h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Moth. I'm asking you to consider one cause; the presence of the cannonball on the cushion, and one effect; the depression in the cushion, at one short period of time - a second, say. That is my example scenario which serves as a counterexample to your assertion.

It does not matter that we could consider other moments in time and other things which might affect the cannonball or cushion. I'm not offering those as part of my example, just that scenario I described in my first paragraph. We have a cause and an effect and no change.

Sure, all systems will change eventually and that will be a function of cause and effect. You can't turn this on it's head though and claim that all cases of cause and effect involve change. That's bad logic!

Cheers, Toxx.

Ohh
Toxx
As a 'psychologist' you must be able to realise in yourself that you never missed the opportunity to have a dig as Az.
and the two things you mention are fairly recent.
there's the dig at her being an English teacher, amongst others.
but never mind the above is a beautiful example of denial in a person
Also as a 'pyschologist', if you were 'famously' 'only joking' (also known as 'wind up) you must have realised, with your professional abilities that Az couldn't and didn't like it. so why persist?


My diagnosis, for what it's worth is that she reminds you of someone else and therefore you have a transferring 'relationship'' with her.
she isn't your ex or mother btw

Toxx
Even though you've changed the parameters on the objects, they are still , in one second having an effect on each other.
They are in a state of change caused by each other, because they are not the same as they would be separated. and because they are two separate objects they are separable.
If this change remains in a hypothetical stasis, (unlikely) the effect is continual not non existant.
now are you debating from a solid viewpoint or having me on?
the changes that do take place over a million years, are still operational within the second, even if we cannot observe them.
Even your favoured gravity is having an effect within the second and prevents them floating away

Moth.
I can't see where Alji said that. Any chance of the message number?

You seem to be saying that without matter, there is no change. Since God is immaterial, He doesn't change. That is interesting although it entails that God doesn't act in time. However, He did act in eternity to create time. He can therefore interact in what we perceive as time, although it isn't part of His environment. I guess that is right too, although the way you put it takes a lot of decoding. Am I right so far?

By 'infinite' do you by any chance mean 'immaterial'?

OK Folks

I see that everyone is racing towards 10k which is why I've six pages of backlog to wade through this morning. Don't any of you have lives? Well instead of my usual long-winded monologues I'm going to do a quick postie to each of the arguments that have piqued my interest, hope y'all don't mind now .

Myst 9764.
Just because a dictionary says that 'evil' and 'good' are nouns doesn't detract from my point one jot. You really have far too much faith in the written word . My point was that 'good' and 'evil' are not forces, they are merely descriptions for actions we see as acceptable or unacceptable. Immediately you begin believing that they are forces then you are surrendering your responsibility for your actions ("ooh, the devil made me do it" - sorry couldn't help that one ).

Killing is wrong because all life has value and is sacred. You don't have to believe in evil to recognise that. However, as I was trying to show, such simplistic notions cannot be used to explain the complexity of real life. What if I killed you because you were about to harm my children? The killing was still wrong in my eyes, but necessary, and I will set my own atonement for that. Was the killing good or evil in the eyes of the Church...hmmmm, complicated.

Chai 9768.
I do miss old Hoo, and they were heady days. I think it was that demolishing that confirmed us as both adversaries and friends.

Della 9775.
Sorry for that old gal ! You know, if you read your scripture in a literal sense that I, Hoo and all the unbaptised babies are destined for the lake of fire. Either the Bible is true, or it isn't. Playing around with interpretations to ease your conscience doesn't make it less so. I think Insight would, for once, agree with me there . If it is true then I will take my punishment like a man and resist the old tyrant right to the end, for I fundamentally believe that your God is pitiless and cruel. Sorry, but there it is. You know my "Hey God!" argument.

Mr.Neb 9795.
Being Wiccan is never irrelevant!!! Especially here, especially now. Get stuck in Neb alongside your fellow pagans Jez and me .

Insight 9800.
David, good to see you back in the saddle! Glad to see you have lost none of your style either.

Right onto business. What ungodly acts have I taken part in then? I can tell you now that the only commandments that I am guilty of trespassing are the first couple that require me to surrender my free will and slavishly worship an unforgiving God. I try to live by at least as high a moral and ethical code as you undoubtedly do, so what have I done that is evil or wrong?

As a scriptural literalist (hope you don't mind the label, but I think it fits?) you know as well as I do that I am damned to eternal fire. It doesn't matter how well I live my life, if I don't repent of the sin, that your God infected me with before I was born, and beg forgiveness, I am doomed.

And before you begin the whole Adam and Eve sin malarky reflect on this. If a man murders another, are you right to execute his grandson for the crime unless he begs forgiveness for his grandfather's crime? This is essentially the wrongness of original sin.

You enjoy your slavery David, but don't judge me by the immoral laws of your merciless Master. If you are right then so be it, I will be, as advertised many times before, down by Sulphur Outfall No.4, with Hoo, holding unbaptised babies up out of the flames.

Jane 9870.
So God loves even druids huh? I suggest that you return to your scripture. I am sure that Alji (aka 'The Quotes Man'), or Insight can put you straight there. Your God hates anyone who opposes Him. If you don't believe me look up the fate of the Amalakelites (my spelling maybe off there ).

Blessings to all,
Matholwch the Apostate /|\.

Moth. Gravity is an excellent example. It is a cause whose effect is to STOP things floating away. Hence it causes stasis, not change. QED. Some causes result in change, others (the forces between parts of a girder, say) in stability.

Math. Did you hear 'thought for the day' this morning? It was utterly libellous towards 'pagans' using the word 'pagan' as a term of abuse and attributing many unpleasant interactions with the spirits of the dead to paganism. I was shocked that it could be broadcast. You couldn't have said much milder things about some other groups!

Moth. I note you don't quote me. OK, that was a request to Jane. I mentioned those examples because they were the last ones before Az unsubscribed. I assume that they were the reason, last straw, or whatever.

OK, I had the odd dig about her English, although I deliberately missed a lot of opportunities, I assure you. I tried to restrain myself but she never stopped saying things that I had argued against at length; and without any qualification. That did wind me up, of course. If I kept saying: "Of course we all know that there is no such thing as an NDE", wouldn't you get a bit peed off?

Some quotes from 'TFTD' by The Rev. Angela Tilby
>The Diana Princess of Wales Memorial Fund<
>It’s like something out of ancient mythology. It shows that our real religion is paganism where injured ghosts prey on the living.<
>The Fund has done good, but it should never have tried to preserve its image of Diana. That is pure Paganism because the real Diana is not an angry shade. Her body was laid to rest; her spirit commended to God in a Christian funeral.<
>Human beauty provokes divine envy, an early death cries out for justice. The Furies are everywhere and we must placate them. Nemesis pursues us and we cannot escape. We all wept when Diana died, as though in recognition that the dark gods really can make our lives a tragedy.<



Alji

Toxx
you're making this up as you go along aren't you

Gravity is a force,(gravity BTW is a resulting effect of a cause ) to STOP something is to affect a change from motion. But lack of observed movement is not total stasis. Are you in 'total' stasis when you do not move.
And whilst our hypothetical object is in a state of none movement, to the human eye, the atoms within are busily moving around and also effected by any changing influences .

Toxx
Alji post 9860

Toxx

"You seem to be saying that without matter, there is no change. Since God is immaterial, He doesn't change. That is interesting although it entails that God doesn't act in time. However, He did act in eternity to create time. He can therefore interact in what we perceive as time, although it isn't part of His environment. I guess that is right too, although the way you put it takes a lot of decoding. Am I right so far?

By 'infinite' do you by any chance mean 'immaterial'?"
Yes the immaterial is infinite and the material finite.
God doesn't act within the frame work of time which is change.
god 'acts' in the infinite place of non matter.
where there is no matter there is no change and therefore no need for time as a measurement of something that doesn't exist in that 'place'.

Eternity is another measurement of time, and as such is not the place that God exists within. there is no time or change within infinity and as such it is logical to exclude 'eternity' as a description.
god 'acted' within the nothing?
you're beginning to 'grasp' how to decode me which you are to be congratulated upon since I am not the worlds most comprehensive person when discussing this 'unknowing' state.
We cannot always 'know' what is placed beyond the senses, but we can at least debate and settle upon a probability and if a probability is all we have at least it is something
God acts within time/change/the material/ laws cause and effect, through the consciousness of the human, that is what we are for.
It is the human element of God that allows for so called 'miracles.'

Moth. I'm amazed that you don't see the difference between an example that illustrates the meaning of a concept, 'causation' in this case, and a real-world object.

There is a causal chain in every instance going back to God if you like, so complaining that gravity is itself is an effect is unhelpful. Anyway, let's take the Earth as our cause then and Mount Everest as the affected object. The mountain doesn't fly away because (among other reasons) the rest of the Earth keeps it there by the mutual attraction of gravity. Here is a cause, the gravitational force between these objects, keeping them unmoving in relation to each other.

Now there may be other forces moving the mountain, eroding it etc but I'm NOT discussing those. Just this gravitational effect which stops the mountain moving. I don't see how I can put it any more clearly! The effect of this particular cause is stasis.

Take the forces between parts of the girder I mentioned previously. They keep it still and rigid. Other forces might tend to bend it or move it, but the forces I'm talking about tend to keep its parts still in relation to each other. A cause preventing change. What could be more apparent?

Moth.

"Eternity is another measurement of time, and as such is not the place that God exists within. there is no time or change within infinity and as such it is logical to exclude 'eternity' as a description."

For me and most people, I suspect, eternity is a timeless state. It is precisely where God exists. "Eternal father strong to save..." etc.

OK, maybe you are using the word 'infinity' to mean 'eternity'. Now it makes more sense! 'Infinity' is a mathematical term often used in physics. Things can be described as infinitely large or old or heavy. They can't be described as 'infinite'. "The splod is infinite" is meaningless. Does it mean that the splod is big or old or what?

You are difficult to decode, Moth. You aren't too 'comprehensible', I think you intended to say. Perhaps, though, the very thing that leads to this also leads to your originality. Sometimes though, its hard to tell whether you're being original or just using words in your own strange way!

Math you wrote;
>Killing is wrong because all life has value and is sacred.<

All life? Plants are alive!!! Fruit, nuts, roots and fungi(not a plant or animal), Cutting down trees to make room to grow crops, etc.

I would say 'Needless killing is wrong'. Bacteria are alive, are you troubled by having to kill the harmfull ones?

Mother Nature provides food for all her children and it is natural for us to eat meat and plants but our alimentary canal is not suited to a completely vegitarian diet.

http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/manu/manu02.htm
<quote from http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/manu/manu02.htm >

>54. Let him always worship his food, and eat it without contempt; when he sees it, let him rejoice, show a pleased face, and pray that he may always obtain it.

55. Food, that is always worshipped, gives strength and manly vigour; but eaten irreverently, it destroys them both.<


Alji

Hi Diversity.

Re 9869. My understanding is that the speed of light is a constant, approx 300,000 ks per second. Nonetheless, the doppler effect, which shifts light to the red (slower)end of the spectrum accounts for the red-shift of galaxies and stars all moving away from each other and us.

Observation of this prompted Hubble to surmise that at one time all the celestial bodies must have been much closer together, ultimately in a point of infinite density but zero extension, the dreaded singularity whose explosion of space/time was the Big Bang that started our universe.

Gravity causes the path of light to bend, but the basic particles ( when light is considered as a particle, not a wave ) are photons, which have charge but zero mass, hence they are not slowed down by gravity. Personally I don't understand ( what is probably very simple basic physics ) how to combine the constant speed of light with the fact that "slower" light is red, and "faster" light is blue. But I presume this has to do with light behaving as a wave, and the faster waves having a higher frequency than the slower, thus ultra violet having a higher frequency than infra-red, and so on out at opposite ends of the invisible areas of the electro-magnetic spectrum.

Hi Jedi Girl.

I've been doing some reading on Pelagius, and why his views were considered heretical.

He was a Celt,( as you said ) probably Irish, and one of the very first wandering missionaries from Ireland who set off into "dark age" Europe to bring back Christianity, plus Greek and Latin learning, in the wake of the collapsed Roman Empire.

As such, his brand of Christianity, like the rest of the Celtic Church, was essentially Eastern, having come via Lerins, in the South of France, from the Desert Fathers of Egypt. One of the big shots of the Church at that period was St.Augustine,( of North Afrcia ) and it was because of a falling out with Augustine that Pelagius fell foul of the Church.

It was all to do with a question quite relevant to recent discussions on this thread, namely, the nature of evil, free will and redemption.

St.Augustine's position was that man, through original sin ( the taint of Adam ) was essentially sinful by nature, and there was nothing he could do about it, except depend utterly on the power of God to redeem him through the sacrifice of Christ on the cross.

This was known as the "debauched" position. Augustine was famous for his prayer, "Oh God, make me chaste, but not yet." Augustine had been quite a philanderer before his conversion. In fact, he himself came perilously close to the Manichaean heresy that says that flesh is inherently evil, and spirit alone is good, and that the opposing forces of flesh and spirit, evil and good, are equal in power! He viewed chastity as the ideal, and marriage as at best a compromise with the evils of the flesh!

Pelagius said that if man has free will, then he is always able, and obliged, to choose between good and evil. If he is inherently evil by nature, then that is God's doing, and man cannot be blamed. Therefore man cannot be inherently evil, and therefore there is no "original sin." If he hasn't got free will, then he has no power to choose good over evil, and his sinfulness is basically God's fault.

This caused an uproar, because if there is no original sin, and man is not inherently evil, then there is no need for divine grace to intervene, and no need for the redemption from sin through the sacrifice of Christ on the cross.

In Pelagius's view, unbaptised babies were not destined for hell, and nor were any non-Christians, baptised or not, so long as they chose good over evil. Interestingly, the Roman Catholic Church moved closer to this position in Vatican Council II, when the pronouncement was made that "all that is good is of God," no matter what the traditon or beliefs, Christian, non-Christian or pagan.

( Myst, please take note.)

This view is in accord with the teachings of Jesus that say:

1) In my Father's house are many mansions...
and
2) By their fruits shall ye know them,

The latter in response to complaints from the disciples that non-disciples were casting out devils in the name of God, but as they weren't part of Jesus's gang, they must be using devils to do so. Jesus responded by saying,"Shall the devil cast out devils? No."

Pelagius's views were more in tune with what was to become the Eastern Orthodox Church, which emphasises Christ's Resurrection and the all-pervading presence of the Holy Spirit, rather than the Roman Church's emphasis on Christ's suffering and Crucifixion as the final atonement. Augustine's views, if taken to the extreme, also run into the danger of ultra-passive Quietism, another heresy. But Pelagius's views were seen as giving too much responsibility to the individual for his own salvation.

Sadly, under the Papacy of JPII, the Catholic Church has gone right back to its very intolerant and intransigent pre-VCII position. Ecumenism and religious tolerance are both in retreat,( and liberation theology is now a matter of deep divisions between Rome and Latin America.) So much so that here in Ireland, recently, the RC hierarchy pronounced that Protestant Boy Scouts and Girl Guides should not be allowed to attend the same Church services as Catholic BSs and GGs.

What a tragically blinkered vision, and at a time when vocations to the priesthood are at an all-time low, the scandals of priestly sexual abuse are being revealed more and more by the day, and still the hierarchy is loath to make amends. Meanwhile secular consumerism is engendering a nastily selfish, self-obsessed and greedy society, whose temples are shopping-malls, whose bibles are glossy magazines, and whose rituals are drunkeness and mindless one-night stands.

There now, I sound like a thorough-going old fart of a boring reactionary. However, the rate of change here in Ireland is scarey, and while I have no sympathy for entrenched RC triumphalism, nor for the dessicated platitudes of the Protestant churches, it is plain to see that the loss of spirituality is a serious loss.

OK, you evolutionists may not agree ( that's cool, feel free ) but if one judges by the way things have developed in the US and Europe, it will only be a matter of time before the hunger for truths that are deeper and more nourishing than mere hedonism re-emerges here. Significantly, there is already a rapidly-growing community of Tibetan Buddhists and FWBO Western Buddhists. Interestingly, more and more Catholics are defecting to the Church of Ireland.

Interesting times.

Alji. That's the stuff I meant in my #9887. Do you agree with my comments? I guess you must! Are you going to protest?

Hi Alji,

If you're going to quote the Laws of Manu, where do you stand on Laws 31 and 32, which require that Sudras be named (first name ) for something contemptible, and (second name ) for service?

Just interested.

If God exists then He must be clearly apparent to the sight or understanding; obvious easily perceived or understood.
(exist, from exsistere, to come forth, be manifest)
( manifest; clearly apparent to the sight or understanding; obvious.)
(obvious; easily perceived or understood; quite apparent.)

God is none of the above, therefore God does not exist!!!


Alji

Toxx
It just IS a very bad one off example, because I CAN argue against it. and it doesn't exist.
If we have two separate objects, as you want them to be, ie unmovable, in complete stasis, then they do not exist in this environment of causal effects. But in your mind, which is also a place where all these laws can be eliminated and some people would say are not real.
but Toxx the mountain does move, it rises and falls, again just because you can't see it, doesn't mean it isn't happening. Whole continents move and change. you know this.
you can't use an example which only incorporates one element of change, in this case gravity (although it does have an effect on a mountain as things 'bit's' fall off) that is like saying I have this theory but it only works if I don't consider ALL of the elements.
like 1 plus 1 is 68997 if I decide that 1 is not singular for the purposes of this arguement

"Take the forces between parts of the girder I mentioned previously. They keep it still and rigid. Other forces might tend to bend it or move it, but the forces I'm talking about tend to keep its parts still in relation to each other. A cause preventing change. What could be more apparent?"

Again we are only talking about those particular effects, many operate on an object simultaneously.
the main thrust of this argument is that I say, over time, with all causal elements affecting an object, that object will change and you are trying to give me examples of things that never change, and do that by trying to stick to only motion of an object.