religious discussion on Facebook (just FYI. I mean no offense to anyone.)

Andrew Porter

My advice: don't count on the elusive pipe dream that "science" will one day achieve through human effort the immortality that God says can be attained only by believing in His Son Jesus Christ. "And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment." (Hebrews 9:27)

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• John Coffey

  I mean no offense to you, but I am not a Christian. Like all the other 4,300 religions on the planet, there is no credible evidence that any of them are real. I lean toward pantheism, but I think that it is impossible to know, making me a pantheist leaning agnostic.

  I take comfort in knowing that there is no answer. Why? Because it means that this life matters and what we do here matters, and it is not just some test to prepare us for the next life. It also means that life is what we choose to make it, and not what others tell us life should be.

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• John Coffey

  Regardless of what one believes, the technological trends that are already in motion will continue.

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• Andrew Porter

  No offense taken, my friend. I know you are not a Christian, but I also know that you have always been respectful toward those with whom you disagree. That attitude is becoming rarer and rarer in our culture - I salute you for it. But on what basis do you assert that "this life matters"? On your world view we live, we die, and we're done. So what? I came to the firm conclusion, purely through logic and observation, that there MUST be a Creator. Taht's a crucial starting point, but it's not enough. From there, I investigated thoroughly and came to believe what I do about the Bible, etc. Without God, there is no ultimate purpose. Everything is senseless, random, nothingness. I don't believe that for one second, and furthermore I would not want to live in a purposeless universe. "For what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood from His workmanship, so that men are without excuse." (Romans 1)

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• John Coffey

  I don't know why you would already know that I am not a Christian, not that it matters, but I find it a curiosity that you already understood this.

  Just for clarification, my position is far more nuanced than what you claim I believe. None of what you said describes accurately what I believe. I lean toward pantheism. There could be a higher power, but I think that it is impossible to know.

  That doesn't offend me. You seem deeply religious. I understand. I have been there. I have nothing but the 

  best wishes

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  John Coffey

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• Andrew Porter

  I knew this from this and several other fb posts I've seen from you over the years.

  I didn't mean to misrepresent your position. Feel free to correct/clarify where I did so as I would prefer to address one's *actual* beliefs/position rather than some unintended straw man.

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• John Coffey

  I don't want to get into a lengthy discussion. I will just try to clarify since you asked.

  I want to believe that there is something beyond this life, but I think that it is impossible to know. I am content with not knowing since I don't think that we can know. I prefer to base my beliefs on what we can prove, and if there is something beyond that then great.

  If there is no God then life still has a purpose. We can be here for each other. Pantheism appeals to me logically because if the entire universe and God are the same thing then we are all connected. This belief leads to empathy for others.

Andrew Porter
Thank you. I won't press the issue per your desire not to have an ongoing discussion here on fb. If you ever *want* to discuss these issues further - online or in person (preferred) - I would be open to have that discussion with you. Best regards!

-- 

Best wishes,

John Coffey

http://www.entertainmentjourney.com

HISTORY OF IDEAS - The Renaissance - YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fI1OeMmwYjU

The 10 Things That All Flat Earthers Say

I think that this is interesting because it also applies to other misinformation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyD8VIK032o

If a person either has a belief or has reason to distrust what is generally accepted as the truth and then they hear something that gives confirmation to their point of view, then they will latch onto it like it is the gospel.


Some of this ties in with conspiracy theories, which seem to me to be fueled by the belief that there are sinister forces that intend to do us harm.

A Scientific Explanation For God? | Answers With Joe - YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3_0O-gpeYo

Quantum entanglement doesn't necessarily mean that all the particles in the universe are connected.

Much of the weirdness from Quantum Physics comes from the fact that particles are really fluctuations in fields.  What we experience as particles are really waves.  Like a packet of energy oscillating in a field. 

The Grey Monk. The Pickering MS. William Blake

The last paragraph of the poem is interesting...

https://www.bartleby.com/235/138.html

Rediscovering Faith: My Journey Back To Christianity - YouTube

In response to:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcM4rdGWZKA

I wrote:

Religion serves a purpose in that it curtails people's base instincts, but major stories in the Bible are recycled from previous religions predating Judaism by thousands of years that nobody believes in anymore.  In addition, the old testament is one of the evilest books ever written.

I believe in God in a generic way, but the Bible is absurd to the extreme.  You can do far better.

Congrats on drinking the Koolaid.  If it gives your life meaning then I say more power to you.  Many people go through life without meaning.  However, this is not a path to truth.

The evilness of the left does not make Christianity true, no more than it makes Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Mormonism true.

Best wishes,

John Coffey

The Rider & the Elephant - Jonathan Haidt on Persuasion and Moral Humility

https://youtu.be/24adApYh0yc



Best wishes,

John Coffey

10 Differences Between Brits and Americans

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vSKMTDUwV4

The future of humanity

I see a danger to the future existence of the human race, and it is the kind of thing that people should think about and prepare for now. Sometime in the next 50 years machines will be smarter than people. There are major technical hurdles to overcome, such as the inevitable end of Moore's Law, which probably mean that it is not right around the corner or even within the next couple of decades, but it will happen, and easily within this century. And if for some reason it does happen within the next couple of decades then that means the results will be upon us that much sooner.

We can predict what will happen next and follow it to its logical conclusion, which is a future without people.

As machines become smarter, people will become increasingly reliant on technology. We can see that already with smartphones, which only have been with us for barely over a decade. Eventually machines will do all the heavy mental work, which will make our lives easier, but also make us more dependent.

And since we will be so dependent on the machines, we will start incorporating them into us. This will evolve over time until we are no longer purely human, but human machine hybrids. Perhaps when your biological brain dies, the machine part of you will be able to continue with all your memories intact. Maybe it would have an artificial body or maybe it will exist in a virtual world. It is likely that some would prefer to live in a virtual world where they can do more things than they could in the real world. Taken to the eventual extreme, our descendants would no longer bother with biological bodies and prefer to exist as machine intelligences either in the real world or in virtual ones.

The evolutionary pressure will be against purely biological people. Having machines incorporated into you will make you more productive, competitive, and increase your quality of life.

The future I describe might be long distant, but if it is not the future we want for the human race then we should start thinking about it now. Maybe we could have a Pure Human movement that would prohibit the merging of machine intelligence with human intelligence? This could be roughly analogous to the current legal ban on human cloning, because we very likely have the technology right now to clone humans, but countries ban it because they are uneasy about the implications of where that might take us.

However, we might not be able to prevent it. Linking machines with human intelligence is likely to happen in such small steps that we will easily adjust to it. It is sort of happening already with our dependence on computers. It could also start as a series of military applications where having the most effective soldiers determines who wins the wars. And once the genie is out of the bottle, we will never get it back in.

Best wishes,

John Coffey