a theist person you assume that "the
 question of the existence of god is relevant in every life.".
 As an atheist I can tell you that it is not.


How can answering "yes" to a question effect your life and answering "no" 
not? If nothing else it effects your life by the mere absence of the effects 
that saying "yes" has. 


 There is a difference between assuming (believing) that god does _not_
 exist and act based on that vs. _not_ assuming anything about this
 question (since as stated before it's not relevant) in the first
 place.


How do these differ? How would a person who ascribes to one act different 
than one who ascribes to the other?



 Jun 05 2008



  parent reply Yigal Chripun <yigal100 gmail.com>  writes:


BCS wrote:

 Reply to Yigal,
 

 BCS wrote:


 I claim that the question of the existence of god is relevant in
 every life. The atheist says "I think there is no god" and acts on
 that assumption. The theist does the reverse. Neither has proof yet
 both act (because you can't /not/ act). Therefor both act on faith
 (belief without proof). I don't see any functional difference
 regarding faith.


 your claim proves my point. As a theist person you assume that "the
 question of the existence of god is relevant in every life.".
 As an atheist I can tell you that it is not.


 
 How can answering "yes" to a question effect your life and answering
 "no" not? If nothing else it effects your life by the mere absence of
 the effects that saying "yes" has.

 There is a difference between assuming (believing) that god does _not_
 exist and act based on that vs. _not_ assuming anything about this
 question (since as stated before it's not relevant) in the first
 place.


 
 How do these differ? How would a person who ascribes to one act
 different than one who ascribes to the other?
 
 


let's look again at my metaphor. What is the meaning of the concept of
color to a person who's blind from birth?
would you agree that it's completely different situation from a person
that sees colors but chooses intentionally to ignore them? The result
may be almost the same even identical in extreme cases, but from that
person's perspective it's completely different since for the blind
person the concept of color doesn't have any meaning what so ever.
My example is a negative one and does not fully translate to the god
question, since the existence of colors is a known physical fact whereas
god's existence is a claim that cannot [by definition] be proven.
but if you only look at this from that blind person's perspective and
try to understand that the word "color" simply doesn't have any meaning
for him, you'll see that he lives in a world where the concept itself,
the definition of that particular word "color" simply does not exist.
this IS the very important difference between the two.

let look at this in a particular situation:
the blind man wants to put on a shirt. how does the color or lack
thereof affects his actions? it does not, again, the concept of color
does not exist in his world.
compare it with a seeing person who believes that colors do not exist
[maybe he thinks they are just an illusion - a manifestation of
something else]. When the seeing person chooses to put a shirt, does the
color affect his choice? of course it does, even if he deliberately
chooses to ignore it.
now, think of a universe without color, a universe where the blind
person's world view is the "correct" one.

if I would ask you to explain what god is, what the definition of that
word in your vocabulary, I'd get no doubt your (Christian) definition,
and if you were to ask me the same question, as a Jewish person I could
give you a very different (Jewish) definition of the concept. and the
definitions are different. in the atheist's case, this word does not
exist at all, so there simple is no definition. this is fundamentally
different form saying the god does not exist based on some "atheist"
definition of the concept.
I claim not the "god" as you define it does not exist, I claim the I do
not have any definition to this concept and this concept in fact does
not exist for me at all.

the math equivalent is to say that an empty set [of words] is _NOT_ the
same as a set that contains only the empty word.

--Yigal



 Jun 05 2008



  parent reply BCS <ao pathlink.com>  writes:


****** read the bit at the end first *****

Reply to Yigal,


 BCS wrote:
 

 Reply to Yigal,
 

 There is a difference between assuming (believing) that god does
 _not_ exist and act based on that vs. _not_ assuming anything about
 this question (since as stated before it's not relevant) in the
 first place.
 


 How do these differ? How would a person who ascribes to one act
 different than one who ascribes to the other?
 


 let's look again at my metaphor. What is the meaning of the concept of
 color to a person who's blind from birth?
 would you agree that it's completely different situation from a person
 that sees colors but chooses intentionally to ignore them?


That isn't parallel. The only term I can think of for a person that sees 
evidence of a god and chooses to ignore it is "stupid". Not believing in 
god (in the negative or the apathetic way) because you don't see evidence 
is different.

Also the metaphor doesn't work because the first person that can't see evidence 
but has been told it exists and the other does see evidence and chooses to 
discount it. Neither match either of the cases being debated.



 When the seeing person chooses to put a shirt, does the
 color affect his choice? of course it does, even if he deliberately
 chooses to ignore it.


If it affects his choice, he didn't ignore it.
If he ignores it, it didn't affect his choice.

Either that or you and I are talking about a different ignore.



 if I would ask you to explain what god is, what the definition of that
 word in your vocabulary, I'd get no doubt your (Christian) definition,
 and if you were to ask me the same question, as a Jewish person I
 could give you a very different (Jewish) definition of the concept. 
 and the definitions are different. in the atheist's case, this word 
 does not exist at all, so there simple is no definition.


That is like saying because someone does not belive in "the highest prime 
number" the phrase "the highest prime number" does not exits. English (and 
I suspect most natural languages) are more than capable of describing concepts 
that can't exist, let along concepts that many people think /do/ exist.


 this is fundamentally different form saying the god does not exist 
 based on some "atheist" definition of the concept. I claim not the 
 "god" as you define it does not exist,


----

 I claim the I do not have  any definition to this concept and this 
 concept in fact does not exist for me at all.


----

And there in lies the crux of the debate. I do not belive that is possible. 
I belive that if a concept exists for me, then the /concept/ exists for you 
(and the reverse). You may well believe that it is false or flawed, or not 
even understand it, but the idea still exists. I can comprehend a world view 
where anything not seen by an observer does not even exist, but I think it 
to be a false world view. Never the less, the concept of it still exist for 
me, you and everyone, and the /concept/ would exist even if I couldn't
understand 
it.

That is my world view. If you have a bone to pick with that, then I shall 
agree to disagree.



 Jun 05 2008



  parent reply Yigal Chripun <yigal100 gmail.com>  writes:


BCS wrote:

 
 ****** read the bit at the end first *****
 
 Reply to Yigal,
 

 BCS wrote:


 Reply to Yigal,


 There is a difference between assuming (believing) that god does
 _not_ exist and act based on that vs. _not_ assuming anything about
 this question (since as stated before it's not relevant) in the
 first place.


 How do these differ? How would a person who ascribes to one act
 different than one who ascribes to the other?


 let's look again at my metaphor. What is the meaning of the concept of
 color to a person who's blind from birth?
 would you agree that it's completely different situation from a person
 that sees colors but chooses intentionally to ignore them?


 
 That isn't parallel. The only term I can think of for a person that sees
 evidence of a god and chooses to ignore it is "stupid". Not believing in
 god (in the negative or the apathetic way) because you don't see
 evidence is different.
 
 Also the metaphor doesn't work because the first person that can't see
 evidence but has been told it exists and the other does see evidence and
 chooses to discount it. Neither match either of the cases being debated.
 
 

 When the seeing person chooses to put a shirt, does the
 color affect his choice? of course it does, even if he deliberately
 chooses to ignore it.


 
 If it affects his choice, he didn't ignore it.
 If he ignores it, it didn't affect his choice.
 
 Either that or you and I are talking about a different ignore.
 
 

 if I would ask you to explain what god is, what the definition of that
 word in your vocabulary, I'd get no doubt your (Christian) definition,
 and if you were to ask me the same question, as a Jewish person I
 could give you a very different (Jewish) definition of the concept.
 and the definitions are different. in the atheist's case, this word
 does not exist at all, so there simple is no definition.


 
 That is like saying because someone does not belive in "the highest
 prime number" the phrase "the highest prime number" does not exits.
 English (and I suspect most natural languages) are more than capable of
 describing concepts that can't exist, let along concepts that many
 people think /do/ exist.
 

 this is fundamentally different form saying the god does not exist
 based on some "atheist" definition of the concept. I claim not the
 "god" as you define it does not exist,


 
 ----

 I claim the I do not have  any definition to this concept and this
 concept in fact does not exist for me at all.


 ----
 
 And there in lies the crux of the debate. I do not belive that is
 possible. I belive that if a concept exists for me, then the /concept/
 exists for you (and the reverse). You may well believe that it is false
 or flawed, or not even understand it, but the idea still exists. I can
 comprehend a world view where anything not seen by an observer does not
 even exist, but I think it to be a false world view. Never the less, the
 concept of it still exist for me, you and everyone, and the /concept/
 would exist even if I couldn't understand it.
 
 That is my world view. If you have a bone to pick with that, then I
 shall agree to disagree.
 
 


OK, forget that metaphor.
all I'm trying to say is that a world view is something subjective.
Lets borrow from relativity. we now know that speed/velocity depends on
the viewer. if I'm sitting in a moving car, my relative speed is zero
while for an outside observer my speed is the speed of the car.
I think of world views in the same way. we have some basic "atoms" -
assumptions we base our world view upon and those assumptions are
relative since our world view is subjective.
And indeed here lies the crux.

You believe that concepts such as god are absolute while I do not. What
is a concept anyway? what is a "dog"? a dog is what we define it to be.
let's return to the colors for a sec.
if you show an object to a person and ask him what color it is, would
you say that the definition of colors is universal and that all humans
would give you the same answer? in reality, the definition of colors is
relative to culture. what western cultures define as pink would be
defined as purple by a Chinese person (or maybe it's the other way
around, I don't remember the exact details of that study).
even a simple concept like the color pink is not a universal absolute
concept and varies between cultures. the only way you have to define a
color objectively without those cultural influences is to use the
scientific definition using the wavelength of light for that color.
such a scientific definition obviously does not exist for "god".

Note that I'm not trying to convert you to my world view here, but only
explain my POV on the subject. you can continue to believe that god is
an absolute and universal concept agreed upon by all humanity (that's
the Christian world view). All I'm saying to you is that my concept of
god (based on my cultural origins) is different. you can take it or
leave it. your choice.

--Yigal

PS - you should read about the Sapir conjecture in wikipedia to see how
culture and language influence the way we think.



 Jun 06 2008



 next sibling parent reply BCS <ao pathlink.com>  writes:


Reply to Yigal,


 And indeed here lies the crux.
 You believe that concepts such as god are absolute while I do not.


Ok based on that I will no longer debate the point. I'm not brushing you 
off or giving up because I think "you are crazy" (because I don't) or something 
like that. We have just reduced the conversation to a legitimate philosophical 
difference. While I still think you are wrong, I see where you are coming 
from and see nothing to be gained by continuing.

Only a handful of Times have I been able to pursue a debate to this kind 
of resolution. Generally, the crux comes out to be something wars have been 
fought over (the other cases that comes to mind devolved to communism vs. 
capitalism)


 you can continue to believe that
 god is an absolute and universal concept agreed upon by all humanity


Almost. I believe that the /concept/ of god (distinct from the reality it 
describes) should be something everyone can agree on. The actual existence 
of the described reality is something I belive in but /don't/ think is
inarguable.


 (that's the Christian world view). All I'm saying to you is that my
 concept of god (based on my cultural origins) is different.



 you can
 take it or leave it. your choice.


lets leave it.


 
 --Yigal
 
 PS - you should read about the Sapir conjecture in wikipedia to see
 how culture and language influence the way we think.
 


dropping "Sapir conjecture" into Google put this post above wikipidia !!!

errr... actually wikipidia doesn't even seem to have anything on it. Link?



 Jun 06 2008



  parent reply Yigal Chripun <yigal100 gmail.com>  writes:


BCS wrote:

 Reply to Yigal,
 

 And indeed here lies the crux.
 You believe that concepts such as god are absolute while I do not.


 
 Ok based on that I will no longer debate the point. I'm not brushing you
 off or giving up because I think "you are crazy" (because I don't) or
 something like that. We have just reduced the conversation to a
 legitimate philosophical difference. While I still think you are wrong,
 I see where you are coming from and see nothing to be gained by continuing.
 
 Only a handful of Times have I been able to pursue a debate to this kind
 of resolution. Generally, the crux comes out to be something wars have
 been fought over (the other cases that comes to mind devolved to
 communism vs. capitalism)
 

 you can continue to believe that
 god is an absolute and universal concept agreed upon by all humanity


 
 Almost. I believe that the /concept/ of god (distinct from the reality
 it describes) should be something everyone can agree on. The actual
 existence of the described reality is something I belive in but /don't/
 think is inarguable.
 

 (that's the Christian world view). All I'm saying to you is that my
 concept of god (based on my cultural origins) is different.


 

 you can
 take it or leave it. your choice.


 
 lets leave it.
 

 --Yigal

 PS - you should read about the Sapir conjecture in wikipedia to see
 how culture and language influence the way we think.


 
 dropping "Sapir conjecture" into Google put this post above wikipidia !!!
 
 errr... actually wikipidia doesn't even seem to have anything on it. Link?
 
 


So we agree to disagree. As you said, I still think you are wrong, and
while as you say the /concept/ of god should be something everyone can
agree on, in reality this just isn't so. our own debate here is proof.
and I think that not only there are different views based on culture but
even two individuals within the same cultural framework would have
slightly different views of what that concept means.

the link is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapir-Whorf_Hypothesis

English related question: are "conjecture" and "Hypothesis" synonyms?

--Yigal



 Jun 06 2008



  parent reply BCS <ao pathlink.com>  writes:


Reply to Yigal,


 So we agree to disagree. As you said, I still think you are wrong, and
 while as you say the /concept/ of god should be something everyone can
 agree on, in reality this just isn't so. our own debate here is proof.


I think people should be actual be able to agree on what mutually contradictory 
concepts are. For example, we can agree on what your concept of god is and 
also agree on what my concept of god is. That is not to say that we should 
agree that bot are valid, but only what each would entail and /that they 
exist/.

I saying that, I noticed that I was forced to use the phrasing like "what 
a concept IS"; that 'is' may make an important difference but until now I 
was mentally omitting it. If that changes your understanding of my view, 
it might be interesting to revisit some of the past points.


 and I think that not only there are different views based on culture
 but even two individuals within the same cultural framework would have
 slightly different views of what that concept means.
 
 the link is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapir-Whorf_Hypothesis


neat! I had no idea that that concept has a formalization. I have run into 
it in a number of different forms. Actually I have played around with (as 
part of a fiction) a somewhat reverse idea that by examining the language 
of a group you can deduce some facts about them. The example that I was playing 
with involved the assumption that humans have telepathy based on the fact 
that we have a word for it.


 
 English related question: are "conjecture" and "Hypothesis" synonyms?
 


No, a "conjecture" is generally thought to be true (or probable) but a
"hypothesis" 
is just an idea to be tested. It kind of a flavor thing more than a hard 
distinction.


 --Yigal
 





 Jun 06 2008



 next sibling parent reply Yigal Chripun <yigal100 gmail.com>  writes:


BCS wrote:

 Reply to Yigal,
 

 So we agree to disagree. As you said, I still think you are wrong, and
 while as you say the /concept/ of god should be something everyone can
 agree on, in reality this just isn't so. our own debate here is proof.


 
 I think people should be actual be able to agree on what mutually
 contradictory concepts are. For example, we can agree on what your
 concept of god is and also agree on what my concept of god is. That is
 not to say that we should agree that bot are valid, but only what each
 would entail and /that they exist/.


let's hypothetically debate "apples" for a second. how is your sentence
above applies? we now have two different concepts of an apple; let's say
that you define a concept of a blue apple while I define a concept of a
green apple. according to you we don't have to agree that both concepts
of apples are valid (the definitions are contradictory) but you also say
that we should agree on what that concept would entail [so far, I'm with
you on this] I can think of what would it mean to have blue apples. but
than you add we should also agree that they exist. Now I lost you.
certainly apples cannot be blue and green in the same time (unless you
provide a /new/ definition of a blue-and-green colored apple). do you
mean that we should agree that both /concepts/ of blue apples and green
apples exist? if you only mean that, than sure, you can define such a
concept and since you just defined it, that /definition/ exists.
if you mean that I should also accept the existence of blue apples since
you defined them, well, that's not possible since I just defined apples
to be green!

one last example - Americans define temperature in terms of Fahrenheit
while the rest of the world uses Celsius. I agree that the other
American /definition/ exists but my world view is based on my definition
of Celsius. I know that below 20 degrees I start to feel cold, I know
that when I'm healthy my body would measure 36.6-37 degrees. I know that
above 40 degrees of body heat I can die. etc.. if the other definition
would be defined differently or not at all, this would not affect me
since I /think/ in Celsius. in the same way, my world view is not
affected by your definition of god since your definition simply does not
apply to me.


 
 I saying that, I noticed that I was forced to use the phrasing like
 "what a concept IS"; that 'is' may make an important difference but
 until now I was mentally omitting it. If that changes your understanding
 of my view, it might be interesting to revisit some of the past points.


well, as I previously stated, I personally do not have a distinct
definition of the concept since my world view does not require it.
My nation does however define that concept, but even the bible does not
provide one absolute definition and there are different views of what
god is in different streams of Judaism, based on interpretations of the
bible. those definitions are not mutually exclusive but rather entwined
together. I can't debate these subtleties since I'm an atheist and not a
Rabbi But I'm sure google will help find the info.

you now accept the fact that the definition of a concept may vary. If
you'd further accept that I can have a void definition of the concept
(i.e. I choose not to define/use the concept at all) than you'll be able
to understand my world view, if you wish. I'm glad that you are now
aware of that mental omission.

Your world view does not change for me. you have some definition of
"god" (most likely a Christian one, which even if I was a theist as a
Jewish person I'd disagree on the definition) which you choose to
believe in since by your definition itself god is outside logic and
cannot be proved to exist or proved to not exist. (that's the whole
point of faith)


 

 and I think that not only there are different views based on culture
 but even two individuals within the same cultural framework would have
 slightly different views of what that concept means.

 the link is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapir-Whorf_Hypothesis


 
 neat! I had no idea that that concept has a formalization. I have run
 into it in a number of different forms. Actually I have played around
 with (as part of a fiction) a somewhat reverse idea that by examining
 the language of a group you can deduce some facts about them. The
 example that I was playing with involved the assumption that humans have
 telepathy based on the fact that we have a word for it.
 

 English related question: are "conjecture" and "Hypothesis" synonyms?


 
 No, a "conjecture" is generally thought to be true (or probable) but a
 "hypothesis" is just an idea to be tested. It kind of a flavor thing
 more than a hard distinction.
 

 --Yigal




regarding the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, it is called a "Hypothesis" by the
linguists that do not want to accept this since it was until recently a
very controversial concept. In reality it really is a conjecture since
there is experimental evidence that supports it.
Also the links in the bottom of the wikipedia article are very
interesting. But I'm sure you will probably read them anyway if you
haven't already since it seems it interests you as much as it interests me.

--Yigal



 Jun 07 2008



  parent reply BCS <ao pathlink.com>  writes:


Reply to Yigal,


 BCS wrote:
 

 I think people should be actual be able to agree on what mutually
 contradictory concepts are. For example, we can agree on what your
 concept of god is and also agree on what my concept of god is. That
 is not to say that we should agree that bot are valid, but only what
 each would entail and /that they exist/.
 


 let's hypothetically debate "apples" for a second. how is your
 sentence above applies? we now have two different concepts 
 of an apple; let's say thatyou define a concept of a blue apple
 while I define a concept of a green apple. according to you we
 don't have to agree that both concepts of apples are valid (the
 definitions are contradictory) but you also say that we should
 agree on what that concept would entail [so far, I'm with you
 on this] I can think of what would it mean to have blue apples.
 but than you add we should also agree that they exist.


strictly, yes, but not in they way you intended (I may have been unclear 
on that bit). I said that we should agree that they, the concepts, exist. 
The reality of green apples don't actual need to exist for the concept (the 
idea) to exist. And that is /all/ I clamed


 one last example - Americans define temperature in terms of Fahrenheit
 while the rest of the world uses Celsius. I agree that the other
 American /definition/ exists but my world view is based on my
 definition of Celsius. I know that below 20 degrees I start to feel
 cold, I know that when I'm healthy my body would measure 36.6-37
 degrees. I know that above 40 degrees of body heat I can die. etc.. if
 the other definition would be defined differently or not at all, this
 would not affect me since I /think/ in Celsius. in the same way, my
 world view is not affected by your definition of god since your
 definition simply does not apply to me.


That is not aplicable because the two scales are exactly corilated and are 
in fact redundent. The only way people will act differnt based on that
difference 
in world view is the number they say. 


 Also the links in the bottom of the wikipedia article are very
 interesting. But I'm sure you will probably read them anyway if you
 haven't already since it seems it interests you as much as it
 interests me.


If I sat down a wikipidia and looked as 10% of the stuff that interested 
me, I'd die of old age before I ran out. Yes, it's interesting, but no I 
don't have time to read it. :(


A side note: where did you learn your English? (as a first language, grade 
school, etc.) It is very good, but seems to be used ever so slightly
differently 
than I use it. 



 Jun 07 2008



  parent reply Yigal Chripun <yigal100 gmail.com>  writes:


BCS wrote:

 Reply to Yigal,
 

 BCS wrote:


 I think people should be actual be able to agree on what mutually
 contradictory concepts are. For example, we can agree on what your
 concept of god is and also agree on what my concept of god is. That
 is not to say that we should agree that bot are valid, but only what
 each would entail and /that they exist/.


 let's hypothetically debate "apples" for a second. how is your
 sentence above applies? we now have two different concepts of an
 apple; let's say thatyou define a concept of a blue apple
 while I define a concept of a green apple. according to you we
 don't have to agree that both concepts of apples are valid (the
 definitions are contradictory) but you also say that we should
 agree on what that concept would entail [so far, I'm with you
 on this] I can think of what would it mean to have blue apples.
 but than you add we should also agree that they exist.


 
 strictly, yes, but not in they way you intended (I may have been unclear
 on that bit). I said that we should agree that they, the concepts,
 exist. The reality of green apples don't actual need to exist for the
 concept (the idea) to exist. And that is /all/ I clamed
 


OK, that is what I hoped to read. <g>


 one last example - Americans define temperature in terms of Fahrenheit
 while the rest of the world uses Celsius. I agree that the other
 American /definition/ exists but my world view is based on my
 definition of Celsius. I know that below 20 degrees I start to feel
 cold, I know that when I'm healthy my body would measure 36.6-37
 degrees. I know that above 40 degrees of body heat I can die. etc.. if
 the other definition would be defined differently or not at all, this
 would not affect me since I /think/ in Celsius. in the same way, my
 world view is not affected by your definition of god since your
 definition simply does not apply to me.


 
 That is not aplicable because the two scales are exactly corilated and
 are in fact redundent. The only way people will act differnt based on
 that difference in world view is the number they say.

 Also the links in the bottom of the wikipedia article are very
 interesting. But I'm sure you will probably read them anyway if you
 haven't already since it seems it interests you as much as it
 interests me.




that was just an example meant to illustrate that you don't have to use
a concept even if it is defined elsewhere.
in the same way I can compare the Jewish, Christian and Islamic concepts
of god and claim that they are redundant. there are differences of
course like the word used and other more more subtle differences, but
they are not foreign concepts and rather borrow from each other's
definitions.

 
 If I sat down a wikipidia and looked as 10% of the stuff that interested
 me, I'd die of old age before I ran out. Yes, it's interesting, but no I
 don't have time to read it. :(
 
 
 A side note: where did you learn your English? (as a first language,
 grade school, etc.) It is very good, but seems to be used ever so
 slightly differently than I use it.
 


Thanks :) I learned here in Israel. English is taught as a required
second language in Israel since we are a small country and that allows
us to communicate with other nations.
I doubt any foreigner that wants to do business here will learn Hebrew,
therefore Knowing English is a required skill.
the slight difference is probably due to different cultural thought
patterns (I think in Hebrew...), maybe I'm yet another prove to the
Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis <G>

--Yigal



 Jun 07 2008



  parent reply BCS <ao pathlink.com>  writes:


Reply to Yigal,


 Thanks :) I learned here in Israel. English is taught as a required
 second language in Israel since we are a small country and that allows
 us to communicate with other nations.
 I doubt any foreigner that wants to do business here will learn
 Hebrew,
 therefore Knowing English is a required skill.
 the slight difference is probably due to different cultural thought
 patterns (I think in Hebrew...), maybe I'm yet another prove to the
 Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis <G>


Cool. In one way that might give you an advantage over many people; when 
you converse in English you are forced to construct a concept in both
languages. 
To do that I suspect that you will need to consider it more carefully than 
many people do. I'm about to run into a similar situation; I am going to 
be writing a program where it must be implemented in 2 different languages. 
As a result I will need to be more aware of what is actually happening than 
I otherwise would.



 Jun 07 2008



 next sibling parent reply "Simen Kjaeraas" <simen.kjaras gmail.com>  writes:


On Sat, 07 Jun 2008 23:40:15 +0200, BCS <ao pathlink.com> wrote:


 Reply to Yigal,


 Thanks :) I learned here in Israel. English is taught as a required
 second language in Israel since we are a small country and that allows
 us to communicate with other nations.
 I doubt any foreigner that wants to do business here will learn
 Hebrew,
 therefore Knowing English is a required skill.
 the slight difference is probably due to different cultural thought
 patterns (I think in Hebrew...), maybe I'm yet another prove to the
 Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis <G>


 Cool. In one way that might give you an advantage over many people; when  
 you converse in English you are forced to construct a concept in both  
 languages. To do that I suspect that you will need to consider it more  
 carefully than many people do.



I'm from Norway, and I speak a lot of english with my friends, as most
programming books, articles, and whatnot we read, are in english, and
there's little reason (except to exercise my language muscles) to
translate when we all speak english pretty well. This use of english,
and the fact 90% of what I read is in english (books, articles on the
web, text in games, etc), has lead to english being a language I can
think in. No translation to/from norwegian, no need to construct
concepts in both languages, it's just there. The same thing goes for
programming languages, I think. "Real programmers write FORTRAN in
any language" accurately describes what happens when you don't know
how to program effectively in a new language.


 I'm about to run into a similar situation; I am going to be writing a  
 program where it must be implemented in 2 different languages. As a  
 result I will need to be more aware of what is actually happening than I  
 otherwise would.


I've been doing something similar with assignments at school. We have a
C++ beginner's course, and I've already taken a similar one elsewhere.
So, I first write the assignment in C++, to satisfy my teacher. Then I
translate it to assembly, python, D, or whatever other language I feel
like at the moment. I think it's a good way to increase your knowledge
of other languages, and really, it shouldn't take much more time.

-- Simen



 Jun 08 2008



 next sibling parent  Yigal Chripun <yigal100 gmail.com>  writes:


Simen Kjaeraas wrote:

 On Sat, 07 Jun 2008 23:40:15 +0200, BCS <ao pathlink.com> wrote:
 

 Reply to Yigal,


 Thanks :) I learned here in Israel. English is taught as a required
 second language in Israel since we are a small country and that allows
 us to communicate with other nations.
 I doubt any foreigner that wants to do business here will learn
 Hebrew,
 therefore Knowing English is a required skill.
 the slight difference is probably due to different cultural thought
 patterns (I think in Hebrew...), maybe I'm yet another prove to the
 Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis <G>


 Cool. In one way that might give you an advantage over many people;
 when you converse in English you are forced to construct a concept in
 both languages. To do that I suspect that you will need to consider it
 more carefully than many people do.


 
 
 I'm from Norway, and I speak a lot of english with my friends, as most
 programming books, articles, and whatnot we read, are in english, and
 there's little reason (except to exercise my language muscles) to
 translate when we all speak english pretty well. This use of english,
 and the fact 90% of what I read is in english (books, articles on the
 web, text in games, etc), has lead to english being a language I can
 think in. No translation to/from norwegian, no need to construct
 concepts in both languages, it's just there. The same thing goes for
 programming languages, I think. "Real programmers write FORTRAN in
 any language" accurately describes what happens when you don't know
 how to program effectively in a new language.


That may be true for you but this is not the case for many or even most
people. A few facts you need to factor in:
Norwegian is much closer to English than Hebrew in terms of languages
and another important fact is that humans tend to think with metaphors
and those are very much relative to culture and indeed your culture
itself is closer in terms of metaphors and thought patterns to English
than mine. A very good example where we can see such differences is all
the Chinese signs you see posted online where they tried to translate to
English (for the coming Olympics in Beijing) and got funny results like:
"Slip carefully" and such. equating it to Formal [context-free]
programming languages is simply wrong because their formality removes
all those complexities of natural languages.
Try to think how much harder it is for a Japanese person to /think/ in
English vs. a French or a German person. the difference is not only the
language but more importantly is the cultural concepts and metaphors
which differ significantly.

 

 I'm about to run into a similar situation; I am going to be writing a
 program where it must be implemented in 2 different languages. As a
 result I will need to be more aware of what is actually happening than
 I otherwise would.


 
 I've been doing something similar with assignments at school. We have a
 C++ beginner's course, and I've already taken a similar one elsewhere.
 So, I first write the assignment in C++, to satisfy my teacher. Then I
 translate it to assembly, python, D, or whatever other language I feel
 like at the moment. I think it's a good way to increase your knowledge
 of other languages, and really, it shouldn't take much more time.
 
 -- Simen





 Jun 08 2008



prev sibling next sibling parent reply BCS <ao pathlink.com>  writes:


Reply to Simen,


 On Sat, 07 Jun 2008 23:40:15 +0200, BCS <ao pathlink.com> wrote:
 

 Cool. In one way that might give you an advantage over many people;
 when  you converse in English you are forced to construct a concept
 in both  languages. To do that I suspect that you will need to
 consider it more  carefully than many people do.
 


 I'm from Norway, and I speak a lot of english with my friends, as most
 programming books, articles, and whatnot we read, are in english, and
 there's little reason (except to exercise my language muscles) to
 translate when we all speak english pretty well. This use of english,
 and the fact 90% of what I read is in english (books, articles on the
 web, text in games, etc), has lead to english being a language I can
 think in. No translation to/from norwegian, no need to construct
 concepts in both languages, it's just there. The same thing goes for
 programming languages, I think. "Real programmers write FORTRAN in
 any language" accurately describes what happens when you don't know
 how to program effectively in a new language.


Interesting. Have you ever tried using that ability (to think an several 
languages) while solving problems? "I'm stuck, lets switch to another language 
and see if anything happens". I known for instance that the Navaho (it might 
be some other tribe's) language is well suited for talking about relativity 
(or some other type of physics)

p.s. I'd do research on this but it's so far down my list of things to do... 
<G>



 Jun 08 2008



  parent  Georg Wrede <georg nospam.org>  writes:


BCS wrote:

 Reply to Simen,

 On Sat, 07 Jun 2008 23:40:15 +0200, BCS <ao pathlink.com> wrote:


 Cool. In one way that might give you an advantage over many people;
 when  you converse in English you are forced to construct a concept
 in both  languages. To do that I suspect that you will need to
 consider it more  carefully than many people do.


 I'm from Norway, and I speak a lot of english with my friends, as most
 programming books, articles, and whatnot we read, are in english, and
 there's little reason (except to exercise my language muscles) to
 translate when we all speak english pretty well. This use of english,
 and the fact 90% of what I read is in english (books, articles on the
 web, text in games, etc), has lead to english being a language I can
 think in. No translation to/from norwegian, no need to construct
 concepts in both languages, it's just there. The same thing goes for
 programming languages, I think. "Real programmers write FORTRAN in
 any language" accurately describes what happens when you don't know
 how to program effectively in a new language.


 
 Interesting. Have you ever tried using that ability (to think an several 
 languages) while solving problems? "I'm stuck, lets switch to another 
 language and see if anything happens". I known for instance that the 
 Navaho (it might be some other tribe's) language is well suited for 
 talking about relativity (or some other type of physics)


When I'm with friends who all can speak Finnish, Swedish and English, it 
is pretty common to switch languages temporarily to express something 
that is cumbersome in the current language. But I must stress, it is 
considered sloppy, unless one is tired or drunk. :P

When I get stuck writing something, it sometimes helps to try to 
formulate the phrase in several languages. But in general I've begun to 
think that "everyday thinking", like "hmm, I wonder what Peter thinks 
about this", really originates below the level of words and sentences, 
and you become conscious of the thought only after you've formulated it 
and "heard" yourself thinking it. You're already wondering what Peter 
thinks before you can hear your thoughts saying it.

It is quite likely that you'd have thought the same thing even if you'd 
never learnt any language at all. This can be seen with toddlers. Their 
actions are clearly based on thinking (sometimes even quite advanced 
thinking, if you observe carefully), before they have a language to 
formulate it in.

Then again some kinds of thinking simply cannot be done without a 
language. Non-trivial problems relating to math, for example, can't be 
tackled at all without the "language of mathematics". And inventing 
algorithms needs a notation, a language. It may not necessarily be any 
specific or existing language, but you at least create an on-the-fly 
language. So, in general, whenever you need a pencil and paper, there is 
some kind of language involved. It may not always be a grammatical 
language, it can be pictorial, conceptual, or even something else.



 Jun 10 2008



prev sibling  parent reply Georg Wrede <georg nospam.org>  writes:


Simen Kjaeraas wrote:

 On Sat, 07 Jun 2008 23:40:15 +0200, BCS <ao pathlink.com> wrote:

 Reply to Yigal,


 Thanks :) I learned here in Israel. English is taught as a required
 second language in Israel since we are a small country and that allows
 us to communicate with other nations.
 I doubt any foreigner that wants to do business here will learn
 Hebrew,
 therefore Knowing English is a required skill.
 the slight difference is probably due to different cultural thought
 patterns (I think in Hebrew...), maybe I'm yet another prove to the
 Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis <G>


 Cool. In one way that might give you an advantage over many people; 
 when  you converse in English you are forced to construct a concept in 
 both  languages. To do that I suspect that you will need to consider 
 it more  carefully than many people do.


 
 I'm from Norway, and I speak a lot of english with my friends, as most
 programming books, articles, and whatnot we read, are in english, and
 there's little reason (except to exercise my language muscles) to
 translate when we all speak english pretty well. This use of english,
 and the fact 90% of what I read is in english (books, articles on the
 web, text in games, etc), has lead to english being a language I can
 think in. No translation to/from norwegian, no need to construct
 concepts in both languages, it's just there. The same thing goes for
 programming languages, I think. "Real programmers write FORTRAN in
 any language" accurately describes what happens when you don't know
 how to program effectively in a new language.


My family belongs to the Swedish speaking minority in Finland, and that 
has given me sort-of two mother tongues. And today most of my reading 
and writing is in English, and I daily speak English with friends and 
others.

I think that a big part of learning another language well is to actually 
start thinking in it, instead of translating before you say or write. I 
knew classmates who didn't try to turn their entire brain into the other 
language, and today none of them speak other languages too well.

A D programmer whose "mother tongue" is, say, Java, and who thinks in 
Java and then translates that to D -- well, we can all imagine the 
results. The same goes for human languages.



 Jun 10 2008



  parent reply lurker <lurker lurk.com>  writes:


Georg Wrede Wrote:


 A D programmer whose "mother tongue" is, say, Java, and who thinks in 
 Java and then translates that to D -- well, we can all imagine the 
 results. 


yeah. like, um, 95% of tango. look at their directory primitives. you must
create an object to get information on a directory entry.



 Jun 10 2008



 next sibling parent reply lurker <lurker lurker.com>  writes:


was not me lurker.

lurker Wrote:


 Georg Wrede Wrote:
 

 A D programmer whose "mother tongue" is, say, Java, and who thinks in 
 Java and then translates that to D -- well, we can all imagine the 
 results. 


 
 yeah. like, um, 95% of tango. look at their directory primitives. you must
create an object to get information on a directory entry.





 Jun 10 2008



  parent reply Georg Wrede <georg nospam.org>  writes:


lurker wrote:

 was not me lurker.


Don't want to have a name? You can always use laksjdf or something else, 
less generic.



 Jun 10 2008



  parent reply lurker <lurker lurk.com>  writes:


Georg Wrede Wrote:


 lurker wrote:

 was not me lurker.


 
 Don't want to have a name? You can always use laksjdf or something else, 
 less generic.


good point. "it's not me anonymous it's another anonymous." what a moron.

lurker "yeah that one" at lurk.com

p.s. tango is lame. yet another library brown nosing java. yawn. 



 Jun 10 2008



  parent  Georg Wrede <georg nospam.org>  writes:


lurker wrote:

 Georg Wrede Wrote:
 
 

lurker wrote:


was not me lurker.


Don't want to have a name? You can always use laksjdf or something else, 
less generic.


 
 
 good point. "it's not me anonymous it's another anonymous." what a moron.
 
 lurker "yeah that one" at lurk.com
 
 p.s. tango is lame. yet another library brown nosing java. yawn. 


Uh-oh. Looks like the "lurker" account will soon be blocked by folks here.



 Jun 10 2008



prev sibling  parent reply Sean Kelly <sean invisibleduck.org>  writes:


== Quote from lurker (lurker lurk.com)'s article

 Georg Wrede Wrote:

 A D programmer whose "mother tongue" is, say, Java, and who thinks in
 Java and then translates that to D -- well, we can all imagine the
 results.


 yeah. like, um, 95% of tango. look at their directory primitives. you must
create an object to get


information on a directory entry.

Not any more.  This was changed a few months ago.  And I question the "95%"
claim.  The bulk of Tango doesn't require instantiating objects at all, contrary
to popular belief.


Sean



 Jun 10 2008



 next sibling parent reply Alexander Panek <alexander.panek brainsware.org>  writes:


Sean Kelly wrote:

 == Quote from lurker (lurker lurk.com)'s article

 Georg Wrede Wrote:

 A D programmer whose "mother tongue" is, say, Java, and who thinks in
 Java and then translates that to D -- well, we can all imagine the
 results.


 yeah. like, um, 95% of tango. look at their directory primitives. you must
create an object to get


 information on a directory entry.
 
 Not any more.  This was changed a few months ago.  And I question the "95%"
 claim.  The bulk of Tango doesn't require instantiating objects at all,
contrary
 to popular belief.


Didn't you guys know Tango actually translates D to Java and runs it in 
a VM behind the curtains? Like, totally. The D library is just a facade!



 Jun 10 2008



  parent reply BCS <ao pathlink.com>  writes:


Reply to Alexander,


<joke>


 Didn't you guys know Tango actually translates D to Java and runs it
 in a VM behind the curtains? Like, totally. The D library is just a
 facade!
 


</joke>

<G/>



 Jun 10 2008



 next sibling parent  "Koroskin Denis" <2korden gmail.com>  writes:


On Tue, 10 Jun 2008 22:41:58 +0400, BCS <ao pathlink.com> wrote:


 Reply to Alexander,


 <joke>


 Didn't you guys know Tango actually translates D to Java and runs it
 in a VM behind the curtains? Like, totally. The D library is just a
 facade!


 </joke>

 <G/>


A nice one, I'd admit :)



 Jun 10 2008



prev sibling  parent reply Alexander Panek <alexander.panek brainsware.org>  writes:


BCS wrote:

 Reply to Alexander,
 
 
 <joke>
 

 Didn't you guys know Tango actually translates D to Java and runs it
 in a VM behind the curtains? Like, totally. The D library is just a
 facade!


 
 </joke>
 
 <G/>


Of course. I thought it would be too obvious to mention it. ;)
Besides, a good joke doesn't need indication. :P



 Jun 10 2008



  parent  BCS <ao pathlink.com>  writes:


Reply to Alexander,


 BCS wrote:
 

 Reply to Alexander,
 
 <joke>
 

 Didn't you guys know Tango actually translates D to Java and runs it
 in a VM behind the curtains? Like, totally. The D library is just a
 facade!
 


 </joke>
 
 <G/>
 


 Of course. I thought it would be too obvious to mention it. ;)
 Besides, a good joke doesn't need indication. :P
 


It is not possible to under estimate the dumbest person in a crowd. And with 
a little bad luck, they wont get the joke, and then will blog about it, get 
slash dotted, ...

Also I though it was a good enough joke to comment on.



 Jun 10 2008



prev sibling next sibling parent reply "Koroskin Denis" <2korden gmail.com>  writes:


On Tue, 10 Jun 2008 22:22:40 +0400, Sean Kelly <sean invisibleduck.org>  
wrote:


 == Quote from lurker (lurker lurk.com)'s article

 Georg Wrede Wrote:

 A D programmer whose "mother tongue" is, say, Java, and who thinks in
 Java and then translates that to D -- well, we can all imagine the
 results.


 yeah. like, um, 95% of tango. look at their directory primitives. you  
 must create an object to get


 information on a directory entry.

 Not any more.  This was changed a few months ago.  And I question the  
 "95%"
 claim.  The bulk of Tango doesn't require instantiating objects at all,  
 contrary
 to popular belief.


 Sean


This could be further improved with better struct support in D2!



 Jun 10 2008



  parent  Sean Kelly <sean invisibleduck.org>  writes:


== Quote from Koroskin Denis (2korden gmail.com)'s article

 On Tue, 10 Jun 2008 22:22:40 +0400, Sean Kelly <sean invisibleduck.org>
 wrote:

 == Quote from lurker (lurker lurk.com)'s article

 Georg Wrede Wrote:

 A D programmer whose "mother tongue" is, say, Java, and who thinks in
 Java and then translates that to D -- well, we can all imagine the
 results.


 yeah. like, um, 95% of tango. look at their directory primitives. you
 must create an object to get


 information on a directory entry.

 Not any more.  This was changed a few months ago.  And I question the
 "95%"
 claim.  The bulk of Tango doesn't require instantiating objects at all,
 contrary
 to popular belief.


 This could be further improved with better struct support in D2!


True enough.


Sean



 Jun 10 2008



prev sibling  parent  Georg Wrede <georg nospam.org>  writes:


Sean Kelly wrote:

 == Quote from lurker (lurker lurk.com)'s article
 

Georg Wrede Wrote:


A D programmer whose "mother tongue" is, say, Java, and who thinks in
Java and then translates that to D -- well, we can all imagine the
results.


yeah. like, um, 95% of tango. look at their directory primitives. you must
create an object to get


 
 information on a directory entry.
 
 Not any more.  This was changed a few months ago.  


Hmm. I think I will reexamine Tango this summer. Thanks for the hint.



 Jun 10 2008



prev sibling  parent  "Simen Kjaeraas" <simen.kjaras gmail.com>  writes:


On Sat, 07 Jun 2008 23:40:15 +0200, BCS <ao pathlink.com> wrote:


 Reply to Yigal,


 Thanks :) I learned here in Israel. English is taught as a required
 second language in Israel since we are a small country and that allows
 us to communicate with other nations.
 I doubt any foreigner that wants to do business here will learn
 Hebrew,
 therefore Knowing English is a required skill.
 the slight difference is probably due to different cultural thought
 patterns (I think in Hebrew...), maybe I'm yet another prove to the
 Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis <G>


 Cool. In one way that might give you an advantage over many people; when  
 you converse in English you are forced to construct a concept in both  
 languages. To do that I suspect that you will need to consider it more  
 carefully than many people do.


I'm from Norway, and I speak a lot of english with my friends, as most  
programming books, articles, and whatnot we read, are in english, and  
there's little reason (except to exercise my language muscles) to  
translate when we all speak english pretty well. This use of english, and  
the fact 90% of what I read is in english (books, articles on the web,  
text in games, etc), has lead to english being a language I can think in.  
No translation to/from norwegian, no need to construct concepts in both  
lang



 Jun 08 2008



prev sibling  parent reply Chris Wright <dhasenan gmail.com>  writes:


BCS wrote:

 Reply to Yigal,

 English related question: are "conjecture" and "Hypothesis" synonyms?


 
 No, a "conjecture" is generally thought to be true (or probable) but a 
 "hypothesis" is just an idea to be tested. It kind of a flavor thing 
 more than a hard distinction.


Pedantry: By "generally thought to be true", you mean "most often, the 
speaker believes it to be true", not "most people believe it to be true".



 Jun 07 2008



  parent  BCS <ao pathlink.com>  writes:


Reply to Chris,


 BCS wrote:
 

 Reply to Yigal,
 

 English related question: are "conjecture" and "Hypothesis"
 synonyms?
 


 No, a "conjecture" is generally thought to be true (or probable) but
 a "hypothesis" is just an idea to be tested. It kind of a flavor
 thing more than a hard distinction.
 


 Pedantry: By "generally thought to be true", you mean "most often, the
 speaker believes it to be true", not "most people believe it to be
 true".
 


almost always the first, /often/ the second as well. When only the speaker 
believes it the term 'crackpot theory' is often used. <G>



 Jun 07 2008



prev sibling  parent reply Chris Wright <dhasenan gmail.com>  writes:


Yigal Chripun wrote:

 PS - you should read about the Sapir conjecture in wikipedia to see how
 culture and language influence the way we think.


Sapir-Whorf is not well thought of these days. People invent terms for 
things as necessary, and grammar is generally too primitive to convey 
significant biases. (Which is fine; grammar is supposed to be primitive.)

It's possible that our brains have advanced beyond the capacity of our 
current languages and that they are restricting us somehow, but if so, 
it's almost certainly an issue common to all humans and all languages. 
But given that languages have emerged spontaneously just about every 
time a group of humans got together without an existing language, I'm 
strongly inclined to say that any limitations we experience are due to 
our brains rather than our languages.



 Jun 06 2008



 next sibling parent reply BCS <ao pathlink.com>  writes:


Reply to Chris,


 Yigal Chripun wrote:
 

 PS - you should read about the Sapir conjecture in wikipedia to see
 how culture and language influence the way we think.
 


 Sapir-Whorf is not well thought of these days. People invent terms for
 things as necessary, and grammar is generally too primitive to convey
 significant biases. (Which is fine; grammar is supposed to be
 primitive.)
 
 It's possible that our brains have advanced beyond the capacity of our
 current languages and that they are restricting us somehow, but if so,
 it's almost certainly an issue common to all humans and all languages.
 But given that languages have emerged spontaneously just about every
 time a group of humans got together without an existing language, I'm
 strongly inclined to say that any limitations we experience are due to
 our brains rather than our languages.
 


I didn't read it in detail but the 100,000 foot overview seem to have merit 
to me. I known for instance that languages group concepts differently, in 
English a device for telling time and a device for displaying some mesured 
value are different concepts. In finish IIRC they are the same concept (or 
at least for the kind that are round with rotating hands). I once ran across 
a sign that had a picture of a pistol and said "no guns" and no "luger or 
revolvers" only, the first was in English but last was in Spanish. This leads 
me to assume that there the word pistol doesn't translate exactly into Spanish. 
What language you speak has, I'm sure, an effect on what comes to mind when 
a given word is used.



 Jun 06 2008



  parent  Sean Kelly <sean invisibleduck.org>  writes:


== Quote from BCS (ao pathlink.com)'s article

 Reply to Chris,

 Yigal Chripun wrote:


 PS - you should read about the Sapir conjecture in wikipedia to see
 how culture and language influence the way we think.


 Sapir-Whorf is not well thought of these days. People invent terms for
 things as necessary, and grammar is generally too primitive to convey
 significant biases. (Which is fine; grammar is supposed to be
 primitive.)

 It's possible that our brains have advanced beyond the capacity of our
 current languages and that they are restricting us somehow, but if so,
 it's almost certainly an issue common to all humans and all languages.
 But given that languages have emerged spontaneously just about every
 time a group of humans got together without an existing language, I'm
 strongly inclined to say that any limitations we experience are due to
 our brains rather than our languages.


 I didn't read it in detail but the 100,000 foot overview seem to have merit
 to me. I known for instance that languages group concepts differently, in
 English a device for telling time and a device for displaying some mesured
 value are different concepts. In finish IIRC they are the same concept (or
 at least for the kind that are round with rotating hands). I once ran across
 a sign that had a picture of a pistol and said "no guns" and no "luger or
 revolvers" only, the first was in English but last was in Spanish. This leads
 me to assume that there the word pistol doesn't translate exactly into Spanish.
 What language you speak has, I'm sure, an effect on what comes to mind when
 a given word is used.


Certainly.  But I don't agree that language constrains the ability to conceive
of
something--only to communicate it.  That wiki entry is poorly written anyway.
Who ever suggested that languages can perfectly represent the world?  The
writer obviously needs to learn a bit about Semiotics.


Sean



 Jun 06 2008



prev sibling  parent reply Yigal Chripun <yigal100 gmail.com>  writes:


Chris Wright wrote:

 Yigal Chripun wrote:

 PS - you should read about the Sapir conjecture in wikipedia to see how
 culture and language influence the way we think.


 
 Sapir-Whorf is not well thought of these days. People invent terms for
 things as necessary, and grammar is generally too primitive to convey
 significant biases. (Which is fine; grammar is supposed to be primitive.)
 
 It's possible that our brains have advanced beyond the capacity of our
 current languages and that they are restricting us somehow, but if so,
 it's almost certainly an issue common to all humans and all languages.
 But given that languages have emerged spontaneously just about every
 time a group of humans got together without an existing language, I'm
 strongly inclined to say that any limitations we experience are due to
 our brains rather than our languages.


as I replied to BCS, experimental evidence shows otherwise.
when Columbus wanted to go to India by sailing west it was common
knowledge that he's stupid and that he'll fall of the earth. he was
considered crazy at the time.
What matters is facts and experimental evidence and that shows that
those ideas are not without merit, and nowadays the emphasis in research
is about /how/ this affects cultures and languages rather than trying to
show that the idea is false altogether.

two things:
a) indeed "languages have emerged spontaneously just about every
time a group of humans got together" but those languages /are/
different. compare Chinese with Hebrew.
b) you say: "current languages are restricting us somehow", if that's
true why do you assume that all languages restrict us in the same way?
in fact if they are restricting us in different way than you get the
Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis in some way.



 Jun 07 2008



  parent  Sean Kelly <sean invisibleduck.org>  writes:


== Quote from Yigal Chripun (yigal100 gmail.com)'s article

 Chris Wright wrote:

 Yigal Chripun wrote:

 PS - you should read about the Sapir conjecture in wikipedia to see how
 culture and language influence the way we think.


 Sapir-Whorf is not well thought of these days. People invent terms for
 things as necessary, and grammar is generally too primitive to convey
 significant biases. (Which is fine; grammar is supposed to be primitive.)

 It's possible that our brains have advanced beyond the capacity of our
 current languages and that they are restricting us somehow, but if so,
 it's almost certainly an issue common to all humans and all languages.
 But given that languages have emerged spontaneously just about every
 time a group of humans got together without an existing language, I'm
 strongly inclined to say that any limitations we experience are due to
 our brains rather than our languages.


 as I replied to BCS, experimental evidence shows otherwise.
 when Columbus wanted to go to India by sailing west it was common
 knowledge that he's stupid and that he'll fall of the earth. he was
 considered crazy at the time.


Minor correction.  Everyone knew that the world was round at the time
Columbus proposed to sail around the world.  In fact, Copernicus had
developed his model of the solar system by around this time.  My
history is a bit rusty, but I think the issue was that Columbus
wrongheadedly thought the world was far smaller than it actually is.
Everyone knew he was wrong, and saw no point in funding a mission
domed to failure.  But failure by normal means, not falling off the world
into space.


 What matters is facts and experimental evidence and that shows that
 those ideas are not without merit, and nowadays the emphasis in research
 is about /how/ this affects cultures and languages rather than trying to
 show that the idea is false altogether.
 two things:
 a) indeed "languages have emerged spontaneously just about every
 time a group of humans got together" but those languages /are/
 different. compare Chinese with Hebrew.


From what I've seen, languages have a natural tendency to diverge
rather than converge.  There are instances where neighboring tribes
in isolated regions of the world speak languages that are entirely
dissimilar from one another, which isn't what you'd expect of two
tribes that must have interacted over time or even come from a
common original source.  In fact, I believe that some Native
American tribes used a form of sign language for trading purposes
as a way to get around the language barrier.


Sean



 Jun 07 2008



prev sibling next sibling parent reply Gregor Richards <Richards codu.org>  writes:


Yigal Chripun wrote:

 one last thing, let's consider god from a logical POV:
 god is all powerful => God can create a rock no-one can lift => god
 cannot lift the rock or god cannot create such a rock => contradiction


I hate this argument.

God is all powerful => God can create a rock that he cannot lift => God 
/can/ lift the rock => Not a contradiction because God is exempt from 
logic. Any god which did not create the rules of logic and reason is not 
a god, and any god which did must himself be exempt from them.

  - Gregor Richards



 Jun 03 2008



 next sibling parent  Daniel Giddings <daniel.giddings gmail.com>  writes:


Gregor Richards wrote:

 Yigal Chripun wrote:

 one last thing, let's consider god from a logical POV:
 god is all powerful => God can create a rock no-one can lift => god
 cannot lift the rock or god cannot create such a rock => contradiction


 
 I hate this argument.
 
 God is all powerful => God can create a rock that he cannot lift => God 
 /can/ lift the rock => Not a contradiction because God is exempt from 
 logic. Any god which did not create the rules of logic and reason is not 
 a god, and any god which did must himself be exempt from them.
 
  - Gregor Richards


I think the problem here is how people view "God": their particular 
religious version or a generic concept. These arguments are useful 
because mainstream religions do ascribe characteristics like logic, 
reasoning, anger, and love to their concept of "God". Of course 
mainstream religions are also full of contradictions and ambiguities.

For the general "God" concept, I find it irrelevant because you cannot 
possibly know anything about it one way or another - it's a pointless 
discussion that gets muddied by people that have a particular view of 
what "God" means to them.

I'd rather discuss interesting hypothesis regarding the creation (or 
lack of) of the universe, at least some of these *may* be testable at 
some time in the future.

:-) Dan



 Jun 03 2008



prev sibling next sibling parent reply Manfred Nowak <svv1999 hotmail.com>  writes:


Gregor Richards wrote:


 Any god which did not create the rules of logic and reason is not 
 a god


If there existed a unique structure which was all powerfull, then:

1) How did it preserve its own existence?
How can anyone, including that structure, be sure, that that structure 
has not eliminated itself by purpose or accident?

2) How did it preserve its uniqueness? I.e. what had happened when that 
structure has multiplied itself by purpose or accident and thereby 
created some copies of itself, that are as powerful as itself?
How can anyone, including that structure and its copies, be sure, that 
the original and those copies did not eliminate each other?

The answers to these questions are especially crucial under the 
assumption, that there is no logic under which that structure can 
reason about itself, until it started to eliminate itself, which that 
structure did not recognize, because its powerfulness blocked it from 
realizing the self elimination.

-manfred



 Jun 04 2008



  parent reply Georg Wrede <georg nospam.org>  writes:


Manfred Nowak wrote:

 Gregor Richards wrote:


Apology: In this post I'm just mudding the waters, I'm not actually 
pursuing my own points here.


Any god which did not create the rules of logic and reason is not 
a god


 
 If there existed a unique structure which was all powerfull, then:
 
 1) How did it preserve its own existence?
 How can anyone, including that structure, be sure, that that structure 
 has not eliminated itself by purpose or accident?


Well, if that structure (or whatever) actually did create logic and 
reasoning, then obviously logic and reasoning is something within what 
he created (i.e. our universe). That is, the best we can do is try to 
think and reason logically, but since they are his creation (and 
presumably he created them to sort-of "rule" or be "valid" in this 
universe he created), he himself is beyond their realm.

If I create a world in my kids' sand box and I get to create the rules 
and logic -- that obviously does mean it doesn't apply to me. Suppose I 
define /and/ to be /xor/ and /or/ to be /nand/ and /not/ to be 
/equivalent/. (Or whatever else arbitrary or random setup.) I bet the 
tin soldiers in the sand box would have a hard time figuring out stuff. 
Like should we build a bridge or fence here or there. And they sure 
couldn't do any successful reasoning about me existing or not existing, 
or about my world or life. Not with their crappy "logic"!


So, what I'm saying (I guess), is that assuming or reasoning about a god 
who created logic and reason -- is simply futile.

OTOH, the above statement, of course, is the result of my logical 
thought process, and therefore as futile, too!

OTTH, so is the now-above statement.

(Am I on a wild goose chase here?)   :-)


 2) How did it preserve its uniqueness? I.e. what had happened when that 
 structure has multiplied itself by purpose or accident and thereby 
 created some copies of itself, that are as powerful as itself?
 How can anyone, including that structure and its copies, be sure, that 
 the original and those copies did not eliminate each other?
 
 The answers to these questions are especially crucial under the 
 assumption, that there is no logic under which that structure can 
 reason about itself, until it started to eliminate itself, which that 
 structure did not recognize, because its powerfulness blocked it from 
 realizing the self elimination.
 
 -manfred





 Jun 05 2008



  parent reply Manfred Nowak <svv1999 hotmail.com>  writes:


Georg Wrede wrote:


 Apology: In this post I'm just mudding the waters, I'm not
 actually pursuing my own points here.


That's completely okay.

 

 Well, if that structure (or whatever) actually did create logic
 and reasoning, then obviously logic and reasoning is something
 within what he created (i.e. our universe).


Please note, that the act of creation allows at least me to conclude 
that that structure has some state, which may change; I don't dare to 
write "over time".



 That is, the best we
 can do is try to think and reason logically, but since they are
 his creation (and presumably he created them to sort-of "rule" or
 be "valid" in this universe he created), he himself is beyond
 their realm. 


But only if the structure wants to be beyond their realm. This does 
not exclude that the structure will use its powerfulness to become 
part of the realm it created. Please note, that staying out of some 
realm allows at least me to conclude that there is another part of 
state within that structure. 

 

 And they sure couldn't do any successful reasoning
 about me existing or not existing, or about my world or life. Not
 with their crappy "logic"! 


Therefore they are unable to recognize that you may have faded away.



 So, what I'm saying (I guess), is that assuming or reasoning about
 a god who created logic and reason -- is simply futile.


I see this exception: the created logic may allow for proving the 
existence of its creator.

 

 OTOH, the above statement, of course, is the result of my logical 
 thought process, and therefore as futile, too!
 OTTH, so is the now-above statement.
 (Am I on a wild goose chase here?)   :-)


Try to hide behind the tree over there :-)

-manfred



 Jun 05 2008



  parent  Georg Wrede <georg nospam.org>  writes:


Manfred Nowak wrote:

 Georg Wrede wrote:
 
 

Apology: In this post I'm just mudding the waters, I'm not
actually pursuing my own points here.


 
 That's completely okay.
 
  
 

Well, if that structure (or whatever) actually did create logic
and reasoning, then obviously logic and reasoning is something
within what he created (i.e. our universe).


 
 Please note, that the act of creation allows at least me to conclude 
 that that structure has some state, which may change; I don't dare to 
 write "over time".


Using the logic "he's given you", yes. But "actually" he may not even 
have a state.

And if, like some say, "time itself was created with the big bang" 
(which I personally /believe/ is utter nonsense!), there might be no 
concept of time out there, and therefore things like "change" (which are 
inherently time dependent (i.e. you have one state /before/ and then 
another) also become irrelevant.


That is, the best we
can do is try to think and reason logically, but since they are
his creation (and presumably he created them to sort-of "rule" or
be "valid" in this universe he created), he himself is beyond
their realm. 


 
 But only if the structure wants to be beyond their realm. This does 
 not exclude that the structure will use its powerfulness to become 
 part of the realm it created. Please note, that staying out of some 
 realm allows at least me to conclude that there is another part of 
 state within that structure. 


Well, suppose that (instead of me creating my own logic for the tin 
soldiers) there didn't exist any logic at all outside our world. Then 
reasoning about the structure having a state is useless. That is, it 
does not necessarily /have/ a state, since having a state at all is a 
product of our own logic.


And they sure couldn't do any successful reasoning
about me existing or not existing, or about my world or life. Not
with their crappy "logic"! 


 
 Therefore they are unable to recognize that you may have faded away.


Yes. But if he first created our world and then shot himself in the 
foot, that would really be weird. :-)


So, what I'm saying (I guess), is that assuming or reasoning about
a god who created logic and reason -- is simply futile.


 
 I see this exception: the created logic may allow for proving the 
 existence of its creator.


It may. But it may also be that this creator may not be able to create a 
logic for us that would allow any reasoning about his world.

This might be because he is "all powerful" only within our world (as I'm 
"all powerful" in my sand box) and not in his own.

Or that he didn't have that as a goal when creating the logic.

Heh, or he may even not be smart enough to achieve it!
(I'm not saying he's stupid, the task just may be too hard.)


OTOH, the above statement, of course, is the result of my logical 
thought process, and therefore as futile, too!
OTTH, so is the now-above statement.
(Am I on a wild goose chase here?)   :-)


 
 Try to hide behind the tree over there :-)


It might be like the difference between Newtonian mechanics and Quantum 
mechanics. N works well until you really start to dissect things and Q 
takes over.

Somebody (quotation needed here, anyway it was one of the Quantum 
mechanics gurus) said that "anybody who claims to understand quantum 
mechanics either doesn't understand it, or is plain lying".

That folks now tinker with stuff they definitely don't understand does 
scare me. And even worse is, Q still does seem to work.


Another big thing is the energy of a closed system. Where does the 
energy come from? Is there unlimited energy available outside of our 
world for creating universes and giving them enough energy to "run" for 
billions of years? And what about the total energy in the super-universe 
(where this our creator lives)?

And, where does the energy there come from?

I guess ultimately it may be that some things simply will forever remain 
outside of our reach, philosophically and scientifically. BUT THAT is 
not the same thing as "there is a creator" or god.

The fact that ancient people attributed everything they didn't 
understand to spirits and gods, seems to be inherent in our genes. The 
same goes even for some people living today. Whatever they don't 
understand is "the doings of God" or "proof that God exists". (God, 
Allah, Buddha, whoever, depending on where you were born.)

In our genes yes. But not like its "programmed" there that we have a 
predisposition for believing in [insert your god here]. It's more like 
that our kind of brain is a fairly recent construction, and as a result 
of our brain inherently trying to make sense of the scene we're on, 
assuming even the wrong thing has historically been better than not 
assuming anything.

Like an infant at dusk finds scary faces all over her room, that once 
you turn on the light turn out to be just flowers in the wallpaper. (I 
think most of us either remember this from childhood or has seen our own 
children experience this at bedtime.) This is a result of our brain 
trying to find the face of a lion in the foilage outside our cave at 
nightfall. False positives here are way less damaging than not noticing 
the lion face when it really is there.

Similarly, assuming an intelligence behind everything we don't 
understand, has at least let us try to relate to it. Of course it has 
its downsides, like human sacrifices to the god of weather, and such. 
But obviously that kind of Darwinian pruning has not occurred to an 
extent that would eradicate this property from our newish brain.

In other words, I guess we simply have to accept that we live in a world 
where many people still believe in gods.

Heh, and totally beyond them is the thought that religions (and 
therefore gods, too) themselves are subject to Darwin's laws. That is, 
evolution and selection. Survival of the fittest rules here, too.



 Jun 06 2008



prev sibling  parent reply Georg Wrede <georg nospam.org>  writes:


Gregor Richards wrote:

 Yigal Chripun wrote:
 

 one last thing, let's consider god from a logical POV:
 god is all powerful => God can create a rock no-one can lift => god
 cannot lift the rock or god cannot create such a rock => contradiction


 
 
 I hate this argument.
 
 God is all powerful => God can create a rock that he cannot lift => God 
 /can/ lift the rock => Not a contradiction because God is exempt from 
 logic. Any god which did not create the rules of logic and reason is not 
 a god, and any god which did must himself be exempt from them.
 
  - Gregor Richards


Well put.

(Although I don't believe in god(s), this is well enough put to warrant 
some meditation.)



 Jun 05 2008



 next sibling parent  Don <nospam nospam.com.au>  writes:


Georg Wrede wrote:

 Gregor Richards wrote:

 Yigal Chripun wrote:


 one last thing, let's consider god from a logical POV:
 god is all powerful => God can create a rock no-one can lift => god
 cannot lift the rock or god cannot create such a rock => contradiction



 I hate this argument.

 God is all powerful => God can create a rock that he cannot lift => 
 God /can/ lift the rock => Not a contradiction because God is exempt 
 from logic. Any god which did not create the rules of logic and reason 
 is not a god, and any god which did must himself be exempt from them.

  - Gregor Richards


 
 Well put.
 
 (Although I don't believe in god(s), this is well enough put to warrant 
 some meditation.)
 


I don't you even need to argue that God is outside of logic.
More formally, the argument is:
Let C = maximum weight of rock God can create.
Let L = maximum weight of rock God can lift.

All powerful implies:
1. for all x, C > x.
2. for all y, L > y.
and the contradiction is that if you set x==L, y==C, then 1 and 2 are 
contradictory.
But the problem with that is, that C and L are not real numbers! They 
are limits (infinite).
You get the same apparent contradictions in calculus; the solution was 
to be more careful in dealing with limits.

C/L is a NaN, not a contradiction.



 Jun 06 2008



prev sibling  parent  Yigal Chripun <yigal100 gmail.com>  writes:


Georg Wrede wrote:

 Gregor Richards wrote:

 Yigal Chripun wrote:


 one last thing, let's consider god from a logical POV:
 god is all powerful => God can create a rock no-one can lift => god
 cannot lift the rock or god cannot create such a rock => contradiction



 I hate this argument.

 God is all powerful => God can create a rock that he cannot lift =>
 God /can/ lift the rock => Not a contradiction because God is exempt
 from logic. Any god which did not create the rules of logic and reason
 is not a god, and any god which did must himself be exempt from them.

  - Gregor Richards


 
 Well put.
 
 (Although I don't believe in god(s), this is well enough put to warrant
 some meditation.)
 


Both of you assume that there is one universal definition of the concept
of "god" and therefore my definition must be the same as yours. well,
that's wrong. read my replies to BCS.
I can define what god is in my POV anyway I want, or just not define it
at all and remove it from my vocabulary. Also, The Christian definition
of the concept is indeed very different from a Jewish one. So even if
the above applies to a specific definition, it does not apply to all
definitions.



 Jun 06 2008



prev sibling  parent reply Robert Fraser <fraserofthenight gmail.com>  writes:


Yigal Chripun wrote:

 about statistics:
 a friend showed me a graph online showing an inverse relation between
 the number of pirates and rising temperature due to global warming. his
 conclusion is that to stop global warming we need more pirates at sea.
 I hope we all see how silly this is.


http://www.venganza.org/

Interestingly relevant to this discussion, since it's a lighthearted way 
of saying "there's no way to argue religion that will stand up to much 
scrutiny". That's where faith comes in.



 Jun 03 2008



  parent reply BCS <ao pathlink.com>  writes:


Reply to Robert,


 Yigal Chripun wrote:
 

 about statistics:
 a friend showed me a graph online showing an inverse relation between
 the number of pirates and rising temperature due to global warming.
 his
 conclusion is that to stop global warming we need more pirates at
 sea.
 I hope we all see how silly this is.


 http://www.venganza.org/
 
 Interestingly relevant to this discussion, since it's a lighthearted
 way of saying "there's no way to argue religion that will stand up to
 much scrutiny". That's where faith comes in.
 


It seems that most theology conversations can be summarized as follows:

Side A: I belive X
Side B: I belive not X
Side A: please prove X
Side B: I can't, but prove not X
Side A: I can't

Theology might as well be defined as questions that can't be answered in 
a provable why but who's answers have unavoidable implications.



 Jun 04 2008



 next sibling parent  Russell Lewis <webmaster villagersonline.com>  writes:


BCS wrote:

 It seems that most theology conversations can be summarized as follows:
 
 Side A: I belive X
 Side B: I belive not X
 Side A: please prove X
 Side B: I can't, but prove not X
 Side A: I can't
 
 Theology might as well be defined as questions that can't be answered in 
 a provable why but who's answers have unavoidable implications.


(clap, clap, clap)



 Jun 04 2008



prev sibling  parent reply boyd <gaboonviper gmx.net>  writes:


 On Wed, 04 Jun 2008 20:53:23 +0200, BCS <ao pathlink.com> wrote:
 It seems that most theology conversations can be summarized as follows:

 Side A: I belive X
 Side B: I belive not X
 Side A: please prove X
 Side B: I can't, but prove not X
 Side A: I can't

 Theology might as well be defined as questions that can't be answered in  
 a provable why but who's answers have unavoidable implications.


-------

While you can roughly devide religions into a couple of sides, I think the  
reality is that pretty much everyone has his own personal religion. Some  
worldviews differ only slightly, others a lot. And after every discussion  
such as the one that's going on here, most worldviews of those  
participating will have changed, even if only slightly.

Yes, everyone is trying to convince others that his religion is the true  
one, but it's not a futile act. While I doubt any theist will suddenly  
become atheist, these arguments will most likely influence everyone here  
one way or another just a little bit. This is how those worldviews get  
molded, without discussions like these noone would believe anything at all.


As for me, I've never really believed in god. But I've always kept in mind  
that my belief might not be the truth, so I do sometimes wonder what would  
a god want me to do. Can I trust what's in the Bible, the Torah, the  
Koran, etc... when each is claimed to be the word of god? In the end it  
seems all these books are mostly about moral values; being a good person.  
So, that's what I try to do.

Cheers,
Boyd



 Jun 04 2008



 next sibling parent  BCS <ao pathlink.com>  writes:


Reply to boyd,


 Yes, everyone is trying to convince others that his religion is the
 true  one, but it's not a futile act. While I doubt any theist will
 suddenly  become atheist, these arguments will most likely influence
 everyone here  one way or another just a little bit. This is how those
 worldviews get  molded, without discussions like these noone would
 believe anything at all.


Agreeded!


 
 As for me, I've never really believed in god. But I've always kept in
 mind  that my belief might not be the truth, so I do sometimes wonder
 what would  a god want me to do. Can I trust what's in the Bible, the
 Torah, the  Koran, etc... when each is claimed to be the word of god?
 In the end it  seems all these books are mostly about moral values;
 being a good person.  So, that's what I try to do.


I think the proper answer is to study the options, even try to prove them 
wrong. Some of them will fall before the evidence. Some will prove inconsistent 
with themselves. Some will prove unlivable (if a tree falls in the forest...). 
When that's done I think you will end up with a very small set of options 
and I don't really know how to pick form them. 

In the end I think the only stupid option is to totally ignore the question 
or approach it with a closed mind because that is to simply chouse the default 
without any consideration.


 
 Cheers,
 Boyd





 Jun 04 2008



prev sibling  parent  user domain.invalid  writes:


boyd wrote:

 Side A: I belive X
 Side B: I belive not X
 Side A: please prove X
 Side B: I can't, but prove not X
 Side A: I can't




Well said.


 
 As for me, I've never really believed in god. But I've always kept in 
 mind that my belief might not be the truth, so I do sometimes wonder 
 what would a god want me to do. Can I trust what's in the Bible, the 
 Torah, the Koran, etc... when each is claimed to be the word of god? In 
 the end it seems all these books are mostly about moral values; being a 
 good person. So, that's what I try to do.
 


To do that you do not need any of these religious frameworks, only the 
Golden Rule. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethic_of_reciprocity for 
much more info.

The Golden rule has probably been hardwired into us by evolution. It is 
much like the "tit for tat" strategy (see 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tit_for_tat) and would have been selected 
by eons of trial runs.

Dennis Cote



 Jun 04 2008



prev sibling  parent reply "Bruce Adams" <tortoise_74 yeah.who.co.uk>  writes:


On Mon, 02 Jun 2008 05:23:42 +0100, Me Here <p9e883002 sneakemail.com>  
wrote:


 Gregor Richards wrote:


 BCS wrote:

 Reply to Clay,


 BCS wrote:






 ...

 Now, write a program to modify code randomly and select based on a  
 fitness
 function, and feed it with 100 of this program you just wrote, and  
 you've got
 a genetic algorithm! Give it a few generations, and it'll do something  
 useful.

 :P

  - Gregor Richards


 Circa. 1980. Doing some work for my college professor on a  
 'fully-configured'
 (48K) Apple ][ (kept locked in a cupboard because it ws so expensive!),  
 the
 proffesor came up with the idea that as all 6502 op-codes were 8-bit and  
 there
 were very few adressing modes, filling the (then massive) 48K with legal,
 randomly generated machine code and jumping to the start address, it  
 shouldn't
 take long to recreate VisiCalc, or something more remarkable.

 The program to generate the prgrams tooks less than 4k. It took some  
 effort to
 cause the trapping address to be saved to floppy disk, but we did that.  
 Then
 the next generation could reload the non-trapping code from floppy,  
 append new
 random code to the end, and iterate. That program ran for an entire 8  
 week
 period over summer holidays. Our main fear was that the cleaner we had  
 arranged
 to swap the second (data) floppy on a (week) daily basis would forget,  
 and we
 would miss an amazing program.

 The result: After 8 weeks and 40 floppys, we failed to create a single  
 program
 that ran for more than 2k of machine code before trapping.

 A few years later when I related the story to a friend (autodiadactic  
 genius),
 he compared the scenario to switching a TV to a untuned channel and  
 watching
 the patterns created by the white noise. He suggested that if, in the  
 course of
 my life time, I ever saw a picture of something recognisable, form, that  
 was
 the equivalent of our "remarkable program".

 He calculated the odds using an HP-41C. and then attempted to write the  
 number
 on a piece of A4 paper. He started out using fairly standard sized  
 handwritten
 zeros, but ended up with tiny, almost dot-sized ones. Needless to say.  
 it was a
 very large number. He then tried to describe the time it would take for  
 the
 energy contained in the solar system to decay to zero...I didn't  
 understand.

 b.


Genetic Algorithms are substantially and subtle more than simply a random  
generate and test.
With random generation you have nothing to compare with only your blind  
fitness function.
In a population you can compare individuals. The other main key ingredient  
is an efficient
crossover operator. i.e. sexual reproduction. Without sex evolution is  
very slow.



 Jun 02 2008



  parent reply BCS <ao pathlink.com>  writes:


Reply to Bruce,


 Genetic Algorithms are substantially and subtle more than simply a
 random
 generate and test.
 With random generation you have nothing to compare with only your
 blind
 fitness function.
 In a population you can compare individuals. The other main key
 ingredient
 is an efficient
 crossover operator. i.e. sexual reproduction. Without sex evolution is
 very slow.


"Physics" (or progamming?) "is like sex. Sure, it may give some practical 
results, but that's not why we do it."

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman



 Jun 02 2008



  parent reply Georg Wrede <georg nospam.org>  writes:


BCS wrote:

 "Physics" (or progamming?) "is like sex. Sure, it may give some 
 practical results, but that's not why we do it."
 
 http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman


I guess this is why there are so few female physicists.



 Jun 05 2008



  parent  BCS <ao pathlink.com>  writes:


Reply to Georg,


 BCS wrote:
 

 "Physics" (or progamming?) "is like sex. Sure, it may give some
 practical results, but that's not why we do it."
 
 http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman
 


 I guess this is why there are so few female physicists.
 


Gaaaa!! I can think of about 8 ways of reading that and most of them are 
not to nice. <G>



 Jun 05 2008



prev sibling  parent reply Robert Fraser <fraserofthenight gmail.com>  writes:


Gregor Richards wrote:

 Now, write a program to modify code randomly and select based on a 
 fitness function, and feed it with 100 of this program you just wrote, 
 and you've got a genetic algorithm! Give it a few generations, and it'll 
 do something useful.


If you replace "fitness function" with "the marketplace," this is an 
excellent summary of Microsoft's development process.



 Jun 01 2008



  parent  BCS <ao pathlink.com>  writes:


Reply to Robert,


 Gregor Richards wrote:
 

 Now, write a program to modify code randomly and select based on a
 fitness function, and feed it with 100 of this program you just
 wrote, and you've got a genetic algorithm! Give it a few generations,
 and it'll do something useful.
 


 If you replace "fitness function" with "the marketplace," this is an
 excellent summary of Microsoft's development process.
 


<G> I have though much the same thing.



 Jun 02 2008



prev sibling next sibling parent reply Simen Kjaeraas <simen.kjaras gmail.com>  writes:


John Reimer Wrote:

 This God has not only set the standard that defines evil but has also 
 promised to judge all evil finally.  And he also defined how one is
 saved from this evil.   Does Epicurus decide for himself what he sees 
 as evil in the process of "disproving" God?  What does Epicurus
 perceive "evil" to mean?
 
 The strange thing is that people continue to complain about evil but 
 refuse to turn away from it in their own lives, or to adopt the plan
 that frees them from that bondage to it.


Ah, but which religion is correct, then? Muslims will claim christians are
infidels, christians will say the same of hindus, etc, and none of them have
any more proof than the next.

Speaking of hindus, my parents shared a nice story after their visit in India.
They were invited off the street to a wedding, and asked if it was a hindu
wedding, as they were christians. The host answered, "The gods are the same for
everyone", and let them in.

-- Simen



 Jun 05 2008



  parent reply John Reimer <terminal.node gmail.com>  writes:


Hello Simen,


 John Reimer Wrote:
 

 This God has not only set the standard that defines evil but has also
 promised to judge all evil finally.  And he also defined how one is
 saved from this evil.   Does Epicurus decide for himself what he sees
 as evil in the process of "disproving" God?  What does Epicurus
 perceive "evil" to mean?
 
 The strange thing is that people continue to complain about evil but
 refuse to turn away from it in their own lives, or to adopt the plan
 that frees them from that bondage to it.
 


 Ah, but which religion is correct, then? Muslims will claim christians
 are infidels, christians will say the same of hindus, etc, and none of
 them have any more proof than the next.
 
 Speaking of hindus, my parents shared a nice story after their visit
 in India. They were invited off the street to a wedding, and asked if
 it was a hindu wedding, as they were christians. The host answered,
 "The gods are the same for everyone", and let them in.
 



Do you wish to argue on behalf of Islam and Hinduism?  The topic of discussion 
was not Christianity verses these religions.  It was a discussion about theism 
and atheism.  It seems you prefer to move the topic off its original focus 
for some reason.  Is this meant to concede the God exists, and now we should 
discuss the most likely form in which he exists? :) 

-JJR



 Jun 05 2008



 next sibling parent reply "Chris R. Miller" <lordSaurontheGreat gmail.com>  writes:


John Reimer wrote:

 Hello Simen,
=20

 John Reimer Wrote:


 This God has not only set the standard that defines evil but has also=







 promised to judge all evil finally.  And he also defined how one is
 saved from this evil.   Does Epicurus decide for himself what he sees=







 as evil in the process of "disproving" God?  What does Epicurus
 perceive "evil" to mean?

 The strange thing is that people continue to complain about evil but
 refuse to turn away from it in their own lives, or to adopt the plan
 that frees them from that bondage to it.


 Ah, but which religion is correct, then? Muslims will claim christians=





 are infidels, christians will say the same of hindus, etc, and none of=





 them have any more proof than the next.

 Speaking of hindus, my parents shared a nice story after their visit
 in India. They were invited off the street to a wedding, and asked if
 it was a hindu wedding, as they were christians. The host answered,
 "The gods are the same for everyone", and let them in.


=20
 Do you wish to argue on behalf of Islam and Hinduism?  The topic of=20
 discussion was not Christianity verses these religions.  It was a=20
 discussion about theism and atheism.  It seems you prefer to move the=20
 topic off its original focus for some reason.  Is this meant to concede=


=20

 the God exists, and now we should discuss the most likely form in which=


=20

 he exists? :)


What's to say that - if He exists - we could even comprehend the form of =

His existence, be it physical in our sense of spiritual in the "higher"=20
religious sense.  There are differing dogmas in the manifestations of=20
the existence of the Supreme Being.  Classical Christians adhering to=20
the Nicaean Creed would tell you that God is in everything and yet=20
nowhere.  Mormons will tell you to hie to Kolob.

Along those lines, CS Lewis made some excellent inferencing about the=20
omnipresence of God when he made the analogy that God is like a writer.=20
  The characters in the story (us) are not in any specific point in=20
time, because to God (the writer) they are in every point in time, held=20
in memory at each point.  From this we can at least infer that God would =

be capable of existing in a kind of extended physical state such that=20
time would not have effect upon Him - otherwise time would pass for God=20
just as it does for us, which would negate the ability of God to be=20
omniscient.

To try and force Lewis' analogy closer to being on-topic, when you write =

a program, you write code for a specific and finite point in the=20
execution of the program.  However, in your comprehension and=20
understanding of that application the state in which the application is=20
in is in both the beginning and the end.  You know where it came from,=20
where it "is," and where it's going.  Similarly, Lewis hypothesizes that =

we must all be like applications to God, and that He perceives us in an=20
entirely different way than we do the world.

Either way, we can bicker about religion all day long, and never get=20
anywhere because religion is a completely subjective topic.  It's=20
different because it's at its core it's a belief, therefore there is no=20
intrinsically right or wrong answer.  There's only the answer of the=20
individual, which looses its "correctness" the moment it leaves scope of =

the individual.  Personally I think it's good for people to believe in a =

God, since the whole "Gospel" concept has a tendency to make people more =

interested in civility and in making themselves better, whether it be=20
motivated by a love of Jesus, a fear of Allah, or from fear of Karmic=20
retribution, or whatever else you may peradventure to believe.



 Jun 05 2008



  parent reply Don <nospam nospam.com.au>  writes:


Chris R. Miller wrote:

 Either way, we can bicker about religion all day long, and never get 
 anywhere because religion is a completely subjective topic.  It's 
 different because it's at its core it's a belief, therefore there is no 
 intrinsically right or wrong answer.   There's only the answer of the
 individual, which looses its "correctness" the moment it leaves scope
 of the individual.


There is absolutely nothing subjective about it.
Either there is a god, or gods, or there is not.

Like the question, is there life on Mars?
We can all have different opinions, but it doesn't change the facts.
Just because we're ignorant of something, doesn't make it a matter of 
opinion.



 Jun 06 2008



  parent  Chris R. Miller <lordSaurontheGreat gmail.com>  writes:


Don Wrote:


 Chris R. Miller wrote:

 Either way, we can bicker about religion all day long, and never get 
 anywhere because religion is a completely subjective topic.  It's 
 different because it's at its core it's a belief, therefore there is no 
 intrinsically right or wrong answer.   There's only the answer of the


  > individual, which looses its "correctness" the moment it leaves scope
  > of the individual.
 
 There is absolutely nothing subjective about it.
 Either there is a god, or gods, or there is not.
 
 Like the question, is there life on Mars?
 We can all have different opinions, but it doesn't change the facts.
 Just because we're ignorant of something, doesn't make it a matter of 
 opinion.


While ultimately the truth is absolute, there is no way we have of
scientifically proving the existence of God - probably due to his existence on
a "higher" or otherwise undetectable plane.   Call it a dimension, heaven,
whatever.  He's undetectable to our sensors, capt'n.  Perhaps if we remodulate
the deflector dish?

Given in impossibility of scientifically proving God, all religion therefore
becomes of the subjective matter.  Does that make sense, or is my reality
distortion field showing?  ;-)



 Jun 06 2008



prev sibling next sibling parent reply Georg Wrede <georg nospam.org>  writes:


John Reimer wrote:

 Hello Simen,
 

 John Reimer Wrote:


 This God has not only set the standard that defines evil but has also
 promised to judge all evil finally.  And he also defined how one is
 saved from this evil.   Does Epicurus decide for himself what he sees
 as evil in the process of "disproving" God?  What does Epicurus
 perceive "evil" to mean?

 The strange thing is that people continue to complain about evil but
 refuse to turn away from it in their own lives, or to adopt the plan
 that frees them from that bondage to it.


 Ah, but which religion is correct, then? Muslims will claim christians
 are infidels, christians will say the same of hindus, etc, and none of
 them have any more proof than the next.

 Speaking of hindus, my parents shared a nice story after their visit
 in India. They were invited off the street to a wedding, and asked if
 it was a hindu wedding, as they were christians. The host answered,
 "The gods are the same for everyone", and let them in.


 
 
 Do you wish to argue on behalf of Islam and Hinduism?  The topic of 
 discussion was not Christianity verses these religions.  It was a 
 discussion about theism and atheism.  It seems you prefer to move the 
 topic off its original focus for some reason.  Is this meant to concede 
 the God exists, and now we should discuss the most likely form in which 
 he exists? :)


Well, would it be irrelevant or forbidden, in this discussion?



 Jun 06 2008



  parent  John Reimer <terminal.node gmail.com>  writes:


Hello Georg,


 John Reimer wrote:
 

 Hello Simen,
 

 John Reimer Wrote:
 

 This God has not only set the standard that defines evil but has
 also promised to judge all evil finally.  And he also defined how
 one is saved from this evil.   Does Epicurus decide for himself
 what he sees as evil in the process of "disproving" God?  What does
 Epicurus perceive "evil" to mean?
 
 The strange thing is that people continue to complain about evil
 but refuse to turn away from it in their own lives, or to adopt the
 plan that frees them from that bondage to it.
 


 Ah, but which religion is correct, then? Muslims will claim
 christians are infidels, christians will say the same of hindus,
 etc, and none of them have any more proof than the next.
 
 Speaking of hindus, my parents shared a nice story after their visit
 in India. They were invited off the street to a wedding, and asked
 if it was a hindu wedding, as they were christians. The host
 answered, "The gods are the same for everyone", and let them in.
 


 Do you wish to argue on behalf of Islam and Hinduism?  The topic of
 discussion was not Christianity verses these religions.  It was a
 discussion about theism and atheism.  It seems you prefer to move the
 topic off its original focus for some reason.  Is this meant to
 concede the God exists, and now we should discuss the most likely
 form in which he exists? :)
 


 Well, would it be irrelevant or forbidden, in this discussion?
 



Oh, I've come to doubt there is anything irrelevant or forbidden in this 
newsgroup. :)

I am merely pointing out that we weren't comparing types of god-centric belief 
systems to begin with.  And to move over to it now is to leave the discussion 
of atheism/materialism behind.   It would seem kind of difficult and unusual 
for the athiest/agnostic/naturalist to start arguing on the behalf of a belief 
system that he doesn't actually believe in, instead of for his own worldview 
which is the usual course of things.  It just comes across as dodging the 
discussion to do so, that's all.  If he wants to, however, that is fine.


-JJR



 Jun 06 2008



prev sibling  parent  Tower  Ty <towerty msn.com.au>  writes:


So John can you describe anything you have seen  in your life that has given
you the slightest real indication that your faith is justified?

Any logical person would judge the truth of something by their own set of
experiences in life.  To do otherwise would be blatently stupid. So what makes
you so adament that you are right.

Answer if you dare.



 Jun 06 2008



prev sibling  parent reply Simen Kjaeraas <simen.kjaras gmail.com>  writes:


John Reimer Wrote:

 Don't you think you would be lucky that "2+2=4" occurs
 consistantly in a random chance universe.  


I find it unlikely (though not impossible) that life would exist in a universe
where 2 + 2 != 4. However, if we assume that every possible universe exists, we
would exist in that (those?) most fitting for our survival.

Logically, we exist on earth because the sun is too hot, and pluto is too cold.
"How lucky we are that the earth is just the right distance from the sun, has
just the right amount of this and that..." Yes, it is a rare coincidence. But
if it weren't so, we wouldn't be here to consider it.

You've probably heard of the Many-worlds interpretation. It holds that
'everything happens, but in seperate universes'. Meaning that all possible
result of all actions, will in fact happen, and each will spawn a new universe
in which that exact thing took place. Again, we would not exist in the
universes where the earth never formed, nor the ones where the third world war
in the 1960's removed the human race from the face of the earth.

As for 'every possible universe', imagine all constants (speed of light,
strength of gravity, Planck's constant, electron volt, etc) being variables,
and one universe existing for every combination of these. Then add any possible
beginning of such a universe (always existed, formed in a big bang caused by
quantum fluctuation, space-time bubble that detached from a neighbouring
universe, suddenly springing fully-formed into being, etc), any possible point
in their existence... And when you're done with that, check out Max Tegmark's
Ultimate Ensemble (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_ensemble). Now you've
got a universe with 7 dimensions of space, 4 dimensions of time, and all
coordinates are of type split-complex dual octonions.

-- Simen



 Jun 05 2008



 next sibling parent reply Georg Wrede <georg nospam.org>  writes:


Simen Kjaeraas wrote:

 ... And when you're done with that, check out Max Tegmark's Ultimate
 Ensemble (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_ensemble). Now you've
 got a universe with 7 dimensions of space, 4 dimensions of time, and
 all coordinates are of type split-complex dual octonions.


Sometimes I think we're going too far. The non-understandability of 
Quantum Mechanics has opened the door to a totally new kind of writing.

Today, anybody who can write utter crap in such a way that nobody else 
can kick it down, is considered a Very Smart man.



 Jun 06 2008



  parent  Tower  Ty <towerty msn.com.au>  writes:


Georg Wrede Wrote:


 Simen Kjaeraas wrote:

 ... And when you're done with that, check out Max Tegmark's Ultimate
 Ensemble (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_ensemble). Now you've
 got a universe with 7 dimensions of space, 4 dimensions of time, and
 all coordinates are of type split-complex dual octonions.


 
 Sometimes I think we're going too far. The non-understandability of 
 Quantum Mechanics has opened the door to a totally new kind of writing.
 
 Today, anybody who can write utter crap in such a way that nobody else 
 can kick it down, is considered a Very Smart man.



Well said with quantum mechanics/physics you can prove the probability of
anything you wish !!  It has been proved that black has a 99% probability of
being white.

Hawkins is a classic example and black holes are proposed by quantum physics to
be composed of nothing !!.

All of it utter garbage which wastes the thinking mans mind . My advice, stick
to believing in what you know to be true and let the wackers carry on and waste
their own time.



 Jun 06 2008



prev sibling next sibling parent  Don <nospam nospam.com.au>  writes:


Simen Kjaeraas wrote:

 John Reimer Wrote:

 Don't you think you would be lucky that "2+2=4" occurs
 consistantly in a random chance universe.  


 
 I find it unlikely (though not impossible) that life would exist in a universe
where 2 + 2 != 4. However, if we assume that every possible universe exists, we
would exist in that (those?) most fitting for our survival.
 
 Logically, we exist on earth because the sun is too hot, and pluto is too
cold. "How lucky we are that the earth is just the right distance from the sun,
has just the right amount of this and that..." Yes, it is a rare coincidence.
But if it weren't so, we wouldn't be here to consider it.


Which is called the "Anthropic Principle".


 You've probably heard of the Many-worlds interpretation.


[snip]

Unfortunately, once any kind of probabilities are involved, the 
anthropic principle won't help you. If this is just a random universe...
why is it so big? We could exist in a much simpler, smaller universe.
In fact, it's overwhelmingly more likely.

It this is a random universe, it's a freak.



 Jun 06 2008



prev sibling  parent reply Russell Lewis <webmaster villagersonline.com>  writes:


Simen Kjaeraas wrote:

 John Reimer Wrote:

 Don't you think you would be lucky that "2+2=4" occurs
 consistantly in a random chance universe.  


 
 I find it unlikely (though not impossible) that life would exist in a universe
where 2 + 2 != 4. However, if we assume that every possible universe exists, we
would exist in that (those?) most fitting for our survival.
 
 Logically, we exist on earth because the sun is too hot, and pluto is too
cold. "How lucky we are that the earth is just the right distance from the sun,
has just the right amount of this and that..." Yes, it is a rare coincidence.
But if it weren't so, we wouldn't be here to consider it.
 
 You've probably heard of the Many-worlds interpretation. It holds that
'everything happens, but in seperate universes'. Meaning that all possible
result of all actions, will in fact happen, and each will spawn a new universe
in which that exact thing took place. Again, we would not exist in the
universes where the earth never formed, nor the ones where the third world war
in the 1960's removed the human race from the face of the earth.
 
 As for 'every possible universe', imagine all constants (speed of light,
strength of gravity, Planck's constant, electron volt, etc) being variables,
and one universe existing for every combination of these. Then add any possible
beginning of such a universe (always existed, formed in a big bang caused by
quantum fluctuation, space-time bubble that detached from a neighbouring
universe, suddenly springing fully-formed into being, etc), any possible point
in their existence... And when you're done with that, check out Max Tegmark's
Ultimate Ensemble (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_ensemble). Now you've
got a universe with 7 dimensions of space, 4 dimensions of time, and all
coordinates are of type split-complex dual octonions.


This, combined with the Anthropic Principle, is a fascinating argument. 
  On the surface, it seems to undercut any possible probability-based 
argument that we theists might use.  However, it also undercuts all of 
science.  If we assume an infinite number of universes (and there is no 
way to exclude the possibility), then for any arbitrary thing you can 
imagine, there exists a universe where it happened.  If God came down 
personally and shook your hand, you could state, "Isn't this a 
remarkably unlikely universe?  It seems like God shook my hand.  I know, 
of course, that this is false."  More to the point, you could observe 
that things fall to the ground when you drop them, and say "What a 
remarkable coincidence!  I wonder what the odds are of that?"

Since science can never directly reveal the absolute laws of the 
universe, we are left with making statements, based on probability, 
derived from our observations.  We see things fall to the ground, and 
thus we hypothesize that there is something called "gravity" which 
causes it to do so.  We cannot exclude the possibility that it was all 
random, but when certain things become remarkably improbable, we come to 
believe that there is a reason behind them other than random chance.

In the same way, if some people want to argue for the existence of God 
based on the remarkable unlikeliness of the random existence of life, 
that is a valid and logical argument.  Of course, others will disagree 
about the probabilities, and thus come to a different conclusion.

To be slightly more direct, the infinite universes hypothesis, combined 
with the anthropic principle, is a handy tool to explain away any 
evidence that doesn't fit your preconceptions.  Any remarkable 
observation can be claimed to be random chance.



 Jun 06 2008



  parent reply Simen Kjaeraas <simen.kjaras gmail.com>  writes:


Russell Lewis Wrote:


 Simen Kjaeraas wrote:

 John Reimer Wrote:

 Don't you think you would be lucky that "2+2=4" occurs
 consistantly in a random chance universe.  


 
 I find it unlikely (though not impossible) that life would exist in a universe
where 2 + 2 != 4. However, if we assume that every possible universe exists, we
would exist in that (those?) most fitting for our survival.
 
 Logically, we exist on earth because the sun is too hot, and pluto is too
cold. "How lucky we are that the earth is just the right distance from the sun,
has just the right amount of this and that..." Yes, it is a rare coincidence.
But if it weren't so, we wouldn't be here to consider it.
 
 You've probably heard of the Many-worlds interpretation. It holds that
'everything happens, but in seperate universes'. Meaning that all possible
result of all actions, will in fact happen, and each will spawn a new universe
in which that exact thing took place. Again, we would not exist in the
universes where the earth never formed, nor the ones where the third world war
in the 1960's removed the human race from the face of the earth.
 
 As for 'every possible universe', imagine all constants (speed of light,
strength of gravity, Planck's constant, electron volt, etc) being variables,
and one universe existing for every combination of these. Then add any possible
beginning of such a universe (always existed, formed in a big bang caused by
quantum fluctuation, space-time bubble that detached from a neighbouring
universe, suddenly springing fully-formed into being, etc), any possible point
in their existence... And when you're done with that, check out Max Tegmark's
Ultimate Ensemble (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_ensemble). Now you've
got a universe with 7 dimensions of space, 4 dimensions of time, and all
coordinates are of type split-complex dual octonions.


 
 This, combined with the Anthropic Principle, is a fascinating argument. 
   On the surface, it seems to undercut any possible probability-based 
 argument that we theists might use.  However, it also undercuts all of 
 science.  If we assume an infinite number of universes (and there is no 
 way to exclude the possibility), then for any arbitrary thing you can 
 imagine, there exists a universe where it happened.  If God came down 
 personally and shook your hand, you could state, "Isn't this a 
 remarkably unlikely universe?  It seems like God shook my hand.  I know, 
 of course, that this is false."  More to the point, you could observe 
 that things fall to the ground when you drop them, and say "What a 
 remarkable coincidence!  I wonder what the odds are of that?"
 
 Since science can never directly reveal the absolute laws of the 
 universe, we are left with making statements, based on probability, 
 derived from our observations.  We see things fall to the ground, and 
 thus we hypothesize that there is something called "gravity" which 
 causes it to do so.  We cannot exclude the possibility that it was all 
 random, but when certain things become remarkably improbable, we come to 
 believe that there is a reason behind them other than random chance.
 
 In the same way, if some people want to argue for the existence of God 
 based on the remarkable unlikeliness of the random existence of life, 
 that is a valid and logical argument.  Of course, others will disagree 
 about the probabilities, and thus come to a different conclusion.
 
 To be slightly more direct, the infinite universes hypothesis, combined 
 with the anthropic principle, is a handy tool to explain away any 
 evidence that doesn't fit your preconceptions.  Any remarkable 
 observation can be claimed to be random chance.


Ah, but here I believe you misunderstand things. "Every /possible/ universe"
does not mean "every /imaginable/ universe". Take uranium U-235, for example.
Given one atom of U-235, there's a 50% chance it will decay within the first
703,800,000 years. It might decay tomorrow, it might not decay before the sun
burns out. That does not mean that atom may suddenly turn into a four-armed
clown. (sorry if this seems insulting your intelligence, it is not intended as
such)

What many-worlds and it's derivatives preach is that all possible results of a
wavefunction collapse will take place, each in a separate universe. The fact
that the underlying laws that govern it may change, does not allow matter and
energy in a universe to break those laws.

-- Simen



 Jun 07 2008



 next sibling parent  Georg Wrede <georg nospam.org>  writes:


Simen Kjaeraas wrote:

 Russell Lewis Wrote:

 To be slightly more direct, the infinite universes hypothesis, 
 combined with the anthropic principle, is a handy tool to explain 
 away any evidence that doesn't fit your preconceptions. 




Yes. Combine utter crap (the former) with an ignorant, self-centered 
view (the latter), and you can (or may I even say, this forces you) to 
become embottled in your particular view. (!! "you" used here as the 
general person, not Simen or Russell.)


 Any remarkable observation can be claimed to be random chance.


 
 Ah, but here I believe you misunderstand things. "Every /possible/ 
 universe" does not mean "every /imaginable/ universe". 


...

 What many-worlds and it's derivatives preach is that all possible 
 results of a wavefunction collapse will take place, each in a 
 separate universe. The fact that the underlying laws that govern it 
 may change, does not allow matter and energy in a universe to break 
 those laws.


Many-worlds, IMHO, has come from thinking of wave function collapse the 
same day one tried to understand the universe. An unfortunate and 
unfounded "aha", and one immediately "discovers" Many Universes. If this 
person happens to have a good education in cosmology and math, then 
obviously his writings about this are accessible to fewer critics, and 
for anyone much harder to shoot down than those of a layman.

Of course, in general, intelligent people or intelligent actions have as 
a hallmark combining seemingly (to the lesser audience, anyway) 
unrelated things or ideas, and then making something excellent from it.

But the many-worlds thing is just a sorry stab at emulating such.



 Jun 07 2008



prev sibling  parent reply Russell Lewis <webmaster villagersonline.com>  writes:


Simen Kjaeraas wrote:

 Russell Lewis Wrote:
 

 Simen Kjaeraas wrote:

 John Reimer Wrote:

 Don't you think you would be lucky that "2+2=4" occurs
 consistantly in a random chance universe.  


 I find it unlikely (though not impossible) that life would exist in a universe
where 2 + 2 != 4. However, if we assume that every possible universe exists, we
would exist in that (those?) most fitting for our survival.

 Logically, we exist on earth because the sun is too hot, and pluto is too
cold. "How lucky we are that the earth is just the right distance from the sun,
has just the right amount of this and that..." Yes, it is a rare coincidence.
But if it weren't so, we wouldn't be here to consider it.

 You've probably heard of the Many-worlds interpretation. It holds that
'everything happens, but in seperate universes'. Meaning that all possible
result of all actions, will in fact happen, and each will spawn a new universe
in which that exact thing took place. Again, we would not exist in the
universes where the earth never formed, nor the ones where the third world war
in the 1960's removed the human race from the face of the earth.

 As for 'every possible universe', imagine all constants (speed of light,
strength of gravity, Planck's constant, electron volt, etc) being variables,
and one universe existing for every combination of these. Then add any possible
beginning of such a universe (always existed, formed in a big bang caused by
quantum fluctuation, space-time bubble that detached from a neighbouring
universe, suddenly springing fully-formed into being, etc), any possible point
in their existence... And when you're done with that, check out Max Tegmark's
Ultimate Ensemble (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_ensemble). Now you've
got a universe with 7 dimensions of space, 4 dimensions of time, and all
coordinates are of type split-complex dual octonions.


 This, combined with the Anthropic Principle, is a fascinating argument. 
   On the surface, it seems to undercut any possible probability-based 
 argument that we theists might use.  However, it also undercuts all of 
 science.  If we assume an infinite number of universes (and there is no 
 way to exclude the possibility), then for any arbitrary thing you can 
 imagine, there exists a universe where it happened.  If God came down 
 personally and shook your hand, you could state, "Isn't this a 
 remarkably unlikely universe?  It seems like God shook my hand.  I know, 
 of course, that this is false."  More to the point, you could observe 
 that things fall to the ground when you drop them, and say "What a 
 remarkable coincidence!  I wonder what the odds are of that?"

 Since science can never directly reveal the absolute laws of the 
 universe, we are left with making statements, based on probability, 
 derived from our observations.  We see things fall to the ground, and 
 thus we hypothesize that there is something called "gravity" which 
 causes it to do so.  We cannot exclude the possibility that it was all 
 random, but when certain things become remarkably improbable, we come to 
 believe that there is a reason behind them other than random chance.

 In the same way, if some people want to argue for the existence of God 
 based on the remarkable unlikeliness of the random existence of life, 
 that is a valid and logical argument.  Of course, others will disagree 
 about the probabilities, and thus come to a different conclusion.

 To be slightly more direct, the infinite universes hypothesis, combined 
 with the anthropic principle, is a handy tool to explain away any 
 evidence that doesn't fit your preconceptions.  Any remarkable 
 observation can be claimed to be random chance.


 
 Ah, but here I believe you misunderstand things. "Every /possible/ universe"
does not mean "every /imaginable/ universe". Take uranium U-235, for example.
Given one atom of U-235, there's a 50% chance it will decay within the first
703,800,000 years. It might decay tomorrow, it might not decay before the sun
burns out. That does not mean that atom may suddenly turn into a four-armed
clown. (sorry if this seems insulting your intelligence, it is not intended as
such)
 
 What many-worlds and it's derivatives preach is that all possible results of a
wavefunction collapse will take place, each in a separate universe. The fact
that the underlying laws that govern it may change, does not allow matter and
energy in a universe to break those laws.


I have been trying diligently to stay out of this argument, and so have 
only posted a couple of times.  However, I wanted to offer a quick 
clarification of my original statement.  I agree that there is one type 
of "infinite universes" hypothesis which is based on the concept of 
waveform collapse.  That assumes that we had one starting point and 
there are an infinite number of descendant universes from it.  However, 
the more general theory is that there could have been an infinite number 
of different instances, and the various laws & constants of nature vary 
from instance to instance.  That was more what I was describing.

Yet I would say that even if we restrict ourselves to the 
collapsing-waveform type of theory, we are still in much the same boat. 
  Quantum physics tells us that there are any number of remarkably 
improbable things which still have nonzero probability.  If we assume 
infinite universes, then we can reasonably say that in at least one of 
the universes, that remarkably improbable thing happened.

My argument is that while this is a fascinating cosmological theory (I 
like it, personally, even if I have no idea whether it's true), we 
cannot reasonably use it to explain away scientific phenomena.  We must, 
as much as possible, look at the evidence, find the most probable 
explanation, and then assume (until we have better observations) that 
the explanation is likely to be true.  Otherwise, science as a 
discipline has no ground to stand on.  More bluntly, we must 
intentionally ignore the many-worlds interpretation when we are making 
scientific conclusions.  This might, of course, cause us to draw 
incorrect conclusions, but quantum physics tells us that it is quite 
improbable that we are wrong. :)



 Jun 07 2008



  parent  "Simen Kjaeraas" <simen.kjaras gmail.com>  writes:


On Sat, 07 Jun 2008 23:32:02 +0200, Russell Lewis  
<webmaster villagersonline.com> wrote:


 I have been trying diligently to stay out of this argument, and so have  
 only posted a couple of times.  However, I wanted to offer a quick  
 clarification of my original statement.  I agree that there is one type  
 of "infinite universes" hypothesis which is based on the concept of  
 waveform collapse.  That assumes that we had one starting point and  
 there are an infinite number of descendant universes from it.  However,  
 the more general theory is that there could have been an infinite number  
 of different instances, and the various laws & constants of nature vary  
 from instance to instance.  That was more what I was describing.

 Yet I would say that even if we restrict ourselves to the  
 collapsing-waveform type of theory, we are still in much the same boat.  
   Quantum physics tells us that there are any number of remarkably  
 improbable things which still have nonzero probability.  If we assume  
 infinite universes, then we can reasonably say that in at least one of  
 the universes, that remarkably improbable thing happened.

 My argument is that while this is a fascinating cosmological theory (I  
 like it, personally, even if I have no idea whether it's true), we  
 cannot reasonably use it to explain away scientific phenomena.  We must,  
 as much as possible, look at the evidence, find the most probable  
 explanation, and then assume (until we have better observations) that  
 the explanation is likely to be true.  Otherwise, science as a  
 discipline has no ground to stand on.  More bluntly, we must  
 intentionally ignore the many-worlds interpretation when we are making  
 scientific conclusions.  This might, of course, cause us to draw  
 incorrect conclusions, but quantum physics tells us that it is quite  
 improbable that we are wrong. :)


Then it seems we do for the most part agree. I love playing with the
thought of an infinite number of universes, some having their own strange
physical laws and constants. That does not mean I hold it to be The One
True Truth(tm). I'm more likely to change my world view than my clothes,
as I feel it doesn't matter anyway. I like solipsism, shared-
consciousness, lazy-evaluation-universes, etc. Some theories I like
because they are simple, some because they are complex. I like some
theories with a creator, some without.

Back off topic - you are right that it may not be enough to limit
ourselves to collapsing wavefunctions. Quantum fluctuation, for example,
may possibly turn one thing into something completely different. However,
we don't at the moment know the rules by which quantum fluctuation abides,
so it might be limited enough that nothing /too/ weird will happen (I have
no idea what 'too weird' would mean in a quantum physics discussion :p). I
still feel we have somewhat different understandings of MWI, but I'm not
one to claim my view is more correct than yours. I feel MWI does not
undermine science, as we know that some things are more probable than
others, and that would not change with MWI (imagine that a more probable
outcome would result in more, identical, universes).

-- Simen



 Jun 07 2008