How come we can make jokes about God, but we can't make jokes about gays or blacks?
Printable View
How come we can make jokes about God, but we can't make jokes about gays or blacks?
Gays and blacks are real and they have feelings.Quote:
Originally Posted by buttslinger
Or, it could be that if you do, God smites you down.Quote:
Originally Posted by buttslinger
Uh oh, I almost got serious.
Interesting discussion.
Can't help but chuckle at what the HA programme algorithm has determined to constitute 'similar threads'
And, dearly beloved, Let us not forget the greatest lesson of them all.
Blessed are the cheesemakers.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Plaything
If we're going down that route then surely this is the greatest lesson of all...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHPOzQzk9Qo
Religion?
Piece of piss.
And the lord sayeth (no capital T: not suggesting a definitive article, insert your own deity)
'Don't be a twat'
That pretty much wraps it up.
God's "To Do List"
Apologies in advance. Just felt like rambling a bit. It’s a nice day for a walk.
Is it possible to decide what one believes and disbelieves? What is belief? Our daily life is underpinned by a multitude of unconscious assumptions and commitments to action. Before you jump out of bed in the morning, I’m betting you do not generally ponder the solidity of floor, review the mechanics of stress and strain, access the evidence and decide to believe the flooring will indeed support you––rather than grow eyes, open its gullet and gobble you up. Perhaps it’s not fair to call an unconscious assumption a belief. But now that it’s been brought to mind, certainly you consciously believe the ground upon which you now stand, or your chair stands will continue to support you into the near future. It’s a belief probably based on recent and current experience. But what is that belief? Some might say it’s merely a commitment to action (a gamble that the ground currently beneath you will continue to support you).
What does it mean to believe the Earth is between four and five billion years old? Is there a correspondence between reality as we observe it and what is believed? Perhaps the correspondence is that the Earth has has already made over four billion trips around the Sun but not five billion? But how can anyone observe that? What commitment does such a belief entail? To many, it entails no real commitments. You just say you believe it and go on with your life. If later we discover the Earth is at least six billion years old, you can shrug your shoulders and say, “Imagine that.” But if you’re a geologist, or an astronomer, or a paleontologist etc., the belief that the Earth is between four and five billion years old entails quite a number of commitments and the consequences of being wrong would involve quite a number of reassessments, adjustments and new commitments. Everything would have to be rethought.
The point is that belief involves commitment. The less committed you are, the easier it is to change your mind. World views tend to have a lot a inertia and are accordingly more difficult to change. We have predispositions for against various propositions, depending on who we are. Often we do not decide what to believe. We believe first and investigate second. This is not so bad, if we are in the habit of investigating with honesty and integrity.
So what does it mean to believe the universe was created by a god? It depends on the believer. The Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition maintains that belief entails commitment to the commandments of the creator god as detailed by his recorded word in the various holy texts. But belief that the holy texts record the words of the creator god as revealed to the prophets presumes the existence of such a god. Such commitment depends ultimately (and circularly) upon one’s trust in the text, and penultimately upon one’s trust in the prophets. This was the view against which protestants rebelled during the reformation. Protestants (and Mormons) maintain the each person has direct access to the creator-god and speaks with him on a daily basis through via a religious/moral conscious and prayer. Personally, I’m inclined to describe anyone who claims to have a personal relationship with god as having a serious lack of (and misunderstanding of)intellectual honesty__but self-deceit is a serious charge that’s difficult prove.
Of course belief in a creator god needn’t involve such a clutter of moral and metaphysical commitments. There are some, for example who simply believe that the present values of the fundamental constants indicate that they’ve been fine-tuned; i.e. deliberately chosen by conscious agent to favor the evolution of life in the universe. What does it mean to believe this? Does the hypothesis have any testable consequences? To what does it commit us? Functionally, to no more than the observable fact that “life exists” already commits us. It remains an empty, though to some, a comforting perspective on a cosmic contingency.
My guess is that we are sometimes incapable of deciding what we believe; like the parents who insist their child is not a murderer in spite of the evidence to the contrary__ and who knows, they may be right. We believe what we believe. Sometimes logic will take us by the throat and force us to see the world as it is, and sometimes the throttling just cuts off the flow of oxygen to our brains. The trick is to know when you’re hallucinating and when you’re not. Honest examination won't always help, but it's our only ally.
Cormac McCarthy sees things.
Rather brilliantly.
You see Cormac.
I imagine that when walking in the country you also see the wind play across a field of wheat, where others stride head down and calculate the calorific value of their journey.
I see Cormac.
I see the breeze.
Diggin it.
I saw ...
a potato chip shaped exactly like Prophet Muhammad once. No mistake about it. And just an hour before the most illustrious assassinations yesterday of twelve cartoonists ...
I saw ...
all thirteen of Muhammad's wives on the burnt surface of a piece of Texas toast.
Don't shoot me. They were just there. I just saw 'em, I didn't draw 'em.
As it is blasphemous to have any visual image of Muhammad, shouldn't all chips and toast be destroyed?
What's "Texas Toast"? Is it larger than normal toast or is it toasted using burning crosses?
Quote:
Originally Posted by trish
This was my toast (non-Texan) this morning - honest! I know what I'm going to worship in future. It's a sign.
Just for safety's sake, best to add a disclaimer:
Ce ne est pas les organes génitaux du prophète.
You'd need a bigger piece of toast;Quote:
Originally Posted by trish
Time for a thread necro...
So you've acquired empirical evidence that no god exists? This is what I find absolutely ridiculous about atheism, it's just like any religion being based on faith. The universe is a big place and an even bigger place is the apparent multiverse beyond it which is supposedly infinite and yet you atheists decree that there is absolutely no god just because you don't see a bearded man walking on this Earth and jumping from cloud to cloud. I find it hilarious.Quote:
Originally Posted by timmartin
Worst yet is the explanation from atheists about how the universe came here: "it's just here because" apparently unaware that a theist can use that same very argument then to argue that a god just exists "just because" and arose the same very way that apparently a godless universe could.
Just adding my two cents, I'm not religious myself so I can understand the criticisms against religions but I think atheism is absolute arrogance.
I don't know what god is like or if he even cares but it makes more sense believing than not. If conciousness can arise by itself then I see no reason why it can't do so outside of the universe or in another dimension.
It is hard, if not impossible, to show that something does not exist, if you accept (agreed a matter of faith) Occam's Razor
The principle states that among competing hypotheses that predict equally well, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected. Other, more complicated solutions may ultimately prove to provide better predictions, but—in the absence of differences in predictive ability—the fewer assumptions that are made, the better.
Then the argument is do we need a deity (in the christian juristic tradition) to explain what we can observe. If not, then god is an invention - useful for many. Being useful, does not make it correct.
You cannot observe neutrinos, but science believes that they exist. Discuss.
Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded in 1995 to Clyde Cowan and Frederick Reines for experimental observation of the effects of neutrino fluxes. Want more?
In fact neutrinos are a powerful example of the scientific method from Pauli's and Fermi's prediction that such a particle was necessary to explain observed phenomena then numerous observations have confirmed its existence.
In the late 1920’s early 1930’s it was discovered that a proton (another particle we can’t see) could become electrically neutral by absorbing an electron, thereby becoming a neutron. In the reverse process, a neutron can be stimulated to eject an electron becoming a proton. The latter process is called beta-decay (beta-particles had earlier been identified as electrons and both names remained in use). There was some difficulty in keeping track of all the energy and momentum in these processes; i.e. momentum of the neutron prior to beta decay is greater than (by a small amount) the recoil momentum of the proton plus the momentum of the ejected electron. This contradicts a principle known as conservation of momentum. Conservation of momentum had been established since Newton, elaborated upon and tested over and over again in many different contexts. Nevertheless, Niels Bohr suggested that on subatomic scales the conservation of momentum may need to be amended. Perhaps its a statistical principle with a small range of allowable fluctuation. Wolfang Pauli, however, proposed that during beta-decay a neutron not only ejects an electron but it also ejects another particle with just the right amount of momentum to save the law of momentum conservation. The proposed particle would have to be very small, very light weight, very speedy and electrically neutral, hence the name neutrino.
So the existence of neutrinos was first hypothesized as a possible explanation of how energy and momenta should be accounted for in beta-decay.
Since then other types of particle decay were shown to be consistent with the conservation of energy and momentum provided certain particles were involved that had exactly the physical characteristics (charge, spin etc.) as Pauli’s neutrino. Other subatomic interactions revealed other types of neutrinos (antineutrino, muon neutrinos and tau neutrinos).
Still, no one really understood why beta-decay happens in the first place. Glashow, Weinberg and Salaam addressed this question in their Nobel prize winning work (I believe in the 1970’s). Later the Standard Model of particle physics (a set of assumptions that propose the dynamical equations that describe the behavior of quarks and leptons must display certain kinds of symmetry) was shown to entail the existence of neutrinos.
The proton is another particle we can’t literally see. But because it is positively charged it will ionize ordinary matter if it has a high enough energy to pass through it. Think cosmic rays. For that matter, the only things we do literally see are photons with frequencies in the range of visible light. I don’t literally see the lip of a cup as I sip my morning coffee, I see light reflected off the lip. We “see” things by their effects upon our biologically evolved detection systems. In 1950 neutrinos ejected by a nuclear reactor were detected. It was predicted if a large body of water into which cadmium chloride was dissolved were placed near the reaction, the flux of antineutrinos through the water would interact with protons in the solution and produce positrons (which in turn would quickly annihilate with the electrons in the water producing a quantifiable, signature amount of energy) and neutrons (which were absorbed by the cadmium ions in the water produce a quantifiable, signature number of detectable gamma rays). The prediction was born out. Since then neutrinos of various types from various sources have been detected in various ways.
Does science believe that neutrinos exist? Well, science isn’t really the sort of thing that believes, is it? When asked, most scientists will assent to the probable existence of neutrinos. Most of them (who are in fields other than particle theory), instead of employing first hand evidence, will be relying upon the intellectual integrity of their colleagues. Those who do have deep familiarity with the theories, equations, experiments and measurements will say they believe that neutrinos almost surely exist. Although, like Niels Bohr who was willing to give up the well tested principle of momentum conservation, they will have a reservation buried in that “almost surely” and they, if necessary, would be willing to give it up for a more encompassing, testable explanation of all the phenomena which are currently quantitively explained by the neutrino hypothesis.
OK - that's a fuller explanation than what I gave but what the heck. I'm not the one to let brutal facts stand in the way of anyone's beliefs
So there is a person who truly believes that he or she sees God when the rising sun illuminates a cornfield. In this case, the science is impeccable: the sun is shining, the cornfield is there, in all its glory; and the believer is convinced the light is from God, that it may even BE God, a hypothesis that science does not, and cannot refute. And there is not even a need to be afraid, but there may be an inclination to rejoice. Was it not Turner who once said I paint what I see, not what is there -?
...and knowing her belief had only intangible consequences, she remained secure in the knowledge that no tangible thing could ever threaten the strength of her faith.
Perception is reality.Quote:
Originally Posted by Stavros
Pretty certain that, even if we just get one ride...it's a gift.
The trick, not easy, is realising, and recognising that - in our day to day.
Finding grace in ordinary things.
Somebody way smarter than me posited that happiness is as simple as:
Somewhere to live.
Something to do.
Someone to love.
I can get with that.
Great thread, and some fabulous posts.
Perception is isn't always reality
Being atheist merely means that I am unaffected by personal religious beliefs of my own. It's not any kind of religious belief, by even the wildest stretch of the imagination. "A"something doesn't mean "against". It just means "not". I have no problem with theism, gnosticism, humanism... or any other kind of "ism", jism, or whatever. I find it all very interesting and entertaining, as long as nobody tries to force me to follow its tenets.Quote:
Originally Posted by Fyusian
Well, "Amen" to that
There are no Atheists in foxholes. I remember me and my pal joking years ago about the crappy anesthesia they used back then, in the recovery room guys coming out of it would be spilling their guts. Anesthesia takes you down to one notch above DEATH, and it sounds to me like your conscious takes center stage when you're about to face the final curtain. The choices you made. A few years ago I had a scare and spent a long night in the hospital, when I got home I deleted an entire exterior hard drive.
Of course there are. You shouldn't believe every motto that's been printed on a dorm room poster. There have been a number of well-known atheists who have remained atheists to the final end. Of course you might call them know it-all-know nothings. Still,Quote:
Originally Posted by buttslinger
a brush with death might scare the bejeezus out of you (or into you), but the imminence of death is not evidence of God.
Besides, God fucking well knows what was on that hard drive and you're still going to have to answer for it when you get to those golden arches...er...I mean St. Peter's gate.
No I was absolved of those crimes, I still have faith you will one day renounce your education.....all those people who have died not believing in homework........bless their souls.Quote:
Originally Posted by trish
Are you sure you're forgiven? I know it's written down in a book somewhere that Jesus died for your sins. But then the bastard got himself resurrected. Seems to me that undoes the dyin' for yer sins part. In any case, God Remembers Everything...after all, he's (oops, He's) all-knowing. And He's known to be a real prick. I wouldn't trust Him. He ordered His own son to die for your sins, and what are they worth?
Your sin is PRIDE,Trish, that's a tough nut to crack.
It's not like I'm Kyle Reese trying to tell you that the Terminator is real and came back from the future, there are actually one or two fairly rational books that discuss God, as well as a few widely respected artists. I give you my solemn promise that you are stubborn and pigheaded on this issue.
Exhibit A? YOU!!!!
ha ha ha!!!
Sorry, but I have very little pride. Some ambition perhaps, and a great deal of curiosity accompanied by a desire learn and understand; but I'm certainly not prideful. My sin is selfishness, pure and simple. I could definitely do more to be conscious of others around me, take on more responsibility and be more available to people, but I'm too absorbed in the things the really interest me - my partner, my immediate friends, my work and pornography. Life may eventually catch up with me and make me regret my ways, but I'm beyond the reach of the fictional fingers divine ghosts.
If I were you, I would've tried dropping that hard-drive into a black hole. Might've work, but Stephen Hawking says, "No, the universe remembers its entire content."
I'd say we're about 25% in agreement. As for that dark hard drive, I think there are quite a few people here who wouldn't want their nephew to hop on their computer and check their browsing history. People are the only animals that don't walk around naked.Quote:
Originally Posted by trish
Amen to that.
Thanks Trish...This reminds me of all those idiots who use the rationale of "saying" they believe as an insurance policy for a 'possible' after life. "Better safe than sorry" they say...as if an actual all-knowing, supreme deity would be akin to the Burl Ives snowman in "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" - chuckling and singing away, and excusing you for any sins you may have committed, because on any given day , during a conversation you may have had on a city bus, you said - "I believe in God".Quote:
Originally Posted by trish
Like a being like that couldn't/wouldn't look into your heart/mind to see what was really going on there...and possibly toss that person further down than he would an honest unbeliever.
"You don’t need to go to church to be a Christian. If you go to Taco Bell, that doesn’t make you a taco."
-Justin Bieber.
Be afraid, be very afraid.
I can understand why eighteen year old Catholics want to go out and break every rule that's been shoved down their throat,
and I can understand why nobody here wants to give a thumbs up to an egomaniac asshole who has insulted shemales, gays, blacks, whites, brits, knowitalls, Koreans, Stevegrooby, etc etc etc.
Hey maybe I'm struggling with my internal buttslinger here.
If you go to the doctor's office and while you're sitting there for twenty, thirty, fifty minutes, maybe you've noticed those receptionists huddled behind the counter filing their nails, staring into space or avoiding eye contact, gossiping, talking on the phone. While you're hurting. What is your perception?
Are they minimum wage losers, or are they pissed at their boss, do they not care, or do they have problems of their own?
Do you pass Judgement on them because they never really stepped up front and center and took the pain to become a nurse instead of a lazy receptionist? Do you forgive them, because they know not what they are doing?
I would say humans caring about the patients sitting in their waiting room would be the very basic entry level Bible Lesson, and GOD would be more along the lines of twelve years of medical school. While I don't understand much of what my Doctor might say, I don't think he's full of shit. I have some faith he knows what he's talking about.
I trust my doctor no further than he is able to explain his treatment and procedures. I trust the pharmaceuticals I buy only insofar as I trust the FDA to test them (which is getting more difficult for them to do in the present political climate). I have no faith :(