Phi for All

! Moderator Note You misspelled "ignorance".

IIRC, Cthulhu is the god of tooth extraction and torture.

I think your mistake lies in the phrase "love we idolize in our thoughts". This wishful state presumes we won't have to work at loving that one other person, that we'll perceive them as perfect, and that this state will be effortless to maintain. Lasting love that comes without effort probably is unattainable. But you'll find that as soon as you're willing to commit to that other person, to continually improve your relationship with the one you love, and do the actual work that makes both lives richer, easier, and more fulfilling, love like you describe in the OP becomes possible. It seems to be one of those things you can do if you believe you can and work hard to make it happen.

How does being created evil by a perfect god broaden my choices? I realize faith has little to no reason involved, but the whole free will argument pits our earthly years against eternity, and gives us nebulous, widely interpreted scripture from the Bronze Age to help us decide. And if I decide your religion condones slavery and intolerance and hypocritical behavior, and generally goes against my basic morality, for standing up against that your god wants to roast me forever. Boo! If your god created me, he made me smarter than that.

! Moderator Note You know the drill by now when you keep insisting with waving hands rather providing evidence and reasoning for your assertions and how they apply to the topic. Soapboxing is against the rules. You need more rigor and study on this one to keep it open.

! Moderator Note You don't get a pass pushing unsupported speculation just because you put this in Philosophy. If you want to make assertions like this, you're going to have to defend them in the right setting, Speculations.

He seems willing to punish us for eternity based on things done before we were born. He judged all human actions based on the first two. He's supposed to be perfect, all-knowing, all-seeing, yet he created us with a flaw he punishes us for. A creator seems like a commander in that respect. You're responsible for whatever happens, especially if you already knew it would turn out that way. And who blames their creations for imperfections in the first place? If I make a chair that wobbles, why make the chair responsible?

! Moderator Note You have a thread discussing this speculative notion. Do NOT introduce it in mainstream topics, since that's hijacking, and against the rules.

That's dangerous reasoning (or a dangerous lack). It assumes the verses, even when they sound horrific, are automatically benign and well-intentioned. Anyone who wants to manipulate your belief system just has to convince you you haven't studied them extensively enough. When it continues to sound like God turned a blind eye to His people's slaver-behavior, even though he's supposed to love all people, Pastor Doug has an interpretation that makes it all OK. It's a form of the Begging the Question fallacy.

I'm senile, he's soft, I Don't Know is on third. You're coming out of left field, so you must be Why. We've come a long way from the days when you'd just have someone sanctioned for lipping off to a mod. Nowadays, we let these threads go on so we can gather compromising intel on the offenders and sell it.

We draw some lines, and I think it's a good thing. Should we have allowed David Webb to continue his Pedophelia Ain't So Bad thread? I'm not sure we gain much with some unethical subjects.

! Moderator Note Supporting links are appreciated, but this is a science discussion site. You should use links to support your own words. Since you aren't discussing anything, it looks like you're advertising for one particular site. This is against the rules, so please feel free to participate in the conversations.

This would seem to give you the best options for keeping your work clothes out of the weather in a consistent and efficient way. Consider that an umbrella isn't the right tool when the winds get that high. As SJ points out, if the brolly doesn't break, one or both of you are off on a flight. I pictured you arriving for work in a coverall (or a diver's drysuit), stepping out of it to reveal your tuxedo like James Bond. You may have a different kind of office.

It's more efficient than non-life at using and dissipating light as energy for work, so it seems inevitable given enough time.

Believe it or not, scientists don't look for proof, they look for evidence that supports the hypothesis. When enough evidence in support piles up, and no evidence against can be found, they start calling it a theory. It's unfair to hold religious claims to a standard of proof science doesn't follow. Proof is for philosophy and maths.

Hey, wait a minute, how does an omniscient, omnipotent, perfect god mess up ALL LIFE? He knew it would happen, he had the power to fix it, he did it anyway, and now holds his creations responsible for his mistake, tormenting them for eternity because he designed them to die?! Mysterious ways indeed.

It would be expensive. What if the moon refuses to wear it?

Sorry, I stopped reading at this. How would being "really good" prevent death? Does goodness reverse aging somehow? Can you provide any evidence of this? I'll read on... Wait a minute, we're evil because we're going to inevitably die? How does that work? This makes it sound like your god designed us to be evil, because he designed us to be mortal. Why would I be held responsible? Most religious beliefs lack reasoning, but I find this really difficult to process.

When you make strawmen huge, everybody can easily see them. This one can be seen from LEO. But it shows us the limits of your stance.

And this kind of misunderstanding seems to crop up a lot when religious people pretend their beliefs are rational. They put a lot of store in faith, yet they also want to claim they reached their beliefs in a reasoned manner. Science already has testable explanations for consciousness and NDEs, so the religious have to choose between the natural and the supernatural in cases like this.

! Moderator Note Obviously, this thread's focus was limited from the start, since Catholics are Christians, and the Pope has recognized evolution as a fact. And now it's attracting hijackers and off-topic debate, so we are done here.

In the case of the public health, or for things the politicians can't get the people to support (like the end of slavery in the US), sometimes leadership has to listen to their best and brightest minds (the supposedly "people dumb" folks) and simply insist it's in all our best interests to take a decisive step. Some stupidities are worth a civil war if they can be fixed forever. Is that really what you call "people dumb"? Or is it perhaps the only way to deal with certain issues? I think when dealing with dumb people like anti-vaxxers, trying to be people-smart has shown itself to be completely ineffective. They'll only catch on when their children stop dying from easily preventable diseases, but by then they'll be blaming something else.

Business models treat medicine as something to be prolonged for maximum profit. In the US, when a cure for polio was discovered, there were many physicians who objected because it ruined their businesses treating the symptoms. Illness and suffering shouldn't be evaluated with the same plans used for unlimited growth. Education is the better option. It's a civic responsibility to make sure you do your part to keep everyone in your community safe from harm. Immunization is just as smart as trash removal and cleaning public lavatories. You probably aren't required to serve in the armed forces, but citizens do have other duties to each other. I don't mind being told to wash my hands, don't litter, drive on the correct side of the road, be quiet in the library, cover your mouth when you sneeze. Vaccinations should be thought of in those terms, and not with the weird conspiratorial paranoia the anti-vaxxers use.

! Moderator Note You need to seek professional help in your area. We aren't equipped (no online resource is) to deal with your problem, and since we care we MUST insist you get together with a mental health professional in person to discuss the next steps in getting you back on your personal path. I hope you'll understand and seek help. Feel free to stop by and join in science discussions, but no more threads asking for opinions on medical matters. Thread closed.

I don't really have a recipe for you. It would be optimum if you could find the amazement, the sheer awe and wonder the rest of us do for science topics, and join in the conversations about those topics, and leave the more common social chatter for Facebook or Twitter. We tend to talk about religion from a reasoned perspective as well, so if you're a person of faith, I'd recommend anywhere else to discuss your god(s). We have no interest in being a one-stop shop for everyone's social media yearnings. We're a science discussion forum with a focus on mainstream science.