Infinity Lover

Interresting story OperaNut

Hell, why not go and publish it anyway. It's not like a lack of acknowledgement could ever be diminished, right?
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Concerning the o.p.

Unable to explain = unexplainable (makes sense)
Unable to explain = divine (doesn't)

'nuf said.

Autonemesis

Furthermore, He seems to have done it only in the past couple of decades, just as we were about to figure out His blunder! It's as if God is actively running around covering His ass as science homes in on the cosmic mistakes.

Cipher Girl

HI, you seem unable to accept an answer of "we don't know how that works" from science. Why is that some always insist on either a known answer or "goddit", with no room left for "currently we can't explain that yet"?

In the past the weather was thought to be directly controlled by the gods. Nowdays we know that the weather is caused by the action of the earth's rotation and the sun's energy on the air and water on the earth. We can even roughly simulate the weather on computers. Now according to your "goddit" theory, god (or divine presence, diety, etc) has now lost the power to control the weather, once humans have figured it out.

So if we figure out where the missing mass is in the universe, will the "divine presence" have lost the power of gravitation? What other powers will this presence lose in the future? Will there be a point where you concede that this presence has no effect on the universe because all is explained?

Also HI, you seem to indicate that you need an emotional support of an eternal self to go on. Why? I don't and it has always perplexed me why some people need this emotional crutch in thier lives.

Defiant Heretic

You seem to suggest that because dark matter/energy was difficult to detect that God must exist, yet also be difficult to detect. However, you forget the fact that we did detect dark matter/energy, despite the difficulty involved.

If God existed, we would likely discover some evidence for him eventually. Until we do, there is no reason to presume he exists.

High Ideologue

There is a flaw in your logic.
You say that you are unable to find evidence.
Then you say because you are unable to find evidence that no evidence exists to be found. In other words, you give yourself omnipotent abilities to make observations, gather evidence and draw conclusions.

High Ideologue

I assimilate new truth and knowledge based on scientifically reproducible discovery into our models of self and world as it becomes available. I imagine a framework of myth and fantasy based on the mystery of existence that accommodates a foundation of truth and knowledge based on the discovery of existence.


Absolutely, if you could explain everything, everywhere, at all times with a foundation of truth and knowledge based on scientifically reproducible discovery then I would concede that this presence has no effect on the universe. Let us be clear on this: you can not explain everything, everwhere, at all times with a foundation of truth and knowledge based on scientifically reproducible discovery.

Emotive forces of sad sorrow, mad fear, and bad anger follow from discovery of impending disease and death of my seed body. Emotive forces of glad happiness follow from mystery of divine immunity and eternal life of my soul spirit. I balance emotive forces within my mind.

Asha'man

I’m afraid that you have misunderstood me badly, and are attempting to put words in my mouth.

You don’t look for observations to support an explanation, that is putting the cart before the horse. You create explanations that explain your observations. If there are no observations, then there is no need for explanations. Why provide an explanation for something that doesn’t appear to exist? Shall I try to analyze the metabolism and eating habits of the invisible fire-breathing dragon in my garage? Do I really need to explain why this dragon isn’t eating the neighborhood cats, like most other dragons do?

I also haven’t stated that I am an omnipotent observer, that seems to be drawing an extreme conclusion from a mundane statement. I have simply never been presented with an observation that suggests a soul. I have never made such an observation personally. Given the track record of people making such a claim, I suspect that no such observations will be provided in the near future. (That is a trivial prediction based on statistical trends [slope of line = 0], and in no way forces me to ignore a substantial claim, but I am still going to use it as a working assumption in daily life.)

High Ideologue

That is what scientists do. Ideologues take the foundation of truth and knowledge that scientists discover and where mystery makes possible imagines a framework of myth and fantasy that best produces happiness. That is the essence of being an agnostic theist.

I have already explained this earlier. I will repeat myself for the benefit of those who are to lazy to look elsewhere and to take away any opportunity for further misrepresentation of my ideas.

The following is an excerpt for Chapter 10 of the House of Ideology Manifesto located at Http://4iam.tripod.com.
From the strictly materialistic point of view of a life form born to play the dual role of predator and prey in a self-consuming biosphere, it may seem ones’ energy, space and time may be better spent studying finite truth and knowledge based on scientifically reproducible discovery then pondering infinite divine eternal mysteries.

Suppose then that we choose to reject all myth and fantasy based on what is possible within the realm of mystery and use only finite truth and knowledge based scientifically reproducible discovery to build our models of self and world. Taking science at face value offers a rather grim model of self and world. This narrow limited point of view would lead us to conclude that our bodies are finite, fragile, frivolous, forgettable, and doomed to the oblivion of disease and death. That is enough to evoke extreme feelings of sorrow, fear, and anger. Without myth and fantasy based on mystery, we would be without countervailing forces of extreme joy, faith and love. We need countervailing forces of extreme joy, faith and love to balance the emotive forces of our minds against extreme emotive forces of sorrow, fear, and anger. We think, believe and expect that if we unbalance our minds with powerful emotive forces of sorrow, fear and anger that would lead to sad, mad, and bad behavior. We expect that sad, mad and bad behavior would hinder our efforts to create, and survive. Thus from both a material and spiritual point of view, our energy, space and time may be well spent building a framework of myth and fantasy based on mystery that when thought, believed and expected to be true unleashes powerful emotional responses of joy, faith and love.
That is your choice and I respect your freedom to make it.

High Ideologue

I never said 'God must exist'. I also never said that dark matter/energy equals god. Furthermore, I refrain from using the word God because of the word God has become so strongly associated with gnostic theistic traditions.

Actually we indirectly detected dark matter/energy by detecting the influence of dark matter/energy upon light matter/energy. If we had detected dark matter/energy directly then it would be light matter/energy not dark.

You presume for us omnipotent abilities to make observations, gather evidence and draw conclusions. Until we do have omnipotent abilities, there is no reason to presume spirit does not exist.

Spirit may act to set the universe in motion. Once it is in motion, spirit is passive allowing the inorganic parts of the universe to function according to laws of cause and effect inherent within design. The organic parts of the universe also function according to laws of cause and effect that follow from the design of the universe, except that the will of the fractal infernal seed bodies that make up the organic part of the universe is selected by divine eternal souls. The role of a divine eternal soul is to ride a fractal infernal temporal seed body, get inside the mind, and guide the consciousness. In this way, the divine eternal soul, cosmic soul and by extension our infinite divine eternal one experiences life within a universe that for the most part plays according to its’ own rules.

The design of such a universe might be roughly analogous in an infinitely more elaborate way to video games that are often designed to allow a user to control the actions and therefore the conscious will of a computer generated three-dimensional entity. Some functions are under your conscious control and others the software handles automatically for the user. The same is true within the universe. Some functions such as those responsible for expression of the will through the conscious thought, feeling, and action of the fractal infernal temporal seed body are under the voluntary control of the divine eternal soul. Other functions are under the involuntary control of the laws of cause and effect that govern the matter and energy of the known universe.

Now if:

1. Our infinite, divine, eternal one is the hardware.

2. Our body that grows from our seed that itself sprang forth from the fractal infernal temporal universe is the software;

3. And our divine eternal soul operates a user interface controlling the conscious will of our fractal infernal temporal seed body;

Then how could we conceive of the idea of a divine eternal soul spirit that gets inside minds, guides consciousness, and rides seed bodies? We could conceive of these ideas if our divine eternal souls chose to take thought and feeling possibilities made available by the software, that is our fractal infernal temporal seed bodies, and string these together into a train of thought that reveals these ideas to our minds. That is: we believe it is by personal revelation that we conceive of these ideas.

In addition, how could we conceive of what we may find beyond the fractal infernal temporal software? That is. How could we think that there is an infinite divine eternal one beyond the software, both generating the software and sending our divine eternal souls to operate the user interfaces controlling the voluntary functions of our fractal infernal temporal seed bodies? One could conceive of what there is to be found beyond the fractal infernal temporal software if the divine eternal soul spirit chose to take thought and feeling possibilities made available by the software and string these together into a train of thought that reveals these ideas to self. That is: we believe that through personal revelation we conceive of these ideas. We think, believe and expect that we have experienced such personal revelations.
We can and do think, believe, and expect that these personal revelations are true, because to do so for us produces the most powerful emotional responses of joy, faith, and love imaginable. We will produce these most powerful emotional responses of joy, faith and love imaginable in order to experience the favorable emotional and potential physiological benefits. However, as any competent scientist would correctly point out without scientifically reproducible discovery, we cannot know that this personal revelation is true. We do not count testimonial evidence in the world of science. Since we have defined the infinite divine eternal one as being hidden, mysterious, and passive from the point of view of self, we could never find scientific evidence to prove or disprove existence without irrevocably changing the definition of our infinite divine eternal one. We would like to be able to point to logical and or scientific evidence that confirms the truth of myth and fantasy based on what is possible within the realm mystery that produces the most powerful emotional responses of joy, faith and love imaginable. Such confirmation would give far greater credibility to these ideas. That credibility in turn would make much more powerful the emotional responses of joy, faith and love that follow from the thought of these ideas. However, the alien fractal infernal temporal dimensions of our seed bodies limit our ability to prove the infinite divine eternal dimensions of our soul spirit. Alas, we have no other choice but to reference to personal revelation, intuition and judgment as our reason for believing in myth and fantasy based on what is possible within the realm of mystery that produces the most powerful emotional responses of joy, faith and love imaginable because the scientific evidence can’t be found to otherwise support these ideas. Therefore being positivistic, we are forced to refer to the product of this personal revelation as a myth and fantasy based on mystery that when thought, believed and expected to be true produces the most powerful emotional responses of joy, faith and love imaginable.

Cipher Girl

HI, your said:
WTF? I think this statement qualifies as a mystery.

How do you know that we will be unable to explain the laws of the universe? That we will be unable to develop a set of mathematics that will allow us to explain the laws of physics. Since you allow that this would indeed show that this presence has no effect on the universe, why do you assume this presence exists or has any effects when none are observed? Why add this spirit or presence when none is needed to explain what we currently know about the universe?

Why then do you presume that the spirit does exists? Then start to add attributes to it? When there is not any evidence that it actually exists. You seem to have a belief in this spirit and then have gone about searching for and assuming evidence for it.
:banghead: