NASA OR THE BIBLE

[EffEmDoubleyou]

Is it not tied together?

Only if you believe that either one can explain everything, which I think is foolish.

 

[Aesthete]

Yes perhaps you are right. I think some religious cosmologies posit the Earth will be transformed into some kind of higher state, after the return of Christ and the millenium of peace, of course.

Still though, I have a hard time believing it is all literally true.

Personally, I believe it is healthier to bring the future into our own hands, rather then letting fate and the whim of the Gods dictate its course.

Haha, I doubt it's literally true as well. I think the Christian God doesn't interfere much with fate (though I might be mistaken), and lets us run our own course. If God exists outside of time - which is probably true if "He" isn't a physical being - the future is very much the present, as is the past, so it would be more than just a prediction for the future, or God telling us "I will do this to you", but rather him saying "I know what you will do in the future - you will have decided, not me; I just know because the future is the present to me - so don't despair, there will be a time when you (humanity) will have overcome your present problems and weaknesses." The message is by no means to sit around and wait until salvation comes; the message is: salvation will come, but you will have to get it yourselves.

Perhaps when it's said "he will come like a thief in the night", it means that the terrible Zeitgeist will be broken by a remarkable individual.

 

[garbage]

Can we all agree that some sources for things are more reliable than other sources for things? Like, that one person's wild-ass guess may be better than another person's wild-ass guess?

I'll trust the person with the better wild-ass guess any day.

 

[Beorn]

You preclude the possibility that divine intervention may be a fiction of man's imagination.

That's not something science can determine.

 

[Beorn]

I think EffEmDoubleYou spoke about that in general, when he said you trust science with science stuff and religion with religious stuff.

If I want to worry about my spiritual well-being and my own conceptions of morality, it makes more sense to go to religious sources. And if I need heart surgery, I would go to a doctor; or if I want to understand how the world works and statistically what the odds are that it will end tonight (and a review of the evidence), I'd look more toward science.

That's just a giant version of the gamblers fallacy especially if one presumes the universe is based on chance. Scientists often do a shitty job of predicting earthquakes and volcanos and when it comes to the end of the world there's a million things that could go wrong.

I mean right now as you feel very safe and comfortable you are flying around the sun at over 60,000 miles per hour while spinning at 10,000 mph and orbiting the milky way at 500,000 mph in a universe that's largely at a temperature that's mostly 450 degrees F colder than we can stand where it's not impacted by incredibly beyond boiling hot sun heat at 10000 degrees F.

There are a billion things that have to continue to go right every single day just so that each one of us can see the sun rise each morning.

I don't think people largely appreciate how precarious and fragile their existence is. Science can give us some limited information, but to turn to science for reassurance in the broad sense on these matters seems hollow and baseless to me.

 

[Totenkindly]

Can we all agree that some sources for things are more reliable than other sources for things? Like, that one person's wild-ass guess may be better than another person's wild-ass guess?

I'll trust the person with the better wild-ass guess any day.

I just want to know how a few of these wild asses might have gotten so smart in the wild!

 

[Lark]

I saw on the news that NASA put out a video to calm the fears of people who were concerned about the Myan prophecy Doomsday prediction. They were assuring people that the world was NOT going to end anytime soon. That tomorrow will be just like today.
It occured to me that a lot of people today are looking to scientists for assurance and comfort in things concerning the future (and the past).
Do you think that it is wise for people to shift their trust in the future from sources such as the Bible ,religous leaders, counsellors ... to the scientific elite?

I'd personally be seriously skeptical of either, although I think that people are dupes for "science" and its been building for a while, Dawkins, Grayling, any of the rest of them or completely unknown people and causes could pretty much get people to believe they could make unicorns fly out their asses by simply saying "and the church hates it", "and this is bad for the church", "and the church wants to cover this up". I'm doubly annoyed that "the church" generally means my faith community, that's right a community, which is, you know, people, individuals who can be hurt and killed as easily as athiests and liberals.

The whole thing is a lot of bullshit, todays supposedly enlightened and thinking intellectuals are nothing more than a new variety of yesterdays "know nothings", some take refuge in cynicism or post-modern bables but those are means of escaping any requirement to think too hard about anything too.

I remember having top trumphs playing cards which had scores on them for attributes, there were halloween and horror cards, they had both the mad preacher and the mad scientist, whose scores worked out to be pretty much the same and I always thought, well, that indicates a popular or public or common folksy distrust of either but I think largely the idea of "mad science" has dropped off peoples radars, while "mad religion" is kept there and stoked even, for a variety of reasons but principally, God Damned Capitalism.

 

[garbage]

I just want to know how a few of these wild asses might have gotten so smart in the wild!

It's like street smarts, except the kind that animals get.

 

[Totenkindly]

It's like street smarts, except the kind that animals get.

Oh, yes -- "Bleat" smarts.

 

[Nicki]

This is a really fascinating thread...

 

[Sniffles]

What does the Mayan calendar have to do with the Bible?

 

[Mole]

I don't think people largely appreciate how precarious and fragile their existence is.

At the quantum level of atoms movement is at enormous speeds and completely predictable and stable.

Our whole existence is based on the predicability and stability of atoms, so, far from being precarious, our existence is robust.

 

[Mole]

I saw on the news that NASA put out a video to calm the fears of people who were concerned about the Myan prophecy Doomsday prediction. They were assuring people that the world was NOT going to end anytime soon. That tomorrow will be just like today.
It occured to me that a lot of people today are looking to scientists for assurance and comfort in things concerning the future (and the past).
Do you think that it is wise for people to shift their trust in the future from sources such as the Bible ,religous leaders, counsellors ... to the scientific elite?

Since the Enlighenment in the West in the 17th and 18th centuries we have valued evidence and reason more than astrology, mbti, the bible, religious leaders, and counsellors.

And as the work of scientists is based on evidence and reason, we value the advice of scientists more than the advice of the superstitious.

 

[RaptorWizard]

The below post by me in another end of the world thread is my opinion on what could transpire later, "not necessarily end of the world-wise":

[MENTION=6164]Riva[/MENTION] you say nothing happened, and indeed nothing observable happened yesterday, and indeed nothing observable may even happen later on, though you are acting as if it's already over and, frankly, it probably is, but for all we know, today is the beginning of the end; or the beginning of a more prosperous time - or just another average day (which seems to be the most likely scenario, but don't jump to conclusions just yet).

Whatever the future holds in store though, it appears more clear that it must be shaped by our own hands, rather than from a salvation wrought into being by other powers.

 

[bedeviled1]

Then the next question in the chain is, "What began God?"

The easy answer is that he has always existed, though somehow such an explanation doesn't really seem to explain anything.

I think the reason we are here is because there is consciousness, as without it, even if reality existed, there would be nothing to perceive it, hence it would be as if it didn't exist.

It follows that if you wish to seriously pursue this question, you should began by discovering the nature of the mind, as it seems to be the mind that creates our world.

Interesting.

 

[bedeviled1]

I think EffEmDoubleYou spoke about that in general, when he said you trust science with science stuff and religion with religious stuff.

If I want to worry about my spiritual well-being and my own conceptions of morality, it makes more sense to go to religious sources. And if I need heart surgery, I would go to a doctor; or if I want to understand how the world works and statistically what the odds are that it will end tonight (and a review of the evidence), I'd look more toward science.

Religion has a terrible track record on "end of the world" scenarios, you know that, right? Every time someone has said from a religious standpoint that "the end of the world is coming," they have been utterly and completely wrong.



That is a decent pragmatic answer. I mean, really -- we should be making the most of life each day regardless.

Maybe I shouldn't have brought religion into it. Maybe religion doesn't have much to do with the Bibles authority. What do you think?

 

[bedeviled1]

Only if you believe that either one can explain everything, which I think is foolish.

I guess that's my problem, I'm looking for answers, and foolish enough to think I can find them.

 

[bedeviled1]

Haha, I doubt it's literally true as well. I think the Christian God doesn't interfere much with fate (though I might be mistaken), and lets us run our own course. If God exists outside of time - which is probably true if "He" isn't a physical being - the future is very much the present, as is the past, so it would be more than just a prediction for the future, or God telling us "I will do this to you", but rather him saying "I know what you will do in the future - you will have decided, not me; I just know because the future is the present to me - so don't despair, there will be a time when you (humanity) will have overcome your present problems and weaknesses." The message is by no means to sit around and wait until salvation comes; the message is: salvation will come, but you will have to get it yourselves.

Perhaps when it's said "he will come like a thief in the night", it means that the terrible Zeitgeist will be broken by a remarkable individual.

I appreciate that you said , I might be mistaken.

 

[bedeviled1]

Haha, I doubt it's literally true as well. I think the Christian God doesn't interfere much with fate (though I might be mistaken), and lets us run our own course. If God exists outside of time - which is probably true if "He" isn't a physical being - the future is very much the present, as is the past, so it would be more than just a prediction for the future, or God telling us "I will do this to you", but rather him saying "I know what you will do in the future - you will have decided, not me; I just know because the future is the present to me - so don't despair, there will be a time when you (humanity) will have overcome your present problems and weaknesses." The message is by no means to sit around and wait until salvation comes; the message is: salvation will come, but you will have to get it yourselves.

Perhaps when it's said "he will come like a thief in the night", it means that the terrible Zeitgeist will be broken by a remarkable individual.

What does the Mayan calendar have to do with the Bible?

What I wondered was what does NASA have to do with it. Better yet , can NASA take the role as predicting our future and can we trust them to do so?

 

[bedeviled1]

At the quantum level of atoms movement is at enormous speeds and completely predictable and stable.

Our whole existence is based on the predicability and stability of atoms, so, far from being precarious, our existence is robust.

That too is a theory albeit a very interesting one, which I think the Hadron Collider? , as far as I can understand hasn't produced the particle they were looking for to join the theory of relativity and gravity. (Do not quote me on that)

All these theories and mega number of examples and studies and trillions of dollars. But, were getting close. It seems with enough research you can have a theory on just about anything but if you just stop and look around then (I) wonder about just how valid they are.
You know one thing that amazes me is a briar. Yes, they are made/evolved so they grab you in a way to hold on the more you pull. Hmmm, that's just something to me.