1984Echoes

Which makes my follow up comments valid, I believe. But... to answer your question... I KNOW religious people question their beliefs. I have definitely challenged a lot of my friends with difficult questions.... 😉

I never said that. YOU stated "most people have a natural curiosity which makes them wonder about the origins and meaning of life. Not everybody goes through not questioning why we are here." Who exactly are YOU referring to here, as "not questioning"?

Don't make the assumption that atheism or secularism = not questioning. That's a pretty bold and false assumption. There are those who are actually able to question, and find real answers not rooted in myth.

What an infantile comment. That has absolutely nothing to do with ignorance.

This is the part that I know I've seen, but would like to rewatch to let it sink in further. Also, I didn't think supernatural at the time but more along the lines of the superstitions rampant in earlier times. I forget what he did after the ceremony also... which may be the supernatural derivation...

Oh wait... I was thinking only about Dot and not the assassin... I'm going to need to rewatch it. I'm getting old.

What makes it seem sustainable to me is that... They had PROBLEMS (yes, I am using all-caps)... And were able to correct them.

??? Supernatural was Fargo season 2. Season 5 I haven't seen anything about supernatural... it's all about spousal abuse, hiding from a violent spouse, Police abuse, and survival techniques.

YOU offered an asinine comment, and then tried to pass it off as a "joke". Just like Trump. I don't think that I am the problem in this instance.

Here is the first Greek Jesus: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollonius_of_Tyana Synopsis: "Apollonius of Tyana was a first-century Greek philosopher and religious leader from the town of Tyana, Cappadocia in Roman Anatolia, who spent his life travelling and teaching in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia. He is a central figure in Neopythagoreanism and was one of the most famous "miracle workers" of his day. His exceptional personality and his mystical way of life, which was regarded as exemplary, impressed his contemporaries and had a lasting cultural influence. Numerous legends surrounding him and accounts of his life are contained in the extensive Life of Apollonius, which collects a large part of the legendary material about Apollonius' life and work. A large part of the ancient legends of Apollonius consist of numerous reports about miracles that he was said to have performed as a wandering sage with his lifelong companion Damis. He was tried for allegedly having used magic as a means of conspiring against the emperor; after his conviction and subsequent death-penalty, his followers believed he underwent heavenly ascension. Most modern scholars of antiquity agree that Apollonius existed historically..." It didn't take. Certainly, obviously, not as well as Paul's interpretation of Hebrew Yeshua.

Again, show examples of "unwaveringly ignorant".

Nothing I've said deserves this comment. No.. it appears to me that you are WAY, WAY too thin-skinned to hear anything that you don't agree with. I've offered no nasty snarls or hateful rhetoric. Show examples.

For the sake of argument, assume God does NOT exist, then try to come up with just exactly WHY a band of semi-literate bronze age nomads (or even nomadic hunter-gatherers from 50K years ago) would create a pagan world of horse spirits, wind spirits, etc. And WHY did paganism evolve into Polytheism in which "spirits" or "Titans" evolved into "Gods" that had more "control" over the population (from a clergical or monarchal perspective. IE: Egyptian "God-Kings" ruling over their population with complete control), and HOW did that evolve into a belief in one "God". Genesis 1-4 works 2,000 years ago. It no longer works. (Certainly not in secular Europe, who are more advanced thinkers than puritanical Americans). BTW: I have answers to all of the above questions I posed.

If you're talking about my post... my post was not insulting. It was a factual Paradox. A god cannot be omniscient and omnipotent but also a major screw-up. And you cannot claim, after "god" has gone through multiple extinction events (90-95% of all species exterminated in a meteoric collision or volcanic winter or... whatever the cause), millions of years of gradual evolutionary, and significant, changes from a walking chimpanzee (basically) to a walking/ talking Homo Sapiens, and then claim "god" is omnipotent and omniscient after all those (lucky for us) screw-ups. That is the paradox. Another paradox: If "god" is a screw-up and is not omnipotent or omniscient (as based upon the above), then he (or she) can NOT create the Universe out of nothing, and can NOT guide evolution (for 3.7 billion years, after the first cellular organisms generated), in order to create the "perfect" human. And with the multiple evolutionary disasters the past 3.7 billion years, there is no possible way to claim anyone's "god" is omnipotent or omniscient and has the power to create the Universe or guide evolution. Anther paradox. Those two are closely related but not exactly the same. No omnipotency means a lack of power to create the universe, and no omnisciency means a lack of foresight to have any idea where evolution will go. Those are not insults. They are simple paradoxical facts. Or... Catch-22. As for "the desire for spirituality that many people have:... go for it. Believe in whatever you wish to. I won't steal anyone's beliefs... but in a discussion of facts, I stick only to facts, not to any extraneous belief systems which rely NOT on any facts, but on simple story-telling. But I have a much simpler belief system for myself: Facts is facts.

Catch-22.

If God is omnipotent and omniscient, then why are there billions of dead species? Obviously, he's a brainless jagoff who has absolutely no clue what he's doing. Whatsoever.

There are those who do exactly that. I guess that's what they've decided is the meaning of life: Be an asshole. Trump is the current leader of that movement...

Stupid. Are people really this asinine?

Dysfunctional Bigs, and 3-OR-D's... Weaver's specialties...

I just caught myself on that... 😉

I must be Monty or something... I've totally forgotten about Ivey. He's probably a lot better than Hayes... on offense. But apparently, since he's not playing much D (in Monty's eyes), Monty has Hayes above him. I think Ivey should be the bench PG ahead of Hayes; but I will agree with Monty here that Ivey has to make enough of an effort on D to earn that spot ahead of Hayes. I guess I'm giving Monty the benefit of the doubt... For now.

Starters and bench should be: starters: Sasser-Cade-Ausar-Livers-Duren bench: Hayes-Burks-(Harris or Knox or whomever is healthy)-Stew-Bagley At least until Bojan comes back. Then the starters are Sasser-Cade-Ausar-Bojan-Duren. With the only problem being the defensive hole that Bojan creates... That pushes Livers to the bench as... SF? Hayes-Burks-Livers-Stew-Bagley...? Just my 2 cents... But it also seems that Monty is just now starting to experiment with lineups since nothing has worked so far, so... hopefully he can get to the above conclusions...

Yep. I take nothing from my Christian friends... they have their own perspectives on life. Funny thing is, in New Jersey, I am surrounded by Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Jewish, and many other beliefs or non-beliefs. It would be insane (or lonely) to just lash out and denigrate everyone based on their beliefs, or anything else, so... When it comes to religion, I am not a bigot. I believe there ARE religious bigots ("if you don't believe what I believe then I HATE you"...), which I tend to avoid. I don't care what anyone does or does not believe in, I only care that a person is a good dude, or gal. At some point, if I want to hold onto a friendship, and we're at a point of contention... It has to get to agree to disagree when it comes to that...

There's some hypocrasy in here... Replace "Big Bang" with "God" or whatever else is the "something" that a person could believe in (a lot of people have turned away from the belief in a "god" but still believe in "something")... and what do you have? Nothing created something. 50,000 years ago when we were hunters and gatherers and (modern homo sapiens is 250,000 years old, so it took 200K years to...) came up with the concept of the "Happy Hunting Grounds", and all the itinerant spirits, gods, origin stories that came along with that, etc., etc.. I can understand it. We didn't know anything so we created these stories. Bu that's what "God" is. A man-made creation/ created story. I mean, religious believers understand that this is true, right? That ALL creation stories/ religions are MAN-MADE. That YOU created "God" (or your ancesters 2,000, 3,000, 50,000 years ago... whenever applies) out of NOTHING. That we KNOW that God = Nothing. So in effect, YOU are creating Something (Universe) out of NOTHING (God). Just so you understand that perspective. No disrespect, believe in whatever you want to... But I give absolutely zero credence to anything "God" related. Maybe there's some good things out of religion, but there are also TERRIBLE things out of religion (murderous pogroms, murderous crusades, murderous genocide, papal decrees to enslave Native Americans, Christian complicity in the Jewish Holocaust, Inquisitions, and modern-day Christian youth gangs that beat to death homosexuals or other "undesirables" that they don't like... Point. Let me offer an alternative: Your life has whatever meaning you assign to it. IE: If you wish to become a "pillar" of your community, and do all sorts of volunteering and service, then you've just added meaning to your life. Self-defined. If you decided to become an Astro-Physicist and work for Space-X because you believe it is important to colonize Mars... then you've just added this meaning to your life. Self-defined. If you decide that it's most important to be a good father and you do so, and raise a family accordingly... then you've just added this meaning to your life. Self-defined. You DON'T need someone else to define your life. Or the meaning of your life. Real or imagined. YOU get to define the meaning of your own life. Personally, I don't see what's so hard about that.

Would the front door stoop be an OK place? Ummm... Asking for a friend. No names...