mwdegutis Loc: Illinois

You're so magnanimous...NOT!

Singularity

I find you irritating. And I know its intentional on your part. As you expect, it impairs my desire to care enough about you to give a shit and I find constipation stifling to my creativity.

If you wish to persist in remaining so pissy, I shall probably seek greener pastures and nicer playmates.

straightUp Loc: California

Stephen Hawking was an amazing scientist. His passing is a great loss in the world of science and advanced thinking. In reading the comments on this thread it seems most people have respect for him as a scientist but many disagree with his views on God, which is fine but I see a lot of people insisting that he "hated" God. So here's a quote where he calmly explains his view...

“God is the name people give to the reason we are here,” he said. “But I think that reason is the laws of physics rather than someone with whom one can have a personal relationship. An impersonal God.”

You can't "hate" an impersonal God.

Throughout human history, God has taken many forms, the Christian form is only one of thousands, but many Christians insist THEIR version is the real one (*sigh*) and when someone has a different idea they are immediately accused of "hating God". Hawkings didn't hate God. Like Einstein and many other men of science, God did have a place in his views - it just didn't fit in with the version that Christians think everyone should be forced to follow.

For all we really know, Stephen Hawking is in some after-life where he arranged for a healthy body and a nice cloud to sit on, a fair distance from where God is hurling Christian Evangelists to Hell for following false prophets. ;)

straightUp Loc: California

LOL - You're doing fine. As I'm sure you know, there's an abundance of sheep on this site that get pissed off at anyone who isn't following the flock and if you present a solid argument they will turn it into an irrelevant and emotional torrent of outrage and insult, but don't let that deter you.

There are also a number of us with a little more intellectual freedom that can understand and appreciate your view. ;)

Singularity

Thank you for a reasonable measured and respectful response. I find the Christian raptors who dive in for an orgasmic blood feast capitalizing on others' momentary tender vulnerability turning it into an orgy of spiritual carnage when/wherever they sense a momentary emotional or physical vulnerability to their obscene proselytizing to be rude.

Singularity

I understand. And thanks. But I also like a little drama on occasion, like the rest. Mud wrestling with pigs, chess with pigeons....

I don't mind getting a little dusted up, but some people make it too personal a contest. As long as I'm not confused which is which, I have no problem ignoring miscreants and sore losers and flailing around with the rest of the properly socialized humans.

PeterS

Hawkins endorsed euthanasia?

Hawkins: I think those who have a terminal illness and are in great pain should have the right to choose to end their lives and those that help them should be free from prosecution," he said. "We don't let animals suffer, so why humans?

If mercy is an endorsement of euthanasia then I too support it...

PeterS

Admit it Sing--you like getting a bit 'dirty' every now and then. Of course, while you might get a little mud on you your opponents come out completely covered in it.

acknowledgeurma

Again, as I understand General Relativity, the Big Bang can't be properly called The Beginning. Based on current observations there was an event, approximately 13 billion of our years ago, when all the matter we observe burst out of a condition of extreme compression. I say our years because the passage of time slows in a gravitational field. By googling the following:

y=1/x graph

I see a blue line on a graph that goes from about -13.7 to 13.7 along the x (horizontal) axis (convenient for how long ago the Big Bang seems to have occurred if you consider the length of a unit along x as 1 billion years).
Think of that blue line as our time line. The right most point of the blue line as our current age. Notice that, moving left along the blue line, the length of segments of the blue line match the corresponding length of the x axis, we might think that years (segments of the blue line) and the x axis are the same and that the blue line (time) has a zero like the x axis, but it doesn't. Going back along the x axis, at about 2, a segment that would correspond to a billion years on the blue time line, starts to correspond to ever smaller segments of the x axis. Going back along the x axis, one comes to a point labeled zero that one might also label the beginning, but the x axis is not our time line and its beginning is not ours. Going back along the blue line (back in time) one never comes to an end, so there was no point of creation, no before the beginning, no reason to think about something being created from nothing. Something has always existed, just not things in the form we see about us in our neighborhood from our current location in space-time.

Singularity

"The space between the dirt and heavens is not wide enough for a gnat to fly." Big Mamma Dickens/Derseah to Singularity, 1960's

"If you live, your gonna get a little on you." Big Paw to Pappy Phihrmann. 1970's

When you come out on top, you tend to smell better in the end. (Me, just now)

acknowledgeurma

Is this determination of moral bankruptcy based on observation of all who profess to be Christians or just some subset?

Singularity

The content of biblical text.

The foundational doctrines of generational blood guilt and vicarious substitutional redemption.

Distaste for the commandments and principles requiring the practice of animal and human sacrifice and symbolic cannabalism.

Its unambiguous endorsement of the right of one person to own another fellow human and control the investment with sufficient physical violence and emotional blackmail to extract compliance, short of killing or damaging the investment beyond the hope of future function for more than a few days.

The subjugation and license to abuse, misuse and dishonor the humanity of 50% of the human population based on biologic gender.

Child abuse.

Is that enough or shall I continue?

Oh, yeah, pet peeve, genital mutilation of children and retardation of scientific/technologic/moral advancement of humanity, aka The Dark Ages.

Bad Bob Loc: Virginia

You would slaughter horses NPP?

Marsinah

Did you ever read "Johnny Got His Gun", by Dalton Trumbo? Read it while I worked at Fitzsimmons Army Hospital in Denver, in 1969, as a Pulmonary Function Technician. I was watching and wondering and wanted to know all I could, about everything. (Notice I didn't say I agree that all war is an abomination, which is pretty much the theme of the book.)

Christopher Reeves; a remarkable man. Never gave up hope that a cure would be found.

And that puts me back in mind of euthanasia---means one is giving up hope.

Did you ever read the psychological thriller "Kill Me" by Steven White? It is about a group of people who discover that one of their friends contracted a debilitating disease, and had to live a horrible end-of-life scenario. So to help them avoid that, they authorized the establishment of a group that, in the case of something like that happening to any one of them. would set up an automatic "kill" situation; their death would automatically occur. Well, you can imagine the "ending" of the novel.

At any rate, I felt the upshot of that type of "euthanasia" would eliminate all hope. And without hope, well, you know... Even the Greeks lauded hope: Pandora.

The Arabs say: Never deprive a man of hope; it may be all he has.

PeterS

I like the last one...