question for athiests

Absolam

I could eat some pancakes.

Are we talking the with bacon and maple syrup type, or the with sugar and lemon juice type? Actually, doesn't matter. Both are good.

Peregrinus

Absolam wrote: »

I could eat some pancakes.

Are we talking the with bacon and maple syrup type, or the with sugar and lemon juice type? Actually, doesn't matter. Both are good.

Dangerous indifferentism!

True pancakes come with sugar and lemon juice.

BlaasForRafa

Peregrinus wrote: »

Dangerous indifferentism!

True pancakes come with sugar and lemon juice.

The maple-syrupists pin letters to the doors of sugar and lemon juice-ists to tell them of their wrongness.

kylith

Probably get done for heresy here but recently I've taken to making American style fluffy pancakes. They're really very nice, and you can put fruit right in the batter.

Mince Pie

Peregrinus wrote: »

Dangerous indifferentism!

True pancakes come with sugar and lemon juice.

No, pancakes come with maple syrup and bacon, you have crepes with sugar and lemon. Both equally delicious.

Proxima Centauri

As an Atheist

My toast must be done on one side only, then allowed to go cold laying flat on a plate so it also becomes moist with condensation.

As for the original poster, here's a question to ponder.......

If there is a God, would this God be an Atheist or would he/she believe in a higher power(or super God)??

lazygal

Proxima Centauri wrote: »

My toast must be done on one side only, then allowed to go cold laying flat on a plate so it also becomes moist with condensation.

:eek::eek::eek:


What fresh hell is this?

Proxima Centauri

lazygal wrote: »

:eek::eek::eek:


What fresh hell is this?

My children will be indoctrinated into believing that this is the one and only way of making toast. Hopefully they will enter the adult world and like modern day missionaries they will spread the word of the Cold Moist Toast

robindch

kylith wrote: »

Probably get done for heresy here but recently I've taken to making American style fluffy pancakes. They're really very nice, and you can put fruit right in the batter.

Would I be right in thinking that the fruit concerned is pineapple?

*yuk*

Shrap

robindch wrote: »

Would I be right in thinking that the fruit concerned is pineapple?

*yuk*

Ah come on. Pineapple ONLY goes on pizza. Bloody heretics :mad:

FishOnABike

Absolam wrote: »

I could eat some pancakes.

Are we talking the with bacon and maple syrup type, or the with sugar and lemon juice type? Actually, doesn't matter. Both are good.

We may celebrate the perfection in the pancake and delight in the diversity of its deliciousness with lemon, sugar, strawberries, bananas, cream, chocolate spread and a cornucopia of coverings but we must stand steadfast against the barbarism that is bacon. To bind bacon with pancakes is to wrest it from its proper place in the fantasticness that is the full Irish fry up.

kylith

Shrap wrote: »

Ah come on. Pineapple ONLY goes on pizza. Bloody heretics :mad:

Damn straight!

looksee

I've been thinking for a while that A&A could use an off-topic thread, but then I realised that pretty well any thread here goes off topic for occasional stretches so it doesn't really matter.

Edit - that isn't a criticism, quite the reverse !

Lucy8080

I went off topics when I lost my sweet tooth. As chocolate bars go ,it was one of my favs.

I can see what you did there, you are not the savoury type ( toast, pancakes, pizzas) and are subtly trying to get folks to join a cult which will rot their teeth and make them fall out.

Don't believe this one folks, they promise monetary rewards from the tooth fairy so as to keep you on topics.

A cult full of nuts, hazelnuts iirc.

kylith

I think we embrace all snack foods. I love a bit of jerky, for example.

BlaasForRafa

Tried beef jerky once, it was like eating a salty leather shoe.

The Draugan

Obviously glad i was born , just because i don't believe my life on earth is akin to hanging around an airport terminal waiting to get to some better place eventually, doesn't mean i feel a sense of lacking purpose.

I know why i'm here ( because all living organisms reproduce) i know what i'm here for (to reproduce) i know this my only shot , i don't know how long it will last but i'm going to enjoy the bloody ride and not be sweating sinning or wasting my Sunday mornings playing Simon says with some paedo, worshiping a 2000 year old, dead Jew , on a stick :P

Hotblack Desiato

The thread arose, and appeared to many

Iseedeadpixels

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

The thread arose, and appeared to many

And MOD said to thee I shall locketh this up :pac:

lazygal

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

The thread arose, and appeared to many

And it was good.

Stealthfins

mickoneill31 wrote:

Daft question I think. The flip side would be As a theist are you looking forward to death?

It's nice to see someone ask such a nice question ?

Of course a theist would look forward to death,thats a daft question also....

Hotblack Desiato

One of life's mysteries - the theists sit in the church and are told the deceased is in a better place, and believe they will be there themselves soon enough - so why are they f**king crying?

Absolam

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

One of life's mysteries - the theists sit in the church and are told the deceased is in a better place, and believe they will be there themselves soon enough - so why are they f**king crying?

Because they miss the person that isn't with them? I've seen people cry when parted from someone they love for a couple of hours, so crying over the rest of a lifetime apart doesn't really seem that odd...

Qs

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

One of life's mysteries - the theists sit in the church and are told the deceased is in a better place, and believe they will be there themselves soon enough - so why are they f**king crying?

To be fair have you seen the way most of these people live their lives? Why would they assume they are going to a better place?

Its not the crying that baffles me. Its that people don't spend their lives devoted to doing good works, etc. If I genuinely believed there was a heaven and I would either spend eternity there or somewhere pretty awful then I'd be working pretty hard to secure my eternity was in the better place.

evolving_doors

I preferred before I was born cos I ate crisps all the time

recedite

evolving_doors wrote: »

I preferred before I was born cos I ate crisps all the time

Back in those days putting on weight was considered a good thing.

CerebralCortex

An interesting take on the creation of sentience. https://www.edge.org/conversation/thomas_metzinger-benevolent-artificial-anti-natalism-baan

smacl

CerebralCortex wrote: »

An interesting take on the creation of sentience. https://www.edge.org/conversation/thomas_metzinger-benevolent-artificial-anti-natalism-baan

It is certainly an interesting piece and I would tend to agree more with the conclusions drawn by the comments at the end than by the author. By my reading of the essay the author also seems to assume the super intelligent AI to be an unconflicted single mind of unsurpassable intellectual power as opposed to a multitude of artificial consciousnesses with intellectual abilities orders of magnitude greater than our own but still infinitesimal in the grander scheme of things. I'd say if and when we see true AIs, we'll get the latter first and their behaviour would dictate progress after that point.

CerebralCortex

smacl wrote: »

It is certainly an interesting piece and I would tend to agree more with the conclusions drawn by the comments at the end than by the author. By my reading of the essay the author also seems to assume the super intelligent AI to be an unconflicted single mind of unsurpassable intellectual power as opposed to a multitude of artificial consciousnesses with intellectual abilities orders of magnitude greater than our own but still infinitesimal in the grander scheme of things. I'd say if and when we see true AIs, we'll get the latter first and their behaviour would dictate progress after that point.

Honestly I find the trajectory of recognisably intelligent systems like humans, societies and their machines quite uncertain or opaque even. I think the thought experiment is more useful in terms of the ethics and values involved in deciding to have new sentient entities around, kids as an example. What I also find intractable is how non believers justify rolling the dice aka procreating especially in light of the guaranteed suffering and meaningless in life. I suspect there are different tolerances and emotions that are involved that aren't uniformly distributed across the non believing group. Personally the idea of vicarious emotional well-being through children is jarring... ...seems like a ponzi scheme.

Good article on a book on the subject:
http://bostonreview.net/books-ideas/mark-johnston-samuel-scheffler-death-afterlife-humanity-ponzi-scheme

Hotblack Desiato

You're currently not a parent then, I take it :pac:


I'm always amazed, whenever the question of how consciousness arises comes up, that the obvious examples from the animal kingdom are overlooked. It's obvious, at least to me, that consciousness and self-awareness are a function of increasing brain complexity.