Is there a higher power?
November 23rd, 2011 at 5:05:15 AM
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I am non-religious, I almost consider my self an atheist but something happened yesterday that made me question a higher power. I was sent home from work an hour early (boo I lost about $15) anyway I get to my apartment and I hear my neighbors smoke alarm going off (this is around 3:30AM). I looked for fire and felt for a warm door and on my walls. The alarm continues to go off for about 15 minutes. I am not sure if I should call 911. I called my manager and told her I was concerned. Her and the maintenance man come up and knock on his door. He was home and somehow slept through the smoke alarm. Apparently he had something on the stove and fell asleep. (I think he said something he had been drinking that night). Anyway a very nasty situation had been avoided by his smoke alarm going off alerting me to alert the management. Now I think it is likely a coincidence but maybe fathergamble can chime in, but was it meant to be that I was sent home from work early to prevent a fire which would have destroyed all my stuff (I don't care I have insurance) but it could have hurt my spouse as well as everyone else in the building. It kind of creeps me out because I shun away from religion and things I cannot see. Anyway that is my two cents on this, any comments would be appreciated.
November 23rd, 2011 at 5:21:54 AM
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Quote: NicksGamingStuffwas it meant to be
I can see people making fun of this, but this kind of personal experience can really be powerful. From the outside, seems like just a coincidence, but it's not like that "if you were there", right? It reminds me of the thing about a conservative being a liberal who got mugged [eh, maybe the wrong example]. Anyway, I can relate.
the next time Dame Fortune toys with your heart, your soul and your wallet, raise your glass and praise her thus: Thanks for nothing, you cold-hearted, evil, damnable, nefarious, low-life, malicious monster from Hell! She is, after all, stone deaf. ... Arnold Snyder
November 23rd, 2011 at 5:26:17 AM
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While you can attribute it to a higher power if you like, I'd be more likely to attribute it to random chance. After all, why would the higher power want you to lose an hour's pay to save the day? Why wouldn't the higher power simply tap your neighbor on his noggin until he woke up and heard the alarm?
I invented a few casino games. Info:
http://www.DaveMillerGaming.com/
Superstitions are silly, childish, irrational rituals, born out of fear of the unknown. But how much does it cost to knock on wood? 😁
November 23rd, 2011 at 5:30:15 AM
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See I am more like you, but I do see it as odd that I would be sent home early to ultimately discover this potential fire.
November 23rd, 2011 at 5:35:12 AM
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Quote: odiousgambitFrom the outside, seems like just a coincidence
I also thought it was a coincidence! It just kind of creeped me out. At the time I was thinking I was going to have to kick his door in to save him and then carry Max out while he was still sleeping and run back into my apartment to save my casino chip collection, dvd collection, and my HDTV (my insurance will give me 25k which is more than enough to cover my possessions but I do not want to go around to all the casinos or wait to get my dvds from amazon [I have about 400 mostly tv shows])
Fire can be a very scary thing if you have never had to deal with it. Other than your loved ones what do you try to save? Some things cannot be replaced with money (why I would save my spouse first even though we never touch each other anymore) so if you were in a fire and had a couple minutes to save something, what would you save?
November 23rd, 2011 at 6:26:25 AM
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Quote: NicksGamingStuffIFire can be a very scary thing if you have never had to deal with it. Other than your loved ones what do you try to save? Some things cannot be replaced with money (why I would save my spouse first even though we never touch each other anymore) so if you were in a fire and had a couple minutes to save something, what would you save?
I was in a fire, and I saved my girlfriend's cats. That was all I had time for.
They were very ungrateful mofos and tore the hell out me though. It was 3 am, and I carried them out into freezing rain to toss them in my car, so I think that was their major complaint. (lightning was responsible for the fire)
Sanitized for Your Protection
November 23rd, 2011 at 6:32:40 AM
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Whenever I think about stuff like that, I pause and think about the countless millions of things that I DIDN'T catch, and I'm quickly brought back to reality.
Sorry.
Sorry.
A falling knife has no handle.
November 23rd, 2011 at 6:43:00 AM
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You can chalk up coincidences like that to just that or a higher power. I'm in a situation now where a bunch of coincidences have come together to provide something much better for my daughter than if the coincidences hadn't happened. People who are close to each other talk about synchronicities that they feel are beyond coincidences.
If you're of the ilk to chalk these coincidences up to a higher power, it only supports your belief in a higher power. Really, i think most of us look for meaning in life and a higher purpose so we're conditioned to believe in the "higher power" theorem. But because there's no voice in the sky that says "god did this" you really can't positivity add them together.
of course, there are lots of fires that do happen, events that 'had we been there 10 seconds earlier or later' we could have avoided, and lots of things that indeed we miss.
If you're of the ilk to chalk these coincidences up to a higher power, it only supports your belief in a higher power. Really, i think most of us look for meaning in life and a higher purpose so we're conditioned to believe in the "higher power" theorem. But because there's no voice in the sky that says "god did this" you really can't positivity add them together.
of course, there are lots of fires that do happen, events that 'had we been there 10 seconds earlier or later' we could have avoided, and lots of things that indeed we miss.
-----
You want the truth! You can't handle the truth!
November 23rd, 2011 at 7:02:43 AM
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Quote: NicksGamingStuffSee I am more like you, but I do see it as odd that I would be sent home early to ultimately discover this potential fire.
You see, that's one way perceptions can color an event. You were not sent home to discover your nieghbor's fire. You were sent home for reasons having to do with your job.
Further, you were not sent home, strictly speaking. Granted that alte at night there was little choice on where to go, even in Vegas, but you might have stayed around for some reason, you might have gone somewhere else, you might have gone shopping, even (I assume there are some 24 hour supermarkets in Vegas). You chose to go home.
And the situation you describe hardly seems like an emergency. I'm not saying it wasn't serious, but you waited fifteen minutes before acting, by your own reckoning (BTW, next time call 911 at once; you never know what's going on behind a closed door with the fire alarm going off). It's not clear how much more time was available before things got really bad, and what might have happened in the interim.
I will make a prediction, too. Over the course of your life you will be sent "home" early several more times (it happens to everyone). You're likely to encounter another serious situation over the next few decades, too.
Donald Trump is a fucking criminal
November 23rd, 2011 at 7:18:42 AM
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Quote: boymimboYou can chalk up coincidences like that to just that or a higher power. I'm in a situation now where a bunch of coincidences have come together to provide something much better for my daughter than if the coincidences hadn't happened. People who are close to each other talk about synchronicities that they feel are beyond coincidences.
If you're of the ilk to chalk these coincidences up to a higher power, it only supports your belief in a higher power. Really, i think most of us look for meaning in life and a higher purpose so we're conditioned to believe in the "higher power" theorem. But because there's no voice in the sky that says "god did this" you really can't positivity add them together.
of course, there are lots of fires that do happen, events that 'had we been there 10 seconds earlier or later' we could have avoided, and lots of things that indeed we miss.
There is that old saying that coincidence is God being anonymous.
I think moments like this are very personal and as amazing as it was that things worked out and that you saved a disaster from happening the other amazing thing is the exhilarating feeling that things are working together guided by a higher power. This is a gift we all have on occasion and can either quickly explain it away as random chance or remind ourselves of all the other close calls that went the other way or we can dare to allow ourselves the extraordinary thought that indeed there is a higher power. There will be other moments in your life when things won't work out the way everyone wants them to and the question is: in those moments can you bring the same feeling that things work together eventually for a larger purpose? Can I still have hope in a higher power when things don't go according to an obvious plan?
November 23rd, 2011 at 7:33:49 AM
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Random chance.
Period.
Period.
"What, me worry?"
November 23rd, 2011 at 7:41:32 AM
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DUHHIIIIIIIII HEARD THAT!
November 23rd, 2011 at 9:40:45 AM
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Quote: FrGambleThere is that old saying that coincidence is God being anonymous.
There is also a newer (in fact, technically about 1000 years from now - it's a slight paraphrasing from Futurama) saying: When God does things right, people won't be sure God has done anything at all.
November 23rd, 2011 at 9:52:37 AM
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Quote: NicksGamingStuffIs there a higher power?
Without a doubt.
Quote: NicksGamingStuffI am non-religious
This is foolish, as I used to think just like that too, and I highly regret it (along with countless other things) now that my mind has been changed. I recommend rethinking your position. This world will never be what you are expecting. I can't say much more than that since I don't know much more than that.
Also, if you smoke/drink/etc... please stop now! My soul turned black earlier this year; soon afterwards I realized that the phrase "Once you go black, you never go back" is a reference to the color of one's soul, not (necessarily) one's partner. Trust me when I say that you do NOT want your soul to go black.
November 23rd, 2011 at 10:08:57 AM
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I was raised an Episcopalian, and even though I don't go to church regularly, I believe in those tenets and God. However, I believe that everybody has the right to believe what they want, and that doesn't make them any less of a person.
I was also raised to believe that EVERYTHING happens for a reason. We can't control destiny, but if something happens or doesn't happen for that matter, there is a reason for it. We can't explain why, but it happens. It's not necessarily a higher power, but it happens. And the fact you were in that place at that time, well there was a reason for it. I can't tell you what or why this time, but there is a reason.
I was also raised to believe that EVERYTHING happens for a reason. We can't control destiny, but if something happens or doesn't happen for that matter, there is a reason for it. We can't explain why, but it happens. It's not necessarily a higher power, but it happens. And the fact you were in that place at that time, well there was a reason for it. I can't tell you what or why this time, but there is a reason.
"One out of every four people are [morons]"- Kyle, South Park
November 23rd, 2011 at 10:19:13 AM
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DUHHIIIIIIIII HEARD THAT!
November 23rd, 2011 at 10:21:20 AM
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DUHHIIIIIIIII HEARD THAT!
November 23rd, 2011 at 10:43:21 AM
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Quote: DJTeddyBearWhile you can attribute it to a higher power if you like, I'd be more likely to attribute it to random chance. After all, why would the higher power want you to lose an hour's pay to save the day? Why wouldn't the higher power simply tap your neighbor on his noggin until he woke up and heard the alarm?
Could it be that the events unfurled the way they did specifically for Nick's benefit, and not necessarily for his neighbors?
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication - Leonardo da Vinci
November 23rd, 2011 at 10:50:59 AM
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Quote: IbeatyouracesI think its foolish to even believe in such nonsense. When there is physical evidence and not some man-made crap, I may believe. Religion = scam
Look all around you and you will see evidence of a higher power because ultimately nothing you see is truly man-made, including yourself. Religion is recognizing there is more to this world than the so called "man-made" stuff. It is a sad scam and quite foolish to believe in the face of all the evidence around us that there is nothing more, no higher power or significance to this life we live.
November 23rd, 2011 at 10:52:14 AM
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As a Minister myself, I am uniquely qualified to speak for God here. You weren't the only person sent home early that day. All the people that were sent home early didn't discover that their neighbor's fire alarm was blaring.
God is disappointed in you for thinking that He is so horribly inefficient. If he wanted to intervene, He would have just turned the stupid oven off Himself.
God wants you to get a grip on reality and to stop thinking that you or anyone else matters to Him. You don't.
God is disappointed in you for thinking that He is so horribly inefficient. If he wanted to intervene, He would have just turned the stupid oven off Himself.
God wants you to get a grip on reality and to stop thinking that you or anyone else matters to Him. You don't.
Someday, joor goin' to see the name of Googie Gomez in lights and joor goin' to say to joorself, "Was that her?" and then joor goin' to answer to joorself, "That was her!" But you know somethin' mister? I was always her yuss nobody knows it! - Googie Gomez
November 23rd, 2011 at 11:10:14 AM
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Quote: s2dbakerAs a Minister myself, I am uniquely qualified to speak for God here. You weren't the only person sent home early that day. All the people that were sent home early didn't discover that their neighbor's fire alarm was blaring.
God is disappointed in you for thinking that He is so horribly inefficient. If he wanted to intervene, He would have just turned the stupid oven off Himself.
God wants you to get a grip on reality and to stop thinking that you or anyone else matters to Him. You don't.
Admitting the possibility of a higher power doesn't correlate in any way with religion. Yes, you were sent home by some design. Fun to think so, anyway.
November 23rd, 2011 at 11:26:49 AM
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Quote: TiltpoulI was also raised to believe that EVERYTHING happens for a reason.
I assume you believe that. I ahve to ask: what do you think of that?
I think it would be horrible, and I mean truly awful, if it were so. It would mean a bright story idea I had wasn't due to my creativity, or my effort to think of one, but because someone or something decreed I should have it. It would mean when I decide to expend the time and effort to accomplish something, it wasn't my choice but someone else's and imposed on me.
It also means people who suffer a grave injustice do so for a reason. What reason can justify maiming by a thug, or being used as an experimental subject in a concentration camp, or being burned at the stake, or dying in the WTC on 9/11?
Donald Trump is a fucking criminal
November 23rd, 2011 at 11:50:41 AM
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Everything does happen for a reason. It's called casuality. Cause and effect. Every action has a cause (or multiple causes). In fact it's important to realize that everything happens for a multitude of reasons, which is why applying a single cause (for blame or providence) is a bad model and over simplification. That's what safety Critical design studies taught me at least.
I realize the mantra "everything happens for a reason" is expressing a belief that every cause had a logical, intelligence behind it. That's completely contrary to my day-to-day observations, but whatever works for you.
I realize the mantra "everything happens for a reason" is expressing a belief that every cause had a logical, intelligence behind it. That's completely contrary to my day-to-day observations, but whatever works for you.
"Then you can admire the real gambler, who has neither eaten, slept, thought nor lived, he has so smarted under the scourge of his martingale, so suffered on the rack of his desire for a coup at trente-et-quarante" - Honore de Balzac, 1829
November 23rd, 2011 at 11:53:23 AM
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Quote: NareedWhat reason can justify maiming by a thug, or being used as an experimental subject in a concentration camp, or being burned at the stake, or dying in the WTC on 9/11?
Perhaps so that we would be so outraged that we would not allow it to happen again? Devaluing human life to "meatbag" status does all these innocent victims an injustice. Human life is precious.
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication - Leonardo da Vinci
November 23rd, 2011 at 11:56:52 AM
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Quote: AyecarumbaPerhaps so that we would be so outraged that we would not allow it to happen again?
But the beasts who crashed the airplanes full of passengers into the buildings full of epople, did so for a reason. A reason they dind't choose, any more than their victims did. Can we really blame them? If we do, we're doing so for a reason imposed on us, likewise if we don't. So what does anythign matter then? But if you think tat way, you do so for a reason imposed on you, of course.
You begin to see the problem?
Donald Trump is a fucking criminal
November 23rd, 2011 at 12:03:33 PM
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Quote: NareedBut the beasts who crashed the airplanes full of passengers into the buildings full of epople, did so for a reason. A reason they dind't choose, any more than their victims did.
No. The jihadists certainly had a choice, and many opportunities to pursue peace rather than war.
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication - Leonardo da Vinci
November 23rd, 2011 at 12:06:35 PM
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Quote: Nareed
I think it would be horrible, and I mean truly awful, if it were so. It would mean a bright story idea I had wasn't due to my creativity, or my effort to think of one, but because someone or something decreed I should have it. It would mean when I decide to expend the time and effort to accomplish something, it wasn't my choice but someone else's and imposed on me.
A dose of humility and reality is in order here. God or some higher power is not robbing you of your creativity or kudos due you for hard work. Good for you in using your gifts well. Where did you get the intellegence and brain to come up with these great stories. Did you create yourself? Of course not you were created in love and brought into existence as a very special creation who has the talent to weave stories. I think gratitude is in order and not disgust.
Maybe you just believe that you were some cosmic accident? Well then aren't your ramdomly generated electrical impulses in your brain just weird things that happen that ultimately you are not responsible for anyway. Isn't your bright story ultimately just luck that has little to do with you and everything to do with the way you somehow happen to be?
No dear Nareed it is much more horrible, and I mean truly awful, to believe that nothing happens for a reason than to believe that you and your stories do happen for a very good and wonderful reason. I hear your concern that you feel if you believed this you have to give credit to God because He made you and all of the gifts you have are ultimately attributed to Him, but swallow some pride and realize that you did not make yourself and acknowleding a creator is better than denying one. By the way if it makes you feel any better God gave you free will and He couldn't have done it without you.
Quote: NareedIt also means people who suffer a grave injustice do so for a reason.
Are you speaking of Christ here?
November 23rd, 2011 at 12:31:42 PM
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Quote: AyecarumbaNo. The jihadists certainly had a choice, and many opportunities to pursue peace rather than war.
Than not everything happens for a reason?
Donald Trump is a fucking criminal
November 23rd, 2011 at 12:41:57 PM
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Quote: dmAdmitting the possibility of a higher power doesn't correlate in any way with religion.
I think this is a good point.
Religion is man's attempt to explain the higher power. As a creation by man it has lots of room for flaws. As something managed by man it has lots of room for human weakness. Just because religions and the men who control them are flawed, some more than others, does not negate the possibility of a higher power. Until there is a good explanation for the what, how, and why behind the creation of the cosmos, and not just the physics involved, then they will always be the unanswered question of the higher power.
Personally I believe our universe is just an ant farm and the higher power is some snot-nosed cosmic brat doing a science project for school.
November 23rd, 2011 at 1:03:50 PM
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Before your head gets too big to fit thru the virtual door, you do realize that the "Fr" in FrGamble's name is short for "Father", right?Quote: s2dbakerAs a Minister myself, I am uniquely qualified to speak for God here.
Wow. That is a point of view I have never heard before. And coming from a minister makes it even more ... surprising.Quote: s2dbakerGod is disappointed in you for thinking that He is so horribly inefficient. If he wanted to intervene, He would have just turned the stupid oven off Himself.
God wants you to get a grip on reality and to stop thinking that you or anyone else matters to Him. You don't.
If you don't mind my asking, what religion are you ministering?
I invented a few casino games. Info:
http://www.DaveMillerGaming.com/
Superstitions are silly, childish, irrational rituals, born out of fear of the unknown. But how much does it cost to knock on wood? 😁
November 23rd, 2011 at 1:15:33 PM
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Quote: FrGambleA dose of humility and reality is in order here.
Oh, such an opportunity for a really bitting, sarcastic remark, just when I decided not to purposefuly antagonize you!
Quote:Maybe you just believe that you were some cosmic accident? Well then aren't your ramdomly generated electrical impulses in your brain just weird things that happen that ultimately you are not responsible for anyway. Isn't your bright story ultimately just luck that has little to do with you and everything to do with the way you somehow happen to be?
You really ought to stop trying to guess at my beliefs. Give up and ask, why don't you? :)
So here's the thing. We don't choose nor have any influence in how we're born. Whether you're smart or dumb, tall or short, with an aptitude for math or no head for it, is not a matter under your control. It just happens.
But I have a mind and free will and I can choose to think. Those are my thoughts, under my conscious control and I own them as surely as I own the blouse on my back. They're mine. That's a fact, whether or not there is or there isn't a god, or a flying spaghetti monster, or a guy named Odin somehwere in Valhalla.
Are there random factors involved. Of course there are! If I hadn't seen a CD by The Bangles once when I was shopping for something else, I wouldn't have heard their song "Lost at Sea," and I might not have been inspired to incubate the outline of a story for a few years until it developed into "Under the Stars."
Quote:I hear your concern that you feel if you believed this you have to give credit to God
You're very good at giving god credit for all the good things. Do you blame him for the bad things? Do you tell the couple whose son is born with Tay Sachs disease, and who will die a painful death in infancy, to blame god for making them suffer that way? Do you tell a teenager dying of cystic fibrosis to blame god for teasing him with the promise of life only to take it away just as it's really starting?
I suspect what your answer will be. And let me tell you I don't like it. But I'll give you a chance to present it first. Who knows, I may be surprised.
Quote:Are you speaking of Christ here?
Have you forgotten how ugly things got the last time we brought up Jesus? :) Let's leave it that way.
Donald Trump is a fucking criminal
November 23rd, 2011 at 1:23:05 PM
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Quote: NareedThan not everything happens for a reason?
No. I interpret your position as, "Random Universe". If this is so, how does our ability to choose between options fit in to this worldview? Our choices are certainly not all random. We make decisions based on various motivations, including altruism, or selfishness. We recall past experience, and assume the results of our decisions based on those experiences will produce anticipated results.
If this is so, why would it be safe to assume the entire Universe operates randomly, when it doesn't in our own very limited experience?
My position is that there is an order, a design to the Universe.
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication - Leonardo da Vinci
November 23rd, 2011 at 1:41:16 PM
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There is an order to the universe (physical laws for one), but that doesn't lead to their requiring to be a design.
"Then you can admire the real gambler, who has neither eaten, slept, thought nor lived, he has so smarted under the scourge of his martingale, so suffered on the rack of his desire for a coup at trente-et-quarante" - Honore de Balzac, 1829
November 23rd, 2011 at 1:55:59 PM
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Quote: FrGambleThis is a gift we all have on occasion and can either quickly explain it away as random chance or remind ourselves of all the other close calls that went the other way or we can dare to allow ourselves the extraordinary thought that indeed there is a higher power.
I donated my left kidney to my "significant other" last May.
The chance of fairly-matching any given stranger's DNA (, and more-importantly, giving rise to few antibodies in the blood,) is about 1 in 3,ooo. The chance of being a healthy donor is about 1 in 1o. That's about 1 in 3o,ooo , overall. And i was the first (and only) one tested.
So i don't think i'm "explaining away" anything when i say that i'd rather be LUCKY when and where it counts. Besides, the basic problem with that sort of religious "thinking" is that by becoming that associated with such a God, one almost always loses sight of his own mortality in specific, and mortalness in general.
Now is our time... to "sing ballads" about the troubles of the world, or to take more-decisive action.
Why bet at all, if you can be sure?
Anyway, what constitutes a "good bet"? - The best slots-game in town; a sucker's edge; or some gray-area blackjack-stunts?
(P.S. God doesn't even have to exist to be God.)
November 23rd, 2011 at 1:57:26 PM
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Quote: thecesspitThere is an order to the universe (physical laws for one), but that doesn't lead to their requiring to be a design.
This was one of the knocks on Stephen Hawking's, "You don't need a creator to have everything come from nothing" theory. There are physical laws that we assume are constant across the Universe.
Why are there physical laws constant across the Universe? Why not just "randomness"?
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication - Leonardo da Vinci
November 23rd, 2011 at 2:05:03 PM
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Quote: AyecarumbaWhy are there physical laws constant across the Universe? Why not just "randomness"?
Didn't Boltzmann put out a theory that everything is random... but we're in the universe which just happened to "work out".
Why bet at all, if you can be sure?
Anyway, what constitutes a "good bet"? - The best slots-game in town; a sucker's edge; or some gray-area blackjack-stunts?
(P.S. God doesn't even have to exist to be God.)
November 23rd, 2011 at 2:05:38 PM
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Maybe you come home early and save your neighbor from a fire.
Maybe your neighbor goes to work every day at a child care center where he molests children.
There are millions of possibilities to consider.
.
Maybe your neighbor goes to work every day at a child care center where he molests children.
There are millions of possibilities to consider.
.
Sanitized for Your Protection
November 23rd, 2011 at 2:14:01 PM
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Quote: Nareed
But I have a mind and free will and I can choose to think. Those are my thoughts, under my conscious control and I own them as surely as I own the blouse on my back. They're mine. That's a fact, whether or not there is or there isn't a god, or a flying spaghetti monster, or a guy named Odin somehwere in Valhalla.
I actually agree as you long as you admit that the blouse you wear has a tag that says "Made in China". You own it and bought it, it is yours. However, you were not the one who made the fibers or knit them together, that was done by someone else and you enjoy it. You've got a tag, "Made by God" and it looks nice on you.
Quote: NareedYou're very good at giving god credit for all the good things. Do you blame him for the bad things? Do you tell the couple whose son is born with Tay Sachs disease, and who will die a painful death in infancy, to blame god for making them suffer that way? Do you tell a teenager dying of cystic fibrosis to blame god for teasing him with the promise of life only to take it away just as it's really starting?
I suspect what your answer will be. And let me tell you I don't like it. But I'll give you a chance to present it first. Who knows, I may be surprised.
Have you forgotten how ugly things got the last time we brought up Jesus? :) Let's leave it that way.
I'm sorry to probably disappoint you on two levels. To answer your question about where is God in the midst of all the bad stuff that happens I need to bring up Jesus. For me the question can't be answered without Him. Without believing in a God who has gone through a painful death, without believing in a God who knows what it is like to suffer, without a God who knows what it is like to be mocked and abandoned, misunderstood and unloved it is not possible to find hope and God's loving presence in these moments which we will undoubtedly experience ourselves. Jesus is God incarnate and Emmanuel, "God with us". God is not distant from us, He enters into the mess of our human lives. This is what real lovers do, they share suffering and hold each others hands, and through the experiences they grow deeper in love with each other. By entering into the difficulties we all go through and sharing them with us Christ simultaneously gives us hope, bestows meaning even to our suffering, and shows the depth of His unconditional and everlasting love for us.
St. Paul says it best:
"He who did not spare his own Son but handed him over for us all, how will he not also give us everything else along with him? Who will bring a charge against Gods chosen ones? It is God who acquits us. Who will condemn? It is Christ [Jesus] who died, rather, was raised, who also is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. What will separate us from the love of Christ? Will anguish, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword? As it is written: For your sake we are being slain all the day; we are looked upon as sheep to be slaughtered. No, in all these things we conquer overwhelmingly through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor present things, nor future things, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Rom. 8:31-39)
Can I ask you what your answer is to these questions are? What do you believe and what would you say to someone going through the tough stuff you mentioned?
I think I know your answer and I don't think I will like it, but who knows I may be pleasantly surprised.
November 23rd, 2011 at 2:24:32 PM
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Quote: FrGambleQuote: Nareed
But I have a mind and free will and I can choose to think. Those are my thoughts, under my conscious control and I own them as surely as I own the blouse on my back. They're mine. That's a fact, whether or not there is or there isn't a god, or a flying spaghetti monster, or a guy named Odin somehwere in Valhalla.
I actually agree as you long as you admit that the blouse you wear has a tag that says "Made in China". You own it and bought it, it is yours. However, you were not the one who made the fibers or knit them together, that was done by someone else and you enjoy it. You've got a tag, "Made by God" and it looks nice on you.
I'm sorry to probably disappoint you on two levels. To answer your question about where is God in the midst of all the bad stuff that happens I need to bring up Jesus. For me the question can't be answered without Him. Without believing in a God who has gone through a painful death, without believing in a God who knows what it is like to suffer, without a God who knows what it is like to be mocked and abandoned, misunderstood and unloved it is not possible to find hope and God's loving presence in these moments which we will undoubtedly experience ourselves. Jesus is God incarnate and Emmanuel, "God with us". God is not distant from us, He enters into the mess of our human lives. This is what real lovers do, they share suffering and hold each others hands, and through the experiences they grow deeper in love with each other. By entering into the difficulties we all go through and sharing them with us Christ simultaneously gives us hope, bestows meaning even to our suffering, and shows the depth of His unconditional and everlasting love for us.
St. Paul says it best:
"He who did not spare his own Son but handed him over for us all, how will he not also give us everything else along with him? Who will bring a charge against Gods chosen ones? It is God who acquits us. Who will condemn? It is Christ [Jesus] who died, rather, was raised, who also is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. What will separate us from the love of Christ? Will anguish, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword? As it is written: For your sake we are being slain all the day; we are looked upon as sheep to be slaughtered. No, in all these things we conquer overwhelmingly through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor present things, nor future things, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Rom. 8:31-39)
Can I ask you what your answer is to these questions are? What do you believe and what would you say to someone going through the tough stuff you mentioned?
I think I know your answer and I don't think I will like it, but who knows I may be pleasantly surprised.
You're ducking the point with a lot of handwaving about Jesus. An "all-powerful" being would already know what such experiences were all about...in fact,
he/she/it was the one who created them in the first place.
Would you care to explain why, for the vast majority (tens of thousands of years) of our species' existence, this god-fellow could NOT be troubled to offer this succor and help, and was willing to let our flea-bitten savage ancestors simply suffer? Sure seems like a distinct "lack of love". Or that the fellow as described in Holy Book Pt I, aka the Old Testament, is a stark raving homicidal maniac...and it is therefore strange that he would suddenly become all nice and fuzzy on account of hoping to please a band of Semites in the eastern Med? [Funny thing, some of the Gnostics thought that, as is obvious, the OT God couldn't possibly be "All-Good", and that therefore there must've been TWO Gods in play. An idea for which they suffered in various ways from those "true Christians", naturally.]
November 23rd, 2011 at 2:27:44 PM
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Quote: AyecarumbaThis was one of the knocks on Stephen Hawking's, "You don't need a creator to have everything come from nothing" theory. There are physical laws that we assume are constant across the Universe.
Why are there physical laws constant across the Universe? Why not just "randomness"?
Why is there a constant, repeatable set of rules on how the world works? (such as I drop this baseball and it always falls). I have no idea. The fact I don't know neither requires a god (or is proof there is no god). But even randomness would be a rule.
The anthromorphic principal says that the rules we have are observable by us, so the rules we have are conducive to their being an us. That also doesn't require a creator to occur.
"Then you can admire the real gambler, who has neither eaten, slept, thought nor lived, he has so smarted under the scourge of his martingale, so suffered on the rack of his desire for a coup at trente-et-quarante" - Honore de Balzac, 1829
November 23rd, 2011 at 2:40:18 PM
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Quote: thecesspitBut even randomness would be a rule.
Randomness is a rule enforced by the gaming commission.
November 23rd, 2011 at 2:45:50 PM
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Who oversees that the laws of physics are maintained so that the roulette wheel provides random results?Quote: kpRandomness is a rule enforced by the gaming commission.
Happiness is underrated
November 23rd, 2011 at 2:46:00 PM
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Quote: RaspberryCheeseBlintz
Would you care to explain why, for the vast majority (tens of thousands of years) of our species' existence, this god-fellow could NOT be troubled to offer this succor and help, and was willing to let our flea-bitten savage ancestors simply suffer? Sure seems like a distinct "lack of love". Or that the fellow as described in Holy Book Pt I, aka the Old Testament, is a stark raving homicidal maniac...and it is therefore strange that he would suddenly become all nice and fuzzy on account of hoping to please a band of Semites in the eastern Med? [Funny thing, some of the Gnostics thought that, as is obvious, the OT God couldn't possibly be "All-Good", and that therefore there must've been TWO Gods in play. An idea for which they suffered in various ways from those "true Christians", naturally.]
For the entire time of our existence we have sought after and believed in many manifestations of God to give us succor and help us. Many of these primitive religions share common ideas and images. All of this leading to the revelation of Jesus Christ. There was no time that God was not present to help us and in my opinion it was all leading to the culmination of God's love and revelation in the person of Jesus Christ who changed everything.
I always find it a little funny and somewhat annoying the characterizations of God in the Old Testament by people who I can only guess have not really read it. The largest section of the OT and in fact the Bible is the Psalms, which are beautiful and loving prayers between God and His people. Then there is the Song of Songs, a PG-13 love poem that describes the love of God and His people. There are many, many more examples and stories of amazing kindness and love on the part of God that far outnumber what often people naively point to as the example of a mean and vindictive God.
November 23rd, 2011 at 3:08:03 PM
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Quote: TheNightflyWho oversees that the laws of physics are maintained so that the roulette wheel provides random results?
Such results aren't really-random, just beyond our ability to track.
Why bet at all, if you can be sure?
Anyway, what constitutes a "good bet"? - The best slots-game in town; a sucker's edge; or some gray-area blackjack-stunts?
(P.S. God doesn't even have to exist to be God.)
November 23rd, 2011 at 3:18:16 PM
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Quote: rxwineMaybe you come home early and save your neighbor from a fire.
Maybe your neighbor goes to work every day at a child care center where he molests children.
God likes to kill people, I've noticed. One time he tried to kill the whole world in a flood. Another time he wiped out the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah with fire and brimstone. Seems every other day he's throwing a busload of schoolkids off a cliffside in Brazil, trying to crush Los Angeles in an earthquake, or whirling a tornado through Joplin, Missouri. This time, though, he wanted to destroy your apartment complex and your pedophile neighbor in a fire and YOU messed it up!!! You think you know better than GOD who He wants to live or die? Oh, boy, you need to look over your shoulder from now on Nick, God's coming to get you for stepping on his toes!
"Poker sure is an easy game to beat if you have the roll to keep rebuying."
November 23rd, 2011 at 3:24:19 PM
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You can pick and choose which parts of the bible you want to believe is the word of God. Pick the good parts that you like and let those beliefs speak more about YOU than they do about your imaginary friend.Quote: FrGambleThere are many, many more examples and stories of amazing kindness and love on the part of God that far outnumber what often people naively point to as the example of a mean and vindictive God.
Someday, joor goin' to see the name of Googie Gomez in lights and joor goin' to say to joorself, "Was that her?" and then joor goin' to answer to joorself, "That was her!" But you know somethin' mister? I was always her yuss nobody knows it! - Googie Gomez
November 23rd, 2011 at 3:26:31 PM
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Quote: FrGambleCan I ask you what your answer is to these questions are? What do you believe and what would you say to someone going through the tough stuff you mentioned?.
They did a study awhile back where they took 50 people
with the alomst exact same problems and had half of
them get intensive therapy for 5 years, and the other
half were left to fend for themselves. At the end of 5
years they found no differences in the groups at all. Just as
many people made progress with their problems
that were left alone, as did those that had therapy.
Its the same with religion. Some people need the crutch
that religion is, others get along fine without it. If only
we could live in harmony, without the religious people
always telling the rest of us how wrong we are.
"It's not called gambling if the math is on your side."
November 23rd, 2011 at 7:19:26 PM
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Quote: FrGambleI'm sorry to probably disappoint you on two levels.
On one only. You didn't answer the question.
Quote:To answer your question about where is God in the midst of all the bad stuff that happens I need to bring up Jesus.
That wasn't the question. The question was: if you credit god with everything good, do you blame him for everything bad? If it were my child dying painfully after knowing only pain throughout his short, short life, the last thing on my mind would be the whereabouts of some mythical character.
Donald Trump is a fucking criminal
November 23rd, 2011 at 7:41:12 PM
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Zippy there are a lot of bad things in this world that happen, there is a lot more good if we look for it, but the undenible fact is that bad stuff does happen. How do you deal with that fact? How do you think God should deal with that fact? It sounds like you would like God to make everything perfect, a place where there is no more suffering and no more pain. Do you long for Heaven? You should, we all should, and we should try our best to make this fleeting and passing world the best it can be, but thank God that this is not all there is. If this was all there was how would you seriously deal with a question you should take far more soberly?
I know some like EvenBob consider religion a crutch or some weakness. They imagine there is some heroic virtue in standing in front of the suffering of life without any answers and remianing steadfast in the meaninglessness of it all. He and others may say the problems of the world overcome me and I buckle under the pressure to find some purpose and meaning to life so I turn to some higher power who one day will solve everything. The truth is that God gives me a way to deal with and overcome the litany of awful stuff that can happen in the world, He even gives me a way to see His love and presence in the midst of them, goodness overcoming tradegy and evil, like a flame the darkness cannot and will not ever overcome. One of the most fundamental questions we need to answer as humans is how we deal with suffering? Making fun of it is not an answer, I hope you have one.
I know some like EvenBob consider religion a crutch or some weakness. They imagine there is some heroic virtue in standing in front of the suffering of life without any answers and remianing steadfast in the meaninglessness of it all. He and others may say the problems of the world overcome me and I buckle under the pressure to find some purpose and meaning to life so I turn to some higher power who one day will solve everything. The truth is that God gives me a way to deal with and overcome the litany of awful stuff that can happen in the world, He even gives me a way to see His love and presence in the midst of them, goodness overcoming tradegy and evil, like a flame the darkness cannot and will not ever overcome. One of the most fundamental questions we need to answer as humans is how we deal with suffering? Making fun of it is not an answer, I hope you have one.
November 23rd, 2011 at 7:48:59 PM
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Quote: AyecarumbaNo. I interpret your position as, "Random Universe". If this is so,
It is not so.
Really, don't pick up bad habits from the padre. There's no need to interpret what I believe. Ask.
The universe isn't random. As Cesspit said, there are underlying laws. The Second Law of Thermodynamics won't change by tomorrow. The Earth won't loose it's gravity and fling us all into space. The Sun won't ever go nova.
These laws also allow for beings like us, with minds and volition, to exist (otherwise we wouldn't exist, right? and then who'd be arguing?)
But events within the universe, aside from those involving living beings, are partly the result of chance. It took chance and natural laws about 4.6 billion years to produce H. sapiens, more if you count from the Big bang on, and still more if there was something "before" the Big Bang.
Now, take a human being. She's the product of a mixture of her parent's genes, right? We can make a guess as to how those genes will combine, but it's just a guess. Then, too, a mutation might occur. Say both parents have blue eyes. That means each of them carries two blue-eye genes, because blue eyes are a recessive trait requiring two genes to manifest itself. We'd conclude their daughter will be born with blue eyes as well.
That's fine, as far as it goes. But a random mutation might give her, say, violet eyes. The odds for that are astronomical, but it can happen. It doesn't happen often with eye color, but it does, also not often, with genetic diseases. They're random chance in action.
Donald Trump is a fucking criminal
