Great observation about a myth

author unknown but edited by moof

"Seems that some people worship the incredible shrinking deity. At one time it was supposedly capable of flinging thousands of billions of galaxies into existence with a mere thought. As time passed it was reduced to flooding an insignificant speck in the cosmos. More time passes and its best trick was moving a tiny portion of a minor sea aside for a short while. By the time of ponchus pilot, it has to send a delegate on its behalf who leaves behind only rumors that he was able to turn water into another beverage, or render himself extra buoyant. Now it counts as a miracle if a water stain grows mold that kind of looks like a bearded face which could be claimed to resemble this supposed delegate. How much more pathetic can this deity get?"
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What's the more distasteful, calling yourself an antialienist or
discussing the myth about aliens with someone that believes in them ?

Irregardless this was popsted for texlib and a few others that
might not have seen this observation before.
moof is well aware that the word "irregardless" does not exist,
that's something it shares in common with deities.

I don't recall any blatantly religious actions (pointing to the sky, "praying" after a touchdown, etc) during the Super Bowl - must give thanks for the little things!

eom.

...a plane crashes and one survivor manages to live through the ordeal. Wait for it....

"Praise God! It's a miracle!"

Me "It's a miracle that 199 people died?"

a QM fluctuation that violates most of the other "laws" of science.

Sorry Charlie - you get to have your belief, and I get to have mine -

and we both must admit that neither of us can "prove" the other incorrect.

I should say that if we are both logical, we can not claim to have the ability to prove the other wrong.

peace

:-)

Irregardless is a word that many mistakenly believe to be correct usage in formal style, when in fact it is used chiefly in nonstandard speech or casual writing. Coined in the United States in the early 20th century, it has met with a blizzard of condemnation for being an improper yoking of irrespective and regardless and for the logical absurdity of combining the negative ir- prefix and -less suffix in a single term. Although one might reasonably argue that it is no different from words with redundant affixes like debone and unravel, it has been considered a blunder for decades and will probably continue to be so.

Moof knows that very well. He knows it's MY pet peeve, so he puts it in many of his posts just to get a rise outta me.

But I'm not falling for it. Nuh-uh... I'm not gonna respond.

YESSSSSSSSSSSSS got another one
moof adds ArkDem to the stringer with Dookus and Yellow rubberduckie.

It did however make for a nice tie in considering the topic.

one subject or another. First, dinosaurs were slow moving, cold-blooded reptiles. Now, they're speedy, warm-blooded ancestors of birds.

Some say the universe is expanding. Some say it is contracting. Some say neither.

We all have our myths.

To me the difference is that science openly invites challenges to it's statements.

Whereas Faith takes challenges as an opportunity to win the challenger over to faith, science takes challenges as an opportunity for a new idea to win over science. Changes in accepted theories aren't failures of science. These 180's are, infact, sciences best indication of success. They show growing knowlege and progress.

Science actively tests and improves itself, not only defining the border of what is known, but how surely it is known. To me, Faith is what lies beyond these boundaries of science.

If you fear that science is putting an ever smaller box "around God," rest easy with this thought. Almost every scientific "discovery" seems to raise more questions than it answers. Thus science EXPANDS the boundaries of God daily.

All my opinion.

that science does a 180 every few years.

It's not a 180 to make new discoveries that add more data to the knowledgebase. Nobody ever died for the belief that dinosaurs were cold-blooded. It was a hypothesis based on the best available evidence. New evidence shows they may not have been cold-blooded. That's a 5 degree turn, not a 180 degree one.

And the universe is expanding. I don't think anybody knowledgeable doubts that. The question is whether it will continue to expand indefinitely or not.

on edit:

What did we know about dinosaurs 200 years ago? Nothing at all.
What did we know about the universe 600 years ago? Practically nothing.
What has religion done to expand our knowledge on these matters? Nothing at all. What has science done to expand our knowledge on these matters? A helluva lot.

A couple thousand years ago, people worshiped a diety who created a single world. It's people lived on a single flat land mass, surrounded by seas and covered with a sky some indeterminant height above the land. That sky had specs of light at night, some of which moved, plus the Sun, Moon, and clouds of various sorts.

But now we know our world is much larger than we thought. Even more, we know it is round, yet the people on the "bottom" don't fall off, nor even have any awareness of being upsidedown.

Even more, this world is but one of many which orbit the Sun. That sun is not unique. All the skies specs of lights are other worlds, or other suns. In fact, many billions of such "stars" are clumped together with our Sun-star, making up a system called a Galaxy, and there are billions of those.

The universe in which all this exists is itself changing in size. We struggle to find means of determining if it expands or shrinks, and if it will continue to do so, or reverse its motion.

At the same time we've expanded our view of the largeness of Gods creation, we also are finding spectacle in the SMALLNESS of that creation. All these wonderous things are made of tiny bits so small we can't see them with our eyes, nor with microscopes. In fact, our best knowlege of these bits is through mathematical calculations. These calculations give results close enough to what we can observe that we THINK we're on the right track, but like examining the expansion or contraction of the universe, we've much work to do in examining the smallest bits of that universe.

So, from an ancient world composed of what we could merely touch and see, todays God rules over an infinite universe containing billions of worlds, all made of tiny bits so small that only a few of us can even IMAGINE them.

God hasn't gotten smaller. The opposite, in fact. Furthermore, science gives us reason to suspect we've barely scratched the surface of Gods greatness.

All just my opinion.

Thank you, we are all refreshed and challenged by your unique opinion.


There is a line of people waiting in the misty type fog at the gates made of gold.
A man with a scroll in front of the gates asks the first man in line:
"What Religion," ......"Buddhist," the man replies.
"Okay, Go to room 18, but be real quiet when you pass room 8."
The man goes off on his way.
The second man is asked "What Religion?"
"moslem," the man replies.
"Okay,Go to room 21, but be real quiet as you pass room 8."
The man goes off on his way.
The third man is asked "What Religion?"
"Jewish," the man replies.
"Okay, Go to room 12, but be real quiet when you pass room 8."
I can understand putting us all in seperate rooms," says the third man,
"but why must we be quiet as we pass room 8?"
"Because the Christians are in there,
and they think they are all by themselves."
The third man laughs as he says so the christians
think they are the only ones in heaven.
The man with the scroll looks at him & says
This isn't heaven.