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>> No. 438076 Anonymous
24th July 2020
Friday 5:05 pm
438076 Religion
Is anyone here religious? If so, what flavour of religion do you follow? Any benefits/disadvantages to having faith?
Expand all images.
>> No. 438077 Anonymous
24th July 2020
Friday 5:22 pm
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I probably don't count since I don't hold genuine belief, but I'm confirmed CoE and attend the occasional service. All the Christians I know are really nice and happy people.

It's interesting how it's become a very middle-class thing to attend church, among white Brits at least. I'd be interested to learn the history of how the working-class became so irreligious in this country.
>> No. 438078 Anonymous
24th July 2020
Friday 5:33 pm
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No, but I also certainly wouldn't describe myself as an atheist either. It always seemed the height of human arrogance to presume we have the first clue what is going on with reality outside of our senses and the tools with which we measure stuff. I mean, we're doing alright but I still think we know fuck all.

I guess I have some sort of vague agnosticism.

I do think there is value to be found in a lot of religious tradition, although wether that outweighs the absolute nightmarish horror that humans have inflicted upon one another in it's name is very much up for debate.

I think there are obvious reasons why religion can have benefits, it can provide all sorts of things that secular materialism cannot, be that a sense of community/belonging, a set of concrete guidelines by which to live your life, meaning, hope etc etc.

Rambling on now. Probably should have just left it at "No".
I would be interested to hear from any actual religious lads who lurk here though, hopefully we can have an interesting discussion and not descend to BRILLIANT atheist "debate". I have a vague memory of us managing it many moons ago.
>> No. 438079 Anonymous
24th July 2020
Friday 5:38 pm
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I ask because during my teens and young adulthood, I was a pretty staunch atheist. As I've gotten older, religion has appealed to me more and more. I've tried a few of the churches in my city, but none appealed to me. Catholic churches were too stuffy, and I think as an institution the Catholic church is a bit iffy. I tried evangelical churches, but Christian rock is offputting and I felt there was an undercurrent of trout farming and homophobia (this could be all made up in my liberal head though). When they reopen I might try a C of E church. I like proper hymns, and they seem fairly progressive.
>> No. 438080 Anonymous
24th July 2020
Friday 5:45 pm
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>>438079
I guess it depends what you're hoping to get out of it mate. There are ways of engaging with some of the things that religious institutions offer without necessarily going the whole hog. If you're interested in hymn, choir singing and whatnot then there are plenty of choirs at least that are open to people of all faiths (or lack of).

I've been to a couple of sacred harp singing things that had (before the old covid) monthly sessions for newbies were you could just turn up, and it was a really nice experience. Something about communal singing in a church is a bit special. But then if you're looking to actually engage with an active faith then I'd imagine reading the texts is probably a good start.
>> No. 438081 Anonymous
24th July 2020
Friday 5:49 pm
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I'm making mine up from a patchwork of inconsistent mythologies, it's a lot of fun.
>> No. 438082 Anonymous
24th July 2020
Friday 6:17 pm
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I am very very Athiest

>>438078
>It always seemed the height of human arrogance to presume we have the first clue what is going on with reality outside of our senses and the tools with which we measure stuff.

I take your point but would counter with the idea that, that is where reason points me, much like science points a direction, and I will believe the science of the day up until the point it is inevitably proven wrong, like it has always been through human history. To the extent that I can accept the science of the day to be true, knowing it couldn't be and presumptive to think we are certainly right now, I accept atheism to be true. To entertain the doubt as anything more, I believe to not be giving the balance of evidence its due.
>> No. 438083 Anonymous
24th July 2020
Friday 6:41 pm
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>>438082
I mean whatever makes you happy m8. You may well be nearer the truth than I. To a certain extent I think it depends on what your conceptions of a possible "god" are or could be. I'd certainly accept that most formulations so far, especially among the Abrahamic faiths seem to me to be, a bit silly, to put it mildly.

I just think the universe is far weirder than we're able to imagine, more things in heaven and earth and all that.

I admire your certainty though.
>> No. 438084 Anonymous
24th July 2020
Friday 7:43 pm
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>>438082

>I am very very Athiest


So atheist that you shit Richard Dawkins?

I had my radical atheist phase a little over ten years ago when Dawkins and others had a time where they seemed to be everywhere on TV. When even Ricky Gervais spent half his stand up routine poking fun at Christianity. I even read The God Delusion cover to cover.

You know what I think these days? Sod it, to each, their own. I'm still not a religious person, not by a long shot, but I have found myself mellowing out with age on the issue. Religion isn't the best invention mankind has ever made, but spending your life attacking religion and tirelessly pointing out its many flaws can become a dark and lonely place. That kind of anger and aggression can backfire and make you an angry, aggressive person. And religion also isn't the all-engulfing menace that is going to come and take away your right to dissent. That just isn't going to happen nowadays, not in this country, and not in many other countries. No matter how many igloos open in your neighbourhood in the UK, or how much American Christian Right think tanks attempt to influence domestic policy here in Britain. And nobody twists your arm to move to the American Bible Belt or the rural Mideast. People there will always be backward dunces, with or without you railing against them.

It's not even really about ignorance being bliss or anything. But not even you are going to impress the cold unfeeling Universe, which you will insist came from nothing and without a creator, by being a loud, know it all, atheist cunt.
>> No. 438087 Anonymous
24th July 2020
Friday 8:01 pm
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>>438084

>So atheist that you shit Richard Dawkins?

No so atheist I don't have anything to prove by sneering about it.

I don't need that validation. I don't know what crawled up your arse but it has nothing to do with me.
>> No. 438088 Anonymous
24th July 2020
Friday 8:10 pm
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>>438087

I wasnt attacking you personally though. The points you made are all more or less valid. But I have also met and talked with many atheists who are a bit too up their own arse about it for their own good, and those are the people I meant. I probably should have been more clear about that.
>> No. 438089 Anonymous
24th July 2020
Friday 8:11 pm
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>>438084
>It's not even really about ignorance being bliss or anything. But not even you are going to impress the cold unfeeling Universe, which you will insist came from nothing and without a creator, by being a loud, know it all, atheist cunt.

This made me laugh, but in the interests of this not devolving into a tedious cunt off we've all seen a thousand times before I don't think the lad was being evangelical about his atheism, just stating his position. Which is fair enough.

I'd still be really interested to hear from any actually religious lads, although my suspicion is on a site like this there wont be too many.
>> No. 438090 Anonymous
24th July 2020
Friday 8:14 pm
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Fuck's sake you've both replied to each other now my post is completely pointless!

Just like this meaningless godless (if you're an athiest) universe!
>> No. 438091 Anonymous
24th July 2020
Friday 8:41 pm
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>>438088

Sure, after I posted it, I felt like maybe I had taken too aggressive of tone, sorry. I just feel there is a false equivalence people draw, with atheists always being that that kind of cunt.

There is obviously a reason, many were raised in very righteously religious environments so running counter to that provokes that behaviour. As they fight against the behaviour they can't stand they ironically mirror it.


>>438090
well, all human actions are equivalent and all are on principle doomed to failure.
>> No. 438092 Anonymous
24th July 2020
Friday 8:48 pm
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>>438091
>well, all human actions are equivalent and all are on principle doomed to failure.

Depends on what you mean by failure really, plenty of human actions succeed on their own terms. I fancied a strong g&t this evening, I made myself one and am currently enjoy it. Take that the gaping maw of meaninglessness!
>> No. 438093 Anonymous
24th July 2020
Friday 8:55 pm
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I don't really think about it, to be honest.
>> No. 438094 Anonymous
24th July 2020
Friday 8:56 pm
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>>438092

It is a direct quite from Sartre, about the futility of human endeavour. In a million years nothing you will have done will matter, if you are exceptionally lucky maybe you'll be remembered in a thousand years, I doubt that there are more than a handful of people who even remember my grandmother existed now in a handful of decades.
>> No. 438095 Anonymous
24th July 2020
Friday 9:01 pm
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>>438094
quite= quote. obv
>> No. 438096 Anonymous
24th July 2020
Friday 9:54 pm
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I have my own beliefs but if asked I generally say I'm an atheist since it saves the hassle of having to then explain what I believe in. If I were to say agnostic then they'd want to hear it and I've found it's better to keep religion out of casual discussions.

I don't have a problem with religion either, the problems begin where whoever tries to start shoving it down other people's throats. You can believe in whatever Gods, just don't force it on others.
>> No. 438097 Anonymous
24th July 2020
Friday 11:11 pm
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>>438094
>In a million years nothing you will have done will matter,

If it matters in the moment that is enough for me. I enjoyed my drink. I'm satisfied. That's enough. Trust a fucking French man to give a shit about what the universe will think of him in a thousand years.

Having said that your actions in the here and now still have consequences which you will never know. No one may remember you grandmother but you are here now experiencing life because she got a ride. Of course individual human lives don't have some special over arching meaning in the larger scheme, that doesn't invalidate lived experience and meaning in the moment, or mean that your actions won't have consequences for other living breathing conscious beings for (hopefully) millennia to come.

Basically I don't think vastness of time/space negates meaning in the lives of individuals just because you're not somehow "remembered" or special.

I may have had a couple g&t's and be spouting bollocks though admittedly.
>> No. 438099 Anonymous
24th July 2020
Friday 11:59 pm
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>>438097

This is the great subject of the Kierkegaard schools of philosophy (absurdism, existentialism and Nihilism), if the arbitrary purpose you assign yourself is good 'enough' none of them really have a flair of hedonism they aren't the beliefs of happy people, they are people who looked into the void and found wanting.
>> No. 438100 Anonymous
25th July 2020
Saturday 1:07 am
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>>438099
>if the arbitrary purpose you assign yourself is good 'enough' none of them really have a flair of hedonism they aren't the beliefs of happy people, they are people who looked into the void and found wanting.

I'm finding this quite hard to parse to be honest. I don't know if it's your syntax or my stupidity but I'm having trouble making sense of what you're saying.
>> No. 438101 Anonymous
25th July 2020
Saturday 6:46 am
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>>438100
I'll rephrase and see if that helps


Nhilism existentialism and absurdism believe that life has no deeper meaning of life, or if there is a meaning it is unknowable, and the divide between them is how valid they consider it is to make one up for yourself.

None of those philosophies are particularly good at finding pleasure, general speaking their proponents are quite depressed.

They are people who concluded there was not any deeper answers to the 'great questions' that were unsatisfied with their own conclusions.
>> No. 438102 Anonymous
25th July 2020
Saturday 8:57 am
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>>438101
Handy diagram from wikipedia that may or may not confirm what you're saying I haven't checked.
>> No. 438103 Anonymous
25th July 2020
Saturday 10:19 am
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>>438102
I've seen that chart before and I find it inaccurate, Sartre is the quintessential existentialist, and by that chart he isn't, and Absurdist accept the possibility that there might be a inherent meaning, but that it is incomprehensible/unknowable, that is what makes it 'absurd'.
>> No. 438105 Anonymous
25th July 2020
Saturday 10:41 am
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>>438101
I see. I don't personally wanna get too caught up in defining these terms/philosophies as I feel it's easy to get lost in the semantic weeds.

The core point for me is that I still don't think personal and subjective meaning is invalid. I guess I tend toward more Eastern modes of thought with this stuff. It's possible to kind of go down rabbit holes here, what is the meaning of meaning? etc etc. But I've posted in this thread too much already.

I think my, admittedly, fuzzy position is that I think lived experience can and does contain meaning, even if that meaning is fleeting, ephemeral and is only really relevant subjectively.

I think there is meaning in a parents care for their child, I think there is meaning for making a good friend belly laugh when they're going through some shit, I think there is meaning in sitting and watching the sky change colour, I think there is meaning in helping your fellow man.
I dunno, I can't make any reasoned and "logical" argument for my positions and they're hard to articulate. They're very much intuitive and a bit opaque even to myself, so I'm sure some logos lads would tear it apart.

Also I feel we're getting away from whatever the point is with talk about pleasure, I don't think life is about the pursuit of pleasure above all else, and I don't subscribe to that kind of utilitarian train of thought that leads to a kind of min maxing of pleasure, or on the flip side to antinatalist arguments.

Although I certainly do indulge in the old hedonism from time to time.

Sage for barely coherent waffle.
>> No. 438106 Anonymous
25th July 2020
Saturday 10:51 am
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I am told my personal philosophy seems to be a mixture of Western stoicism combined with a sort of vaguely Taoist wu-wei way of looking at the passage of time and my place in the world.

I've never really read up on any religion, philosophy or spirituality. It's never really even occurred to me that I should. I've always thought of it as fairly obvious that you should come to your own conclusions, and I find it a bit frightening that so many people require it doing for them.
>> No. 438107 Anonymous
25th July 2020
Saturday 11:27 am
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Are there any eskimos here? Shamanism appeals to me but I don't know if they'd take a whitey seriously.
>> No. 438108 Anonymous
25th July 2020
Saturday 11:58 am
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>>438106

>I've never really read up on any religion, philosophy or spirituality. It's never really even occurred to me that I should. I've always thought of it as fairly obvious that you should come to your own conclusions

You should come up with your own conclusions, that doesn't mean that you can't gain insight from the reflections and musing of others.

>find it a bit frightening that so many people require it doing for them.

I think it 'makes more sense' than the alternative, thinking you already have found the answer to the big question is quite comforting, although you get some strange doubling down on convictions to avoid facing the void. My Mum told me Covid was part of God’s plan, and it brings us all closer together, I think it is probably for the best I don’t try unpack that.
>> No. 438109 Anonymous
25th July 2020
Saturday 12:11 pm
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>>438107
White muzzas are a bit weird.
>> No. 438110 Anonymous
25th July 2020
Saturday 12:35 pm
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>>438109
Of the Abrahamic religions, Judaism is pretty against newbies, and Christianity is a bit wet. That leaves only Shamanism as a viable choice.
>> No. 438111 Anonymous
25th July 2020
Saturday 12:58 pm
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>>438110
Still weirdos though.
>> No. 438112 Anonymous
25th July 2020
Saturday 1:05 pm
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>>438111
Bit rich for Breitbart to be taking the piss out of anyone.
>> No. 438113 Anonymous
25th July 2020
Saturday 1:40 pm
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>>438112
Gingers will always be bottom of the food chain.
>> No. 438114 Anonymous
25th July 2020
Saturday 1:47 pm
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>>438110

Jews and eskimos don't eat pork, and I need to have my bangers now and then.

Many of the rules on food in the Thora and the snow may have made sense in the iron-age Middle East, but pigs kept for food in Britain today are not really any dirtier than cattle. And Judaism's insistence on only eating cloven-hoof ruminants is also not really something that is a necessity nowadays. One good thing though, the Thora forbids the eating of bats. That would have been useful advice in China around the end of last year.
>> No. 438115 Anonymous
25th July 2020
Saturday 2:15 pm
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>>438114
>Jews and eskimos don't eat pork

This is already changing with lab grown meat, and has brought about a big discussion in the eskimo world.
>> No. 438116 Anonymous
25th July 2020
Saturday 2:47 pm
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I find theology very interesting, at least he Abrahamic kind (I try not to spread myself too thin when learning things), but none of it's real, is it? Jeanne d'Arc, Nanook and whoever else weren't speaking to God, really, were they? God doesn't actually care about the differences between Catholics and Gnostics, or all the different flavours of Protestant, or who's actually the Caliph and why. Not least because he doesn't exist.

>>438114
Pigs do tend to have far higher (although still very low) levels of parasites though, my friend, make sure you cook that shit through.
>> No. 438117 Anonymous
25th July 2020
Saturday 5:13 pm
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>>438116

>God doesn't actually care about the differences between Catholics and Gnostics, or all the different flavours of Protestant, or who's actually the Caliph and why. 


If I was God and had created the Universe, I'm not sure I could be arsed at all to look after one entirely insignificant rocky planet in an entirely insignificant planetary system and galaxy. It is now estimated that the whole Universe spans some 40 billion light years across. Planet Earth has a diameter of roughly 0.02 light seconds. So why bother with what's really less than a speck of dust in comparison?

It makes perfect sense that the emergence of most of the world's religions coincides historically with the Geocentric Paradigm. If you believe that the Earth is at the centre of the Universe and that the stars at night are just tiny specks in the sky, then it seems plausible that there's one almighty god who is in control of the world around you. And with iron-age population levels, it was also no stretch that your god could take a keen interest in you and the few hundred other members of your tribe.

Which also explains why the Catholic Church wasn't having any of it when renaissance astronomers worked out that neither the Earth, nor the Sun, could really be at the centre of the Universe. The Church understood full well the implications, including a potential threat to its worldly power as such.
>> No. 438118 Anonymous
25th July 2020
Saturday 6:21 pm
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>>438117
I do wonder how aliens might affect the religions of the world if little green men were to land their giant flying saucer in the middle of a city.

Not to get into an argument about whether aliens do exist or if there is any chance we'd every come across some considering the distances involved and the chance of the right conditions and all that.
>> No. 438119 Anonymous
25th July 2020
Saturday 6:25 pm
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>>438117
>I'm not sure I could be arsed at all to look after one entirely insignificant rocky planet in an entirely insignificant planetary system and galaxy

You could probably set up an algorithm that does most of the work for you.
>> No. 438121 Anonymous
25th July 2020
Saturday 7:30 pm
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>>438118

https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/do-aliens-exist-pope-francis-tackles-this-and-other-things-in-new-interview-75025
Same as them adjusting to shifts away from geocentrism, they'd just get on with it. Of course you'd get a load of splinter cults that try to incorporate aliens into it in different ways, not to mention various cults and conspiracies about the aliens themselves. Older religions are already abstracted away enough that they can incorporate things like that in.

What I'd be more interested in seeing is how modern cults like Raëlism, Scientology or Posadism react to it; their belief systems already incorporate very particular concrete, physical alien life so if the aliens that are out there come along and contradict them, who knows what they'll do?
>> No. 438123 Anonymous
25th July 2020
Saturday 9:41 pm
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>>438118

>I do wonder how aliens might affect the religions of the world if little green men were to land their giant flying saucer in the middle of a city.

It'd be a matter of interpretation and semantics. The Bible says that God created Man in his image. Does that only mean earthly humans, or can that assertion be taken to include aliens as well, who just might look quite dramatically different from us?

And if somebody decides it doesn't include aliens, were they still created by God, even if the Bible makes no mention of them?

But I think the biggest obstacle is going to be sheer physical distance to other habitable planets in the galaxy and beyond. There is very probably no intelligent life within about the next 50 light years from Earth, probably much more than that, so they'd have to have some sort of technology which we are entirely unaware of to overcome gigantic distances like that.

Some physicist once addressed the issue on the Discovery Channel, and he said we must not make the mistake of thinking it's like the difference between wind powered ships of the 1700s and space rockets of our time, and that humans over the centuries simply figured out ever-faster ways to get around. The problem is that the alien technology would not only have to be (probably) completely unknown to us, but both wind powered ships and rocket engines are essentially completely consistent with the laws of physics. People in the 1700s may not yet have known about jet propulsion, but that's not relevant for its consistency with physics. In the case of interstellar travel, by contrast, the laws of physics mandate pretty plainly that nothing can move faster than light, and even light can only do so because it has no mass. Things that have mass aren't even able to come close to the speed of light in a meaningful way because of the enormous energy that would be needed to accelerate them to that point. And then you still have the problem that time slows down the faster your spaceship travels, meaning any aliens visiting us now could be the last survivors of a long gone alien civilisation that existed millions of years ago.

It might be that we will receive radio signals from an alien civilisation eventually. They travel at the speed of light, and it's thinkable that an intelligent civilisation emitted them a few hundred million years ago. But I don't think it's likely we'll ever come face to face with aliens here on Earth.

Self sage for going kind of completely OT.
>> No. 438124 Anonymous
25th July 2020
Saturday 9:49 pm
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>>438123
>both wind powered ships and rocket engines are essentially completely consistent with the laws of physics. People in the 1700s may not yet have known about jet propulsion, but that's not relevant for its consistency with physics
People in the 1700s didn't have a model of physics as accurate as ours. Our laws of physics are just as alien to them as aliens tech would be to us. I'm not saying you're wrong that aliens would have to have a technology that works using physics in ways we don't understand but it just seems like an entirely redundant statement.
>> No. 438126 Anonymous
25th July 2020
Saturday 10:03 pm
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>>438124

You can put a man on the moon with 17th century physics, albeit not 17th century engineering. Outside of the electronics industry, you don't really need anything more than classical mechanics.
>> No. 438128 Anonymous
26th July 2020
Sunday 8:32 am
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>>438126
Engineering is just applied physics though.
>> No. 438129 Anonymous
26th July 2020
Sunday 8:48 am
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>>438128

Physics is just applied mathematics.
>> No. 438130 Anonymous
26th July 2020
Sunday 9:09 am
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>>438129
Okay but that still means if 17th century physics was as good/complete as modern physics, they'd have been able to get to the moon at the time. There's more involved than just figuring out how many joules of energy it would take, you have to know how to build the tools that can put out the energy correctly. Given that a majority of people, even educated ones, didn't believe heavier-than-air flight was possible as a way of transport until people actually started doing it in the late 1800s, I'm going to hazard a guess even more people a hundred years before that were certain that getting to the moon would be impossible.
>> No. 438131 Anonymous
26th July 2020
Sunday 9:44 am
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>>438130

Not getting to the moon in the 17th century wasn't because of a limit of knowledge of physics it was because of a limit of existing infrastructure.
>> No. 438132 Anonymous
26th July 2020
Sunday 9:47 am
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>>438131

They didn't invent steam pumps until 2 years before the end of the 17th century so I think you're wrong.
>> No. 438133 Anonymous
26th July 2020
Sunday 9:55 am
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>>438130

Making stuff is much harder than imagining stuff. Leonardo da Vinci was drawing up half-viable aircraft in the 16th century, but he didn't have access to the tools or materials that could have made any of those designs actually work.

The first fictional accounts of lunar travel appeared in the 1630s, largely as a product of Galileo and Kepler's contemporary astronomical research; almost as soon as we realised that the moon was a planetary object, we started imagining journeys to it. That research was itself largely the product of advances in glass blowing and polishing technology.

It's worth remembering that in the 17th century, engineering wasn't applied physics, partly because engineering was a working-class trade and partly because nobody used the term physics - it was still called natural philosophy. The number of people who understood the cutting-edge of natural philosophy and the cutting-edge of manufacturing at the time was essentially zero, because they were strictly divided on class grounds.

Heavier-than-air flight became viable largely as a consequence of the bicycle industry, which provided the lightweight steel tubing, wires and chain drives needed to build the Wright Flyer. The Wright Brothers just barely managed to build a viable wing form, because they didn't finish high school and had only the most rudimentary understanding of mathematics or physics. Of the early aviation pioneers, only Blériot had any formal education in engineering; even he was mainly trained in the practical skills of draftsmanship and had a fairly limited understanding of physics.
>> No. 438134 Anonymous
26th July 2020
Sunday 10:01 am
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>>438133
>in the 17th century, engineering wasn't applied physics
So what you're saying is they didn't understand physics well enough to use it to get to the moon, as they hadn't applied it to tool making.

>Of the early aviation pioneers, only Blériot had any formal education in engineering
So they understood aviation physics well enough to know it wouldn't work, which is why only the people not educated in it managed to do it. Got it.
>> No. 438136 Anonymous
26th July 2020
Sunday 11:11 am
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>>438133

In essence then, space flight became possible because of cumulative technological advancements. Even with a sound understanding of the physics involved, which may or may not have existed since Newton's time, you still had to figure out both how to build rocket engines, and how to make a spacesuit that could support the life of an astronaut in the massively hostile environment of outer space. Both of which only became possible in the mid-20th century.
>> No. 438137 Anonymous
26th July 2020
Sunday 11:25 am
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>>438136

Yes.

>>438134

No.
>> No. 438138 Anonymous
26th July 2020
Sunday 11:26 am
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I think if you were saying you could get to the moon on 19th or 20th century physics, it might be right.
When you're talking about 17th century physics, it only really makes sense if you're making the point that to get to the moon you don't need to consider relativistic or quantum effects.

In real terms, saying you can get to the moon on 17th century physics only makes any sense if you look at it from the perspective of pure newtonian mechanics, and ignoring other issues such as understanding the effects of breaking the sound barrier or knowing about the elements you need to make alloys that don't melt from the heat of the engine.
>> No. 438139 Anonymous
26th July 2020
Sunday 12:00 pm
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>>438137
>No.
Yes.
>> No. 438140 Anonymous
26th July 2020
Sunday 12:14 pm
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>>438139


>> No. 438144 Anonymous
27th July 2020
Monday 6:05 pm
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>>438133
> Of the early aviation pioneers, only Blériot had any formal education in engineering

Alberto Santos-Dumont would like a word.
>> No. 438146 Anonymous
28th July 2020
Tuesday 12:06 am
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https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/religion-happy-atheism-psychology-faith-belief-emotion-mental-health-christianity-a8766376.html

>According to the results, religiously active people are typically happier and more “civically engaged” – meaning they are more likely to do things such as vote in elections or join community groups – than adults who either do not practise a religion or do not actively participate in one.

I don't buy it.
>> No. 438147 Anonymous
28th July 2020
Tuesday 1:22 am
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>>438117

What interests me is that there were, as far as I'm aware, pre-Christian astronomers who understood perfectly well how the solar system really worked. Civilisations like the Egyptians were mad boffs at stars, and I would have no trouble accepting they knew what was really going on, but we can't really tell what they thought because so much of it is muddled up with the various celestial bodies having fights and eating each other and giving birth what have you.

I like to contemplate what it would be like, if you were a 5th century Byzantine intellectual, and everyone thought you were a nutter conspiracy theorist because you keep banging on about how the ancient societies were actually right about astronomy instead of the up to date Christian model, and how the Church operates a vast cover-up to keep everyone thinking the Earth is the centre of the universe. You'd be fucking seething wouldn't you.
>> No. 438149 Anonymous
28th July 2020
Tuesday 10:28 am
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>>438147

A lot of the knowledge that sparked the renaissance and modern age was hidden in libraries in the Arab world during the mediaeval period. Even philosophers like Plato had been completely forgotten in Christian Europe. It was mainly the Spanish reconquista driving the Arabs out of southern Spain which gave Christians access to Arab books and scrolls which were partly original works of Arab natural scientists and partly translations of Greek originals. It reintroduced Europeans to a whole wealth of information and ancient science that had eluded them for centuries.
>> No. 438785 Anonymous
5th September 2020
Saturday 12:53 am
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Falun Gong
>> No. 439583 Anonymous
14th October 2020
Wednesday 8:41 pm
439583 Hello
>>438076

Traditional Catholic here. I must say, after all the years of browsing this website whilst saying mostly nothing, It's surprising to see interest in religion, It's usually something I keep to myself at work and around people outside of the family.

To answer your question, the benefits have been plentiful for me. I'll list a few from the top of my head, feel free to pry further if you're interested.

The practice of having Sundays off as a day of rest and reflection has helped me aim the trajectory of my life into the direction I wanted it to go. Planning things out, questioning my behaviors, paying careful attention to what has worked and what hasn't. Prayer functions in the same way for the most part. A somewhat meditative practice, in which I recite things that I wish to do and act out in my life. It's an attempt at self betterment, or 'following the narrow path towards God' if you'll forgive the religious rhetoric.

My parents sat down with me and read the bible with me as far back as I can remember. Consequently, my reading age at school was higher than a lot of the kids around me. Although I'm certainly no Shakespeare, and I make obvious mistakes all the time, I could read adult books in primary school when people were still learning their letters and spelling. As I grew older and went to a Catholic school, I found the same to be the case for other kids I was around. There was always a keen interest in literature. The Catholic bible, like Aristotelian writings, the works of Shakespeare and so on, make for reading material that can be revisited and learned from throughout life. Many people do just that, bible scholarship is a well established field, people spend their lives studying the meaning to the parables, prayers and rules, reading between different versions and translations. The book functions as both a puzzle and a guide throughout life.

The idea that there is a correct and incorrect way to function in the world with the ideal of Jesus Christ as an example figure to attempt to emulate has certainly shaped my character significantly. To be clear, this is not because I'm Christ like or some sort of moral paragon of virtue, rather, I am flawed like everybody else, and upon behaving immorally in the number of ways human beings tend to, looking up to the high set bar of Christ has given me a clearer image of what to do when decision making has been difficult. Morality and ethics are fields of their own, and I'm a layman at best when it comes to these subjects, but the bible and the laws within the books of Moses set some firm ground to stand on, even as they're debated and squabbled over among the religious.

I should probably stop procrastinating now and get back to work. It's getting late.
>> No. 439585 Anonymous
14th October 2020
Wednesday 9:01 pm
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>>439583
You say you're a traditional Catholic, which I interpret to mean someone who is actively involved with The Church, rather than just a 'personal' Christian. If that interpretation is correct, how do you reconcile all the benefits it has given you with the... issues that plague the Catholic church?
>> No. 439599 Anonymous
14th October 2020
Wednesday 11:04 pm
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>>439585

There's a lot that could be said here. In general I don't measure a large group of people, or an organisation of some kind, by the worst representation of the group. I'm aware that the first things that pop into the mind of many secularists when they hear the word Catholic, is financial corruption, and child rape, but It's not really something that I think about or have experienced. I've been a member of a handful of churches throughout my life, and it just hasn't been relevant to me or anyone I know for that matter.

When I hear and read about these crimes, it disgusts me, the same way I felt disgusted to find out about how China's Xi Jinping has overseen the authoritarian takeover of Hong Kong's laws, and the enslavement of over one million Uyghurs. There's nothing I can really do about these large structures tilting into corruption though, except talking honestly about them when people ask me, and being careful about where I distribute my finances. I haven't given money to the Catholic church for a long time, aside from donating to the soup kitchen, the food bank, and educational Catholic organisations like the Latin Mass Society. Starved from money, which the church is currently experiencing, the upper echelons will either collapse into irrelevance, or be forced to do something about the problems. Pope Francis, as much as I disagree with him in many ways, has moved in strides in this area, and for this very reason. There's a lot of information I'm omitting for the sake of brevity here, this has regularly been a topic of conversation among Catholics within my social circles for quite some time as I'm sure you can imagine. If you'd like to dip your toe into the water, your might be interested in 'Letter to a Suffering Church' by Bishop Robert Barron.

This brings me to the term traditional Catholic, avoiding theological jargon, the simplest way I can put it is like this. The traditional way of practicing the religion has been around for over a millennium and a half (more or less), largely unchanged. The Catholic church has tried to change the tradition considerably since around the 1960s, attempting to make it more progressive and approachable to the wider public. The original way of practicing the faith forces people to learn the Latin, learn the tradition, and actually practice the faith in what I would argue, is the correct way. The newer version turns the priest into the focal point, and well, I could list problems I see with it all day, but I'll just start ranting. I remember in the 80s there were a lot of guitars and pizza in these churches. Felt like more of a social club then a place of worship. Naturally attendance numbers for churches that practice the traditional way seem consistent, even rising slightly in popularity, but the newer way of practicing the mass, has seen dramatic loss of attendance over the decades. In another century I doubt the new version will even exist.
>> No. 439601 Anonymous
14th October 2020
Wednesday 11:07 pm
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>>439599 You'll have to forgive my bad wording It's getting late and I'm pretty tired.
>> No. 440291 Anonymous
21st November 2020
Saturday 10:17 pm
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>>439599
What do you think about the vow of abstinence clergymen have to take? I have a few friends who considered becoming priests but knew it just wouldn't be possible for them with that expectation, and they feel the church would experience a huge revival if priests were allowed to become family men.
>> No. 440297 Anonymous
22nd November 2020
Sunday 1:33 pm
440297 Hail Glycon.
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Hail Glycon.
>> No. 440300 Anonymous
22nd November 2020
Sunday 11:40 pm
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I'm reading the Bhagavad Gita and I''ve been enjoying it so far. It's full of useful advice and interesting insights on how to conduct yourself in life, presented straightforwardly as a dialogue between a warrior and an avatar of the godhead. I tried reading the Bible but it didn't come across anywhere near as cogent; it was basically a load of fanciful gobbledegook.

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