[ExI] BICEP2 and the Fermi paradox

[Tomasz Rola]

On Thu, Apr 10, 2014 at 10:08:27AM -0400, John Clark wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 9, 2014 at 1:28 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
> 
> >>I think the Bible is as clear as it is morally corrupt on this subject.
> >> Consider Revelation 20:10
> >> "And the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning
> >> sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown. They will be
> >> tormented day and night for ever and ever."
> >>
> >
> > >Ja, that's the devil, the beast and the false prophet, not the humans.
> >
> 
> Who is the false prophet? I don't know of any profit in the Bible, false or
> otherwise, that isn't a human.

As a non-specialist, I'd reserve the term "false prophet" to humans
who voluntarily deceive their fellows. Of course there is some gain
involved (jokestering, fraudstering, whateverstering). 

> But it doesn't really matter, Lucifer is a sentient being and torturing
> him for eternity means God is astronomically, no INFINITELY more evil than
> the devil.

But what if Lucifer likes this? We know (well, I know) there are
submissives and dominatrixes. Perhaps God and Devil are just having
fun. They may even have agreed upon a stop word. Otherwise, this sucks
indeed. But, this sucks equally for God, too. Just think of it. Every
damn day, go and torture the Devil. Sounds like a work. Like
telemarketing. Awful. Bloody boring for superentity. How many times
one can whip ass (pooping something that burns and smells of sulfur)
before this becomes a torture for a torturer?

[...]
> That's OK, I think we should give the devil his due. The very core of
> Christianity is inherently illogical but Christian franchises that don't
> think their hero (God) would approve of torturing someone for eternity are
> morally superior to other franchises that think that the ultimate moral
> paragon would judge it to be a good idea to burn un-baptized children for a
> infinite number of years.

The problem I can see with religions is they have to explain something
very complicated to the very popular minds. And this is hard to do if
guy trying to explain happens to be a simpleton, too. Thus the whole
talk we can have about religion (in this case, as given by the Bible)
is on the level of "why Jews on the desert weren't given some
vitamins, only manna and manna".

Another problem I can see, from the almost very beginning religions
were used to keep the mob in line (and running one mob against
another). This probably started in times of city building, but maybe
some time before. So while talking about religion, we also talk about
politics, just refusing to aknowledge this. It may be cool to study
where such refusal comes from.

Millennia go, nothing changes. People don't get more rational, truths
are created as needed and critics of religion have always something
valid to say. :-)

Just in case others forget to cut religions some slack, here
goes. Modern sciences, in all their rationality, have begun in womb
provided to them by religions. You can have your telescopes only
thanks to some guy who wanted to explain what was this milky-like stain
on the sky. And the other guy, who gave the first one herbal tea for a
cold made by bad spirits (we call those bacteria and viruses nowadays,
but a tea still does the job). Because a merchant didn't give a
frak, being too interested in buying, selling and accounting. And
warrior-king didn't give a frak either, being too involved in
retaining power and expanding his domain. The peasant was too
interested in following the plow, and hunter in following the
deer. Even if their minds wandered far enough to ask a question, if it
required systematic dedication, they lost their interest in finding
the answer. Or so I think.

As of modern religions, I truly wonder what, if any, future
researchers will say about money worshiping, excessive spending in
shopping centers and sinking in all kinds of so called content, which
is mirrors and smoke. Perhaps they will have no idea why so many
people preached to the imaginative heroes in cinemas, bought the lucky
talismans of Supervibroman and Wonderbrawoman and so on (or maybe they
will, afterall this looks like good old fertility cult). The
Christianity may be on the losing side, but it has just been replaced
with something that satisfies the same needs humans had thousands
years ago and nowadays they have them too. It is a bit depressing to
think about it - people just do the same they used to do, only calling
it by another name and giving their surplus to another entity.

So all you guys who think religions lost, you may think twice if you
please.

Regards,
Tomasz Rola

--
** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature.      **
** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home    **
** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened...      **
**                                                                 **
** Tomasz Rola          mailto:tomasz_rola at bigfoot.com             **