A discussion took place recently and the only consideration was whether one can request miracles through prayer. Yep, if you just believe in God and what's in the Bible, here's what you'll get. But don't ask for Lotto numbers as only the tacky hoi polloi do that.
Johnny, tell 'em what they've won.
Hey, hey, you've not only won the Love of Jesus but you ... have ... won ... a ... BRAND NEW CAR!
I love you, God, because I want to get free stuff.
And, Lord, I want to go to Heaven. I know I get bored on Sunday afternoons sometimes but I really, really want to spend billions of years with you, doing nothing but being blissful or some shit like that. Maybe we could get together sometimes and make stars or new diseases or something.
The rampaging hypocrisy just gets insufferable at times. One of the oldest rules of all is Thou Shalt Not Kill as this is Old Testament stuff that came down to Moses. However, there are all sorts of escape clauses in the New Testament to make it alright. People get really angry about this one as they'll insist that God will still love them if they kill people. And, sure, that makes sense. It's only bad when other people kill people, not when you do it, honey.
This has some similarities to the United States Constitution in which it says that all men are created equal. Later on it says that a black man is 3/5 of a white man and that was the part that prevailed. To some extent, it still does and those who support that thinking are just as self-righteous as a mountain preacher with a bottle of moonshine.
Those who think God loves them and consequently loves executions will frequently point to abortion as if that's ok then executions must be ok. That they don't have anything to do with one another is irrelevant, the purpose is to assuage the troubles in their hardened hearts and it really doesn't matter if the deflection is performed through a sideshow debating trick. Stick to the point or sit yer ass down, Sylvester.
And then I mentioned Zoroaster ... but that's when the One Who Knows really went berserk. Zoroastrianism is the philosophy that was very strong in Persia prior to the religions which have survived to the modern age. Much of the Judeo-Christian beliefs came from Zoroastrianism just as Christianity drew from the Old Testament and subsequently Islam did the same. Mormonism came after that and much of that was drawn from some scribbles on the wall of a Texaco restroom in Illinois. Scientology most likely came from a bad acid trip. Judging by Hubbard's sci-fi, it must have been pretty cheap acid too.
I should have backed off at that point as the One Who Knows was obviously bluffing but sometimes it's almost irresistible.
But none of that has any particular value at all and certainly doesn't prove anything. Where religion gets interesting is with regard to any notion of determinism. In other words, do you have control of your life or is it preordained by God. Sure it's possible there's some mix of the two but that seems quite a lackadaisical way to run a Universe. Sometimes God will make the call, sometimes you will or sometimes we'll just leave it up to cute li'l Suzy Parker at the end of the street to decide what will happen next in your life.
Determinism pops up frequently in gambler thinking. If the roulette wheel has come up with 35 three times in a row then that makes some difference to whether 35 will come up on the next spin. In the Laws of Probability, there is no difference to the odds. Gamblers don't think that way, however. Determinism also plays massively in music but that's a thesis in itself.
As one goes back in time, religions get more deterministic and free will doesn't get much play. Why would anyone even give a thought to free will during the course of the Black Death during which maybe half of the world's population died. People use the word 'horrific' today and it shows little so much as an egregious lack of knowledge of history. How can there be free will when everyone is dying in horrible ways all around you. Free will means nothing.
Prayer has some bearing on this as say you ignore Jesus' fervent request and you do, in fact, pray for winning Lotto numbers. When you win there's a Eureka moment in which you are filled with the Love of the Lord. See, God really does love me.
However, God knows you will buy a boat with that money and you will use it to catch fish and those fish will go to feed starving African babies. God wasn't answering your prayer, he was giving you a job. Either this truth or Eureka, God Loves Me may be real and possibly even both if you like a Monty Python Universe.
A) God loves you and he would like it if you feed African babies.
Maybe God let you win that Lotto because he loves you and he just hopes you will see that buying a boat to catch fish and feed African babies is good.
B) God loves you and he doesn't give a rat's ass about starving African babies.
Sure, you prayed for the Lotto. God let you win it and now just go ahead and blow it on hookers and cocaine.
C) God doesn't give a rat's ass about you and you're just a tool to feed starving African babies.
If total determinism is real then the person who buys the boat and catches the fish doesn't really matter that much as God's actual purpose is to feed African babies.
Whether you can get free stuff through prayer isn't of much interest to me as it seems much on the order of whether Santa Claus is real. That's cool if you're hoping for an electric train set but it doesn't mean much beyond that. However, whether you have any real control of your life is, in my view, a very big deal.
You can see various forms of determinism all over the place. Maybe somebody driving a car splatters a motorcycle rider and then tells the cop he didn't see the bike. That makes it ok as obviously God put the bike there and it was meant to happen. Or maybe young Billy and Suzy Parker get busy behind the barn. They say they couldn't help it. The only answer left is God made them do it.
Christianity has an escape clause in Satan as any bad thing that happens can be tagged to Satan's influence and that gives God a pass ... but that doesn't really work as an omnipotent God could over-ride anything Satan did. There's all manner of theological pandering on the matter but omnipotence is pretty clearly defined. You are or you ain't. I therefore reject Satan as an explanation for anything.
So when Bad Things Happen, God owns them. Say there's a plane crash and maybe you think God killed them all and, sure, He did. That either makes him a vicious bastard or someone who was sitting and watching the aircraft while he thought, "Damn it! That is NOT how I told you to build that aircraft. Now it's going to crash and all those people will die. Start over and build it right this time."
If you're looking for an answer behind all this you may not be quite understanding the game. It's maybe like thinking something will change if Obama is not President. That shows an amusing faith in democracy. Nevertheless, if things really are preordained then it's God's Will that Obama is President. So, uh, how do you like determinism so far.
It's amusing insofar as America has two deeply-separated personalities. There's religion more extreme than most other developed nations and this form of it demands a fairly high order of theological determinism. However, it's the same country in which at least half strongly believe in the power of democracy and electoral process. They can't have it both ways so they spin around in circles a lot.
(Ed: where is the string theory?)
It isn't anywhere. What sucked me into the original discussion was a statement to the effect of I have studied Taoism and string theory. I thought that would be funny and it was but now (cough) you have been sucked into it the same way. Praise the Lord.
Johnny, tell 'em what they've won.
Hey, hey, you've not only won the Love of Jesus but you ... have ... won ... a ... BRAND NEW CAR!
I love you, God, because I want to get free stuff.
And, Lord, I want to go to Heaven. I know I get bored on Sunday afternoons sometimes but I really, really want to spend billions of years with you, doing nothing but being blissful or some shit like that. Maybe we could get together sometimes and make stars or new diseases or something.
The rampaging hypocrisy just gets insufferable at times. One of the oldest rules of all is Thou Shalt Not Kill as this is Old Testament stuff that came down to Moses. However, there are all sorts of escape clauses in the New Testament to make it alright. People get really angry about this one as they'll insist that God will still love them if they kill people. And, sure, that makes sense. It's only bad when other people kill people, not when you do it, honey.
This has some similarities to the United States Constitution in which it says that all men are created equal. Later on it says that a black man is 3/5 of a white man and that was the part that prevailed. To some extent, it still does and those who support that thinking are just as self-righteous as a mountain preacher with a bottle of moonshine.
Those who think God loves them and consequently loves executions will frequently point to abortion as if that's ok then executions must be ok. That they don't have anything to do with one another is irrelevant, the purpose is to assuage the troubles in their hardened hearts and it really doesn't matter if the deflection is performed through a sideshow debating trick. Stick to the point or sit yer ass down, Sylvester.
And then I mentioned Zoroaster ... but that's when the One Who Knows really went berserk. Zoroastrianism is the philosophy that was very strong in Persia prior to the religions which have survived to the modern age. Much of the Judeo-Christian beliefs came from Zoroastrianism just as Christianity drew from the Old Testament and subsequently Islam did the same. Mormonism came after that and much of that was drawn from some scribbles on the wall of a Texaco restroom in Illinois. Scientology most likely came from a bad acid trip. Judging by Hubbard's sci-fi, it must have been pretty cheap acid too.
I should have backed off at that point as the One Who Knows was obviously bluffing but sometimes it's almost irresistible.
But none of that has any particular value at all and certainly doesn't prove anything. Where religion gets interesting is with regard to any notion of determinism. In other words, do you have control of your life or is it preordained by God. Sure it's possible there's some mix of the two but that seems quite a lackadaisical way to run a Universe. Sometimes God will make the call, sometimes you will or sometimes we'll just leave it up to cute li'l Suzy Parker at the end of the street to decide what will happen next in your life.
Determinism pops up frequently in gambler thinking. If the roulette wheel has come up with 35 three times in a row then that makes some difference to whether 35 will come up on the next spin. In the Laws of Probability, there is no difference to the odds. Gamblers don't think that way, however. Determinism also plays massively in music but that's a thesis in itself.
As one goes back in time, religions get more deterministic and free will doesn't get much play. Why would anyone even give a thought to free will during the course of the Black Death during which maybe half of the world's population died. People use the word 'horrific' today and it shows little so much as an egregious lack of knowledge of history. How can there be free will when everyone is dying in horrible ways all around you. Free will means nothing.
Prayer has some bearing on this as say you ignore Jesus' fervent request and you do, in fact, pray for winning Lotto numbers. When you win there's a Eureka moment in which you are filled with the Love of the Lord. See, God really does love me.
However, God knows you will buy a boat with that money and you will use it to catch fish and those fish will go to feed starving African babies. God wasn't answering your prayer, he was giving you a job. Either this truth or Eureka, God Loves Me may be real and possibly even both if you like a Monty Python Universe.
A) God loves you and he would like it if you feed African babies.
Maybe God let you win that Lotto because he loves you and he just hopes you will see that buying a boat to catch fish and feed African babies is good.
B) God loves you and he doesn't give a rat's ass about starving African babies.
Sure, you prayed for the Lotto. God let you win it and now just go ahead and blow it on hookers and cocaine.
C) God doesn't give a rat's ass about you and you're just a tool to feed starving African babies.
If total determinism is real then the person who buys the boat and catches the fish doesn't really matter that much as God's actual purpose is to feed African babies.
Whether you can get free stuff through prayer isn't of much interest to me as it seems much on the order of whether Santa Claus is real. That's cool if you're hoping for an electric train set but it doesn't mean much beyond that. However, whether you have any real control of your life is, in my view, a very big deal.
You can see various forms of determinism all over the place. Maybe somebody driving a car splatters a motorcycle rider and then tells the cop he didn't see the bike. That makes it ok as obviously God put the bike there and it was meant to happen. Or maybe young Billy and Suzy Parker get busy behind the barn. They say they couldn't help it. The only answer left is God made them do it.
Christianity has an escape clause in Satan as any bad thing that happens can be tagged to Satan's influence and that gives God a pass ... but that doesn't really work as an omnipotent God could over-ride anything Satan did. There's all manner of theological pandering on the matter but omnipotence is pretty clearly defined. You are or you ain't. I therefore reject Satan as an explanation for anything.
So when Bad Things Happen, God owns them. Say there's a plane crash and maybe you think God killed them all and, sure, He did. That either makes him a vicious bastard or someone who was sitting and watching the aircraft while he thought, "Damn it! That is NOT how I told you to build that aircraft. Now it's going to crash and all those people will die. Start over and build it right this time."
If you're looking for an answer behind all this you may not be quite understanding the game. It's maybe like thinking something will change if Obama is not President. That shows an amusing faith in democracy. Nevertheless, if things really are preordained then it's God's Will that Obama is President. So, uh, how do you like determinism so far.
It's amusing insofar as America has two deeply-separated personalities. There's religion more extreme than most other developed nations and this form of it demands a fairly high order of theological determinism. However, it's the same country in which at least half strongly believe in the power of democracy and electoral process. They can't have it both ways so they spin around in circles a lot.
(Ed: where is the string theory?)
It isn't anywhere. What sucked me into the original discussion was a statement to the effect of I have studied Taoism and string theory. I thought that would be funny and it was but now (cough) you have been sucked into it the same way. Praise the Lord.
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