MTG Salvation

Really, what it comes down to, is I am only agnostic about about the First Cause. You can throw Dragons and Ghosts and whathaveyou at me all day. And I will respond very much like any skeptic would in the face of such things.

However, the First Cause is something unique. I don't mean in a Special pleading way, I mean in a "there is only one universe we know about and whatever started it must be unique within said universe" way.

All of the studying I've done on the subject (which I go into a little in this blog) leads me to the conclusion that there MUST be a "Causeless Cause" somewhere out there.

When it comes to Green Lantern Rings and IPU's I can draw upon my EXPERIENCE with things of that nature to disprove, or just be generally skeptical of, them. However, I can't do that with a "Causeless Cause" because I've never seen or otherwise had any experience with a "Causeless Cause." My experience tells me there should be a "Causeless Cause," but it does not tell me anything about the other properties of It.

Thus, any statement someone might make in regards to Its other properties I will answer with a "I don't know." Whether the question be "It is blue?" or "Does It have feelings?" ANY question about any of it's other properties will get you an "IDK" from me. I simply have no experiences with "Causeless Causes" and I don't feel like making any guesses about them because all of my experiences tell me a "Causeless Cause" is UNLIKE anything I've ever had any experience with before.

I would like to introduce my own forum rule, similar to Godwin's. I am not sure it was done before, but it very well might have. (If not I would like to call it Connor's Law... or Soron's Law )
As you can see, as:
time ->infinity
then
(The Probability of any Given Member Becoming Banned) -> 1

So, the written form of Soron's Law becomes:
As time increases, the probability of an active member becoming banned approaches one.

For those of you that don't like binomial theory, this pile of crap math should be easier to understand:
The two factors that increase the probability of being banned are number of posts, and how much you 'walk the line.' Which is EXACTLY the same thing that increase your chances of being NOTABLE.

So, notable members have a MUCH better chance of being banned. (<-Soron's Second Law)

This thread blog is to discussion corollaries that come from this property.

Here is what I think about 'first cause:'

Now, I accept/believe, (I can't prove) that reality is based on math. "Math is the language of the universe" and all that.

So, based on that statement, reality itself would be subject to Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem, which to paraphrase to the point of being almost wrong, would mean that there needs to be some base Axiom that all of reality is based on.
There is some statement that is TRUE for all of reality, that is not supported or proven in reality, but that all of reality is based on.

Everything thing we see is a corollary of that base Axiom. Theoretical math tries to find more corollaries of the Axiom, and science is used to test those corollaries, and find proofs of them in reality. We are working backwards. We do not know what the Axiom is, but we are finding corollaries to get closer to that Axiom.
In order to make a 'jump' back to the next corollary, we need to make a guess, or have a flash of insight. These, then, need to be tested.
Sometimes we go in the wrong direction. Like with the Static Universe Theory, or IMO, string theory (CERN will tell us about that) These 'false corollaries' (are)/(will be) eventually proven wrong.

We need to find that Axiom. The problem being that It is the thing logic is bases ON, not the reverse. The Axiom must NOT be based in logic, and thus, not in reality as we know it.

(there could also be a set of Axioms, not just one. Occam's Razor tells us there should only be one, but Occam's Razor is NOT a logical truth, and might be wrong in this instance.)

Now, someone(BS or HH) take a hammer to all that, please.

Anyway, I did some thinking last night, and I thought I would share it with all of you:

The one thing (almost?) all Theist have in common is the Deist belief. Most people, when they say "Theist" mean, "the kind of Theist I am" or "Catholic" or "Muslim extremist" or something. But, in my mind, a "Theist" is simple someone that believes there was a "Will" that created the universe. That is the belief all Theist share anyway. What that "Will" did after that is up for debate and dependent on which kind of Theist you are, but they all agree there was some kind of "Will" and it started everything we care about.

Now, many of you are claiming to be "atheistic agnostic." In my mind, an "atheistic agnostic" is someone that was an atheist (or wanted to be one) but realized it was impossible to disprove all of religion (AKA Deism in all of its forums) and/or understood why the negative proof fallacy IS a fallacy; however, with that knowledge, they still wanted to be an atheist.
Dawkins, for instances, WAS a "strong atheist" but switched to "atheistic agnostic," probably because he realized that "strong atheism" has about as much logical backing as some forms of "strong theism." That's all "atheistic agnostic" means to me "an atheist that knows something about proofs, and doesn't want to look stupid." (yes, I guess all kinds of agnostics could fall into the "knows something about proofs, and doesn't want to look stupid" category, me for example)

If atheist really wanted to get rid of theism, they would not be attacking "Southern Baptists" or "Orthodox Muslims" they would be going after the Deist belief. Once you disprove THAT then you will be rid of all Theism. But, in my mind, they KNOW they can't get rid of Deism. They know that Deism is just as believable and reasonable as Atheism. (basic Deism anyway)

This whole "Atheism vs Theism" boils down to "Did some WILL start the universe, or not?" Now, if I was going to pick between those two options, knowing full well there is the SAME amount of 'proof' for both, and the SAME amount of 'logic' behind either (since there is) I would go with the one that makes me feel better.
When logic fails, you're forced to go with emotion. I feel that it feels better to believe that Something did start the universe with a purpose, for me anyway.

To ask "Does religion add as great a value to man as science" and than go on to say "of no, than we should get ride of it." Makes about as much sense as saying "Which should we get ride of: Science or Banking? Chemistry or Biology?"

We are NOT computers, we DON'T always think about everything logically or rationally. And we need something to vent that irrationally to, so we ALL (one way or the other) turn to some kind of philosophy.

Both science and religion can add, and DO add, something to humanity, and they are not mutually exclusive ideas. To act like "it's one or the other" is just silly. Religion provides answers for those that can't wait and stability for those that need it. It gets people to help with humanitarian issues over seas, that would not help otherwise.
I was just listening to a chinas immigration student talking about how as soon as she came to the US for the first time, having never spoken english to a Native before, she was immediately invited to a barbeque with her church. They welcomed her with open arms, when no one else here would have.
Religion is an identity that is cross cultural and cross language. Its a philosophical idea that binds people of different race, language, culture, class, background, and education together. Can it, and has it, been used for evil? Yes, but so has ALL kinds of philosophies. The Crusades or Inquisitions would never have worked without Governments, for example, but no one is advocating dissolve them. People work to REFORM Governments, not dissolve them.

Is there a better set up one could think of, other than religion, to do all of those things religion does for humanity? I know I can think of some, but I can also think of ways I think Banking could be better done, or Governments, or science... or...
Does this mean I should work on DESTROYING those institutions? Or reforming them?

Understanding the other person's mindset, and reforming it is the key. Not intolerance.

Well no one liked my universe God, using 'almightily' for the omnipotent definition. Let me try one using 'God can do anything that does not violate physical laws."

Let's say, and the end of time, humans are still alive (you think that is too low of a probably to be real, just use MWI) and they, at that point, know everything that can be known. They figured it all out. They have become all knowing (if your not a big fan of humans, just use AI instead). Also, with this knowledge, they know how to do everything that can be done. Like jumping 5d, or time travel. Which makes them, all knowing, all powerful(under the current meaning of the word), and all present.(or to be more exact, they CAN be anywhere and everywhere)
Let's say, hypothetically, that they like lesser humans, and want them to turn into them. (they do not need it to happen, mind you, but it would please them) So they do what they can to make other humans, thought time, evolve into what they are at the end of a give time line. Is that 'benevolent' enough for you? (you could even have them collect memories from the dying, if you want a 'heaven' of some kind)

Is that God more believable?

Quote from Blinking Spirit

A time traveler travels through time. That's kind of the point. So what a time traveler does in his travels does necessarily not happen after he built his time machine. He is perfectly capable of causing events that are chronologically prior to his departure.

Here's what would really happen, in order, from the perspective of a non-time-traveler:

1. People appear out of nowhere and set off the Big Bang.
2. The universe happens for a few billion years.
3. Humans evolve on the planet Earth.
4. Some humans figure out how to travel through time.
5. Those humans disappear.
6. The universe keeps happening.

If you're watching a movie or reading a story about these events, it will probably start around (3), then go to (4), and finally (after some inevitable drama as the characters explore (2), (3), and (5)) use (1) as its big climax. This subtly nonlinear style of narrative is such a cliche in speculative fiction these days that it seems only natural to think of (1) happening after (3) and (4). But no: (1) had to happen first, or else it wasn't really time travel at all.

Are you atheistic about quarks?

I mean, you have never seen evidence about quarks have you? You have never read papers, and even if I sent you some, you really would not understand the math behind it, would you? You HAVE TO take the word of an 'authority' that they exist, some guy in a lab coat or something telling you he has the math and the evidence. But, you don't understand the math or the evidence, it could all be made up or a hoax. So, it would seem to me, based on your logic, you would have to be atheistic about quarks. Right?

Let's say you're not. Lets say your a leading expert on quarks. Now, lets send you back in time 150 years. Its now 1859, and your a leading expert on quarks trying to explain to the leading scientist at the time about quarks. You have some math, which is INCREDIBLY theortectical to them, but no physical evidence or the ability to get physical evidence(no supercolliders in 1859).

Now, some of the scientist will think your full of horse ****, and making up all of this 'quark' stuff. Some of them will believe you, and some of them will be skeptical, but like your math.
Right now, the idea of 'God' is like the idea of 'quarks' would be in 1859. There is a lot of logic and reasoning and what not behind the idea, but there is NO real physical evidence for or against. And there is no capability to get evidence for or against. (we can't get to moment of the big bang, no one knows what happened in those first few moments)

Now, with no evidence, some of us feel this 'God' idea is one completely made up. Some of us feel its true, and some of us like the logic that goes into debating it, but are skeptical. Logicly, we can go back and fourth all day, if you bothered to really look at the logic behind the Catholic God (and some of the others) you will find it logically sound (most of you arguing against God, have NOT looked at the logical arguments for It, or don't understand real rigorous logical proofs enough to really do it, much like you would not understand the math being quarks.) You could take an experts word that its logical, much like you have taken the word of the scientist about quarks, or protons or what not.

Now, just because Its logical does not mean its reasonable, in many people's mind. People, like Blinking Spirit, DO know the logic behind some version's of God and know its sound, but do not find the assumptions reasonable. They are the atheists that I feel did it the right way.

YOU PEOPLE arguing here, have really KNOW IDEA what your arguing about. CLAIMING that you know logic and science and that your understanding of the subject is complete enough for you to KNOW the idea of God is a silly one. Well, maybe It is, but so would the idea of quarks in 1859.

All-powerful and all-knowing? Hmmm... I know just what I would do! (so as not to be bored)

I would make a world with people on it who did not realize how big the universe is. I would make the only way they can percieve the world to be nerve endings in their skin. Just for fun, I would make the most useful of those nerve endings be ones that can pick up light that bounces off stuff stuff, but only at a few wavelengths. Can't make it too easy, right? I would give them two clusters of those nerve endings, "eyes." I would have the only way they can think be by sending chemicles around in a bag of nerves on top of their bodies. Then I'd fill them with water and proteins and have them look at the world and try to figure it all out. Wouldn't that be fun?

Just so I, myself, would not be bored, I would make myself one of them, for the LOLz. I would make myself forget I was all-knowing and all-powerful, and would force myself to live one if their lives. Sounds exciting!

Oh wait....... Then I would be right back like I am now.....

Alright. Everyone, even me, listen up. I am going to only say this once, and not back it up. So either take it or leave it. And at any point you think to yourself "I know someone that is like that" you're WRONG. I am talking about YOU(and me). That's right, the MORE you feel like I am talking about someone else, the MORE its true I am talking about YOU.

The problem is NOT with religion, its with ignorance. Those of you that think that ignorance goes with religion are, simple put, wrong. Any time anyone believes anything without question there is a problem. There is ignorance. Over the years people have started to link this 'unquestioning' faith with religion, and its true that religion does lend itself to that kind of thinking, but not always, and not exclusively.

There are lots of misconceptions that start getting thrown around. This idea that "all" religious people think like "X" or believe "Y" is one of them. As soon as you start lumping things together you, yourself, become ignorant and blind. Some religious people have thought VERY hard about their faith, and have asked lots of questions, and only after a long rational decision have decided to be what they are. It's INCREDIBLY unfair of anyone to think or feel that all religious people shun science or logic or something.

The problem, too, comes with atheists that 'believe only in science.' You start getting some of those people that are JUST as self righteous as the people they are 'fighting against.' Some are JUST as unwilling to question their own beliefs and to try to understand the beliefs of others. They feel like they have it 'all figured out' and that ANYONE that disagrees with them must be wrong.

One of the key problems is this idea that 'religion' and 'science' are opposites or something. As if 'faith' and 'logic' could not exist together in the same mind or something. This is simply wrong. MANY of the BEST scientist we have EVER had were VERY religious. Sir Isaac Newton comes to mind. Also raise you hand if you knew that the Catholic church accepts evolution now? And the idea that there might be life on other planets? You should realize these things before you go pointing fingers.

The problem with ignorant people is that they are ignorant, that's it. I do not care if you feel like religious people are MORE ignorant or something. Not ALL are, and your just making yourself look stupid if you start assuming that someone is dumb just because they believe in Jesus or something.

As soon as you stop asking questions, or start thinking you know someone else, you're WRONG. And I don't care WHO you are, theist; atheist; agnostic; me; or you, YOU'RE WRONG.

Quote from r3p3nt

So you agree with my unicorn example? You don't find that absurd?

I am soooo tired of hearing 'the unicorn example.' I am going to make a blog about it. Here:

Yes, you got me, there could be an invisable unicorn in my room. Also:
"There are no black swans."

But so what? Its not going to change my life. I see no evidence for or against it. So who cares? I will live my life like I do, and I would hope you would do the same.


"Science tells us what is NOT true. We once thought the earth was flat, now we know its not, and assume it to be round. But it if string theory is right, it might not be round at all, it could be a 10d string. All science can tell us is that its NOT flat." -Matthew Argall

I once played a Gnome in DnD, if you keep reading, you will hear his back story... so you probably should stop reading about now.

Standard stuff. Good home, good people, good guys.
Than one day, demons came, summoned by a evil Necromancer for some reason or another, they had broken loose and started doing what demons do. They killed everyone, the gnome, pleaded with them for his life, and they cut him down, but the stroke did not kill him.
The slaughtered everyone while he watched, and he saw the power of evil. These creatures did not care, they had no pity, no remorse. They had only destruction, and power.

The gnome saw this and realized, good will always lose. The feeling will always fall to the unfeeling. Honor is a shield that only works against others that carry it, it holds no real protection against the dark. With this realization he forsook honor and good, and started worshiping evil, and power. There was a problem, however.....

You see, the gnome was a good person, he had a good heart(NG fighter worshipping Vecna). He KNEW that in evil there was power, he KNEW he should just not care about others... but he COULD not. He felt compelled to help, to reach out, even after all that had happened to him. He did venerate evil gods, but he could not sacrifice in their name, could not complete their dark rituals. He could only pray.

He still opened himself up to try to help, and was still hurt because of it.

I am that gnome.. I want to not care about others, I want to shut myself in. I realize that in life, evil will win, and its better to be on the winning side..... but I seem to always care about others anyway..... my stupid nature gets in the way.....

Experience, its something we all want, right?
That is what we tell ourselves. But what is it, really?

Memories of past failures, apprehension about the future. A understanding that sometimes, it does not work out, some times you lose. Deep knowledge of that simple fact that was gotten by way of it happing to us.
Experience can be used to avoid mistakes, but how do we know how to avoid them? Because we have already made them. Each error is a painful stab in our mind; a constant 'well I better not do THAT again.'
With experience everything stops being fresh and new. Things we once found joy in experiencing become rote, become common place. We see the bright colors fade before our eyes. We allow our humor to become jaded. We look down our noses at those that are 'easily amused.'
But is it not a good thing to be amused?
We envy the youth. But what do we really envy? Their mind set; the fact that their LACK of the thing we hold so precious makes others expect less of them. We envy that they are carefree. They do not have the millstone of experience weighing them down. Yet, at the same time, we covet that millstone.
Why?

I originally became agnostic so that I would be a better Catholic. Really.


The logic at the time: God knows me better than I know my self. He sees all my doubt, which everyone has. Also, he wants me to be a good person, but more than that. He wants me to be a good person because good is good, not because of some reward, like heaven. But, as long as I think that there is a heaven, I have no way of knowing if I am being good to get the prize, or if I am being good because it is good.
However, God knows. So, I like God, He is a good Guy, and I like being alive, and if He exists, I have Him to thank for it. So, I should do what the Big Guy wants. If He wants me to be good just because its good, than I owe Him that much at lest.... but as long as I still think there is a heaven, I do not know if I really am.... how to resolve this issue? Answer:
No longer believe in heaven.

I will admit, after coming to terms with that, my morals did slip a little. But I would like to think I am still a nice guy, and I do try, most of the time, to help people out. (God does help those that help themselves too ;))
Now, before you start telling me I am not really agnostic now. Your wrong. I FIRST become agnostic because of that, but now I have thought about it a long time, and all of that Bible stuff seems silly. I think there are some good philosophies and what not in it, but I am a skeptic about the 'Angels from heaven' bit.


Anyway the Moral is:
If you really want to be a good Christian, become agnostic.

All my life I have looked for real power.
In this world all humans are more equal than in any of our imaginary words, but some are still much more powerful than others. How? That was simple, they convince others to listen to them. Our jobs are our traps. The cop will pull you over, because its his job. The judge will sentence you and will, at lest, try to be impartial, because that is his job. I did not think of this first of course, I am sure its all in The Lucifer Effect book. I did not read it. I have no need. I know it all already.

Real power though, not that fake stuff people make others think they have, that is what I want. I went into physics. I wanted to know the rules no one could break. The ones that do not need a cop or judge to enforce. The ones that exist as unbreakable edicts. Why? What makes them what they are? Laws that are followed but not enforced.

But than again, maybe 'fake' power is the only 'real' power. Maybe convincing people you have power over them is the only real power there is. But I do not think so. I will look for the real stuff.... and will probably never find it... but I do not want something fake, its just not the same as the real McCoy.

Quote from Horseshoe_Hermit

I claim my milk jug is God. I am unable to show my milk jug is anything more than a milk jug. You believe it is not God.
(I claim [something you can't detect at all] is God. I am unable to show that [the something you can't detect] is [anything at all, as it is usually hard to show that undetectable things have any kind of property]. What do you believe?)

Me?>
Alright, time to stick my neck out for the chopping block.

Gods/God has always been in the same place. He or them hides out in the unknown. This used to mean places like volcanoes and mount Olympus and other places we did not understand. Now there are both more and less of those places. We no longer think that Zeus sits on top of mount Olympus throwing lightning bolts because we have been to the top of mount Olympus and we know a lot about what a lightning bolt is now. All of the old places are now known, so it makes the idea of God living there, or hanging out there, or doing those things, seem absurd. We know how those things in the Bible happened(or we can explain them away).
The thing is, while all of the old places have been explored, there are still may places that have not been. The end of the visible universe. t<0. The Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. Wave Particle duality of... everything. There are still places for God left to hide that we do not know about, they are just no longer the old places. Does that mean there is no God? No. That does not disprove the concept of a God, all it does is disprove the old concepts of God. He really can no longer be a old man with a white bread, but that does not mean that a God does not exist in one form or another.(and it does not mean that One does)

I think your "self" question was very telling. We are part of this universe, we can no more answer the question "what is the universe?" than we can answer "who are you?" The problem with the question is fundamentally the same. As such there will always be something unknown about the dimension we live in. So it would be very foolish of us to make any absolute statements about it.
Lets go into some detail:
Alright. The Milk Jug God.
You tell me your Milk Jug is a God. I ask you what qualities a God should have. And we can begin testing if this Milk Jug has those qualities. We can sacrifice some virgins to it, see if that helps the crops grow, etcetera. Unless you tell me that a quality of a god is that it holds milk, I am guessing we will find, with scientific accuracy, that the milk jug does not have the qualities of a god.

Now lets move to the Russell's teapot example. Well, we can AT LEST, with scientific accuracy, prove that said teapot could not have come from earth(even if we can't look at or see this teapot). And if its a Chinese teapot, it would have had to come from china. We can see how much energy it would take to get that teapot up there, when teapots were first made on earth. Why NASA would not waste money doing it. And we can conclude that there is no Chinese teapot orbiting the sun.

Now, you tell me there is a God in a place called heaven. And I say "Alright, let me get my spectrometer and Geiger counter and go see. Which way is this heaven place?" But you're not able to tell me. In fact, you have never been there, you just read about it in some book. You also do not really know any physical things about the place, and the only way to get there (according to you) is to die, which neither of us are willing to do, (its a one way trip and I can't being my spectrometer anyway). So, I tell you to go away and stop bothering me about it.

Now, nether of us proved anything in the third example. We did not, with any scientific accuracy, show anything. Nether that God is in heaven, or that God is not in heaven.(or that there is a heaven) Now I will probably think "That guy was probably just making it all up, silly guy." That DOES NOT mean he was wrong(even if he was making it all up), and it does not mean he was right. It means NOTHING. (He could have told me that there was a big statue of a lady in a place called NY even if neither of us had ever been there, or had the ability to get there, but it does not mean there is not a big statue of a lady in a place called NY)

Personally, I hope there is a God. Seems like a nice idea, but without any way of proving anything, I am a little skeptical.

<- There you go. Nice big chunk of meat for you all to chew on. Good Luck!

"You can use logic to prove anything, that is its power and its flaw."-Captain Janeway