Posts by TonusOH

10

Youths who gave up amazing lives

by JohnR1975 in

when i was growing up i remember many young people interviewed on the platform at assemblies.

the ones who really stood out are the talented ones who gave up amazing lives to pioneer.. i remember specifically when i was a boy in the 70s and 80s some who were very good at sport or something.

their teachers begged them to get professional training use their talents to the full.

TonusOH

I got lucky. I was totally prepared to spend my days as a mail clerk making poverty-level wages as I waited on the New System. I had two hobbies; I liked to draw, and I was obsessed with computers. My mother did not care for either and openly discouraged them as wastes of time and resources. Still, I helped out with the handful of computers and printers at my job, and they were more than happy to have someone do that work while earning a low wage.

But they were expanding their use of computers quickly, and managing the computers started to take more and more of my work time. It just made sense to promote me and begin to pay me like an IT staffer. They increased my pay by 50% over the next 18 months and I had a career. This was right at the time that I was beginning my very slow fade. I've been working in IT for almost 30 years, now.

It's chilling to think how close I came to finding myself working in a mailroom for my whole working life, making a pittance and being easily replaceable. My mother stopped complaining about my career when my wages made it possible for her to enjoy a better life, but she never really expressed gratitude for what it provided for her.

62

Probability of Earth and life being how it is

by ballistic in

jw
friends

there are some things we don't know about existence and whether the earth is a simulation or even a creation.

but we can do some statistical analysis on it.. the probability of a planet like earth existing in the goldilocks zone and having a moon that perfectly eclipses the sun is extremely low, but it's not impossible.

the habitable zone (or goldilocks zone) around a star is the region where a planet could potentially support liquid water on its surface.

TonusOH

The question is also, in part, a recognition of how our senses work. Our bodies send information to the brain, which interprets it. It can also interpolate data as needed, such as the way it compensates for our visual blind spot. We actually need to fool the brain in order to 'see' the blind spot, because otherwise it just fills that void with data and we don't notice the effect.

We know the brain can present false data, such as pain signals (or lack thereof). If our perception of the world can be falsified by the very tool that allows us to percieve it... who knows what is possible? The behavior that leads to works like The Matrix is common enough that such ideas have been around for a very long time. There's one potential value to it: if I ever wake up in a vat of goo with a robot retracting some wires from my brain, I might actually know what is going on.

54

1975 !

by Sea Breeze in

how many of you here remember 1975?

i hope the newer generations never forget.the true believers got shamed for it.

those who were hedging their bets, fared much better.

TonusOH

3rdgen: The only thing worse than being clueless for 60 years is being clueless 60 years and one day.

~45ish years here.

I am reminded of a blog I read many years ago. It was written by a woman who was building wealth through investing. When someone asked whether it was too late to start investing at a certain age, her reply was "you'll never be as young as you are today."

Every moment that we spend not building towards the life we want, is another day wasted. So, we may as well start.

62

Probability of Earth and life being how it is

by ballistic in

jw
friends

there are some things we don't know about existence and whether the earth is a simulation or even a creation.

but we can do some statistical analysis on it.. the probability of a planet like earth existing in the goldilocks zone and having a moon that perfectly eclipses the sun is extremely low, but it's not impossible.

the habitable zone (or goldilocks zone) around a star is the region where a planet could potentially support liquid water on its surface.

TonusOH

Sea Breeze: Why would you routinely make present life choices based on probability; yet make choices about your eternal welfare based on another standard?

It's true that there are many facets of our lives where we make decisions despite a lack of certainty, in part because human communities are complicated things and because our brains aren't great at making rational and carefully thought out decisions. But for something as important as the existence of a god who is interested in me and my eternal future, I would want to be as certain as possible that I was right. The question is potentially the most important one to answer, and thus it makes sense to apply a more rigid standard to my approach.

62

Probability of Earth and life being how it is

by ballistic in

jw
friends

there are some things we don't know about existence and whether the earth is a simulation or even a creation.

but we can do some statistical analysis on it.. the probability of a planet like earth existing in the goldilocks zone and having a moon that perfectly eclipses the sun is extremely low, but it's not impossible.

the habitable zone (or goldilocks zone) around a star is the region where a planet could potentially support liquid water on its surface.

TonusOH

Sea Breeze: Can't disagree with that. But so what?

This is why I don't see the minimal facts approach as a useful argument for the legitimacy of the Bible.

ballistic: if I'm projecting the universe "out there", how could I tell that is the case, or even likely?

That sounds a bit like the free will question. Am I really free to make decisions, or are there so many other factors at play that I am just a puppet acting out a role I cannot possibly influence? If I am basically a running program, how could I know? And if I was to discover that I am, would I be able to break the programming, or would my reaction simply be more of the same? Is my reality everyone else's reality, or only mine? Am I a brain in a vat? And so on.

62

Probability of Earth and life being how it is

by ballistic in

jw
friends

there are some things we don't know about existence and whether the earth is a simulation or even a creation.

but we can do some statistical analysis on it.. the probability of a planet like earth existing in the goldilocks zone and having a moon that perfectly eclipses the sun is extremely low, but it's not impossible.

the habitable zone (or goldilocks zone) around a star is the region where a planet could potentially support liquid water on its surface.

TonusOH

Sea Breeze: The facts presented are not his

For the purposes of this discussion, that is a moot point. Many of the claimed facts are only found in the Bible, and thus are not corroborated by contemporary accounts. But even that doesn't matter. As I already said, if we accept all of those facts, they do not demonstrate the the Bible is true. And those facts would still support the explanation that the disciples were deluded into thinking that a dead man had been revived, as opposed to the claim that he was an actual god.

At best, it is inconclusive.

62

Probability of Earth and life being how it is

by ballistic in

jw
friends

there are some things we don't know about existence and whether the earth is a simulation or even a creation.

but we can do some statistical analysis on it.. the probability of a planet like earth existing in the goldilocks zone and having a moon that perfectly eclipses the sun is extremely low, but it's not impossible.

the habitable zone (or goldilocks zone) around a star is the region where a planet could potentially support liquid water on its surface.

TonusOH

That is Gary Habermas's "facts" approach. Even if we assume that all of those facts are true, it only gets us as far as "a preacher who claimed he was divine was executed, and his followers helped build a new religion around him." The idea that these men died believing something (that this preacher really was god) that wasn't true is not disputed by this approach.

It is a compelling argument for someone who already believes. And that is before we consider the problems with it.

62

Probability of Earth and life being how it is

by ballistic in

jw
friends

there are some things we don't know about existence and whether the earth is a simulation or even a creation.

but we can do some statistical analysis on it.. the probability of a planet like earth existing in the goldilocks zone and having a moon that perfectly eclipses the sun is extremely low, but it's not impossible.

the habitable zone (or goldilocks zone) around a star is the region where a planet could potentially support liquid water on its surface.

TonusOH

I jumped ahead to the obvious follow-up, since I know where this is going.

But, to humor you: no, I cannot think of any historical examples of that.

62

Probability of Earth and life being how it is

by ballistic in

jw
friends

there are some things we don't know about existence and whether the earth is a simulation or even a creation.

but we can do some statistical analysis on it.. the probability of a planet like earth existing in the goldilocks zone and having a moon that perfectly eclipses the sun is extremely low, but it's not impossible.

the habitable zone (or goldilocks zone) around a star is the region where a planet could potentially support liquid water on its surface.

TonusOH

Sea Breeze: That is a substantial retraction from your earlier statement:

No, it is not. I explained why it's clear that people will die for a lie.

You asked about the gospel writers, and I explained why we can't apply that standard to them. We cannot claim that they "fabricated, lived and preached a lie that guaranteed many of their loved ones would reject and shun them" because we don't know any of that. We cannot identify these "hundreds of people" you refer to. At best, we can make rational assumptions about them, but we cannot claim anything about them with certainty, because we have no idea who they were.

62

Probability of Earth and life being how it is

by ballistic in

jw
friends

there are some things we don't know about existence and whether the earth is a simulation or even a creation.

but we can do some statistical analysis on it.. the probability of a planet like earth existing in the goldilocks zone and having a moon that perfectly eclipses the sun is extremely low, but it's not impossible.

the habitable zone (or goldilocks zone) around a star is the region where a planet could potentially support liquid water on its surface.

TonusOH

We have no way to know if the gospel writers knew they were lying, because we don't even know who they were.

It is my understanding that the earliest examples of their writings are fragments of copies that were made decades (centuries?) after the originals had been created. In other words, we probably don't even have the earliest copies of copies of their work, much less the originals.

It seems more likely that they wrote --and embellished-- stories they heard from others who claimed to have been there. We have no way to know if they paid for this with their lives or how they might have reacted if any pressure had been placed on them to recant. There are four gospels in the Bible, but a great many were written around that time. I don't get the impression that these writers were concerned that they might face dire consequences from producing them.

So, my guess would be that they either were not concerned that they would be executed for writing these texts, or they sincerely believed in something that they had not experienced. I'm inclined to believe the former, but the latter is not unheard of.