RECAP #7: Golden State Warriors 109, Toronto Raptors 102 - I <3 Stephen Curry

Ah, the "god of the gaps."

LOL That’s a ridiculously cliched response to positive evidence of an afterlife. I’m not saying, “We don’t understand it, so it must be God!” I’m saying that when people have near-death experiences, it’s too coherent to be a hallucination and the content of that experience involves support for doctrines of Christianity and Judaism.

Hallucinations are rejected in hindsight, because they don’t make any sense. Near-death experiences, on the other hand, logically support basic religious doctrines.

This has nothing to do with “god of the gaps.”

[GSoM server nervously awaits the 378 posts that will follow this one…]

Hey how about them Warriors?! Wooooo hoooo 5-2!

I kid I kid.

You see, the secular person is humble enough to know ahead that all his desires for meaning are meaningless. All we have is being good to each other because it’s better that way and all we can have is our short life with as much love and good stuff as we can.

That’s not humility, that’s arrogance. Your assumption that all meaning is meaningless assumes you have perfect knowledge of everything that happens in the universe. Which you clearly don’t! How can you say all meaning is meaningless? The statement you just produced essentially means nothing! So why did you say it in the first place?! Was it meant to be meaningful?!

Second, what is good? Or is the concept of morality relative as well?

We walk around with these brains. The brains make us see, hear, and think we see and hear things.

What’s your point? That just tells us how we process information, not why. Correlation does not equal causation.

I hope you keep questioning your faith throughout life.

I do everyday. Fortunately for me, that’s how my faith (and I assume, Naticus’ faith) have become stronger.

More that the brain creates patterns out of sensory data, and allows us to describe those patterns as our experience, building upon the previously created patterns we call language and story to ascribe meaning to the raw experience itself.

He/it does not make Himself/itself plainly evident to us.

He’s pretty plainly evident to me and a lot of other intelligent and rational people. What makes you think you’re so special that God has to prove Himself to you, when you don’t want to make a single life change?

See, if God gives a sign, whenever people demand it, that proves God is easily controlled by man. If God is easily controlled by man, God is evil. This is what sign-seekers REALLY want, a manipulatable God.

In reality, Christianity and Judaism are based on the idea that you CAN see God in this life or angels or miracles. It’s based on history, e.g. the Gospels or the book of Jeremiah or Ezekiel.

For my part, I’ve tested this out, to see if God will give me enough to go on, which is what the scriptures say will occur for those who exercise faith. God proved Himself to be consistent with what is in the scriptures.

See, in Christianity, you put your faith on the line, when you act upon what you believe. If you didn’t get results, you would become disillusioned. The reason it’s hard to believe is because it’s scary to put your faith on the line. You don’t want to test God, because most of the time, you want to believe in God (there are exceptions to wanting to believe in God, of course).

But for those with some courage and hope, you can get powerful results from exercising faith. I have and millions of others have, so it is quite testable.

Henry Eyring, one of the great chemists of our time, (heard of the Eyring equation?) was asked how he could be religious and a scientists at the same time. His response: “I believe in my religion for the same reason I believe in science. It works.” That’s exactly right. It is testable and measurable in this life, not just the next.

As a practicing Catholic, I have absolutely zero interest in trying to prove the existence of a Creator to others or getting offended if someone thinks I am an idiot for believing in one. All I care about is living a moral life and remembering those in my family before me by carrying on some family traditions.

Drugs are directly comparable to oxygen deprivation and whacks on the head, in that a drug in itself, has no information or visions. Unless our brain is front-loaded to produce something coherent from a drug, a drug won’t produce any visions. A brain chemical that tends to produce religious feelings is a little like a brain chemical that produces laughter. Just because parts of the brain and certain chemicals cause laughter doesn’t mean that humor isn’t real and doesn’t exist.

If you use a drug to make me laugh, it won’t be funny in hindsight, and I can’t go around making others laugh. But if you tell me a good joke, I’ll believe it was funny in hindsight, too, and I can tell others, and it will make them laugh.

so god was a big ole comet that scared the crap out of some cavemen?

Obviously there is the implication that those who are religious are inherently wrong in their beliefs but to be honest I can’t really read what he said as “atheists are stronger” but more of “religion is man made” and “atheists are right.” I dunno, maybe it could be read a lot of different ways.

 Not stronger , just more perceptive. Strength has nothing to do with intelligence.

How are you defining legitimate? Just saying a lot of people believe in it? Or a lot of smart and important people believe in it? That’s fine, I don’t think anyone would argue that, clearly there are TONS of religious people around the world. But it kind of seems like you are arguing that religion is legitimately testable and observable.

See, in Christianity, you put your faith on the line, when you act upon what you believe. If you didn’t get results, you would become disillusioned. The reason it’s hard to believe is because it’s scary to put your faith on the line. You don’t want to test God, because most of the time, you want to believe in God (there are exceptions to wanting to believe in God, of course). But for those with some courage and hope, you can get powerful results from exercising faith. I have and millions of others have, so it is quite testable. Henry Eyring, one of the great chemists of our time, (heard of the Eyring equation?) was asked how he could be religious and a scientists at the same time. His response: "I believe in my religion for the same reason I believe in science. It works." That’s exactly right. It is testable and measurable in this life, not just the next.

Care to elaborate on that?

I could do without ever seeing Radmanovic at C again.

individual human behavior doesn’t invariably follow an orderly, predictable course. People go through physical and emotional break downs and don’t fully recover, and performance pressure can become difficult to overcome. Chris Dudley, a memorably bad foul shooter, was nearly elected OR governor, so a man doesn’t need to be defined by that motor skill.

You’re assuming Biedrins is as good as his career. It seems to me, after last year, there’s about a 50/50 chance Biedrins is absolutely horrible still, that he’ll shoot like last year. The pressure of the end of the game and everything riding on him can’t be helpful. If I were a coach, and I needed a miracle come back, I would be inclined to use hack a Biedrins. It’s a lot better than just letting the Dubs hold on to the ball and run time down or fouling Curry or D. Wright.

Actually his shooting form seems much improved. He’s removed the pause in his shot, and actually seems to be at least attempting to place the ball less on his palm and more on his fingertips, creating a better arc on his shot with more rotation.

Of course, the other half of the equation is concentration, and he clearly is still extremely bad at this. In tonight’s game vs. the Bucks he clearly dribbled mid-shot when fouled to avoid going to the line. In my opinion this is all the more reason to put him on the line in real game situations. Have him shoot technical FTs even. Otherwise, he isn’t likely to ever average a double-double again, and his effectiveness will be extremely curtailed.