[Bored chemist]

what is the root of your disagreement

Well, I thought it was obvious but, for the hard of thinking.

God put the serpent in the garden of Eden (knowing  full well what the consequences would be), then blamed humanity for the consequences of His own act.
To top it off, he then convinced the people that it was their fault.

How is that anything but a shi**y way to behave?

[Bored chemist]

Quote from: Bored chemist on 13/03/2020 17:40:24
Quote from: CliveG on 13/03/2020 17:15:34
I have (used to have an even better) excellent memory. I remember most occasions. Mine works most of the time - too many times for randomness.
Post a diary.
That will unequivocally show which side is right.

I had to double check who the poster was. Such a logical common sense post.

Such logical common sense... that you haven't done it.

You daren't.

[alancalverd]

Getting angry about mass murder and global suffering misses the point.

In a rational world, this would go down as the most ridiculous statement ever made. It encapsulates everything that is morally, intellectually and practically disgraceful about religion.

[CliveG]

There is nothing to indicate that I may be wrong that cell phone radiation either 1) stimulates corona virus, 2) decreases immune systems or 3) aggravates existing conditions - or all of the above. Since time will tell, I am looking at any indication to show that I might be correct. Here is one. Remember how I complain about stomach pains and diarrhea when exposed to to radiation next to the tower for more than a few hours?

https://www.foxnews.com/health/early-symptom-coronavirus-might-be-digestive-issues-study
Could diarrhea and other gastrointestinal issues be the first signs of the novel coronavirus, also known as COVID-19? Yes, at least according to one study published Thursday in The American Journal of Gastroenterology.

The study, conducted by Chinese researchers, looked at data from 204 coronavirus patients in China’s Hubei province, the epicenter of the outbreak. Of the 204 patients, 99 of them -- about 48.5 percent -- presented to the hospital with “with one or more digestive symptoms as their chief complaint,” namely diarrhea, vomiting or abdominal pain, per the study.

[alancalverd]

Personally, I blame the internet, digital television, electric cars, and salted caramel. All the work of Satan. When I was a lad, we had to make do with diphtheria, scarlet fever, and two postal deliveries a day. Five Woodbines and a pint of jellied eels at Christmas. None of your fancy electrosmog - we had the real thing, powered by coal and inducing proper British bronchitis, not your mass-produced Chinese stuff. We were poor but we were happy.

[CliveG]

Getting angry about mass murder and global suffering misses the point.

In a rational world, this would go down as the most ridiculous statement ever made. It encapsulates everything that is morally, intellectually and practically disgraceful about religion.

You said:
An omniscient being has no defence of "unintended consequences" - this is deliberate impoverishment and murder on a global scale. Why on earth should he change his mind in response to your petty grumbling?

I responded:
Getting angry about mass murder and global suffering misses the point. Yes, the trajectory is known by God who chooses to let a mass Die-Off happen. He helps some and not others. In most cases, it does not affect the grand plan but if there is someone who is destined to be a great leader they will be protected.

I am saying you are missing the point that God is NOT guilty of mass murder and suffering. You are very angry about YOUR imaginary AT God who DOES murder and injure people on a global scale. Your anger towards an AT God is misplaced precisely because your AT God is highly improbable - a straw-man (more like a straw-God). The CG God allows free will and accepts suffering as part of the plan of the Ultimate Intelligence. You can get angry at this ultimate entity, but what would it achieve? Buddha recognized that life is suffering, but taught that one rises above it. He did not deal with the issue of God or no God or why it was that way.

So I will repeat. Your obvious anger blinds you to rational thought. Why not simply change your thinking to a more scientific analysis. Like this:
1) Science does not know what the Prime Cause is.
2) Science can entertain various proposals as to what the Prime Cause might be.
3) Science gave give an opinion (which they often do) as to what the most probable Prime Cause might be.
4) Science can continue to do research to learn more and to maybe refine various proposals.

My proposal is that the Prime Cause is an Ultimate Intelligence that simply exists and has always existed. Even it may not know why or how it exists. The Universe is a dream and an illusion and God is part of the dream. One can put together a set of attributes for this God. One should recognize that these attributes ( and indeed the laws of physics) may change at any time because of the whim of the Ultimate Intelligence but we would not know it unless we see chaos where experiments work and then do not work.

I say that there is more evidence for a spirit world and for a God than a world without either. I say that science must account for the lack of answers for questions about events that are extremely unlikely and stop assigning answers in order to protect a belief that there is no God.

Go through all the evidence I have put forward. How can science dismiss these by first assuming God does not exist and say "There logical fallacies A, B and C have to apply"?

Getting on a moral high horse is misdirecting tactic. You are the one whose logic (directed by emotion based on an incorrect world/God view) is preventing you from making a break-though to a better mind-set and a better world.

[CliveG]

Personally, I blame the internet, digital television, electric cars, and salted caramel. All the work of Satan. When I was a lad, we had to make do with diphtheria, scarlet fever, and two postal deliveries a day. Five Woodbines and a pint of jellied eels at Christmas. None of your fancy electrosmog - we had the real thing, powered by coal and inducing proper British bronchitis, not your mass-produced Chinese stuff. We were poor but we were happy.

Ah, there we go. A grumpy old man. I feel you are partly correct, but never before has there been so many unknowns and on a global scale. Many of the older generation in past years looked at the world and bemoaned the progress. All that changes is that there are new threats - and always threats that are understood as possible (pandemics) but humankind chooses to be hopeful and think the other person will suffer or die.

Only a true disaster changes the social fabric. I see too much lack of caring for the poor and enemy nations. I see an escalation in fraud in business and in dealings with people. Lack of societal cohesion. We are overdue to a correction and God is letting it happen. How can you blame him? Would you be okay with it, if your family and friends and nation and community were spared? Tell the truth, now.

I am reminded of working alone next to townships while rioting was taking place in SA in the 1970s. I had a loaded gun with a round in the chamber and the safety off. On the table or walking to my car I had a 17 round magazine and another 17 round magazine. People said you will not stop a rampaging mob. I replied that I understood that, but would take many with me. The principle in all mass charges is that when the others next to  a person dies, each person simply takes it as affirmation that they will not die and can continue the charge. Until the mob is down to just a couple.

[Bored chemist]

There is nothing to indicate that I may be wrong that cell phone radiation either 1) stimulates corona virus, 2) decreases immune systems or 3) aggravates existing conditions - or all of the above.

... apart from science.

Remember how I complain about stomach pains and diarrhea when exposed to to radiation next to the tower for more than a few hours?

https://www.foxnews.com/health/early-symptom-coronavirus-might-be-digestive-issues-study
Could diarrhea and other gastrointestinal issues be the first signs of the novel coronavirus, also known as COVID-19? Yes, at least according to one study published Thursday in The American Journal of Gastroenterology.

So, are you now saying you were wrong; it wasn't the cell phone mast, but coronavirus or something?

Well, norovirus or something is a more likely candidate, but it's good to see you accept that the cause is probably an infection.

The CG God allows free will and accepts suffering as part of the plan of the Ultimate Intelligence.

You are saying that your so called God, does what this "Ultimate Intelligence" tells it to.
That's a piss poor God.

My proposal is that the Prime Cause is an Ultimate Intelligence that simply exists and has always existed.

So, by any conventional definition that Prime Cause, is God.
And you have set up some bit part actor in between.
The CG God is looking more like a Pixie every time you describe Him.
(Come to think of it, does the CG God even deserve  Capital Pronouns?)

[alancalverd]

The CG God allows free will and accepts suffering as part of the plan of the Ultimate Intelligence.

So the hallmark of ultimate intelligence is to do bugger-all. That's morally bankrupt.

[Bored chemist]

I am reminded of working alone next to townships while rioting was taking place in SA in the 1970s. I had a loaded gun with a round in the chamber and the safety off. On the table or walking to my car I had a 17 round magazine and another 17 round magazine. People said you will not stop a rampaging mob. I replied that I understood that, but would take many with me. The principle in all mass charges is that when the others next to  a person dies, each person simply takes it as affirmation that they will not die and can continue the charge. Until the mob is down to just a couple.

Forgive me if I'm mistaken. I assume you are white skinned.

How did it all work out for you?

[CliveG]

I am reminded of working alone next to townships while rioting was taking place in SA in the 1970s. I had a loaded gun with a round in the chamber and the safety off. On the table or walking to my car I had a 17 round magazine and another 17 round magazine. People said you will not stop a rampaging mob. I replied that I understood that, but would take many with me. The principle in all mass charges is that when the others next to  a person dies, each person simply takes it as affirmation that they will not die and can continue the charge. Until the mob is down to just a couple.

Forgive me if I'm mistaken. I assume you are white skinned.

How did it all work out for you?

Fine. God kept the rioters away. They did not notice this white man in his brand new station wagon with all the test gear working in a substation just outside the township.

This has happened many times in my life. While I do not "tempt fate" or do anything stupid I have always know when I will be safe. Once, I took a black worker home in 1976 - the height of the riots in Soweto. I thought he was guiding me to a place safely outside the area until I saw the burnt-out buildings, the burnt-out cars, the rubble and boulders in the streets, and the startled looks of the locals. They did not know how to react to a white man casually driving into the area. I told the worker I would drop him off and decided to drive right through to the other side because if I turned around the locals would be waiting for me. I was not scared - I keep telling everyone that I know things that I have a way of knowing and it is so. It has happened very frequently.

The name of the worker was "Happy". It suited him. He had a hollow in the middle of his forehead that one could fit half a baseball into. It was a tribal weekend sport to fight with "knobkerries" until one man was knocked unconscious. A knobkerrie is a light slim war club with a baseball sized knob on the end. "Happy" had a frontal lobotomy of sorts. I told you my life has been interesting, and those were interesting times.

Another time I got help from God was in 1977 when I was in the SA Army as a "commando". This was a home guard unit that did 2 months basic training and then 16 years to 3 week camps and monthly parades instead of the usual 1 year conscription. In 1977 the Angolan war was in full swing and the commandos were told that they would do 6 months in the front lines. But I was doing field service and got exemption from the monthly parades so I did not know this, although I had some hints. I also changed addresses a few times since I intended to emigrate to the USA via Sweden. My last address was with my parents for a few weeks. I informed the army via letter each times. My address changes were not intended to evade the army.

A month after I left, my brother was at a company where two army guys were talking. They told of how this guy avoided Angola by changing his address and every time the army sent the military police to his last known address he had just moved. The army decided to make an example of him by arriving at his place of work on a Monday morning with an armed escort (them) who were going to take the guy straight to the military base and onto a plane to Angola. The receptionist told them that the guy had left on Saturday for Sweden and was not coming back. My brother asked them the name of the chap. It was of course me.

This round about way of getting information has also happened before. God arranges it (I think). It is too serendipitous to have all these events with such long odds of happening happen to one person.

[Bored chemist]

While I do not "tempt fate" or do anything stupid

Once, I took a black worker home in 1976 - the height of the riots in Soweto.

[CliveG]

While I do not "tempt fate" or do anything stupid

Once, I took a black worker home in 1976 - the height of the riots in Soweto.

Out of context. I did not intend to travel into the township. Just drop him outside. But... God arranges for interesting events and learning. Even journalists probably did not see what I saw first hand.

[Bored chemist]

Out of context.

OK.
Here it is in context

While I do not "tempt fate" or do anything stupid I have always know when I will be safe. Once, I took a black worker home in 1976 - the height of the riots in Soweto.

[CliveG]

The CG God allows free will and accepts suffering as part of the plan of the Ultimate Intelligence.

So the hallmark of ultimate intelligence is to do bugger-all. That's morally bankrupt.

I am puzzled about your lack of comprehension about everything I have been relating.

I experienced the Ultimate Intelligence. I thought perhaps it was God since it was clearly the only entity that existed, and I saw how each person was a "memory" in the various sections of the almost infinite mind.

What had me wondering was that the entity was amoral. There was no goodness and none of the qualities of a "loving God". So you are quite right that the Ultimate Intelligence has no morals at all. But why do you insist that it must? And why are you so angry and disappointed that it does not?

This amoral entity decided to have good and evil. God and Satan. Along with a fascinating plot. If you want a chance of getting help from a "good" God you need to recognize and accept his existence. But you may get it anyway if God has a plan for you. I got lots of help and lots of physical and emotional suffering in order to learn. I accept that.

You are angry that your formal religion has sold you a less than truthful story of God, and that no other religion has the full truth. So here I am giving you God's message from all my learning and you keep relapsing into anger.

No doubt you have heard the yarn about a man trapped by rising waters who asks God to save him. A truck comes by and he sends them away saying God will save him. Same with a boat when he is surrounded by water and same with the helicopter when he is on the roof. He drowns. He meets God and asks why he was not saved. God said to him that he refused the truck, the boat and the helicopter that was sent.

I give a message and information and no-one wants to believe.  They want me to do a miracle to first provide proof. I am giving my credentials by way of a logical hypothesis and a long list of personal experiences. Of course, believers are not open to new ideas. They do not want to change. They fear that Satan might be influencing me. They too want a miracle - a big one.

Strangely, I feel a little like the Ultimate Intelligence in terms of emotion and morality. It is your choice - take it or leave it. God wants people to believe me and I think he may succeed. If he does not exist I probably will not succeed. Even if he does I may not succeed. The Ultimate Intelligence may just be enjoying my roller-coaster of emotions as I struggle to battle against life, illness and corruption.

[Bored chemist]

So here I am giving you God's message from all my learning

Except, as I have pointed out, your learning is rather thin, and biassed.

I experienced the Ultimate Intelligence

None of us did.
Possibly nobody else did.
And yet you refuse to consider the most likely reason; it's not real, justa  dream.

They want me to do a miracle to first provide proof.

I asked you to posta diary. That's hardly the same thing.

[CliveG]

Out of context.

OK.
Here it is in context

While I do not "tempt fate" or do anything stupid I have always know when I will be safe. Once, I took a black worker home in 1976 - the height of the riots in Soweto.

Strange response from you. I live my life without fear. I did not tell the worker I would drive him into Soweto. I ended up there by mistake. Once there I knew I would be okay.

There was a riot in lower Manhattan when the courts freed two undercover police who shot and killed a black man who had pulled a gun on them in a Brooklyn Park. The man was serial armed mugger stealing bicycles. The radio said for people to avoid the area. I "knew" I could drive through and not have a problem. It was deserted because of the warnings. But the area was also empty of people. Was this taking a stupid risk or tempting fate? No. I was certain I would be okay. And I mean certain. When I am certain I am right, I am right.

I did the same when rioters went on the rampage in Cape Town. I was going on a free holiday and had to drive through the area. I had my window down with my gun in hand, and so did my passenger. But not the tiniest threat and deserted roads as I broke the speed limits.

Why tell me that works until it does not (the usual response I get)? It has not failed - many times. I should take it as proof of a charmed life but I do not. I remain skeptical.

[CliveG]

So here I am giving you God's message from all my learning

Except, as I have pointed out, your learning is rather thin, and biassed.

I experienced the Ultimate Intelligence

None of us did.
Possibly nobody else did.
And yet you refuse to consider the most likely reason; it's not real, justa  dream.

They want me to do a miracle to first provide proof.

I asked you to posta diary. That's hardly the same thing.

And why do you refuse to consider the possibility I might be the real deal? I must say I find it strange - it is not something I want to do. I have to keep reminding myself of all the events and how they happened.

Let us say that I am imagining it all. Does that make negate my claim that it is a better explanation to the Prime Cause, God and the Universe than any other currently accepted explanation?

I told you that I consider your challenge to be somewhat of a fools errand and why.

[Bored chemist]

I "knew" I could drive through and not have a problem. It was deserted because of the warnings. But the area was also empty of people. Was this taking a stupid risk or tempting fate?

No, it's making a deduction, based on evidence.
It's certainly not evidence of any meaningful God.

[Bored chemist]

And why do you refuse to consider the possibility I might be the real deal?

I told you that already.
Occam's razor.

Why don't you
 listen?