Darth Kwisatz

I've imagined up to 9 of those dimensions since I was a kid. First impressions are best for me, but my first posts were the silliest, so figure that out. Theology debates are a bore because rarely can the protagonists engage on equal terms for the sake of argument. Theists take things far too personally, even though we must always condescend to assuming the presence of god in order for there to even be a debate. I've not met a theist who can happily imagine there being no god and engage merrily and logically on those terms, and without a palpable sense of fear of the possibility. No one drives me nuts at all. If anything, I'm curious to see if there is any reason to believe in this phenomenon other than the empty rhetoric of faith. If you want a ten-dimensional debate, just ask. I really do think, the more I explore what drives theists to their convictions, that it is a combination of fear and need. I've seen people convert between theism and atheism in either direction. What I get from that, and from knowing people is that to me, and as I observe in others, god really is the spiritual representation of a cure for individual terror of absurd futility. I'm with Nietzsche on that one. I don't drink beer nor belch except with people who do talk about inter-dimensional nonsense. Its a pity you're half-way around the world and not around the corner.

I agree that creation is a figment of the imagination.

The fantasy world is when people cite myths about "miracles" that supposedly did occur, and "did" interfere with the course of human history, as factual evidence.

Someone lectured me about extra dimensions, to which I replied, off the back of another thread here somewhere that at least 10 have been described in lay terms. Okay, I can see that this is going to be a flat earth-type argument characterised by automatic gainsaying justified by irrelevant analogies and limited on one side by the imgination of the theists. As Dante said, boring.

Pragmatic to the ends of the one meting out the "justice", of course. I'm inclined to agree with Edric on the nature of justice. But we'd probably disagree on measuring it!

Its a rehash of an argument that's be done to death here and I agree. Still, no concept is ultimately beyond science in a qualitative sense, even if it could be in the quantitative. People either agree or disagree, and best to leave it at that. The more interesting question that probably deserves a new thread concerns the nature of infinity and void in general - the meta-universe beyond the expanding boundaries of matter and energy discharged by the big bang and so on. Its entirely speculative, but to explore those ideas to the nth degree could further illuminate or extinguish the possibility of a supra-natural force.

In an infinite universe, it is impossible to be outside of it, and impossible to be within it except according to the laws of physics.

God is the most lucrative business on Earth.

I'm happy with god being a metaphor for energy, and even matter in a more wholistic and universal sense. I'm also happy with adverse causes and effects of inbalances consciously effected by humans being expressed in metaphors such as god's punishment or as a karmic events. Start a wave at one end of a bath and it will come back to you. Easy. The literal interpretations of omnipotent consciousness and concepts of holiness, however, are dangerous if treated as anything other than a corny joke.

And that is how the US surrendered all the international support, sympathy solidarity it won after 11/9.

Petty linguistic games about the characteristics of a species don't deny the capacity to make independent decisions about one's future. I don't see what's insulting about the concept of a base model of human without the genetic option of enhanced probable intellect available through selected pairing by suitable mates.

John Paul is just another pope, Billy Graham just another evangelist. They'll remember John Paul I and Jim and Tammy Bakker before any of the others.

Call it a side effect then. Same difference. No, hang on, I'll stick by your dictionary definition. "In addition to the principal product" is about right. You've just found me a definition of stupidity.

Welcome back. The faithful are bound by peer pressure, perceived obligations/desires/fears, or stereotypic behaviours. The "truly free" are the ones you see in the bars every night drinking to impress their belching buddies, having a "life". Thats just one example. The faithful are able to hide in the mundane everyday mold of mankind. Hence the reason why so few faithfuls leave such a lasting impression on people than anyone else, they are your everyday average joe chained to an imaginary promise.

I'm sure I saw an interview or press conference years ago when "W" said he had it in for Iraq because they wanted to kill his dad in the first US Gulf War.

Intelligent people will always follow their own course, regardless of what they believe. Our natives did plenty of damage too, lighting forest fires to clear land, but on a far smaller scale commensurate with a sustainable hunter-gatherer population, and they hunted many species to extinction. Yes, they believed in spirits, so again the theism theory falls flat.

We've already agreed on the utility of religion as a way on herding the stupid away from your envisaged societal collapse (is that like a gradual explosion?), hence the metaphors of good shepherds and flocks from JC. Sorry, but I think we're mostly goats here. Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.

Those good god-fearin' folk who settled here 200+ years ago denuded the land of 90% of its forests within a century. There are no wilderness forests in Britain, which has been the case for probably a milennium. I would blame environmental degredation on overpopulation and industrialisation. The trickling abandonment of religion from the 1950's onward coincided with a growing environmental awareness, both of which have grown in parallel since then. If I ever use the word "evil" its lazy shorthand for things I don't like and said with tongue in cheek. Its my favourite adjective for very smelly farts, which I think are the ultimate evil. There is no evidence of permanence in the universe except in the extinguishment of consciousness and the indestructibility of energy and matter, so I would regard everything as always being temporary. The term is again, relative. Natural selection can apply as much to groups of animals as individuals. Refer to the analogy on the life of a city. It's always the same with christians - desperate to rein in the parameters of thought to restrict intellectual freedom from debunking their confused little world, and shifting goalposts endlessly when confronted by better arguments.

Most of these things in the "evil" list have been done in the name of god at some point. Hence my objection to defining good and evil on an imagined pretext of an impossible objectivity. Karma is also self-fulfilling by definition. Pointless, cruel, and barbaric are words that spring to mind as being eminently more useful in describing such events you've called "evil", unless I was eager to coerce a response from others. Good and evil are essentially coercive and manipulative words. When they get misapplied to more mundane things, things get complicated and you get the arguments about what's what in the world and who's right and wrong. This was precisely my earlier point - a non-superstitious person is much more economical in thought and less-prone to confusion about trivia. No good praying for the courage to know the things you can and cannot change, and the wisdom to know the difference - just get out there and observe, and learn from your mistakes along the way. Remain curious and open to all things. I'm open to the possibility of the supernatural as I think it would be a very funny thing if it all were true. I'm just waiting for someone to show me that it is all true. I expect to die waiting.

Karma can also be a philosophical belief in probability that is not attached a supernatural life force. I'd regard anarchy as being a very temporary state if it emerges in a general sense, unless all infrastructure and administration is swept aside, as in the case of global nuclear war or meteorite catastrophe. You see it on a small scale after localised disasters and during/after coups de tat. Anarchists can diversify and call themselves whatever they like, but to my mind true anarchy in general terms is the descent into warlordism which gives rise pretty quickly to new social order. As to whether I give a damn about this society - the world remains composed of many societies. If mankind makes the planet barren, bringing about its own decline, it would be a self-fulfilling prophesy akin the fate of a plague of vermin upon itself in a given environment. I would blame deism particularly, within your definition scale, for bringing that about, through such ludicrous teachings as man having dominion over the earth and all the beasts etc etc etc. In terms of the futures of nation states and individual societies, I can't see how natural selection does not continue to apply as it always has done. Civilisation is a constructed state of mind designed to restrain bestial urges in humanity, for humanity's (not necessarily general) enrichment. It is always fragile. Apathy can take many forms. It is apathy at the corporate level and the indifference of consumers that really determines the fate of the world at this point. The power of voters and politicians within individual nation states has never been more uncertain. Through the facilitation of stock markets and now the internet, they've really unbottled a genie that no one can control. As I've said before, China and India are the ones to watch, and the Arabs for as long as we keep buying oil from them, which would appear to be for a very long time to come, despite scares about peak oil. With no certainty at all, my gut feeling is that the world is fulfilling an Orwellian prophesy of two or three super powers that each will enslave the world by default. I don't expect a supernatural rescue.

In an atheist world the here and now, and the future on Earth is everything. You are mistaking an atheist for a relativist. Relativism may find itself in either camp, disguised as pragmatism.

I'd like someone to explain the morality and/or ethics of speeding in a motor vehicle. I couldn't find a reference in the bible.

Moreover, if this society did collapse it would simply be replaced by another. Terrorism is basically about this, and the ideals of terrorism and subversion generally are entirely relative, as are all human values. Ours is not the society of the Holy Roman Empire, nor the Rennaisance, nor the industrial revolution, despite belief in god being around at the time. Humans don't lose the ability to communicate, establish hierarchies and organise simply because an existing order disintegrates. Never have done. There are always young people who think they will live forever without consequences and who tend toward anarchy. You don't see too many 40 or 60 year-old anarchists, and if anarchists survive, they tend to get regular jobs and conform to basic social norms eventually, or else they populate jails and lunatic asylums. Methinks, Edric, that you are simply young, but nonetheless a nice person trying to make sense of it all as most do.

Tribal laws have existed since the dawn of time, in both atheistic and theistic contexts, including ancient polytheistic contexts. Invariably they have drawn their authority from the power of conquest, and this is not far removed from the enforcement of law today by police armed with weapons to uphold the will of the state. The jury system offers ample evidence of prejudice overcoming evidence as a reason to convict, as does the conduct of corrupt or ill-educated judges in poorer countries. There are nations in which killing or discriminating against people because of who they are or what they say, rather than what they do is legitimated by law, and upheld by the concept of national sovereignty. The nation-state (as opposed to empire) emerged purely as an evolutionary response to the need to better organise to protect groups of people from the overwhelming force of artillery as new means of achieving conquest from the late fifteenth century onward. From these developments, rulers increasingly relied on the co-operation (and consent) of the people in order to maintain order and authority within sovereign boundaries. Creation of wealth is the way that nation states succed best at this, and richer nations are inherently safer than poorer ones. This leads to capitalism, and all the things that give certain capitalists a competitive advantage (such as education, scientific research and cultural investment) over other nations, and ultimately immunity from conquest. Individual societies do come and go depending on their adaptability. Laws and rules adapt accordingly also, even in religious organisations, and all in the name of survival.

The idea of a moral gene is interesting beacause natural selection could favour it. Determinism in and through personality, and the origins of personality is an idea I've never gotten to the bottom of. I reject, however, the notion of a soul. You could also say that a city has a soul, and many poets and writers do, as each has a personality determined by its makeup, and has "organic" if not biological characteristics not disimilar to trees. The analogy is useful to understanding how the sum of an entity can be perceived to be greater than its parts. What is being described is another value akin to a pleasing harmony, rhythm and melody. Music is also said to have "soul", but the reality is that there are combinations of sound frequencies when played in combination. Play it differently, and the character changes. AC/DC is less without Bon Scott. An Idol contestant did a slow bossa nova version of the disco hit "Super Freak" and it was positively haunting. Joe Cocker was like a supernova with Lennon and McCartney's stuff. Music is the stuff of applied mathematics and intuition derived from primal biological instinct, not some supernatural force. Remember the experiments where classical music and heavy metal were played to plants in the 1980's, and the plants withered under disharmonious loud metal? Mathematics, dear friends, mathematics and physics. Wave frequencies. Trees and plants generally all grow differently, though farmers have experimented with cloning. Do trees thus have a personality and also a soul? I feel more grief at the loss of trees I am familiar with than people like Saddam Hussein or Michael Hutchence. Is land clearing a sin if each tree is unique and gives life? Does the lawful execution of a sinner constitute a sin, such as among the good god-fearin' folk in the great state of Texas? Was the lawful execution of Jesus of Nazareth for heresy just and accordant with the divine right with which leaders were supposedly anointed here on Earth? Or is there no place for judgement according to law among humans for moral infringements if only god has the call? What need for law and justice if we all face judgement in the afterlife, or can repent on our deathbed? Theism would appear to be a far greater cover for amorality and immorality than atheism, becasue in an atheist world, all consequences and precedents affect the here and now. There is no cause for people to war over the correct morality of the life journey of the soul. There is only a construct within which to achieve hegemony, justice and prosperity. Its doesn't always work out that way, but the philosophical underpinnings allow it to be corrected when things go too far awry.