301–310 of 649 posts
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There’s “science doesn’t adequately explain the origins of the universe,” and then there’s “this particular middle eastern tribe had the right answers thousands of years ago.” I can see the former but the latter makes no sense.
None of it makes sense. That's why religious folks are "believers".
Matthew 24:36: But of that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone. Mark 13:32: But of that day or hour, no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.
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I feel like some of the angels would probably be able to calculate very large primes easily. I’m not an angeloligist, but maybe the ones that are wheels all covered in eyes.
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Could God make a man so rich that even he wouldn't let him into heaven?
No. Similarly, God cannot make a married bachelor, because this is nonsensical. The conversation then turns to questions about how we define God’s omnipotence: Doesn’t the existence of any sort of limitation placed upon God imply he is bound by higher principles and thus not omnipotent? Possibly; but this may just be a lack of imagination on our part. For example, can God abanlqhgfznsjks? Probably not, because that p…
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Unless God actually exists and revealed himself to them. Obviously, you are free to not believe that, but believing that goes along with believing what you are dismissing.
He revealed himself to them and only them, ignoring the rest of humanity all over the globe. In all the universe he chose just earth for his people, and over all of earth, he just chose a tiny section to reveal himself to. Omniscient and omnipotent but a very human scale for his messaging.
That's absolutely not true. First of all, there was an enormous crowd of people: 600,000 families--millions of people--who received the revelation on Mt. Sinai. And secondly, G-d offered the Torah to all the peoples of the world. (https://www.sefaria.org/Sifrei_Devarim.343.2?lang=bi)
It's a fundamental principle of Judaism that all righteous people will be in the world to come, unlike Christianity.
All that being said, I will not be wagering that "Jesus" will come again.
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you don't pick one at random. you pick one that makes sense. what makes sense for example is the positive impact a religion has on the world. which religion is doing the most good? that alone will narrow down the selection to a few dozen if that many. besides the good it does, another question could be: what makes sense to you? which religion has the better answers to explain the world in which we live in today? take…
This is the "by their fruits you shall know them" argument (which I think is among the stronger arguments for the record), but I've personally used this to try and find a "correct" religion and what I discovered (personally of course) is that there is good and bad in essentially every religion. Using this as a standard is basically impossible. But if you took it at a high macro level and did narrow down to a few doze…
there is good and bad in essentially every religion
have you looked all the major ones listed here? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_religious_groups
for me the standard of evidence is the search for the truth. that means, keep searching until i am satisfied. it could take a lifetime, and maybe that's the point. don't just make a choice and then blindly accept everything from then on.
Fun example is the old fax pump and dumps. You'd get some 'market prediction' fax for a penny stock that is very clearly just some pump and dump. No one buying thinks it's anything but a P&D. But they buy thinking other people will be tricked and that they'll get out before the suckers do... so sad for the P&D savvy buyers that they are, in fact, the suckers themselves. It was very important to the effectiveness of the scheme that the faxes be both obvious to be a P&D but also not so obvious that their targets couldn't imagine it fooling anyone.
The author though shouldn't underestimate people just spending their funds inefficiently. A lot of people are not really aware that they could just get a risk free return better than they'd get from this thing, and even when they are they've adopted a non-linear utility where they value some unlikely JesusMarket windfall as much more valuable than a (higher EV) bond return.
Humans seem to have a pretty predictable mishandling of extremely small probabilities. A lot of cons work by convincing the mark that there is a small (but real) odds of a windfall return.
This thing shows up in cryptocurrency markets all the time, you can have some token listed on an exchange with no information at all but some symbol/name and random people will plunk thousands of dollars on it.
To some extent there seems to be a kind of wealth brownian motion where your income is proportional to the number of pixels on the internet that, when clicked, cause funds to be transferred to you. Of course, having an actual REASON to pay you is even better, but it's not strictly necessary.
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Regarding the Robert Morris reference, not going to defend any action, but I will point out his 'bad action' was 40 years ago. Why does that matter? There are abuses happening now, every day, by high profile. Some (Epstein, Diddy) are starting to be caught. Others (Drake) may face judgement far into the future. Others (Chris Brown) never will. If criticizing modern church culture requires referencing acts of 40 years…
Maybe the original action (the sexual abuse) happened 40 years ago. But he continued to lie about it until recently and pushed other people to lie on his behalf. This isn't 40 years ago, this is still very recently. This is still wrong and was a wrong that was ongoing. Had he actually been honest about these things and properly served whatever justice is right for these things and lived openly about it for the last 40 years, it would be a very different story.
And now he's suing the church for millions of dollars for some retirement he feels he's entitled to. This is church money, which should be used to push the work of Christ. He's massively enriching himself, to continue living a lavish lifestyle instead of actually helping the people he was charged to help. Yet another wrong.
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Purpose. That there was a purpose for all of this. If we believe there was no purpose for all of this, then what a hopeless thing. I just look at the erasure of Gaza and have become more and more religious, because my god what a hopeless end if this all isn’t saved at the very end. I feel that way about many of today’s ills. Purpose and hope, even if the answer is utterly magical.
Opposite to my view. If there's no pre-ordained purpose, we're free to invent our own. I find that very freeing and hopeful. And a lifetime project.
There is no objective morality, because morality is a human invention. It's important for that exact reason that we make it very good then.
Love strangers. Eradicate poverty. Encourage personal growth. Build society up. Reduce suffering. Stop bullies. Understand.