The Religion Discussion Thread

[SuburbanFarmer]

Let his noodly appendages touch you brother. Foresake your impasta the Dude and try our 30 day trial which comes with a God back guarantee if not 100% satisfied.

Sorry, brother, but to forsake the Dude would be, like, not cool at all. In his Dudeness we abide.

Have a White Russian, and take a load off man.

Only those who follow HIM will ascend to heaven and get to see the beauty of the beer volcano and the stripper factory.
Plus everyone else of course for we are an inclusive religion.

Man, I don’t get into all that worrying about the Big After, ya know? Life is here,man. Just like, enjoy it, and be good people ya know?

[Penner]

Internet will be package up and we all would have to pay extra for basic enjoyments (that we can get) for free, now. It's so stupid to end Net Neutrality:



Also, this from Comcast today:

For years, Comcast has been promising that it won't violate the principles of net neutrality, regardless of whether the government imposes any net neutrality rules. That meant that Comcast wouldn't block or throttle lawful Internet traffic and that it wouldn't create fast lanes in order to collect tolls from Web companies that want priority access over the Comcast network.

This was one of the ways in which Comcast argued that the Federal Communications Commission should not reclassify broadband providers as common carriers, a designation that forces ISPs to treat customers fairly in other ways. The Title II common carrier classification that makes net neutrality rules enforceable isn't necessary because ISPs won't violate net neutrality principles anyway, Comcast and other ISPs have claimed.

But with Republican Ajit Pai now in charge at the Federal Communications Commission, Comcast's stance has changed. While the company still says it won't block or throttle Internet content, it has dropped its promise about not instituting paid prioritization.

Instead, Comcast now vaguely says that it won't "discriminate against lawful content" or impose "anti-competitive paid prioritization." The change in wording suggests that Comcast may offer paid fast lanes to websites or other online services, such as video streaming providers, after Pai's FCC eliminates the net neutrality rules next month. With no FCC rules against paid fast lanes, it would be up to Comcast to decide whether any specific prioritization deal is "anti-competitive."

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/201 ... ast-lanes/

[Fife]

I want my Netflix for free. And, oh yeah, NO ADS.

That's how it's supposed to work, amirite?

GIBS ALERT

[skankhunt42]

Jesus didn't exist. All religions steal and borrow ideas from past religions. Religion will eventually not matter in its current context, not in our lifetimes mind you, but eventually.

[SuburbanFarmer]

I want my Netflix for free. And, oh yeah, NO ADS.

That's how it's supposed to work, amirite?

GIBS ALERT

Just think how great it will be when you can pay Netflix AND your ISP for the privilege of watching mandatory ads before and during each show.

[Montegriffo]

Jesus didn't exist. All religions steal and borrow ideas from past religions. Religion will eventually not matter in its current context, not in our lifetimes mind you, but eventually.

I think there is plenty of historical evidence that Jesus lived and died. There doesn't appear to be any that he lived, died and lived again.

[Fife]

I want my Netflix for free. And, oh yeah, NO ADS.

That's how it's supposed to work, amirite?

GIBS ALERT

Just think how great it will be when you can pay Netflix AND your ISP for the privilege of watching mandatory ads before and during each show.

You people remind me of my 70-year old grandfatther back in 1978: "There's no damn way I'm paying for TV! This ought to be illegal!"

I don't know if that is more funny than NN freaks accepting the narrative that the internet c. 2010, delivered to you on a state-owned/licensed physical wire, is as good as the internet is ever going to get. You all are still lapping up all the FDR fairy-tales like they are gospel.

/smh

[skankhunt42]

Jesus didn't exist. All religions steal and borrow ideas from past religions. Religion will eventually not matter in its current context, not in our lifetimes mind you, but eventually.

I think there is plenty of historical evidence that Jesus lived and died. There doesn't appear to be any that he lived, died and lived again.

I completely disagree with your first statement, but agree with your second.

[katarn]

Thinks like, "there must have been a first cause" are probably more arguments from the structure of our thinking and language than actual logic. Logic alone doesn't really do that well when trying to prove that things exist.

I'm not sure a prime mover really solves the problem because where did he come from? "Oh, he came from nowhere. He's the prime mover." Ok, the universe came from nowhere. "No, only MY thing can come from nowhere." Why? "Because that's part of its definition." Word games.

Maybe the universe has been boom and busting forever. Maybe there have always been quantum fluctuations creating bubbles in the multiverse, etc. I don't really understand it, I'll admit.

And it's pretty arrogant to be like, "theoretical physicists with 180 IQs are all just in denial or don't understand logic, yadda, yadda." "Only the people who make the youtube videos I watch all day can see the entire truth of everything."

It's also sort of a wonky position to say, "I completely understand everything about the material world," but then whenever someone pokes your religion with a stick, you say, "how arrogant, to assume you can have understanding of how God works."

Perhaps most importantly, if you believe God to be the omniscient point of origin for the whole universe, it strikes me as much more of a problem for standard religions than a, let's say, secular world view. Why would such a god be anything more than Spinoza's or maybe the deist god? Outside of time and space, (how does it touch time and space?) unchanging, more of a force like gravity.

Certainly not changing his mind, filled with emotions, visiting us, etc. unless that is all a puppet show he made for some reason. But if you tell the pope or an orthodox Jew or Muslim, "obviously, all the prophets and stuff were just kind of a puppet show put on for some reason," I don't think they'll be happy with that.

If you went to a secularist and said, "there is some ineffable force that kicked everything off in an instant an then never did anything again, and if you look into this box you will know this with 100% certainty," then they looked in the box and it was true, I don't know how much really changes for them. They're certainly not going to be like, "oh shit, I'd better mutilate my penis and outlaw homosexuality!"

I agree with the points about a prime mover argument not implying any particular god. The typical way the "who caused god?" argument is countered is by defining the universe in such a way that time is included. By doing that, they can safely say their prime mover never needed a cause because it exists (or did) outside time and thus linear causality.

[K@th]

Thinks like, "there must have been a first cause" are probably more arguments from the structure of our thinking and language than actual logic. Logic alone doesn't really do that well when trying to prove that things exist.

I'm not sure a prime mover really solves the problem because where did he come from? "Oh, he came from nowhere. He's the prime mover." Ok, the universe came from nowhere. "No, only MY thing can come from nowhere." Why? "Because that's part of its definition." Word games.

Maybe the universe has been boom and busting forever. Maybe there have always been quantum fluctuations creating bubbles in the multiverse, etc. I don't really understand it, I'll admit.

And it's pretty arrogant to be like, "theoretical physicists with 180 IQs are all just in denial or don't understand logic, yadda, yadda." "Only the people who make the youtube videos I watch all day can see the entire truth of everything."

It's also sort of a wonky position to say, "I completely understand everything about the material world," but then whenever someone pokes your religion with a stick, you say, "how arrogant, to assume you can have understanding of how God works."

Perhaps most importantly, if you believe God to be the omniscient point of origin for the whole universe, it strikes me as much more of a problem for standard religions than a, let's say, secular world view. Why would such a god be anything more than Spinoza's or maybe the deist god? Outside of time and space, (how does it touch time and space?) unchanging, more of a force like gravity.

Certainly not changing his mind, filled with emotions, visiting us, etc. unless that is all a puppet show he made for some reason. But if you tell the pope or an orthodox Jew or Muslim, "obviously, all the prophets and stuff were just kind of a puppet show put on for some reason," I don't think they'll be happy with that.

If you went to a secularist and said, "there is some ineffable force that kicked everything off in an instant an then never did anything again, and if you look into this box you will know this with 100% certainty," then they looked in the box and it was true, I don't know how much really changes for them. They're certainly not going to be like, "oh shit, I'd better mutilate my penis and outlaw homosexuality!"

LVH, from my pov, your best post ever. Sums my thoughts nicely.