Re: a comment on REM Sleep by mystic enoch	Ranger 62.252.32.15	20-Mar-06/2:35 PM
Is this the von Daniken theory? With the two-thousand year-old batteries and all? I never did get round to reading that, I probably should. And yes, I agree that Scripture is unlikely to be an entirely accurate representation of the original covenant - although I'm bound to be hit by plenty of Divine Translation believers. Having said that, there is a lot more to be said for taking the Story of Creation at least semi-literally than first appears.
Re: a comment on REM Sleep by mystic enoch	zodiac 209.193.14.10	20-Mar-06/2:35 PM
I love pumpkin pie. Marriage is something you do to one person you presumably love, not the thing you do to everything you love. Who's bullshitting whom?
Re: a comment on REM Sleep by mystic enoch	zodiac 209.193.14.10	20-Mar-06/2:32 PM
"aliens are mentioned in the bible." -- Well, that clinches it. "In genesis." -- You mean giants, not aliens. Or you mean in Ezekiel. "In a famous biblical painting,I don't remeber the name of it,if you look closely you will see a UFO in it." -- It's da Vinci, and not biblical, and it's not exactly like the painting was done by Moses or something. "In ancient eygpt(bad spelling)they are said to had the light bulb." -- Said by whom? You? "How do you think they were able to see in those deep dark tunnels in the pyramids? A torch would have caused a lot of smoke without ventilation." -- Arabs breathe a lot of smoke. You should try riding on an Egyptian bus with the windows all up. "There is some much that is not being told to the public." -- By the Egyptians? "I do belive in god thats for sure." - That's nice. He believes in you, too. "all of these different translations of the bible I'm sure there is stuff being left out." -- We may never know whether Moses preferred strappy sandals or loafers, for one! "The original bible was written in greek and hebrew." -- Hey! You actually said something almost true! "King james was british." -- And again! So close to true! But he was Scottish! "My personal religon is made up" -- Cool! "Thats my truth but I an an open-minded person because there is alot of room for error." -- I bet you're not going to be very open-minded about this! "I'm not being angry with anyone right now I just had to say my piece." -- Thanks, but this is our conversation.
Re: a comment on REM Sleep by mystic enoch	Ranger 62.252.32.15	20-Mar-06/2:30 PM
"Suppose there is a computer...is the computer God?" No, whoever programmed the computer is God. For the computer to be, there must have first been an intelligent designer.
Re: a comment on REM Sleep by mystic enoch	ALChemy 24.74.100.11	20-Mar-06/2:30 PM
Pumpkin Pie makes me happy but I didn't marry it. So stop bullshitting me already.
Re: a comment on REM Sleep by mystic enoch	mystic enoch 68.105.63.178	20-Mar-06/2:27 PM
I've very open-minded person because there is room for error.
Re: a comment on REM Sleep by mystic enoch	ALChemy 24.74.100.11	20-Mar-06/2:26 PM
The only way you can say you're happy and not be talking crap is if you can prove it. As far as I know you might be lying. Yes you feel happy and that's what happiness is right? A chemical reaction triggering certain brain and body activity. It has no more significance than that. But for someone who believes there is nothing for him after death, why should you worry about anything beyond your own life?
Re: a comment on REM Sleep by mystic enoch	mystic enoch 68.105.63.178	20-Mar-06/2:25 PM
aliens are mentioned in the bible. In genesis. In a famous biblical painting,I don't remeber the name of it,if you look closely you will see a UFO in it. In ancient eygpt(bad spelling)they are said to had the light bulb. How do you think they were able to see in those deep dark tunnels in the pyramids? A torch would have caused a lot of smoke without ventilation. There is some much that is not being told to the public. I do belive in god thats for sure. With all of these different translations of the bible I'm sure there is stuff being left out. The original bible was written in greek and hebrew. King james was british. My personal religon is made up of some of the stuff that I read,what I was taught, and what I've seen in life experiences of mine and other people. Thats my truth but I an an open-minded person because there is alot of room for error. I'm not being angry with anyone right now I just had to say my piece.
Re: a comment on REM Sleep by mystic enoch	zodiac 209.193.14.10	20-Mar-06/2:21 PM
A flash: AlChemy dies and finds himself standing before a bright bright light. "God?" AlChemy says. "No," says the light, "I'm just the computer. But, hey," its light grows brighter and, somehow, more interested, "do YOU have any ideas about God? Because we're all wondering about him here, too..."
Re: a comment on REM Sleep by mystic enoch	zodiac 209.193.14.10	20-Mar-06/2:12 PM
Oh, well if it's in an Isaac Asimov story... I still wouldn't say that's God. "I'll know the same way you know you love your wife." Because He makes you happy?
Re: a comment on REM Sleep by mystic enoch	ALChemy 24.74.100.11	20-Mar-06/2:06 PM
Yet another so called absurd God comparison. Certainly God could be a computer. In Isaac Asimov's "The Last Question." The story spans the entire existence of the universe, and the plot reveals the existence of God. In the near future, man has invented a super computer known as a Multivac. The computer is asked if entropy (the winding down or loss of energy in the universe) can be reversed. The computer says that not enough data is available. The story progresses many eons and through the years, the computers evolve along with man, and at each stage, it is asked if entropy can be reversed, and the answer always comes back that there is not enough data at that time. In the final stage, human kind has evolved into one mind free of body, and co-exists with the computer which exists in hyperspace. As the universe come to an end and man fades out, the computer discovers how to reverse entropy, and says "Let there be light. To D.A.'s question: I'll know the same way you know you love your wife.
Re: a comment on REM Sleep by mystic enoch	zodiac 209.193.14.10	20-Mar-06/1:22 PM
No it's not. If I say "I'm happy right now" (and I am) then yes, I could be ignorant of bad things in the world or my own life. I could be going insane. Someone could have secretly filled my office with odorless laughing gas. I could be unreasonably happy on finding out that my microwave corndog got cooked all the way through. If I'm halfway self-aware, though, I AM in all of those cases irreducibly, unassailably happy. Yes, if I say "I'm happy because of the corndog" or "I'm always going to be happy" or "all is well in the world" or "if the number of good things I know is greater than the number of bad things, I should be happy" or "happiness is the most important thing in the world," then I'm going to be talking crap. That's not what I'm talking about, though. I'm talking about feeling happy.
Re: a comment on REM Sleep by mystic enoch	zodiac 209.193.14.10	20-Mar-06/1:14 PM
Yes, I'm open to the possibility of God existing. I'm open to the possibility of all kinds of things existing. The next question is, what qualities need to be present in order for you, AlChemy to call something "God" or "a god"? In other words, suppose there is a computer floating in space which is programmed to randomly produce different arrangements of matter of any mass or size - from where or according to what rules is immaterial. After a trillion years the computer destroys them and creates another arrangement. Obviously, given infinite cycles, one of those arrangements will eventually be our physical universe, with the conditions necessary for life to start on this planet. All randomly; ninety-nine times out of one hundred it just produces a huge mess, most likely. Is the computer God? Suppose, for another example, a computer floating in space is programmed to randomly cause one physical law to be broken for a short duration anywhere in the universe. Suppose the computer produces one of these law-breakings every milisecond. Again, it decides where the law is to be broken, what law, and for how long totally at random. Given the size of space, obviously law-breakings don't occur in the vicinity of Earth very often, but since the computer is RANDOMLY selecting places, there is the possibility that any number of law-breakings can happen on Earth in, say, one century. On Earth, it happens that law-breakings have taken the form of people levitating, objects transmogrify, or people return from the dead. Is the computer a God? Suppose again that all human beings are actually, for whatever reason, implanted by a scientist with electrodes to make them believe that they're humans living on earth when they are, in fact, immortal Zorgonians living on the planet Zorgon. The scientist's experiment calls for a subject to be disconnected from the electrodes and returned to normal Zorgonian life whenever it "dies" in its fantasy-earth. Is Zorgon heaven? Is the scientist God? If you've answered no -- and hint: you should -- then universe-creation, life-creation, miracle-causing, maker-and-controller-of-human-existence, and keeper-of-the-afterlife are not the qualities that mean "God" to you. So what IS the defining thing or things? To paraphrase -=Dark_Angel=-, how do you know "God" when you see him?
Re: a comment on REM Sleep by mystic enoch	ALChemy 24.74.100.11	20-Mar-06/12:59 PM
Happiness is wishy-washy. Most emotions are. Happiness is mostly being ignorant to all the bad things. Narrow it down as much as you want, it's still about what you believe in your heart is good and right and if logic applies to it then well that's a big bonus.
Re: a comment on REM Sleep by mystic enoch	ALChemy 24.74.100.11	20-Mar-06/12:35 PM
So you're quite open to the possibilty of God existing. Thank you, that's quite refreshing to hear from you. Or is comparing aliens and God just as fruitless as the apples and oranges comparison of God and love?
Re: a comment on REM Sleep by mystic enoch	zodiac 209.193.14.10	20-Mar-06/12:29 PM
"So God's just a romantic notion" No. Consider it this way: There is the possibility of alien life. Any specific idea about what alien life is (say, on Star Trek) is a romantic notion. ACTUAL alien life may be anything or nothing -- superintelligent floating gasclouds, rock-dumb microbes, something we wouldn't even technically consider "alive", nothing. ACTUAL alien life is not at all affected by people's ideas that aliens are supposed to look like Star Trek or whatever. The actuality of alien life is not a romantic notion. People have for centuries now tried to make educated guesses about what aliens look like. Mostly people guess that aliens look like something on earth, which is absurd of course. The best educated guess is that there is the possibility that aliens exist, which is not a romantic notion.
Re: a comment on REM Sleep by mystic enoch	ALChemy 24.74.100.11	20-Mar-06/12:24 PM
It sounded like Dovina to me. Must we even argue something based my first impression.
Re: a comment on REM Sleep by mystic enoch	ALChemy 24.74.100.11	20-Mar-06/12:17 PM
Actually I was comparing your comment to Amanda's "love is" comment(it's somewhere in the mess of comment under Dovina's Numbers in Heaven). So God's just a romantic notion like many peoples idea of love and art. Yep that pretty much was the point I was making. It just seems like we all pretty much have romantic notions about one thing or another, maybe you have romantic notions about your wife for instance. So I hope you wouldn't think anything less of me if I choose to hang on to the notion that god exists.
Re: a comment on REM Sleep by mystic enoch	zodiac 209.193.14.10	20-Mar-06/12:12 PM
"I was more refering to the insistant stile, how he already seems to know what heaven's like." She. And it's Absurdism, which is assuming that God is exactly like the God of the Old AND New Testaments, which is the only reasonable way of handling God in literature.
Re: a comment on REM Sleep by mystic enoch	ALChemy 24.74.100.11	20-Mar-06/12:07 PM
I was more refering to the insistant stile, how he already seems to know what heaven's like.