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[wombat]

And as for Sumatra and other Tsunami/Earthquake zones - this is 2006 and there is enough wealth in the world to make those people safe if that route were chosen and if the people there wanted to be helped. As humans, we have the capacity to make that decision and the resources to make it work. But the world and the people on it don't work that way - probably those people know the risks but they can't or won't move, and if they did, others would be unwilling to share their resources to make that happen. But, those folks have been living in those areas for hundreds of years and I'm sure they know the risks. The ocean is a source of food to be sure but people live inland too.

This seems to me to blame the victims in a distressing way.  If there is a God, I hope he's the one who's taking me to the dog dentist for reasons beyond my understanding (and who, to beat the metaphor to death, perfectly understands my inability to understand).  Not the one who lets poor people be screwed over by tsunamis because humans are crappy to each other and wealth is unequally distributed.

[jough]

We're also talking about the same God who pulls the wings off of butterflies and fucked with Abraham and Job for his own pleasure.  I mean, Old Testament (Torah) God was kind of an asshole.

I may have said that already.

Anyway, AD, I think you basically wrote "ignorance is bliss" above, which is true, I guess.  But what if we're already in the light?  What if we're aware that those shadows on the stones are not us, but just the light we're blocking from behind us?

Once we're unchained from the rock of religious bullshit there's really no going back, man.  I've already seen the sun.

[theinevitable]

typically, looking at the sun blinds you.

(and on that note: OH shit, I am suddenly thinking of the movie Pi.)

[jough]

God is in the numbers.

[theinevitable]

oh man. So, I just thought of a thing that would be hilarious.

"ok. Add two and two. It's... FOUR. Imagine, if the universe was random, it could be any number! two and two could be... a billion! But, instead, it is 4. Which is also the result of two times two, I might add. That's proof of the creator, right there."

I am not making fun, I swear. That scenario just popped into my head.

[Limmo]

[w]hen we're all living in mansions in the sky we'll have to meet up and have a laugh at how young and serious we once were.
~Paul

I read that and found myself thinking of an interview I read with Sam Harris, author of "The End of Faith":

One thing I can tell you is that we don't know what the actual relationship between consciousness and the physical world is. There are good reasons to be skeptical of the naive conception of a soul. We know that almost everything we take ourselves to be subjectively -- all of our cognitive powers, our ability to understand language, our ability to acknowledge anything in our physical environment through our senses -- this is mediated by the brain. So the idea that a brain can die and a soul that still speaks English and recognizes Granny is going to float away into the afterlife, that seems to be profoundly implausible. And yet we do not know what the relationship between subjectivity and objectivity ultimately is. For instance, we could be living in a universe where consciousness goes all the way down to the bedrock so that there is some interior subjective dimension to an electron. So I'm actually quite skeptical of our ever being able to resolve that question -- what the real relationship between consciousness and matter ultimately is.

[jough]

"See, when you add the numerical value of mother and father it adds up to the same number for child!"

"No shit.  It is that way by design."

"..."