Do You Believe In GOD

[DigitalPigSnuggler]

Additionally, there really is no rational argument to dispute the fact that Jesus was a real person who lived and was crucified. There are numerous non-Christian sources (everyone from Josephus to Lucian and Tacitus to Talmud) that mention Jesus and his crucifixion. And that`s not even referencing the greatest scholars of our time -- many of which are agnostic and atheist -- who concede that Jesus lived, was crucified and put in a tomb.

Like all fanatics, you are simply incapable of presenting facts without embellishing or misrepresenting them.  To people like you, the truth isn't really important when compared to the need to be right about something you believe.

Even accepting, arguendo, that what you say above IS true, is doesn't support AT ALL the notion that (a) the shroud was the burial cloth of Jesus, or (b) that Jesus was anything more than another human of that age.

[eddie dean]

Yeah, real live scientists. Because simply put, there is no other explanation. Hey, I was an ardent skeptic years ago, and though my faith, in no way, hinges on the legitimacy of the Shroud, I now believe it is authentic.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/scientists-say-turin-shroud-is-supernatural-6279512.html

You might also enjoy hearing what STURP had to say:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/publiccatholic/2013/05/member-of-original-sturp-team-talks-about-the-shroud-of-turin/

I believe it's a fake because that IS the simplest explanation. Occam's Razor and Ontological Parsimony

I haven't seen anything that leads me to believe otherwise. I think the Shroud and the backstory is quite interesting, but as far as I'm concerned, that is all it is, a good story full of wonder and mystique.

Like RCH's glass domes on the moon, it's a compelling story, but it supersedes logic, and the vast amount of contradicting data, just to sell some books.

[DigitalPigSnuggler]

I believe it's a fake because that IS the simplest explanation. Occam's Razor and Ontological Parsimony

What FTF is not telling you, because...you know...is that at least one person has created an identical version of the shroud using techniques available in the Medieval era.  There are numerous theories about how it could have been done, all of which the religious nuts have screeched down.  It's like arguing against a conspiracy in the JFK assassination.  Even if you have a reasonable information, the nuts come out and drown you out.  Excuse me, the "truth seekers" block you and drown you out with noise to prevent you from expressing your findings on the topic.

I don't think anyone disputes that the Shroud is a remarkable piece of work.  That should be apparent from the fact that it has survived scrutiny for so long.  It is a masterpiece of its kind.  At the very least, it will be no less than the Mona Lisa of religious artifact forgeries. 

[RealCool Daddio]

Yeah, maybe you shouldn`t rely so heavily on wikipedia next time. As I always say, DO THE RESEARCH.

http://www.innoval.com/C14/


Yay science, indeed!


Now back to the game!
Go Bucks!

You might want to revisit your research protocols.  The site you linked to is source from
http://www.shroudofturin4journalists.com/Shroud-of-Turin-Carbon-14-Dating-Mistake.pdf
Which includes links to pictures of Jesus, places where you can buy "Jesus cloth" and face of Jesus pendants, but no actual science.  It also quotes Christopher Ramsey, in an attempt to misrepresent his convictions in the Carbon dating process:

"There is a lot of other evidence that suggests to many that the shroud is older than the radiocarbon dates allow, and so further research is certainly needed. Only by doing this will people be able to arrive at a coherent history of the shroud which takes into account and explains all of the available scientific and historical information.   â€"Christopher Ramsey, head of the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit which participated in the 1988 Carbon 14 Dating of the Shroud. (Mar 2008) "


Interestingly, here is Ramsey in 2011:

"However it was made, if â€" as many have claimed â€" the Shroud was made in the 13th century, then it isn't a relic of Christ, for obvious reasons. Radiocarbon dating has repeatedly placed the Shroud as medieval in origin â€" specifically, between 1260AD and 1390AD. There have been suggestions that the radiocarbon process got it wrong â€" but this is unlikely, according to Professor Christopher Ramsey of the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, one of three labs which carried out the research. "We're pretty confident in the radiocarbon dates," he told me. "There are various hypotheses as to why the dates might not be correct, but none of them stack up."
(Source: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/tomchiversscience/100125247/the-turin-shroud-is-fake-get-over-it/ )

Instead of trying to debunk the science that disproves the shrouds miraculous origins, can you share any science that proves it?

[FightTheFuture]

Like all fanatics, you are simply incapable of presenting facts without embellishing or misrepresenting them.  To people like you, the truth isn't really important when compared to the need to be right about something you believe.

Even accepting, arguendo, that what you say above IS true, is doesn't support AT ALL the notion that (a) the shroud was the burial cloth of Jesus, or (b) that Jesus was anything more than another human of that age.

Good grief...


I was not arguing either of those positions!

[Eddie Coyle]

    Yes.

     Far more out of fear, than faith.

[FightTheFuture]

You might want to revisit your research protocols.  The site you linked to is source from
http://www.shroudofturin4journalists.com/Shroud-of-Turin-Carbon-14-Dating-Mistake.pdf
Which includes links to pictures of Jesus, places where you can buy "Jesus cloth" and face of Jesus pendants, but no actual science.  It also quotes Christopher Ramsey, in an attempt to misrepresent his convictions in the Carbon dating process:

"There is a lot of other evidence that suggests to many that the shroud is older than the radiocarbon dates allow, and so further research is certainly needed. Only by doing this will people be able to arrive at a coherent history of the shroud which takes into account and explains all of the available scientific and historical information.   â€"Christopher Ramsey, head of the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit which participated in the 1988 Carbon 14 Dating of the Shroud. (Mar 2008) "


Interestingly, here is Ramsey in 2011:

"However it was made, if â€" as many have claimed â€" the Shroud was made in the 13th century, then it isn't a relic of Christ, for obvious reasons. Radiocarbon dating has repeatedly placed the Shroud as medieval in origin â€" specifically, between 1260AD and 1390AD. There have been suggestions that the radiocarbon process got it wrong â€" but this is unlikely, according to Professor Christopher Ramsey of the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, one of three labs which carried out the research. "We're pretty confident in the radiocarbon dates," he told me. "There are various hypotheses as to why the dates might not be correct, but none of them stack up."
(Source: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/tomchiversscience/100125247/the-turin-shroud-is-fake-get-over-it/ )

Instead of trying to debunk the science that disproves the shrouds miraculous origins, can you share any science that proves it?

My God, man. Get a grip! The piece that was tested was a sliver of cloth which was used to repair the original shroud. NOBODY IS DISPUTING THE SCIENCE!

HAVE you even bothered to look at the findings of  STURP?? Or any subsequent work on the Shroud?? Of course not. Yet, here you are trying to argue that it's a fraud lol. Do you even understand how absurd that is??

[FightTheFuture]

What FTF is not telling you, because...you know...is that at least one person has created an identical version of the shroud using techniques available in the Medieval era.  There are numerous theories about how it could have been done, all of which the religious nuts have screeched down.  It's like arguing against a conspiracy in the JFK assassination.  Even if you have a reasonable information, the nuts come out and drown you out.  Excuse me, the "truth seekers" block you and drown you out with noise to prevent you from expressing your findings on the topic.

I don't think anyone disputes that the Shroud is a remarkable piece of work.  That should be apparent from the fact that it has survived scrutiny for so long.  It is a masterpiece of its kind.  At the very least, it will be no less than the Mona Lisa of religious artifact forgeries.

You're going to tell us ALL the ways it could have been created, are you. Ok, I'm waiting, genius. Proceed.

[RealCool Daddio]

My God, man. Get a grip! The piece that was tested was a sliver of cloth which was used to repair the original shroud. NOBODY IS DISPUTING THE SCIENCE!

HAVE you even bothered to look at the findings of  STURP?? Or any subsequent work on the Shroud?? Of course not. Yet, here you are trying to argue that it's a fraud lol. Do you even understand how absurd that is??

You do know that STURP was founded by the Catholic Church, right?  And that they never performed their own carbon dating?  And by the way, there is no evidence of repair work done in the 1300's, only disinformation by Christian groups.

Edit:  not to wholly discredit STURP, which did include honest to goodness scientists.  One of them, John Jackson, completely debunked the repair hypothesis:
http://www.shroud.com/pdfs/jackson.pdf

What subsequent work are you referring to?  GuilioFantis book from 2013?  Even the Catholic Church debunks that:
The shroud’s official custodian, Archbishop Cesare Nosiglia of Turin, told Vatican Insider, “There is no degree of safety on the authenticity of the materials on which these experiments were carried out [on] the shroud cloth.”

Read more: http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/science-shines-new-light-on-shroud-of-turins-age/#ixzz3CbQ0spjP

[eddie dean]

.... at least one person has created an identical version of the shroud using techniques available in the Medieval era.....

I remember seeing a special on History channel about this reproduction. Are your referring to the Italian scientist Luigi Garlaschelli?
I think this is the guy I remember from the show, but there might be a few more who have done this.

Garlaschelli reproduced the full-sized shroud using materials and techniques that were available in the middle ages.

They placed a linen sheet flat over a volunteer and then rubbed it with a pigment containing traces of acid. A mask was used for the face.

PIGMENT, BLOODSTAINS AND SCORCHES

The pigment was then artificially aged by heating the cloth in an oven and washing it, a process which removed it from the surface but left a fuzzy, half-tone image similar to that on the Shroud. He believes the pigment on the original Shroud faded naturally over the centuries.

They then added blood stains, burn holes, scorches and water stains to achieve the final effect...

http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5943HL20091005?irpc=932

Edit: link to the site with the screenshot attachment.
http://www.dvorak.org/blog/2009/10/06/proof-positive-the-shroud-of-turin-is-a-fake-as-scientists-create-a-duplicate/
It's a blog, so I have no idea how accurate  it is.

[zeebo]

I think there might be a "God".  We may meet this being in the afterlife.  The universe is so mysterious that, even though I'm a skeptic by nature, it wouldn't surprise me to meet this divine being one day.  Maybe this being is a man, or a woman, or some sort of super-evolved kitten creature filled with nothing but warm fuzzy love.  I don't know.

However, there's one thing I'm absolutely positive of.  If there is, in fact, a God ... he or she has no interest whatsoever in interfering with our life here on Earth.  He/he does not decide who wins the Super Bowl, or if the rain comes, or if you get that present you really want on your birthday.  He/she does not make the girl/boy you love fall in love with you, they do not help you free yourself from self-destructive actiivites, and they don't pick Best Picture at the Oscars.  He/she does not make sure you get the perfect fries you want at McDonald's, or that snow-storm to get you out of work, or even so much as make sure you haven't run out of coffee before Mon. morning.

At least while we're here on this planet .... we're on our own, people.  Let's try to be decent to each other.

[SciFiAuthor]

I'm not suggesting a hypothetical god doesn't exist. In fact I'm willing to concede that a hypothetical god absolutely exists.

It's only when reality kicks in that we see the collapse of the concept.

I'm not so sure it's all that hypothetical. We can prove that we can build a computer. Current computers can simulate a few nanometers of the universe and realize correct results. In the future, more powerful computers will simulate larger and larger areas of the universe until eventually a simulation of the entire thing can be done for the purpose of scientific study, including the life within it. Simulations such as this are already how you predict hurricane tracks and aircraft flight characteristics etc. It's only natural that they would be applied to cosmology, biology, even comparative religion.

Therefore one of three things must be true:

1. All civilizations in the universe destroy themselves before they can build a supercomputer capable enough of simulating the entire universe.

2. All civilizations in the universe universally decide not to simulate it on ethics grounds.

3. We almost certainly live in a computer simulation.

In that case, whoever created that simulation is by every human definition a God. More, by messing with the simulation, he could create contradictory religions for fun just to see what happens. If he were an alien with no emotions and a supermind so far superior to humans in intelligence that we were like lab rats (and after all, we would only just AI simulations, not really alive), then worrying about our emotions the human condition would be meaningless. He wouldn't have to care that kittens sometimes get squashed by cars. He may only be interested in seeing how we react to it. Atheism and Religion would both be right because they were both intentionally written into the program.

Science is unfortunately too compartmentalized. It has to be, one can't be a scientist in all fields, so "reality" tends to come down to things like paleontology, meteorology, geology, astronomy, and those things tend to discount god. But then we have physics which views reality in a very different way than any other science, it becomes questions of collapsing quantum waveforms by observation, Schrodinger's cat, the arrow of time, etc. what is the "present" that we perceive when there is no such thing as the present within physics (there really isn't). Reality is very different from what we normally think of it as.

In fact, the universe may not be there when you aren't looking at it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copenhagen_interpretation

I don't think reality plays much of a part in the universe, rather reality is akin to a construct. When you view it from that perspective, God makes a huge comeback. He just might not be the God we think he is, he could just be a fat, potato chip eating computer programmer having a little fun. But he'd be a god nonetheless, at least in this universe simulation.

[RealCool Daddio]

I'm not so sure it's all that hypothetical. We can prove that we can build a computer. Current computers can simulate a few nanometers of the universe and realize correct results. In the future, more powerful computers will simulate larger and larger areas of the universe until eventually a simulation of the entire thing can be done for the purpose of scientific study, including the life within it. Simulations such as this are already how you predict hurricane tracks and aircraft flight characteristics etc. It's only natural that they would be applied to cosmology, biology, even comparative religion.

Therefore one of three things must be true:

1. All civilizations in the universe destroy themselves before they can build a supercomputer capable enough of simulating the entire universe.

2. All civilizations in the universe universally decide not to simulate it on ethics grounds.

3. We almost certainly live in a computer simulation.

In that case, whoever created that simulation is by every human definition a God. More, by messing with the simulation, he could create contradictory religions for fun just to see what happens. If he were an alien with no emotions and a supermind so far superior to humans in intelligence that we were like lab rats (and after all, we would only just AI simulations, not really alive), then worrying about our emotions the human condition would be meaningless. He wouldn't have to care that kittens sometimes get squashed by cars. He may only be interested in seeing how we react to it. Atheism and Religion would both be right because they were both intentionally written into the program.

Science is unfortunately too compartmentalized. It has to be, one can't be a scientist in all fields, so "reality" tends to come down to things like paleontology, meteorology, geology, astronomy, and those things tend to discount god. But then we have physics which views reality in a very different way than any other science, it becomes questions of collapsing quantum waveforms by observation, Schrodinger's cat, the arrow of time, etc. what is the "present" that we perceive when there is no such thing as the present within physics (there really isn't). Reality is very different from what we normally think of it as.

In fact, the universe may not be there when you aren't looking at it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copenhagen_interpretation

I don't think reality plays much of a part in the universe, rather reality is akin to a construct. When you view it from that perspective, God makes a huge comeback. He just might not be the God we think he is, he could just be a fat, potato chip eating computer programmer having a little fun. But he'd be a god nonetheless, at least in this universe simulation.

Good post, SFA. I agree with most of this.  The shroud, then, would just be some item that the sims stumbled upon in the course of interacting with the simulation - a mcguffin from Dwight the Uber-coder (eg: god) - or a must have artifact like a Bag of Holding.

[ksm32]

What's all the bickering about?

[SciFiAuthor]

Good post, SFA. I agree with most of this.  The shroud, then, would just be some item that the sims stumbled upon in the course of interacting with the simulation - a mcguffin from Dwight the Uber-coder (eg: god) - or a must have artifact like a Bag of Holding.

Sure. Or it could have been placed to create a question in our minds that can't ever be answered and thusly prevents us from creating a simulation of our own. Hell, let's go a step further, all paranormal or inexplicable occurrences exist to keep us from ever being able to come up with a definition of the universe, thus we can't ever create a simulation of our own. It would certainly save on computer resources in the real world, one can't have an infinite number of ancestor simulations sucking up the memory of God's computer.

[DigitalPigSnuggler]

You're going to tell us ALL the ways it could have been created, are you. Ok, I'm waiting, genius. Proceed.

Ick...the demand that a poster spend time explaining information freely available on the internet (one can practically see arms folded across the chest)...speaking about "we" or "all of us" when it is really only one person asking (perhaps to give the demand significance)...the reference to "waiting" after the imperative, as if there's a clock running...and without presenting a single word of contrary evidence or argument is SO suggestive of how a conspiracy nut/troofer behaves.  It's not a sincere desire for information.  I've been down this stupid road before, and it never ends well.

[Tarbaby]

, some members expressed shock that be apparent antireligious posts above.The  anger and outrage of members such as area51drone, DPS,Celt, MV,  myself, or others shouldn't, I think, be regarded as blasphemous or sacrilegious. if society is going to try to convince us that this anthropomorphic God is real then we are going to react viscerally  to these scenarios He supposedly orchestrate which are outrageous, like the situation of Job. or the death of innocent children every day. Are the ideas that man must spend eternity in the agony of hell for the sins of our ancient ancestors. Talk about cruel and unusual punishment.

Celt  had it right The Church must keep fabricating new dogma as we learn more about ourselves and the universe around us.
Also, kudos to ccauthor.

[DigitalPigSnuggler]

The anger and outrage of members such as area51drone, DPS, MV,  myself, or others shouldn't, I think, be regarded as blasphemy Or sacrilege.

Can't speak for the rest of you, but I don't give two fucks if some religious nut thinks I'm sacrilegious or committing blasphemy. 

There are some positive aspects of religion, and the bible itself has some valuable survival stories and useful philosophy for leading a healthy and productive life.  Unfortunately, it also is regarded as unassailable authority, and thus it is immensely attractive to all kinds of self-serving twatheads.  It represents power for someone trying to promote a personal preference or aggrandize themselves.  From this comes the relentless injunctions to proselytize (not just the holy books, which nobody reads, but the pre-chewed teachings), to persecute non-believers, and to restrict the freedom of its believers to conduct their lives as they would like.

Thanks to said twatheads, religion is a scourge upon humanity.  It is far and away the greatest source (natural or man-made) of misery, suffering, and injustice in the recorded history of mankind.  So I feel no need to apologize to religious twatheads for seeming a little testy when I discuss the subject.  Fuck them, fuck their god, fuck their jesus, fuck their holy spirit, fuck their hebraic bible, fuck their new testament, fuck their churches, fuck their show-off crosses around their necks, fuck their fish symbols on their bumpers and little hidden biblical verses references on the rim of cups from In-N-Out, fuck the "morans" screeching god hates fags outside of funerals, fuck the asshole in the rainbow wig holding up a John 3:16 sign in the endzone, fuck the boxer thanking his personal lord and saviour jesus h. christ the almight for helping him pound the shit out of his opponent, and fuck that beautiful little snow white dove in the ass with a rake.

Also, this: http://io9.com/gods-12-biggest-dick-moves-in-the-old-testament-1522970429

[DigitalPigSnuggler]

http://www.tubechop.com/watch/3556626

And they say Led Zeppelin plagiarizes material.

[zeebo]

....fuck the asshole in the rainbow wig holding up a John 3:16 sign in the endzone, fuck the boxer thanking his personal lord and saviour jesus h. christ the almight for helping him pound the shit out of his opponent...

This part of your post, at least, I would hope we can all agree with.

I caught the press conference from that missionary lady who just recovered from ebola.  Her first words were something like "First I just want to thank my personal lord and saviour, Jesus Christ ....".  I was like whoa, shouldn't you be thanking, um, scientists first?  You know, the folks who years ago figured out how viruses work and who lately worked day and night to develop the injection that just friggin saved your life?

[Kelt]

I'm not so sure it's all that hypothetical. We can prove that we can build a computer. Current computers can simulate a few nanometers of the universe and realize correct results. In the future, more powerful computers will simulate larger and larger areas of the universe until eventually a simulation of the entire thing can be done for the purpose of scientific study, including the life within it. Simulations such as this are already how you predict hurricane tracks and aircraft flight characteristics etc. It's only natural that they would be applied to cosmology, biology, even comparative religion.

Therefore one of three things must be true:

1. All civilizations in the universe destroy themselves before they can build a supercomputer capable enough of simulating the entire universe.

2. All civilizations in the universe universally decide not to simulate it on ethics grounds.

3. We almost certainly live in a computer simulation.

In that case, whoever created that simulation is by every human definition a God. More, by messing with the simulation, he could create contradictory religions for fun just to see what happens. If he were an alien with no emotions and a supermind so far superior to humans in intelligence that we were like lab rats (and after all, we would only just AI simulations, not really alive), then worrying about our emotions the human condition would be meaningless. He wouldn't have to care that kittens sometimes get squashed by cars. He may only be interested in seeing how we react to it. Atheism and Religion would both be right because they were both intentionally written into the program.

Science is unfortunately too compartmentalized. It has to be, one can't be a scientist in all fields, so "reality" tends to come down to things like paleontology, meteorology, geology, astronomy, and those things tend to discount god. But then we have physics which views reality in a very different way than any other science, it becomes questions of collapsing quantum waveforms by observation, Schrodinger's cat, the arrow of time, etc. what is the "present" that we perceive when there is no such thing as the present within physics (there really isn't). Reality is very different from what we normally think of it as.

In fact, the universe may not be there when you aren't looking at it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copenhagen_interpretation

I don't think reality plays much of a part in the universe, rather reality is akin to a construct. When you view it from that perspective, God makes a huge comeback. He just might not be the God we think he is, he could just be a fat, potato chip eating computer programmer having a little fun. But he'd be a god nonetheless, at least in this universe simulation.

I'm familiar with the logic you're presenting, but there's a couple of rather important things to remember.

First, that logic can be set down in such a way that we can 'prove' pigs can fly, so to set parameters whereby we are logically the inhabitants of a Matrix-like artificial construct is as revelatory as it is likely. That being no more likely than pigs flying.  We could equally use logic to 'prove' we inhabit a mold spore clinging to the left wing of an extinct fruit bat, given the time, logical acrobatics, and interest required to do so.  This does not prove that we do inhabit a batwing spore, nor does it prove 'god'.

Second, it is erroneous to say that an artificial construct satisfies all criteria necessary to call our fat, chip-eating programmer a 'god'.  Theists insist that their god can conjour the universe from nothing, whereas our fat, chip-eating programmer in fact used a computer, some form of coding language, and a large supply of mountain-dew and cheetos. Theists will also tell you that their god uses magic, not technology, in order to make his creations.  As soon as you introduce technology to the mix you'll have the theistic community throwing themselves on the ground and howling like wolves at the sheer heresy of your suggestion. It HAS to be magic.  Nothing else will do. 

For my own part, the most likely path to the existence of god comes from philosophy, rather than individuals lying about magical, time-travelling shrouds.

That's not even to say that philosophy proves or disproves god, but rather tells the hardline atheist such as myself that "You don't know nothin', Son."

The common, and incorrect, assumption drawn there would be that in the absence of a scientific explanation for Life the Universe and Everything, there has to be a god filling the gap. "If it isn't science it must be god, ergo god exists.  Yeah... no.

Even the tired, hackneyed old line of 'reasoning' that 'The Universe itself is proof of a god.' has no real legs on it.  The assumption is that a god, or gods, likes to create universes. Ergo the existence of a universe, such as ours, is proof positive of a god.

But hang on...  you're speculating that gods like to make things. How about we speculate the opposite?  How about we speculate that gods in fact prefer to destroy things, and that they would never suffer a universe to exist?  The logical conclusion there is that The Universe Exists, ergo Gods Do Not Exist. 

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, as has been oft repeated.  A fraudulent shroud is perhaps one of the least compelling arguments for a god that I've encountered.  That Catholics cling to it like it's the last lifeboat on the Titanic only serves to make them look desperate.  As I said many posts ago, religion is a series of fallback positions, where the only alternative to giving ground is to stubbornly push one's fingers in one's ears and deny the evidence.

The Shroud is a perfect example of that refusal to give ground in the light of scientific evidence.

[zeebo]

...The Shroud is a perfect example of that refusal to give ground in the light of scientific evidence.

A beef I have with devout religious folks is that most of them gladly take advantage of all the fruits of rigorous, unbiased scientific research - like electricity, refrigeration, cell phones, medical therapies, the internet, airplanes, etc. - but when science conflicts with their comfy belief system, the decide to conveniently reject it in those special cases.

[Kelt]

A beef I have with devout religious folks is that most of them gladly take advantage of all the fruits of rigorous, unbiased scientific research - like electricity, refrigeration, cell phones, medical therapies, the internet, airplanes, etc. - but when science conflicts with their comfy belief system, the decide to conveniently reject it in those special cases.

You have a point.

I suppose, in that case, that we have to extend some genuine kudos to those christians/theists who refuse to seek medical attention for their children, preferring to watch their own kids waste away and die rather than giving them life-saving treatment.

Morons they may be, but fake they're not.

This couple, in particular, are just all kinds of awesome.


http://youtu.be/VoL8nLd_4E0

[DigitalPigSnuggler]

I suppose, in that case, that we have to extend some genuine kudos to those christians/theists who refuse to seek medical attention for their children, preferring to watch their own kids waste away and die rather than giving them life-saving treatment.

Killing your child, on two separate occasions, is all part of God's Wonderful Plan, and how DARE you presume to question god, you fuckin heretic. 

[Bart Ell]

This is all on you, Art.

You stop broadcasting and now we see page after page of idiots who don't know what they are talking about making fun of other idiots who don't know what they are talking about.

Science jerks giving off the same misguided arrogance vibe as the guy at the independent record shop who recommends you get the Cocteau Twins discography on vinyl...

Jesus jerks going on about the age of laundry...

Oh yeah, when I said this was all on you, Art I also meant half of it is on the Australian with the Skype addiction who couldn't stay away from at least one show. F WORD THE BOTH OF YOU FOR ALL OF THIS!

[SciFiAuthor]

I'm familiar with the logic you're presenting, but there's a couple of rather important things to remember.

First, that logic can be set down in such a way that we can 'prove' pigs can fly, so to set parameters whereby we are logically the inhabitants of a Matrix-like artificial construct is as revelatory as it is likely. That being no more likely than pigs flying.  We could equally use logic to 'prove' we inhabit a mold spore clinging to the left wing of an extinct fruit bat, given the time, logical acrobatics, and interest required to do so.  This does not prove that we do inhabit a batwing spore, nor does it prove 'god'."

Except that in this case experiments can be designed to test it:

http://www.technologyreview.com/view/429561/the-measurement-that-would-reveal-the-universe-as-a-computer-simulation/

Use observation to prove it or disprove it and see what we come up with. Incidentally, it wouldn't really be matrix-like, that's the brain in the jar hypothesis. This is more along the lines of placing an AI, or billions of them, inside a constructed universe that are fully interactive with that environment, meaning that their senses are not isolated and manipulated as in the matrix.

Second, it is erroneous to say that an artificial construct satisfies all criteria necessary to call our fat, chip-eating programmer a 'god'.  Theists insist that their god can conjour the universe from nothing, whereas our fat, chip-eating programmer in fact used a computer, some form of coding language, and a large supply of mountain-dew and cheetos. Theists will also tell you that their god uses magic, not technology, in order to make his creations.  As soon as you introduce technology to the mix you'll have the theistic community throwing themselves on the ground and howling like wolves at the sheer heresy of your suggestion. It HAS to be magic.  Nothing else will do. 

Theists will never claim that god doesn't have systems in place. The weather is a system, therefore it is not conjured, rather it is created with some kind of plan in place for it all. I don't think they like that word magic either, that would be sorcery. They make a distinction between the power of God and the use of magic, never suffer a witch and all. Credit where credit is due, they have their own impressive array of philosophy. But it wouldn't just be the religionists up in arms if the universe were shown to be a simulation, the atheists would be too, since they were just as wrong as everyone else. It would be the embarrassment of the millennium for them.

For my own part, the most likely path to the existence of god comes from philosophy, rather than individuals lying about magical, time-travelling shrouds.

Mine too, I'm much more interested in Spinoza than I am Jesus. But philosophy is not a stagnant dead field, it's still going. The initial form of the simulation posit presented in my previous post was made in the early 2000's by an Oxford professor of Philosophy, in fact. What I'm saying is that most people's thinking on the matter, especially atheists, is that they may not be on the solid ground previous philosophy suggested they were.

That's not even to say that philosophy proves or disproves god, but rather tells the hardline atheist such as myself that "You don't know nothin', Son."

Yes, but that's faith in a philosophy and why I remained agnostic. As I said, you can derive absolute truth from rocks and geology, but you can't from quantum physics and that's the failure of your philosophy. Your world-view breaks down at the level of the atom, go further and reality as the geologist knows it ceases to exist. At that point, there is no such thing as a rock. When the nature of reality changes at a certain level, as it does when we transition to the subatomic, it's a whole lot harder to have faith in an absolute philosophy dependent on reality being what we perceive it to be in the macro world. Or, put another way, you have faith in reality and I don't because I know it's just a construct overlaying the principles of quantum mechanics.

Example:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TT-_uCLwKhQ

There you have a potential indicator that this may not be reality. In which case, your philosophy is off kilter and a whole lot of room for some kind of creator or something just opened up. And that's where we are in 2014. I'd have agreed with you entirely in 2002, but increasingly the atheists pick and choose their sciences.

The common, and incorrect, assumption drawn there would be that in the absence of a scientific explanation for Life the Universe and Everything, there has to be a god filling the gap. "If it isn't science it must be god, ergo god exists.  Yeah... no.

Again, an argument from 20 years ago. You have a missing piece, and it is what the actual nature of the universe is. If we knew that, I'd be right there with you. We don't, therefore none of this can be certain. It could all just be fake.

Even the tired, hackneyed old line of 'reasoning' that 'The Universe itself is proof of a god.' has no real legs on it.  The assumption is that a god, or gods, likes to create universes. Ergo the existence of a universe, such as ours, is proof positive of a god.

Something clearly likes creating universes whether unthinking nature or God. Or human brains for that matter. You're still in the mode of thinking that the universe exists. It doesn't always exist, it only does if you look at it and collapse its wave function in the same way that the photon in the video transitions from behaving as a wave to a particle simply by being observed.

But hang on...  you're speculating that gods like to make things. How about we speculate the opposite?  How about we speculate that gods in fact prefer to destroy things, and that they would never suffer a universe to exist?  The logical conclusion there is that The Universe Exists, ergo Gods Do Not Exist.

I would more speculate that the universe does not exist unless it is observed therefore something observes it into existence, be that a brain or a god and that the actual nature of reality doesn't require there to be a universe at all. It may simply be a model of a universe running in a computer.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, as has been oft repeated.  A fraudulent shroud is perhaps one of the least compelling arguments for a god that I've encountered.  That Catholics cling to it like it's the last lifeboat on the Titanic only serves to make them look desperate.  As I said many posts ago, religion is a series of fallback positions, where the only alternative to giving ground is to stubbornly push one's fingers in one's ears and deny the evidence.

The Shroud is a perfect example of that refusal to give ground in the light of scientific evidence.

And God's coder and drinking buddy Phil suggested: "If you really want to fuck with the ants in the farm, stick a weird piece of cloth in there that will get them debating your existence!" to which the LORD said "Good call, Phil! Hell, let's put shit in there like ghosts and bigfoot that can't ever be explained and see what they do. Toss me another Budweiser."

[eddie dean]

At least while we're here on this planet .... we're on our own, people.  Let's try to be decent to each other.

Oh it's on!
How dare yewww!
You heathen, heretic, infidel, bastard ya.
You're so going to hell!

[steelbot]

nope, not really.

[zeebo]

Oh it's on!
How dare yewww!
You heathen, heretic, infidel, bastard ya.
You're so going to hell!

Oops, maybe you're right.  Ok, I fixed it.

"Let's try to be decent to each other people who believe in the same things we do."    :

[DigitalPigSnuggler]

There are numerous non-Christian sources (everyone from Josephus to Lucian and Tacitus to Talmud) that mention Jesus and his crucifixion.

Josephus: the one and only authentic surviving reference Josephus made about Jesus was what is known as the James Passage, which reads (translated): "...and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others..."  The authenticity of this passage (meaning, that it was not altered by a later Christian) has been challenged, but the majority of historians accept it as genuine.  However, it should be noted that it says nothing about Jesus or his life other than some people call him "Christ" (messiah).  You couldn't swing a cat around your head in those times without hitting someone who claimed this or that person was the messiah, so Josephus' reference says nothing useful to prove Jesus' divinity.  Certainly there is NO authentic writing by Josephus that says anything about Jesus' crucifixion, as you claim.

Tacitus: Only a few sentences, of which NONE refer to Jesus, only "the Christ."  It is a common mistake amongst credulous and ignorant Jesus-squeezers to assume that "Christ" was Jesus' last name ("Mr. Christ...Mr. Jesus Christ, table for one...").  It is a title, not a name, and one that was liberally bestowed upon many people in that time.

Lucian: Srsly?  In the 2nd century, more than 100 years after Jesus' time, he wrote a satire about Christians.  Representative passage: "The Christians, you know, worship a man to this dayâ€"the distinguished personage who introduced their novel rites, and was crucified on that account. … You see, these misguided creatures start with the general conviction that they are immortal for all time, which explains their contempt of death and voluntary self-devotion which are so common among them"  His purpose wasn't to provide a historical account of Jesus, but to attack the disingenuousness, naïvety, and superstitious nature of Christians.  Nice reference, though, supports my beliefs!

The Talmud: Yeah, it contains some passages, inserted hundreds of years after Jesus' time, which contain ZERO historically reliable information about the life of Jesus.  Again, the fact that this makes your list of top four reference-based proofs just goes to show that there is only the thinnest possible evidence that there was a historical Jesus.  There is a reference to the execution of a Jesus of Nazareth and it is clear that it refers to the Jesus we've been discussing, but that reference was written after the last gospel (John, which was written as late as 120 CE).  All of the references to Jesus are in reaction to his being the messiah of Christianity (which they obviously disagreed with); nothing at all about his life or teachings.

Now, can you tell me what is common about the first century Mediterranean historians in this list?  Answer at the bottom.

Aulus Perseus (60 AD)
Columella (1st Century AD)
Dio Chrysostom (40-112 AD)
Justus of TIberius ( 80 AD)
Livy (59 BC-17 AD)
Lucanus (fl 63 AD)
Lucius Florus (1st - 2nd Century AD)
Petronius (66 AD)
Phaedrus (66 AD)
Philo Judaeus (20 BC - 50 AD)
Phlegon (1st Cent AD)
Pliny the Elder (23 - 69 AD)
Plutarch (46 AD - 119 AD)
Pomponius Mela (40 AD)
Rufus Curtius (1st cent AD)
Quintillian (35-100 AD)
Seneca (4 BC - 65 AD)
Silius Italicus (25-101 AD)
Statius Caelicius (1st Cent AD)
Theon of Smyrna (1st century AD)
Valerius Flaccus (1st century AD)
Valerius Maximus (20 AD)

Not a single one of them says anything about Jesus.  Not one word.