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[Pattern-chaser]

PC says: "Only when that has happened can I see any reason to accept any of the [gods, leprechauns and other mythological beings] you mention".

This is typical apatheism. It is not agnosticsm.

If you do not believe in God at all - which is your position, that is atheism. You don't have to actively disbelieve or even have the slightest interest in the question. If you don't believe in God, then you are an atheist. That's what the word means. If you were in a country that killed atheists like Iran or its proxies, you would be in danger, as would Lagaya and me.

By contrast, an agnostic entertains the idea of God, but is not certain enough to fully believe. This is very different to having no interest or opinion, as you do. That's textbook apatheism. In fact, I'd say I'm much closer to being agnostic than you are because I have seriously thought about it and have a certain concept of God (entirely subjective) and one very arguable one (hyper-advanced remnants from prior universes). All you have are leprechauns to say "never say never".

If you are an agnostic, please name me a concept of God that you find credible enough to almost believe.

Rather, I agree with Lagaya, you're taking the p1ss. I will now contemplate the possible existence of vampires. So far, there's zero evidence to say that they don't exist ...

I already responded to this misunderstanding:

You misunderstand. Above, I present the reasonable and logical argument that you seem unable to discover. Personally, however, I retain the theist beliefs you know me to hold, even though it is irrational to hold such views. Just as your views are irrational, and illogical too.

So it appears that your misunderstanding is quite deliberate.



I venerate God in the form, and by the name, of Gaia. I find Her credible. But not according to logical and reasonable argument. Belief in God is a deep and visceral feeling, not a conscious, intellectual, conclusion.

I am a theist; you are an atheist. Neither of us can offer *any* reasonable or logical argument to support our views, because there is no such argument.

Now who's "taking the piss"?

[Lagayascienza]

Belinda, how dare you insult the FSM or his profits! You know what this means, don't you? It's off with your head, Madam! Praise be to our lord, the most merciful FSM!

[Lagayascienza]

This is rich:

I am a theist; you are an atheist. Neither of us can offer *any* reasonable or logical argument to support our views, because there is no such argument.

Well, that's nonsense, right there. I mean, really, a theist whose god is Gaia?! Unfortunately for the theist, he can offer no evidence whatsoever for a his Gaia as god. The atheist, on the other hand, can demonstrate by reason, by inference to the best explanation, that such an godly entity is just so much New Age nonsense. One can look at all the feedback loops and notions of homeostsis that govern earth systems, but no where in all that will one find a godlike Gaia. All we find is blind indiference.

[Belinda]

I hope you mean that it's of no moment what sort of persona you clothe your deity in.
Maybe it does matter after all! The medium for the message does matter when people aim to persuade each other.

I am given to understand that Pastafarianism already has a schism in the ranks; those that favour European Style pasta, and those that chose the holy oriental Ramen noodles.
No violence has yet broken out , but of other religions are any thing to go by rivers of blood will run.

All flavours of Pastafarianism are cults.
This is because pasta is an inanimate physical substance not the living ,experiencing substance it was made from i.e. wheat, barley , and so on.
Ideas such as the idea of the living experiencing God are fertile ideas not manufactured items such as pasta.The traits of the living experiencing God come from one of two wellsprings----fear or love--- and it is which wellspring that matters to the acolytes of the God idea and others affected by the idea.
Pastafarians idolise pasta . Capitalists idolise money. Cowards idolise personal safety. Zionists idolise a nation. Magas idolise Trump. Superstitious people idolise a religion.

HERETIC!!!

Tell me now - what is it that you are idolising here in this statement?

"Touche!" excuses me from accusation of idolatry.

[Sy Borg]

PC says: "Only when that has happened can I see any reason to accept any of the [gods, leprechauns and other mythological beings] you mention".

This is typical apatheism. It is not agnosticsm.

If you do not believe in God at all - which is your position, that is atheism. You don't have to actively disbelieve or even have the slightest interest in the question. If you don't believe in God, then you are an atheist. That's what the word means. If you were in a country that killed atheists like Iran or its proxies, you would be in danger, as would Lagaya and me.

By contrast, an agnostic entertains the idea of God, but is not certain enough to fully believe. This is very different to having no interest or opinion, as you do. That's textbook apatheism. In fact, I'd say I'm much closer to being agnostic than you are because I have seriously thought about it and have a certain concept of God (entirely subjective) and one very arguable one (hyper-advanced remnants from prior universes). All you have are leprechauns to say "never say never".

If you are an agnostic, please name me a concept of God that you find credible enough to almost believe.

Rather, I agree with Lagaya, you're taking the p1ss. I will now contemplate the possible existence of vampires. So far, there's zero evidence to say that they don't exist ...

I already responded to this misunderstanding:

You misunderstand. Above, I present the reasonable and logical argument that you seem unable to discover. Personally, however, I retain the theist beliefs you know me to hold, even though it is irrational to hold such views. Just as your views are irrational, and illogical too.

So it appears that your misunderstanding is quite deliberate.

I venerate God in the form, and by the name, of Gaia. I find Her credible. But not according to logical and reasonable argument. Belief in God is a deep and visceral feeling, not a conscious, intellectual, conclusion.

I am a theist; you are an atheist. Neither of us can offer *any* reasonable or logical argument to support our views, because there is no such argument.

Now who's "taking the piss"?

No, you have been deliberately using vague language and basically just playing rhetorical games. You should have referred to "Gaia" in every post to make it clear that you were talking about what you believed, rather than pretending that you might be open-minded towards Biblical version concepts, just as you are open to the existence of leprechauns - due to lack of disqualifying evidence.

So yeah, you have bee the one taking the piss all along. Everyone will concur.

I would also challenge the concept of Gaia, as described by Lovelock. The idea that humans are destroying the Earth is bonkers. The Earth is destroying the Earth - or, more realistically - the earth is restructuring.

Saying that humans are destroying Gaia is akin to saying the blue-green algae destroyed Gaia when its waste products raised oceanic and atmospheric oxygen levels. First, the oxygen poisoned most species and, secondly, it triggered more than one ice age. You might as well say that Gaia is also sometimes destroyed by volcanoes - which caused multiple mass extinctions. We must find a solution to volcanoes before they start destroying everything again! One Earth! One continental plate!

The concept of the world being one makes perfect sense. The concept of the world being one, aside from humans, is anthropocentric philosophical naivete.

[Sy Borg]

Pastafarians idolise pasta . Capitalists idolise money. Cowards idolise personal safety. Zionists idolise a nation. Magas idolise Trump. Superstitious people idolise a religion.

I cannot believe that you remain tribally left, even after all of the left's betrayals. The left is not the colour blind left inspired by MLK, it has become a toxic, racist, anti-male cesspit, a close reflection the ugliest of Trumpist MAGA.

Capitalists don't idolise money, they idolise the power that money brings. Through most of history, people have idolised power - which is what deities are all about. Today, there is a trend towards idolising anyone who claims to be a victim, a dynamic that has raised a swathe of grifters.

I am just as unimpressed by today's racist, sexist identity-obsessed left as I am by sexist, racist, superstitious Trumpists.

[Belinda]

Pastafarians idolise pasta . Capitalists idolise money. Cowards idolise personal safety. Zionists idolise a nation. Magas idolise Trump. Superstitious people idolise a religion.

I cannot believe that you remain tribally left, even after all of the left's betrayals. The left is not the colour blind left inspired by MLK, it has become a toxic, racist, anti-male cesspit, a close reflection the ugliest of Trumpist MAGA.

Capitalists don't idolise money, they idolise the power that money brings. Through most of history, people have idolised power - which is what deities are all about. Today, there is a trend towards idolising anyone who claims to be a victim, a dynamic that has raised a swathe of grifters.

I am just as unimpressed by today's racist, sexist identity-obsessed left as I am by sexist, racist, superstitious Trumpists.

I don't claim to be a party politician and when I say I am socialist I mean that the common resources should be held in common for all the people not only the rich few. There is ample evidence that working people , sans governance from a static and powerful few , will apportion resources for the common welfare.

My perception of politically Right politicians is that they try to conserve social classes so as to keep the power for the rich and limit life chances for the poorer people.
What is your stance on the value of social mobility?

[Pattern-chaser]

So yeah, you have bee the one taking the piss all along. Everyone will concur.

I do hope not.

[Pattern-chaser]

I would also challenge the concept of Gaia, as described by Lovelock.

Gaia, as described by Lovelock, is a theory, not a God. Gaia is:

Gaia (/ˈɡeɪə, ˈɡaɪə/; Ancient Greek: Γαῖα, romanized: Gaîa, a poetic form of Γῆ (Gê), meaning 'land' or 'earth'), also spelled Gaea (/ˈdʒiːə/), is the personification of Earth. Gaia is the ancestral mother—sometimes parthenogenic—of all life.

The concept of the world being one, aside from humans, is anthropocentric philosophical naivete.

Yes, of course. Did someone suggest otherwise?

[Sy Borg]

I would also challenge the concept of Gaia, as described by Lovelock.

Gaia, as described by Lovelock, is a theory, not a God. Gaia is:

Gaia (/ˈɡeɪə, ˈɡaɪə/; Ancient Greek: Γαῖα, romanized: Gaîa, a poetic form of Γῆ (Gê), meaning 'land' or 'earth'), also spelled Gaea (/ˈdʒiːə/), is the personification of Earth. Gaia is the ancestral mother—sometimes parthenogenic—of all life.

Gaia is the ancestral mother—sometimes parthenogenic—of all life ... I like it.

Still, we moderns seem to underestimate the Sun and the Moon. Without the Moon's stabilising effect, Earth would probably only be any kind of mother to microbes deep underground as waves a hundred metres high smashed the surface. Then there's the Sun - which comprises 99.8% of all the mass in the solar system. Most of the remaining 0.02% comprises Jupiter and Saturn. The Earth is about Let's see ... I'm about 65kgs, which means 0.3% of me (Earth) is about 0.2 grams.

By contrast, we breathe out about a litre or two of water (mixed with microbes, chemicals etc) daily. If we think of stellar ignition as starbirth, then we are small fragments of congealed afterbirth material.

In the end, this is not our show. It is not even the Earth's show. This is absolutely the Sun's gig, and we are its puny (albeit clever) agents.

[Lagayascienza]

The Gaia hypothesis is interesting. In its original formulaton, it was criticized for being teleological and against the principles of natural selection, but later refinements aligned the Gaia hypothesis with ideas from fields such as Earth system science, biogeochemistry and systems ecology. As reformulted, it's an attractive hypothesis.

Even so, it is not universally accepted by scientists. And as you say, Sy Borg, when we see ourselves in the context of the rest of the solar system, earth is a miniscule mote circling a mountain. And after four or five billion years when the sun leaves the main sequence, we're toast. Earth and all it's life and intricate feedback loops will end, and Gaia will gone, too. But by then, in the unlikely event that we are still around, we'll probably be living elsewhere in the galaxy. And, in a sense, we will have taken a bit of Gaia with us.

[Belinda]

The Gaia hypothesis is interesting. In its original formulaton, it was criticized for being teleological and against the principles of natural selection, but later refinements aligned the Gaia hypothesis with ideas from fields such as Earth system science, biogeochemistry and systems ecology. As reformulted, it's an attractive hypothesis.

Even so, it is not universally accepted by scientists. And as you say, Sy Borg, when we see ourselves in the context of the rest of the solar system, earth is a miniscule mote circling a mountain. And after four or five billion years when the sun leaves the main sequence, we're toast. Earth and all it's life and intricate feedback loops will end, and Gaia will gone, too. But by then, in the unlikely event that we are still around, we'll probably be living elsewhere in the galaxy. And, in a sense, we will have taken a bit of Gaia with us.

Not revering Gaia has been responsible for all kinds of pollution and degradation from the American Dust Bowl to the bleaching of coral reefs to us all having microplastics in our tissues.We are one with our environment including if humans go to live elsewhere in the Galaxy. Gaia is a personification of the environment of which we are a part; and that we don't know and comply with this fact is now made clear by Gaia .

[Lagayascienza]

I agree, Sy Borg. Far from revering Gaia, we're treating the earth apallingly. If it decides to spit us out we'll have no one to blame but ourselves. We have known for a very long time that climate change is real and we've understood the physics of it for even longer. And we know that global heating is causing, among much else, the death of coral reefs world-wide. But will we stop pumping GHGs into the atmosphere? It doesn't look like it. Levels of CO2 and methane in the atmosphere be going up faster than ever. And plastics are not going anywhere. Still, some earth scientists think we still have a little window of time to turn things around. I hope they are right. But if they are not, Gaia won't care. Life on earth will continue. It might just be without us and a lot of the species we grew up with.

[Pattern-chaser]

In the end, this is not our show. It is not even the Earth's show. This is absolutely the Sun's gig, and we are its puny (albeit clever) agents.

...

Not revering Gaia has been responsible for all kinds of pollution and degradation from the American Dust Bowl to the bleaching of coral reefs to us all having microplastics in our tissues.We are one with our environment including if humans go to live elsewhere in the Galaxy. Gaia is a personification of the environment of which we are a part; and that we don't know and comply with this fact is now made clear by Gaia .

In my mind, Gaia is Universal, not limited to Earth, or even to our Solar System. Other beliefs will shape different conclusions, of course.

[Belinda]

Belinda, how dare you insult the FSM or his profits! You know what this means, don't you? It's off with your head, Madam! Praise be to our lord, the most merciful FSM!

A theocratic state would I have me punished, I know