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Hey this is strange.   I was listening on the radio and caught this broadcast. 

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6545246

Click the "listen" icon.

Scientists in a Hadron Collider in Switzerland are attempting to create blackholes.   They hope to use these blackholes to create their own universe!    This would answer so many questions about our own existence.  I don't expect them to be successful anytime soon, but has anybody heard of anything like this?   Making a universe out of a watermelon?

No it's more likely that other media influenced the catholic people to become less endearing toward the idea of Limbo.   In movies like "What Dreams May Come" limbo is pictured as the worst place to be condemned.   A very depressing and lonely place for innocent people.

Sensing a change of attitude (and number of incoming dollars) the Catholic Church probably decided it would be more beneficial to EDIT what they originally said.    Which was all based on literature anyway.  Which is what I forgot to say.

As far as limbo goes, I think that the Catholic church has said now that it doesn't exist.

Dude, don't let your spirituality be controlled by a Microsoft Update Patch.


Limbo and most parts of Hell were not even characterized until fictionalized accounts such as "Dante's Inferno".  The cantos or circles of Hell comes from this book.   What's interesting is that Dante's Inferno was simply a political satire of the author's times in Italy.  There were two feuding parties, the Guelphs and the Ghibellines.    As Dante descends further into Hell he comes across members of those families experiencing worse and worse eternities.   In modern times, the book would be like Jon Stewart writing an account of finding Bill O'Reilly and George Bush drenched in dog poo in Hell.    Dante wrote his political adversaries in Hell!  Most views on Hell come from literature like Inferno and Paradise Lost.  And Inferno was a comedy satire. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dante%27s_Inferno

tell me when you download your next update, and in turn, what you believe that day.

A tangent off Helm's point:

Infinity is the only way some religions can justify an afterlife.   Because what's the point of another life if it ends?    How is life anymore meaningful when its simply going to end... again?  Most spiritual leaders could not answer this question without calling life simply a test (ie. St. Peter & the pearly gates)  As a child I was told that all my dead relatives would be waiting on a cloud when I died.   Their lives are infinite in the afterlife, so they have nothing better to do but watch over me and wait for me to die.   (This sucks in my opinion.)  Also it sucks because I'm uneasy around most people and infinity is a scary ass amount of time.   (I barely know how to spend a good 15 minutes!)   

I understand how infinity can be comforting for children.   But adults expecting infinity... are naive?  Comes right back around to my point that most myths are created for children.  Remember, children ask A LOT of questions.   Parents make up really dumb but comforting things to tell the children.   And I do think that they harm the child by feeding him/her delusions.   My friend Aaron was convinced by his parents that every time he flipped a light switch it cost them 20 cents.   He grew up thinking about that every time he turned on the electricity.  Every time he opened the refrigerator door.   My parents convinced me there was a God.  I thought about him every time I cursed, every time I had lustful thoughts, every time I stole.   God has a list of whose naughty or nice.

Infinity is a hoax designed to comfort children.  A finite afterlife is more realistic.   But it doesn't help solve the meaning of life.  It just solves the meaning of the previous life.   You would have to have infinite lives and after an eternity you still wouldn't know the meaning of a life while you were experiencing it.

I personally would find it enjoyable if after my avatar died, I could roam freely across the map and go through buildings.

There's a disambiguation thing on wikipedia about atheists and agnostics.  They have soooo many categories.   I don't even know what kind of agnostic I am based on their categories.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheists
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnostics  (I guess I'm a weak agnostic?)

But I've considered myself an "active agnostic" for the past couple years.   Too many people hear the word and associate with "doesn't care".   Someone said that earlier, and it's so true.   But I think I'm more active into research and questioning than most that I qualify for "really really cares but thinks most organized religions are full of shit."  Just turn on the TV late at night and there are preachers selling holy bottled water.   They actually sell the stuff, the sheisters!   Now most communities are filled with priests who have great intentions and care for the congregation.  But the questions we've asked in this thread never come up.  It's just blind dumb faith.

Funny story!   My mom wanted me to join her church so I went to bible study a few times and they held an "interview" for me to join their congregation.    During the interview, I felt my stomach getting shaky so I excused myself and ran down the hall.  I got halfway to the bathroom before I puked all over the floor.    After I got cleaned up I walked outside to see my mom mopping up after me.     They MADE MY MOM clean it up!   And they never asked me to interview after that.  They made it pretty clear.    My mom on the way home said "don't worry about it, Jesse.   You just did me a favor and taught me a lesson about that church."    It's the closest to God I've ever felt.

On a sidenote, it was the Presbyterian church attended by Bush Sr.'s adviser and campaign spokesman Howard Baker.

I usually dispose of dog poo by lighting it on fire and placing it on the neighbor's doorstep.   How would putting it in his garbage be any more fun?

Limping Fish.   If anyone were to get specific into their vision of the afterlife, it would have to tie into something religious wouldn't it?

Afterall, aren't religions formed after too many people start to ask the question "what happens after I die?"   Remember, years and years ago, people were isolated where they had no exact answer.   Religions began to form based on the stories the elders would tell.   I'm mostly using Native Americans as an example here.  Their mythologies are the best.  My favorite was about a sort of heaven built on the back of a floating turtle.  If I can find the myths on google I'll paste them here eventually.  Very insightful on human nature and what happens after people ask "what happens after I die?"

Christmas just means more stress for some.

The best Christmas I've experienced was dressing up as Santa Clause and walking around downtown amidst drunk girls.  I took pictures with them and let them tell me why they were naughty.

http://photos-855.ak.facebook.com/ip001/v10/224/16/7928875/n7928875_30265855_5244.jpg

http://photos-857.ak.facebook.com/ip001/v10/224/16/7928875/n7928875_30265857_5545.jpg

http://photos-954.ak.facebook.com/ip001/v10/224/16/7928875/n7928875_30284954_5977.jpg

I'll show you the whole series if you have facebook....

And here's a Santa movie:  http://youtube.com/watch?v=atGLjFYJl0U  (I didn't put my heart into it)

[contrary]

I'm just concerned that it took Microsoft five years to develop this thing.   It's hardly their business anymore.  But on the contrary, they swooped in with XBox and currently have the strongest consoles on the market (if you consider # of publishers and games).    And yet on the contrary again! microsoft swooped in while Nintendo and Playstation were contending.   No one is contending with Ipod...

What sort of interface does the Zooooooooooooooooooooooooooooon have?    Is it as fun as the wheel?  Because what I love about Ipod is that I can change tracks and adjust volume while its in my pocket, without having to look at the thing.

Rui:   I skimmed over that thread for skirmishes and nothing extraordinary caught my eye.   People aren't supposed to agree with each other.   So the main thing is to just get your point out there and don't worry if everyone agrees with you or not.

You can spend time defending and building up points for your argument, but never get so carried away that you're frazzled.   I mean, opinions are such small things.   Yours will come and go.   Now for the sake of comedy and overall interestingness-  arguments are good!   Hasn't WWF or Soap Operas taught you anything?   We wouldn't be anywhere without difference of opinion or misunderstanding.

Oh, well if not wrestling or soaps, how about anything else good on TV.  There's always an argument present.

Eric, I think RickJ's point was not that they didn't WANT low energy consuming lifestyles, but rather THEY CANNOT possibly have low energy consuming lifestyles if they work out of this office building:



And I'm with Rick here.   If these people want to do their mass public marketing and government lobbying for a cause so trivial they should move their office to a mountain cabin somewhere and live off bugs and daisies.

Hypocrites I say!    I took the test and I consume 12 planets the size of earth!  Beware me and Rick's hunger rage!

 

What are you willing to sacrifice to prevent global warming and it's dire consequences from happening?

Eggs.  I'm willing to give up eggs Rick.

Nostradamus, thanks for helping to flesh that out in a more mature way than I did.

You would have had to have followed the Martian Jesus thing and given me a little creative license there. With each of the divinities mentioned, I was simply trying to make it more and more absurd that God or Jesus existed and simply appeared in that people's image.

Christians:   Go ahead and ask your peers about other planets, and if they must accept Jesus Christ to be saved.  Because if there is a God and the key to understanding him is through one human being such as Jesus-  firstly only humans can be "saved".   If the answer is "God sent other planets a Jesus-like prophet in their form" then why wouldn't he do that with the seven continents of Earth?  Wouldn't God have to send messengers even to the smallest, most remote tribes in the wilderness?   Different messengers for different cultures and peoples?

And so if this is what God has done, he actually failed to harmonize anyone and instead has caused wars and mass bigotry.   Like you said Nostradamus, most religions have their own answers for why they alone will be saved.  The chosen people.

I argue that these ideas exist not because people are selfish, but simply because religious fanatics cannot come up with an answer to "what about all the little babies born where the word Jesus can't be pronounced?"

Squinky sarcasm.

Rubacan:   Start with a room.     And I don't mean the first of 800 rooms in your game.    Make a playable, fully coded puzzle in a single room.   Kind of like 6 Day Assassin. 


That's the best advice I can give you.   Start small.   Put plants in it if you want. But I don't think your Maniac Mansion series will get off the ground at all.   Not one game.   But good luck.  This is a message of hope.

Now, now squinky.   Let's be constructive.


ahem....   Rub, how about you put some plants in it?

[birds come from dinosaurs]

No.    I don't imply that in a matter of fifteen years anything has changed.   I was hinting at the possibility of a future where communities (hell, even a world community) find a common bond in science.  If children are encouraged in the sciences early on   (my first real science class was in the 6th grade) I'm inclined to believe that even more enthusiasm will grow towards intelligence.  Towards truth.  Towards the arts.   Away from guilt, insecurity, fears of Hell and the ideals of puritans..

Because many kids (and not just Bible Belt folk) are raised by fundamentalists who are doing nothing more but running a marketing campaign for their own souls.  And the evidence of fossil records, for instance, becomes a test placed by God.   "God is testing us with some silly rocks!  Who are you going to believe?  The man upstairs or some silly rock?  Hell just yesterday them rocks was saying birds come from dinosaurs!"

Yes, sometimes rocks tell stories more compelling than a list of do's and don'ts.

I tend to agree with Helm on this strange side argument.   In anything with a capacity.  For instance a garbage can.   The work of emptying is done by the filling.  Wait...

OK, whoever's talking just needs to shut up.

'narnia' method that is, god came for them, in form that they would recognise, in the form of that speices.

There's a reference to a Martian Jesus in the "Chronicles of Narnia"?   

Yes, so other planets have other prophets, other sons of God?   Well then.. if that is true and we can live in Harmony with these other civilizations that accept Martian Jesus and Martian God...  then why is it we cannot accept Jewish Jesus and Jewish God..... or Mohammad Jesus and Islam God.... or Buddhist Jesus and Buddhist God... or Muslim Jesus and Muslim God....or Ron L. Hubbard Jesus... or Egyptian Jesus and Greek God (my favorites, sad they're not trendy anymore)

Why would God's purpose be to set us all against each other, and not connect all the dots.   Why do missionaries even bother harassing natives over semantics and the name of the invisible monster in the sky?

Why do people keep planting "authentic" evidence that some higher being exists?  I argue that it's for the children.  You know, for kids!  I should know.  I was one.

[Satan's Hell]

Children, as of today, pretty much need to believe in an afterlife.    To get by.   To answer the usual questions about existence.  There aren't enough seculars out there to combat the whopper of fundamentalists who throw all kinds of twisted, ALL TOO specific and badly referenced mythology.

I grew up in the South thinking I might drop into Satan's Hell at any second.   I lived by those rules, doing everything with God's watchful eye on me.   Then one day the burden was lifted!   I evolved from a single cell to multiple cells to a fish-like-blob to a newt to a tiny rodent to a primate...... etc. etc.! 

As a kid I COULD have grasped this concept but no one ever sat down and fleshed it out for me.   I knew every character's name in Mario, and the back stories of the Ninja Turtles...    but every secular person in my life was so self conscious or quiet that I never heard one peep besides this "theory" about evolution.    The Bible Belt is churning out people like me every day... and most of those folk don't go to college.   Drop out of high school.   Never question.    They just attend church and love Jesus, and for them that's like..... having called and made a reservation at a fancy floating restaurant in the sky.

And all there is to salvation, for some, is to accept Jesus.   To accept an image of a guy with a beard and toga.   Well my question is.... what does a Martian have to accept in order to go to Heaven?   A Jesus with bearded antennae and a silver jumpsuit?

Long live the Flying Spaghetti Monster.