damnthing

You posted a link and a video about some necromancer discussing hell and atheists. Obviously there is no hell and there is no heaven otherwise science would have discovered both. Hell is a whip used to flagellate people into believing, or who are losing their faith to buckle up and believe. The threat could have been an infinity of existential angst and self-doubt and recriminations but how do you paint that. But people can easily understand fire, heat, burning, disfigurement, you know, all those horrible things a loving god would use to threaten people who didn't believe, or believe fervently enough. As shown in the video the necromancer claims that atheists are dragging people (other atheists) into hell. So he is using the idea of hell-as-punishment to remind his followers (aren't all those necromancers really just their version of jeebus, and everyone else their followers?) what will happen to them if they stop believing. I see it this way, a dog can respond to its owner out of loyalty and affection or out of fear and punishment. The x tian god expects its followers to behave like the fearful dog. Honestly it would make more sense if the the x tian god just said, 'believe in my and you get life everlasting, don't believe in me and when you die that's it baby, nothing at all.' Hardly seems threatening and certainly not a huge impetus to believe in such a namby pamby god, so psychotic, stalking, vengeful god it is. A person has to be a complete moron to believe in any of that, especially the idea of a god and heaven in the cloud and a hell down in the earth somewhere. With a nod to another thread what we really need is an alien 'invasion', either one that wipes us all out or even one that arrives to help us and giggles their alien version of giggles when the religious attempt to convert them. That's when a lot of 'religious' people are going to go completely bonkers, jumping off buildings, cliffs, mass suicides. The world will be a better place for it, with either scenario.

You do realize that this perfectly describes not just drumphs cabinet and advisors but his voters as well. I'm sure you do, just thought I'd point it out

It's not like I go around unarmed

But you shouldn't be surprised that I took it as sarcasm, hard to tell with you, the large font, truncated sentences and thoughts

So we're using sarcasm here?

Hi, I'm !$%KIOP{, have you hear the word of %#_+)({:L:PI:L:K%#$%@W today?

No one has mentioned Goop, which has become synonymous with snake oil homeopathy vagina candle nonsense. To the extent it is raking in the money. Whatshername has proven that even rich people are easily shorn. That she is still in business shows that her legal department is well versed in selling cures that are not 'designed to diagnose, cure or prevent...' But don't kid yourselves, it isn't just magic vagina startups like goop, or walmart selling colored, or flavored water, no, it's bigger than that. Any of you guys ever hear of a company called Timex? Takes a lickin' and keeps on tickin', right? Well it appears they've sold their corporate soul (corporations are now citizens so they must have a soul, right) for the sake of a paltry few more dollars. How you ask are they doing that? I'm glad you asked: https://www.teslarwatches.com/ https://wristwatchreview.com/2019/09/12/getting-level-with-the-teslar-balance-t1/ https://www.wearable-technologies.com/2019/10/timex-launches-teslar-watch-to-combat-electromagnetic-pollution/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertanaas/2019/05/31/timex-luxury-group-unveils-teslar-swiss-made-watch-that-it-says-is-not-a-watch/#6c881cac5ada https://usa.watchpro.com/timex-creates-wearable-wellness-watch-under-license-from-teslar/ (be sure to watch the video to really 'understand' how this technology *works*) Now understand that the explanation of how the watch works, EMF, etc is complete nonsense yet here is a (billion dollar) corporation pushing utter crapnonsense as high tech. I'm just saying, pisswater sold next to (as) medicine in walmart is just wrong, and while it seems only people with $600-$2000 to spend (not your typical walmart shopper probably) will be 'hurt', that a corporation would push this nonsense knowing a certain gullible segment will buy it, is almost as bad as homeopathy.

Seems there's a couple of megachurches that don't want to close, they seem confident that some god is going to protect them from the virus. Be interesting now to watch as the death rate rises in obstinate religious communities. Although I haven't seen any comments 'yet' from those christoholics regarding who's fault the corona virus is, since it came from china it will play to their anti-heathen and xenophobic viewpoints.

Exactly what I said. We can speculate and theorize any number of scenarios, it's cool to believe that aliens can and/or have visited but, like god, there is no evidence, no proof to support they exist. To go further is to insist that aliens have to be fairly similar to us, or similar enough that we could debate philosophies and religions. In essence it presupposes little if any significant differences between humans and the alien race with whom we will good naturedly debate. All one can really do is basically argue both sides, our side and that of the alien because there is no way to know, understand or speculate just how different an alien mind could be so instead, presuppose the alien is very nearly human and now you can have that fun argument.

Yeah you're right, basic responses to certain stimuli, geez I hadn't considered that, how silly of me. As soon as you start to apply human emotions to a non-human organism that's anthropomorphism, regardless of how well your cats trained you. Your comment about blindness suggests you think I am incapable of differentiating between anthropomorphism and true animal emotion, or that I somehow am incapable of perceiving the subtlest of their emotion. Seems a bit pretentious to suggest such a thing, considering you have no idea of what it is I might actually know. Anyway, if you feel that my responses are not what you are looking for in your various posts please let me know so I won't waste your time or mine. Because I approach these discussions from a clearly different approach (and mindset) much of what I'm trying to communicate may just go over your head. If you'd like, I'll try and break it down to something maybe a bit more cat-like

I think once a species gets out into the big black beyond, they come to realize that there is no purpose, there just is. And while I would hope that any species we meet does feel something akin to 'life is sacred', in the end it usually comes to mean 'my life is sacred, others maybe not so much'. I think the only thing that remains of us after death, besides our physical remains, are whatever memories people have of us. I don't believe in a soul, an essence, an anything. Death is the end, life has no purpose and neither does the universe. The universe exists because it exists, the only purpose our lives have is that which we give them. And death is the end, we are no better or worse than fungus, viruses, elephants or squid. One of the more selfish things we as people do is to lock up our dead bodies in coffins and concrete, segregating it from the world. Instead it should be spread out as fertilizer, to be taken up in various plants, taken up again by consumers and again still until that final consumer itself succumbs and feeds its body to the earth and the cycle continues. I guess that may very well make me a nihilist.

Anthropomorphism can be a slippery slope. I've only had dogs. There is something very unique about sharing a home with another very different species. That said, can the dog teach me anything other than 'dog'? Regardless of how much I think I understand her (and I really don't) and she can be predictable but at times, utterly dog. At no point ever is she, has she, can she ever be, human. Her experiences are her own dog experiences, grounded in her world, which intersects mine but will forever and always be unknowable to me. Pets bring comfort, some more than others, but it's mostly how we interpret their behaviors, or what we interpret their behaviors to mean. Which brings up back to the whole alien ET philosophy thing we got going on here.

So what you were wondering was if any religion on earth was cultural or species neutral and to that I have to say an emphatic NO. They are all derived from human experiences, human wonderings, human wants and desires (I can't speak to any species derived religion except for Homo sapiens). And you were maybe hoping that if there were a culturally neutral religion/belief it then would likely be cosmic or universal one (like our church), sort of a panphilosphia), with which we could debate an alien based on that commonly understood philosophy. If there is one possible cosmic panphilosophy then it has to be found in mathematics (and it's relative, music). So maybe Mozart or Sudoku will be the common ground of understanding...maybe

Surprisingly good mood here. But when you contemplate the universe, or at least when I do, I'm not at all bothered by the possibility that our existence is as I stated above, we may be a species alone, isolated and who eventually will dissipate into nothingness. And that is perfectly fine with me, I don't have to buy into some loopy afterlife nonsense to make it through every day. I'm not saying we won't leave this planet for another, or that we won't physically explore other solar systems, we might. What I am saying is that, relative to the discussion you started, I just don't think any ET that would actually make it to earth would be interested in the slightest about our philosophies, there would just be too great a difference between two very alien species. What I think you and a lot of people do is to anthropomorphize ET and assume it would have similar interests, similar goals, similar philosophies as us. At best they would show no more interest in us that a potential home buyer would to an ant's nest in the back yard, at worst it would be War of the Worlds.