Since I’m posting just after normal time I’ll leave the post short. Scratched a big chunk of the blue light coating off of my glasses and basically ruined them. Gonna have to go through the whole process of getting a new pair again. >:[ Anyway, Ill catch you guys on Friday and give you a better report if I’m not in a rush again. Stay safe out there.

18 Comments

I’m always amazed by people who don’t call themselves Christian but still act as if Christianity is truth. Like my mom’s been to church 5 times in her life but felt uncomfortable tossing a hand bible in the garbage. Do you believe or not? ? These two are exhibiting similar behavior for characters that I thought were established atheists/agnostics.

Belief evolves over time for some people. It gets stronger or weaker because of various experiences. A person can also know a belief system without believing it if for no other reason than to help communicate with believers. Locking yourself in to one way of thinking, or not leaving yourself open to the possibility that you might be wrong leads to conflict. Flexibility of thought is easier for change and growth. Intellectual curiosity is better, in my opinion, than intellectual inflexibility.

Thomas is pretty agnostic and has gone into detail on his views as such, yeah. It goes hand-in-hand with his nihilistic outlook.

Carol, on the other hand, is a practicing Christian, though she’s clearly not the stereotypical church-goer.

As I recall, they had a conversation about this on-panel a while back, where Thomas was surprised to find out that she’s a fair bit more pious than he is (though that’s a low bar to clear).

My opinion is that it is very short sighted to assume that no neural activity could exist in ways we do no understand, so a higher being existing seems likely to me. On the other hand the fan clubs explaining things we do not understand feel a little off to me. Does not mean I have not read the holy texts and am rising an eyebrow when they talk their talk but do not walk their walk but none of my business in all honesty.
I personally also keep a bible around. It is not written that much worse than lord of the rings or a song of ice and fire considering it is almost two millennia older.

The Bible is written much worse than either of those series. Read Numbers and tell me it’s an enjoyable narrative. Especially when you consider we’re all reading translations that deliberately try to make it all seem more cohesive than it was with it’s original dozens of authors, references to non-canonical books, etc. Some of the translations are hilarious; one version translates Lilith, Adam’s first wife, is excised from Genesis, but is referenced in later books…and translators have “fixed” this by changing the reference to things like “demon,” which makes a bit of sense, but also “owl,” because surely that’s the same thing as a demon, much less one of the first humans. So we get to read versions that actively try to make the books more enjoyable, and it still has alot of weird stuff like Isaiah’s antics. However, it is a valuable insight into the thinking of the people then, since we have such a limited number of written sources to reference, relatively speaking.

As stated, you need an arbiter otherwise early comic Brooksie would be in the fire place because she said a mean thing in kindergarten, while early comic Reggie would be up in the good place. And then he would accidentally set it on fire.
.
But yea, when you die you get your day in court. If you are Abrahamic you are “blessed until proven damned” and given an sexy angel defense lawyer and demon prosecutor. And if you ain’t Abrahiamic you are “damned until proven blessed” with a sexy demon defense lawyer and a Biblically accurate angel prosecutor.
And each judge has a different rule system. Some allow non-canon scripture to count (Dead Sea Scrolls), others adhere to the Bible but if there is a contradiction then earlier parts supersede it, others say later parts supersede it, and others just ignore the Bible completely.

If I had to design a reward/punishment-based afterlife system of judgement, I’d set it up so that when you die whatever the values you claimed to believe in are set as the standard and then the soul of every person you have ever interacted with gets polled on whether you lived up to those values in each interaction with you. If the result of that poll is at least 50% yes, you get the reward, if it’s not, you get the punishment.

From there every afterlife is tailored to what would be the optimal eternal reward or punishment for you, and if you get the reward you have the option to visit the afterlives of anyone who will allow you to do so, and you may combine your afterlife with anyone who also got the reward afterlife and agrees to do so.

Reincarnation is on the table after an arbitrary period of time, let’s say 100 years. It is fully voluntary. People from the punishment afterlife are given a list of crappy options for worse lives to reincarnate into in order to try to atone and earn a better afterlife on the next go around. People from the reward afterlife are given a list of perks they are allowed to choose from to make their next life easier/better.

Oooooh, I like it. Interesting idea.
But of course the immediate flaws are:
+The people polled may be morons. Person A values hard work, when polled people say Person A is lazy, they think this because Person A is female. And we also have smear campaigns, rumors, gossip.
And that goes in both directions. People’s perceptions change wildly. One day “insert celebrity” is well liked, next day it turns out they “insert crime” and are ruined. Or a celeb can be scum but then do a PR blitz and turn it public perception around (Mel Gibson).
The most interesting case would be Abraham Lincoln. He values freedom, but poll Southerns and he took away their freedom. The freedom to have slaves. EVIL!
+The values being judged against may be bad. Ned Flanders values 100% perfection and everyone polled would say he is 99% perfect. Damned. Meanwhile Jason Vorhees values “Jason stabs people”. And everyone polled said he was good at that. Heaven.
It fits in perfectly with the “heaven is full of psychos and hell is full of nice pansies.”
+Of course this assumes the person being polled is under some kind of truth spell.
Because otherwise they could just lie to raise / lower your standing. All the delusional mothers would praise their perfect little brats, while all the mean girls would diss on nice girls one last time.
.
Reincarnation is strictly forbidden in the Abrahmic religions. But if you just get a do-over, then go nuts. Commit all the murder and torture. Then you get to try again with a clean slate and then go to heaven.
Meanwhile if you are in Heaven and get to Issekai Respawn with super perks: well then the most obvious perk would be to be born rich and healthy. Sorry kids, poverty and disease is a moral failing. Spit on the homeless and flip them wheelchairs.

I like that phrase, “flip them wheelchairs.”
XD
Sadly, outside of jokes, I probably can’t use it very often.
;D

It takes long enough climbing back out of her cleavage each panel that I have no energy left for other deep endeavors. Like thinking about the afterlife. I mostly think when we leave this life behind, all that’s left of us is the impact we’ve had, which is a lot of why I write. And why I draw ample cleavage. .

“Cattle die, kinsmen die …”

Not that anyone has asked, but-
[some time back], in the comments- there was a discussion about the rarity of- very muscular men(?), and/or heftier than average men, who are cast as- the stars of Hollywood’s films.

[From what I’ve seen, Hollywood’s current, “big, big, muscular men”, all look like Tom Cruise.

Tom Cruise is about 5 foot 8.., and- if he he doesn’t eat his daily doughnut, he’ll shrink down to the “body building” size of Barney Fife!] :D

Anyway- a film with a, my words, a larger leading man, is the 1982 film-

“Yes, Giorgio”.

I think it is a very good, romantic film.

It stars [the opera singer], Luciano Pavarotti.
When he’s in the film- his huge confidence, + his fantastic singing, really amaze this movie’s audience.

I’ve seen the film several times, when it was shown on TV.
I think it is a gem of a film.
:)

Interesting thing about having this conversation in front of Him. It’s not like one can hide from the Almighty but is trying to judged worse than saying whatever one will right in front His icon?

(For those keeping track I’m agnostic.)

An all knowing all powerful being who does not stop any of the horrors and will not show their existence may as well not exist. If they may as well not exist perhaps they do not exist. I do know that many prayers have been offered to improve the state of the world but they go unanswered.

Any alternate history buff will tell you that sometimes, when you try to fix the past, you end up making the future worse in ways you never imagined.

Oh, and “no” is an answer. The prayers aren’t unanswered, they’re just not acted on.

So which is more useful a god that does not exist or a god who for all intents and purposes does not exist?

Hm. Here’s a big topic-
being that most of us, in these comments- keep ourselves anonymous +/or use aliases/screen-names- you + I, + others, debating this idea(s) is probably, nearly pointless.

We risk nothing by being polite + thoughtful people, + we risk nothing by being total jerks- in these comments. Nothing is risked, in our debating anything, here.
If the debate doesn’t go well for us, we can always bail, + come back to the comments with a new name. There is no risk involved to the commenters.

What is the purpose of an all-knowing + all-powerful god who doesn’t stop the horrors…?

That’s a complicated question, that could take several hours of debating + discussion to iron out.

First- we’d have to: prove that the god we’re talking about exists, prove that this god is all-powerful, prove that this god is all knowing, prove that this god answers prayers + helps people with this god’s answers…

I do not know you personally, but I don’t think that you want me to give you, in these comments: a semester of Religions 101, or [the Christian Religion 101].
My trying to attempt that would probably take mountains of pages, + I think that Jackie would…, rightly so, tell me to stop that nonsense.

I’m not telling people to be theist, or not to be theist, or to be anything, in my making of this comment.

However- the idea of [prayers to improve things, + these prayers went unanswered] has been mentioned.

I’m not saying that anyone has to believe these stories, but, I have Christian friends who believe: [ 1] a girl prayed to her god to save her grandfather from a terminal illness, + she says her god saved him, and 2] a mother prayed that her god would save her daughter from death, and she says that he saved her daughter, and 3] a young child prayed that her god would save her mother from death, and she says- he saved her mother.]

I can’t scientifically prove to anyone that- these people prayed to a god, + that this god scientifically exists, and that this god answered the prayers + helped them. But through these people’s practices + beliefs, [they] believe that their god did these things for them.

If people want to believe in gods or not, I have no problem with that. That’s their choice. I believe that they have the freedom to choose + do those things, if they want to do so.

If you or others have an interest in finding: people of the Christian religion, or some other religions, who believe that- their gods heard their prayers, + helped them in their lives- I suggest considering- visiting, calling, or emailing these people’s places of worship, and talking to [these people + their clergy-people] about their experiences.

In closing- I’m not in any form, asking or telling anyone to: to be theist, to be non-theist, or to be any kind of non-religious or to be any kind of non-religious.

Wishing everyone peace + love.

I hope that you’re having a good day.

There is an arbiter. John 14:6 Yes, I had to look it up. Luckily, there’s resource material available most everywhere.

2847 Heaven For Climate, Hell For Company.

18 Comments

Leave a Reply to Mow Cancel reply