Curmudgeonly & Skeptical presents Boned Jello: The beginning of nothing

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

The beginning of nothing

Aside from sneering at a certain "religion" started by a science fiction writer, on a bet, and which depends on scare tactics, and endless litigation to squelch discussion of their cult, and pointing out that Islam is a cultural desert, hate machine, and mortal enemy of free men everywhere, I avoid, other than philosophically, religious discussion on this blog. Live and let live is my motto. Anyway, this does fall under the philosophical rubric, because we, all of us, have asked ourselves this same question at one time. Or, so you'da thunk.

Disclosure: I was born a Baptist, raised as, and am still, a Catholic. I believe that the Blessed Mother would not wear patent leather shoes, nor chew gum. Additionally, I was ordained

a minister (now Bishop) in the Universal Life Church (so I can marry people and give ad hoc funeral eulogies).

Rodger the Real King of France 1/13/2010 09:04:00 AM 9 Comments

"If the number of Islamic terror attacks continues at the current rate, candlelight vigils will soon be the number-one cause of global warming. "
Argus Hamilton

9 comments:

Anonymous said...: Kirby J Hensley was against chewing gum?

Bishop Laurence, ULC (ret); 1/13/10, 9:15 AM
Anonymous said...: I would like to hire you to conduct my funeral. Ignore everything Mrs. Annoyed tells you and make it unforgettable. I'm thinking dancing girls and fireworks, while burning a few politicians in effigy. More details as I think of them.

AWM; 1/13/10, 9:56 AM
Rodger the Real King of France said...: With whom do I discuss payment in advance?; 1/13/10, 10:29 AM
Anonymous said...: "Agnosticism - reserving judgment about divine purpose - remains as defensible as ever, but atheism - the confident denial of divine purpose - becomes trickier. If you admit that we can't peer behind a curtain, how can you be sure there's nothing there?" - Paul Davies -- the renowned British-born physicist, agnostic and professor of cosmology, quantum field theory and astrobiology -- once speaking against the certainty of atheism to Time magazine (in the column "Science, God, and Man")
GrinfilledCelt; 1/13/10, 11:41 AM
OregonGuy said...: I met Mr. Hensley back in the mid-seventies, at a conference I helped put together on religion for OSU's English Department. (Also got to meet and talk with MarJoe. Now, that guy was funny!)

Anywhoo, Mr. Hensley gave me and my advisor blank certificates and told us to fill them in in anyway we chose.

I'm a Pope.

And I am not pleased with your level of tithing.
.

Pope OregonGuy; 1/13/10, 12:04 PM
dr kill said...: I'm totally digging on that ULC thing. I can deduct lots of cool shit as a business expense, and beat my real estate taxes if my house can be the temple.
Does it get me out of Obamacare too, or do I have to get all Amish on their ass?; 1/13/10, 3:04 PM
Tony Neville said...: Mr atheist, here! What the hell is a literal "nothing" anyway? It's ~non existence~, right? Can existence come from non-existence? Hell, no. It's logically untenable. Here's my argument. Time is a property of the Universe, so it makes no sense to evoke a prior cause to its existence. There's no "before" or "prior to" the Universe. It is much more logical to say that in whatever state the Universe exists or existed it is self-sustaining. All the supernatural gobble-dee-gook is just stuff people make up to manufacture a cause. Any cause will do. Anything at all. But then when people do that, they are justifiably hit with the argument of infinite regress--what caused the cause, and what then caused the cause of the cause, and so on. Now, on to GrinfilledCelt's comment about agnosticism. Agnostics suffer from the perfect knowledge fallacy which often leads them down the path of subjectivism and moral relativism. Their argument goes like this: If we don't have perfect knowledge of everything, then we can't be certain of anything. Well, humans can't achieve the strawman certainty-of-god to be sure, but human certainly will do fine. It's good enough. I am ~certain~ people fare far better under a system of free-market capitalism than communism. I am ~certain~ freedom is better than slavery. I'm a certain that claims of virgin births, talking serpents, the existence of people with six limbs (namely, angels), and a man that can walk on water is a load of crap on stilts. I'm certain "God" did not talk to Charles Manson. This is in stark contrast to the agnostic who would level up any pile of poop to the status of "knowledge" even if it could not resolve back to the things we humans can experience. No, I don't think agnosticism is defensible.; 1/13/10, 7:12 PM
JMcD said...: Aren't god and the universe one and the same?
All powerful
Infinite
Eternal (pulsating eternally)
All embracing
Limitless

What is beyond the place where the stars thin out and finally there are none?

Is total, absolute empty space still the universe?.....Why yes...yes it is.
It has no end,either in time, or in form.; 1/13/10, 10:03 PM
Rodger the Real King of France said...: JMJ :); 1/13/10, 10:07 PM

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

The beginning of nothing

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