Tuesday, December 9, 2003

Deus ex Machina

Dilapoid: What is the other half that I do not know? God?
Dilapoid: Or do you even know yourself>?
DeusExMachina92: I think I know, but then I can never be sure. But there are two halves of the world, whether the other one is God or just some random factor which makes us good every so often
Dilapoid: There is good in everything bad. And there is bad in everything good.
DeusExMachina92: exactly- but that doesn't make everything bad (nor does it make it all good)
DeusExMachina92: You definitely have the bad side sussed- you see all the superficiality in the world, and you hate it.
Dilapoid: God doesn't matter at this point. Why worry over if he is even real or not? The world, and all that is could have been made in physical and chemical processes, or in some way we'll never understand. Why jump to the conclusion that there is a God? We don't need it. We need to simplify our lives, we don't need all the crap we have. All we need to do is live--and that requires love and food and water,.
DeusExMachina92: But you often seem to discount the good as a lost cause or a hope that just can't ever be
Dilapoid: Maybe not even love. Just food and water and sleep.
DeusExMachina92: Do you consider yourself imperfect?
Dilapoid: I would be a fool to say otherwise.
DeusExMachina92: how do you justify your own imperfection, exactly
DeusExMachina92: (not that I disagree on anyone's imperfection)
Dilapoid: You think humans are perfect? Is this what you're saying?
DeusExMachina92: no
Dilapoid: I don't quite understand what you mean.
Dilapoid: Tell what is imperfect about me?
DeusExMachina92: I know they're not. I just want your logic as to why they're not
Dilapoid: I don't think anything can be perfect. Not even some God.
Dilapoid: Everything that is around us isn't perfect. And perfection itself is a human perception.
DeusExMachina92: then how can anything be imperfect if there is no measure of perfection.. logically speaking
Dilapoid: To one person a rock with its jagged sides might be perfect, to another a rock with its smooth sides might be perfect,.
DeusExMachina92: ie. how can anything be less than a measure if there is no measure?
Dilapoid: It obviously can't. But I know we aren't perfect...if we must use that word.
Dilapoid: It's just a word--that's all perfect is. That's all God is. That's all anything in this language I can say means. It is only some notion...whether it's logical or not, it's human, for words were devised by humans.
Dilapoid: Perfection, then, is a human notion. What is perfect to you isn't the same as what I think is perfect.
Dilapoid: And so on.
DeusExMachina92: so nothing is objectively imperfect because there is no objective perfection?
Dilapoid: Yes.
DeusExMachina92: so what does that make us?
Dilapoid: We're just animals like any other animal...but we have a higher developed brain. That's all we are.
DeusExMachina92: and we're all products of evolution
Dilapoid: I believe in evolution. The evidence is there. You can't distinguish it and discount it.
Dilapoid: Yes.
DeusExMachina92: so why have a highly developed brain if it only leads to conversations like this. Surely it's more beneficial for the species to be blissfully ignorant?
Dilapoid: I say just not exist at all.
Dilapoid: What's the point to exist when there is no point?
DeusExMachina92: What is the point in evolving to know that when it only leads you to think that living is useless?
Dilapoid: There is no point...but we can't help what has happened, can we?
Dilapoid: Somewhere, over ages, we have gotten here.
Dilapoid: And we've taken our intelligence and made life like a circus.
Dilapoid: One day we'll be extinct...by what reason I don't know nor care.
Dilapoid: If we leave this planet as the resources run out, go to another...who knows.
Dilapoid: If the sun turns to its white dwarf stage, or whatever, and becomes a red giant and kills us, I don't know.
Dilapoid: What is religion? It's trying to explain something we'll never understand.
Dilapoid: And if it comes to the point we understand why we are here and we know everything, still our existence is pointless.
Dilapoid: Because when you know everything, why exist at all?
DeusExMachina92: What's it like to be middle aged?
Dilapoid: How can I know when I've never been there?
Dilapoid: Is this the point you are making?
Dilapoid: That what I am saying is fundamentally flawed?
Dilapoid: Maybe it is, maybe it isn't.
Dilapoid: But if you knew everything, it'd do more wrong than good.
DeusExMachina92: What I am saying is no cannot criticise a God you have never seen
DeusExMachina92: because you have never sen him
DeusExMachina92: or felt him
DeusExMachina92: experienced him
DeusExMachina92: whatever
Dilapoid: I don't want to see him. I don't want to know him. I don't. I don't want heaven, I don't want absolution.
Dilapoid: I just want to die and never had existed, seemingly.
Dilapoid: If there is God I don't care at this point. I'm still going to die...and we don't know what happens after death.
Dilapoid: I'd like to think it's nothingness. Non-existence.
Dilapoid: But I don't know.
Dilapoid: If I go to hell, I go to hell. I shall pay that price.
DeusExMachina92: Why would you like that?
Dilapoid: Like what? Not existing?
DeusExMachina92: yes
Dilapoid: Because then I wouldn't have to be here, and I wouldn't have to be smart, and I wouldn't have to be anything. I would never have existed, I would never have been anything...I would never have been forced to be born, and so on.
Dilapoid: I don't want heaven because I see it's just a reason to say that life is prolonged.
Dilapoid: Whether the place is grand and all doesn't matter.
Dilapoid: You'd get sick of it eventually.
DeusExMachina92: Heaven is not a prolongued versoin of life. If it were, I'd agree with everything you just said
Dilapoid: How do you know there even is heaven? You don't.
Dilapoid: It may not be "prolonged life," but it's living further than what life you had.
Dilapoid: What does death mean? It means ending. It means no longer being.
DeusExMachina92: yeah, but the point I was making is that it's not prolongued life purely because your definition of life is based on what you have already seen
Dilapoid: This is true.
DeusExMachina92: and what you have already seen is cursed
Dilapoid: But as far as I am concerned, I don't want any of it.
DeusExMachina92: whether because of the fall
Dilapoid: As you said, there's good in bad.
Dilapoid: And there's bad in good.
DeusExMachina92: or just because of our own idiocy
DeusExMachina92: there is bad in good and good in bad in this world. But everything you learn in this world counts for nothing in the next
DeusExMachina92: whatever you believe or don't
Dilapoid: I don't believe there is "another plane of existenece" so none of this comes into it.
Dilapoid: I simply see that when you die, I think you should no longer exist. Period.
DeusExMachina92: even so what you have lerned ounts for nothing
Dilapoid: And it's pointless to even wonder or make an assumption, as well. So we're both just straying from the point.
Dilapoid: And that point is you should live life in its moment...not look ahead and say, "I'm going to believe in some god that I don't even know is real and I'm going to sacrifice my life for him so I can go on and live a better life where I won't have to deal with the things in this world."
Dilapoid: The only way to truly get something is to know it's there.
Dilapoid: And you just have to wait until you die.
DeusExMachina92: Do you really think that what I do now is just a means of getting something in the future? I.e. do you think that's why I do things?
DeusExMachina92: If I had that attitude, how does it make me better than the Pharisees?
Dilapoid: I don't know. I'm guessing it's because you want to be with your god. Or something to this extent. But I wouldn't know.
Dilapoid: All I know is I don't care for God.
DeusExMachina92: I do want to be with my God- now
Dilapoid: He gave me this useless existence. He should be given a useless existence by me.
Dilapoid: It's mean, it's selfish..but I don't care to this extent.
Dilapoid: I am too sick of everything to care if there is heaven. I don't want it.
Dilapoid: I want to not have existed. Or at least be a fool and ignorant. Then I wouldn't have to worry about things...and I'd believe in what god there is to believe in without question.
Dilapoid: God put his spirit into us, right? We were supposedly modeled after him?
DeusExMachina92: yes
Dilapoid: If that is true, then all we feel, all the injustices we do--God is the same, to some extent.
Dilapoid: At least supposedly.
Dilapoid: It's hypocritically flawed--the entire notion that if God put his spirits into us, that we are this way, and he's seen as so pure.
DeusExMachina92: but we are fools. We are manipulatable. God put his spirit in us, thus we have inventive creative and destructive power. But we are flawed, thus we use it in a flawed way. We are made in his image, but that doesn't make us him
Dilapoid: And why did he do this, then? To fuck with us? That's the only thing I can see.
Dilapoid: And flawed is just a human perception, yet agai.
Dilapoid: *again
Dilapoid: Everything we are saying is simply perception, we don't know.
DeusExMachina92: Thus by your own argument you habven't a clue what you're on about
Dilapoid: God himself is manipulative.
Dilapoid: If we must live to go to heaven, that's manipulative.
Dilapoid: It might be fair from some people's eyes...but whatever. It's still manipulative.
DeusExMachina92: Why's that
DeusExMachina92: "If we must live"
Dilapoid: Well, if he is real, then he controls us.
Dilapoid: Obviously.
Dilapoid: And by making us live, that is manipulative.
Dilapoid: Why not just make us spirits?
Dilapoid: We have to proove ourselves?
Dilapoid: I don't care to this point about it.
DeusExMachina92: How do we have to prove ourselves?
Dilapoid: Prove that we are right for heaven?
Dilapoid: Prove that we are right for God?
DeusExMachina92: No-one is right for God
Dilapoid: So God isn't right for himself?
DeusExMachina92: We're all idiots
DeusExMachina92: I'd have thought you'd know that God is the exception in that one
Dilapoid: I do know.
DeusExMachina92: but we don't have to prove that we are right for God. If anything we have to know that we're not
Dilapoid: I was simply contradicting your statement.
Dilapoid: Then if we're not right for God, why even exist?
Dilapoid: Again, God and living for him is thus flawed in this way. Why live for something you're not good enough for?
Dilapoid: Why want something you'll never get?
DeusExMachina92: You mean, why didn't God just wipe us out long ago?
Dilapoid: Not exactly...but I don't even believe in God. So I don't see him doing anything.
DeusExMachina92: But God is the very nature of what we're talking about. How can you be or not be right for a God who isn't there?
Dilapoid: I'm just playing devil's advocate.
DeusExMachina92: And assuming that God does exist and he created us, then why we exist or why we don't is surely down to something that he does
Dilapoid: If I did believe in him, I wouldn't care for what he does. I've seen enough of what is here in this world...if he actually had a heart, he'd stop it. But it's not so.
Dilapoid: Again, if I would believe in God, I don't see him as so pure as he's seemingly seen these days.
Dilapoid: But again, to me it's pointless to even assume he is real.
Dilapoid: It is wanting something as a crutch. It is wanting something which will let you be with something which you aren't, supposedly, great enough for. And on and on.
DeusExMachina92: It's not a crutch- a crutch involves some kind of self-support, and only having the thing in question to lean on
Dilapoid: Deep in your heart, you believe in god for selfish reasons. You won't deny it. And if you're not good enough for him...why even want him?
DeusExMachina92: In reality we can do nothing which will last
Dilapoid: Exactly.
Dilapoid: Then why even care about what is here while you live here?
Dilapoid: Why even look far ahead...because in reality we can do nothing that will last.
DeusExMachina92: Since when was the emphasis on us doing anything good?
DeusExMachina92: which will last
Dilapoid: I am saying that it's pointless. Not that we need something good.
Dilapoid: I'm saying it's pointless to believe in the assumption of God. It's pointless to believe in society. It's pointless to believe in anything.
Dilapoid: You're going to die anyways.
DeusExMachina92: So why not do some pointless stuff in the meantime?
Dilapoid: Becuse it's pointless.
Dilapoid: And it causes suffering.
Dilapoid: And it's unneeded, superfluous.
DeusExMachina92: But then you die and it all goes away, right?
Dilapoid: Yes.
Dilapoid: Ah well. This has been a fun conversation...but I'm not going to change where you stand, and nor do I wish to. I just wish that you understand where I stand, I guess. And I'm sure you do, heh.
DeusExMachina92: I do. I was there once, but probably to slightly less of a deep level;
Dilapoid: Yeah.
Dilapoid: The thing I hate the most is how forced god is on you.
DeusExMachina92: how is he?
Dilapoid: I was baptized when I was young, as many were. I wasn't even able to contemplate what was happening.
DeusExMachina92: oh i see
DeusExMachina92: I thought you meant "you" as in me specifically
Dilapoid: My parents seem to think I've been raised wrong for actually believing in what I want.
DeusExMachina92: You know, over here God isn't forced on you at all. I was only baptised to make my Grandfather happy. My mum and Dad thought God was a load of crap
DeusExMachina92: So I spent the first 19 years of my life believing nothing, but at the same time with no experience of the way people push God on other people
Dilapoid: Well, here in America...70% or so of the population is catholic.
Dilapoid: It's falling every year, though.
DeusExMachina92: same here
DeusExMachina92: even though at the moment it's really low as it is
Dilapoid: That should tell you something about organized religion, I think.
Dilapoid: I hope it dies.
Dilapoid: I can understand worshiping what you believe in ALONE. But organizing..etc.
Dilapoid: That's going too far in my opinion.
Dilapoid: As far as I am concerned, the catholic god is probably far from what any god there could be is.
Dilapoid: Who knows? Exactly.
Dilapoid: That's why it's useless to societize it.
Dilapoid: It only makes me so mad that it's gotten this way.
Dilapoid: We've already discussed this point, though.
Dilapoid: And we seem to agree there, at least.
DeusExMachina92: I agree with worshipping on your own. That's actually a biblical principle. But belief is just as much a community thing. And sadly, "community" is something most churches don't have
Dilapoid: So true.
DeusExMachina92: So yeah. I'm with you on the bad points about the church as a whole. I don't believe that the majority of it is a godly organisation
Dilapoid: I think there should just be a vague sense in teaching that maybe there's a god..
Dilapoid: Not something that is misinterpertations of the bible that is made into a religion.
DeusExMachina92: that's the thing. religion
DeusExMachina92: religion is a way of worshipping based on a set of rules
DeusExMachina92: you must accolmplish this and that in order to get here
Dilapoid: And that's dumb.
DeusExMachina92: but as I said earlier that's pointless because we are never right with God
DeusExMachina92: Christ's way was less to do with rules and more to do with justification by grace
Dilapoid: Religion, in its definition, should be way more INDIVIDUALIZED.
Dilapoid: It should be whatever you want it to be...it should be however you see God.
DeusExMachina92: ie. we don't have to do anything to get anywhere but we have to accept that we're nothing and then we can be justified. It's a stupid notion but it's more true
Dilapoid: Organized religion is the number one reason I don't believe in God.
DeusExMachina92: in that we are nothing
Dilapoid: The second reason is that we shouldn't assume.
Dilapoid: We should know.
Dilapoid: And even as much as you may say you know God closely, or whatever, you don't know know him.
Dilapoid: You still don't know if he exists for certain...you don't know what kind of being he is, or spirit, or whatever yor image of him is.
DeusExMachina92: but what is it to know know someone
DeusExMachina92: you're still assuming that your senses are accurate
Dilapoid: To know in absolute absolution that it's real.
Dilapoid: I mean down to seeing it, touching it, knowing it, through and through, everything that is that thing.
Dilapoid: And what do you do when you chose to believe in God?
Dilapoid: You assume your senses are accurate.
Dilapoid: The only way, then, to be as right as you can is to be in the middle of it.
DeusExMachina92: I know. But the point is that you assume that your senses are accurate as a means to say that mine are not
Dilapoid: I label myself as an patheist.
Dilapoid: *apatheist,.
Dilapoid: I don't care either way
Dilapoid: I'm still going to die..
Dilapoid: And what happens after that doesn't concern me.
Dilapoid: It's not right to look ahead or back, it's best to live as you are now.
Dilapoid: And what do you do when you say to me there is a God?
Dilapoid: It's the same thing there, heh.
Dilapoid: You assume your senses are right and use them to justify my wrongs when I'm doing the same thing to you as well.
Dilapoid: And so on.
Dilapoid: Religion is so hypocritical and contradicting...especially to those people who force things on you like they do, and laugh at you for thinking what you think,.
Dilapoid: But that isn't you.
DeusExMachina92: What's the deal with you and heaven..?.. the only time I argued about it, you brought it up.. and you just keep doing the same
DeusExMachina92: Heaven in the way of the afterlife is the least thing on my mind, most of the time
Dilapoid: I just don't want it. I don't see the purpose of it to me.
Dilapoid: I don't know. I don't know you, I don't know why you believe in God like you do.
Dilapoid: So obviously I will say things away from your point of reason.
DeusExMachina92: What I mean is, I never brought it up.. I never used it as a means of coercing you into believing.. so why do you always use it to justify why you don't.. is that what you see God as?
Dilapoid: I will tell you though, a lot of people seem to believe in God to have something that is there for them when they are in pain, etc.
DeusExMachina92: if he were to be
Dilapoid: I don't know what God is if he is.
Dilapoid: And I don't want to assume anything more than what's true.
Dilapoid: And all I can assume is that he might be real. That is all.
Dilapoid: I can't say anything absolutely absolute about God.
Dilapoid: And thus, I am not going to live my life living it for him.
DeusExMachina92: What you said about our focus being on the present.. I don't disagree with that
DeusExMachina92: focussing on the future gets me nowhere because I never achieve anything to get there
Dilapoid: Yes.
DeusExMachina92: and focussing on the past leaves me nowhere because I never get anywhere
Dilapoid: Yes.
Dilapoid: Anyone that thinks enough should understand that, heh.
DeusExMachina92: so I can only focus on the present because what needs to be done needs to be done, the future will come by iself
Dilapoid: Exactly.
DeusExMachina92: but that's a perfectly biblical principle. Yet another one that you think already
Dilapoid: Well, I don't agree with the bible, etc. But I don't believe in God.
Dilapoid: I simply believe in what I think is right.
Dilapoid: And what I know is a truth,.
Dilapoid: And I know for a truth that to live you must die...and I know to live you should live in the moment.
Dilapoid: And so on.
Dilapoid: I'
DeusExMachina92: Matt. 6:34: Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
Dilapoid: I haven't even read the bible.
DeusExMachina92: My point is that those guys who live simply for going to heaven
Dilapoid: Aren't living.
DeusExMachina92: aren't really doing what they should today
DeusExMachina92: and yes
DeusExMachina92: aren't living
Dilapoid: And there's a lot that do, I think so at least.
Dilapoid: They use god as something to help them when they are in pain...they pray for their problems to be fixed. They, in essence, don't live in the moment and live with what has to be.
DeusExMachina92: There's a huge amount that just want a free ticket to heaven, if that's what you mean
DeusExMachina92: but that was never the point
DeusExMachina92: they just made it the point
Dilapoid: And that is why religion is pointless, because people make it this way.
Dilapoid: They make a point that is pointless and abbreviate it as what religion is about in essence, when it isn't I suppose.
DeusExMachina92: I agree that religion is pointless, but faith in God I believe to be another matter
Dilapoid: Faith in anything makes you stronger.
Dilapoid: If you have faith in a woman you marry, and you love each other, you are stronger.
Dilapoid: And so on.
Dilapoid: It's a basic principle.
Dilapoid: Faith is believing without reason.
Dilapoid: And in life there is no reason.
Dilapoid: So to me faith doesn't have a place, mostly.
DeusExMachina92: But faith in something which doesn't hold only makes you stronger until it collapses under the expectations you put on it
Dilapoid: I suppose.
DeusExMachina92: Most people don't have faith in God but in the church
DeusExMachina92: thus at the end of the day, they are weak
Dilapoid: Exactly.
Dilapoid: My dad says I need to go to church to get closer to god.
Dilapoid: That I need to talk to the priest and tell him what I believe and why.
DeusExMachina92: that's crap.
DeusExMachina92: You go to church because you believe, not in order to do so
DeusExMachina92: and if you don't believe
Dilapoid: And when I tell him religion should be a personal thing, and that it should be more done at home than anything, and so on.
Dilapoid: But he laughs at me.
DeusExMachina92: or have any inkling to do so, there's no point
Dilapoid: And says he can't belive me.
DeusExMachina92: Tell your dad he's a fool
DeusExMachina92: and that a Christian says so
Dilapoid: lol
Dilapoid: I can't. That is not honoring "thy father and thy mother" ;p
DeusExMachina92: part of honouring is being truthful. If your dad's wrong you honor him by letting him know, is my opinion
DeusExMachina92: heh
Dilapoid: But they don't think this, lol.
DeusExMachina92: Well.. lead him to matthew 6:6
DeusExMachina92: "6But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. "
Dilapoid: Exactly what I think religion should be.
Dilapoid: Not church.
Dilapoid: He also thinks that cleaning my room daily is "responsibility."
DeusExMachina92: Church does have it's place- but God has a higher place
Dilapoid: *its
Dilapoid: It has a place to enslave millions of people into false belief.
Dilapoid: When in truth they only believe to believe.
DeusExMachina92: That's when it's in it's wrong place
Dilapoid: And when is it right?
DeusExMachina92: When you follow matthew 6:6
DeusExMachina92: If the church is based on the bible it will be based on the whole bible, including that little gem about private worship and private knowledge being paramount
Dilapoid: But what the church bases the bible on is open for many, many different interpertations.
Dilapoid: The bible isn't meant to be taken literally, I see.
Dilapoid: It is meant to be taken individually.
Dilapoid: The church in its definition in the bible could mean other things, as you said.
DeusExMachina92: MOst of the Bible is miconstrued because culture has changed so much that we don't know a lot of the meaning any more. But some places like Matthew 6:6 are so obvious that they need no interpretation
Dilapoid: Yeah, I agree it's misconstrued.
Dilapoid: Just look at Shakespeare, and how different the language is there.
DeusExMachina92: The only way in which to know how to interpret the Bible properly is to know exactly what it was saying at the time, ie what was going on to require it to say that. In a lot of cases we can't do that, so we can't apply it, but a lot of people try and thus fail to do what it was actually saying
DeusExMachina92: in a way it's all about perception
Dilapoid: So the church itself does this.
DeusExMachina92: we take an ancient verse and apply it as it is to a modern time and the more obscure ones lead us in the wrong direction because our perception is different
DeusExMachina92: but as I said, some verses are so obvious and clear that they can't really be taken another way
DeusExMachina92: like "do not kill"
DeusExMachina92: and "pray in private"
Dilapoid: Yeah.
DeusExMachina92: meh.. things seem to have deadened down. Which is good cos I ought to go to sleep now :p
Dilapoid: Go to sleep, Dan.
DeusExMachina92: it was great talking to you.. everytime we talk I realise how little we differ other than my views on God and the bible.
DeusExMachina92: 'night
Dilapoid: Yeah.
Dilapoid: Sleep well.
DeusExMachina92 signed off at 5:52:01 PM.
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