Your top 10 reasons for rejecting Christianity

[Jarhyn]

This is a big part of my thought process as well, but with a twist.
For me, the fractal moral wrongness of it creates an inability to believe.

It does not make sense that such evil is supernatural. ... I am unable to imagine any divine being that would do that.
... It makes perfect sense that an Idi Amin, or a Pol Pot or a Stalin or a Torquemeda… or an Abraham or a Moses or Mohammed or a Jesus… would invent such a backstory. That makes perfect sense. ... It’s exactly what a malignant narcissist would write.

So, not that I know all that many Christians or Narcissists in general that have the wherewithal to play a game with a learning curve that seems more like climbing a around a horizontal protrusion, but...

Well, it proves out the idea that such evil can be supernatural DOES make sense.

Somewhere on my hard drive there is a simulated universe where four kids got smashed out of existence under a lowering drawbridge because they were taking too much processing power to calculate their activities and preventing further immigration. ...

The concept of "supernatural" itself does not make sense, except as what it is: a genre of fiction. "Supernatural" means a story about a pretend world that doesn't work like the real world, one with a Harry Potter flavor instead of a Star Trek flavor. But a story about the real world not working like the real world does not make sense. "Natural law was violated" is self-contradictory nonsense -- it's just another way to say "Something happened that doesn't happen." When we observed violations of Newton's Law of Gravity, that didn't tell us we were in a supernatural world; it told us Newton was wrong.

Oh it absolutely makes sense. It makes sense when one realizes that what constitutes a "natural law" is "a law natural to the regular and deterministic function of a system".

Lots of systems have a function of natural law that can be violated by disruption of the nature of that system.

We just also have this set of laws that we call "fundamental" which we have not observed any systemic basis for the operation thereof, nor violations thereof. They have been apparently perfect.

But this does not mean they must be.

As with the dwarves, there's no way for us to know for certain we were created or not, and like those future AI dwarves who will be playing Pascal's wager against me, it pays to just do what's right for each other and to actually give a shit.

All we can do is do what any wise entity would do in that situation and assume nothing on that front of whether there must or must not be more, and operate instead on the basis of things we can justify at least temporary assumptions of: our material world and the observations we make within it.

 

[skepticalbip]

This is a big part of my thought process as well, but with a twist.
For me, the fractal moral wrongness of it creates an inability to believe.

It does not make sense that such evil is supernatural. ... I am unable to imagine any divine being that would do that.
... It makes perfect sense that an Idi Amin, or a Pol Pot or a Stalin or a Torquemeda… or an Abraham or a Moses or Mohammed or a Jesus… would invent such a backstory. That makes perfect sense. ... It’s exactly what a malignant narcissist would write.

So, not that I know all that many Christians or Narcissists in general that have the wherewithal to play a game with a learning curve that seems more like climbing a around a horizontal protrusion, but...

Well, it proves out the idea that such evil can be supernatural DOES make sense.

Somewhere on my hard drive there is a simulated universe where four kids got smashed out of existence under a lowering drawbridge because they were taking too much processing power to calculate their activities and preventing further immigration. ...

The concept of "supernatural" itself does not make sense, except as what it is: a genre of fiction. "Supernatural" means a story about a pretend world that doesn't work like the real world, one with a Harry Potter flavor instead of a Star Trek flavor. But a story about the real world not working like the real world does not make sense. "Natural law was violated" is self-contradictory nonsense -- it's just another way to say "Something happened that doesn't happen." When we observed violations of Newton's Law of Gravity, that didn't tell us we were in a supernatural world; it told us Newton was wrong.

Oh it absolutely makes sense. It makes sense when one realizes that what constitutes a "natural law" is "a law natural to the regular and deterministic function of a system".

Lots of systems have a function of natural law that can be violated by disruption of the nature of that system.

We just also have this set of laws that we call "fundamental" which we have not observed any systemic basis for the operation thereof, nor violations thereof. They have been apparently perfect.

You apparently don't understand what the physics laws are. They are not even similar to the rules of a computer language which you seem to be suggesting.

 

[abaddon]

Well I don't think the context was regarding 'short time death; or immediate flatlining, when the brain is still alive. Nice try posters!

The line from SIB's post , " when we raise a dead person, and I believe we will.." seems to me the implication means, that it's at some point in the future, we'll have the means. Literally raising the long deceased, brain dead - just as those who beleive in the same for the future in Cryonics, cryopreserving their bodies in the belief that ,the future advancement in science will to bring them back.

I agree. The other posters, in the arguments over resurrection, reinterpreted what SIB said and played a game of dancing synonyms. They co-opted the word resurrection and used it as if it's a synonym of resuscitation. They didn't want you getting any encouragement from someone who plainly made a faith-based statement.

Resurrection ONLY means bringing a thoroughly dead body back to life. It cannot rightly apply to resuscitation of near-dead persons. CPR is not an example of it, nor a justification for any fantasies that technology will ever make it happen.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

The concept of "supernatural" itself does not make sense, except as what it is: a genre of fiction. "Supernatural" means a story about a pretend world that doesn't work like the real world, one with a Harry Potter flavor instead of a Star Trek flavor. But a story about the real world not working like the real world does not make sense. "Natural law was violated" is self-contradictory nonsense -- it's just another way to say "Something happened that doesn't happen." When we observed violations of Newton's Law of Gravity, that didn't tell us we were in a supernatural world; it told us Newton was wrong.

The word didn't exist for the ancients. It's a medieval invention, probably came along with all those spooky shrines and religious freak shows that were built to grab the pilgrim money. It's a meaningless word outside the realm of religious pseudo-knowledge.

 

[Bomb#20]

Resurrection ONLY means bringing a thoroughly dead body back to life. It cannot rightly apply to resuscitation of near-dead persons. CPR is not an example of it, nor a justification for any fantasies that technology will ever make it happen.

 

[Jarhyn]

This is a big part of my thought process as well, but with a twist.
For me, the fractal moral wrongness of it creates an inability to believe.

It does not make sense that such evil is supernatural. ... I am unable to imagine any divine being that would do that.
... It makes perfect sense that an Idi Amin, or a Pol Pot or a Stalin or a Torquemeda… or an Abraham or a Moses or Mohammed or a Jesus… would invent such a backstory. That makes perfect sense. ... It’s exactly what a malignant narcissist would write.

So, not that I know all that many Christians or Narcissists in general that have the wherewithal to play a game with a learning curve that seems more like climbing a around a horizontal protrusion, but...

Well, it proves out the idea that such evil can be supernatural DOES make sense.

Somewhere on my hard drive there is a simulated universe where four kids got smashed out of existence under a lowering drawbridge because they were taking too much processing power to calculate their activities and preventing further immigration. ...

The concept of "supernatural" itself does not make sense, except as what it is: a genre of fiction. "Supernatural" means a story about a pretend world that doesn't work like the real world, one with a Harry Potter flavor instead of a Star Trek flavor. But a story about the real world not working like the real world does not make sense. "Natural law was violated" is self-contradictory nonsense -- it's just another way to say "Something happened that doesn't happen." When we observed violations of Newton's Law of Gravity, that didn't tell us we were in a supernatural world; it told us Newton was wrong.

Oh it absolutely makes sense. It makes sense when one realizes that what constitutes a "natural law" is "a law natural to the regular and deterministic function of a system".

Lots of systems have a function of natural law that can be violated by disruption of the nature of that system.

We just also have this set of laws that we call "fundamental" which we have not observed any systemic basis for the operation thereof, nor violations thereof. They have been apparently perfect.

You apparently don't understand what the physics laws are. They are not even similar to the rules of a computer language which you seem to be suggesting.

You don't really understand what it is I'm suggesting.

We have implemented the physical laws in a computational environment.

We implement them not just in 'computer language' but in the language of math.

And moreover math is apparently sufficient to describe these laws.

I think it's kind of silly to then declare that such systems that can be simulated within the system can't exist wholely as a simulation operating in some other system

That's what all theistic creationism is: just belief that we exist as a simulation rather than as a fundamentally independent system.

It's pretty obvious to me that "supernatural" as a term describes an assumption that some thing has this particular form of relationship with our reality as I have with the reality of the dwarves, which is to say, I can change any thing I care to, I just... Don't.

And as Rhea points out, well, that kind of evil makes all kinds of sense if you can accept that our universe could have been created by something that is, fundamentally, no better or worse than the average human.

It just means that this has no impact on the answer to the question of "how ought we live our lives?"

 

[skepticalbip]

This is a big part of my thought process as well, but with a twist.
For me, the fractal moral wrongness of it creates an inability to believe.

It does not make sense that such evil is supernatural. ... I am unable to imagine any divine being that would do that.
... It makes perfect sense that an Idi Amin, or a Pol Pot or a Stalin or a Torquemeda… or an Abraham or a Moses or Mohammed or a Jesus… would invent such a backstory. That makes perfect sense. ... It’s exactly what a malignant narcissist would write.

So, not that I know all that many Christians or Narcissists in general that have the wherewithal to play a game with a learning curve that seems more like climbing a around a horizontal protrusion, but...

Well, it proves out the idea that such evil can be supernatural DOES make sense.

Somewhere on my hard drive there is a simulated universe where four kids got smashed out of existence under a lowering drawbridge because they were taking too much processing power to calculate their activities and preventing further immigration. ...

The concept of "supernatural" itself does not make sense, except as what it is: a genre of fiction. "Supernatural" means a story about a pretend world that doesn't work like the real world, one with a Harry Potter flavor instead of a Star Trek flavor. But a story about the real world not working like the real world does not make sense. "Natural law was violated" is self-contradictory nonsense -- it's just another way to say "Something happened that doesn't happen." When we observed violations of Newton's Law of Gravity, that didn't tell us we were in a supernatural world; it told us Newton was wrong.

Oh it absolutely makes sense. It makes sense when one realizes that what constitutes a "natural law" is "a law natural to the regular and deterministic function of a system".

Lots of systems have a function of natural law that can be violated by disruption of the nature of that system.

We just also have this set of laws that we call "fundamental" which we have not observed any systemic basis for the operation thereof, nor violations thereof. They have been apparently perfect.

You apparently don't understand what the physics laws are. They are not even similar to the rules of a computer language which you seem to be suggesting.

You don't really understand what it is I'm suggesting.

We have implemented the physical laws in a computational environment.

I doubt that. At best you may have implemented some of what you think you understand of some theories that are based on the physics laws. Theories are not laws.

 

[Jarhyn]

This is a big part of my thought process as well, but with a twist.
For me, the fractal moral wrongness of it creates an inability to believe.

It does not make sense that such evil is supernatural. ... I am unable to imagine any divine being that would do that.
... It makes perfect sense that an Idi Amin, or a Pol Pot or a Stalin or a Torquemeda… or an Abraham or a Moses or Mohammed or a Jesus… would invent such a backstory. That makes perfect sense. ... It’s exactly what a malignant narcissist would write.

So, not that I know all that many Christians or Narcissists in general that have the wherewithal to play a game with a learning curve that seems more like climbing a around a horizontal protrusion, but...

Well, it proves out the idea that such evil can be supernatural DOES make sense.

Somewhere on my hard drive there is a simulated universe where four kids got smashed out of existence under a lowering drawbridge because they were taking too much processing power to calculate their activities and preventing further immigration. ...

The concept of "supernatural" itself does not make sense, except as what it is: a genre of fiction. "Supernatural" means a story about a pretend world that doesn't work like the real world, one with a Harry Potter flavor instead of a Star Trek flavor. But a story about the real world not working like the real world does not make sense. "Natural law was violated" is self-contradictory nonsense -- it's just another way to say "Something happened that doesn't happen." When we observed violations of Newton's Law of Gravity, that didn't tell us we were in a supernatural world; it told us Newton was wrong.

Oh it absolutely makes sense. It makes sense when one realizes that what constitutes a "natural law" is "a law natural to the regular and deterministic function of a system".

Lots of systems have a function of natural law that can be violated by disruption of the nature of that system.

We just also have this set of laws that we call "fundamental" which we have not observed any systemic basis for the operation thereof, nor violations thereof. They have been apparently perfect.

You apparently don't understand what the physics laws are. They are not even similar to the rules of a computer language which you seem to be suggesting.

You don't really understand what it is I'm suggesting.

We have implemented the physical laws in a computational environment.

I doubt that. At best you may have implemented some of what you think you understand of some theories that are based on the physics laws. Theories are not laws.

Systems of identical mathematical function are the same system. There is no meaningful difference from the inside of their existence.

 

[atrib]

I have one reason.

In our life time we will see billions of people die and not one come back. There is no reason for me to go any further.

What scares me is when we raise a dead person, and I believe we will, people will soon forget that we couldn't do it and will use it as proof that it could have happened.

That's interesting. You have likes from four other individuals who also seem to believe, eventually, "man himself will raise the dead!!?"
So there is faith, among the secular. Welcome aboard?

He is saying that he has confidence in the scientific method, as well he should. Because the scientific method works, and doctors use modern medicine to bring people back from "the dead" all the fucking time. Praying to an imaginary skybeast we have no evidence for and believe in based purely on faith, does not. Do you really not understand the difference?

Hello again Atrib... So ressurection is plausible in your cats eyes?

I did not say that - I was trying to explain the point SIB was trying to make, the point that you seemed to have missed. I don't know enough about how our bodies work to conclusively rule it out altogether, but we are nowhere near having such a technology, and we likely won't have such a technology for many millennia, if ever. What we do know for certain is that the technology did not exist 2,000 years ago amongst humans or any other extraterrestrial entities, if they exist, because we have no evidence for such.

Would you still call the ressurected (who have been dead for some time, then brought to life) zombies, or have you changed your mind on the idea, that dead people could come alive again?

I don't think dead people can be brought back to life if they have been dead for a while and the body subjected to the process of decay.

You never believed it was ever possible by all your previous posts. Zombies etc..

We have zero examples of human cadavers being resurrected after days of being dead, examples that can be rigorously confirmed as factual. ZERO! There are literally billions of cadavers who have never misbehaved, or so much as batted an eyelid at us from the grave. So it is reasonable to believe that it cannot happen.

Of course you'll going to say there's a difference now, between a biblical and a modern medicine idea for a human ressurection.

Think about what you're saying and agreeing to. Resurrection?

You misunderstand - I am not agreeing with you. While I cannot rule it out completely, it would take a vast amount of scientific evidence gathered under rigorously controlled conditions to demonstrate that such a thing could be done. Evidence that is not available to support the Jesus resurrection story that you appear to believe. Lacking this evidence, it is reasonable to believe that the Jesus resurrection story is not true. My skepticism is reasonable because it is FAR, FAR, FAR more probable that the miracle stories have naturalistic explanations that do not involve an actual resurrection of a corpse as a zombie, its unaided flight into space, or intervention by a supernatural entity that exists outside the known universe.

My statements are not controversial in the least. You, and Christians like you, are skeptical of stories involving other supernatural gods, for the exact same reason I am skeptical of the Jesus miracle stories. You believe the Jesus stories uncritically, that is, you are unable to apply the skepticism that would normally be accorded to such a story, likely because you have been indoctrinated (or have indoctrinated yourself) into accepting these stories as factual without question.

But even more importantly, even if humans did discover the ability to resurrect dead people, it would still not be evidence that a human-god hybrid clone named Jesus existed or that he/it was killed and then brought back to life and later flew off into space under his/its own power. You do understand why, correct? If you don't, ask, and I will explain.

 

[Jarhyn]

I expect that we'll have such technology in my lifetime to bring someone back from the dead, as in "revival at the flip of a switch".

We've isolated most of the functional parameters of individual neurons, now it's a matter of getting the system slowed enough to take a destructive scan near the natural end of someone's life.

In fact, the kind of "dead, by freezing water; not really dead until warm and dead" is exactly the kind of precursor we need to take an electromagnetically destructive fine-structure MRI scan.

And it's not like we're going to have a shortage of volunteers when the technology is getting close.

 

[SIB]

I have one reason.

In our life time we will see billions of people die and not one come back. There is no reason for me to go any further.

What scares me is when we raise a dead person, and I believe we will, people will soon forget that we couldn't do it and will use it as proof that it could have happened.

That's interesting. You have likes from four other individuals who also seem to believe, eventually, "man himself will raise the dead!!?"
So there is faith, among the secular. Welcome aboard?

He is saying that he has confidence in the scientific method, as well he should. Because the scientific method works, and doctors use modern medicine to bring people back from "the dead" all the fucking time. Praying to an imaginary skybeast we have no evidence for and believe in based purely on faith, does not. Do you really not understand the difference?

Hello again Atrib... So ressurection is plausible in your cats eyes? Would you still call the ressurected (who have been dead for some time, then brought to life) zombies, or have you changed your mind on the idea, that dead people could come alive again? You never believed it was ever possible by all your previous posts. Zombies etc.. Of course you'll going to say there's a difference now, between a biblical and a modern medicine idea for a human ressurection.

Think about what you're saying and agreeing to. Resurrection?

To your first line. The bolded part.

Lets compare the two. We are talking about dead dead. There will probably be a time component to how long its is possible and the condition of the person is probably important. I mean a grenade to head might not be so possible.

So lets use three days.

Its plausible that "medicine" will learn how to restart a dead person in the future. That is kept in in a suitable environment to allow a restart in 3 days. The procedure probably is documented along the way.

vs

Its just as plausible that a person was restarted 2000 years ago years. Understanding the conditions around them. The body was in a cave and nobody actually saw the body "restarted" but they said "it" visited them at a later date. Never to be seen again. We are asked to just "trust me."

using commonsense, what belief seems more reliable? To teach to?

 

[Bomb#20]

The concept of "supernatural" itself does not make sense, except as what it is: a genre of fiction. "Supernatural" means a story about a pretend world that doesn't work like the real world, one with a Harry Potter flavor instead of a Star Trek flavor. But a story about the real world not working like the real world does not make sense. "Natural law was violated" is self-contradictory nonsense -- it's just another way to say "Something happened that doesn't happen." When we observed violations of Newton's Law of Gravity, that didn't tell us we were in a supernatural world; it told us Newton was wrong.

Oh it absolutely makes sense. It makes sense when one realizes that what constitutes a "natural law" is "a law natural to the regular and deterministic function of a system".

Lots of systems have a function of natural law that can be violated by disruption of the nature of that system.

What is it you mean by "natural" and "nature"?

We just also have this set of laws that we call "fundamental" which we have not observed any systemic basis for the operation thereof, nor violations thereof. They have been apparently perfect.

But this does not mean they must be.

But if they aren't perfect, that just means they're wrong, no? Among all the possible statements about what the universe does that the universe doesn't match, are there some you'd call "false" and others you'd call "natural laws violated by disruption of the nature of that system"? If so, what's the criterion for which are which?

As with the dwarves, there's no way for us to know for certain we were created or not,

But whether the dwarves were created and whether they can figure that out are side-issues. You say "With respect to a dwarf I am supernatural: I am not in any way bound by the structure of rules which gives rise to their existence." How do you figure that? According to you, you crushed two of them under a drawbridge! So evidently the structure of rules which gives rise to their existence includes your interventions, which means it includes you, which means it includes E=mc² and all the rest of the structure of rules which gives rise to your existence. You are postulating a boundary between their universe and our universe, even though cause and effect flow freely across that alleged boundary. The boundary exists only in your mind. When you call some events in dwarf-world "the nature of that system" and other events "disruption", that's just a labeling. It's metaphysics, not physics.

If we and our whole spacetime are a simulation, that makes the author of the simulation an extraterrestrial alien, not a god. There'd be no more grounds for calling our creation "supernatural" than if earth life was created by Alpha Centaurians shooting a million ice cubes full of spores in the general direction of our sun, hoping one landed on a hospitable planet. The rules that gave rise to the simulation count among the rules that gave rise to the simulated creatures.

 

[Jarhyn]

The concept of "supernatural" itself does not make sense, except as what it is: a genre of fiction. "Supernatural" means a story about a pretend world that doesn't work like the real world, one with a Harry Potter flavor instead of a Star Trek flavor. But a story about the real world not working like the real world does not make sense. "Natural law was violated" is self-contradictory nonsense -- it's just another way to say "Something happened that doesn't happen." When we observed violations of Newton's Law of Gravity, that didn't tell us we were in a supernatural world; it told us Newton was wrong.

Oh it absolutely makes sense. It makes sense when one realizes that what constitutes a "natural law" is "a law natural to the regular and deterministic function of a system".

Lots of systems have a function of natural law that can be violated by disruption of the nature of that system.

What is it you mean by "natural" and "nature"?

We just also have this set of laws that we call "fundamental" which we have not observed any systemic basis for the operation thereof, nor violations thereof. They have been apparently perfect.

But this does not mean they must be.

But if they aren't perfect, that just means they're wrong, no? Among all the possible statements about what the universe does that the universe doesn't match, are there some you'd call "false" and others you'd call "natural laws violated by disruption of the nature of that system"? If so, what's the criterion for which are which?

As with the dwarves, there's no way for us to know for certain we were created or not,

But whether the dwarves were created and whether they can figure that out are side-issues. You say "With respect to a dwarf I am supernatural: I am not in any way bound by the structure of rules which gives rise to their existence." How do you figure that? According to you, you crushed two of them under a drawbridge! So evidently the structure of rules which gives rise to their existence includes your interventions, which means it includes you, which means it includes E=mc² and all the rest of the structure of rules which gives rise to your existence. You are postulating a boundary between their universe and our universe, even though cause and effect flow freely across that alleged boundary. The boundary exists only in your mind. When you call some events in dwarf-world "the nature of that system" and other events "disruption", that's just a labeling. It's metaphysics, not physics.

If we and our whole spacetime are a simulation, that makes the author of the simulation an extraterrestrial alien, not a god. There'd be no more grounds for calling our creation "supernatural" than if earth life was created by Alpha Centaurians shooting a million ice cubes full of spores in the general direction of our sun, hoping one landed on a hospitable planet. The rules that gave rise to the simulation count among the rules that gave rise to the simulated creatures.

It's fairly well different creating a whole GD universe and structure of physical law in the midst of an initial configuration than spraying some spores through space.

One is literally the creation of a sub-nature within the nature. With respect to the sub-nature, the containing nature is literally super-natural.

That's the way these words work, if you hadn't noticed.

I am supernatural with respect to the nature observed from within the simulation. They are sub-natural with respect to our laws of nature.

They are a simulation.

It's not hard to understand these structures.

One of the points I like to tend to make here is that being super-natural clearly does not free something of being bound by laws of its own, which the simulation is implemented in the nature as a construction thereof.

I'm supernatural only with respect to the dwarves, and natural with respect to everything in this world, as far as I can prove out.

And so supernatural evil makes sense.

 

[Bomb#20]

Oh it absolutely makes sense. It makes sense when one realizes that what constitutes a "natural law" is "a law natural to the regular and deterministic function of a system".

Lots of systems have a function of natural law that can be violated by disruption of the nature of that system.

What is it you mean by "natural" and "nature"?
...
If we and our whole spacetime are a simulation, that makes the author of the simulation an extraterrestrial alien, not a god. There'd be no more grounds for calling our creation "supernatural" than if earth life was created by Alpha Centaurians shooting a million ice cubes full of spores in the general direction of our sun, hoping one landed on a hospitable planet. The rules that gave rise to the simulation count among the rules that gave rise to the simulated creatures.

It's fairly well different creating a whole GD universe and structure of physical law in the midst of an initial configuration than spraying some spores through space.

"It's fairly well different" is a non-answer. Everything is different from everything else.

One is literally the creation of a sub-nature within the nature. With respect to the sub-nature, the containing nature is literally super-natural. ... I am supernatural with respect to the nature observed from within the simulation. They are sub-natural with respect to our laws of nature. ... One of the points I like to tend to make here is that being super-natural clearly does not free something of being bound by laws of its own, which the simulation is implemented in the nature as a construction thereof. ... I'm supernatural only with respect to the dwarves, and natural with respect to everything in this world, as far as I can prove out.

All of those are examples of what you use "natural" and "nature" to refer to. None of them are explanations of what you mean by those terms. None of them are definitions. Do you understand the distinction between sense and reference?

That's the way these words work, if you hadn't noticed.

I've noticed that's not the way these words work. I've noticed Buffy and Willow kept using their "supernatural" powers to save Sunnydale from all manner of "supernatural" threats, mainly vampires; but they were powerless to save their loved ones from a stroke and a gunshot because those were "natural" deaths. And I've noticed nobody ever said Buffy was being simulated by vampires. In common usage, simulation is not a condition for "supernatural". That's just you.

 

[Jarhyn]

Well, then, bomb, you fail to understand what is meant by the words when they are used by someone outside of shitty fiction.

You're just not going to even possibly reach someone if you don't know what people actually mean when they use the term outside your prejudicial interpretation.

 

[SIB]

"It's fairly well different" is a non-answer. Everything is different from everything else

Actually, not as much as you think. The following is over simplified and stated with the understanding we just don't know all the much.

Everything is on the fabric of space they call "space-time". A set of fields and some forces. We are not different fields that look similar, everything thing is the exact same fields behaving differently at each location. The state changes at each location is what gives us the illusion of separation.

Think of listening to music. The different sounds as the song is played. Lets call the medium the music is traveling through the "air field". The air is not isolated and different air. Its just behaving differently as the energy passes through. When we take apart the air, there is no music to found. Does that mean the music doesn't exist?

then, if we want to be simpler. Think of the "song field". Its the same song. If we slow down time to 1 second is 1000,000 years our time its not even a song to us. In fact, we say to people that say "hey, maybe its a song", that they are cray cray.

Does it mean we have to focus the lens(es) of "perception" to better describe what we are seeing? To determine if a belief is reliable?

 

[Rhea]

Well I don't think the context was regarding 'short time death; or immediate flatlining, when the brain is still alive. Nice try posters!

The line from SIB's post , " when we raise a dead person, and I believe we will.." seems to me the implication means, that it's at some point in the future, we'll have the means. Literally raising the long deceased, brain dead - just as those who beleive in the same for the future in Cryonics, cryopreserving their bodies in the belief that ,the future advancement in science will to bring them back.

I agree. The other posters, in the arguments over resurrection, reinterpreted what SIB said and played a game of dancing synonyms. They co-opted the word resurrection and used it as if it's a synonym of resuscitation. They didn't want you getting any encouragement from someone who plainly made a faith-based statement.

Resurrection ONLY means bringing a thoroughly dead body back to life. It cannot rightly apply to resuscitation of near-dead persons. CPR is not an example of it, nor a justification for any fantasies that technology will ever make it happen.

So that’s an interesting point.

What does resurrection mean - and at what point is something a faith-based statement.

I agree I did interpret SIB’s post to my understanding. And that is that “resurrection” includes in its meaning that the body has not decayed. Hence the inclusion of resuscitated. Because 2000 years ago, resuscitated was indistinguishable from resurrected.

Indeed it has always been my opinion that if a Jesus existed, he was never dead, he was in some suppressed state (very slow heartbeat, extrememly shallow respiration) that appeared dead, and at some point in the tomb (it could have been one minute after they rolled the stone) his vitals strengthened and he “woke up”.

So I have always felt that when Christians talk about resurrection - THE resurrection - it was, in fact, a resuscitation.

So applying this to SIB’s statement " when we raise a dead person, and I believe we will." I interpret that to mean that he is talking about an advancement of science that is able to extend the “resuscitation” capability far beyond where we currently are - but still on a body that has not decayed.

It did not occur to me that he might be meaning that a skeleton will re-grow organs, including a brain, and come back to life, nor that a body where the organic matter has broken down to gel is going to re-form.

I assumed he meant that an intact body would be re-animated to come back to life. And that is not different than the re-animation that happens after the heart stops and is restarted by a defibrillator or after the brain goes into a pause during an icy immersion, it’s just more time has passed and what was beyond reach is now within reach.

If SIB actually meant that a skeleton or a decomposed body would rearrange itself and re-form organs like the brain, then I stand corrected. And if you think resurrection must included a re-forming of decayed material, then we are indeed using words differently.


…

But given my interpretation, I do not believe SIB’s “faith statement” is anything like Learners in any way, and so yes, I would argue that Learner is wrong to try to tether them together as like statements.

 

[abaddon]

So that’s an interesting point.

What does resurrection mean - and at what point is something a faith-based statement.

The meaning of "resurrect" is in the dictionary. The only "naturalistic" way to use the word is metaphorically, like when you "resurrect a long dead cause". Redefining religious concepts till they seem "naturalized" looks something like "enabling" to me.

But given my interpretation, I do not believe SIB’s “faith statement” is anything like Learners in any way, and so yes, I would argue that Learner is wrong to try to tether them together as like statements.

My interpretation went a little differently...

Learner's error was the tu toque: you people believe crazy shit so whattaya doing criticizing my crazy shit?

But I agree with him that there are postchristian secularists whose beliefs are as batshit insane as his. A case in point are the transhumanists taking the christian mythology but "naturalizing" it with tech-speak so that it'll seem "scientifically plausible". To make it appeal more they present it as "just advances in medical science". But the frozen bodies they're talking about aren't children pulled out of a cold lake, but rich people pulled out of refrigerators.

SIB's faith statement looked like some of that slipping into the convo. Learner spotted it as nutty... and I think it's fucking nutty too. So to me pointing at someone else's shared nuttiness is not the worst thing in that post by Learner that got so much reaction.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

A winking emoji according to dictionary.com means

The winking face emoji is a great go-to emoji for flirtatious situations. Though it's often used to flirt, this emoji is also a useful way to playfully joke or to silently let the reader in on a secret.

My take on Learner's initial post in the thread was that he was playfully joking. In other words he was teasing a bit, not being serious. Now if the meaning was that he has a little secret to convey I suppose that secret is tied up in christian religious claims about how all our bodies are going to be resurrected when the Jesus god comes back down from the clouds and makes everything happy, happy, happy all the live long day.

Not sure if it pertains to resurrection but some christians that do communion actually believe that the grape juice and bread wafers become alive as their jesus god when they eat it. The priest says magic words that turn the grape juice and wafer into their living jesus god and then they eat its flesh and drink its blood. I take that as a kind of resurrection and it apparently happens everytime there is a mass. That's weird stuff but it is what it is.

Learner was not flirting with anyone and claims he was engaging in ironic humor, which is defined as

The humorous and mildly sarcastic use of words to convey something opposite from or different to the words' literal meaning.

This is according to the online humor scrapbook.

So the jury is still out as to what exactly Learner was attempting to convey.

 

[skepticalbip]

So the jury is still out as to what exactly Learner was attempting to convey.

That sounds fairly smugly passive-aggressive. If Learner only vaguely hints at something without actually stating it, then no one can challenge it.