Angry's Blog of Doom (or idiocy....take your pick)

[Angry_Games]

I have another question for you HG... You say that it is obvious that some things are wrong (ie- murder, pedophilia, greed, etc....). This means that there is a set of actions that is right and a set of actions that are wrong. This is the principle of moral absolutes, which means that there is a set of actions that is opposed to what is "right" just becasue of the nature of reality.

 

My question(s) is how do you define those moral absolutes? I mean, if there is no higher authority (government, religion, mystical forces, etc.) to enforce these "universal laws" then how or why could they exist? Or as the universe may be a cosmic accident, then how could there possibly be anything that is "morally obvious"? Any moral belief would simply be a consequence of government and society. So, without the presence of consequence, is there really any reason to not act as you wish even if it violates your idea of what is obviously wrong?

 

 

ps- this is from a purely philosophical point of view...

 

 

here's how it works

 

would you murder someone just to murder them?

 

would you rape a woman just to have her for any reason or no reason?

 

would you diddle a child?

 

Come on...there are some things that are inherently right and inherently wrong.

 

That is what makes us humans.

 

Would your wife or mom eat her young?

 

No, but a dog will, as will almost any animal under circumstances that do not include starvation.

 

see the line of separation there?

 

Would your pet chinchilla have . just because it felt good?

 

no, animals and insects have been repeatedly proved time and again to have . based on instinct, and that instict revolves around the females (in bisexual cases...in asexual cases I am sure there is another set of instincts but I didn't major in asexual biology so can't give you any better answer) going into a predermined (by genetics) 'heat' or ovulation of fertile period or whatever you want to call it.

 

Humans by instinct will reproduce, but we are the only higher animal really that has . for pure pleasure (and the only animal to use it as a weapon, use it as a bargaining chip, use it for anything other than what other animals and insects etc use it for).

 

 

There are many things that separate us from all the lower animals...but the ability to love I think is the one that is the base, and all other emotions (which is what truly separates us, or maybe it is the ability to express emotions or to even philosophise about them?) stem from that one.

 

Love can be pure, and it can be corrupt. It can be the best thing that ever happened, and it can be pure hell. Really depends on the context of the love you are feeling.

 

I seriously doubt animals have this ability...but I could be wrong and maybe it's just like all the magazine cartoons depict...the instant you leave the house, your cats and dogs all gather around the table an whip out the poker chips and cigars and break out the animal booze and catnip bongs...I dunno...reality is really subjective depending on one's point of view).

 

Speaking of reality...who's version is more real?

 

What if you are my subconcious arguing with me to keep me from thinking about what is really happening in my real universe? I've made you up and many other friends and what appear to be a lifetime of memories and and emotions just to pass the time in some deep sleep? Maybe to forget some great horror? Maybe I'm god and I've gone totally insane and don't realize it? Maybe YOU are god and YOU'VE gone totally insane and we are not real, but some extension of your omnipotence to keep you company to shield whatever it is that is your mind or soul or being from dealing with some great mystery or horror or mistake or...ya know? Who knows?

 

That in itself is another thing that separates us, and makes us human....the imagination. I don't know if animals and insects have imagination, but I imagine they'd have figured out how to communicate in some way with us by now if they could even imagine anything because the first thing I think you'd imagine would be figuring out how to communicate with these giant things that keep smashing your nest or killing your children and eating them or ripping you out of the water etc.

 

 

 

As we've evolved as a higher animal, these thoughts, these imaginations, these feelings and emotions...they have formed very distinct patterns and barriers and limits.

 

We've evolved as a race that does not feel good about hurting others. Once we've reached a point of our lives where we understand our own mortality, the thought of ending someone else's life becomes some horrific, unimaginable tragedy.

 

But like in nature...there are abberations. There are always those in nature who do not function as the rest of the pack, the hive, the school, whatever does. In humans, these abberations generally are not evil. They are simply devoid of certain brain functions that allow them to understand that the rest of the group frowns upon the unwritten moral codes.

 

If you raised a human and never taught the human any morals...neither good nor bad...raised it like an animal, I think you'd see a lot of natural instinct...but natural instinct does not include killing for pleasure nor for sport nor for any reason but survival...whether it be food or defense or for some other value other than anything we associate with murder.

 

Like animals, humans revert back to instinct if not given rearing within a group of at least 1 peer. Instinct, like in all life, is devoid of emotion.

 

But

 

like traits that can be bred in or out of an animal, if a child is taken at birth and raised without human interaction and without human guiding, that baby will grow into an adult and follow the instincts that are natural as well as any group behavoirs taught by whatever reared/raised him (and we know this has to be true as human babies are among the weakest newborns and will die immediately without other humans to nurture it in it's first couple of years).

 

But a human, coming from modern humans like us, have developed emotions. I would imagine that emotions could be 'bred out' of us within a few generations, but I dare say that humans of that nature could be considered humans anymore, as being 'human' and/or 'humane' is...where we get the term for ourselves. It means to be what we recognize as humans, capable of emotions, imagination, independent thought, etc.

 

If we truly evolved from lower animals, and I am heartily convinced with all of the evidence I've seen in my lifetime on how evolution works and how that applies to humans as well as evidence of our race itself evolving over time, then I think that our ability to communicate might stem from some abberation that gave us emotions...or maybe our emotions are an abberation that have inclined us to learn to communicate with something other than peeing on a tree to alert Bob that this is my section of forest so buzz off before I bite a toe off ya.

 

 

 

We've bred into animals plenty of traits...maybe we've bred into ourselves many traits. Maybe someone else bred in or out many traits? Who knows?

 

That question right there is the greatest evidence that we are not under the control of some diety.

 

That question right there is what has left more humans, both deeply and truly religious as well as the most skeptical skeptic ever born, awake many a night pondering.

 

Why are we here?

 

What else is there?

 

Are we alone?

 

These are the questions that we cannot answer. We try to answer by making up stories to make ourselves feel like we are not alone in the universe, that our lives are not meaningless and are under control of some higher power.

 

We modern humans don't like to be alone (some do, but again they are not the norm, and the norm is overwhelming that we are social creatures who dig interaction with others of our species).

 

Imagine humans from years back in the ancient times when the sun eclipses had them killing entire villages in scared sacrifice, or every earthquake was a punishment from our creator etc. You can imagine why humans, with newfound intelligence and imagination and emotion, would come up with such stories.

 

We are scared (emotion) of that earth movement that caused all of us huddling together in this cave (social) to nearly die so we kinda lose common sense and decide that some higher power is angry with us (imagination) and then we'll write it down and pass it through the ages (intelligence) to explain it away to others.

 

 

Kinda works out just fine don't it?

 

I could fit any story to any situation...that's the beauty of the human mind and how it has evolved from a purely instinctual organism to a mighty calculating powerhouse of ideas and feelings that it is today.

 

 

 

 

What is moral is how we've evolved through our history and have come to accept certain beliefs that some actions are acceptable and others unacceptable.

 

This is why we feel murder is wrong...because it is wrong to remove the life of something as intelligent and sentient as yourself.

 

It feels wrong to steal or rape or hurt because WE OURSELVES feel hurt when someone rapes, robs, or muders us or someone we LOVE.

 

 

So, without the presence of consequence, is there really any reason to not act as you wish even if it violates your idea of what is obviously wrong?

 

without presence of consequence, there would be chaos.

 

This is like asking "if there was no tree, could it fall down in the forest?"

 

if there was no tree, there could be no foreset, hence, no forest for no tree to not fall down in

 

there is consequence to every action

 

we became thinking, feeling individuals....the consequence is now we are not living like we see other animals live...we live with rules to govern us because animals do not have rules other than natural rules (and reminder...their natural rules do not include things that involve emotion like murder or "hurting each other" etc).

 

we need to eat to survive...the consequence is that we must kill something to be able to survive by eating it...whether it is a buffalo or a blade of grass...something has to die for us to stay alive because we cannot survive on dead objects for any length of time.

 

we must kill something to live...the consequence is we have to now tell ourselves that we must kill, but it has a reason, so it is acceptable. It is either the banana, or me. I will kill the banana and eat it so that I will not die and it will eat me (as fertilizer in one form or another perhaps?).

 

now we have to 'murder' something so we can live...the consequence is that we must do this repeatedly throughout our lives so, but if this is unacceptable murder, we must override it constantly so as to survive because our survival is a bigger concern. So we must evolve over time by telling ourselves that killing something to ensure our own survival is not really murder.

 

we don't eat other humans...so the consequence of killing them has not been bred out of our psyche, and it reminds us that we are very wrong in killing for no reason.

 

when we match the killing of a human that is of no use to us once dead, to any other thing we killed (a banana gave us life, the lion was gonna kill us for his own food so it was ok to waste him, etc), our brain knows that the killing of a human without reason or without a survival reason, or any reason that has followed us through evolution as a trait that has blunted to killing of other living things is a bad thing.

 

consequence of this? the emotions that we've allowed to follow us down our genetic lines kick in and they react with something other than immediately preparing to eat it or running in fear from it lest there be more that want to kill you lol.

 

 

 

as Morpheus once said in the original, awesome Matrix movie...

 

depends on how far down the rabbit hole you want to go...

[paulmx]

If you are sitting in a car travelling at the speed of light and turned the headlights on would you see anything?

 

Why is some guy in Sweden making key chains from old Pentium 3 CPU's; does this mean that you can overclock a Volvo?

 

Why is some guy in Sweden making a case mod out of a Volvo?

 

Why did they invent Sli boards and then follow up with a single slot dual graphic's card?

 

I often wonder about living in a country where I drink copy diet coke, smoke copy British Cigarette's, watch copy DVD's and drive a copy Isuzu pick up truck; does that mean that while I was out everthing in my house was replaced with an exact copy of the original and how would I be able to tell?

 

Are former executives of General Motors from the 1970's in charge of the production strategy of computer hardware or does the industry in general use them as a business model plan to keep us buying technology with built in obsolescense?

 

Did I spell obsolescence right?

 

Will the Toronto Maple Leafs ever win the Stanley Cup again?

[Angry_Games]

If you are sitting in a car travelling at the speed of light and turned the headlights on would you see anything?

 

no. travelling at the speed of light creates a quantum singularity effect stretching time and space...you woudn't see anything (if I understand the theory of relativity that is)

 

Why is some guy in Sweden making key chains from old Pentium 3 CPU's; does this mean that you can overclock a Volvo?

 

if a tree falls in a forest, does that mean a chainsaw can cut flesh?

 

Why is some guy in Sweden making a case mod out of a Volvo?

 

probably because Volvo cars are made in Sweden, and the guy likes to mod computer cases, and so has chosen to combine the two

 

Why did they invent Sli boards and then follow up with a single slot dual graphic's card?

 

I don't know, but I feel like it is one or both of the following answers:

 

1. at the time, they couldnt get two gpu's and the memory for each on the same pcb board and get it all to work correctly

 

or

 

2. they created a two-card system to sell chipsets since their SLI solution only worked on their own chipsets...if you have a dual-gpu solution on two cards, you don't need an Nvidia chipset

 

I often wonder about living in a country where I drink copy diet coke, smoke copy British Cigarette's, watch copy DVD's and drive a copy Isuzu pick up truck; does that mean that while I was out everthing in my house was replaced with an exact copy of the original and how would I be able to tell?

 

no, since you live in china, most likely you are using forgeries or copies that are not mfg'd by the name-brand companies you are inquiring about. China is well known, as is most of asia, as a great place for copies, forgeries, and black-market items to be bought and sold.

 

 

 

Are former executives of General Motors from the 1970's in charge of the production strategy of computer hardware or does the industry in general use them as a business model plan to keep us buying technology with built in obsolescense?

 

Did I spell obsolescence right?

 

no I think young people are what constantly drives the technology industry as everything is getting smaller/faster/better.

 

It is the older ones that classy lady a lot about how the new stuff isn't compatible with the old stuff, or why didn't they make this new thing with an old function? (ask NEOAethyr...he refuses to move on to new stuff and keeps wondering why they won't make an NF6 motherboard with the old COM ports, ISA slots, VESA graphics boards, and separate FPU chips)

Will the Toronto Maple Leafs ever win the Stanley Cup again?

hopefully never again...nor the dirty Montreal Canadiens

[paulmx]

Thanks for the answers and taking the time to write them! I will sleep better LOL:)

[mooglinux]

here is one for you. is there any such thing as a girl that understands computers on the level of any of us guys?

[eelemus]

would you want a g/f that would tell you to hang on while your naked in bed hoping to get lucky but she has to get to a save spot in her favorite 1st person shooter...cause i am guilty of that 1 with her....thank god she understands enough to wait up, or atleast not get pissed when i finnaly make it in there and wake her up

[Charisi]

would you want a g/f that would tell you to hang on while your naked in bed hoping to get lucky but she has to get to a save spot in her favorite 1st person shooter...cause i am guilty of that 1 with her....thank god she understands enough to wait up, or atleast not get pissed when i finnaly make it in there and wake her up

 

That's one thing I never understood. Passing up . for gaming? Now, I am a man who loves me some gaming. But, if I'm in the middle of gaming and the wife wants some lovin, guess what...the game will still be there when I get done.

[steelballzz]

That's one thing I never understood. Passing up . for gaming? Now, I am a man who loves me some gaming. But, if I'm in the middle of gaming and the wife wants some lovin, guess what...the game will still be there when I get done.

 

 

of course.......... is.......gaming can wait....

[Angry_Games]

here is one for you. is there any such thing as a girl that understands computers on the level of any of us guys?

ya there are some hot nerdy chicks (and some ugly nerdy chicks and some fat nerdy chicks etc) out there that could probably run circles around you in computers/gaming

[Thraxz]

ya there are some hot nerdy chicks out there that could probably run circles around you in computers/gaming

Can you introduce me to a few?

[tweak50]

Humans by instinct will reproduce, but we are the only higher animal really that has . for pure pleasure (and the only animal to use it as a weapon, use it as a bargaining chip, use it for anything other than what other animals and insects etc use it for).

 

Although they are not as developed as we are, Dolphins have . for pure pleasure. Though im sure they dont use it at all the other ways you mentioned.

[d3M0n]

(Response in sections, please scroll down...)

 

here's how it works

 

would you murder someone just to murder them?

 

would you rape a woman just to have her for any reason or no reason?

 

would you diddle a child?

 

Come on...there are some things that are inherently right and inherently wrong.

 

That is what makes us humans.

 

Would your wife or mom eat her young?

 

No, but a dog will, as will almost any animal under circumstances that do not include starvation.

 

see the line of separation there?

 

Would your pet chinchilla have . just because it felt good?

 

...

 

without presence of consequence, there would be chaos.

 

This is like asking "if there was no tree, could it fall down in the forest?"

 

if there was no tree, there could be no foreset, hence, no forest for no tree to not fall down in

 

there is consequence to every action

 

we became thinking, feeling individuals....the consequence is now we are not living like we see other animals live...we live with rules to govern us because animals do not have rules other than natural rules (and reminder...their natural rules do not include things that involve emotion like murder or "hurting each other" etc).

 

we need to eat to survive...the consequence is that we must kill something to be able to survive by eating it...whether it is a buffalo or a blade of grass...something has to die for us to stay alive because we cannot survive on dead objects for any length of time.

 

we must kill something to live...the consequence is we have to now tell ourselves that we must kill, but it has a reason, so it is acceptable. It is either the banana, or me. I will kill the banana and eat it so that I will not die and it will eat me (as fertilizer in one form or another perhaps?).

 

now we have to 'murder' something so we can live...the consequence is that we must do this repeatedly throughout our lives so, but if this is unacceptable murder, we must override it constantly so as to survive because our survival is a bigger concern. So we must evolve over time by telling ourselves that killing something to ensure our own survival is not really murder.

 

we don't eat other humans...so the consequence of killing them has not been bred out of our psyche, and it reminds us that we are very wrong in killing for no reason.

 

when we match the killing of a human that is of no use to us once dead, to any other thing we killed (a banana gave us life, the lion was gonna kill us for his own food so it was ok to waste him, etc), our brain knows that the killing of a human without reason or without a survival reason, or any reason that has followed us through evolution as a trait that has blunted to killing of other living things is a bad thing.

 

consequence of this? the emotions that we've allowed to follow us down our genetic lines kick in and they react with something other than immediately preparing to eat it or running in fear from it lest there be more that want to kill you lol.

 

 

 

as Morpheus once said in the original, awesome Matrix movie...

 

depends on how far down the rabbit hole you want to go...

 

Ok, I should have clarified and said that there were no negative consequences to these things. I assumed that this would be understood, but I was wrong....

 

no, animals and insects have been repeatedly proved time and again to have . based on instinct, and that instict revolves around the females (in bisexual cases...in asexual cases I am sure there is another set of instincts but I didn't major in asexual biology so can't give you any better answer) going into a predermined (by genetics) 'heat' or ovulation of fertile period or whatever you want to call it.

 

Humans by instinct will reproduce, but we are the only higher animal really that has . for pure pleasure (and the only animal to use it as a weapon, use it as a bargaining chip, use it for anything other than what other animals and insects etc use it for).

 

 

There are many things that separate us from all the lower animals...but the ability to love I think is the one that is the base, and all other emotions (which is what truly separates us, or maybe it is the ability to express emotions or to even philosophise about them?) stem from that one.

 

Love can be pure, and it can be corrupt. It can be the best thing that ever happened, and it can be pure hell. Really depends on the context of the love you are feeling.

 

I seriously doubt animals have this ability...but I could be wrong and maybe it's just like all the magazine cartoons depict...the instant you leave the house, your cats and dogs all gather around the table an whip out the poker chips and cigars and break out the animal booze and catnip bongs...I dunno...reality is really subjective depending on one's point of view).

 

 

That in itself is another thing that separates us, and makes us human....the imagination. I don't know if animals and insects have imagination, but I imagine they'd have figured out how to communicate in some way with us by now if they could even imagine anything because the first thing I think you'd imagine would be figuring out how to communicate with these giant things that keep smashing your nest or killing your children and eating them or ripping you out of the water etc.

 

 

 

As we've evolved as a higher animal, these thoughts, these imaginations, these feelings and emotions...they have formed very distinct patterns and barriers and limits.

 

We've evolved as a race that does not feel good about hurting others. Once we've reached a point of our lives where we understand our own mortality, the thought of ending someone else's life becomes some horrific, unimaginable tragedy.

 

But like in nature...there are abberations. There are always those in nature who do not function as the rest of the pack, the hive, the school, whatever does. In humans, these abberations generally are not evil. They are simply devoid of certain brain functions that allow them to understand that the rest of the group frowns upon the unwritten moral codes.

 

If you raised a human and never taught the human any morals...neither good nor bad...raised it like an animal, I think you'd see a lot of natural instinct...but natural instinct does not include killing for pleasure nor for sport nor for any reason but survival...whether it be food or defense or for some other value other than anything we associate with murder.

 

Like animals, humans revert back to instinct if not given rearing within a group of at least 1 peer. Instinct, like in all life, is devoid of emotion.But

 

like traits that can be bred in or out of an animal, if a child is taken at birth and raised without human interaction and without human guiding, that baby will grow into an adult and follow the instincts that are natural as well as any group behavoirs taught by whatever reared/raised him (and we know this has to be true as human babies are among the weakest newborns and will die immediately without other humans to nurture it in it's first couple of years).

 

But a human, coming from modern humans like us, have developed emotions. I would imagine that emotions could be 'bred out' of us within a few generations, but I dare say that humans of that nature could be considered humans anymore, as being 'human' and/or 'humane' is...where we get the term for ourselves. It means to be what we recognize as humans, capable of emotions, imagination, independent thought, etc.

 

If we truly evolved from lower animals, and I am heartily convinced with all of the evidence I've seen in my lifetime on how evolution works and how that applies to humans as well as evidence of our race itself evolving over time, then I think that our ability to communicate might stem from some abberation that gave us emotions...or maybe our emotions are an abberation that have inclined us to learn to communicate with something other than peeing on a tree to alert Bob that this is my section of forest so buzz off before I bite a toe off ya.

 

This is just blatently wrong. Animals have emotions the same as you or I. A dog gets happy when it sees his owner is home to take him outside. The same dog is depressed when the owner leaves. The same dog shows a total devotion to a mate or owner by committing selfless acts of salvation and by being so depressed that he won't eat or drink if someone he is devoted to dies.

 

The fact is that instinct has everything to do with emotions. Emotions are simply mental reactions to events that occur in the environment. Those mental reactions then spawn action (or non-action depending on the case). The resultant reaction-action that occurs due to the interaction of the animal's state of being with its environment we then call instinct.

 

Very simply, an animal that is starving feels fear, desperation, anger, self pity, etc for its situation and then decides that it must do whatever is necessary for its survival because the pain of starvation is too intense to bear. An animal that is "in heat" feels axious and an intense desire and in many cases pain to release what it must to relieve the anxiety and/or pain. These feelings and the events that occur because of them are then imprinted into the psyche of the animal so that it learns how to deal with the situation more effectively the next time it occurs.

 

The fact that certain imprints are common to all animal life simply brings about the existence of what we know as instincts. Whether or not these imprints are deeply enough engrained among animal life to be imprinted into the genetic code is sort of like asking, "what came first the chicken or the egg?" Doesn't really matter which came first, both are simply the nature of the beast.

 

Does the ability to reason and imagine separate us?

 

Again, I think not. Animals have reasoning capability. Animals are always figuring out the easiest ways to fulfill their needs. They are, in fact, quite resourceful at such tasks and do not all go about them in the same manner. It has been proven in several studies of primates that they can reason and imagine things of which they can then draw pictures.

 

These things are not what separate us from the animals...

 

There is one thing that does separate us from the rest of animal life on the planet. That one thing is quite simply the level of intelligence. We're smarter. That's it. That's all there is to it. The fact that we can figure out how to get around faster, build better, and keep the elements (including the other less intelligent animals) at bay is the only reason that we exist at the top of the food chain instead of as just another link (although the occasional poor human soul does become a meal from time to time).

 

We've bred into animals plenty of traits...maybe we've bred into ourselves many traits. Maybe someone else bred in or out many traits? Who knows?

 

We've sucessfully bred many physical traits into animals. This is why there has been much heated debate over the whole "genetic instinct" issue. We can sucessfully condition animals to behave differently, but we can't, as of yet, breed behaviors or greater intelligence into animals beyond the limits of the most favorable behaviors exhibited/greatest intelligence exhibited as pertains to the species/breed of animal.

 

That question right there is the greatest evidence that we are not under the control of some diety.

 

That question right there is what has left more humans, both deeply and truly religious as well as the most skeptical skeptic ever born, awake many a night pondering.

 

Why are we here?

 

What else is there?

 

Are we alone?

 

These are the questions that we cannot answer. We try to answer by making up stories to make ourselves feel like we are not alone in the universe, that our lives are not meaningless and are under control of some higher power.

 

The Earth sustains our life. It circles around the sun, spins on its axis, holds its atmosphere to the surface in the correct proportion of gasses, spawns plant life, spawns animal life, etc.

 

Did we cause this to happen? Can we replicate such a thing? Does this have control over us?

 

Allow me to answer... No. No. Yes. Without the planet as it is we would cease to exist. To take another quote from the last Matrix movie, "That is what control is, we can just shut them off if we want to."

 

The fact is that we are at the mercy of a "higher power". The only real questions that make sense are what is the greatest higher power in the chain of higher powers that control our lives, and is it intelligent?

 

Whether we like to think about it in these terms or not we are under the control of a "higher power". The Earth is simply an example of a higher power that does indeed control us. It determines all of our instincts and encompasses all of our experiences (with the exception of a few astronauts), it shapes us in every way, and molds us by the forces applicable to the universe. Now, if we were able to go to other planets, then the example would simply expand to our physical constraints being the higher power (the availability of food, water, shelter, breathable air, etc.). If we were able to create planets, then the stars would become the higher power... etc, etc, etc, until the universe (or multiverse though there is no evidence of one as of yet) becomes the higher power.

 

This is indeed where the conception of God (leaving religion out of it, strictly philosophical existence of God stuff) comes into play.

 

The universe is, quite observably, a progression of finite events. This chain of finite events must have, at some point, had a beginning. Why? 2 reasons actually... 1) because all scientific evidence points toward this conclusion and 2) because an actual infinite (what you get if you have no beginning) of finite things would never have enough finite space to be able to contain an infinite amount of things. Were the universe to be without beginning, then it would simply fold over on itself and collapse into an infinite blob of infinite density for infinite finite space. And if it had no beginning it must have always been this way and since it is not, once again, I conclude that the universe indeed had a beginning.

 

The next question that follows from this is did this beginning of the universe have a cause or was it uncaused? Was the universe formed by something outside of it? Or did it simply spring into existence out of nothing? Well, nothing is not even the possibility of something. Therefore we may say reasonably that the universe did not spring forth from nothing because it cannot have come into existence if there was not even the possibilty of its existence to begin with. So then, we may conclude that the universe was indeed caused.

 

We must also say then that because the universe had a caused beginning, that whatever existed before the universe began that caused the universe to exist must itself be infinite and uncaused. The reason for this is the same as the the 2nd reason for the universe having had a beginning. At some point in the regression of the finite, it must terminate, so as not to become an infinite regression of finite things.

This leads us to ponder over what this infinite, unembodied (because anything physical is limited and thus finite), uncaused, cause of the universe is. Because the universe exists as it is, the entire universe must have existed in non-physical (ideal, idea) form before it was caused. This means that the uncreated creator was either an amalgamation of abstract ideas or it was a mind.

 

It is possible to say that abstract ideas may generate patterns randomly, but we could not say that those abstract ideas could generate patterns to the extent that the universe is made of without an organining factor (a mind). Further, ideas, of themselves, have no power to create. Only a mind has the power to use ideas as tools (as ideas are not real in the physical sense) in order to organize them and bring them to fruition in a physical state.

 

So there we have it... God, Allah, the creator, or whatever you call it. There is an uncaused, infinite, unembodied mind that created the universe and knows every tiny detail of it.

 

Religion causes wars, philosophy causes realizations of truth. If it seems to you that I have missed something here (made some sort of fatal assumption, used faulty logic somewhere, etc.) then please, by all means point it out.

 

I don't like organized religion. I never have. I just try to have good solid reason and evidence for what I believe. And I believe wholeheartedly that there is indeed a God, and that God is the same one that spawned us all... not our 5000 different conceptions of "my God, your God" crap.

 

 

Speaking of reality...who's version is more real?

 

What if you are my subconcious arguing with me to keep me from thinking about what is really happening in my real universe? I've made you up and many other friends and what appear to be a lifetime of memories and and emotions just to pass the time in some deep sleep? Maybe to forget some great horror? Maybe I'm god and I've gone totally insane and don't realize it? Maybe YOU are god and YOU'VE gone totally insane and we are not real, but some extension of your omnipotence to keep you company to shield whatever it is that is your mind or soul or being from dealing with some great mystery or horror or mistake or...ya know? Who knows?

 

There is no version of reality except what exists outside of perception. There are, however, different versions of perception. It is arguable that only perception exists, but then we wouldn't be able to know anything as the universe would only be constantly changing according to each individual perception of it. Since it doesn't do that sort of thing, and the vast majority (except for a few psychotic people) can agree on many aspects of their many perceptions, and since we are able to know things... I think it is only reasonable that we say that there is one reality in which all of us live and perceive. Of course, if you don't want to be reasonable, then that is certainly your choice.