Just in case noone has yet realised...

In stark contrast to other very deadly serious threads, this thread has been hijacked to be just a light hearted fun play on numerical superstitions. You can pick your choice of superstition and so dance around whatever numbers arbitrarily so chosen. This is all likely from certain Asian languages where the symbols and sounds for numbers also have other very different meanings for the very same symbols and sounds. You can be as superstitious as you like about the ambiguities!


More seriously, anyone know what the theory/religion is where there is the belief that the mere act of working through certain mathematical functions can magically change the world and universe?

Is that a play on the reverse of using mathematics to model the world?...


May this be seen as a golden opportunity to start the real "thread 14".

It's all a trick of the mind!

Keep searchin',
Martin

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See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

There is much beyond science that can not be explained. Much belief has sprung up to fill those gaps.

It is impossible to disprove most beliefs, and equally as impossible to prove beliefs.

What has been written off as "old wives tales" is often "folk" cures a bit too easily dismissed. From an infusion of white willow bark to ease pain we have science "discover" aspirin. sea urchin wounds were treated with urine, and it was found the uric acid did dissolve the prongs(and vinegar was found to be a much less offensive substitute).

Is there more to life and the universe than meets the eye? I would say certainly. Does any religion provide true understanding of that? I would say probably not.

But they are beliefs. Right, wrong, or somewhere in between.. they deserve respect.

I confess, I only play lip service to the FSM, but if someone wishes to believe that I have no problem with it. Until they try to force me to follow its noodly ways. Or dump Ragu on me.

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Janice

... noodly ways. Or dump Ragu on me.

Oooer... Very messy.

Or... A very simple ploy to follow with some foodie fun?...


More of an issue is whether forced or not, and whether by what ignorance or enlightenment...

It's all a case of keeping a balance.

Yin and yang?


Keep searchin',
Martin

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See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

opinion: religions should NEVER control government. There are plenty of difficulties in a civil government that is not controlled by a religion.. but there is at least a chance to counter balance it. So yes, a Yin and Yang.

or "And Ye harm none, do as thou will"

or a "Do onto others as you would have them do unto you"

and my favorite quote that sums up all of these religiously originated sayings..

"Truth is truth no matter where you find it" (from the movie "Enemy, Mine")

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Janice

Anyway, back on track, I posted the following post a few months ago in a thread asking why one does or does not believe in God. I am posting it again here to use it as a starting place for other questions that arise about religion:

Yes, I do believe in God.

However, the God I believe in did not make us as dolls or artworks to be enjoyed and kept on a shelf. If God had made us perfect, unable to do harm or be harmed, merely to exist in a world without strife, disease, or any other hardship, we would not be human at all. We would be nothing more than paintings or statues in a garden. The Christian Bible uses that very allegory in Genesis.

kenzieB doesn't see a reason for a God. Humans can do a lot of things, but we cannot explain, let alone create the universe and all its complex rules and interactions. God is the reason for the existence of all of this. God has no gender (that would be limiting); God has no form -- God is not an old man in a painting breathing life into humans. It is because of God that we exist and because of God that we die. If we experience good things in our lives, it is because God made us to be able to create good things and to enjoy them. If we experience bad things in our lives because God made us able to do bad things and to do something about them.

God is not miracles. God has us do things that appear to be miracles. When a vaccination for polio was found it is because there is such a thing as polio and there are people who can address the disease and find a solution. When people die on an operating table and are brought back to life by a skilled doctor, I still see that as a miracle, just as people 2000 years ago thought of bringing a person back to life as a miracle.

God is the reason water boils at 32°F; and the reason hydrogen atoms formed after the Big Bang; and the reason for black holes, stars, planets, people, single celled organisms, atoms and quarks. No scientist has ever been able to explain why the universe gelled in the way that it did and not with some other odd set of physical rules, just as no scientist has ever been able to explain why a singularity 14 billion years ago decided to expand into the universe we know today.

I do believe in God. Not a God that sticks His finger into my personal life, except to the extent that the God I know has made me susceptible to a complex set of physical and moral rules. The God I believe in made everything, including me, but did not make my universe a perfectly safe place nor did God limit me to being a perfect person incapable of error. This leaves me the goals of making our world better and striving for perfection as a moral being (not many have reached that).

I know my response raises other questions, as it should, but this is the simplest and most direct way I can describe my belief in the "thing" (still a very limiting term) that created -- everything.

I don't want to sound mealy but the only God there is, is inside yourself. The Bible is a book not to be taken literally, as we know (I'm just speaking from a Christian point of view now)
I you are not happy, you cannot make the world happy.
If you don't think and act in the right way, you can't expect the world around you to do this.
just some thoughts...

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rOZZ
Music
Pictures

God or Gods mean to you what they mean to you. Maybe someone(s) are right about him/her/them/it. And maybe not.

I am not omnipotent enough to provide "the only true answers". Although I fail
to see why that is off topic.. are we not discussion religions? That least through beliefs. My "religious" beliefs do not require a church, but does that lessen them?

And if we do not take some humor at our own and others beliefs(cautiously) then discussion risks being beligerent does it not?

Regarding "being happy".. I do not think it is a natural state to always "be happy". Without Sadness we would not know what happiness was. Without pain we would not know joy. Without down, there can be no up.

Or to use a Judeo-Christian reference "To every thing there is a season"

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Janice

It's true that everyone has his own point of view, otherwise there wouldn't be human diversity (luckily there is)
Life's a lot about Yin/Yang, for every Happy, there's a Sad, for every good, there's a bad, and so on.
But what's important in life (according to me) is you have to do it yourself, start with yourself.

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rOZZ
Music
Pictures

I will probably be banned for this, and will no doubt receive all sorts of death threats, perhaps including being sentenced to be meat-balled to death but here goes. I hereby super severely and extra-extra strongly criticise ALL Religion and Religions , silly (and non-silly)superstitions and politicians!! So go on Ban me!!!!

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http://allprojectstats.com/s430702x15a.png

I will probably be banned for this, and will no doubt receive all sorts of death threats, perhaps including being sentenced to be meat-balled to death but here goes. I hereby super severely and extra-extra strongly criticise ALL Religion and Religions , silly (and non-silly)superstitions and politicians!! So go on Ban me!!!!

Interesting belief system.

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Janice

I will probably be banned for this, and will no doubt receive all sorts of death threats, perhaps including being sentenced to be meat-balled to death but here goes. I hereby super severely and extra-extra strongly criticise ALL Religion and Religions , silly (and non-silly)superstitions and politicians!! So go on Ban me!!!!

Interesting belief system.

More like a lack-of-belief system. Yet, no one should be banned for arrogance (or I would have been gone long ago).

I will probably be banned for this, and will no doubt receive all sorts of death threats, perhaps including being sentenced to be meat-balled to death but here goes. I hereby super severely and extra-extra strongly criticise ALL Religion and Religions , silly (and non-silly)superstitions and politicians!! So go on Ban me!!!!

Interesting belief system.

More like a lack-of-belief system. Yet, no one should be banned for arrogance (or I would have been gone long ago).

Maybe not, though it might be a lack-of-faith system, after all one does not need to have faith to believe. From wiki:

The relationship between belief and knowledge is that a belief is knowledge if the belief is true, and if the believer has a justification (reasonable and necessarily plausible assertions/evidence/guidance) for believing it is true.

There are many belief systems that do not rely on religious and/or superstitious and/or supernatural explanations of the world around us, e.g. empiricism, critical rationalism, the scientific method, skepticism, reason. I strive to follow some (they are not all mutually exclusive) of these non-faith based belief systems.

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I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that ...

I will probably be banned for this, and will no doubt receive all sorts of death threats, perhaps including being sentenced to be meat-balled to death but here goes. I hereby super severely and extra-extra strongly criticise ALL Religion and Religions , silly (and non-silly)superstitions and politicians!! So go on Ban me!!!!

Interesting belief system.

More like a lack-of-belief system. Yet, no one should be banned for arrogance (or I would have been gone long ago).

Your absolutely correct! It was an arrogant and condescending (but humorous- in my opinion) statement. However my point was supposed to reflect an important injustice . We are not allowed to criticise religion. Meanwhile, Religious leaders and their followers regularly and openly criticise, damn and insult everyone else. On top of that I found the addendum to the disclaimer at the top of the page unnecessarily restrictive to freedom of speech and felt that I should make a humorous comment.

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http://allprojectstats.com/s430702x15a.png

More like a lack-of-belief system. ...

You can be a devout Atheist.


Keep searchin',
Martin

Believer in real numbers and the REAL Thread 13.

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See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

You can be a devout Atheist.

You can be anything if you want:)

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rOZZ
Music
Pictures

I will probably be banned for this, and will no doubt receive all sorts of death threats, perhaps including being sentenced to be meat-balled to death but here goes. I hereby super severely and extra-extra strongly criticise ALL Religion and Religions , silly (and non-silly)superstitions and politicians!! So go on Ban me!!!!

Interesting belief system.

More like a lack-of-belief system. Yet, no one should be banned for arrogance (or I would have been gone long ago).

Your absolutely correct! It was an arrogant and condescending (but humorous- in my opinion) statement. However my point was supposed to reflect an important injustice . We are not allowed to criticise religion. Meanwhile, Religious leaders and their followers regularly and openly criticise, damn and insult everyone else. On top of that I found the addendum to the disclaimer at the top of the page unnecessarily restrictive to freedom of speech and felt that I should make a humorous comment.

Surely you can put down religions without resorting to bigotry and/or racism and/or hate?

Specifically, bigoted, racist, hate-filled messages meant to put down any religion or its followers are not allowed

Seems to me we are allowed to criticize religion, we just have to be decent about it. So comments like "The followers of religion X are evil" are out, but "Religion X appears to be confused about topic Y because <reasoned explanation>" are fine. Personally, I don't have an issue with that.

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I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that ...

I will probably be banned for this, and will no doubt receive all sorts of death threats, perhaps including being sentenced to be meat-balled to death but here goes. I hereby super severely and extra-extra strongly criticise ALL Religion and Religions , silly (and non-silly)superstitions and politicians!! So go on Ban me!!!!

Interesting belief system.

More like a lack-of-belief system. Yet, no one should be banned for arrogance (or I would have been gone long ago).

Your absolutely correct! It was an arrogant and condescending (but humorous- in my opinion) statement. However my point was supposed to reflect an important injustice . We are not allowed to criticise religion. Meanwhile, Religious leaders and their followers regularly and openly criticise, damn and insult everyone else. On top of that I found the addendum to the disclaimer at the top of the page unnecessarily restrictive to freedom of speech and felt that I should make a humorous comment.

Surely you can put down religions without resorting to bigotry and/or racism and/or hate?

Specifically, bigoted, racist, hate-filled messages meant to put down any religion or its followers are not allowed

Seems to me we are allowed to criticize religion, we just have to be decent about it. So comments like "The followers of religion X are evil" are out, but "Religion X appears to be confused about topic Y because <reasoned explanation>" are fine. Personally, I don't have an issue with that.

I was refering to the addendum to the disclaimer. Being biggoted or raceist is of course wrong and should not be tolerated.

Religious preaching, proselytizing, or imposition of one poster's will upon another's, will not be tolerated. Trolling is disallowed in all forms. Offenses will be penalized as the posters find appropriate.

This does not allow for free speech or freedom of expression within the realms of decency or otherwise, for anyone of any opinion. Proselytizing is to bring/change other peoples views into agreement with your own and doesn't have to be used in a religious context, therefore we are unable to use argument in discussion and must rely on faith. And imposing ones will on someone else in a forum such as this is, is impossible without the other person allowing it to be imposed on him/her. So this disclaimer could be easily used to corrupt and distort the passage of free speech at the will of the moderator.

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http://allprojectstats.com/s430702x15a.png

I was refering to the addendum to the disclaimer. Being biggoted or raceist is of course wrong and should not be tolerated.
[quote]Religious preaching, proselytizing, or imposition of one poster's will upon another's, will not be tolerated. Trolling is disallowed in all forms. Offenses will be penalized as the posters find appropriate.

This does not allow for free speech or freedom of expression within the realms of decency or otherwise, for anyone of any opinion. Proselytizing is to bring/change other peoples views into agreement with your own and doesn't have to be used in a religious context, therefore we are unable to use argument in discussion and must rely on faith. And imposing ones will on someone else in a forum such as this is, is impossible without the other person allowing it to be imposed on him/her. So this disclaimer could be easily used to corrupt and distort the passage of free speech at the will of the moderator.

Ahh, my apologies. I agree, I am also unsure how one would impose one's will on another via posting to a thread, the mechanics escape me, and until somebody can show me how it's done I think we can safely disregard it.

I think "Trolling is disallowed in all forms", is a matter for the admins to decide (and perhaps the final word should be modified to read "forums", unless the various forms are detailed elsewhere), though as a general rule, while it might stop some speech, I don't find it to be unnecessarily restrictive, essentially it seems to be requesting that we do not post something that may be considered inflammatory for the purpose of eliciting and emotional response.

So it comes down to how "Religious preaching, proselytizing" is to be interpreted by the Moderators, and I agree that you have a point.

Absent of any codified definition "preaching, proselytizing" could easily be interpreted in the vein of "I'll know it when I see it", which is ambiguous, and thus unquantifiably restrictive. It appears to be a request to self censor without guidance, for all I know this post will be deemed "preachy" enough to warrant exclusion. So I'll stop ;-)

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I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that ...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7540427.stm

Perhaps one of the most surprising things in Garwood's book is her revelation that flat earth theory is a relatively modern phenomenon.

Ms Garwood says it is an "historic fallacy" that everyone from ancient times to the Dark Ages believed the earth to be flat, and were only disabused of this "mad idea" once Christopher Columbus successfully sailed to America without "falling off the edge of the world".

In fact, people have known since at least the 4th century BC that the earth is round, and the pseudo-scientific conviction that we actually live on a disc didn't emerge until Victorian times.

Theories about the earth being flat really came to the fore in 19th Century England. With the rise and rise of scientific rationalism, which seemed to undermine Biblical authority, some Christian thinkers decided to launch an attack on established science.

Samuel Birley Rowbotham (1816-1884) assumed the pseudonym of "Parallax" and founded a new school of "Zetetic astronomy". He toured England arguing that the Earth was a stationary disc and the Sun was only 400 miles away.

In the 1870s, Christian polemicist John Hampden wrote numerous works about the Earth being flat, and described Isaac Newton as "in liquor or insane".

Note: this says it is a relatively recent thing, so don't forget that before Victorian times, this means a flat Earth is not what Christians (or most) believed in.

BTW, yes, I am answering a question from 30 minutes ago, lol.

it was of course known fact that the sun and moon revolved around the earth. Later theories have the earth revolving around the sun. It really revolves around ME!!

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Janice