I clicked the thing

Yeah!

@5pike clicked the thing

@5pike does not yet autocomplete

@KevinvanderVelden Yes, I did, but I'm leaving because discussing religion makes me sick.

Anyway, my interpretation of the previous passage was what I said before: Mortal concepts can't be accurately applied to non-mortal things.

@5pike then why click the thing? =p

@KevinvanderVelden Curiosity, I guess.

You clicked the thing again!

@OrigamiRobot Sure, I have no problem with that, within limit, I wouldn't find someone a bad person for killing ants that enter their homes

> As part of God’s response to Job, He points out that Job’s perspective is limited due to his relatively short span of life, limited knowledge, and limited experience. In contrast, God not only existed from eternity but created the entire world with all of its complexity and wonder.

But (and we might be talking 2 different topics) what I was talking about was people that call the god of the bible good. If you are going to apply a mortal concept to an immortal being, good is not the one to apply to god

How many bad things vs good things must one do to be considered good or bad?

Hmm

(I also don't know what you're referring to specifically)

(I'm also certainly playing a bit of devil's advocate)

Oh, first example I found: biblehub.com/psalms/136-1.htm

That. Christians repeatedly say that the god of the bible is good, while his actions are often horrible

No, I meant the bad stuff

@KevinvanderVelden What is "often"

skepticsannotatedbible.com/cruelty/long.html

There's a list =p

Things like:

"Oh he was good for saving us from the egyptians" "Uuh, not really, he made the pharaoh not release the people so he could punish the innocent egyptians with plague after plague"

@OrigamiRobot it's not the scales really, it would in such beings be the intent. If you create a people because you want to create a people, good, if you do it because you want them to praise and worship you... uuh, no I would not consider that good (not evil in this case!)

@KevinvanderVelden The people who believe they were created could be happy just to have been created.

@OrigamiRobot Yes, but doing something because you want a bunch of sycophants, kinda makes you not deserve that

@KevinvanderVelden I'm pointing out that your perpective may not be perspective of the people who are calling Him good

In a sense, that's why some people get pets. Are they bad people?

That is true, basically I like Stephen Fry's answer to the question "What would you say if you died and it was all true"

(If you can listen to it?)

I can't see videos from work :(

Oh! Transcript: i100.independent.co.uk/article/…

> ... Nowif I died and it was Pluto, Hades, and if it was the 12 Greek gods then I would have more truck with it, because the Greeks didn’t pretend to not be human in their appetites, in their capriciousness, and in their unreasonableness… they didn’t present themselves as being all-seeing, all-wise, all-kind, all-beneficent...

And there are certainly people who will blindly claim that God is good even without knowledge of any of His deeds just because that's what they were told to do.

Yeah

But "because I was told so" is never a good reason, the conclusion might be correct, it's just never a reason that supports the conclusion

Indeed

I'm not trying to say anyone is right or wrong for saying god is good or evil.

If you're asking for a good reason people say those things, I can't really help you because I think the whole notion is a bit childish and arrogant.

And there we disagree, I think that the god of the bible is evil. Only if you ignore vast sections of the bible (including some of the popular stories!) can he be considered good

@KevinvanderVelden I think the same can be said of the reverse.

switching the words evil and good?

yes

It's easy to look at a list of bad things and come to the conclusion that something is bad.

Just as it is for the opposite.

Both methods are flawed.

True enough

Believing (even hypothetically) in some higher power and then trying to fit it into a box seems counterproductive.

I disagree, we're humans, labeling stuff is what we do

It is how we spread information, it is how we advance

@KevinvanderVelden Or you can just change the size/shape/etc of the box as you get information

Which, sadly, most religions would view as heresy.

@OrigamiRobot yes, which we do by either inventing new labels or adding existing labels to add to the box

@KevinvanderVelden You don't have to do it that way.

Humans also tend to resist change and labels create something for us to anchor to.

@OrigamiRobot well, we kinda do (the problem of talking in analogies). Labels are the words we use to describe something, the box is what is in our head, we can't communicate except via those labels

Would you mind if I asked if you have any sort of faith/belief/whatever? Just curious.

I really enjoy hearing about other peoples' beliefs (or even lack thereof)

Atheist

I got the feeling, but didn't want to assume.

More specifically: I don't claim there is no god, you can't prove a negative. I do claim that there is insufficient evidence to even claim deism

(Unless deism in your case means the "There are gods but they do not interact at all")

I can certainly see that.

@KevinvanderVelden I'm kind of in this camp.

I think there could be one or multiple higher beings, but there is no guarantee that they interact with the world or are even sentient.

Ooh not mentioned: I do claim that the gods of the bible, koran, torah, hinduism, etc. Those that interact with humanity on a regular basis do not exist

Because, well, the claims pointed made by those religions about the day to day interaction have been shown to be false, repeatedly

Well the claims of the religions don't necessarily speak to the existence of their gods.

True true, it could be that the claims are wrong. But then I'd call that a different god

Those texts were, of course, written by humans

In the case of the Bible, it just has a disclaimer like "This is true if you alter it to not be true you will be punished"

Which is pretty weak DRM if you ask me :P

Heh =p

But what you said was essentially a case of "Well, the god as described in the bible doesn't exist, but a god that has the same name and powers but just doesn't interact with the universe does".

I believe that everyone's belief is rooting in some measure of truth, but the aforementioned box fitting may have warped them to various degrees

@KevinvanderVelden Even when I considered myself a Christian, I was of the opinion that you should form your own interpretation of the Bible and not follow it's exact letter.

There are way too many factors to dilute its literalness IMO

translations/age/etc

@OrigamiRobot I was taking your statement as a reply to me considering the gods of religions that interact with humans in their books disproven

@KevinvanderVelden Yes, I'm saying I see that as proving that the lens of the text is flawed as opposed to the being it's supposed to represent not existing.

@OrigamiRobot yeah, I'd word it differently but we're not disagreeing

Of course, someone could believe that each person's interpretation of a being creates that being.

In which case the literal text version could theoretically be proven/disproven

Beliefs about the unknown are fun :D

Heh

@OrigamiRobot there are plenty of stories where that essentially happens (though it's more commonly done as there being a seed personality which then is changed and gets power from the belief in that character)

Basically I believe in Truth. Objective reality that, because of our brains, is unknowable by humans.

We may, coincidentally, come to the correct conclusion, but we can't know it's the correct one.

@KevinvanderVelden Yea, or peoples' beliefs are what give them the power.

I like those types of systems

@OrigamiRobot I said that =p

Those are fun

@KevinvanderVelden My original statement was more trying to say that beliefs created the entity in the first place. There are also systems where the entity exists beforehand and is given power by belief.

Aah

I can recall a few stories where that is essentially what happens

Dresden had some of the latter.

Like? I can't recall any

You've read Skin Game, yes?

I mean, the fae were essentially defined by what people believe in, but they started from something

@OrigamiRobot Yeah, I read it in one go xp

Hades mentions that his power (while still considerable) is less than what it was when he had an active following.

True, but that doesn't mean he was created by said belief

Right, I said "the latter"

I mean, look at Odin in that book

> There are also systems where the entity exists beforehand and is given power by belief.

Oooooh

That latter

Nevermind =p

Yea, I'm very interested in Odin

He seems strangely involved with the mortal world

Yeah, he's bloody spoiler spoiler

He also mentioned there might be a way to take off mantles

True, the spoiler spoiler are inherently interested in mortals

Man, good religion talks today

Happy surprise

I suppose Winter/Summer fading when it's not their season is also an effect of that same thing (the believe bit)

@KevinvanderVelden I gathered that was more due to Nemesis

I meant fading each season

s/season/year

Oh, the actual seasons ending.

Oh, I like that idea

Yeah, as in, people "believing" in summer/winter because, well, tis' right there

In the summer, people start wishing it was cooler, so Winter gain more power

And vice-versa

That too, hadn't even thought of that

Hence the cycle because humans are never satisfied :P

Humans are weird =p

That's why I identify as robot :)

<- dragon

I wonder if mavra (black court vampire) is going to make a reappearance

Speaking of, Ferrovax is supposed to be important in the endgame

Cool

said Jim Butcher somewhere at some point

Do you know how many books are remaining?

No clue

All I know is that I powered through what there was ina few months and now I'm sad that I have to wait

Yes =[

I've recently reread them all before I read skingame

I listened to all the audiobooks

The reader is so good

Reading is faster =p

I can't read while driving to work :P

Bet you didn't finish skin game in 7 or so hours =p

Skin game was 15 hours, IIRC

The reader is James Marsters, if you liked Buffy

UUuh I'm terrible with actor names

Who's that?

Spike

Aah

I cried when Harry met Maggie T_T

Same T_T

He really nails the emotion there

"Do you wanna be my daddy?" T_T

I'm tearing up just remembering

Also when he wakes up after molly helps him with the "parasite"

Also when Thomas sees him for the first time after he comes back.

In cold days? Yeah

Damnit now I'm gonna have to reread them all

I think I'll wait with that though =p

Stupid books, stop being so good

Did you read his other series? That's pretty good too

(And finished =p)

Which one?

Furies

Codex Alara?

Yea, I have not

I know about it though

> Jim’s next project will be Steampunk series called The Cinder Spires. He’s currently writing the first book, The Aeronaut’s Windlass. We’ll let you know as soon as we have a release date to announce!

Oooh steampunk!

I'm about to start reading something called The Night Angel Trilogy

@KevinvanderVelden I'm always wary about steampunk writing

I think I've been told to go read that

In my experience, it's usually LOOK AT ALL THESE GEARS STEAMPUNK FUCK YEA DID I MENTION THIS HAS GEARS BECAUSE IT'S TOTALLY STEAMPUNK

Yeah that happens

It's hard because to me, it's a visual style and you have to balance descriptions with subtlety

Speaking of steam punk: I totally wanna create a miniature steam engine >.>

I've seen kits for them

The ones I saw were expensive though

Yeah

There's a tiny one for 30 dollars from china: dx.com/p/…

@KevinvanderVelden ugh, I can think of uses for them

Where does the water go, I wonder?

dx.com/p/…

That's a set with a boiler

(Look at the tiny engine :o)

Oooooh

Even better

It's the same engine though, so you could build your own boiler

That flywheel is 2cm in diamater

I still need to make more/better faux furnaces

And then actually use them

That's the issue

Hmm, I want to make a actually efficient steam engine

That looks realistic :o

What's it made out of

Crushed glass rolled in black resin

Cool

LEDs underneath

I want to mess around with cycling the LEDs to give it a more realistic effect

which would give me an excuse to add a MCU

Hehehe

Well we've certainly gotten off-topic now :P

Yes

So? =p

I have to go to an appointment now

Aight

Cya

o/

\o

I assume we can resume normal Bridge talks for the rest of this