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It's written like that a lot in the Old Testament. But the universe is absurd, isn't it? I mean, look at yourself, where you're sat, what's going on. It's craz

It's written like that a lot in the Old Testament. But the universe is absurd, isn't it? I mean, look at yourself, where you're sat, what's going on. It's crazy, and yet it has meaning. And if you spend a while contemplating the fact that the source of the universe must be beyond the confines of space and time, I think that's ample material to get started with. The Bible is an remarkable book, but the more amazing thing is that the whole shebang is immediately accessible to you right now, just by virtue of the fact that you exist and you're reading this.

krapp 5y ago
>And if you spend a while contemplating the fact that the source of the universe must be beyond the confines of space and time, I think that's ample material to get started with. You or others may read the Bible and find some sense of a God beyond those confines in its pages, but I find that God to be depressingly limited in that regard. The God of the Bible is the God of tribesmen who hadn't even smelted iron, a God that demands blood sacrifice and plunder, not the being who crafted the meticulous balance of universal constants, relativity or quantum mechanics. The God of the Bible is small compared to what we now understand of the universe. Seven days of Genesis isn't crazy. Evolution is crazy. Hundreds of thousands of years of struggle from small, scared primates to sentient apex predators that invent language, civilization and technology and discuss the nature of divinity over the internet is crazy. A fish with its own windshield[0] is crazy. The vast majority of the universe being void and most of the rest being something we can only call "dark matter" because we don't really understand it is crazy. Black holes and pulsars and the Great Attractor are crazy. The Higgs field is crazy. >The Bible is an remarkable book, but the more amazing thing is that the whole shebang is immediately accessible to you right now, just by virtue of the fact that you exist and you're reading this. I grew up in a Southern Baptist family with Pentecostal friends and relatives in the Bible Belt. Trust me, I've read the Bible. But to metaquote Douglas Adams, it's enough for me to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe faeries dwell at the bottom of it. I like the Bible as a work of literature, poetry, philosophy and even moral teaching (disregarding the Apostle Paul's misogyny, and the OT in its entirety, and see George Carlin's bit for my opinion of the Ten Commandments[1].) but as far as its depiction of God goes, it's just one culture's set of evolving opinions, out of hundreds if not thousands or more. It has its value from an anthropological and cultural perspective, but no more or less so than any other. [0]https://www.mbari.org/barreleye-fish-with-tubular-eyes-and-transparent-head/ https://www.mbari.org/barreleye-fish-with-tubular-eyes-and-t... [1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sk81tUUhRig https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sk81tUUhRig

krapp 5y ago

>And if you spend a while contemplating the fact that the source of the universe must be beyond the confines of space and time, I think that's ample material to get started with. You or others may read the Bible and find some sense of a God beyond those confines in its pages, but I find that God to be depressingly limited in that regard. The God of the Bible is the God of tribesmen who hadn't even smelted iron, a God that demands blood sacrifice and plunder, not the being who crafted the meticulous balance of universal constants, relativity or quantum mechanics. The God of the Bible is small compared to what we now understand of the universe. Seven days of Genesis isn't crazy. Evolution is crazy. Hundreds of thousands of years of struggle from small, scared primates to sentient apex predators that invent language, civilization and technology and discuss the nature of divinity over the internet is crazy. A fish with its own windshield[0] is crazy. The vast majority of the universe being void and most of the rest being something we can only call "dark matter" because we don't really understand it is crazy. Black holes and pulsars and the Great Attractor are crazy. The Higgs field is crazy. >The Bible is an remarkable book, but the more amazing thing is that the whole shebang is immediately accessible to you right now, just by virtue of the fact that you exist and you're reading this. I grew up in a Southern Baptist family with Pentecostal friends and relatives in the Bible Belt. Trust me, I've read the Bible. But to metaquote Douglas Adams, it's enough for me to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe faeries dwell at the bottom of it. I like the Bible as a work of literature, poetry, philosophy and even moral teaching (disregarding the Apostle Paul's misogyny, and the OT in its entirety, and see George Carlin's bit for my opinion of the Ten Commandments[1].) but as far as its depiction of God goes, it's just one culture's set of evolving opinions, out of hundreds if not thousands or more. It has its value from an anthropological and cultural perspective, but no more or less so than any other. [0]https://www.mbari.org/barreleye-fish-with-tubular-eyes-and-transparent-head/ https://www.mbari.org/barreleye-fish-with-tubular-eyes-and-t... [1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sk81tUUhRig https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sk81tUUhRig