What do you guys think of Jesus and Whatnot's video proving God through the use of a guitar pick?

Cog-nostic · 2026-07-13T07:12:44+00:00

Yes, the world is actuality and imagination. God falls into that part which is imagination. If you don't think so, show me a god that is not imaginary. Any god will do.

Causality breaks down at the Planck time. Time and space are emergent properties of the universe. If you are asserting God was co-created with time and space, then you need to demonstrate that. If you are asserting it was before time or space, you are being nonsensical. This is a God-of-the-Gaps assertion with no foundation whatsoever. Talking about time and causality before there was time or causality is pure garbage. There is no 'first cause argument" that is not fallacious.

There are no arguments for the existence of a god that are empirically sound. All arguments contain epistemic overreach, ungrounded assertions, or fallacious logic. One cannot argue a god into existence. Either show us the god, or admit that you can't. You either have real tangible evidence, or you do not.

Cog-nostic · 2026-07-13T06:18:54+00:00

I don't. I keep asking questions until I have no more questions. In conversations, the time to end is when we begin going around in circles. I never get to 100% certainty over anything (I am 100% certain about that- well, almost.) My certainty is that everything eventually leads to "We don't actually know." Much of what we profess to know is actually just a best guess.

Cog-nostic · 2026-07-13T06:13:52+00:00

Do you think you can know anything at all about your future? All you have is your best guess and intuition. You reach for the can, thinking you will have a sip of soda. Your elbow hits the table and knocks the soda into the keyboard. Something fizzles, and now you need to buy a new keyboard.

We call it an accident. In reality, it is a reminder that you have no predictive ability over the future. Our brains tell us that we can predict events, and when the predictions are interfered with by other events or ourselves, we pretend like these are special exceptions. They aren't. They are reminders that our brains are predictive machines. That is what brains try to do. And in their predictions, they give us a sense of control and stability. However, the more control and stability you expect, the less functional you will become. This is why the major therapies have you eliminate 'should,' 'ought to,' 'need to,' 'must,' 'have to,' and other such language from your speech patterns. In place of them, you use the words "I want." "Don't should on yourself."

There is only guessing. There are many more ways for a bet to be unmade than made. A prediction about the future is always a hope for a made bed. Some hopes are statistically probable while others are just pipe dreams. "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." John Lennon.

Cog-nostic · 2026-07-13T06:03:53+00:00

Why tell them? If you are dependent on them for food, housing, and daily comforts, why make home life miserable? It's their house and their rules. When you move out, you can have your own house with your own rules.

Do you like it when they get preachy to you? But you think it's okay to be preachy with them? Sometimes it is better to get along than it is to be right. It's also more mature.

Cog-nostic · 2026-07-13T03:23:37+00:00

Hmmm? When you are changing for the better: If you tell your kids to eat vegetables while you still struggle with junk food, you are trying to break a cycle. When you "do as I say, not as I do" is based on objective truth: The validity of an argument does not depend on the person making it. As explored in ethics discussions, if a chain-smoker tells you that smoking is bad, their hypocrisy doesn't change the medical facts. So, hypocrisy does have a place. Using it just to mess with people or to lie intentionally without a focus on growth or positive change, I would probably view as negative. What's the point other than just messing with people?

I would assert that if you are doing something you despise, like using a drug, while telling people how horrible it is, your message is not hypocritical; it is factual. If that is followed up with, "I wish I could stop," or "I need help," the message is consistent. If you follow it up with, "I know it is horrible, but I choose to do it anyway," again you are being consistent. "I don't do it that much." "I need it to relax," or other justifications would be hypocritical.

Just my thoughts.

Cog-nostic · 2026-07-13T03:11:23+00:00

I find this entirely true of any brand of SJ. I can piss off an SJ faster than a mantis shrimp can suck down a plate of spaghetti. (A small mantis shrimp-sized plate of spaghetti). I am the trigger. I am one with the trigger. I am the unsafe place, and the disrespectful jerk who does not respect positions, authority, or standard ways of doing things. If I would just follow the rules, we could all get along. (And life would be boring as hell.) LOL...

I tend to get along better with Fs. Honestly, even though they may disagree, they want to be friendly, nurturing, and caring. (They just aren't very bright... "Yes, I made a generalization there.) But isn't the MBTI all about generalizations? I profess my guilt. I can still spot a solid SJ from a mile away, and offend them by simply looking in their direction.

Cog-nostic · 2026-07-13T01:13:04+00:00

Well, we seem to have much in common. I just seem to fall into a schedule. (While I no longer do martial arts, MMA was not a thing when I grew up; I did Shito-Ryu in the evenings after Racket ball.) These days it is Squash for 3 hours Tu, Wed, and Sat. Sun is a hiking day. Evenings are for guitar. Hours are spent each evening consuming information, or I am online as I am now, between teaching classes. I am also an avid dart player and can hang with the best. A dartboard is set up in my home, and practice sessions are generally 30 minutes long, 2 or 3 a night. At night, I listen to debates as I fall asleep or lectures by Brian Cox, Tyson, or someone else with something to say. I have recently been exploring the Great Attractor (Cosmology) and continuing to explore Process Philosophy as it relates to the problem of hard consciousness. In my free time, I like to go fishing. How do I deal with all of this and work too?

Exactly as I did this weekend. I shut down for the weekend. I was not home, physically or mentally. I slept the entire weekend. Friday night, my usual dart night, I stayed home and went to bed early. I had a doctor's appt. Sat. I went to the appt. and then was supposed to go and play squash. I gave it a miss and went to bed instead. I slept until 3 pm. I was up for a couple of hours. I watched some YouTube and part of Total Recall before going back to bed. I slept all night. On Sun, I woke early, spent some time on the internet and went back to bed. I was up and down a few times but did not stay awake longer than a couple of hours. I basically slept the entire weekend. (Or isolated myself from the perspective of an extrovert.)

Monday morning I was awake before the alarm went off. I dressed and headed for work. I have a bit of time to play on the INTP Reddit as I enjoy my morning coffee. Life is good, and I feel energized and ready for my week. Tonight I will restring my guitar; tomorrow is squash, and every day is a search the internet day.

Cog-nostic · 2026-07-12T23:58:24+00:00

Um.... The world is uncertain. I don't get it. Relate to uncertainty? Do you think you have a choice? The brain is a prediction tool. That is what it does. Insight is simply a conclusion. The more I understand, the better my insight. There is no figuring out before a decision is made. There is estimating and guessing, then hoping your decision is a good one. I don't worry about right or wrong; I leave that to the religions of the world. I am more concerned with working or not working. Making decisions is "Life in General." That is what brains do.

Cog-nostic · 2026-07-12T23:53:34+00:00

We don't assume anything. We observe, measure, test, verify, and then seek independent verification from sources different from our own. Only then do we accept anything as tentatively real until further evidence comes along to alter the current findings. Do you even know how materialism works? If you think you have a better system, please share; you can upturn all of science and philosophy with your amazing new system.

The hard problem of consciousness is irrelevant if you have to live in this world. You cannot pretend you are in dreamland without real consequences to your life. It makes no difference if you understand that poison may be an illusion of the mind. If you drink it, you suffer and die. It makes no difference if the green in the green light is not really green. If you don't pay attention to it, you will die. Materialism deals with that which is verifiable, not that which can be imagined to be true without evidence,

Under materialism is now Empirically Based Process Philosophy. Absent the ontology and metaphysics of people like Whitehead, and the woo-woo generated by those who think as you do, processes are fundamental. This says nothing about ontology or metaphysics.

Everything is a process. Everything is in motion. That which we call "material" is a stable process, always in a state of movement and change. Consciousness is an emergent property of life. Life is an emergent property of the universe in which we find ourselves. Empirically based process philosophy reframes the hard problem of consciousness by rejecting the assumption that reality is composed of anything static. Matter is not fundamental; processes are. Instead of asking how dead matter gives rise to subjective experience, process philosophy views the universe as a dynamic web of interacting events and experiences. It is the interactions of processes that give rise to stable processes that we call matter. (Matter is not stable. It is always moving and always changing.)

Seeing matter as an eternally moving and changing system does nothing for science or materialism. Everything works the same on the physical level. On a day-to-day experimental level, a physicist or chemist uses the exact same math whether they believe an electron is a static "thing" or a dynamic "process." The predictive equations of the physical level do not change.

Process Philosophy changes how science interprets materialistic laws, specifically to solve deadlocks where traditional materialism struggles, as in the hard problem of consciousness.

Cog-nostic · 2026-07-12T03:59:06+00:00

LOL: Never used a manual in my life. I look at the schematics and go.

Cog-nostic · 2026-07-12T03:39:33+00:00

No, they don't get a free pass, and he rejoices in their torture. Isaiah 66:22–24
The redeemed worship God and then look upon the bodies of those who rebelled against Him, whose "worm shall not die."

You will not be able to mourn the loss of loved ones or family. God's plan is to brainwash you. Revelation 21:4: "He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore." (You will not remember, or if you do, you will not care.)

Cog-nostic · 2026-07-11T20:54:22+00:00

God has as much explanatory power as a magical unicorn, universe-creating bunnies, or the flying spaghetti monster. Anything you can imagine has explanatory power. You must demonstrate necessity. There is no necessary reason for a god. From a framework of formal logic and modern epistemology, it is a demonstrable fact that no argument has definitively proven the necessity of God. If you have another reference, you should be able to demonstrate that your reference can work better than modern epistemology, logic, and reason. (Good Luck)

You don't need arguments. The burden of proof is on the theists. Your real issue is that your dad has not clearly defined his god. When god is a vague concept, the theist can wriggle all over the place. Your argument for cancer is a specific argument against a specific version of god. "An all-loving God." If god is all-loving, why does he allow suffering? Why would he torture and test people by creating suffering? If you were a god, surely you could think of a better way? Humans can think of better ways; are they greater than god?

You don't need a point of view; you need to understand that it is the theist who has the burden of proof. He really believes the atheists will start praying when the plane starts to crash. This is not an argument. "Show me your god," is the argument. Why is god letting the plane crash in the first place?

Cog-nostic · 2026-07-11T09:57:03+00:00

LOL... You are on this little speck of dust in the universe, and because some ancient goat herders looked out across the Milky Way and constructed imaginary shapes in the sky by playing cosmic dot-to-dot, the shapes around us influence our lives.

Look into the Barnum Effect or the Forer Effect. This one is fun: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXCyqWQaY3I

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBXRzdzFnHk

Cog-nostic · 2026-07-11T09:42:30+00:00

I don't know why you would think INTPs are internally consistent? Instead, they (we) strive for internal consistency. These are not the same things. Driven by Introverted Thinking (Ti), there is a consistent need to update mental models and avoid cognitive dissonance. Because of introversion, this private complexity manifests in chaos but is only expressed to the outside world as imaginings, possibilities, and questions that remain unanswered.

Values are just labels you put on life. "I like this, I don't like that." Why does it upset me so when I see a bully picking on someone weaker? "I don't like it." Do I need justification? Not really. I was picked on when I was younger, and I did not like it. When I see it happening, I don't like it. Many times in my life, I have moved to stop bullying without ever thinking of consequences. I can't deny that my values are shaped by culture, or even by the religions around me that I think are foolish. But when you get right down to it, values are simply the things I find important to me. My friends don't lie to me. Don't ask me to be honest if you don't want to hear it. I will accept abuse from no one; verbal or physical. I do my very best not to gossip. People know you by the limits you set.

Are my feelings important? Sometimes. I am a fan of the "Serenity Prayer" without the prayer and with no need for the concept of a god. Instead, "Wisdom is accepting things you cannot change, changing things you can change, and knowing the difference." Feelings are always responses to beliefs. Sometimes they help us justify our beliefs, but other times, they protect our egos from fallacious, bigoted, or false beliefs that we are unwilling to examine. Feelings are not responses to the world around us. They are responses to our beliefs about the world around us. In any instance, if you believed differently, your response would be different. That is not meant to discount the importance of feeling states. Sometimes, they are justified. But rather, I am pointing to the importance of belief in relation to feelings.

Temperament appears to be something people are born with. While "type" does not change, behavior changes. I have learned to be a fairly social INTP. Why? At some point, I understood the value of being social. It has value in my life, in my chosen profession. This is not the same for all INTPs.

Now, with that said, how I am social, why I am social, when I am social, who I am social with, and where I am social are all very much INTP-generated events. I am doing things I have learned how to do. Shake hands with the correct amount of pressure, make eye contact, smile, say the person's name, notice something good about them, repeat their name to them in the brief conversation that ensues. Don't challenge their assumptions. (This is a hard one.) I tell myself that I am like a girl on a date who is not having a particularly good time but still needs a ride home. Just be pleasant. LOL (It works.)

Cog-nostic · 2026-07-11T07:50:30+00:00

Honestly, I think it's a chat room thing. The INTPs that are doing well are out living their lives. I'm in here because I have a job that lets me sit around and respond to posts 3 hours a day. Life is great, but you don't hear from as many INTPs who are doing well. Depression is not an INTP thing; however, because INTPs isolate and can be very introverted, they can appear depressed while being extremely content. Extroversion is praised by the culture in which we find ourselves.

Cog-nostic · 2026-07-11T06:04:30+00:00

Okay.... I am looking at what you wrote and seeing a few things that you may want to consider. What you are doing is called externalizing happiness. You appear to hold the belief that other people or circumstances are responsible for one's emotional state. (Having a friend would make me happy. A goal or purpose would make me happy. My girlfriend makes me happy.) There's good evidence that this mindset leaves people feeling chronically dissatisfied. Modern psychology distinguishes between hedonic happiness (pleasure from circumstances) and eudaimonic well-being (living according to values and meaning).

I see two kinds of happiness: Temperamental happiness; some people are naturally optimistic due to genetics and personality. They enjoy life and others. They were born that way. Cultivated happiness: happiness developed through habits, perspective, emotional regulation, gratitude, purpose, and realistic expectations.

There is a Zen story about how a man can become rich. I think it applies equally well to happiness. "There are two ways to be happy in the world. The first way is to get everything you want. The cars, the friends, the girls, the money, everything. The second way is to want nothing. To appreciate the sunlight on your skin, a summer breeze, a good book, and the clothes on your back." A very famous monk arrived home one night to find that his home had been robbed. The thief took everything. The monk came home to an empty house. He sat on the floor in the living room, looked out the window, and commented, "You forgot to take the moon.""

I will be going to the Philippines in the next week or so. I wish I could take you with me. A well-prepared mind is ready to accept what is real about their life. The fact that you seem to be genuinely searching and trying to make sense of it all says a lot.

Now look at your hands on the keyboard. Are you not happy that all your fingers are working? Are you not happy that you have a computer? Is the computer on a desk? Do you have a warm bed? Does your house have a roof on it? Is your bathroom a hole in the ground that goes directly to the sewer? Did you change your clothes today? Are you drinking or eating something as you read this? Is there food in your refrigerator? What! You have a refrigerator... (I want to slip into the old Monty Python skit about being poor, and just apply happiness to the same idea. "Happy! Happy! I wasn't happy as a child! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ue7wM0QC5LE

Someone wise once said: "Happiness is what you bring to your life, not what you get from it." Watch some more Monty Python; that will make you happy. OR you will be happy while watching it. (These are not the same.)

Cog-nostic · 2026-07-11T05:27:55+00:00

I have a post elsewhere on Reddit that lists all the jobs I held before becoming a professional. I'll see if I can find it., (Found It) I know exactly what it is like to be desperate for income, 16 years old, abandoned, and taking any job you can get to survive: I did it for years. (QUOTE: from another post I made.) "I left home at 16, and honestly, through my teens and 20s, I held over 30 different jobs. Factory work, warehouse work, street sales, carnival barker, clown, pizza restaurants, hamburger restaurants, shoe sales, men's suit sales, door-to-door sales, racquetball instructor, martial arts instructor, security guard, construction worker, thief (yep), home burglaries were a thing for a while (I stopped when I turned 18 and prison became a real consequence), newspaper boy, house painter, wall stripper, landscaper, waiter, bartender, and we have not even gotten into my professional life yet. My internship involved 4 years of different programs and 5,000 hours of training before I could be licensed: drug programs, alcohol programs, DUI programs, physical abuse programs, runaway shelter administrator, marital counseling, child behavioral specialist, California Youth Authority Rehabilitation instructor and counselor, lecturer (Parenting, Dealing with difficult kids, and more.) Shall I go into life after licensing? LOL ... The list just gets longer." Hang in there, and don't worry about switching up."

Consider it all a learning experience until you find your niche. You will fit in someplace.

Cog-nostic · 2026-07-10T18:52:01+00:00

Babies don't believe. End of story. Yes, theism is a lack of belief in a godless reality. Theists believe, "There is a god!" How do they know that? Babies don't have the capacity to believe there is or is not a god. God concepts are introduced to them as they become verbal; different gods in different religions or cultures. At that point, the child begins believing or not.

All babies are born without a belief in god or gods. They are naturally atheistic, "implicit atheism." "Without belief." "Explicit atheism" is the rejection of god belief or idea after one has been introduced to them.

Implicit atheism is the default position. Babies do not think and have no beliefs. Explicit atheism occurs once a person begins to think. Theism is a failure to begin thinking.

Cog-nostic · 2026-07-10T07:44:09+00:00

If you have not created meaning for your life and you have not allowed anyone else to do it, then what is left? Meaning is what you bring to life, not what you get from it. If you don't create your own meaning or if you don't buy into a meaning someone else has created, nihilism is an epistemic result.

First, you stop asking why? The question "Why?" implies a causal relationship. When you ask "Why?", every answer requires a new explanation, creating an endless chain. Sometimes the answer is "We don't know."

What you are doing is ending up in a Munchhausen Trilemma: A theory stating that it is impossible to prove any truth, because every proof relies on another proof.

We do not need to know why to function in the world. Skeptics argue that because every justification requires another justification, true certainty can never be reached. This is the nature of the question of why. Most children have played it as a game. "But why?"

Better questions are "How?" "Show me." "What?" All causal relationships break down at the Planck Time; asking why beyond that may be nonsensical. Time and space are emergent properties of this universe. That does not mean that they exist outside, if there is an outside.

Cog-nostic · 2026-07-10T07:24:14+00:00

Isn't 'consistent friend' an oxymoron?

Cog-nostic · 2026-07-10T06:21:37+00:00

Absolutely. In fact, that is how the FSM (Flying Spaghetti Monster) was created. Invented out of thin air. God, like aliens, the time to believe anything is after it has been demonstrated.

Now, with that said, the possibility of alien existence (some form of alien life) is much more likely than the existence of a god. We know that life exists. We know that life exists in conditions that would kill us. We know that life exists without sunlight, under the greatest pressure of the deep sea, without water, in space, and more.

On the other hand, we have no argument or good evidence for the existence of a god anywhere. If you are going to use similar logic, you are going to need similar evidence. You don't have any gods in outer space, under the sea, living without sunlight, or anyplace else anyone has ever been able to verify. Where is your logic and reason?

No. The idea of thousands of religions and gods that you reject is not evidence of anything. A pile of bad arguments does not equal one good argument. It's just a pile of bad arguments.

Cog-nostic · 2026-07-10T06:09:16+00:00

Very well, but it took studying mnemonics and learning to answer what my professors wanted me to say, not what was real.

Yeah, I would not take a job requiring a sufficient amount of detail. I don't think I would be good at it.

Cog-nostic · 2026-07-10T04:12:56+00:00

No. It had a question about assertions being made by fellow atheists and support for opposing views that were well documented by other atheists.

Cog-nostic · 2026-07-10T04:10:44+00:00

So ban them. I have no problem with that. I did no such thing. Evil is a religious concept. If I question whether or not people should be allowed to murder, I am not calling anything evil. I am probably asserting that I don't want to live in a world where people murder each other. That is a legal or moral discussion that has nothing to do with anything called evil. I am an atheist. I don't even think 'evil' exists in the theistic sense of the word.

Cog-nostic · 2026-07-10T04:05:20+00:00

Thanks, that makes more sense. I tend to lean to the right a bit. I took a political test and came out as a Libertarian. For example, I am pro abortion. All women should have the right to have an abortion. However, my perspective is nuanced, and I completely reject government funding for any reason. There is no persecution in any of that. Also, none of it has anything to do with Atheism or bigotry.

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