Cleanup in Aisle Lunatic (h/t romad1)

[chasfh]

On 5/27/2022 at 6:43 PM, gehringer_2 said:

Or "There is a plan but Man keeps setting it back" - or basically the 'long arc of history' concept.

If God allows Man to set His plan back, then he’s not omnipotent.

[romad1]

29 minutes ago, chasfh said:

Also many a critical thinker freeing themselves from the restrictions of superstitious assumptions. 

National...should be natural.  Spellchek got me.

My assumption is that if God is there, he's been punking us. 

You have to appreciate the small wonders but the big horrors are pretty bad.

Edited May 29, 2022 by romad1

[gehringer_2]

1 hour ago, chasfh said:

If God allows Man to set His plan back, then he’s not omnipotent.

that's a semantic question though. If power is complete freedom of action, having to act in every situation is also a limitation of power, thus omnipotence also implies freedom not to act. The real problem you run into if you try to run any of these definitions to ground are the joint paradoxes of will and and deterministic physics. First take physics. In a pure Newtonian physics every single event in the history of the universe was predetermined at the instance of its beginning because in Newtonian physics, the position of every single particle at time t + del t is fully determined by it's position and energy at time t. There is no freedom of any kind, for God or man, because the human body and brain are physical objects, no free will is possible. God put it into motion once and everything is predetermined. But this is fatal to any moral liability. Everything that happens in your brain is chemically and physically predetermined at every point in time. There is not even really any "you." You were a predestined automaton from the moment of creation.

Of course no sentient human being actually believes they don't have will, thus this was always simply swept under the rug once Newtonian physics became established. So religious philosophers largely stopped talking about nature - or rejected science. Of course that we do live in a fully deterministic universe and self-awareness is simply a delusion, would be the ultimate cosmic joke. And certainly a very, very meta one if we can sit and write about it from within it.

But then along came quantum mechanics and roiled all the waters. We learned that events in the universe are not fully determined by the past - events only have probabilities of occurring in the future and the process by we get from point A to point B actually have random character. Does this save the day? Can there actually be a thing called 'mind' which can somehow influence you brain's chemistry at the quantum level and produce a 'volition' that is truly independent of and not fully determined by its past state? And did a God create a universe that really operates on a measure of random chance? Einstein disliked this idea very much, his famous quote being "The theory says a lot, but does not really bring us any closer to the secret of the "old one." I, at any rate, am convinced that He does not throw dice." 

What does the term omnipotence even mean if there are 7 billions independent sources of volition on a single planet? Is it meaningful to say a being can be omniscient in a quantum universe? It seems to me such an omniscience would have to exist on some meta level outside the universe itself - a statement which itself has only tenuous meaning.

You can throw all those questions into the same pot as other paradoxes of time and space such as: "what was before the universe?" or "what is outside the universe" 

Have a nice day....

Edited May 29, 2022 by gehringer_2

[romad1]

57 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

that's a semantic question though. If power is complete freedom of action, having to act in every situation is also a limitation of power, thus omnipotence also implies freedom not to act. The real problem you run into if you try to run any of these definitions to ground are the joint paradoxes of will and and deterministic physics. First take physics. In a pure Newtonian physics every single event in the history of the universe was predetermined at the instance of its beginning because in Newtonian physics, the position of every single particle at time t + del t is fully determined by it's position and energy at time t. There is no freedom of any kind, for God or man, because the human body and brain are physical objects, no free will is possible. God put it into motion once and everything is predetermined. But this is fatal to any moral liability. Everything that happens in your brain is chemically and physically predetermined at every point in time. There is not even really any "you." You were a predestined automaton from the moment of creation.

Of course no sentient human being actually believes they don't have will, thus this was always simply swept under the rug once Newtonian physics became established. So religious philosophers largely stopped talking about nature - or rejected science. Of course that we do live in a fully deterministic universe and self-awareness is simply a delusion, would be the ultimate cosmic joke. And certainly a very, very meta one if we can sit and write about it from within it.

But then along came quantum mechanics and roiled all the waters. We learned that events in the universe are not fully determined by the past - events only have probabilities of occurring in the future and the process by we get from point A to point B actually have random character. Does this save the day? Can there actually be a thing called 'mind' which can somehow influence you brain's chemistry at the quantum level and produce a 'volition' that is truly independent of and not fully determined by its past state? And did a God create a universe that really operates on a measure of random chance? Einstein disliked this idea very much, his famous quote being "The theory says a lot, but does not really bring us any closer to the secret of the "old one." I, at any rate, am convinced that He does not throw dice." 

What does the term omnipotence even mean if there are 7 billions independent sources of volition on a single planet? Is it meaningful to say a being can be omniscient in a quantum universe? It seems to me such an omniscience would have to exist on some meta level outside the universe itself - a statement which itself has only tenuous meaning.

You can throw all those questions into the same pot as other paradoxes of time and space such as: "what was before the universe?" or "what is outside the universe" 

Have a nice day....

I think I can agree with the ideals of Christianity and other major religions without even having to adopt the stringent "lets blow up a girl's school so they aren't defiled by knowledge" rule sets of the extremists.   As one writer put it: it keeps the peasants in line.  It doesn't hurt that the alcoholics and the other 12 step programs have that rock to hang onto in the rough waters. 

If I have a religion its a soft-cultural Christianity (I love me some Christmas) guided by the Enlightenment principle that we should always be striving to reduce the suffering of those truly in need and that Science and Reason should be used to the benefit of humankind. 

I've seen enough of the terrible that man can do to know that there is a lot of awful on this planet. 

There are quite a few Churchill quotes that I liked about all this.  That its a wicked thing to take away a man's hope.  Some others as well.  He was not much of a fall on his knees bible man but he saw and lived through a lot.

Edited May 29, 2022 by romad1

[gehringer_2]

12 minutes ago, romad1 said:

I think I can agree with the ideals of Christianity

Jesus said "I come that they may have life and have it abundantly" 

You can take that to mean in the here and now just as much as any aspirational heaven. It's a moral code by which we would all live better in the here and now.

But if you aren't so inclined, just look at the bees. They work together, they work for the good of each other, they know their jobs, dance for joy while doing them and what they do leaves the world a much sweeter place.

Follow either example.

[1776]

2 hours ago, romad1 said:

National...should be natural.  Spellchek got me.

My assumption is that if God is there, he's been punking us. 

I can imagine God having the same sentiment regarding mankind.

[Jim Cowan]

My wife has had some breathing problems which have been causing her health in general to decline for the past few years, and a friend has a sister in law who runs a prayer circle.  They mention my wife in their prayers every week.  Which is really very nice of them and I regularly express my thanks, all the while thinking "things can't possibly work this way.  There can't be an omnipotent creator who is petulant enough to seek adoration before relieving suffering".  

It reminds me of some things that I don't like about the RC church.  I wasn't raised in it but my wife was and we attended mass with our kids every Sunday for years, took our turns reading, and I am an amateur musician who participated in the music.  The priests were great but eventually there came along one who was more conservative.  I was playing at a funeral one morning when he came out from behind the pulpit and addressed the family, to say that their husband and father was in purgatory and needed their prayers.  Purgatory??? Really, in the 21st century?  I was so mad that I had to pack up and leave immediately after the service because I desperately, desperately wanted to punch the shit out of him.  That's about 20 years years ago and I stopped going shortly afterwards, and I haven't been back.

[romad1]

6 minutes ago, Jim Cowan said:

My wife has had some breathing problems which have been causing her health in general to decline for the past few years, and a friend has a sister in law who runs a prayer circle.  They mention my wife in their prayers every week.  Which is really very nice of them and I regularly express my thanks, all the while thinking "things can't possibly work this way.  There can't be an omnipotent creator who is petulant enough to seek adoration before relieving suffering".  

It reminds me of some things that I don't like about the RC church.  I wasn't raised in it but my wife was and we attended mass with our kids every Sunday for years, took our turns reading, and I am an amateur musician who participated in the music.  The priests were great but eventually there came along one who was more conservative.  I was playing at a funeral one morning when he came out from behind the pulpit and addressed the family, to say that their husband and father was in purgatory and needed their prayers.  Purgatory??? Really, in the 21st century?  I was so mad that I had to pack up and leave immediately after the service because I desperately, desperately wanted to punch the shit out of him.  That's about 20 years years ago and I stopped going shortly afterwards, and I haven't been back.

Having a very similar youth softball experience this weekend.   Jackasses ruin everything. 

[romad1]

1 hour ago, 1776 said:

I can imagine God having the same sentiment regarding mankind.

He can't have been impressed by the 20th Century.

[Tiger337]

5 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

that's a semantic question though. If power is complete freedom of action, having to act in every situation is also a limitation of power, thus omnipotence also implies freedom not to act. The real problem you run into if you try to run any of these definitions to ground are the joint paradoxes of will and and deterministic physics. First take physics. In a pure Newtonian physics every single event in the history of the universe was predetermined at the instance of its beginning because in Newtonian physics, the position of every single particle at time t + del t is fully determined by it's position and energy at time t. There is no freedom of any kind, for God or man, because the human body and brain are physical objects, no free will is possible. God put it into motion once and everything is predetermined. But this is fatal to any moral liability. Everything that happens in your brain is chemically and physically predetermined at every point in time. There is not even really any "you." You were a predestined automaton from the moment of creation.

Of course no sentient human being actually believes they don't have will, thus this was always simply swept under the rug once Newtonian physics became established. So religious philosophers largely stopped talking about nature - or rejected science. Of course that we do live in a fully deterministic universe and self-awareness is simply a delusion, would be the ultimate cosmic joke. And certainly a very, very meta one if we can sit and write about it from within it.

But then along came quantum mechanics and roiled all the waters. We learned that events in the universe are not fully determined by the past - events only have probabilities of occurring in the future and the process by we get from point A to point B actually have random character. Does this save the day? Can there actually be a thing called 'mind' which can somehow influence you brain's chemistry at the quantum level and produce a 'volition' that is truly independent of and not fully determined by its past state? And did a God create a universe that really operates on a measure of random chance? Einstein disliked this idea very much, his famous quote being "The theory says a lot, but does not really bring us any closer to the secret of the "old one." I, at any rate, am convinced that He does not throw dice." 

What does the term omnipotence even mean if there are 7 billions independent sources of volition on a single planet? Is it meaningful to say a being can be omniscient in a quantum universe? It seems to me such an omniscience would have to exist on some meta level outside the universe itself - a statement which itself has only tenuous meaning.

You can throw all those questions into the same pot as other paradoxes of time and space such as: "what was before the universe?" or "what is outside the universe" 

Have a nice day....

I'm going back to the baseball forum.  

[chasfh]

6 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

that's a semantic question though. If power is complete freedom of action, having to act in every situation is also a limitation of power, thus omnipotence also implies freedom not to act. The real problem you run into if you try to run any of these definitions to ground are the joint paradoxes of will and and deterministic physics. First take physics. In a pure Newtonian physics every single event in the history of the universe was predetermined at the instance of its beginning because in Newtonian physics, the position of every single particle at time t + del t is fully determined by it's position and energy at time t. There is no freedom of any kind, for God or man, because the human body and brain are physical objects, no free will is possible. God put it into motion once and everything is predetermined. But this is fatal to any moral liability. Everything that happens in your brain is chemically and physically predetermined at every point in time. There is not even really any "you." You were a predestined automaton from the moment of creation.

Of course no sentient human being actually believes they don't have will, thus this was always simply swept under the rug once Newtonian physics became established. So religious philosophers largely stopped talking about nature - or rejected science. Of course that we do live in a fully deterministic universe and self-awareness is simply a delusion, would be the ultimate cosmic joke. And certainly a very, very meta one if we can sit and write about it from within it.

But then along came quantum mechanics and roiled all the waters. We learned that events in the universe are not fully determined by the past - events only have probabilities of occurring in the future and the process by we get from point A to point B actually have random character. Does this save the day? Can there actually be a thing called 'mind' which can somehow influence you brain's chemistry at the quantum level and produce a 'volition' that is truly independent of and not fully determined by its past state? And did a God create a universe that really operates on a measure of random chance? Einstein disliked this idea very much, his famous quote being "The theory says a lot, but does not really bring us any closer to the secret of the "old one." I, at any rate, am convinced that He does not throw dice." 

What does the term omnipotence even mean if there are 7 billions independent sources of volition on a single planet? Is it meaningful to say a being can be omniscient in a quantum universe? It seems to me such an omniscience would have to exist on some meta level outside the universe itself - a statement which itself has only tenuous meaning.

You can throw all those questions into the same pot as other paradoxes of time and space such as: "what was before the universe?" or "what is outside the universe" 

Have a nice day....

I'm not debating what I think the essence of God is, basically because I'm not particularly interested in the topic. If God does exist, I don't think it's possible for us to know his nature since, unless you believe certain people are specially-appointed agents of his, he never reveals himself to us.

So I gotta swing the discussion back around to its beginning and reiterate the simple essence of my point: if God doesn't know what's going to happen in the future, he's not omniscient. If God has a plan but Man can put it asunder, he's not omnipotent. And if God is omniscient and omnipotent but gives Man free will, he has no plan.

But if God is omniscient and omnipotent, and he has a plan in which he knows everything that's going to happen before it happens from now until the end of time, then prayer is pointless, because nothing we ask for is going to change his plan.

Edited May 29, 2022 by chasfh

[CMRivdogs]

And for desert partake from the peach tree dish....

 

[gehringer_2]

3 hours ago, chasfh said:

I'm not debating what I think the essence of God is, basically because I'm not particularly interested in the topic. If God does exist, I don't think it's possible for us to know his nature since, unless you believe certain people are specially-appointed agents of his, he never reveals himself to us.

So I gotta swing the discussion back around to its beginning and reiterate the simple essence of my point: if God doesn't know what's going to happen in the future, he's not omniscient. If God has a plan but Man can put it asunder, he's not omnipotent. And if God is omniscient and omnipotent but gives Man free will, he has no plan.

But if God is omniscient and omnipotent, and he has a plan in which he knows everything that's going to happen before it happens from now until the end of time, then prayer is pointless, because nothing we ask for is going to change his plan.

TBF, I don't think anyone but very a very strict Calvinist sect would agree with the last formulation. Most traditional Christian theology would hold that God has not predestined the future other than in a most general way, thus if you believe in a God capable of transcending the rules of the order he created (and willing) then prayer would not be is not futile. No question though, you hear "Omnipotent" and "Omniscient" thrown around a lot in casual church speak.

And I don't know that it follows necessarily that a thwarted plan is a lack of a plan or even a failed plan. You may 'plan' to teach your 5 yr old to ride a two wheeler on a particular day and allow he/she to thwart your plan any number of times when you might have done more to advance the cause, yet still eventually succeed.

But "Theology" is  basically BS anyway as per your 2nd sentence 

Edited May 30, 2022 by gehringer_2

[chasfh]

14 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

TBF, I don't think anyone but very a very strict Calvinist sect would agree with the last formulation.

Sure, that’s true of anyone who has a background of religious education. But I would bet a lot of people who are at their essence simply reflexively opposed to liberals as people and who signed up for the Christian team in the last few years as a result, having had nary a shred of serious religious education, might very well believe that “God’s plan” means he controls every little movement on earth, down to where a fly buzzing around in a house on the northwest side of Schenectady, New York, will fly next.

14 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

I don't know that it follows necessarily that a thwarted plan is a lack of a plan or even a failed plan. You may 'plan' to teach your 5 yr old to ride a two wheeler on a particular day and allow he/she to thwart your plan any number of times when you might have done more to advance the cause, yet still eventually succeed.

Sure he might have a plan, which brings me back to the point that if God does have a plan, and he allows a creation of his with puny power to thwart that plan at will, he really can’t be omnipotent.

Edited May 30, 2022 by chasfh

[CMRivdogs]

Poster child for the George Carlin routine...

 

[smr-nj]

She really is moronic.  And so is everyone that voted for her in that district. 

[Edman85]

I'm being a bit presumptuous that this fits in this thread, but I have neighbors every Memorial Day who put on a Fireworks show. I live in a city with a lot of retired/active military, and just think this has triggering PTSD all over it. Fireworks are for celebration, not mourning. 

[romad1]

1 hour ago, Edman85 said:

I'm being a bit presumptuous that this fits in this thread, but I have neighbors every Memorial Day who put on a Fireworks show. I live in a city with a lot of retired/active military, and just think this has triggering PTSD all over it. Fireworks are for celebration, not mourning. 

Fireworks on memorial day?  That's weird.   People really don't understand civics at all.  Weirdly, my wife and daughter were able to go shopping today and it wasn't even holiday hours.

Edited May 31, 2022 by romad1

[CMRivdogs]

6 hours ago, romad1 said:

Fireworks on memorial day?  That's weird.   People really don't understand civics at all.  Weirdly, my wife and daughter were able to go shopping today and it wasn't even holiday hours.

I did see a note on the ABC store that they were closing early. I was a bit surprised they were open (Thanks Youngkin) The bicycle shop in the same shopping area was closed. 
 

That said, I did get a couple of questions about fireworks at Colonial Williamsburg about fireworks, I told them they needed to go to Busch Gardens

Edited May 31, 2022 by CMRivdogs

[CMRivdogs]

A little perspective 

 

[romad1]

3 hours ago, CMRivdogs said:

I did see a note on the ABC store that they were closing early. I was a bit surprised they were open (Thanks Youngkin) The bicycle shop in the same shopping area was closed. 
 

That said, I did get a couple of questions about fireworks at Colonial Williamsburg about fireworks, I told them they needed to go to Busch Gardens

"were all making choices" was his line wasn't it? 

[oblong]

I heard some fireworks here last night.  In Michigan the law is that they are allowed based on federal holidays. 

 

[pfife]

Lol

Wow.  

Nice Durham prosecution 

[oblong]

How long did the jury deliberate? 15 minutes?

[oblong]