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

>>people who regularly worship don't start wars.

In his 'God Is Not Great', Hitchens relates the story of being asked by a pastor, on a TV show, to suppose that he were in an unfamilar city, towards nightfall, faced with a large group of men. "...Now, truthfully...would you feel more safe or less safe if you knew they had just come from a prayer meeting?"

His reply:
"I don't have to answer this hypothetically because I've had this experience on numerous occasions. Just to stick to the Bs, I've had it in Beirut, Belfast, Baghdad, Belgrade, Bombay..."

Light is an electric sine wave and a magnetic sine wave at right angles to each other. They move in a 3rd direction at right angles to both fields. Each wave is constantly recreating the other.

Light is created by electric charges accelerating / changing state (depending on whether you are looking at them as a wave or a particle). For example, we generate radio waves using an alternating electric current. Meanwhile, the sun generates its light by heating particles to a very energetic state. As particles tend towards lower energy states (these are more stable), the energy is released as light.

Many many people have spent their lives finding out these things through honest enquiry. They learned the hard maths, they thought up clever experiments, and most of them had to live with having gotten it all wrong at the end. To just pull something like "angels are beings of light" out of your bottom with no thought, and to excuse it by saying 'maybe' and 'perhaps', seems a very great insult to their endeavours.

*waves @ Gif*

Hey! Don't I rate a New Year's blessing?



~~~~

Hi Bouncy

>>To just pull something like "angels are beings of light" out of your bottom with no thought, and to excuse it by saying 'maybe' and 'perhaps', seems a very great insult to their endeavours.<<


It's been said before, probably on this very thread: The primal difference between science and religion is the first one is about finding out about things whereas the second is about making sh1t up!

Tal

>It's been said before, probably on this very thread: The primal difference between science and religion is the first one is about finding out about things whereas the second is about making sh1t up!<

Raises eyebrows and looks towards camera.

Mikey2

Tal

re 14199

You seem to have some genuine questions so I'll endeavour to answer them. (To be honest, I thought I'd put my point quite clearly)

>>>If there is a God who created us then he is going to be 'outside of creation'.<<Please excuse me if I am misinterpreting, but are you claiming your God is separate and distinct from the universe?<

Of course. A Creator must necessarily be outside of what he's creating. Although, as any composer/artist will tell you, they put their heart and soul into their creation.

>If so, in the selfsame paragraph you go on to say..>>He's revealed some of himself to us.<<Which appears to suggest that this supernatural extra-universal entity has indeed impinged upon our natural universe in a detectable fashion.<

Yes indeed...in the very selfsame paragraph! Specifically in Christ, God has humbled himself to become as a man.

>With all due respect, can you understand how these two claims appear mutually exclusive?<

No. I call it *miraculous*. Mind you, miraculous things have often involved *mutually exclusive* stuff. People have always understood this...its not a new thing exclusive to our rational age. In Bible times, the whole reason that the works of Jesus were noteworthy was that the people of the time knew that what He was doing was against the laws of nature. The blind receiving sight? The dead raised? The feeding of 5000 people out of one kid's lunchbox? People thought rationally in those days too. The miraculous was *extremely* uncommon in those days too. The reason that people were amazed at what Christ was doing was that it was *impossible*.

>Simply: An extra-universal entity that remains so is irrelevant to our existence, because by definition the entity must remain 'outside'(whatever that means), or risk losing that particular defining characteristic.<

I think there was a heck of a lot more at risk than having to have his characteristics redefined!!

>If the entity does detectably intervene in our universe it is no longer an extra-universal entity*. One cannot have both characteristics, just as cubic spheres cannot exist.<

All I said was that if there is a Creator, he must have existed before and outside of the thing he created...in this case, the universe! I don't see why some entity, which is outside of an object, cannot intervene in that object. Take, for example, a geezer outside a burning house. He hears a child crying for help inside the house so he goes in to rescue the child. This is a picture of what Christ has done for us.

>Put another way: God cannot intervene, even to the point of 'dipping His toe' into our universal pond, without measurable effect, thus relinquishing that convenient 'outside creation' aspect.<

This is obviously important to you, Tal. It may well have been more *convenient* for God to remain outside. Thankfully, he chose not to.

>I must also point out that claiming God is 'outside creation' is inconsistent with the Divine characteristic of omnipresence...<

No, I don't have problem with the two concepts. We're touching on Noggin's question of what is material and what is non-material. You see, the spiritual world that christians believe in (and experience, I might add), is one of those mysteries that is taken on faith. Christians pray, expecting God to answer. though they cannot scientifically prove the existence of their God's nearness, they are encouraged by Christ himself to believe that persevering in prayer will be effective...God himself being ever present to hear the cry of those who 'call on him in truth' (sincerely, humbly and with faith)

>*There are, of course, problems with claims of an intervening God, but we'll leave those aside pending clarification of the current issue.<

Will the above do?! Its all posted with a good heart even if I appear to be taking the mikey a bit

Bless you

from

Mikey2

Yup - in the wall, yet not of the wall. Miraculous is *one* word for it...

'Christians pray, expecting God to answer.'


I could show you a couple of pinkies that prove that expectation wrong.

anhaga,

What happens if one person prays asking for say, rain,
and another person in the same location prays asking for a warm sunny day?

Somebody is not going to get what they asked for!

I need to unsubscribe from this thread, it is bad for me. See you all.

anhaga,
Another anology:

Who is more likely to get a job?
The one who is looking regularly,
or the one who stays at home and gives up?

"What happens if one person prays asking for say, rain,
and another person in the same location prays asking for a warm sunny day?

Somebody is not going to get what they asked for!"


And somebody is; so that somebody will go around telling everyone who'll listen that God answered his prayer. Which is exactly how this miracle stuff works. One person escapes a disaster which kills hundreds of others and it is hailed a miracle - it's not such of a miracle for the victims but they are no longer around to shout about it. What you have elegantly described in your innocent question is the common fallacy of reliance on anecdote. To quote something I read recently: lots of anecdotes are not data.

Happy New Year to everyone.

F

"Another anology:

Who is more likely to get a job?
The one who is looking regularly,
or the one who stays at home and gives up?"

When there are no jobs it doesn't make any difference either way.



F

*waves at Gif*

Yeah don't I get a cheery greeting?

warner


'What happens if one person prays asking for say, rain,
and another person in the same location prays asking for a warm sunny day?

Somebody is not going to get what they asked for!'


Like so many of your posts:



what an offensive pile of smug monstrous crap!




I asked *you* to join me in prayer for the repair of a child's deformed finger. You refused to join in prayer and then you have the insulting gall to suggest that someone was actually praying for that child's fingers to remain deformed! Who do you suppose that person might be? Are *you* that mean-spirited? Did *you* ask your god to deny this specific miracle?

I mean, your posts here certainly have displayed an uncommon meanness of spirit, but I would be amazed that anyone would be so mean of spirit as to actually pray that an innocent child continue in deformity. I'm amazed that someone is so mean-spirited as to even suggest that this child's fingers remain this way because some monster is praying for just that. Even more startling is your suggestion that your god would actually chose such a prayer over a prayer for healing. As so often, the god so many have faith in is nothing other than a monster, and far too many of those believers seem to be monsters as well.

>> When there are no jobs it doesn't make any difference either way. <<


How about substituting 'job' with 'loaf of bread' ?

as for your second asinine analogy, warner:

I asked you to help me look for a job, a job I have been searching for every waking hour for years. I asked you to help me look in the place that *you* said I was certain to get a job. I went to that place and you stayed home.

That place you said I was certain to find a job turned out to be an abandoned office.

Thanks for nothing, creep.

<>

what about the laws of god

god created everything in your opinion, so the laws of nature come from where?????

surely it was all gods law, and if jesus was doing things against these laws, its no wonder he got nailed to a tree by an angry mob

anhaga,

What's your problem? Are you a bit like me?
Slightly deranged? ( No insult intended, at least, I don't object to being called deranged. )

Whoops. Out of context. So let me do something (de)constructive...


>>Miraculous things have often involved *mutually exclusive* stuff [...] The blind receiving sight? The dead raised? The feeding of 5000 people out of one kid's lunchbox? [...]The reason that people were amazed at what Christ was doing was that it was *impossible*. <<

And you look at us sidelong, narrow your eyes, and think we're the crazy ones?

>>I don't see why some entity, which is outside of an object, cannot intervene in that object.<<

When that object is everything: that's (one reason) why your analogy of the burning house is flawed. The universe doesn't have a rear garden in which to stand. What you seem to be failing to grasp is what does *outside* of the universe mean? Since you clearly believe this inveterate nonsense, could you perhaps enlighten us as to the logic, if it exists? Merely rehashing the design/designer created/creator duality won't do. We do understand that point, but how can there be anything outside of everything, which is what you are maintaining.?

I just want to quote two exchanges back at you and comment on the following exchange.

>>Tal: Simply: An extra-universal entity that remains so is irrelevant to our existence, because by definition the entity must remain 'outside'(whatever that means), or risk losing that particular defining characteristic

M: I think there was a heck of a lot more at risk than having to have his characteristics redefined!!<<


You reply focuses on a triviality and ignores the force of the question. That's obscuratnism; the twin tactic to obfuscation that we've been enjoying of late. It's not a characteristic we're concerned with per se, it's the nature of your argument which maintains that this is logically consistent. - What does outside of everything mean?

>>Tal: God cannot intervene, even to the point of 'dipping His toe' into our universal pond, without measurable effect, thus relinquishing that convenient 'outside creation' aspect.

M This is obviously important to you, Tal. It may well have been more *convenient* for God to remain outside. Thankfully, he chose not to.<<


Same problem: obscuring the problem with this inane waffle about convenience. In the accepted universal parlance of our age: WTF?

If god intervenes in the universe (which you think he does) from outside of it (again), where it exists - the question is not the state of mind when he does so, but the illogicality of maintaining this distinction between something not in the universe but able to affect it, and not be part of it. Don't please, drone on about painters putting their soul into paintings. Unless you are going to explicate what this distinction *you hold* about what being in and out of the universe and being both material and non-material actually mean.

The explanation and you're avoidance of obscurantism and obfuscation at this juncture will win you plaudits.

but I ain't getting my hopes up.


>>We're touching on Noggin's question of what is material and what is non-material. You see, the spiritual world that christians believe in (and experience, I might add), is one of those mysteries that is taken on faith. <<

Why does Noggin get all the credit?

I jest.

Ah a mystery taken on faith. How..yes...how convenient.

I wonder what is it like having cotton-wool between your ears? Does the real-world impinge at all?

<>

i refer to the arch angel lucifer highest of high he who is known as the morningstar.....better to rule in hell then serve in heaven....

it may all be fairy tales but it is catholic dogma and by inneffability, the pope being gods chosen representative on earth, it is the true word of god

or do you despute the true word of your god