4-1 odds on the existence of God
Online betting outfit Paddy Power is offering 4-1 odds that God exists. So far, folks have wagered $5000 on the question. Interest has increased resulting from an atheist ad campaign on London buses with the slogan: "There's probably no God." From The Telegraph:
A spokesman for Paddy Power said that confirmation of God's existence would have to be verified by scientists and given by an independent authority before any payouts were made, however."Paddy Power offers odds of 4-1 that God exists"
He added: "The atheists' planned advertising campaign seems to have renewed the debate in pubs and around office water-coolers as to whether there is a God and we've seen some of that being transferred into bets.
"However we advise anyone still not sure of God's existence to maybe hedge their bets for now, just in case."
the latest
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Blaise Pascal would advise you to put money on it.
I think you might have to wait an eternity for a payout.
For anyone who hasn't been following the atheist bus campaign, a group were trying to raise £5,500 -- which would then be matched by a donation from Richard Dawkins -- to pay for a sign on the side of a bus. It's intended as an answer to all the bible verses and occasional statment damning us heretics that we see plastered on public transport all the time.
The campaign has been running for 15 days and so far they've raised £117,020.92!
Awesome stuff. Maybe atheists aren't as rare or as amoral as many religious types like to think?
Pointless bet. "God" is too amorphous a concept. The word has been used to describe a huge range of things, from the literal character in the Bible (falsifiable, and falsified), to the intelligent designer "clockmaker" (unfalsifiable), to "the essence of infinite perfection" (i.e., a cognitively meaningless phrase), to "an order to the universe" (vague but falsifiable, and confirmed!). Give me a more specific bet, and I am totally on board.
Also, Pascal's wager is pretty silly, as indeed that same Wikipedia article persuasively notes in its "Criticisms" section.
For an excellent, if moderately technical, discussion of Pascal's Wager, see also the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pascal-wager/
The real question (since I didn't bother to read the linked article) is, do you have to put the money down up front for the bet on God? If so, this looks like a great way for the company holding the bet to get some ready capital they can hang onto indefinately.
Actually, religious types often hold a "there are more atheists/non-christians than us and they're ACTIVELY TRYING TO DESTROY US!" -- a belief which Dawkins is certainly doing his best to confirm.
I am, however, completely unaware of any moral scale that includes 'bus ads' as a virtue.
A ripoff, as neither science nor scientists can address the question of the existence of a supernatural deity.
I wish /I/ could bilk ignorant people out of their extra money with no question of facing legal repercussions.
I wish /I/ could bilk ignorant people out of their extra money with no question of facing legal repercussions.
Bardfinn: try politics?
Uh, if there is a God, isn't betting/gambling, like, totally a sin?
#3 Actually, it's already been proven that religion doesn't make you any more moral. I'm afraid I don't remember the name of the study though. It does tend to make you happier though.
#4 It's impossible to falsify the existance of a purportedly omnipotent/etc. being. Heck, strictly speaking, you can't falsify the existance of ANYTHING. All you can actually prove is that you can't find it in the places you've looked by the means you've chosen to utilize.
Wait a second, why are atheists saying there is probably no god?
Only agnostics get to say that.
Just occured to me... Pantheists believe (more or less) that everything is God. You know, the Earth, sun, wind, water, us...
So, arguably, they've won.
@Bardfinn: Of course you can verify the existence of the supernatural. The fact that humans claim to be aware of the supernatural means that the supernatural has a natural contact-point with the world. Whether in the chemistry of our brains, or something else, there's a natural effect of a supernatural cause (if such a supernatural cause exists).
We can't see dark matter, but we can measure its gravitational effects. In the same fashion, we should be able to see the supernatural by the effects it has on the natural world.
Now, testing for a god is much trickier, especially because people tend to define it very vaguely to give themselves wiggle-room to dodge convenient test. It's in principle a testable claim, but in practice, it isn't testable. Certainly, the wager doesn't contain an explanation of how we would verify the conclusion of the bet.
@Pterodactylfractal: Depends on the god, doesn't it? There are lots of gods that have no problem with gambling, and a few that actually recommend it.
@Clay: not at all. Atheists are merely people who don't claim there is a god. Note, that's not people who claim there definitely isn't a god, just people who don't espouse the god hypothesis.
If you believe in god, you're a theist. Otherwise, you're an atheist.
Annnnd I'm going to be able to collect on that HOW?
How about defining God before trying to see whether He/She/It exists or not?
What is God?
John Davis
T3knomanser:
I'm sorry, I'm not allowed to argue with you unless you've paid. Give me five dollars.
...
What part of supernatural and science being mutually exclusive domains do you fail to understand?
The only thing that science can address about the existence of a deity is the processes occurring in the brains of those who are undergoing an experience they, themselves, characterise as "religious".
Again: Science is limited to the NATURAL world. The existence of a SUPERNATURAL deity is NOT AMENABLE TO THE SCIENTIFIC PROCESS.
Please turn in your PC operator's license and your IP collision insurance and see yourself to the Exit of the Internet.
...
See what I mean? I could make no end of bank on the stream of self-righteous ignorant superstitious fools.
Postscript: If it has an effect on the natural world, it is /by fscking definition/ NOT SUPERNATURAL.
Good Day to you!
Bo Fowler's book 'Skepticism Inc.' is about a man who sets up Metaphysical Betting Shops, where people can place bets about things no-one can prove one way or the other. He becomes immensely rich. Not the most subtle book, but good fun.
http://www.amazon.com/Scepticism-Inc-Bo-Fowler/dp/1582340722
"The real question (since I didn't bother to read the linked article) is, do you have to put the money down up front for the bet on God? If so, this looks like a great way for the company holding the bet to get some ready capital they can hang onto indefinately."
1. Yes you do.
2. That's the point.
T3kno @ 13/14
spot on.
i feel that atheism or agnosticism are by definition more moral than say christianity. christians believe that no matter how horribly they sin, all they need do is repent and follow whatever "hail mary" or "our father" prescription given by their priest and viola', they get to sit at jeebus' right hand in eternal bliss. atheists and agnostics believe more in the here and now, with no one to save them but themselves, and no one to blame but themselves. therefore they are more responsible for their own actions. no"the devil made me do it." or " it was god's will." just their own moral compass and the law of the land. not a lot of buck passing. but the whole god thing is a sucker's bet. the cash goes to the house. what a great scam!
The existence of God was proven in 1969 when Monsignor Edward Gay defeated Dr. Tom Jack by two falls to a submission.
Betting on God existence? That sounds like a double sin.
here's my proof God doesn't exist: We got a black guy in the most powerful position in the US. Which is AWESOME and I'm super happy about it. But gone are the days of "Manifest Destiny". No Manifest destiny, no God.
Okay, that may be oversimplifying it because there could be a God and the concept of Manifest Destiny could be just that...a concept, an excuse for whiteys back in the day to do as they pleased.
As #20 suggests, it's a brilliant move by the betting outfit, since they never have to pay out the money that people are wagering.
And as a thoroughly-convinced agnostic, I'm happy to report that they can all deal with the fact that the unprovable is, by convenient definition, impossible to test.
Bard,
when you get to the bones of it, stuff either happens or doesn't. If it happens, there are reasons/causes/effects. Possibly we just don't know how to test for it yet.
Just because someone at sometime decided there must be some realm that science can never touch, doesn't make it true.
Either part of the definition of the word 'supernatural' is wrong (the 'beyond science' bit), or our application of it to anything that actually occurs in our universe is.
Bardfinn@7
try law
"thoroughly-convinced agnostic"
oxymoron?
@Bardfinn: if the supernatural cannot have an effect on the natural world, then it is impossible for a human to ever claim to have observed a supernatural event, or to have an awareness of a supernatural entity. Because if they've experienced a supernatural phenomenon, then this phenomenon has altered the natural world. By your definition of supernatural, a human could never be aware of a supernatural event.
Your definition of the supernatural basically leads us to this conclusion: there is no detectable difference between a universe that contains supernatural phenomenon and one that does not.
"If it has an effect on the natural world.."
I may have misread your intention before..
Are you saying god and ghosts aren't supernatural, as both have an effect/existence in the natural world? (presupposing that either exist, of course)
T3kno@30, again: spot on.
For some reason I'm reminded of the South Park episode in which Satan fixes a boxing match with Jesus.
There are many kinds of agnostics but they all have in common that the existence of one or a set of Supreme Beings can't be proved or disproved by means of reason.
Agnostic are said to be faithless and usually don't care about the question of God, logically.
Atheist do believe that everything can be explained by rational methods and that we will get there some day.
For me that is way too much of a leap of faith.
Daemon:
It doesn't need to be true for people to believe it. When I get into discussions about religion, it's always just a matter of time until someone says something like "If you don't believe in God, you've got no reason to be moral / where do your morals come from? / you don't care what you do to others". It's astonishing how many of the religious types I've met seemed to think that atheist = amoral.
I've always wondered about that study. It shows correlation but, of course, it's not an intervention trial so it can't show causation. I've always wondered whether, say, naturally skeptical people are both more likely to be atheist/agnostic and less cheerful. So religion is a symptom that corresponds with happiness but doesn't cause it? This is just wild speculation, obviously. For the record, I'm agnostic and annoyingly cheerful most of the time. :D
Clay:
A press release states "She explained that the word ‘probably’ was included so that the advert would be allowed to run". Similarly, the religious adverts can't directly state that God exists and that I'm going to hell... they just really strongly imply it and link to websites that do say it outright.
Bardfinn:
It's impossible to test for the presence of an omnipotent God that doesn't want to be found, but if a God turns up some day and wants to be recognised, there's a whole barrage of things we could do to test whether He's the laws-of-physics-breaking real deal. Turning people into pillars of salt, turning salt into pillars of linedancing penguins... there'd be no end of fun. I mean, totally serious well-funded research.
http://www.pocm.info/getting_started_pocm.html
@Iaminnocent: you seem to be laboring under some misapprehensions. Theists are people who say, "There is a god (or gods)."
Atheists are everyone else. Which means most agnostics are atheists.
It's an either-or position. Either you claim there is a god, or you don't.
I like the idea of the bus campaign, mostly because it is refreshing to hear an atheist message on the street rather than in some scholarly circle. But I don't like the 'probably'. It sounds wishy-washy.
I guess that "There is no god." would sound too brutal and nihilistic for the average people, which is the unfortunate issue with atheism.
Religion has been hijacking the concepts of hope, love and morality for so long that most people attach a coldness and hopelessness to atheism. As if atheists don't have any afterlife to hope for so they probably resent the 'pointlessness' of their lives. That would probably explain why religious people seem happier: We don't teach people from birth to embrace their lives for the present, without promises of mystical rewards and delusions of grandeur. We are taught early on that death is a great evil (not a natural, universal process), that we need to be freed and saved from it and live eternally. We are basically taught that a life without god (any god) is a life of pain.
A philosophy like that runs deep. It can't be easily escaped.
Let's turn this into a movie featuring Brad Pitt. Never bet against the Pikies.
Bugs"It doesn't need to be true for people to believe it"
Nor do people have to believe something for it to be true :)
Not only does he exist, as proof I can give you his telephone number so you can talk to him yourself. Got a pen? Ready....? Pi.
@Mercurytransit: If there were a god, and it had a phone number, it would be Omega, not Pi.
While every calculation of Pi is an approximation, one can actually calculate how far off your approximation is. Omega, on the other hand, is so structured that no only can it only be approximated, you can't tell how far off from it you are. As a bonus, it's derived in part from Turing's Halting Problem and has strong relations to Godel's incompleteness theorem.
I highly recommend Chaitin's Meta-Math! for an almost accessible explanation of how Omega was derived and what it means to mathematics.
Lv t t bnd f slly Brtsh hpps t try t rn vryn's Chrstms. nd str. nd mst thr Wstrn hldys. Rthr thn pst sgns wth smngly-dfnt (thgh pthtc), cntrvrsl (fr th sk f cntrvrsy, nthng ls) mssgs, my sggst gttng jb r hbby? Jst gnn thrw ths t thr: Hkng, btng, bckgmmn -- ll thr r wy mr fn thn dnyng th xstnc f Gd. h, bt thn 'm pstng ths n Bng Bng. Lt m xpln wht xrcs s... wll, nvr mnd.
need a LHC equivalent to test this once and for all. A Large Priest Collider? I'm thinking pneumatic tubes, a target zone with mesh floor and integral blenders. Some kind of settling tank and someone with tea sieve looking for the real god particle. Funding suggestions?
Probably no god? Agnostic, not atheist.
Atheists declare that there is no god. Agnostics "believe" that the ultimate truths (about the origins of life and the universe) are unknown and probably unknowable.
Heh. If there were any possibility of a payout, I'd be all over this! Unfortunately, the article doesn't provide the specific parameters of this wager, and I can't imagine what on earth they would be. Does anyone know or have a guess what would trigger a payout? I'm stumped.
@ T3KNO - I'm not sure how much labouring is going on, but misapprehensions apparently abound. Belief in god need not be an either-or proposition. In my experience, agnostics generally take to form of "I am unsure about the existence of god" or "I believe that no-one can be sure about the existence of god". As opposed to the atheist, "I do not believe in god".
As to supernatural-ness, if Bardfinn's definition is correct, then it is certainly not "impossible for a human to ever claim to have observed a supernatural event", they can claim whatever they want. It is only possible for them to have *actually* witnessed a supernatural event.
Bardfinn is taking a standard defence against dualism; that the natural and supernatural world (or the physical and spirit world if you prefer) must necessarily be made of different 'stuff' for there to be a division between them, and therefore by what mechanism could they interact? If supernatural stuff can interact with natural stuff, then they aren't really separate, and the division between them is false. Thus there is no supernatural, only (currently unexplained) natural phenomena and things which do not exist. Until you get to the concept of ideas, which seems to affect the material world without being a physical thing, and the argument wanders off quickly into semantics.
"Again: Science is limited to the NATURAL world. The existence of a SUPERNATURAL deity is NOT AMENABLE TO THE SCIENTIFIC PROCESS."
This whole "supernatural" concept has always been a problem for me.
It's easy to brand a phenomenon "Supernatural" when really what we mean is it's unexplained.
I could see a superuniversal God, as a creator of a universe, not technically part of a universe, but wouldn't such a God still have to reside within "nature" somehow?
#41: The omega you linked is not Chaitin's and is in fact much more prosaic than Chaitin's omega. Of course, many practitioners would say that Chaitin's omega is but a cute corollary to the works of Gödel, Turing and Kac. Ever since Gödel there has been a fear that the mathematical sky is falling; Chaitin seems to take a strange kind of glee in it.
Muteboy, I was wondering if anyone else was familiar with that book, which was the first thing I thought of upon seeing this post.
@Takuan 43. I really did laugh out loud!
@dustbuster7000: You're not exactly following me. Either you claim there is a god or you don't. If you claim there is a god, you are a theist. If you don't, you are an atheist.
@retchdog: It didn't look right. Now that you've pointed it out, here's Chaitin's Omega which is fascinating.
dustbuster7000: Ideas are coded electrical impulses, and are detectable by natural, physical means - transcranial MRI isn't magic; Whether we are able to teach machines to read them in our minds and distinguish between the particulars, and whether they are consistent or share certain defining characteristics from one human being to another, are different questions altogether. There is no question, however, that they are material and physical manifestations.
Bugs @34:
If something turns up and claims to be a deity and starts turning people into salt pillars and salt pillars into linedancing penguins, how do you determine whether or not that entity is exploiting natural laws?
How do you tell the difference between an unknown natural law and a supposedly-supernatural law?
Wait - YOU CAN'T.
"Supernatural" is a catch-all for "unknown to me as of yet" or "I can't understand it".
The fear of the inconceivable, unmodelled, and unknown has locked us to ancient limitations and bigotry. I will not accept that my life should be ruled by fear, that /there/ be dragons.
t3knomanser: I make no claim as to the existence of a deity one way or another, and cannot, as my ability to make such a claim is restricted entirely to the scope of reasonable, rational discourse - to which the question of the existence of a deity (being inherently a supernatural notion) is unamenable.
I also lack belief in deities.
I am an atheist zen buddhist.
Your assertion is disproven.
soon, religious`conversion and blissful rapture will be sold in bottles.
@Bardfinn: Which assertion? I've made many. And my most recent one you've just confirmed: you don't claim belief in a deity, therefore you are an atheist.
Leave it to a band of silly British hippies to try to ruin everyone's Christmas. And Easter. And most other Western holidays.
Serves teh theists right for trying to ruin Halloween and Harry Potter...
We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!
postscript: I didn't set the terms of the equation. The notion that deities are supernatural isn't mine, and not mine to flip on or off for the purposes of argument. If you have some theist who believes that their deity(ies) are entirely natural, then I'll talk to their existence or lack thereof. Until then, deities - and all things supernatural - are undecidable and unaddressable.
@t3knomanser
I usually understand what I am talking about. Either that of we are a whole bunch with misapprehensions :
Google with 'define: agnostic'
An atheist specifically claims that there is no God(s).
t3knomanser:
The assertion that either one claims a god or one does not. I cannot claim there is a god, I cannot claim there is no god, and I cannot claim anything about it. There is no statement that can be made.
It is more than just not claiming belief in a deity - I lack belief. This makes no claim as to the existence or non-existence, it makes no claim as to the question of the existence. It is merely a statement of fact about myself, and does not address any fact about deities or the supernatural.
If I were merely to not claim belief in a deity, it could be confused for a claim in the non-existence of a deity, or conflated with such a claim.
@Iaminnocent: "An atheist specifically claims that there is no God(s)."
I am an atheist, and I don't make that claim.
Break the word up.
A-, without.
Theos- god.
-ism- belief.
One without a belief in god is an atheist. If you don't claim there is a god, you are an atheist. And that means most agnostics are atheists.
There are a small number of theistic agnostics as well.
Gnos- knowledge.
Gnostic- one who has knowledge.
Agnostic- one who is without knowledge.
A gnostic atheist would be an atheist that has first-hand knowledge that there is no god. This is a very rare breed. Most atheists are agnostic (temporary agnosticism in practice).
I repeat my definition: a theist claims there is a god. Anyone who is not a theist is an atheist. Agnostics could be theists or atheists.
@t3knomanser very nice but it's no PI. If I was a hypothetical omnipotent superbeing planning on building my own Reality then Omega isn't going to be the first constant I'm going to reach for.
iaminnocent:
No. Atheists lack belief in deities. Anti-theists claim there is(are) no deity(ies).
Zen Buddhists say that the entire question of the existence of deities is founded upon bullshit misunderstandings of nature and a willingness to make definitive statements about things one knows nothing about and /cannot/ know anything about.
@Bardfinn: The assertion that either one claims a god or one does not. I cannot claim there is a god, I cannot claim there is no god, and I cannot claim anything about it.
Ummm... you're agreeing with me, yet trying to say you aren't.
You don't claim there is a god. You are an atheist. This makes no claim about the existence or nonexistence. It is the absence of the claim that makes you an atheist.
You aren't claiming there is a god. Therefore, you're an atheist. The absence of a claim is the relevant factor.
Bardfinn: No, ideas are not electrical impulses, just as they are not words on a page. Those things are mere carriers for the ideas themselves. It doesn't matter what language you express the idea in, the idea is not the words.
T3nknomancer: No, a theist claims there IS a god (and pantheists, of course, can prove it) and an atheist claims there ISN'T a god (and some flavors of atheist can prove that, too). A person who makes no claim either way is neither one - you have no god-granted powers to speak for others, my friend.
And as usual, the dogmas of the extremists of whatever ilk operate to prevent actual progress.
t3knomanser:
"Atheists are merely people who don't claim there is a god. Note, that's not people who claim there definitely isn't a god, just people who don't espouse the god hypothesis.
If you believe in god, you're a theist. Otherwise, you're an atheist."
What you are referring to is a dichotomy between theists and anti-theists. Anti-theists do not espouse the god hypothesis AND assert that there is no deity.
To actually lack belief in a deity requires the realisation that the entire notion of deities is defined by the believers as a supernatural phenomenon and that, therefore, any statement on the subject is inherently self-contradictory and absurd.
I lack all belief, rational and irrational. Any statement or positioning within the cognitive space of the question of deities, as to their existence, non-existence, or the addressability of their existence: "@Bardfinn: Of course you can verify the existence of the supernatural." is evidence of a belief. "Lack of belief" is not qualified as to rationality or irrationality of the belief, it is not qualified as to whether you yourself are aware of the belief. It is a statement of fact, demonstrable to be true or false, and the question you should be asking yourself is this: did I realise it for myself or did someone have to point it out to me?
Was I really atheist or was I in moderate denial, enabled by fuzzy terms in a system of communication that arose for the purpose of telling each other when the best fruit is?
As long as we don't agree on some basic definition this discussion is leading nowhere fast... or leaving us where we each are, which is comfortable enough for me.
Regards.
As a theist, I am with god.
As an athiest, I am without god.
As an antitheist I am against god.
@DeuceMojo (43)
I don't know about where you live, but in Britain it's very common for buses and other public spaces to be plastered with pro-religious advertising. It's mostly Christian, and mostly claiming that only believers will be saved from Hell and/or pointing to websites that explictly state that all non-believers are doomed to damnation.
I'm tired of having signs up in public spaces telling me that not being superstitous makes me less worthy as a person or that I'll spend eternity in hell. The poster campaign won't change anything (although how many converts have the religious posters won?), but at least it's providing a voice for the thousands of British atheists to answer back. It also serves as a nice reminder that religious bodies' right to express their beliefs in public (which I wholeheartedly support) is tempered by everyone else's right to say that they're talking crap.
@T3kon and the other people debating the true meaning of "atheism":
A word means whatever the people involved in a given conversation think it does. If nothing elese, there's no point in being "correct" about a word's meaning if no-one understands you when you use it.
Since the success of Dawkins' books, all the British people I've talked to about this understand that Atheism is the positive belief that God does not exist. Since we're talking about a sign in British English on the side of British buses, it makes sense to go with that definition.
re: me@67
In my specific case, I am an antitheist. I am against god, and against religion.
...Of course, the God Odds only tell part of the story:
Deity Odds
------------------------
FSM 666:1
God/George Burns 4:1
Yahweh 3.5:1 (negotiable)
Allah 3:1
Buddah 2:1
Mumbo-Jumbo 1.5:1
Gov. Ah-Nuld 1.45:1
Manitou 1.25:1
Sir Art Clarke 1:25:1
Vishnu 1.25:1
Sarah Palin 1.2:1
Shiva 1.15:1
Ahura-Mazda 1:05:1
Zarathustra 1:1
Zeus 1:1
Odin 1:1
Kukulkan 1.5:2
Julius Caesar 1:2
Mohammed 1:4
Muhammed Ali 1:5
Donald Trump 1:10
Fake Allah 1:666
Alan Moore 1:1000
Warren Ellis 1:4532.5
...Place your bets now, kids! Coming up next, the Odds of Satan existing...and who he/she/it may be!
iaminnocent: When the people who believe in deities can come up with some sort of consistent definition, then deities will either be entirely natural and addressable and the question of their existence or non-existence can be entered into, or they will be forever defined as beyond any and all attempt at human understanding, which means /y definition/ that they have no effect upon and no physical manifestation in this existence. That is the essential problem of definition, of categorisation, of dichotomisation. EITHER it is knowable and experienceable by humans - in however remote a way - and is therefore by definition a part of the natural world or is unknowable and unexperiencable (in however remote a way) by humans and is therefore by definition supernatural and forever unknown.
In making statements about the unknown, all statements are equally true and equally false and equally untrue and equally unfalse.
In making statements about the supernatural, all statements are equally true and equally false and equally untrue and equally unfalse.
Humans are not separate from the universe, but a part of it.
@ T3KNO: I'm following you just fine, but I'm suggesting that there is (at least)a third option, if you claim that its impossible to know if there is a god, you're an agnostic.
@Bardfinn: What you say is true, but the electrical impulses are not the thoughts, the thoughts are (according to some current theories) emergent properties of the electrical activity of the brain. And thus the ideas are not things in their own right, but properties of electrical impulses. Maybe. As I say, the argument becomes very semantic, 'why are properties of things not also things?', etc. Don't get me wrong, I'm a materialist, but there are some edge cases far from the extremes of coffee mug and ghost.
in Britain it's very common for buses and other public spaces to be plastered with pro-religious advertising.
Apparently you need all that advertising because it's harder to sell Brits on fundamentalism. We don't have that shit here. But then, we don't seem to need it. Religion sells itself in the US.
Bard: You seem to be quite correct in your machinations, although they are in pretty close agreement with T3kno's ideas, and my own.
For me though, deciding that something is truly separate/unknowable/unaffectable/unaffective then it is as good as non-existent.
If the results are EXACTLY the same whether we pose the existence of said deity or not, then it is surely an unnecessary complication to include it.
dustbuster7000:
"Emergent properties" is code for "We don't know where this came from and can't point to it's fundamental features", which in the history of humanity and science, is always followed by one word: "- Yet."
Magnetism is an emergent property.
Electrical fields are an emergent property.
The term defines nothing other than the border with the undefined.
And - importantly - the undefined is the unknown, and all statements about the unknown are equally true and equally false and equally untrue and equally unfalse.
The unknowable is a superset of the unknown, and the only true unknown.
@Bardfinn: Well that certainly one way to look at it. Except we do know where magnetism and electrical fields come from, so by your definition, they aren't emergent properties. Unless you mean that taken by themselves they represent the 'emergent properties' of what we've now come to understand as electro-magnetism, in which case I would agree.
@Bardfinn: I think you mean unknowable is a subset of the unknown, but now I'm just being petty :)
#78: The second is a good approximation of what I mean.
God is the best part of what it means to be human, cut from the sub-conscious, given form by imagination. When we are of the spirit, we for brief moments are allowed to experience the oneness that is our true self. When this separate imagined entity ceases to exist, we will once again be whole, as we always were before religion excised the best part of what it means to be human and turned our imaginations against us.
@bardfinn said "Magnetism is an emergent property"
I don't think that statement fits my definition of an emergent property. Magnetism in materials comes from spin-aligned electrons. You add them up to get the total field. An emergent property, however, is one in which we can't explain macroscopic behaviour as a simple sum of the contributions. For example, we may understand how neurons fire but certainly don't understand how the complexity of their numbers results in human thought. Intelligence is therefore an emergent property; unpredictably complex behaviour from apparently simple rules.
Foetus, that's damn interesting. Poetic.
The true leap of faith is into the nameless void, leaving behind everything, all belief, without hope, without expectation, without desire, let go. Like falling in a dream, but this time don't wake up.
Arkizzle, this is why I love this place and why it is so hard for my wife to understand why I need these converstions when I have so much I should be doing. I wrote a poem almost twenty years ago and discussing this idea recently in another thread, lead to this further lucid moment. But my difficulties, leave me looking through the shoppe window at my own understanding, unable to touch my own truth.
very difficult. Perhaps start easy with abandon fear of death.
Foetus, me too, BB is definitely a fantastic place to get the niggley, back-of-the-mind thoughts aired.. and sometimes shot down in glorious flames.
Keep it up, I'm certainly enjoying your thoughts.
Tak, surely the logical baby-step is: abandon fear of ripping band-aid off.
@Bardfin:
actually, I was thinking more about defining our respective positions.
I did some research and I understand better that most atheist do define themselves as t3knomanser did of himself. Only a minority of hardliner do proclaim that there is no God.
So I should thank t3knomanser for that occasion of learning.
Myself I do not know or care if there is a Being somewhere who is the Creator of All This. Nevertheless, I feel that there is a greater Mystery than what science will ever be able to rationalize. Now find a name for that.
Takuan, in reference to some other god thread, said, and I will never forget, "They are our ideas."
Thanks Arkizzle, but that pretty much fires off the whole clip.
If you haven't read Dawkins (who paid for the bus ads) you should. He's quite clear about the disparity between agnosticism and atheism. Atheism is an extension of the 'naturalism' of the enlightenment to it's logical conclusion, i.e. that all things can be explained by rational explaination. Agnosticism is fence sitting. Dawkins uses the word 'probably' because he acknowledges that god has not yet been disproved, however he argues that given the trajectory of human understanding, the odds that god does not exist is approaching 99.9...%
Somewhat ironically, he is married to a time lord.
The origin of morality is as he describes a biological trait which manifests via an evolutionary requirement for altruism amongst social species. He presents a number of moral thought experiments which demonstrate the disconnect between actual morality and scripture, the most illustrative of which is the 'man on the train tracks' paradox. Essentially he shows that both Athiests and Believers statistically arrive at the same moral decisions which directly contradict the Belivers' supposed scripted moral framework.
Please, please watch Garrett Lisi's ted talk. Not because he's nessecarily right, but to gain some insight into the probable true nature of existance and how different that might be from 'god'... (and why spending money on the large hadron collider is a cool thing to do).
Takuan, I'm left-handed.
#33 - Atheists do believe that everything can be explained by rational methods, yes.But that bit: and that we will get there some day? Well that would be the hope, something we strive to achieve. But no atheist assumes that we will. We don't do the blind faith thing.
Takuan, they do sell bliss in a bottle. It's called Oban.
Foetusnail, I did like your definition a lot. Except that, just from reading the Bible, there are plenty of examples of god being the WORST part of humanity.
For those who like to believe a dozen impossible things before breakfast, god is as good a place to start as any. But the impossible thing I would like to believe is that someday an out atheist could get elected to public office in this country.
You never know, it might happen. We can hope.
The most dangerous kind of belief is believing that you undeniably know all the answers.
Dawkins believes that there is probably not a God - the evidence is not there.
Alister McGrath believes that there is probably a God - the evidence is there.
Both men, one a leading atheist, one a leading theist, men of great intellect, have stated before that, truthfully, they are both not positive:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6474278760369344626&hl=en-GB
The best thing we can do is this:
Keep our minds open, constantly learn, always search for the truth, talk , and discuss. For some people, theism offers up the best way to make sense of the world around them, for others it is atheism. We should be striving to work together to make our world, right now, the best possible place it can be for the most people possible.
Personally, I believe that having religion helps me to do this. It may not help you - and that is totally cool.
Foetus, I remember it well:
~ TakuanAs a deeply religious person myself, I would prefer to have an atheist president, and to have religion taken completely out of the government. Politicizing God and religions of any kind is disgusting, and can lead to no good.
Also, with an atheist in charge people can't blame God and Christians when things go wrong!
;)
Do they have different odds for whether the existence of God will be proven within some human time frame? Within the next year, decade, century? Or is that incorporated into their odds for whether S/He exists at all?
It's kind of like, what are the odds that a tree makes a sound if there's no one around to hear it?
Is that an assertion of truth, or are you describing their individual stances as proving-a-positive vs proving-a-negative..?
Ark - no, just a typo on my part. Thanks!
"Foetus, I remember it well"
Me, too. That was the one where Foetus went on about showers and circumcision at the end, and Modus wrote that my parents made a mistake when they had me.
Other than that, it was a good read.
Deidzoeb,
..that depends on whether you define a sound as "something heard", or as equivilant to vibrations in a medium :)
Similarly, is God an omnipotent, sentient entity, or equivilant to the universe and all it's myriad interactions?
Dan:
Phew! Bits of my mind fell off, parsing the implications.
Just saying that Dawkins believes that there is not enough (well, ANY really :) ) evidence to prove God's existence, and McGrath believes that there is enough evidence to prove God's existence.
Just illustrating how people perceive things differently, and how both will agree that they do not know for certain.
The best thing we can do is to use our beliefs in a way that makes us live our lives as good as possible while making things as good as possible for those around us. I think Dawkins and McGrath both do this in their own way. Each of these men is seeking the truth - one has found it in atheism, one has found it in theism.
I bet this thread will turn into an endless debate on agnosticism versus atheism.
Any takers?
Back on topic, I'm surprised no-one have mentioned the problem of evil yet.
As far as I'm concerned, it conclusively disproves any omnipotent, benevolent entity. Whether that is the only definition of 'god' is another question.
Anthony, I remember that.
I also remember he said they loved you. Hear that bit :)
http://www.atheist-community.org/atheisteve/?id=50
As a side note: a big eff you to the guy that came into my convenience store ranting about how Barack is going to institute Shari'a law and how he won't have to deal with it, because he's a good Christian that is going to get raptured away and I'm a lowly heathen.
meh, just be kind and try not to fuck up the children. We'll all be dead soon enough and they deserve their own chance.
The problem of evil is an eternal debate.
The Epicurus verse you link to tries to define God's actions in terms of human understanding of these matters.
How can we understand God's will?
What about free will?
The questions go on and on...ultimately leading to more questions, without answers, and without a point.
And I am not sufficiently equipped to debate such complex issues. I still have a lot to learn!
However, the point really is the here and now. It's all we have. This single moment in time is the only one that truly matters.
How are we going to spend this moment?
Perhaps our time would be better served not arguing about God's existence, but doing things in his name, or in the "name" of atheism, of humanity, that benefits other people. In this way, we are glorifying God, if he exists, and we are simultaneously glorifying humanity - basically, a win-win.
Dan, I think Dawkins makes a great point, which leads on to the FSM, that the positions are not equivilent.
You don't wake up one day in an unknowable, untested universe and think: There must be no god!
The idea of the existence of a god must preempt that thought. So the lack of a god is not something that needs proving, as a point of view. It's the starting point, the default option. It's no position. God is the new guy!
Arkizzle,
Thanks.
Then as now I feel the weight of a nostalgic limb that refuses to break off and leave me be.
Foetus wrote the other day about having no problem with Jesus, rather with people (who interpret teachings), and that's good enough for me. I'm a poster boy for Chick publication style Christian propaganda: the sad atheist.
These threads compel me to scratch that itch-years of Catholicism and old Aquinas. He was right about indoctrination. I no longer feel it but I love in just the same. No malicious on you or anyone else here.
Exactly.
I liked Foetus's comment as well.
No maliciousness taken :)
I don't believe Dawkins is correct in this assumption.
Maybe mankind invented God - I don't know for certain - but if we did invent God, what was the compelling reason to do this?
Where did that preemptive idea come from?
Was that idea birthed simply to help us make sense of things that we couldn't comprehend?
Perhaps.
But, perhaps that idea is already in us, and thus we are compelled to search for the truth. Some of us are led to theism on this search, and others are led to atheism.
Perhaps something was there to drive this reason, a longing to be brought back to the original spark of creation (and when I say creation I mean the universe in its entirety - I am not a "creationist" in the sense of Christian fundamentalists).
I don't know.
All I do know is that my own search for the truth has led me to theism. It offers me the best way to make sense of my surroundings.
Thanks to Dawkins, I am actually in the process of writing a kind of "manifesto" if you will. It's called "Why I am a Christian". I don't think that enough people really think about the things they believe and why they believe them. Dawkins has challenged me to do so. I think it is an exercise that all should go through.
Foetusnail, Takuan, Arkizzle. Cheers. I agree. I have to sew - but keep getting sucked back here because I want to hear what you say. I really do love it here.
llamatron, that TED talk was fantastic!
Thanks.
But of course, surely.
Originally it was informed by our natural questions about the mechanics of our world. And then strengthened by our intrinsic need to be worth something, to know what this struggle is "for".
Then came (to the imaginative one, the one amongst all who had answers to these questions) a power over those confused, too-clever-for-mere-survival, big-brained monkeys.
The need for answers bred the need for answerers. The cleverer, creative ones had answers and became the story tellers. The story tellers became the truth tellers, who became the soothsayers, who became the priests, who became the dominant power.
Each step losing a bit of its original truth, and gaining a bit of the contemporary mindset, til it's passed upward (or downward, depending on your POV) again, now a thing of rules and threats, and very few answers indeed.
Religion is stories told too long. And some stories are just more persistant than others.
AGF, hah, me too! :)
We tell the same old stories over again, in our own voices. That's art. The old stories are the new ones-don't discredit them in and of themselves.
I'm not discrediting stories, at all, and I'm sorry if I gave that impression.
I'm discrediting people selling stories as truth.
Art does indeed have truth, as does religion, but the power-play involved is the issue.
Now art is very much interested in pointing out power structures- a far cry from it's beginnings (at least in Europe), when it was used to promote the power of the Church. It's interesting.
The Church used to hold sway over the image-even to the point of eradicating iconography.
daniel d., you speak of "Maybe mankind invented God..." however, mankind created many gods and goddesses. the hebrews had many of both with yahvey and astarte as the two main deities. then came moses, ( most likely a devotee of ahkenatun whilst being raised as an egyptian priest) who claimed that yahvey was it, the one true god, then literally fed them the 'false' gods and godesses. all middle-eastern gods and godesses(including the jeebus mythos) originate in the assyrian/babylonian myths. even the moses story is mirrored there. the assyrian/babelonians had unique knowledge that we are only beginning to understand with our moderne science. fascinating stuff.
There is a God- the proof is on the front pages of newspapers around the world today ;)
It's true. And if we replace the 'art' in your example, above, with the 'truth' we know from religion. Rational truth has come from, once, emanating from the Church, and has passed on, to turn around, like art, and point out the vested interests and underlying power-structures in the things we've held true for millenia.
Stories have power, be careful who you buy them from :)
Nice.
Arkizzle,
Between you and me, I think I may relate the idea of God with creativity. I don't mean that in a 'divine inspiration' way, but metaphorically.
The question of the divine haunts artists, or it used to. Common sense tells you there is no God, just as it tells you dreams are just dreams, and imagination gets you nowhere. However, we all know how wrong that is. When you take the notion of an unknown guiding force out of the picture, the creative act becomes a series of disconnected problems to solve, and that kind of art is boring as hell. I'm not trying to say art is religion or that the two feed each other, only that I see a relationship there.
I'd like to clarify:
I wrote "unknown guiding force" when I should have typed "the unknown"- no guidance intended.
I totally agree. There is a vast unknown that inhabits our life/brain/thoughts/soul which is absolutely at the heart of all our drives. Art expresses the same attempts at drawing truth from the void, that stories of our creation, and theories of our future do.
@16: I have a better question.
What's "exist"?
In fact, on a much more personal level, I am an artist in my way. I am also an athiest who is intensely interested in god, and the power that idea has over, not only society, but my own heretic's mind.
I would go so far as to say I can get into fairly obsessive loops of thought, swinging between trying to understand how my deepest animal feelings (my natural reactions to incidental situations) can hark back to an ancient, subtle fear of some 'super other'. And then my rational, argumentative over-mind, analysing and explaining, diffusing the 'policeman in my head' with reason and reassurance.
I know what I know and yet there is an automatic-flinch that happens at the nano-second scale in my brain sometimes. I find it massively interesting, what part of my mind is that? Is it my Irish, catholic-normative roots? An ancient fight-or-flight switch being suppressed at the social level?
It certainly informs my reasoning behind thinking religion is an "emergent property" of our brains, some kind of paranoia/guilt/fear-of-the-unknown damage-control circuit in our brain, very active in some people and totally not in others.
This.
Arkizzle,
Those are good artist's questions. I am going to bed now, to run them all through a sleep filter.
DeuceMojo @42, that was unpleasant, unwarranted, and not as clever as I think you imagined it was.
You do that a lot. Could you please stop?
Takuan @43, get hold of a good martyrology first, to make sure you aren't needlessly replicating research.
T3knomanser @51, you're mistaken. There's no logical necessity for your "either you do or you don't" position. There are all kinds of nuanced intermediate positions.
Bardfinn @52:
No. What you're saying is that they have material and physical manifestations.In re "supernatural": Many mainstream Christian faiths would tell you that there's nothing supernatural about God.
You're trying to find sharp definitions and distinctions in an inherently messy area. It's pointless. "Supernatural" is a loosely-defined word, and one can distinguish several different senses of it in common use. You can't refute what people mean by it, because too many of them aren't sure exactly what that is. You don't have to keep throwing yourself against that wall. Just walk on and ignore it. And if someone comes preaching "ancient limitations and bigotry" to you, I suggest that you ignore them too.
Hmm,I was given "Fox's Book of Martyrs" just about when I learned to read....
bigods, there it is
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/foxe/martyrs/files/martyrs.html
in hindsight, rather inappropriate for one of tender years.
a loving god;
"Half strangling, and recovering the persons again repeatedly. Rolling sharp wheels over the fingers and toes. Pinching the thumbs in a vice. Forcing the most filthy things down the throat, by which many were choked. Tying cords round the head so tightly that the blood gushed out of the eyes, nose, ears, and mouth. Fastening burning matches to the fingers, toes, ears, arms, legs, and even the tongue. Putting powder in the mouth and setting fire to it, by which the head was shattered to pieces. Tying bags of powder to all parts of the body, by which the person was blown up. Drawing cords backwards and forwards through the fleshy parts. Making incisions with bodkins and knives in the skin. Running wires through the nose, ears, lips, etc. Hanging Protestants up by the legs, with their heads over a fire, by which they were smoke dried. Hanging up by one arm until it was dislocated. Hanging upon hooks by the ribs. Forcing people to drink until they burst. Baking many in hot ovens. Fixing weights to the feet, and drawing up several with pulleys. Hanging, stifling, roasting, stabbing, frying, racking, ravishing, ripping open, breaking the bones, rasping off the flesh, tearing with wild horses, drowning, strangling, burning, broiling, crucifying, immuring, poisoning, cutting off tongues, noses, ears, etc., sawing off the limbs, hacking to pieces, and drawing by the heels through the streets. "
Is that a preview of the cookbook you're writing?
I distain the coarse tangible.
i dont know why i feel the need to expend my penny and a half here, but bb rarely posts anything quite this thoughtful on religion/god/spirituality. i realize it was started mostly to show the irony of a 5-'ll-getcha-20 bet on the existence of the almighty. of course, there was no name attached to the bet, but even odds it was jahova/yaveh god of abraham, etc...however, what if 'god' were the universe itself. in its wholeness, its mind-imploding vastness, inward and outward. what if the 'big bang' is what happens when the creative forces, i.e. male/female, sperm/egg, pollination, etc... to name our planetary versions of it on our 'scale'. where those energies meet becomes the zygote, a burst of creative energy as atoms realign and form long chain molecules, which eventually form organelles, then cells which then form plants, animals, etc... then we get to our 'scale'. but say we were beings residing on one of the electrons circling an atom's nucleus. the whole of time and space would suit that environ. atoms act much like solar systems on a much smaller 'scale'. there are gravity-like forces which bring them together much like galaxies. so if the universe travels infinitely outward, and infinitely inward, then to me, all that in its wholisticality would be my definition of 'god'. at least that's what the rabbit told me.
there's a script in there somewhere.
maybe a 'scipt' of valium, so i can get some sleep at a decent hour! it's as though the world seems brisker, has a little more color or flavor in it today. entered some online poker tourney 2 hrs. ago, and won 100 grand! virtual $ that is, still invigorating to win though! adrenal glands working overtime i suppose. better get a sandwich and try again to hit the hay. ciao!
good night Screwfly!
Min'T
That is a great fancy, and quite reminicent of one of the first sci-fi stories I read as a nipper.. "He Who Shrank" by Henry Hasse, collected in Asimov's "Before the Golden Age".
It's about a man who, by science, gets smaller and smaller, until eventualy he falls between the molecules, and is floating in space, atoms are indeed solar systems, and he goes on shrinking until he lands on a planet and falls through the molecules.. on and on recursively smaller, through the atoms of atoms of atoms, meeting all sorts, but never able to stop shrinking.
It was a very influential story on my developing brain. Only hampered, many years later when I heard/read a physicist refute it entirely, saying that is not what atoms look like, and that things like Planck's length prevented it. I was destroyed :)
Sorry, to skip out yesterday without saying bye, I distracted myself before hitting post.
LLamatron, thanks for the TED link.
He has such a beautiful way of expressing things we might otherwise never understand.Anthony, I was afraid to go back and read that thread, all I could remember was Takuan's comment. I hope you read the conversation I had with Foolster41, which took place sporadically over a period of three weeks. Not being a professional and frustrated with religious indoctrination, I was not tactful. I will try to do better. Foolster asked some very good questions, which made me think.
The point was to illustrate how what we think we know, is controlled by experiences we don't remember having, circumcision is a perfect example.
God is not personal; god and religion is a virus passed from parent to child. What we think we believe or know of gods is not of our own making. Maybe we adapt it to our own experience, but the base belief is lodged so deeply and set there so long ago we don't see it as information, but experience, as natural fact, until you see someone else's. In the past this wasn't a problem as we rarely met people with different ideas than our own.
I would be surprised if many of us can remember the first time we heard of god and that is the problem. There are many things in our universe we cannot understand, but that does not change the fact that our belief in a judeo-christian god is implanted by our parents, then exploited by others, think of a Manchurian Candidate. I think this is not only wrong, but sad, as it denies us the oppotunity to discover our universe without prejudice.
This is my comment @120 in that thread, I've added (clarification).
The answers they(religions) provide are nothing more than Trojan horses, which release a viral scripture that dulls the mind and leaves its victims open to exploitation.
Let me repeat myself, the religious myth is but one unimportant piece of the lie. The deception is not the myth of any one faith, but the false impression there are answers to the unanswerable.
Giving children the idea there is an answer is the danger. There are no answers to the mystery our presence presents. Religion does not provide any (unique) answers or great(er) truths. Religion only outlaws (inhibits) critical thought and provides the vehicle for controlling the lives and votes of millions. end
That in a medium sized nutshell is what I believe. I can come off as insulting and should find better ways of expressing my thoughts. Pretend for a moment you were overhearing a conversation at a party. I am not insulting your religion, because you don't have a religion; you have a set of implanted beliefs. I am not insulting your intellect, I am exposing the nature of beliefs. Do not take this personally, these beliefs are not your's, but their's.
If I may once again repeat myself.
With a strong enough belief
The world is flat
Enigmas mere gods
And we all live forever and ever and ever …
We are all on the same journey, sometimes it's nice to walk together or sit and talk beside the road. This is a good spot to do both.
You guys are so gonna die and regret you even discussed HIS existence. You poor stupid materialistic humans. You deny your creator on the sides of buses?
There will come a day when your creator will deny YOU.
Dumb bastards.
That's a great example of what I mean, thanks Rossifumi.
Domingo
We are here, in this holy cave today
To celebrate the reincarnation
Of Domingo de Santa Clara
The man who convinced us
That there is no Lord
But his name is Buddha, Allah, Shiva, Yahweh
Outside our bodies
We are God, ‘cause only we can create the idea
Of His existence in our holy brains
Je deteste l'idee de dieu et de son fils
[I hate the idea of God and His son]
C'est une des idees les plus diaboliques
[It's one of the most diabolical ideas]
Dans l'histoire entiere de l'homme
[In the whole history of man]
Let us pray to ourselves and our spirits!
Domingo you show me just nothing like no one before
Domingo you show me just nothing like no one before
Domingo you show me just nothing like no one before
Domingo you show me just nothing like no one before
Domingo de Santa Clara
You made us believe that you are no phantom
When without the slightest spot of a thousand nations
You sprayed your blood of Domingo
We all know Domingo of Santa Clara
Will be born today, tomorrow, and the day after
Billions of times 'Til the end of the Universe
Here with a smile on his face
As the rest of our species watches
The catastrophe
Domingo you show me just nothing like no one before
Domingo you show me just nothing like no one before
Domingo you show me just nothing like no one before
Domingo you show me just nothing like no one before
WOO Rossifumi !!
What a legendary post.
Please stop by again, and regale us with your profound musings on the nature of the universe, that we may learn to STFU for HIS peace of mind.
Foetus, nice track, never heard it :)
here's the earliest (968) film version I know of that meme, Ark:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMV_zDQaq9o
Tak, Thanks so much!
I'd never seen that before, it's a technical MASTERPIECE!
From an animation standpoint it's incredibly well executed, just perfect. I've never seen faded/layered zooms done so well by hand, let alone the amount seen here. No bad blends, no mismatched alignment, perfect.
Also, Eva Szasz could probably win a prior-art case against GoogleEarth :)
FWIW, "He Who Shrank" is 1936.
the Incredible Shrinking Man?
the latest
http://www.nikon.com/about/feelnikon/universcale/index.htm
metaphysical perspective meme, oldest use? Fairy tales...Swiftian Lilliput/Brobdignag... giants in classic myth....oriental fairy tales...Nazca...
plenty of the "god-view" of perspective from on high... not so much the other way. Evolutionary advantage from jumping/dropping predator POV, corresponding "worms-eye" alert survivor prey view... visual distortion from plant drug hallucinations (Alice)....
Not fair, muteboy @ #19 bet me to posting about Skepticism Inc. Great book, I enjoyed it a lot.
Nice connections at #153. The Nikon piece always tickles me, it's just so nicely put together.
I totally missed your "film" qualifier though, "He Who Shrank" is a short story.
Matheson would have read/stolen the story.
Late to the party as usual... I'll try to keep it brief.
For religious people such as myself, the problems we have communicating with others are nicely illustrated in several places in this thread.
P'raps some of y'all know the parable of the teacup?
http://www-usr.rider.edu/~suler/zenstory/emptycup.html
God is not "supernatural", and is easily proven to exist (using pure logic and the premise that God is greater than any other thing).
http://www.boingboing.net/2008/04/14/mark-dery-on-evagnel.html#comment-164682
If you choose to deny God by making some absurdly baroque, self-defeating definition of divinity, you are just fencing with your own shadow. I suppose such sport might serve as idle amusement, mental exercise, or even as useful practice to hone one's expressive capabilities, but it generally prevents experiencing any benefit from religion.
I'm not a Buddhist, but I do like Zen. And also cheeseburgers.
--Charlie
Powers of Ten
My wife read bits of this thread and in reference to Takuan asked, "How does he know you so well?" She often tells me I let fear run my life. Its just that I've had enough accidents to no there's no such thing as an accident. I really am getting a little too gun shy.
If you bet that God doesn't exist you're pretty much guaranteed never to collect the money, as the concept is non-falsifiable.
But if you bet that God does exist, you just have to wait until the (unlikely) return of Jesus or the (somewhat more likely) singularity, after which humanity creates God.
Foetus, Powers of 10 is great! Really nicely done indeed.
The thing about it is though, you don't quite get the scale absolutely, because each frame x10 should also take 10 times as long to cover. I think the difference is logarithmic vs linear. Very enjoyable though.
All these beautiful examples, it seems to be a topic well covered by art/popular-science.
Tak, it's funny, I never read the Matheson version.
Sounds much darker and involved in the human condition than the grand universal structure. And annoyingly, seems to be the only Richard Matheson I can't find a d/l for..
I may have to go outside.. and browse.. objects.
Arkizzle, my brother excitedly brought that to the apartment in the seventies or early eighties. Back then that was some wild shit for a bunch of heads. Whoa.
Matheson wrote a screenplay.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Matheson
I'm sure we've moved on, but I'd like to further clear up my intentions for writing "When you take the notion of an unknown guiding force out of the picture, the creative act becomes a series of disconnected problems to solve, and that kind of art is boring as hell." Third time's a charm:
I meant that when one doesn't engage in an artistic pursuit that is at its core an investigation of some unknown or yet unproved thing, it can become a boring technical exercise. The results then have little lustre. Investigation leads one down all sorts of paths, many of which are incorrect or out of the way. Sometimes one fails to return to the original path at all. If the subject of your inquiry is broad enough or deep enough, the record of your investigations (your art) becomes richer. It reflects the mind of a researcher or philosopher rather than solely a craftsman.
fucking plumbers
The plumber knows depth.
Rossifuni, if you come back to read this I suggest you read The Confessions of St. Augustine-a holy man who questioned the nature and reasoning of the Lord, so he might know Him. He was sainted despite his compulsion to ask big questions of his faith
Anthony, I agree, and excellently described.
Great art scrapes the edges of the vastness of our persistence. But, not all art is great, and I don't think that makes it 'bad art', just not great.
I regularly settle for plain ol' beautiful.
Me, too though I paint ugly.
Eye of the beholder, an all that jazz.