Bitcoin Forum

“Our pasta, who art in a colander, draining be your noodles. Thy noodle come, Thy sauce be yum, on top some grated Parmesan. Give us this day, our garlic bread, …and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trample on our lawns. And lead us not into vegetarianism, but deliver us some pizza, for thine is the meatball, the noodle, and the sauce, forever and ever. Ramen.”

The Flying Spaghetti Monster Holy Prayer – Unknown

I think this is my new favorite thread on the whole site  :D

“Hail meatsauce, full of beef. The Spaghetti Monster is with you...”
~ Ragu on Pastafarianism

RAmen brothers.

What's ironic is that the flying spaghetti monster does indeed exist in our infinite universe, just like god.

Why is that ironic? 

Because you all think the flying spaghetti monster debases the reality of god, when it only supports it.

It's not really an argument against God, but against organized religion.

Organizing any system is destined to fail.  Just like the government.

The foundation of religion, spirituality, is still true and real.

The universe started in chaos (big bang) and has organized itself quite nicely.

Nothing is random.

And the universe was not created by man, it's a perfect system because it is natural, like anarchy.

The universe wasn't created by anybody.  It's always existed.

You speak often of a multiple universes theory, and that's fine.  But what you fail to understand is in OUR universe there are certain physical laws.  Magic does not exist.  It may exist in other universes where there are different laws of physics, but here it does not.  Without magic, you have no possibility of a god.

I have said that is has always existed before and always will.  Glad to see you're getting the concepts of infinity.

Magic does exist on earth, people encounter small bursts of it more often than you think (at least I have last year).

We just need to train our minds to become more magical.

That's where you skew from actuality.

Magic does not exist in our universe.  We have physical laws in our universe that cannot be broken.  (Yes, that means you did not stop a cloud with your mind.)

If you feel magic does exist, why not prove it, make a cool million dollars, and pay squall back?
http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/1m-challenge/challenge-application.html

Aaaand he's back to talking crazy

Then why have many people broken physics?  Because the universe has no law.  Law is not natural.

Dude, nobody has broken physics.  If a scientific law can be broken, then it's not a law.

No one has ever broken the laws of our universe.  It can't be done - they are called laws for a reason.

In other universes, or in your mind, these laws may be broken.  But not in our universe.

You're correct, scientific law is not law, it's theory.

I have witnessed a large lamp jump off a table with nobody around it, several people saw it and were like wtf?

My friend has unintentionally levitated before, several people saw it.

Another friend has witnessed levitation of an iPhone, two people saw it.

My life experiences tell me science is not the final frontier.

Dank, this happened to you in a dream - whether you were sleeping or in a drug induced state, it doesn't matter.  It didn't happen in reality, because it's impossible.

Nothing impossible can exist.

Gravity is a law that cannot be broken.

What are you talking about, these were real life occurrences.  In real life reality.

Nothing is impossible vod.

Dank, no one in history has ever defied gravity.  It's impossible.  If I drop something, I know for a fact it will fall.  NASA does billions of calculations per day and in each one, gravity acts as expected.

Drugs mess up your perception - they make you hallucinate.  I know you believe it was a real life occurrence, but it was only in your mind.

Believe me, if you could defy gravity, millions of people would already have done it, there would be videos on youtube, and the million dollar challenge would not exist.

Sober girls saw my friend float.  Nothing is impossible.

We're still evolving.

Dank, I know you believe your friends saw someone floating, but it was only in your drug induced state.  :(

Hallucinations can be a bitch.  The first time I smoked pot ten years ago, I swore my friends were using their mind to push me East.  Yes, I felt a compelling pull towards the east, but that's because I was high.

Millions of people do drugs Dank.  Most of them understand that what they experience under the drugs is not real.

Defying gravity is impossible.  If you think you can do it, why haven't others done it before you?  Do you think you are the first person to figure it out?

Delusions of grandeur are another effect of the drug use.  Understand?

You have the right to hold your opinion.  And I have the right to prove you wrong.  Give it eight years.

Eight years, or eighty years... dank you can't prove that you can beat gravity.  It's impossible.

Didn't any of your friends have a cell phone or video camera to record the law defying act?  Why does no one ever record these things?  Why are we always asked to take the word of a drug addict against something we know to be true?

I don't know why you are asking for eight years when you claim to have done it already!   ???

We will see.  You don't need wings to fly, it resides within the mind.

The extent my powers have gone to has been holding back a piece of a cloud.  When I have organized a million people in front of me I will believe in myself quite a bit more.

Dank, I agree with you.  You don't need wings to fly in your mind.  You can also hold back clouds in your mind.  You can't do it in reality however.

If you ever decide to sober up and try these things in reality, you really should take a camera.  After all, you can make a million dollars off it, repay your debt to squall, AND have money to travel across the US building up your festival.

But you have less than two months remaining.  You said you would get a real life job by the end of 2013 if your concert didn't happen.  Or were you lying again?

Spaghetti monster, godamnit! Dank, fuck off. You are but a sauce stain on the corner of the mouth of a fat greasy mobster compared to his holy noddleness! No one gives a shit about your flying, when compared to the awesome flying powers of he of great meatballs.

Atleast his followers aren't wasting my money, so I'm ok with them.

I still label them as crazy, but I'm just for equality in that respect...

Next time you prepare your dinner, what you need are Champignon Mushrooms, not Psilocybe Cubensis. ;)

i thought satoshi is our only god  ???

FSM haven't shown it face to anyone, Satoshi haven't shown his face.

FSM is a god, satoshi is a god.

Erog FSM is Satoshi and Satoshi is FSM.

FSM cave us the Bitcoin!

I should be getting a few thousand dollars worth of equipment for my business in the next week.

And bro, my friends saw the cloud stop moving.  Then they were able to do it once they saw me do it.

It's quite simple, all you have to do is believe, beliefs formulate our reality.

Of course it's an argument against god...
The FSM is just a rehash of Russell's teapot.
It's the best, the oldest, and quite possibly the only argument against god.

FSM always seemed more of a mockery of organized religion; God is never given a physical description so it's entirely possible he appears like a flying spaghetti monster.  If you follow the belief that there is a God and no religion has gotten it right, it's entirely possible to continue to believe there is a God who created the universe and decided to stop intervening.

If you ask me, it's far easier to just acknowledge the possibility of atheism, but I couldn't say the FSM is the perfect argument against there being a God; at such a point, if you abandon organized religion, it's all on you to decide whether or not God is useful in your life; those who do not see use are atheists, those who do--and I've noticed this among many followers of faith--simply abandon religion and decide to go their own path, i.e. deism.  Can God appear as a FSM?  I don't see why not.  Is it likely?  No.  Has God been disproven?  In his common incarnations, yes, but not entirely; the idea has no effect on someone who believes in what can't be true, as long as there is a feeling of existence.

You guys realize you are arguing with dank right?

No one wins an argument with dank....  :D

That is what religion does to person.

No, this is what drugs does to a person. I am pretty convinced he used the funds he stole from squall to buy drugs.

I have never been religious.

But after finding my soul and learning my purpose in life along with the other crazy happenings of 2012, I know what's what.  We all do, deep down.

But Andrew is right, you can debate against my points, but it will not stop me from flying.

The point of Russell's teapot is that god doesn't need to be disproven. Either you can directly and scientifically prove his existence, or you must acknowledge that he is a logical fallacy.

The reasoning is that anyone can make any claim regarding non-provable things. You can say there is a god whose existence can not be proven or disproven. I can say there is a flying spaghetti monster out there. Bertrand Russell can say there is a teapot in space, and dank can say that someone at some point has levitated. The point is that either all such non-provable claims are true or they are all false. There is absolutely no logical reason to assume that the existence of god is in some way more likely than the existence of a flying spaghetti monster. And since there can be an infinite number of such claims, we must assume that either all these infinite imaginary things (like gods and monsters and leprechauns and teapots in space) actually exist, or they are all absolutely false.

We obviously can't assume that everything anyone can possibly imagine actually exists. That would probably break the laws of physics, as well as common sense. Therefore we must regard the existence of god (as well as anything else that has been imagined but never proven) as false on logical grounds. There is no need to try to disprove the existence of the infinite number of unproven things. That wouldn't be possible anyway. Rather, the burden is on the person who comes up with these things to prove their existence.

Atheism is not a possibility. It is a logical necessity.



The usefulness of god is irrelevant. Imaginary things don't pop into existence because they are useful. I could sure use about 100,000 BTC in my wallet right now, and yet, the blockchain disagrees...
I am not an atheist because I see no use for god, but because I assume god doesn't exist until proven otherwise.

https://i.imgur.com/ApwRHIO.gif Business https://i.imgur.com/ApwRHIO.gif

dank just threw his last 3k at yet another drug venture, hopefully he'll be able to repay squall this time

And when you add the variable of an infinite universe, it's not only probably but definite that a FSM god, a teapot god, and any other thing you can imagine exists.

There are infinite dimensions right where you are, it's up to you to tune your mind to those frequencies, and anything you imagine will manifest in reality.

Surebet, I have investors backing this one and it is not related to drugs.

Did you forget the investor's pitch you tried with me already?

Flying Spaghetti Monsterism (or Pastafarianism) is an argument against teaching Intelligent Design as an "alternative theory" to evolution in science classes. Once you open the door to considering one "theory" that has no scientific evidence to back it up, you have to admit that any theory is just as likely (although the CoFSM has graphs (http://www.venganza.org/images/PiratesVsTemp.png), so is therefore the most scientific Intelligent Design theory yet).

Thanks for keying me in; however, how does this change the mind of a person who believes in God?

Yes and I remembered and this is not related.  This is a webular based business.

Now that I pondered FSM even deeper I discovered the truth. FSM is the bitcoin. It's clear to me now the noodly appendages are the transaction chains and the meatballs are the blocks. So in reality FSM gave us his appearance to use in form of bitcoin.

As you can see here:


Nothing changes the mind of a person who believes  :(

lol  ;D

Does that mean pirateat40 lowered global temperatures???

He wasn't a true pirate; he was a false profit.

So I'm guessing you still spent the 3k$ you had instead of you know, paying Squall. Also what the hell is a webular business?

Today is Sunday.  Do any other atheists feel the need to gather together and reassure each other we're not crazy?  I sure don't. 

Pun of the week award  8)

It will be invested.  Webular based, web based.  I like to make words sound cooler sometimes.

I just got it lol.

Ha ha well, you may have a point there.  However, I bring this up because, though these arguments make sense to us, they don't seem to have an effect on the people they're geared toward; someone who believes in God may not be completely irrational, but they are at least irrational toward the idea of God; so if the only use of an argument is to appeal to someone who already has a foundation in logical reasoning, thereby allowing the individual doubt on the existence of God, is it valuable?  If not, it would seem, then, that a focus on refuting God is not important; a focus on cultivating rational thinkers matters more.  It's like speaking two different languages; one speaks logic, the other doesn't.  For any of this to make sense to a believer of God, they first need to understand why rational thought is preferable to faith, and if they are rational thinkers, they will already agree with the argument.

This is why I bring up the idea of God being useful; if people can find a use in God, for whatever purpose, and they're surrounded by people who also believe God has a use, then God will continue to exist outside the purview of rationals; if rationals are a minority, then it is far more common for God to exist than for God to not exist; whether or not we can argue God's existence, if people don't have rational thought as their fundamental interpretation of the world, it doesn't matter if what is said makes logical sense if it cannot appeal to the people who are going to wind up changing your life in some way or another, whether through politics or otherwise.  Because of this, the only way to stop the existence of God--and he does exist, for God has and is making a huge impact on the world, albeit only through his believers--is with secular rationalism, thereby ending God's usefulness; a person can't get away with murder "in the name of God" if society doesn't believe there is a God, nor can a person rule by divine right, nor can a person ask forgiveness an infinite amount of times, knowing they must be forgiven for they are God-fearing; though we, i.e. rationals, can argue God isn't real, he's very much alive and well in his believers and always willing to exert his omnipotence--and by that I mean, people are with God as their backing.  There is no use in pointing out God's existence, then; there is only a use in helping people to accept a rational mindset; it is from there they can then understand God's existence.

I completely agree. I just wish I knew how to get people to be rational about their beliefs  :-\


One caveat though: I still don't think usefulness is relevant. God doesn't need to be useful to persist in people's minds. God is a meme, perhaps the most powerful meme ever invented, and memes are like viruses. They propagate themselves by convincing infected minds to transfer the meme to uninfected minds. Religion is so powerful because it is a meme with a built-in replication device: one of the core tenets of almost every religion is that a religious person must do everything is his power to convince more people to believe what he believes (and occasionally kill people who don't). Religious people are brainwashed from a young age that they must never stop believing, and get others to believe as well.
Therefore, god can cling to people's minds without serving any positive use. In fact, I would say all "uses" of god are imagined by believers in order to rationalize their irrational beliefs. God doesn't need to be useful to exist just like viruses are not useful for our cells.

So buying and/or selling near legal drug analogs online?

Now that's a religion I can get into!

I'll have to think about this more; I really do believe we're arriving at the same conclusions, just with a different viewpoint.  Anyway, I'd like to believe there's an effective method of drawing people toward rational thought; so far, the fastest way I know of is to instill such a foundation in a person's childhood, in place of what would've went there, i.e. bogeymen and authorities, such as God or the state, to conquer them.  This seems a gradual shift, as parents will either raise their children with the beliefs and mannerism they were raised with, or those parents went through life-changing events before having kids and made a conscious decision not to raise their kids in the same way.  So this change must occur in adulthood before it can be passed onto children.

The second method would be through changes in education; if a child is taught not how to listen and conform, thus forming a dependency on getting all their knowledge from schools, but instead taught how to learn and thus capable of seeking wisdom on their own (libraries have always been around and now with the Internet, it's a trivial matter to learn anything), the child will be able to draw their own informed conclusions on reality, which should remain in-line with what rational thinkers believe.  Again, for the school system to change, people must accept that it is need of improvement, which also begins with adults.  Which is why I point out, once there is a majority of rational thinkers in any given society, the effect the rational can have is multiplied greatly; so long as we are divided, we're easily conquered.  One thing that makes the internet such a great technology, IMO ;D

Dank can't make the correlation between multiple universes and physical laws.

Of course there is a theory that an infinite number of universes exist and the laws of physics can be different in each one.

However, the universe we occupy has set laws that cannot be broken.  Maybe in another universe, but not ours.  There is no technology to even view other universes, much less get to them. 

So in our universe a person cannot levitate or stop clouds from moving.  There is no such thing as magic, therefore gods cannot exist.  It's impossible.  A normal person will look at this and understand, but a brainwashed person cannot.

The problem dank has is when he gets stoned and messes up his brain chemistry he thinks he is in another universe, which of course he isn't.  He's just a stoned loser in our universe.  And unfortunately because he smoked pot when his brain was still developing, he probably will never understand it.

So no, you cannot argue logically with dank, because he doesn't have the capability.

Very true. I've always wondered how to educate children to think for themselves, but it's kind of circular: you have to forcefully educate them not to be forcefully educated...
I guess children will mostly take after their parents, so yes, you'd have to start by convincing parents to give their children as much latitude as possible to figure stuff out for themselves.


Generally speaking, the issue of education has always bothered me as an anarcho-capitalist. It's an ideological black hole for me. I don't think the state is doing a good job with education (or with anything else, for that matter), but what will happen if every parent had completely free reign in educating their children? Seeing as most parents are irrational, religious and uneducated, it could be even worse...

Isn't rational reasoning saying, this happened so this will happen.

How logical is that?

Patterns only repeat themselves because people do not see the pattern to abrupt it their self.

We create the patterns of our reality because it's what we believe.  We believe we can't fly so we can't.  Beliefs formulate our reality, you see what you believe you see, don't you?

If you are capable in believing more than what meets the eye, it may indeed meet the eye.

You're not going to convince someone that has broken logic after seeing physics totally violated in the physical plane.  I'm not the only one to have experienced things like these.

There are no laws in our universe, only energy.  If your energy allows you to do it, you can.

Thank you! That one's going right up on the mantle next to the award I received for the sequel I wrote to Finding Nemo, an animated musical in which an adolescent Nemo struggles against undersea predujice after falling in love with an eel, titled That's A Moray!

If that were the case, how come people in mental institutions don't have superpowers?  Oh wait, because it's not possible.

https://i.imgur.com/JZXSUra.jpg

Remember dank, you might believe you can't die, but that doesn't mean your actions won't harm others. Think before you do criminally dangerous things on a public road, if just to spare your mother the heartbreak.

So in the entire history of the world, no one has ever thought they could fly, and that is the reason no one ever has?  You believe you're going to be the first person ever to break the laws of nature and defy gravity?

This is why no one can talk with you - you have no touch with reality.

I've come to the conclusion that government is merely a reflection of people; though it can often contribute to creating people in a certain image, ultimately it's people who define their government and if they decide that schools as they are are fine, then that's how they'll be, whether or not they're detrimental.  Another side-effect of rational thought is people taking an incredible interest in politics, as you and I are both anarchists and can attest to ;D

I don't believe it necessarily has to be forced education however; I believe children are naturally curious individuals, though they have their own ways of learning.  It's better to foster their natural curiosity than try to push it out to reinforce an ideology; I can't say a person who wants to understand the "why" of everything can ever change without being punished for it.  Of course I'm only speaking of the right now, where we have to adapt to an authoritative environment, but in an anarcho-capitalist environment, people, including children, are free to go to school or not; the schools adapt entirely to what the market asks for, and in a society where everyone is rational, they're going to want the best schools whose sole focus is to train a person to think, young or old--assuming this is the best method of schooling.  This all works out great since everyone's intelligent enough to at least function in such an environment; in order for anarchism to work, it necessitates secular rationalism; without this, it's always doomed to fail, as non-rationals inevitably revert to seeking guidance from someone who is, or at least claims to be in the case of many rulers.  So there's no worry about anarcho-capitalists being unable to raise children properly, the schools just provide a more quality service.  Until this point in time, however, changes have to be made outside of the system, which then are reflected into government; this is why it takes so long for these shifts to occur.  So long as the Internet remains open and people see a reason to favor rationality over all else, which they primarily are exposed to through the Internet, the gradual shift is toward liberty and anarchy, not away.  It's a slow start, if we count the first anarchists, but it's definitely accelerating.

Must I tell you about Arthur, the guy who confirmingly sees dead people?

It doesn't matter what you think, it matters what you believe.

I'm not the first person, ask the Yogis.

FIFY

FTFY

The Diamond Age has the best guess at how this could be done (and if we aim for it, how it will be done), which is through phyles. People will organize themselves into culturally similar groups, and as groups, families and all, will compete against other groups. This also means making sure their children are the best educated, so that they can outperform their competitors, in both skills and status.

The 2001 Australian census I put Jedi as my religion.

In 2006, I put Pastafarian.

In 2012, I put Bitcoineer.

 ;)

You believe in bins? How does that work?

Home

The Diamond Age seemed dystopian to me. I'm afraid most groups would devolve into tribe-like superstitious xenophobic cults that support themselves by specializing in certain fields, much like Heaven's Gate (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heaven's_Gate_(religious_group)#Structure) did in the 90's. Phyles wouldn't necessarily need to outperform competitors, just do well enough to survive and propagate.

Haven't read it, but it doesn't seem like my cup of tea. Anarchism is all about the individual. How are these "Phyles" all that different from nation-states?

We've already saw this in many places, for example, Northern Ireland, it didn't went well.

Public education should be in the hands of scientists and scholars, no need for indoctrination in the public system.

What we should really have is a school divided into two types of learning.  Philosophical teachings to help expand consciousness, and real world classes that teach the ego.

The former is largely missing from society and is a vital part of being a spiritual being, which you are.

damn iphone.  I meant Bitcoineer :)

This would mean that the Great Spagetti followers would divide into those who worshiped meatballs,  those who worshiped red versus white sauce, and many fractions and divisions would occur in the faithful, including the gluten free spaggetti cult.

I for one, being a true atheist, would be watching this from afar.  They may wrap their noodles around my neck and try to hang me from the nearest tree, but my cheese powder is strong and my crushed peppers rule.  I will spear them with my fork and steely knives, their noodles being split asunder and their meatballs drawn and quartered.

With no mercy shall I attack the onslaught of the minions of noodledom, leaving naught one sliced mushroom left to see another sunrise.

In the book, they are not limited by geography. Just as you can be a Bitcoiner or Trekkie anywhere in the world, you could be a member of a phyle. It gives you community membership, status as being an accepted member of that community, and benefits provided exclusively to members. Since they are not geographic, they are also completely voluntary.

The former is called Liberal Arts, and is an important part of the food service industry

Not the liberal arts I had.

Let me teach the kids about philosophy and mind expansion.

And can't we just be a community as humanity?

Not if we are forced to follow the commandments of the FSM.  The ugliest god ever invented.  I say, rebel now, cast off your chains of noodles.

Not when you steal from us.

No wonder it's so popular these days :P