Honestly I don’t feel strongly enough on either idea (phantom time / mud flood) to say i “believe” in them, more so that there is evidence of something weird in each case, and because I can’t rule them out i remain open to the possibilities.
I’ve read people make the case pretty well that, for instance, the Dark Ages could have lasted hundreds of years longer than we think
So with that in mind, when I see claims like “the universality of the ‘Dragon’ myth indicates that humans lived alongside dinosaurs”, I don’t instantly, reflexively respond “nuh uh! MUh 65 gorillion year gap!”
Which is a really long way of saying “we don’t know what we don’t know”, lol
Link to the actual documents supposedly being cited?
This is the plot of Neon Genesis Evangelion lmfao, right down to the made up definition of LCL
Imagine you were attempting to convey the message of this post to someone who didn’t have severe brain damage, how would you present it? Can you give that a shot next time?
Im with you on the relevance of the Precession of the Equinoxes (6,500 years being being one quarter turn of the ~26,000 year full cycle) regarding global catastrophe/pole shifting
I’d just point out the possibility of so-called “phantom time” (the idea that atleast once since “History” began, the official “date” had been adjusted by TPTB). We know for a fact that it happened with the switch from the Julian to the Gregorian calendars, so I don’t rule out the possibility of an even larger and more nefarious instance occurring. Likely tied into the “Tartarrian”/“mud flood” conspiracies but that’s just me layering speculation on speculation.
That’s the direction I lean:
https://communities.win/c/Conspiracies/p/1ARKEXUcNl/anatomically-modern-man-is-found/c
Considering we’ve found mammoths who were flash-frozen in like under an hour, with flowers still in their mouths and stomach, I think it’s entirely reasonable to consider that possibility
The Piri Reis Map:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piri_Reis_map
I almost find that one more interesting, because we know Vikings and shit were going through the arctic starting at the latest around 700 AD, but who tf from back then would have been able to survey Antarctica’s unfrozen coastline?!? (Answer: none of the groups we acknowledge as existing back then)
Your questions are answered in the links. It makes no sense for me to go hunt through them and copy and paste them when you can just read them at your own pace instead.
I thought my comment quite well addressed your “why is it this way and not some other way?!?” notions. What you see as a “dig” was in response to your complaint that I was ignoring your “why didn’t God just design a private universe for each soul?” line of thought and forcing my “existence is a classroom” notion onto you, neither of which were true.
A “private universe” is literally synonymous with “your imagination” champ. It already exists!
One could contend it's an immutable law for existence how we experience it now, but that is with a perception shackled only with an understanding of a reality with all systems that keep it functioning in place. It's possible existence could never take another form, but that means there is some kind of universal limitation on how conscious beings could be created.
If duality doesn’t exist, there is nothing “other than you”, there is nothing to be conscious of. An existence without duality is literally a featureless white expanse that goes on to infinity in all directions, and nothing else. As I said in my last comment - logically, an existence without duality is equivalent to the undifferentiated existence of God before the creation of existence. If you want to challenge that notion please feel free, but you need something more convincing than “you just lack imagination, God could just do X”.
Ok so now we're back to classroom metaphors
Yeah dude….you brought us back to the topic…. I said it can be put aside as it’s simply “my best guess” and then you ended your reply with
In any case, I continue to contend there should be more capacity for even more evil … if the point of this life is we are being tested.
So obviously I didn’t ignore you and I responded to it.
First, numerous times I have posited that each person could be within their own universe.
You propose a universe in which you can do anything with no “real consequences”. This already exists bro, it’s called “consuming fiction” and “your imagination”. You already can read a biography of Hitler and imagine what you would do in each situation. You already can go start a playthrough of StarWars Knights of the Old Republic and play as a mass murdering sith psychopath. God doesn’t need to redesign anything about the way the universe works for you to get everything you want out of existence. If you want to interact with NPCs, go boot up your xbox.
I think it’s self evident that interacting with other human souls would provide a richer experience and infinitely more personal growth than interacting with NPCs in a virtual sandbox, do you not?
Regardless, I would like to dig into your classroom analogy.
Ok, I recommend you start with these two sources:
https://www.lawofone.info/s/10
https://www.wanttoknow.info/secret_societies/hidden_hand_081018
unless there are immutable laws regarding existence that cannot be changed
I would contend that it is an immutable law that for “existence” to, well, exist, duality is a prerequisite. An existence without duality is effectively the Monad, or the Tao, or the undifferentiated potential of God “before” the creation of existence. It is effectively “the Godhead”.
From the 42nd verse of the Tao Te Ching:
The Dao gives birth to unity,
Unity gives birth to duality,
Duality gives birth to trinity,
Trinity gives birth to a myriad of things.
The myriad things bear shadows and embrace radiance,
Are infused with the breath of life to achieve the harmonized trinity of darkness, light and soul.
Regarding your other point:
I continue to contend there should be more capacity for even more evil
To be honest, I don’t follow. Let me propose a hypothetical based on your contention:
Is it not self-evident that a universe wherein a billion souls can be killed with nothing more than a whim would be counter productive to the notion of “existence is a classroom”? If you’re the teacher and your class goes from 1,000,000,000 souls on day one to 1 single psychopath on graduation day, haven’t you blatantly failed in the design of your class room?
Hmm…
I think we both agree, life doesn’t appear pointless, right? So we seek the “point” of life. I don’t think you’d be engaging in this discussion if that wasn’t something you were seeking, as we all are (correct me if I’m wrong about any of that). That’s where I’m coming from with the “tests”/“classroom” notion of life, but even putting that aside for now, since that’s basically just me saying “this is my best guess but it could be wrong”:
We come to the “facts of life”. It appears to me that (constrained) free will is a fact of life. It appears to me that for “good” to exist, by the principle of duality, so too must “not good” exist. You just can’t have one without the other. Regardless of how many “options” or places to fall on the spectrum exist. You can’t have a “choice” of just one option. So I reconcile the apparent fact of free will to choose, with the logical fact that every choice must fall on this spectrum of good/not good. Even a choice as benign as “chocolate or vanilla?” resides within this spectrum, even if it’s right in the middle, True Neutral as the DnD’ers say.
So to tie it back together… what I said about staying in the realm of human comprehension, you could convince me of your position through the follow action:
Describe in tangible terms, without saying “God could just do X”, a potential universe wherein the richness of existence we have, all of our various capacities for experience, are somehow preserved, but “evil” doesn’t exist. I understand how daunting such a request is, and that’s basically my point - it’s easy to say “God could just …” but that doesn’t get us anywhere - we have to deal with the reality we exist in. I feel like, when you really dig into things, the gist of what im saying becomes self-evident. Did you watch that video of South Park with Butters talking to the goth kids i linked a couple comments ago? I refer back to that, because I really think the “naivety” of the character saying it allows the purity of the words to come through. With Light, comes Dark. Inherently. Inextricably. Unavoidably.
And with that established, I cant think of a better set up…can you?
You introduce this word, victimize, and I would probably agree with what you’re saying but reframe it to be more relavent to the overall point: let’s imagine a world in which you can’t victimize other people (which is basically the world i was describing in my last comment, where our spectrum of available choices has constraints on it) - I’d say don’t worry about “logical conclusions” because those so often stray into hypothetica and absurdism when the topic is as ephemeral as “free will” - we all acknowledge God, if he exists, is beyond mere human comprehension, so let us confine ourselves to the realm of human comprehension, ya know?
So, a world where we still have “free will”, but it is constrained such that we cannot “victimize” others.
Can we not still victimize ourselves? Falling into drug abuse or other forms of self-abuse? Would those not be moral failures/failures of the “tests” of life/“evil”?
And do we not still “fail the test of life” when we allow our brother to victimize himself (aka suffer the results of their own actions aka choke to death when we could have helped them?). Even if we aren’t the one directly victimizing someone, I believe we still fail a moral test when we allow ourselves to ignore or brush aside the suffering of others as “unimportant” or “their own fault” (even when those things might be, to whatever extent, “true”, they don’t tell the whole story so-to-speak)
To refer back to your point about “logical conclusions”, did we not already establish that we have limitations on our actions? We can’t summon infinity bajillion dollars and solve world hunger, but we sure as hell can donate a weekend or three a year to the soup kitchen, no? We can’t all be Jesus, but we can sure try harder to act like him when presented with the opportunity, I think.
Like our cultural wisdom says, “to whom much is given, much is expected”. To my view, that one thought covers much of the breadth of the, shall we say, “issues” you’ve been pointing out. What do you think?
Oh and, regarding your point here:
Ignoring the man does not make him the victim of your choices, as murdering him does.
Doesn’t that make him the victim of our choices still? To make it explicit, imagine he isn’t homeless, but choking to death on a sandwich… now your inaction has a very clear and unambiguous negative result… I believe the choice to not choose (or to choose to ignore) is still a choice
Either way, appreciate you
Likewise :)
It's hard to see that as the most ideal classroom.
Really? Don’t we compete over resources even in our cushy modern system? There can only be one Valedictorian in a class after all. And besides that, isn’t adversity a prerequisite to achievement? Without the existence of “evil”, (it seems to me that) “good” becomes meaningless. All that is, in that scenario, is good. Nothing can be chosen, nothing can be corrected… here is a powerful message on the topic you may be familiar with:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mZOM6hOnEBE
And here are two little short fiction pieces which may or may not resonate with you but which have certainly influenced my thinking on the subject:
Pleased to Meet You
One of your philosophers said, "It is not to be thought that the life of darkness is sunk in misery and lost in sorrow. There is no sorrow. For sorrow is a thing that is swallowed up in death, and death and dying are the very life of the darkness." He was a shoemaker. He was right, and it matters more than anything.
According to him, the visible world is a manifestation of eternal light and eternal darkness, and it is in eternal opposition that eternity has revealed itself. The fall was necessary for creation to escape its first imperfect stasis and seek a truer form. Heresy? Well, then, I am the heresiarch. The philosopher died of a bowel disease. Those who do not exist cannot suffer and are of no account to any viable ethics. If the true path to goodness is the elimination of suffering, then only those who must exist can be allowed to exist. It is the nature of life to favor existence over nonexistence, and to prefer the fertile soil to the poisoned wind. Because those who open their mouths to that wind pass from the world and leave no descendant, whether of flesh or of thought.
But imagine the abomination of a world where nothing can end and no choice can be preferred to any other. Imagine the things that would suffer and never die. Imagine the lies that would flourish without context or corrective. Imagine a world without me.
https://communities.win/c/Manna/p/19BZpZpE27/but-imagine-the-abomination-of-a/c
"What is the Darkness?"
You open your eyes and gaze at your hands, seeking an answer to your question.
Searing glow from a tyrant light above you annihilates all shadow from the plain of sand you stand upon in a world full of L I G H T.
The last thing you perceive is a blazing outline of alabaster fingers gripping your wrist in a tight fist, before photokeratitis takes your sight.
The roar of the wind fills your ears.
Whatever has seized you is shaking you. You perceive shouting over the rush of air, but you can't make out the words. You lean closer to your hands, to whatever's clasping them, shaking them.
The shouting grows eager.
You can smell it now; whatever has seized you. Ancient. Rotting. Powerful.
Its grip is strong—as strong as yours, the heat of the Light coursing through it.
It can smell the Light on you, too. It knows you are just like it.
It has lived forever. A gift from your shared parent. Forever is too long.
You think you know what it's saying now.
It begs for death.
Your vision gradually returns…
A harsh glare blooms from the heavens above.
Your soul is weary.
Your feet find purchase in shifting sands.
Your cloak billows in the wind, yet something clings to it, weighing it down.
https://communities.win/c/Manna/p/1ARK0KPi2H/coda--a-world-b-e-t-w-e-e-n-ligh/c
Just so you know, im not approaching this conversation from the stand point of “the Bible is literally true and you must believe it.”, im simply using it as our shared cultural reference point for “God”. I think things are a lot more complicated than most Christians want to acknowledge, but at the same time, it is an excellent, perhaps the best we have, foundation to work from and build on
Also I very much appreciate the way you engaged with this I don't see it as ganging up at all
Excellent, im glad that came through, because these topics really are important, and important conversations without depth and nuance cease to be important I think, and conversations can easily devolve…anyway!
I think I can best respond to your points by myself raising two points.
First, instead of imagining our choices as able to fall into two buckets, namely “good choices” and “evil choices”, I want us to forget the buckets and picture all these choices occurring on a spectrum. On the far left side of the spectrum is THE MOST EVIL CHOICE YOU ARE PHYSICALLY ABLE TO MAKE and on the far right side of the spectrum is THE MOST GOOD CHOICE YOU ARE PHYSICALLY ABLE TO MAKE. I believe this addresses a couple of your points just off the bat, namely your points about
-
creating a universe with the potential for good choices but with our potential for evil or morally harmful choices prevented
-
limitations on any given person’s capacity to choose evil (or good for that matter)
For point 1), let’s imagine a universe where, according to the spectrum of choice I described, everything to the left of “I don’t care” is a choice precluded from us. So let’s say… you’re walking down the street and see someone living rough (i.e. homeless). In our (real, current, physical) world, you could shoot him, spit on him, ignore him, give him a sandwich, or invite him to stay in your guest room while he gets back on his feet. Now let’s go to the universe where God has precluded all the “evil” choices from being made, everything more evil than “I don’t care about that guy.”… well, doesn’t that just shift the definition of “evil choices”? Now, “ignore him” is the most evil thing we can do, and it’s still evil (just less so than shooting him) and we can still choose it.
So all that is to say, even with “narrowed choices” as long as our free will exists, we are always able to choose an option from the “evil” side of the spectrum. So yes the President has a wider spectrum of choices (he can actually launch nukes, or mobilize 1,000,000 soldiers to build infrastructure projects), but, and this brings me to my next point (in response to what you raised) regarding limitations on our capacity to choose evil. We can’t just use our Will to conjure a nuke and detonate it. We can’t just use our Will to conjure $1,000,000 and use it for “good”.
One might ssk why aren't they more restrictive of evil? But if one accepts that this existence is a test there are other questions to ask: why aren't the laws of physics, or any other universal law we're governed by, then even more tolerant of evil?
Could you imagine how broken the world would be if every person got their own personal Death Note (a magic book where you write someone’s name and it causes them to die)? Could you imagine a school classroom where every student believed themselves to be the teacher? It wouldn’t work! No lessons would be learned! Imagine the horrors of a world where nothing could die. Jeffery Epstein would be 2,000 years old and even more capable of evil than already possible. His victims would suffer an eternity.
I think, and I readily admit this is all in the realm of thought, as “evidence” and “proof” are almost tangential to this conversation, that this system we are in, where we are limited in our capacity to choose good and evil, and limited in our lifespans and every other metric of import, this is “the best” option of the bunch, given the (assumed/implied) purpose of existence as a “classroom” or arena for learning these massive lessons
Cheers man thanks for the reply!
The eastern philosophies deal with this quite elegantly imo. They divide things into:
-The Will of Heaven, aka Tianming - this is the path laid down for each soul by God. Call it Destiny, Fate, Predestination, whatever.
-Karma - this is a result or effect of the free will choices we make over our lifetime
So if life is a “Choose your own adventure book” that God authored for us (Will of Heaven), our karma is simply the journey we took along the way
I’ve enjoyed reading much of the discussion in this thread - so please don’t see the following as in any way “ganging up”, I’d just like to hear more of your thoughts. You say:
Your assertions, to be true, require that He could only create things with either free will and evil or neither. That doesn't sound reasonable for a Being to Whom all of existence is ascribed
I don’t really see the flaw here? Forgive the analogy, but let’s imagine two different video games (potential universes God could have made). In one of the video games, the player follows a straight line of progression, going from event A>B>C and reaches the games “ending”. In the other game, at each event (A, B, C) the player is presented with a “choice” to pick the “good option” or the “bad option”. Depending on which options you pick, you can get a “good ending”, “bad ending”, or “mixed ending”.
In the first game, there is no free will. Thus there is no “bad choices” nor a “bad ending”. Thus “evil” (atleast our analogy thereof) doesn’t exist without the free will to choose it.
You seem to propose that God “could have” designed a game with free will but which simultaneously lacks the capacity for evil. This seems like a contradiction to me, why not to you?
Feel free to ignore the wrapping of the analogy if you want
Here’s a similar one I did a couple years ago, the linked paper is worth a read:
https://communities.win/c/Conspiracies/p/16bPH6VAGb/american-deer-populations-with-h/c
That’s fair, and I upvoted your initial comment with your criticisms of the documentary. Perhaps im in the wrong thread, but I’d much rather discuss the topic of the documentary than the documentary itself
Anyway, cheers, maybe I’ll make a post on what I see as the “reasonable” take on chemtrails soon or something
But you kind of are…the topic is about chemicals being released into the atmosphere which have unknown and potentially harmful effects to humans - you respond to the topic, knowing full well that multiple governments have admitted to releasing potentially harmful chemicals into the atmosphere (i.e. “geoengineering”), but instead of acknowledging that reality and operating within it, you present this other reality (“mUh contrails aren’t chemtrails! MUh secret program to outfit all commercial airliners with secret chemical releasers is unbelievable!”) which no one (here, on this forum) was asking you to believe
I still wonder how you all found out
🤔
Hmm…almost as if…your account getting nuked set off a Return of the Jedi style celebration site wide
Says the guy posting deleted tweets with the date and adressee cropped out
Eat shit lmao
But the chemtrail conspiracy claim is that your average plane in the sky (i.e., commerical travel flight) is secretly emitting chemicals
This is a straw man. That might be the weakest version of the chemtrail claim, but it is far from the only or even the most commonly made version. We should be steel-manning our “opposition” in this forum, otherwise we’re basically just ranting retardedly like they do on r/Atheism
Ashes to Ashes, Tang to Tang
https://wiki.evageeks.org/LCL