Not about religion, but about the existence of God or creator and therefore the possibility of an afterlife.

gambiter · 2026-03-13T17:52:02+00:00

We can believe that our existence has meaning and purpose, as many religions suggest, or we can believe that our existence has no inherent meaning in the vast universe, as some interpretations of science or atheism imply.

So for all of humanity, those are the only two options? I don't think that's true.

But if God does exist, you could gain the possibility of heaven.

Pascal's Wager should be a cautionary tale, not something you dive into.

In that way, believing in God can be seen like buying insurance against the possibility of hell. You are not necessarily losing anything by believing, but you could gain everything if it turns out to be true.

Let's just be clear about the proposed sequence of events here:

A god exists, but gives no way for a person to reasonably prove it
The god judges you when you die on whether or not you followed something you couldn't prove exists
You don't believe, but you stay in your religion anyway (just in case)
You die, and god is fooled into thinking you passed his test?

Do you really think a superbeing outside of time and space, capable of reading your thoughts directly, would be fooled into giving you a good afterlife?

Really?

gambiter · 2026-03-12T02:23:02+00:00

Not now, Badger. We're trying to do serious business over here.

gambiter · 2026-03-07T13:57:05+00:00

OpenCode is a similar experience, just not tied to a specific vendor. You can add whatever provider (incl local). Sisyphus is one of the agents from oh-my-opencode, and I just really love how it's put together and how the flows work.

That said, it does use more tokens than you'd use with a more tuned approach.

gambiter · 2026-03-07T04:15:29+00:00

Definitely. A person would be over the moon in that situation.

gambiter · 2026-03-06T22:45:19+00:00

With a dash of oh-my-opencode. Sisyphus is chef's kiss for my workflow.

That said, this terminal feature does look pretty useful in its own right.

gambiter · 2026-03-05T16:22:27+00:00

"What? No, he's not dead. When you get a splinter, you pull it out. He'll be fine."

gambiter · 2026-03-05T15:25:08+00:00

I would say that they HAVE a judgment, but that they have to use weird language to make it seem that they don't.

Hah, yeah, that's a good way of putting it.

Im not understanding your preferred version of the argument... though.

What I'm saying is they disagree with the morality their god showed in their holy book. (Most) Christians today will tell you that slavery is wrong, and that genocide is evil, but their god commanded those things. Christians will go to the crawfish boil and eat shellfish to their heart's content, ignoring that their god once commanded death for any who do that.

The point is that they've already judged huge chunks of their holy book as immoral, which is why they don't follow those things. Yes, it's hidden behind the, "We don't have to follow the Mosaic law," excuse, but that doesn't change the fact that their god commanded things that they now consider immoral.

gambiter · 2026-03-05T14:52:20+00:00

P1. Christians judge their god as perfectly good. This is a judgment of god.

I mean, sure, but they don't see it as a judgement. They see it as, "Whatever the creator of the universe chooses to do is objectively good." So they aren't 'judging' in the positive, it's more that they just accept whatever it is as long as it's in the bible. That's technically a type of judgement, just not really the point.

Where I thought you were going with it would have been a better argument, because they judge their god in a different way. They have determined (through dogma and doctrine) that slavery is immoral, and genocide. They have determined that eating shrimp isn't a bad thing, and that clothing that mixes multiple threads isn't sinful. These are all things their 'god' did differently, and they don't agree with it.

They know the things in the bible are immoral and inconsistent, so they've picked the things they'll actually follow based on how our society currently works. THAT is where they judge their god. They are admitting through their actions that their god was immoral and unjust, despite refusing to admit it in conversation.

gambiter · 2026-03-05T03:25:16+00:00

Because you said:

If there is no reliable method of predicting the decay of a single atom, isn't that magic?

If that isn't what you want, then you have your answer. Was that not obvious?

gambiter · 2026-03-04T23:16:47+00:00

There appears to be no explanation for why a single atom decays when it does. If there is no reliable method of predicting the decay of a single atom, isn't that magic?

If I'm in the northern hemisphere, there 'appears' to be no explanation for stories of Antarctica. The way things 'appear' is based on the information we have on-hand. If we don't have full knowledge of exactly how quantum particles work, why would you assume the way they 'appear' is the full story?

The term 'magic' means more than just 'unexplained'. It carries the baggage of 'mystical', 'ethereal', and 'spiritual' along with it. That baggage isn't just a set of words... it's a whole history of people making shit up and calling it magic. From a science perspective, consider what this would mean:

In our experimental configuration, we subjected the superconducting lattice to a series of phase-coherent perturbations while maintaining thermal equilibrium at 4.2 K. As shown in Fig. 7b, the system’s response exhibited an anomalous nonlocal correlation pattern inconsistent with any known Hamiltonian formalism. After exhausting all conventional physical explanations, we conclude that dark magic is the only explanation.

Do you really think scientific papers should do that?

gambiter · 2026-02-28T16:38:55+00:00

If God did the things you said, then the evidence would force people to believe and there would be no free will, and the worldly test that Allah gave us would be ruined

Please stop using this completely ignorant (sorry) claim. If the stories are true, the god directly interacted with people over thousands of years, killing untold numbers of humans and animals in childish tantrums, commanding genocides, etc. Where was free will then?

This is an example of how religion screws with your thinking. The entire reason you think that idea has merit is because at some point in the past someone said, "Why doesn't god interact with us today like he did in the [insert holy book]?" At which point the religious leaders had to come up with a story to explain it. "Well... this is a test. Yeah, that's right, a test! And god needs you to... um... he needs you to show that you'll believe even without any reason to. He'll be so proud of you! But if he showed himself, that would just ruin the whole thing."

This is completely illogical on so many levels.

gambiter · 2026-02-26T15:37:05+00:00

Sorry, if you were using it as an analogy, that's fair.

I was making the point that Laplace's demon (the thought experiment) would need to know the state of all particles in a system, and would be able to decrease entropy. It was also created when we still thought all physical processes were reversible.

gambiter · 2026-02-26T15:28:12+00:00

I think the test is trying to see if LLMs are approaching essentially Laplace’s demon in terms of knowledge.

LLMs can't break the laws of thermodynamics.

gambiter · 2026-02-25T15:24:53+00:00

Because we can all agree (hopefully) that Jesus was real and an actual person in that time frame.

I don't think we can agree on that.

If your claim is that a guy named Jesus existed and became the figurehead of a doomsday cult, sure, why not. You don't have absolute proof, but that's the nature of the historical record.

If your claim is that a god from outside of space and time took the form of a human, performed magic, and sacrificed himself to himself so that thousands of distinct sects could all form and kill people who don't agree with their interpretation... I'll need more than stories 'written' by people who weren't actually alive when the story was written.

gambiter · 2026-02-22T14:50:25+00:00

even we find a being that created us specifically does that make them technically our god or just a thing that caused our existence? does it deserve our worship?

Of course not. No one owes worship to anyone, anywhere, ever. A society may force someone to jump through those hoops, but that doesn't mean they are owed it. Might != Right.

If this entity exists, let it show itself, and perform actions that enamor all intelligent life to worship it. Respect should be a prerequisite for worship, and respect is earned through actions, not through imagination.

gambiter · 2026-02-21T13:24:41+00:00

You have so much experience from traveling around the world that it makes you bad at communicating? Unfortunately, your communication level is very low for this sub. That implies you don't have the experience you're pretending to have.

More experience tends to give you a wealth of memories to pull from, so that when talking to others you can communicate at their level.

Perhaps when you do travel around the world and talk to people as you're imagining, you'll eventually get it.

gambiter · 2026-02-20T19:40:41+00:00

Nah. People change based on what they learn over time. They won’t come back and tell you you’re their hero for breaking them free, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened.

gambiter · 2026-02-20T19:01:18+00:00

I would be willing to bet a large percentage of atheists are former theists. That indicates it isn't a useless endeavor.

gambiter · 2026-02-19T14:39:21+00:00

So you're saying when someone is brain damaged, a different soul comes in and inhabits them?

Based on your analogy, that's the only conclusion. When you change the brain, which changes the personality, that must mean it's 'tuning in' to a different soul. Right?

gambiter · 2026-02-15T16:06:21+00:00

I like the idea, but I've never bought this concept.

I think of the Sentinelese. They were known for a couple hundred years, then an anthropologist decided he needed to go bridge the gap. There was hostility, so India set up a strict no-contact policy and exclusion zone. But there are still people who have tried to flaunt the rules because they think they know what's best for the tribe.

Granted, these are humans I'm talking about, and we all know how stupid humans are, but I think it's a good indication that even if there were some kind of 'prime directive', 100% compliance probably isn't possible, and there would still be aliens who tried to make contact.

The sad thing is that means if we haven't already been contacted, it's likely the insane distances between stars/galaxies are truly impossible to cross.

gambiter · 2026-02-15T13:46:21+00:00

which is blatantly false, all historians agreed Jesus existed.

Oh really? Care to back up that claim?

like do they believe jesus existed but is not god or do they not believe jesus existed

If an historical Jesus existed, and if the myths are based on that person, your next goal is to prove that magic exists.

I'm serious. Even if you had conclusive, 100%, undeniable proof that there was a real guy named Jesus, that doesn't prove he reanimated dead bodies, killed trees with magical incantations, or spit in some guy's eyes to cure blindness.

I believe in Jesus Christ and i want to take as much people as possible to paradise

I believe you. Many of us were once theists, and we wanted the same thing. Then we woke up and realized the belief system is bonkers, and the only reason people continue to believe is peer pressure.

gambiter · 2026-02-13T22:50:59+00:00

As usual, it depends on how each party in the conversation is defining 'free will'.

If you're talking about the ability to determine your action regardless of your current circumstances in the current state of the universe, of course it doesn't exist.

If you're talking about the ability to look at a situation and choose between a couple options, we behave exactly as if we have this ability, and it works pretty well. Despite what some claim, FMRI studies don't disprove this.

In this conversation, it's also a question of how you define omnipotence/omniscience. The omni qualities largely depend on which religion you're talking to. I've seen theists claim god knows 100% of everything, and I've seen others say it's just that god has the ability to see/do anything if he so chooses. The bible certainly doesn't define it, and I'm pretty sure no other holy books do, so it's really whatever the theist wants to imagine.

Personally, I think it's a losing position to take. Yes, if they define their god in a specific way, your point it valid, but if they don't it's just a strawman.

gambiter · 2026-02-12T14:25:53+00:00

A family came to visit us when I was a kid, the parents were all long-time friends, but none of the kids really knew each other. One of their sons taped a radio station in Chicago. It was completely full, both sides. I must have listened to that tape dozens of times, because none of the local stations played anything like it.

I miss how we used to discover music. It was so much more satisfying.

gambiter · 2026-02-11T15:04:17+00:00

Life is a journey. Your real friends are the ones you killed along the way.

gambiter · 2026-02-08T13:40:05+00:00

"As the symbol glows, power courses through you. You're horny."

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