The last year or two really does feel like we're all living in a John Brunner novel...and "Shockwave Rider" seems more and more a prescient history than a novel. The worst part is, I don't see any hints of the positive factors in the novel.

I see very little hope for our society, and what tiny bit there is seems likely to involve a whole lot of bloodshed first.

>> ^Stormsinger:

>> ^kceaton1:
Anyway, the point I was making at the end is that God has not stopped me from typing my little ditty, because He can't or "does not have that power" so he gives us "Free Will". But, to give me free will in any classical sense means you must deny yourself from action whether you can use it or not...
So he isn't omnipotent. His prescient abilities seem off, again as this post is making it through.
My post is but a window with a shade. If you don't like whats behind the shade, I suggest a change in scenery.

I'll chime in to point out the biggest flaw in the Christian idea that God is both omniscient and omnipotent...you cannot be both without bearing responsibility for every single thing that happens. This is doubly so when you supposedly created every single thing that exists.
If you do so knowing what the outcome would be (which you did, being omniscient), and still refused to make things better (which you could, being omnipotent), but then decide to place the blame on your creations (for doing precisely what you created them to do and knew they would do)...I can think of no other words for that behavior than "evil" or "psychotic".


Thank you. That would be my point. Plus, it'd be nice to know what rules he's making; the rules or laws being: good and evil. Both are very contrived definitions and even in the course of the bible the definition changes (which was once a strong point in my understanding of God and being Mormon; you would need a prophet or relay to update "the rules" as time changes, otherwise "the works" would be forever outdated).

But, more to the point on a very simple design layer. What rules in Gods world (this was one I couldn't counter in my Mormon days) are below or above God. Good and Evil seem to be at a priority level above God, as they are "obvious". But, if God made them and controls them that negates ANY reason to have them in the first place, because as I said before they would be contrived values. Which would force me "morally" to not follow God as he seems to blame people on some sort of whimsical basis (Isiah is full of it, for the religious; the old testament is a living breathing example of this in action--constantly). As you said it seems he's schizoid or sociopathic, or both (could have multiple personality disorder, which explains A LOT). On the believing side and from a "Devil's Advocates" view; God seems to have possibly "made up" the Devil. There is very little information on the Devil and Hell. The one reference we have to punishment in Hell talks of burning lakes. The devil himself is almost never described, or attributed; the same as Hell. There's half as much information about the "bad guy" as their is about Jesus. We never even get a quote for or from him, post angelic contributions.

Anyway if evil is a "given" value, even as simple as: doing the opposite of what God wants. That means evil and good are laws on a level above God's control, although he can manipulate it. That shows that even on a fundamental "physics" or "architecture" setup, there are things that are already more powerful than him (such as *any* law that runs heaven, hell, Earth, God's "nature" (if you can describe it or he can, then it already shows that language is at a higher level as it cannot be communicated otherwise).

Anyway, none of this is factual proof, but a lot of these type of things should be sufficient enough to put the whole idea or question of God of to the side for this life. It should also make you realize that even if you run into a God later on, you should still question ALWAYS; or least you may follow the Devil...

>> ^kceaton1:

Anyway, the point I was making at the end is that God has not stopped me from typing my little ditty, because He can't or "does not have that power" so he gives us "Free Will". But, to give me free will in any classical sense means you must deny yourself from action whether you can use it or not...
So he isn't omnipotent. His prescient abilities seem off, again as this post is making it through.
My post is but a window with a shade. If you don't like whats behind the shade, I suggest a change in scenery.


I'll chime in to point out the biggest flaw in the Christian idea that God is both omniscient and omnipotent...you cannot be both without bearing responsibility for every single thing that happens. This is doubly so when you supposedly created every single thing that exists.

If you do so knowing what the outcome would be (which you did, being omniscient), and still refused to make things better (which you could, being omnipotent), but then decide to place the blame on your creations (for doing precisely what you created them to do and knew they would do)...I can think of no other words for that behavior than "evil" or "psychotic".

Anyway, the point I was making at the end is that God has not stopped me from typing my little ditty, because He can't or "does not have that power" so he gives us "Free Will". But, to give me free will in any classical sense means you must deny yourself from action whether you can use it or not...

So he isn't omnipotent. His prescient abilities seem off, again as this post is making it through.

My post is but a window with a shade. If you don't like whats behind the shade, I suggest a change in scenery.

>> ^shinyblurry:


The funny part about saying that "The Devil"™ runs things down here is funny. The reason it's funny is that even when I was a fairly religious person I could never quite figure out why "The Devil"™ was so evil.
He disobeyed "God"™, but that was about it. Apparently, now, he runs a place called Hel or Helle(or if you prefer the misspelled version: hille, hillja, hell, etc...). He's also able to tempt us (or if you wish, we let him tempt us, giving him even less power) to do things; who knows what though. He's also supposed to be a fallen angel that many think to be red and ugly with horns. It should also be noted that Hell (Hel) has lakes of fire (which sounds cool; almost like Hawaii), but seems to lack all the horrific stuff you hear of elsewhere.
I'm just wondering, why Lucifer (The Bringer of Light) is so "Evil"™? Also, last time I checked "Free Will"™ was sitting around; so if "The Devil"™ runs Earth, why do we need that? His role greatly differs throughout the Christian realm of knowledge as well as those that are linked (like Judaism, Islam, etc...). The idea of a bad guy against the ultimate good guy sent here or another place are in many religions world wide. Some of those religions pre-date Christianity by more than a thousand years and Judaism by hundreds (if not more). Sometimes these "figureheads" have been concentrated into one form as they were once in the form of many figureheads, besides "God" and "the Devil".
There is a litany of things attributed to: Satan, ha-sataan(Judaism has no "real" direct version), Baal Davar, the Devil, Lucifer, Lord of Flies, Dragon (or serpent; is "believed" to be the serpent in the Garden of Eden), Beelzubub (if you like the demon storyline; not a Mormon thing), Iblis, Shaitan, Jinn, Ying-Yang (pick one), Vishnu (atleast one aspect), Set, Apep,Sammael, Belial, ad nauseum...
Anyway, he disagreed with God "about something"; the "about something" depends on the flavor you belong to.
To cut it short: Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Zoroastrianism... They all suffer from the same problem: cognitive dissonance. Not a one holds up to a double-blind scientific experiment, let alone a simple thought experiment. If we have a "God" they most certainly are not prescient or omnipotent. The fact that I can post this kills one half of the logic, the other logic "free will" seems to be negated by every law and fact of science ever put together. You have choice, but it most certainly is not absolute.


If you were formally religious I am surprised you don't understand why the Devil is evil. I'll elaborate on this..
In the beginning, when man still dwelled in the Garden of Eden, he existed in a perfect state of grace with God. There was no such thing as sin, or death. Adam and Eve, the first humans, walked and talked with God face to face. God, to test their hearts, only gave them one command..not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He promised them that if they did so they would surely die.
Now the devil enters the picture. God had made him the most beautiful of all the angels, and gave him great power and dominion. The devil was soon corrupted by his own vanity however, because he started to think "I will be like the Most High" and desired to have his throne beside Gods. His sin was/is pride. Because of this, he was cast down to Earth.
Now God gave Earth to Adam. He was its ruler. Satan knew this, and knew that if he could corrupt him, he would gain power over the whole world because he would gain power over Adam. So the devil came to them and said that God was lying about the apple. That, not only would they not die, but they would become like God by eating it. After eating, Adam and Eve lost their innocence and the state of grace they enjoyed with God by sinning, and brought death into the world. From that moment on they were mortal beings with mortal needs.
Satan has been the ruler of this world since then. His power, however, was broken at Calvary when Christ died on the cross. Christ, the new Adam, lived a sinless life. Being born of a virgin, he did not inherit the sin of Adam. By living a sinless life, he redeemed mankind and gave all people on Earth a way to know God, His Father, through Him. When He died He went down to hell, battered down the gates, and took the power of death from the devil. When He was resurrected, He liberated mankind from the power of death, and was the first fruits of the world to come.
Now, Satan is still the ruler but on the run. He knows his time is short and growing ever shorter. His last shot is when the antichrist comes to power. Now, free will is fairly simple. You have the choice to obey or disobey Gods commands. God doesn't make you love Him. All those who delight in wickedness, however, will be punished on judgment day. Hell was not created for humans, but anyone who throws their lot in with the devil will earn the devils reward. His sin was pride, and so too are the ones who reject God similarly prideful, for they believe his lies and reject the truth.
That about sums it up. I would ascribe some cognitive dissonance to your post also, for your conclusions have seemingly been pulled from a hat. How does posting what you did negate anything about Gods omniscience, and how do the arbitrary rules of science say anything about free will? You may want to read about determinism vs free will for some background before you answer.


Indeed, that does just about sum it up.

Kceaton doesn't need to try to negate your Christian god's omniscience (assuming the proposition that he exists in the first place is true, which you haven't even attempted to demonstrate). You did that just swimmingly all on your own, assuming again, that you're not a liar or playing Devil's Advocate and earnestly believe what you just typed.

Thanks for saving anyone with any inclination to refute your imaginary friend a whole lot of time by doing it for us. Also, cognitive dissonance doesn't mean what you think it means. I would say that you were a fantastic example of it in action but that means you would need to actually recognize (in some form) the incongruity of your own silly, self-contradictory beliefs and/or be bothered by it.

The funny part about saying that "The Devil"™ runs things down here is funny. The reason it's funny is that even when I was a fairly religious person I could never quite figure out why "The Devil"™ was so evil.
He disobeyed "God"™, but that was about it. Apparently, now, he runs a place called Hel or Helle(or if you prefer the misspelled version: hille, hillja, hell, etc...). He's also able to tempt us (or if you wish, we let him tempt us, giving him even less power) to do things; who knows what though. He's also supposed to be a fallen angel that many think to be red and ugly with horns. It should also be noted that Hell (Hel) has lakes of fire (which sounds cool; almost like Hawaii), but seems to lack all the horrific stuff you hear of elsewhere.
I'm just wondering, why Lucifer (The Bringer of Light) is so "Evil"™? Also, last time I checked "Free Will"™ was sitting around; so if "The Devil"™ runs Earth, why do we need that? His role greatly differs throughout the Christian realm of knowledge as well as those that are linked (like Judaism, Islam, etc...). The idea of a bad guy against the ultimate good guy sent here or another place are in many religions world wide. Some of those religions pre-date Christianity by more than a thousand years and Judaism by hundreds (if not more). Sometimes these "figureheads" have been concentrated into one form as they were once in the form of many figureheads, besides "God" and "the Devil".
There is a litany of things attributed to: Satan, ha-sataan(Judaism has no "real" direct version), Baal Davar, the Devil, Lucifer, Lord of Flies, Dragon (or serpent; is "believed" to be the serpent in the Garden of Eden), Beelzubub (if you like the demon storyline; not a Mormon thing), Iblis, Shaitan, Jinn, Ying-Yang (pick one), Vishnu (atleast one aspect), Set, Apep,Sammael, Belial, ad nauseum...
Anyway, he disagreed with God "about something"; the "about something" depends on the flavor you belong to.
To cut it short: Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Zoroastrianism... They all suffer from the same problem: cognitive dissonance. Not a one holds up to a double-blind scientific experiment, let alone a simple thought experiment. If we have a "God" they most certainly are not prescient or omnipotent. The fact that I can post this kills one half of the logic, the other logic "free will" seems to be negated by every law and fact of science ever put together. You have choice, but it most certainly is not absolute.



If you were formally religious I am surprised you don't understand why the Devil is evil. I'll elaborate on this..

In the beginning, when man still dwelled in the Garden of Eden, he existed in a perfect state of grace with God. There was no such thing as sin, or death. Adam and Eve, the first humans, walked and talked with God face to face. God, to test their hearts, only gave them one command..not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He promised them that if they did so they would surely die.

Now the devil enters the picture. God had made him the most beautiful of all the angels, and gave him great power and dominion. The devil was soon corrupted by his own vanity however, because he started to think "I will be like the Most High" and desired to have his throne beside Gods. His sin was/is pride. Because of this, he was cast down to Earth.

Now God gave Earth to Adam. He was its ruler. Satan knew this, and knew that if he could corrupt him, he would gain power over the whole world because he would gain power over Adam. So the devil came to them and said that God was lying about the apple. That, not only would they not die, but they would become like God by eating it. After eating, Adam and Eve lost their innocence and the state of grace they enjoyed with God by sinning, and brought death into the world. From that moment on they were mortal beings with mortal needs.

Satan has been the ruler of this world since then. His power, however, was broken at Calvary when Christ died on the cross. Christ, the new Adam, lived a sinless life. Being born of a virgin, he did not inherit the sin of Adam. By living a sinless life, he redeemed mankind and gave all people on Earth a way to know God, His Father, through Him. When He died He went down to hell, battered down the gates, and took the power of death from the devil. When He was resurrected, He liberated mankind from the power of death, and was the first fruits of the world to come.

Now, Satan is still the ruler but on the run. He knows his time is short and growing ever shorter. His last shot is when the antichrist comes to power. Now, free will is fairly simple. You have the choice to obey or disobey Gods commands. God doesn't make you love Him. All those who delight in wickedness, however, will be punished on judgment day. Hell was not created for humans, but anyone who throws their lot in with the devil will earn the devils reward. His sin was pride, and so too are the ones who reject God similarly prideful, for they believe his lies and reject the truth.

That about sums it up. I would ascribe some cognitive dissonance to your post also, for your conclusions have seemingly been pulled from a hat. How does posting what you did negate anything about Gods omniscience, and how do the arbitrary rules of science say anything about free will? You may want to read about determinism vs free will for some background before you answer.

>> ^shinyblurry:

From a Christian perspective, the message itself is ridiculous because there is no way for human beings to create an ideal society. It doesn't matter if it is a democracy or a dictatorship. The ruler of this world is the Devil. Until Jesus returns, mankind will be subject to his rule, culminating when the Antichrist comes to power. This man does not understand the message and I doubt he is a real Christian.
As for all the wonderful people calling for Christians to disappear, etc, I'll make you a deal. If you don't use this guy as an example for Christians, I won't use you as an example for Atheists.


The funny part about saying that "The Devil"™ runs things down here is funny. The reason it's funny is that even when I was a fairly religious person I could never quite figure out why "The Devil"™ was so evil.

He disobeyed "God"™, but that was about it. Apparently, now, he runs a place called Hel or Helle(or if you prefer the misspelled version: hille, hillja, hell, etc...). He's also able to *tempt* us (or if you wish, *we* let him tempt us, giving him even less power) to do things; who knows what though. He's also supposed to be a fallen angel that many think to be red and ugly with horns. It should also be noted that Hell (Hel) has lakes of fire (which sounds cool; almost like Hawaii), but seems to lack all the horrific stuff you hear of elsewhere.

I'm just wondering, why Lucifer (The Bringer of Light) is so "Evil"™? Also, last time I checked "Free Will"™ was sitting around; so if "The Devil"™ runs Earth, why do we need that? His role greatly differs throughout the Christian realm of knowledge as well as those that are linked (like Judaism, Islam, etc...). The idea of a bad guy against the ultimate good guy sent here or another place are in many religions world wide. Some of those religions pre-date Christianity by more than a thousand years and Judaism by hundreds (if not more). Sometimes these "figureheads" have been concentrated into one form as they were once in the form of many figureheads, besides "God" and "the Devil".

There is a litany of things attributed to: Satan, ha-sataan(Judaism has no "real" direct version), Baal Davar, the Devil, Lucifer, Lord of Flies, Dragon (or serpent; is "believed" to be the serpent in the Garden of Eden), Beelzubub (if you like the demon storyline; not a Mormon thing), Iblis, Shaitan, Jinn, Ying-Yang (pick one), Vishnu (atleast one aspect), Set, Apep,Sammael, Belial, ad nauseum...

Anyway, he disagreed with God "about something"; the "about something" depends on the flavor you belong to.

To cut it short: Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Zoroastrianism... They all suffer from the same problem: cognitive dissonance. Not a one holds up to a double-blind scientific experiment, let alone a simple thought experiment. If we have a "God" they most certainly are not prescient or omnipotent. The fact that I can post this kills one half of the logic, the other logic "free will" seems to be negated by every law and fact of science ever put together. You have choice, but it most certainly is not absolute.

The police officer was southbound on I-675, responding to a call about debris on the road when Eden’s 1985 Pontiac Firebird rushed by on the left side.

Well, that was prescient of someone.

He's incredibly lucky he survived.
From the sound of things, the rest of us aren't.

@gorillaman

I do not think that morality is independent of time. The best you can do is try to come up with a consistent moral structure in the time and place you live in.

Take, for instance, selfishness and selflessness. Right now in our society the betterment of society in general is seen as morally superior to the betterment of your own life. In another time, another place, it could be the other way round by arguing that complete selflessness is a waste of your own life's potential and thus immoral. This is just off the top of my head so I don't know if it's persuasive... but my point is that both sides have valid arguments and are mutually exclusive. If you can say definitively that one is, without doubt, correct and one is wrong then you must be prescient because, given a problem demanding selflessness or selfishness, you can determine which choice fulfills both.

Er. I think. Comma.

Laugh at your own risk. If only the people of Atlantis had enjoyed such prescient counsel.

^ Baiting anyone who wants to fight with a very non-controversial statement.

I find it funny that people buy into the shadow statistics website. Why are their numbers more believable than the government's?

For that matter, if TIPS gives a payout based on government-based CPI, doesn't that mean this measure becomes an effective way to gauge whether the market agrees with the officially-published CPI? If the market believes the government consistently under-reports inflation, then wouldn't it bid up the constant-value yields, and make this test show that the market expects high inflation?

It's kinda the beauty of the test -- both yields are set by market forces, but the payout for TIPS will be adjusted by the government-reported CPI, while constant-value won't be. The spread is determined entirely by market-expected worth of the TIPS vs. constant-value.

Now, this isn't a way to measure inflation, it's a way to divine what the market consensus prediction about the 10-year rate of inflation is.

The way I see it, you have four possibilities:

1. The government is lying, and the market knows it.
   
   In this case, the constant value yield gives you an upper bound for the rate of inflation -- the market expects that security to pay back the rate of inflation + market interest of >0%.
   
   
2. The government is not lying, and the market knows it.
   
   The above is true, and the test as described can also be expected to be a reasonable predictor of the 10-year inflation rate.
   
   
3. The government is not lying, but the market thinks it is.
   
   In this case, we would see a high TIPS spread, but real inflation will be less than it predicts.
   
   
4. The government is lying, and the market doesn't know it.
   
   This is the Austrian belief. It means for some reason all the people controlling all the money in the world believe the Government's fraudulent statistics, while shadowstatistics.com, Peter Schiff and Ron Paul play the role of economic Cassandras.
   
   I don't see why smart (and therefore most) money wouldn't bet on their predictions, if they are indeed accurate. They have no new theory, or special information, and certainly aren't keeping what they know to themselves. As a liberal, I don't see why the market not listening to their "correct" ideas doesn't violate the basic premise of why we should surrender our lives to the infallible, prescient markets, but I digress.
   

My judgment is that #4 would indicate not that Paul and Schiff are right, but that Karl Marx is right, and capitalism should be considered a fatally flawed system.

Mostly though, I think the evidence points to reality falling somewhere between #1 and #2. To the degree that the government is lying, the market is aware of it, and adjusting accordingly, with inflation likely to fall between the TIPS spread and the constant-value yield...and neither number is large right now.

I'm more of a free marketeer than Paul and Schiff -- I think if they really had valuable insight, more money would be moving on the basis of their theories and predictions.

Since this movie was made... it's "Ultraviolence" has become somewhat tame. Prescient.

>> ^blankfist:
Human government always wants more power and more control. How has that changed since the earliest inception?


It seems to me that in the broad sweep of human history it's always trended in the other direction.

Despotism was the first type of government and economy. Then constitutional monarchies, with laws and (monopolistic) markets. The current era is one where we've essentially done away with the monarch and instituted the concept of government done with the consent of the governed (democracy), and decentralized the markets.

It fits better into the libertarian narrative to tell the truth about the history of government, since it makes it look like history is on your side, instead of making it look like you're historical revisionists who want to scare people into giving them power.

Incidentally, the way I see the same history is that with the founding of agriculture, we invented the idea of property, and Despotism just came from the idea that the despot owned everyone and everything. Then we had monarchy, when the despot's property got too big for him to control directly, and needed to delegate power to others. Law came about mostly to appease the masses that there was some sense of equality, even though the law (then and now) is usually only applied to those outside the owner-class. Then we had a revolutionary period where we decided that no one owned us, and that we empower a government for the sake of establishing objective, equal laws that will keep people from reestablishing the monarchy. Libertarians and their more popular relatives the conservatives want to reestablish the monarchy, mistakenly thinking that capitalism provides us with a meritocracy so our monarchs will all be the benevolent kind.

Well, maybe just the libertarians are mistaken. I'm pretty sure the conservatives know exactly what they're doing.

As far as the Constitution is concerned, it was meant to serve as a unifying alliance amongst what was at the time 13 newly sovereign countries. Most of the "limits of government" were there to keep the national government from trampling on the sovereign states' ability to determine their own laws (and chiefly, to keep a national government from taking away the South's slaves), not to stand as a prescient bulwark against the as-yet uninvented concept of socialism.

The key argument between the Federalists and anti-Federalists was not the "role of government" generally, it was about what should be decided at the national level instead of the state level. That argument, as far as I care, ended with the Civil war -- we have a national government, and people align their citizenship by "United States" or "America" rather than "Ohio" or "California".

There's also a whole legal system, and over 200 years of history on how the Constitution's interpretation has been clarified by the courts over the years. For example, here's a good place to read about the historical/legal interpretation of the tenth amendment and general welfare spending. If it makes you feel better to think that if only you could stack the Supreme Court with activist judges who would overturn precedent right and left, and you could destroy Social Security and Medicare, knock yourself out.

However, I think you'd be surprised at how quickly we'd pass an Amendment that would make it clear that national welfare spending is Constitutional...

Astute and prescient. What he says applies on so many levels...

I'm not sure why people hold Schiff forward as being particularly prescient.

Paul Krugman was talking about the dangers of a deflationary depression and a housing bubble starting in 2003.

I've never heard a word come out of Schiff's mouth that wasn't some sort of over-the-top Austrian Economics-fueled fear mongering about the fact that we still collect taxes and have a Federal Reserve leading us to swift and inevitable doom, especially since we elected a Democrat.

Schiff is a quack, and a partisan hack to boot. Here's a good analysis of his supposed prescience:

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2009/01/peter-schiff-was-wrong.html

I'm somewhat surprised that Stewart didn't call him on some of his more ridiculous claims.