5 ms·

>We came up with a very unique "pass phrase" and she agreed that if she got "up there" she would try to get it to me This sort of thing is addressed in the Par

by xamuel 8y ago

>We came up with a very unique "pass phrase" and she agreed that if she got "up there" she would try to get it to me This sort of thing is addressed in the Parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man in Luke 16. An excerpt: "'Then I beg you, father,' he [a rich man in hell] said, 'send Lazarus [a beggar in heaven] to my father’s house, for I have five brothers. Let him warn them so they will not also end up in this place of torment.' But Abraham replied, 'They have Moses and the prophets; let your brothers listen to them.' 'No, father Abraham,' he said, 'but if someone is sent to them from the dead, they will repent.' Then Abraham said to him, 'If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead.'" (Luke 16:27-31)

paulryanrogers 8y ago
> This sort of thing is addressed in the Parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man in Luke 16 IMO that passage only addresses it in so far as to make up an excuse to explain the silence. If even a modest amount of the supernatural claims in the Christian Bible are true then at least one of them should be reliably repeatable. And despite years wasted looking I'm not convinced.
- whatshisface 8y ago
  >at least one of them should be reliably repeatable The entire idea is that a conscious mind is controlling things. The only truly repeatable aspect of a conscious being is their reflexes, and you can't hammer God in the shins. There are no predictions that you can draw from theism, so it can't be falsified or supported. The idea that you should look for ideas that yield predictions, although it is obvious to us now, took thousands of years to develop.
  - paulryanrogers 8y ago
    > There are no predictions that you can draw from theism, so it can't be falsified or supported. Which eliminates any significant benefit besides some placebo effect. Therefore I won't be wasting another second fearing unprovable claims about eternal .
    - chairmanwow 8y ago
      This was the scariest decision I ever made to be honest.
- xamuel 8y ago
  >If even a modest amount of the supernatural claims in the Christian Bible are true then at least one of them should be reliably repeatable If it were reliably repeatable, it wouldn't be supernatural. That's tautological.
  - ASalazarMX 8y ago
    OK, just keep doing different miracles each time. Keep it fresh.
    - xamuel 8y ago
      What you're getting at is actually a profound paradox in philosophy of science: the statement "no miracles occur" is itself unfalsifiable, and thus (at least in the Popperian sense) not scientific. It's unfalsifiable because to repeatably falsify it would be tantamount to repeatably producing miracles! Here's an interesting paper on the subject: https://philpapers.org/archive/FROTNA-2.doc https://philpapers.org/archive/FROTNA-2.doc (Greg Frost-Arnold, 2010, "The No‐Miracles Argument for Realism: Inference to an Unacceptable Explanation", Philosophy of Science 77(1))
      - solipsism 8y ago
        What an incredible display of navel gazing (the paper you link). I'm well aware that modern science was born from philosophy, but much of what is left in the realm of philosophy seems to me so incredibly useless. Logic, reason, critical thinking, ethics, these are all valuable things. But anti-realism? I challenge anyone to tell me something useful that has come from the study of "anti-realism". Not that everything has to be useful. Far be it from me to try to control anyone's hobby. But I, for one, don't want any of my tax dollars to go toward supporting that fruitless pasttime.
        xamuel 8y ago
        It's too early to expect real-world applications of anti-realism. Instead I would redirect your attention to a similar pattern in the foundations of mathematics. Mathematical foundations were once very shaky, but real-world mathematicians didn't care in practice. Bertrand Russell showed that an early mathematical foundation attempt was inconsistent. At the time, to a working mathematician, this would have been about as airy-fairy as anti-realism seems to us today. A mathematician back then could well and rightly have said: "Proofs, equations, solutions, these are valuable things. But Russell's paradox? I challenge anyone to tell me something useful that has come from the study of Russell's paradox." Indeed, the paradox was actually known to Zermelo before Russell, and Zermelo didn't consider it important enough to make a fuss about! Now in hindsight, we know that foundational work DID pay off in practical ways. It was a crucial step toward the development of, for example, automated proof verification software like COQ, which has extremely important real-world applications and whose importance will only grow in the future. Here's my speculation: things like anti-realism are equivalent to Russell's Paradoxes which seem like navel-gazing today. In a hundred years' time, they might have proven to be a crucial step toward formal science verification software. Just like fixing mathematical foundations was a crucial step toward formal mathematical verification software.
- mirimir 8y ago
  What I get is that, at some point, Yahweh (perhaps aka El, consort of Asherah) got tired of believer support, and declared "trust me or burn". Maybe three thousand years ago, priests invoked aspects of Yahweh in the usual way. Burning incense and lamb's blood in charcoal braziers, chanting, wards for protection, and so on. If you were pure, he'd smite your enemies. If not, your people would suffer.
  - sjwright 8y ago
    It's telling just how anthropomorphic every concept of god is, in all of known history. The Christian bible especially so, telling the story of a grumpy and largely ineffectual narcissist with lots of really weird fears and fetishes.
    - mirimir 8y ago
      Matthew Stover is just about my favorite fantasy writer. He's arguably best known for the Star Wars prequel novels. But in his second novel, Jericho Dawn, his heroes go up against Yahweh, in defending the Canaanites against the Maccabees. He characterizes Yahweh as fundamentally unknowable. Too complex, multidimensional, etc, etc. The whole beyond good and evil thing. That's not at all an unusual perspective. But what is unusual is his argument that how Yahweh shows up is determined by what his believers expect him to be. His Caine series explores similar ideas. But in a far more complex plot. And with much better writing.
    - ip26 8y ago
      Well, it's like reverse anthropomorphism, or whatever you'd call it. We were created in god's image, so most of the stories go, so of course god is anthropo
      - sjwright 8y ago
        I have the power to create an entire universe exactly as I want it, so I made one with many humans that worship fictional Gods, which makes me jealous. Then I'm going to fill it up with delicious shellfish and tell them not to eat it. Reverse anthropomorphism—sounds okay until you realise that even we humans recognise how utterly rubbish we are at most things and strive to be better than our true selves. Our puny minds have recognised countless limitations of our humanity and we struggle to barely rise above them. Whereas these proposed gods suffer all the same pathetic failings while declaring themselves perfect.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

by xamuel 8y ago

paulryanrogers 8y ago

> This sort of thing is addressed in the Parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man in Luke 16 IMO that passage only addresses it in so far as to make up an excuse to explain the silence. If even a modest amount of the supernatural claims in the Christian Bible are true then at least one of them should be reliably repeatable. And despite years wasted looking I'm not convinced.

whatshisface 8y ago
>at least one of them should be reliably repeatable The entire idea is that a conscious mind is controlling things. The only truly repeatable aspect of a conscious being is their reflexes, and you can't hammer God in the shins. There are no predictions that you can draw from theism, so it can't be falsified or supported. The idea that you should look for ideas that yield predictions, although it is obvious to us now, took thousands of years to develop.
- paulryanrogers 8y ago
  > There are no predictions that you can draw from theism, so it can't be falsified or supported. Which eliminates any significant benefit besides some placebo effect. Therefore I won't be wasting another second fearing unprovable claims about eternal .
  - chairmanwow 8y ago
    This was the scariest decision I ever made to be honest.
xamuel 8y ago
>If even a modest amount of the supernatural claims in the Christian Bible are true then at least one of them should be reliably repeatable If it were reliably repeatable, it wouldn't be supernatural. That's tautological.
- ASalazarMX 8y ago
  OK, just keep doing different miracles each time. Keep it fresh.
  - xamuel 8y ago
    What you're getting at is actually a profound paradox in philosophy of science: the statement "no miracles occur" is itself unfalsifiable, and thus (at least in the Popperian sense) not scientific. It's unfalsifiable because to repeatably falsify it would be tantamount to repeatably producing miracles! Here's an interesting paper on the subject: https://philpapers.org/archive/FROTNA-2.doc https://philpapers.org/archive/FROTNA-2.doc (Greg Frost-Arnold, 2010, "The No‐Miracles Argument for Realism: Inference to an Unacceptable Explanation", Philosophy of Science 77(1))
    - solipsism 8y ago
      What an incredible display of navel gazing (the paper you link). I'm well aware that modern science was born from philosophy, but much of what is left in the realm of philosophy seems to me so incredibly useless. Logic, reason, critical thinking, ethics, these are all valuable things. But anti-realism? I challenge anyone to tell me something useful that has come from the study of "anti-realism". Not that everything has to be useful. Far be it from me to try to control anyone's hobby. But I, for one, don't want any of my tax dollars to go toward supporting that fruitless pasttime.
      - xamuel 8y ago
        It's too early to expect real-world applications of anti-realism. Instead I would redirect your attention to a similar pattern in the foundations of mathematics. Mathematical foundations were once very shaky, but real-world mathematicians didn't care in practice. Bertrand Russell showed that an early mathematical foundation attempt was inconsistent. At the time, to a working mathematician, this would have been about as airy-fairy as anti-realism seems to us today. A mathematician back then could well and rightly have said: "Proofs, equations, solutions, these are valuable things. But Russell's paradox? I challenge anyone to tell me something useful that has come from the study of Russell's paradox." Indeed, the paradox was actually known to Zermelo before Russell, and Zermelo didn't consider it important enough to make a fuss about! Now in hindsight, we know that foundational work DID pay off in practical ways. It was a crucial step toward the development of, for example, automated proof verification software like COQ, which has extremely important real-world applications and whose importance will only grow in the future. Here's my speculation: things like anti-realism are equivalent to Russell's Paradoxes which seem like navel-gazing today. In a hundred years' time, they might have proven to be a crucial step toward formal science verification software. Just like fixing mathematical foundations was a crucial step toward formal mathematical verification software.
mirimir 8y ago
What I get is that, at some point, Yahweh (perhaps aka El, consort of Asherah) got tired of believer support, and declared "trust me or burn". Maybe three thousand years ago, priests invoked aspects of Yahweh in the usual way. Burning incense and lamb's blood in charcoal braziers, chanting, wards for protection, and so on. If you were pure, he'd smite your enemies. If not, your people would suffer.
- sjwright 8y ago
  It's telling just how anthropomorphic every concept of god is, in all of known history. The Christian bible especially so, telling the story of a grumpy and largely ineffectual narcissist with lots of really weird fears and fetishes.
  - mirimir 8y ago
    Matthew Stover is just about my favorite fantasy writer. He's arguably best known for the Star Wars prequel novels. But in his second novel, Jericho Dawn, his heroes go up against Yahweh, in defending the Canaanites against the Maccabees. He characterizes Yahweh as fundamentally unknowable. Too complex, multidimensional, etc, etc. The whole beyond good and evil thing. That's not at all an unusual perspective. But what is unusual is his argument that how Yahweh shows up is determined by what his believers expect him to be. His Caine series explores similar ideas. But in a far more complex plot. And with much better writing.
  - ip26 8y ago
    Well, it's like reverse anthropomorphism, or whatever you'd call it. We were created in god's image, so most of the stories go, so of course god is anthropo
    - sjwright 8y ago
      I have the power to create an entire universe exactly as I want it, so I made one with many humans that worship fictional Gods, which makes me jealous. Then I'm going to fill it up with delicious shellfish and tell them not to eat it. Reverse anthropomorphism—sounds okay until you realise that even we humans recognise how utterly rubbish we are at most things and strive to be better than our true selves. Our puny minds have recognised countless limitations of our humanity and we struggle to barely rise above them. Whereas these proposed gods suffer all the same pathetic failings while declaring themselves perfect.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]