The life of Nengisuls: 2010

Tom Cosm A quote from over on the Christchurch wall "God is SO good - He spared lives, spared the horrible winds and gave us a day that is beautiful so that the suffering doesn't get worse than it already has been. May He protect those that are out there today cleaning, helping and working hard. God's favour lies over Christchurch!!!!!"

Monday at 10:08 · Comment ·

5 people like this.

Brent Silby -Maestro B Of course, his favor would have been more appreciated if he went the extra mile and prevented the earthquake from occurring in the first place. That's what I'd do if I was God.

Monday at 10:13 · · 2 people
Brent Silby -Maestro B Thanks God, you didn't prevent an earthquake that devastated the city, but gave us a sunny day to clean up the mess.

Monday at 10:17 · · 4 people
Erik Jackson God rocks!

Monday at 10:19 ·
Sarah Campagnolo That's why he saved all the churches! Oh wait a second...

Monday at 10:21 · · 3 people
Russell Hendrickus Buxton Hahahaha thanks god! Spared winds???? clearly whoever wrote that isn't in chur chur.

Monday at 10:25 ·
Ra Killin Message to god :. "Um , pretty sure your a wanker"

Monday at 10:28 · · 1 person
Joan Gomez-Douglass Don't you think the timing was heaven-sent, though? We were spared so many hundreds of losses of lives!! We can only laugh cos we're spared!!Ironic!

Monday at 10:33 ·
Brent Silby -Maestro B Nothing was heaven sent. It was a coincidence, albeit a lucky coincidence.

Monday at 10:35 · · 1 person
Joan Gomez-Douglass Coincidence or God-incidence, take it or leave it! I'm not tempting fate/God, just being thankful we were spared!

Monday at 10:39 · · 1 person
Matthew Anthony Robinson The Sky doesn't care what the Earth is doing.

Monday at 11:01 · · 1 person
Brent Silby -Maestro B

Nah! I don't buy it. If God wanted to save people then he would also have spared all the people in Haiti. He would have prevented the millions of casualties from the countless other earthquakes that have occurred over the world. Even better...See more

Monday at 11:02 · · 5 people
Matthew Anthony Robinson Maybe the earthquakes are from God doing mighty battle with the Devil.

Monday at 11:05 · · 3 people
Brent Silby -Maestro B hahaha! I can imagine them fighting with lightsabers..."join me on the darkside...you know, I am your father".

"NOOOOOO!"

I hope the whole universe doesn't disappear as this battle tears a hole in the space/time continuum.

Monday at 11:08 ·
Ben C Are Kiwis that religious in general? It's a sad day when people start bringing God into these sorts of things.

Monday at 11:22 · ·
Katie Le Roux Well I thought it was a beautiful, honest reflection- we're all entiled to take what we can, need or want from the experience :)

Monday at 11:29 · · 1 person
Ben C

Blessed by Allaah, Buddha, Jesus, Brahma, Ganesh, Krishna, and any other God!!! Which one was it? My guess is that dude was speaking of Jesus. No offense to God fearers. Also, I don't think his honesty really assists in the healing proce...See more

Monday at 11:37 · · 1 person ·
Michael Trippykiwi Faulkner haha... they been prayin for world peace for almost 2000 years now... anyone else think either there is no god...or they arent listening...or just dont care.... where the fuck was god when it counted...lovely to know god would put on a ripper day...but didnt care to stop a monster earthquake....

Monday at 11:57 ·
Ben C Funny thing is, most religious folk feel it is necessary and absolute that God be omnipotent, all powerful, EVERYTHING, and most importantly, must exist today. Actually, all God has to be able to do is be better than humans. I think God might have that one in the bag. But God doesn't have to exist now. God has to have simply created our universe some 13 billion years ago, or even longer. God may not be listening!!!God may not be Watching!!! God may not care!!!

Monday at 12:02 · · 1 person ·
Brent Silby -Maestro B Current leading theories in physics suggest that the universe's existence was necessarily uncaused. The last gap for God to hide (13 billion years ago at the big bang) has now been filled with a theory.

Monday at 14:14 ·
Henry Bersani ignore it, if it were possible to reason with religious people they wouldn't exist

Monday at 15:58 · · 1 person
Ben C Many philosophers argue that if all effects have a cause then there must have been an an effect without a cause, as to avoid infinity, and that "anti-cause, un-caused entity, etc" is God. So I think that "necessarily uncaused", represents causality in our sense of reality, not from a "godly reality". hahah if that makes any sense. :P

Monday at 16:04 · · 1 person ·
Brent Silby -Maestro B They don't put it quite like that. For a philosopher, stating that "ALL effects have a cause" and also stating "one effect is uncaused" is a problem because the two statements yield a contradiction. Philosophers don't like contradictions. But you are correct in the idea that all (non quantum) events following the first, uncaused event have causes. The first event was an uncaused quantum event.

Monday at 16:49 ·
Brent Silby -Maestro B To add, I don't think many philosophers would claim that the uncaused event is God. I certainly don't know any Philosophers who would make that claim (and as a Philosopher and teacher of the subject, I've come to know a few over the years). Why bring God into the equation? Let's halt the regress at the Big Bang. The Big Bang was the first uncaused event. There's no need for God.

Monday at 16:52 ·
Ben C Yeah but that doesn't answer any questions, does it? I.E. the big bang is uncaused, and we don't need God, so don't bother asking what was before the big bang, and where the universe comes from. Sounds like lazy philosophers to me, or just ones that like a meta-physical God like thing.

Monday at 16:59 · ·
Brent Silby -Maestro B

On the contrary. To state that "it was God" is the lazy way out of the problem, because God is unexplainable. Using God as an explanation is also unsatisfactory because essentially you are answering a complex problem (the existence of the u...See more

Monday at 17:48 ·
Brent Silby -Maestro B

Physicist Laurence Krauss lecture: A Universe From Nothing

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ImvlS8PLIo

The universe is such an amazing place. Answering hard questions with "it was God" cheapens human intelligence and turns the universe into a ...See more

Monday at 17:54 ·
Jason Mcdougall

I agree with you for the most part "Brent" but its Human reasoning that worries me.. a certain lake of faith in things that cannot be explained.. and wanting to know and understand everything, is kinda failing humans.. but our intelligence...See more

Monday at 19:59 ·
Ben C Yeah I must admit Brent, I'm not a big fan of the idea that God is a simple answer, because the God part of it aims to look toward the metaphysical that we will never be able to explain with science. Perhaps God just doesn't want us to know about IT. At any cost, a physicist can tell me about as much about God as a Christian can, and that isn't a good start. Sometimes you just have to look inside and see what your consciousness tells you, just be sure not to believe everything you tell yourself.

Monday at 20:05 · ·
Tom Cosm http://img299.imageshack.us/img299/7360/1283772592438.jpg

Monday at 22:14 · · 1 person
Brent Silby -Maestro B Thing is, Jason, that faith leads to ignorance and lack of inquiry, which ultimately leads to human suffering. Reason has given us the ability to understand the intricate nature of our environmental ecosystems. Reason has provided answers to the problem and we know how to fix the environment. Faith, however, prevents us doing anything because it provides the unreasoned assumption that "all will be okay...its part of God's plan".

Yesterday at 04:46 ·
Brent Silby -Maestro B The problem with introspection is that it is unverifiable. Its even more of a problem if I am not able to believe everything my introspection tells me. How would I know what is true or false? I'd have to turn to verifiable scientific method to make that determination.

Yesterday at 04:48 ·
Jason Mcdougall

Fair enough.. Faith is a little more about being ok with not wanting to know everything, not meaning faith in God.. Reason is fine until we are put in a situation where it is necessary to be unreasonable.. (Been in more than a few of those ...See more

Yesterday at 05:27 ·
Jason Mcdougall Oh yeah cheers Tom for starting an interesting Debate here... its a long one!

Yesterday at 05:28 ·
Jason Mcdougall By the way I don´t believe in a God in the way religions or christianity believe.. im all Just Nature Energy, and string theory in essence.. Im an active Voluntary Red Cross member in what ever country i go to.. that helps ah!!

Yesterday at 05:33 ·
Brent Silby -Maestro B String theory is one of the current leading theories in physics (its only about 20 years old). See Brian Greene "The Elegant Universe" and the Laurence Krauss lecture I linked earlier.

Yesterday at 06:12 ·
Ben C

Just to clarify, you would be an out right fool to speculate on the characteristics of God, one does not have to think that God has a plan, or that God is going to save us. Really, God doesn't even explicitly have to know IT created us or...See more

Yesterday at 11:49 · ·
Brent Silby -Maestro B

Doesn't this render the whole idea of God even more useless? People are so quick at stating what God isn't, but they never tell us what God is. Its a cheap cheat!

What's the point in positing the existence of entities and then following up w...See more

Yesterday at 11:59 ·
Ben C

I'm glad we are looking in the same direction, albeit from differing perspectives. You are right, I have always referred to that thing, entity, event, what ever it's composition, as GOD. I like the idea of a loving God that actively plays a role in our daily lives, but I highly doubt this to be possible. GOD must surely be something way beyond our way of thinking, as meagre human beings. Many philosophers face the problem of not accepting what they can't know. For example, I heard a story the other day of a universe photographed by Hubble that was 4 times bigger than should be possible according to our understanding of physics. Meaning, 6 billion people and 10000 years of evolution and we still have some serious issues with the consistency of our total knowledge base. I'm all for Science, as it is as close as we can get, but a little bit of scepticism goes a long way. Contradictions exist in Science, spirituality, beliefs, knowledge, and any other characteristic of life, the universe and everything.

In addition, the macro scale is where we try to generalise about this or that, truth is important, and in most cases quite necessary. However, in the micro, say for instance the relationship between 2 people where the line of truth is blurred, truth then has the potential to be a complication. As for religious or spiritual belief, that is personal, and everyone's experience is unique, albeit many groups follow single religions, but everyone's experience is different

Just for the record I am quite anti-religion, which does not make me an Atheist because I am a firm believer that there is more to this universe than just this universe. If the physicist tells us that our universe is one of many in different dimensions, then its possible there is something beyond that, governing things from above. Ultimately, who knows, but we can imagine :)

There is surely not enough Agnosticism in this world. Imagine my view from atop this fence looking down at the rest of them bickering and squabbling.

Yesterday at 12:45 · ·
Hagai ૐ Hadary You guys really enlighted my mind here. Keep on debating for 2 months and I'm a happy soldier!

12 hours ago ·