Don’t roll your eyes, young lady; don’t you know that all life is utterly pointless and hopeless, and no one should bother to believe in anything greater than themselves, nor ever be thankful that they’re not dead?
/s
7 Likes
Not that I doubt you, but how do you design a test which could tell the difference? Are those the only outcomes?
What about if luck is real, but has no agency to appeal to?
4 Likes
Indeed. Some might mistakenly think that there can be no point to life if this is true and lash out at you for pointing this out, but we don’t need a god to give our lives meaning. We can make life mean what we want it to.
Since when did a meaningful life have to mean only god. That’s not what @Melz2 was necessarily arguing.
6 Likes
I, too, would like to thank God for the Big Bang which started the chain of events that resulted in me not being on that flight.
1 Like
I don’t think it does, which was my point. Nor was I responding directly to Mellz2. But I think that typically when people talk about believing in something “greater than themselves” they are referring to some type of supernatural agency.
Whatever @Melz2 does or doesn’t believe is entirely beside the point though, it was @spetrovits needless condescending tone that was the problem.
[ETA] Just to be clear, I don’t care what people believe, in randomness or not. But as you note, people forge their own meaning in the world. I don’t see a need to condescend to others in the process (which I’m not saying you’re doing here).
3 Likes
Since never; some people are just always out to “prove” how much better and smarter they are than everyone else in the room.
Believing in something that’s greater than oneself is not automatically equivalent to a belief in any deity, and that’s not what I was saying or even implying.
Long story short:
Dude inadvertently dodged a huge bullet; many people would take that as “a sign” to live life to the fullest, because at the very least such a brush with death reminds most of us how fleeting time is.
5 Likes
I do not understand how pointing out that a worldview that includes things that cannot be proven is, by its nature, fantastical, is being condescending per se. I wish I could believe that there is some higher purpose to everything. As I said, such a worldview doubtless brings comfort to those who believe in it. I do not begrudge them that comfort. I just do not share in it. I do not think that my lack of belief in a god or multiverse or whatever makes me superior in any way, and though I don’t really think my comments made me sound that way, I apologize for my tone. Maybe I’m just glad I’m way over here, not having to deal with narrowly missing death.
The absence of luck does not imply randomness. Luck is almost certainly a human misconception of survivor bias.
The universe may be random or it may be determinative or it may obey some other condition we lack the context to ask the correct question to answer. Randomness itself may or may not be; we do not know. If you do know and have proof, then for the love of FSM please publish it and claim your Fields Medal. Mathematicians, physicists and philosophers have been trying to answer that question for over two thousand years. If you’re holding out on us, it better be to avoid calling forth some really nasty Lovecraftian horrors.
No, and they cannot.
When you assume…
Higher purpose does not equal higher power.
5 Likes
from what i’ve been told that it wasn’t actually that big of a bang but just it was so quiet before hand it seemed rather large at the time
3 Likes
Perhaps.
In the US the terms luck or lucky are often used to imply some sort of magical ‘woo’ instead of probability.
Kinda like the argument in Deadpool 2; where Domino insists that her superpower is being lucky, and Deadpool insists that luck is not a superpower.
As it happens, he’s right; in cannon Domino’s power is the ability to manipulate probability to her advantage.
4 Likes
Fair point.
1 Like
I love this movie SO much. When I had it recorded, years ago, I’d watch it every couple of weeks. It’s just such a happy, sappy, feel good [bonkers] movie.
Greenberg: She has very long legs.
Vicki: Thanks. They go from my ass all the way to the floor.
2 Likes
PSA, to whomever it may amuse:
My answer to the post “There is just randomness.” could have been “And what are the odds for that?”
On a slightly serious note, your discussion is highly loaded with meta. Something something non-random, something something determinism, something something fate, something belief something, something transcendental something something logical fallacies. And that’s just a quick look on triggerwords I pulled from Wikipedia.
This is a bit big for one small topic, methinks.
Throw in a Monty Hall problem and all hell breaks loose.
Ok. Seeing myself out, I really should try to catch my flight. 
2 Likes
So being tardy pays off, my whole life has been a lie.
2 Likes
Yep. No such thing as “meaning of life” or “a greater purpose.”
Ethiopian police are clearly on the job. People who just missed the flight are obvious lines of investigation.
I find this clear display of competence hard to reconcile with a country who’s people were perpetually starving to death a few decades ago.
What happened?
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
