religion
Posts about religion, skepticism, and how it fits into the scientific world.
Why do we celebrate Christmas?
Christmas is a holiday that Christians around the world celebrate on December 25 to commemorate the birth of Jesus Christ. Christmas supposedly commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, and Christians view him as the Son of God. For those who are married, Christmas is celebrated on December 25 because Jesus was born in Bethlehem as the son of a married couple named Mary and Joseph.
By Asmita Paudel5 years ago in Futurism
The Stories Lie, I Never Loved A Bull
The gods and men alike love nothing better than to invent lies about us. Although they call us gossips, it is they who have mouths filled with forked tongues, telling tales for which we women pay in blood. The blood of our bodies, the blood of our children. We women always pay the debts, although we rarely incur them.
By Danielle Loewen5 years ago in Futurism
What Is The Ship Of Theseus Philosophy?
Theseus, the legendary Greek hero owned a ship, which he kept in a harbour as a museum piece, and as years rolled by, the wooden parts began to rot and had to be replaced. Every time a piece of the ship needed replacing it was replaced with a metal part. This went on for a few years until eventually it was entirely made of metal.
By somsubhra banerjee5 years ago in Futurism
The Simulationist Church
There are a group of people for whom the simulation hypothesis is no longer a hypothesis. They believe with their entire beings, their whole hearts and minds, that we are indeed simulated beings living in a simulated world. In the mid to late 1980s, some of them, how many it is impossible to say, banded together to found a church, the Church of Simulationalism also known as the Simulationist Church. Through the process of simulational submersion (also known as transsubsimulationtiation or just transsubsimulation for short), in a sop to the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, they come to know of our “real” position in this universe as simulated beings living in a simulated world. The Simulationalists have borrowed heavily from Catholic tradition for their “faith” as you will learn if you read more on the topic. This “religion” was founded on a set of 18 core principles, their foundational maxims or Simulationist’s Creed, which are published below as part of an introduction to the church, and as a first entry in what will be a series of stories on the topic. If you need some grounding or a refresher on the simulation hypothesis parts of my extensive (non-church based) collection of writings on the topic can be found here (Currently all you will find is message describing that my account has been suspended. Hopefully that will change someday but until then I plan to post a few articles here on Vocal that discuss some of the basic aspects of the simulation hypothesis at some point. When that will happen I cannot say.)
By Everyday Junglist5 years ago in Futurism
The Logical Problems of Monontheism
The logical problems of omniscience/omnipotence in monotheistic religions The biggest (logical) problem with most (not all) monotheistic religions is the supreme being is almost always omniscient/omnipotent. This raises a host of problems but the one I like to point to most often is the to good to be true problem (tgtbT). Incidentally, the simulation hypothesis falls victim to this issue as well, though in a slightly different way. Essentially tgtbT says that it is simply too easy to account for any aspect of why the universe is the way it is or why certain things happen and others don’t by pointing to the omnipotent/omniscient being and saying “because he/she/it made it that way….” Basically, it is the fall back position of all fall back positions and it can never be verified or disproven. Another way to put this is to say that an all powerful God can be used as an “excuse” to explain any feature of the world, humanity, or individual person including oneself, that one desires. The answer “Because God made it/wants it that way” can be used in any situation whatsoever to answer any question whatsoever and all discussion ends.
By Everyday Junglist5 years ago in Futurism
The Simulationist Church
Author’s note: Fragments (2 torn and blurred pages) of a handwritten note were recently uncovered during a local library tear-down in Fresno, California. The fragments appear to be a “debate” between two unnamed members of the simulationist church. They had been stuffed into the back of a metal filing cabinet in the basement of said library. The reasons for the strange location of the documents are anyone’s guess. I was informed of the find by letter, which arrived at my home address early last week. A random reader of some of my stuff (I have written and published extensively on both the simulation hypothesis and the simulationist church in the past) thought I might be interested in seeing them because of my frequent writings on the topic. In case you were wondering, yes I was a bit disturbed at how easy it apparently is for someone to determine exactly where you live. The two church ‘officials’ are referred to as simply S1 and S2 throughout, and the handwriting in the document alternates as each one makes their case. Unfortunately the back and forth that was legible was limited to what is transcribed below. There is a short preface in a third handwriting of which only a few sentences were legible and no dates were anywhere to be found, though the appearance of the paper itself suggests it is not that old, maybe 10–15 years max.
By Everyday Junglist5 years ago in Futurism
All about my Wiccan tradition. Part 4. Our rules and bylaws
This is the fourth part of my tradition Harmony. In this chapter we will go over our mission statement, membership, bylaws, etc.. It's important to read this article if you are planning on joining within the next few years.
By Danielle Mosley5 years ago in Futurism
Miracles and Free Will
Way back in the dark ages of January 2018 I wrote a piece in which I attempted to explain why I believe free will would be impossible if we lived in a simulated universe. As part the argument I wrote “if any intervention collapses free will than miracles do.” If you agree with that position it follows that in most (one could say all or almost all) major religions we do not have free will. My reasons for believing this are really quite simple. If any choice/act/decision we make can be “over-ruled” by the actions of a more powerful being or beings we do not have free will because the natural course of events has been altered and we had/have no choice in the matter. We have lost the ability to freely choose and thus we have lost free will. A “positive” miracle like raising of the dead might seem a great thing, and it certainly is for the revived dead man, but what about for the men that chose to kill him? They lost their choice. Their choice was revoked and thus they lost free will. If one or any lose free will, all do. The situation is identical for a simulated universe, except in place of God or Gods we have a Simulator or Simulators that intervene. If they alter the code to make something occur that would not have occurred in the natural or simulated but unmodified course of events, free will is lost for all. Even if it only happens one time, to one person, or even to one animal, or plant, or rock, or atom, or subatomic particle. Any intervention results in the total loss of free will for all things for all time. Since I find it very hard to believe that simulators would create a universe and then never intervene in any way in its evolution I find any simulated universe extremely unlikely to have free will. This same argument holds for any ‘real’ universe, including the one we (likely) live in.
By Everyday Junglist5 years ago in Futurism
