Somebody explain something to me

[TZ]

What do believers in R/T insist on the fact that no one can ever know what "reality" is? WTF am I doing measuring precise amounts of drug in a persons body if there is no objective reality? Is this a philosophy that is used to justify religious beliefs? I just find this attitude really annoying. Believe what you like but your blood still pumps and your lungs still breath and your cells still divide and we can record it all...

[progressoid]

1. Kind of like those "discussions" we had when we were teens and 3/4 drunk.

You know...sittin' on the hood of a car...in a cornfield...with a case of cheap beer...doing our best to be amateur philosophers (& singing the Monty Python philosopher song)! :)

Seriously, sometimes you have to wonder if, to a certain extent, they are still in that discovery phase of life. Are they still teenagers spiritually?

More likely it's just a desperate attempt to avoid the reality of the incongruity of their beliefs.

[Kolesar]

6. So, you mean our whole universe could be an atom in the thumbnail of a giant?

"And every atom in my thumbnail could be a whole universe?"

[progressoid]

7. Oh wow man.

That's like deep and stuff.

[moggie]

17. Freaks me the fuck right out

World's Top Scientists Ponder: What If The Whole Universe Is, Like, One Huge Atom?

PALO ALTO, CA—Gathering for what members of the international science community are calling "potentially the most totally out-to-lunch freaky head trip since Einstein postulated that space and time were, like, curved and shit," a consortium of the world's top physicists descended upon Stanford University Monday to discuss some of the difficult questions facing the cutting edge of theoretical thinking.

Among the revolutionary ideas expected to be raised at the historic week-long summit is the possibility that, like, our whole friggin' universe might be just one big atom in, say, some super-duper huge thing out there somewhere, or something.

...

"By the way," Hawking added, "ever think about what'd happen if you, say, went back in time and accidentally killed your own younger self? Man, that shit would be so fucked up."

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/29433

:rofl:

[progressoid]

18. Bwaaahahahahaha! That's brilliant!

I'm sending that to my brother!!

I can hear Hawkins "voice" saying that.

[Kolesar]

19. That made me laugh until I cried

like an onion??

[lizerdbits]

16. That brings back memories

Way deeper than things like discussing the dissociation constants of things like cheddar cheese that probably don't even have one. :rofl:

[moggie]

2. I almost regret avoiding R/T over the holidays

I figured it would be worse than usual (plus I was busy with secret "war on Christmas" duties for HQ). So I missed Evoman's movie idea!

[TZ]

3. I have to admit...I took a bit of R/T break over the holidays

but this thread started in GD and had the magic words (for me) evolution and creationism. What really astonished me were how many people who claimed you could believe in BOTH with no conflict...

[progressoid]

5. Tell me about it.

My Dad has this going on in his head: Former H.S. science teacher who believes (and taught) in evolution. Abhors the idea of teaching Creationism. But he's also active in the church - even teaches Sunday school.

But somehow it works for him.

[Evoman]

8. Man, that post wasn't even funny.

I'm a lot more proud of the little exchange I had with eagle in this thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=214x161565

[TZ]

10. I'd forgotten about that exchange

That takes being "lame" to a whole nother level....:rofl:

[moggie]

11. Sometimes you go too far

I was with you most of the way, but... Hello Kitty? Nobody disses Kitty-sama!

Some posts are funny standalone, and some can act as a springboard for foolery. The movie post could have spawned a thread of almost Galactus standard, I think.

[Evoman]

12. Man, that thread was legendary.

Galactus :rofl:

[TZ]

14. Speaking of that...

I figure this might float your boat....Now everybody can be Kitty-sama...
http://www.drudge.com/news/102331/hello-kitty-now-marketed-boys

[and-justice-for-all]

4. Becasue ambiguity is their best defence...

When they question 'reality' or try to make a mystery out of what is or is not real, it helps to keep their fantasy alive.

To them, gawd exist in some mysterious plan or relm that we can not see. The very fact that gawd never makes its self known to us in a common and obvious way is a 'what then is real?' issue for believers. The questioning of reality by believers is just another way to keep the ambiguity of their eyes in the sky alive.

Religion, however, has not bases in reality anymore then Oz or Alice's Wonderland.

[trotsky]

9. Post-modernism

It's the last stronghold that the believers have set up for themselves. This one they're sure will withstand the attacks from reason as well as reality itself - because if you can question reality (or the idea that there is only "one" reality) - you've got it made.

[Warpy]

13. Sometimes my life has been so just plain damn weird

that it's taken on an hallucinatory quality. I could always tell real from unreal back in my acid queen days, but sometimes real life reaches levels of bizarre experience that tops anything I experienced back then.

People who've known me for a number of years think I should write an autobiography. I always remind them of the word "verisimilitude," and that nobody would believe most of it, that it would be dismissed as clumsy fiction.

Yet I've been comfortable in the type of world where everything can be measured and assigned numbers and/or designations, and where problems can be anticipated as soon as someone exhibits any sort of variance outside those numbers.

I don't blame the religious for having problems defining reality's parameters. If any of them has experienced even a tenth of the shit I've been through, I quite understand.

[Evoman]

15. Well, hey....how about sharing some of the weird. My life has been anything but.