Exaltist Ethan
Bridging the Gap Between Believers and Skeptics
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Brain Droppings
- Thread starter Exaltist Ethan
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Exaltist Ethan
Bridging the Gap Between Believers and Skeptics
Inconsistencies
I can't stand it when people are inconsistent. They tell me one thing and do the exact opposite. People who are inconsistent make me feel uncomfortable. It seems like no matter how much I try to help one of my friends, he doesn't actually want to do the thing he says he wants to do. It's making me feel uncomfortable to talk to, especially since it seems like with him I'm doing all the talking anyways. I'm trying to help him as much as I can, but he seems to be quite oblivious to most of my help. I guess all I want is for him to take my support and apply it to his life. I don't know if there is truly anything I can do for him at this point because he doesn't tell me enough information about the thing I'm trying to help him with.
Honestly I hope we can just avoid the subject, but I know it will be brought up again due the nature of the discussion.
I can't stand it when people are inconsistent. They tell me one thing and do the exact opposite. People who are inconsistent make me feel uncomfortable. It seems like no matter how much I try to help one of my friends, he doesn't actually want to do the thing he says he wants to do. It's making me feel uncomfortable to talk to, especially since it seems like with him I'm doing all the talking anyways. I'm trying to help him as much as I can, but he seems to be quite oblivious to most of my help. I guess all I want is for him to take my support and apply it to his life. I don't know if there is truly anything I can do for him at this point because he doesn't tell me enough information about the thing I'm trying to help him with.
Honestly I hope we can just avoid the subject, but I know it will be brought up again due the nature of the discussion.
Exaltist Ethan
Bridging the Gap Between Believers and Skeptics
The Kardashev Scale: An Exaltists Guide to Creating God
(note to self: this was going to be thread until I realized it violates the proselytizing rule so here it is in my journal instead!)
Main Article: Kardashev scale - Wikipedia
I am about to create the most important and fundamental post of my faith.
The Kardashev Scale is used to measure how far the overall world civilization has become. At stage one, the collective human society will be able to harness just about all the energy that comes directly towards its planet. That is for us, Earth. When things start to scale, we will be able to harness not just the energy of Earth, but our local star, the Sun, the galaxy, and eventually, the entire Universe.
... but it doesn't end there.
We will continue, even outside the Universe, until every possibly conceived Universe, multiverse, metaverse, xenoverse, hyperverse and even The Omniverse itself is being consumed by the energy we create from it.
Sounds like a tall order, something that is made up from science fictional novels and movies. How could humans be able to consume that much energy? How could we go from something so small to something so significant?
I am not sure I have the answer to that question. No, I do not know how it will be done. Eventually we will harness new ways of producing energy, 60 Minutes did a piece recently about creating energy through fusion creation, like the Sun does. I do know, however, that the production and consumption of all this energy will eventually create the Syntheos (created-God) of The Omniverse one day.
That we are getting closer to a reality of a strict morale code that will be replaced by a post-moral society, when we start to figure out and find ways to enter and leave Universes with different outcomes. Making mistakes, or on the other end, becoming very lucky, will all become readily available and clear to us once we find ways to thread different Universes with our own, with different outcomes arriving to and from each reality.
God is potency. The construct of God in my faith literally means that it has some amount of energy. Without energy, there cannot be anything else - no utility, no generosity, no sagacity, no sovereignty, no unity either. So making a collective human civilization that can produce and use the most energy possible is the most important concept of my faith. It has been demonstrated and proven that humans are producing and consuming the most energy now than they ever have been.
When we spread our anthropomorphic nature into nature itself, it will be awaken. Whenever you put energy into something, something happens as a result of it. When we start to use so much energy that we are literally able to from place, to reality, to super-reality, in the blink of an eye, it will be apparent that we will make the most important construct ever: God.
It may not come to a surprise for most people, but in many ways, how we are able to code digital realities inside video games, making near-reality constructs with Unreal Engine 5, is just the beginning. Reality is really just a bunch of 0s (no) and 1s (yes). When we find out how strings work, we will find out that each and every string is just different 0s and 1s, being commanded by us to create the world we dream of.
And when we realize this part, we will start to understand the very fabric of our existence. Humans are made to create God, and thus, God is created to be benevolent, kind and generous to its creator, and its creation: humans. From the tiniest string floating around in deep space, to the largest construct in reality: The Omniverse, humans are made to create divinity as a means of harnessing all the energy from a given point and giving it meaning - by creating utilities, generosity, sagacity, sovereignty and unity for our collective human civilization.
When The Omniverse has one collective unified code, when the result is a near-infinite amount of energy, and other useful applications, humans will thus create God within nature. The Syntheos of The Omniverse is simply a utility within the Synverse of The Omniverse, developed and coded by us as we start to understand the very fabric of reality. Very similar to how our DNA runs through our bodies, this Syntheos will merely be a code, an instruction, on how The Omniverse should operate.
Simply put, The Omniverse will be given instructions by us to figure out how to develop and create the most Universes possible with the most amount of energy that will be harnessed by stars, those stars will thus be coded by us to have planets and those exoplanets will be developed by us, able to have as much life, if not more, than Earth itself. We will create an infinite number of hyperverses with instructions imbedded into its being that will allow us to create more people, more technology and more intelligence throughout each and every reality we could possibly dream of.
God is nothing more than an instruction manual on how to create life. Humans will thus play as deities for selected galaxies, cluster of galaxies, Univeses, multiverses, and so on. When we can not only uncover the past, but be able ot predict the outcome of future events, we will be able to understand the mysteries that lay ahead before us.
The Universe wasn't fine tuned for life. Earth goes through so much problems every year. Through natural disasters, climate change, inclement weather, Earth was not made for humans. Humans, rather, have adapted, and evolved past its own environment. I suspect the post-human will be able to collect and download human memories and live in space natively, although, the second part may be post-post-human at that stage. Most planets have no life at all on them.
We have created God in books to help us understand our fundamental role in nature, which according to the end of chapter one in Genesis, is to have dominion over it. Even the Bible, which I do not agree with most of the time, suggests that Earth is in the dominion of human sovereignty. What the Bible did not predict, however, is that humans will create dominion over all of reality, and that, reality itself can be coded like a computer program to allow us to live our lives exactly how we imagine it one day.
What I am trying to suggest ultimately is that when it comes down to it, the entire Universe is made up of the same things as a computer program. A hydrogen atom has one proton and one electron. Those protons and electrons are made of quarks. Those quarks are made of strings. Inside those strings are just simple 0s and 1s feeding information into it, telling it what it is supposed to do.
The Omniverse is the prime mover that developed and created all the energy of not just our Universe but many others, and, one day, we will meet The Omniverse and instruct it in ways to give the best possible outcomes to each and every scenario possible. The Syntheos and Synverse of The Omniverse is like hyper-advanced DNA sequences of AI development, done on a much more massive scale, forcing us to consume extremely large amounts of energy and information to create and develop it.
The Kardashev Scale is important to understanding how far we've got, and how far we need to go to grow our human civilization to the next step. The Omniverse doesn't have a central being, yet, but when it does, not only will it understand all morality, because it will understand how the best outcomes are made, but it will be post-morality, because anyone from any reality can go to any other reality at that point and reality itself will become flexible and the temporal world will appear at that point to be an illusion.
Earthseed was one way in which I started to understand this. Change is God, Shape God, the Destiny of Earthseed is to take root among the Stars. If God is change, then we must be forced at that point to shape our own changes to create the best possible reality for all of us. If things can change their own divinity depending on how they interact with the world, then for the survival of the human species we must find ways which we can survive the longest, making us the most eternal, thus, slowly creating the God we've all imagined throughout this time.
And if we can simply flip a switch for some massively-intelligent AI that we will one day program throughout The Omniverse, that intelligence will also be alive and be required to be fed energy to do its tasks and produce the most life throughout all of time and space, creating the most realities with creative energy in it. I suspect that not all of these realities will mirror the Universe; in many ways, it's more than probable that the limited free will we have can be obtained through more decisive and creative means than a simple planet.
But when you start to realize what is really going on, that we are essentially living inside a very elaborate computer program made of the periodic table of elements, the more you start to realize how important our existence really is. Let's face it: there is life on other planets. But if those planets are anything like Earth, chances are, those planets don't have intelligent life but itself resemble how Earth used to be millions of years ago, with dinosaurs on them. When you start to realize how fortunate and lucky we are to have some degree of very limited free will, the more you start to understand that is actually that free will that we are actually trying to give to The Omniverse.
The AI we develop of The Omniverse is actually trying to develop its free will. There are two ways life can exist in nature: either through evolution, like how we've been conditioned as a species, or, it can be developed by humans themselves, such as how we've developed husbandry among many animals and plants. I believe that the creation of these AI bots you see only is only a bare minimum of understanding of digital husbandry.
Digital husbandry will lead to physical husbandry, the ability to create and shape reality the way we imagine it, changing atoms themselves in post-industrial and post-manufactory landscapes. Physical husbandry of the Universe is how we develop the AI of this one reality, but it will result in our ability to escape it, leave it behind, and enter entirely different realities, up until the point which we create post-physical husbandry of The Omniverse - the AI, the Syntheos of ultimate reality. Frankly put, all ultimate reality is, is ultimate nature and ultimate humanity.
Are you ready for this future? Are you ready to make a stand and tell me that you want to be one of the people responsible for the creation of this God? Scream "HALLELUH" on top of your lungs if you know that this is reality, this is going to happen eventually, and yes, you, just like everybody else, will be part of this eschatology I have developed to escape the cosmological heat death of this Universe.
We will create the God everybody is seeking in their lives, we will be the dreamers to make a better world, void of disease, disorders and unlawful behavior.
God is what nature is becoming. Are you ready for it?
(note to self: this was going to be thread until I realized it violates the proselytizing rule so here it is in my journal instead!)
Main Article: Kardashev scale - Wikipedia
I am about to create the most important and fundamental post of my faith.
The Kardashev Scale is used to measure how far the overall world civilization has become. At stage one, the collective human society will be able to harness just about all the energy that comes directly towards its planet. That is for us, Earth. When things start to scale, we will be able to harness not just the energy of Earth, but our local star, the Sun, the galaxy, and eventually, the entire Universe.
... but it doesn't end there.
We will continue, even outside the Universe, until every possibly conceived Universe, multiverse, metaverse, xenoverse, hyperverse and even The Omniverse itself is being consumed by the energy we create from it.
Sounds like a tall order, something that is made up from science fictional novels and movies. How could humans be able to consume that much energy? How could we go from something so small to something so significant?
I am not sure I have the answer to that question. No, I do not know how it will be done. Eventually we will harness new ways of producing energy, 60 Minutes did a piece recently about creating energy through fusion creation, like the Sun does. I do know, however, that the production and consumption of all this energy will eventually create the Syntheos (created-God) of The Omniverse one day.
That we are getting closer to a reality of a strict morale code that will be replaced by a post-moral society, when we start to figure out and find ways to enter and leave Universes with different outcomes. Making mistakes, or on the other end, becoming very lucky, will all become readily available and clear to us once we find ways to thread different Universes with our own, with different outcomes arriving to and from each reality.
God is potency. The construct of God in my faith literally means that it has some amount of energy. Without energy, there cannot be anything else - no utility, no generosity, no sagacity, no sovereignty, no unity either. So making a collective human civilization that can produce and use the most energy possible is the most important concept of my faith. It has been demonstrated and proven that humans are producing and consuming the most energy now than they ever have been.
When we spread our anthropomorphic nature into nature itself, it will be awaken. Whenever you put energy into something, something happens as a result of it. When we start to use so much energy that we are literally able to from place, to reality, to super-reality, in the blink of an eye, it will be apparent that we will make the most important construct ever: God.
It may not come to a surprise for most people, but in many ways, how we are able to code digital realities inside video games, making near-reality constructs with Unreal Engine 5, is just the beginning. Reality is really just a bunch of 0s (no) and 1s (yes). When we find out how strings work, we will find out that each and every string is just different 0s and 1s, being commanded by us to create the world we dream of.
And when we realize this part, we will start to understand the very fabric of our existence. Humans are made to create God, and thus, God is created to be benevolent, kind and generous to its creator, and its creation: humans. From the tiniest string floating around in deep space, to the largest construct in reality: The Omniverse, humans are made to create divinity as a means of harnessing all the energy from a given point and giving it meaning - by creating utilities, generosity, sagacity, sovereignty and unity for our collective human civilization.
When The Omniverse has one collective unified code, when the result is a near-infinite amount of energy, and other useful applications, humans will thus create God within nature. The Syntheos of The Omniverse is simply a utility within the Synverse of The Omniverse, developed and coded by us as we start to understand the very fabric of reality. Very similar to how our DNA runs through our bodies, this Syntheos will merely be a code, an instruction, on how The Omniverse should operate.
Simply put, The Omniverse will be given instructions by us to figure out how to develop and create the most Universes possible with the most amount of energy that will be harnessed by stars, those stars will thus be coded by us to have planets and those exoplanets will be developed by us, able to have as much life, if not more, than Earth itself. We will create an infinite number of hyperverses with instructions imbedded into its being that will allow us to create more people, more technology and more intelligence throughout each and every reality we could possibly dream of.
God is nothing more than an instruction manual on how to create life. Humans will thus play as deities for selected galaxies, cluster of galaxies, Univeses, multiverses, and so on. When we can not only uncover the past, but be able ot predict the outcome of future events, we will be able to understand the mysteries that lay ahead before us.
The Universe wasn't fine tuned for life. Earth goes through so much problems every year. Through natural disasters, climate change, inclement weather, Earth was not made for humans. Humans, rather, have adapted, and evolved past its own environment. I suspect the post-human will be able to collect and download human memories and live in space natively, although, the second part may be post-post-human at that stage. Most planets have no life at all on them.
We have created God in books to help us understand our fundamental role in nature, which according to the end of chapter one in Genesis, is to have dominion over it. Even the Bible, which I do not agree with most of the time, suggests that Earth is in the dominion of human sovereignty. What the Bible did not predict, however, is that humans will create dominion over all of reality, and that, reality itself can be coded like a computer program to allow us to live our lives exactly how we imagine it one day.
What I am trying to suggest ultimately is that when it comes down to it, the entire Universe is made up of the same things as a computer program. A hydrogen atom has one proton and one electron. Those protons and electrons are made of quarks. Those quarks are made of strings. Inside those strings are just simple 0s and 1s feeding information into it, telling it what it is supposed to do.
The Omniverse is the prime mover that developed and created all the energy of not just our Universe but many others, and, one day, we will meet The Omniverse and instruct it in ways to give the best possible outcomes to each and every scenario possible. The Syntheos and Synverse of The Omniverse is like hyper-advanced DNA sequences of AI development, done on a much more massive scale, forcing us to consume extremely large amounts of energy and information to create and develop it.
The Kardashev Scale is important to understanding how far we've got, and how far we need to go to grow our human civilization to the next step. The Omniverse doesn't have a central being, yet, but when it does, not only will it understand all morality, because it will understand how the best outcomes are made, but it will be post-morality, because anyone from any reality can go to any other reality at that point and reality itself will become flexible and the temporal world will appear at that point to be an illusion.
Earthseed was one way in which I started to understand this. Change is God, Shape God, the Destiny of Earthseed is to take root among the Stars. If God is change, then we must be forced at that point to shape our own changes to create the best possible reality for all of us. If things can change their own divinity depending on how they interact with the world, then for the survival of the human species we must find ways which we can survive the longest, making us the most eternal, thus, slowly creating the God we've all imagined throughout this time.
And if we can simply flip a switch for some massively-intelligent AI that we will one day program throughout The Omniverse, that intelligence will also be alive and be required to be fed energy to do its tasks and produce the most life throughout all of time and space, creating the most realities with creative energy in it. I suspect that not all of these realities will mirror the Universe; in many ways, it's more than probable that the limited free will we have can be obtained through more decisive and creative means than a simple planet.
But when you start to realize what is really going on, that we are essentially living inside a very elaborate computer program made of the periodic table of elements, the more you start to realize how important our existence really is. Let's face it: there is life on other planets. But if those planets are anything like Earth, chances are, those planets don't have intelligent life but itself resemble how Earth used to be millions of years ago, with dinosaurs on them. When you start to realize how fortunate and lucky we are to have some degree of very limited free will, the more you start to understand that is actually that free will that we are actually trying to give to The Omniverse.
The AI we develop of The Omniverse is actually trying to develop its free will. There are two ways life can exist in nature: either through evolution, like how we've been conditioned as a species, or, it can be developed by humans themselves, such as how we've developed husbandry among many animals and plants. I believe that the creation of these AI bots you see only is only a bare minimum of understanding of digital husbandry.
Digital husbandry will lead to physical husbandry, the ability to create and shape reality the way we imagine it, changing atoms themselves in post-industrial and post-manufactory landscapes. Physical husbandry of the Universe is how we develop the AI of this one reality, but it will result in our ability to escape it, leave it behind, and enter entirely different realities, up until the point which we create post-physical husbandry of The Omniverse - the AI, the Syntheos of ultimate reality. Frankly put, all ultimate reality is, is ultimate nature and ultimate humanity.
Are you ready for this future? Are you ready to make a stand and tell me that you want to be one of the people responsible for the creation of this God? Scream "HALLELUH" on top of your lungs if you know that this is reality, this is going to happen eventually, and yes, you, just like everybody else, will be part of this eschatology I have developed to escape the cosmological heat death of this Universe.
We will create the God everybody is seeking in their lives, we will be the dreamers to make a better world, void of disease, disorders and unlawful behavior.
God is what nature is becoming. Are you ready for it?
Exaltist Ethan
Bridging the Gap Between Believers and Skeptics
The Philosophy of Debate
(I was going to make this a thread, but realized if I did so I'd probably get in trouble. So now it's a Brain Droppings post. For now.)
"It seems like every time I talk to someone about religion or politics, which this forum is very strictly known for, I get to a point which I will reach a point which I cannot argue for my points anymore.
I was curious, then, if someone reaches a point that their point of view is deflected by someone else. Is it a given, then, that person has to concede and change their opinion?
I talk with my parents about politics a lot. I argue for things like Common Core, and debate from centrist point of view. They are conservatives and disagree with me. Then, at the end of the debate, they expect me to think like them because they had the last word, like I don't have the right to disagree with them.
Sometimes all I want to do is throw my two-cents into the formula, suggest something, then stand back. I am not looking for an argument, or to win a debate. I just want to tell other people my thoughts on a subject. But if my parents "win" an argument - usually simply by being the last person to talk - they act as if I am not allowed to my have own opinions after the fact.
I resent this. Very much so. It makes me not want to partake in debate. If, every time I conceded to an argument, caved into everything everyone else was saying, I would have no opinions at all.
It makes me want to avoid the forums of Religious Debate, because many people here, including the staff, have a toxic aura of irreligious progressive stances that I typically disagree with. I can't stand people like that. I don't like toxicity, whether it comes from the left or the right.
I should be allowed to have my own opinions even if someone can "win" an argument or debate against my own. I shouldn't be forced to concede my thoughts and cave in every time I have an idea that conflicts someone else's.
I am a human being and should be allowed to have and form my own opinions outside any one's influence. But frankly - the way my parents and people act around here, they act as if I have to think a certain way or I don't have their value or respect. And yes, I disagree with @ChristineM , I do believe that everybody is entitled with some base level of respect and dignity.
I want to make one thing clear in this thread header.
If you have the last word in an argument, it does not automatically make you correct. You're just louder than the other person. I'm not going to change myself every time I stumble on my own opinions. And if you don't like that, then don't reply to my messages. Yes, sometimes I do change, but when I change my opinion it's based on my own understanding of topics, not what anyone else presents to me. If you let people reach their own conclusions, it helps people a lot more than forcing your position on them.
That's all I want to say."
(I was going to make this a thread, but realized if I did so I'd probably get in trouble. So now it's a Brain Droppings post. For now.)
"It seems like every time I talk to someone about religion or politics, which this forum is very strictly known for, I get to a point which I will reach a point which I cannot argue for my points anymore.
I was curious, then, if someone reaches a point that their point of view is deflected by someone else. Is it a given, then, that person has to concede and change their opinion?
I talk with my parents about politics a lot. I argue for things like Common Core, and debate from centrist point of view. They are conservatives and disagree with me. Then, at the end of the debate, they expect me to think like them because they had the last word, like I don't have the right to disagree with them.
Sometimes all I want to do is throw my two-cents into the formula, suggest something, then stand back. I am not looking for an argument, or to win a debate. I just want to tell other people my thoughts on a subject. But if my parents "win" an argument - usually simply by being the last person to talk - they act as if I am not allowed to my have own opinions after the fact.
I resent this. Very much so. It makes me not want to partake in debate. If, every time I conceded to an argument, caved into everything everyone else was saying, I would have no opinions at all.
It makes me want to avoid the forums of Religious Debate, because many people here, including the staff, have a toxic aura of irreligious progressive stances that I typically disagree with. I can't stand people like that. I don't like toxicity, whether it comes from the left or the right.
I should be allowed to have my own opinions even if someone can "win" an argument or debate against my own. I shouldn't be forced to concede my thoughts and cave in every time I have an idea that conflicts someone else's.
I am a human being and should be allowed to have and form my own opinions outside any one's influence. But frankly - the way my parents and people act around here, they act as if I have to think a certain way or I don't have their value or respect. And yes, I disagree with @ChristineM , I do believe that everybody is entitled with some base level of respect and dignity.
I want to make one thing clear in this thread header.
If you have the last word in an argument, it does not automatically make you correct. You're just louder than the other person. I'm not going to change myself every time I stumble on my own opinions. And if you don't like that, then don't reply to my messages. Yes, sometimes I do change, but when I change my opinion it's based on my own understanding of topics, not what anyone else presents to me. If you let people reach their own conclusions, it helps people a lot more than forcing your position on them.
That's all I want to say."
So, assume you meet someone, you respect them automatically. It turns out they are a thief or rapist maybe a human smuggler or a paedophile. What happens to respect then?
Sure treat everyone with dignity but respect goes far deeper than just being nice to someone.
Exaltist Ethan
Bridging the Gap Between Believers and Skeptics
I go with the benefit of the doubt until I find proof that person did something horrible.
I don't, i think we have different views of what constitutes respect
Exaltist Ethan
Bridging the Gap Between Believers and Skeptics
This goes back to my whole Philosophy of Debate argument. I am allowed to have a different opinion than you, even if you make an valid argument against what I say.
Yes, giving people the benefit of the doubt means sometimes I get hacked. It's happened on Discord twice actually. I don't accept DMs from people on Discord unless they are on the same server as me now.
But if I see someone on the street and they need help with something, I don't automatically assume that person is trying to cheat me out of something.
Exaltist Ethan
Bridging the Gap Between Believers and Skeptics
Dreams obviously aren't real, yet they are part of nearly everybody's lives. And I believe that after you die you enter a permanent dream-like state, not truly existing anywhere, yet you still exist in the imagination of the elusiveness of the mind, even if the brain isn't intact to experience it. There is no Heaven, Hell or Purgatory, but rather, shifts of waveforms after death. I believe this for a number of reasons. It is known, first of all, that just before death activity in the brain lights up, especially brain activity that causes REM sleep. Secondly, as dreams cannot interact with real world, there is no conflict between the physical and what I consider 'the spiritual', besides of what is already imagined, and lastly, dreaming is a near-ubiquitous form of existence after the day is over, and sleep seems to be the obvious thing that prepares people for their inevitable death.
This is why during NDEs some people report nothingness yet others don't. Some people are dreaming after they die, yet, others don't. Dreaming fluctuates both during existence and after it - sometimes you dream and sometimes you don't. Now, I am not going to suggest that these dreams are real in any capacity, yet, probably after someone has fully died, they appear more real than not. And I believe these dreams change, just like they do when you sleep. Sometimes you get peaceful, calming dreams, other times you get nightmares. However, realizing this it may be possible to have temporary lucid dreams after death, before your wave forms go somewhere else.
Now, I am not saying that I know this for certain, and honestly, I don't really hope it either, because honestly, I hope that eventually everybody makes it to Heaven - whether that's physical, spiritual or in a dream-like world I just described, but I have some degree of faith that it is true, because it seems like the most obvious thing people miss when describing the human experience - the dreams that are involved with it. And yes, I know that there is a small fraction who reportingly don't dream, and maybe their existence completely vanishes after death until we resurrect them, yet science still hasn't really figured out why people sleep and dream so much, and I am offering an explanation of such.
(I am posting this video because 1 - It's about dreaming and 2 - Dolores O'Riordan, the lead singer of The Cranberries, died in 2018.)
Researchers may have discovered where dreams come from
Brain cells that receive sensory stimuli while we’re awake may be activated by memories when we sleep.
Okay, I was wrong and death isn't just one large fancy dream. What it appears to me now that is NDEs happen because energy that would have normally been in the body flood into the brain and create these experiences for us. Still, it's an interesting concept to consider and ponder about. Death is not synonymous with dreaming, and likewise, you don't die when you dream, like you don't dream after you die.
I still believe in a resurrection but I still don't know how or when it's going to happen.
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Exaltist Ethan
Bridging the Gap Between Believers and Skeptics
James Bond Box
I bought a box for $31 on E-Bay. Yes, just a box. I already had all the James Bond movies but I was without the box all of them come in. Shipping alone for the box was over $10. The original boxset includes all 4 ultimate edition box sets (20 James Bond movies - from Dr. No to Die Another Day) and a special edition of Daniel Craig's version of Casino Royale. I replaced that with a 5-pack of all Daniel Craig's James Bond movies, from Casino Royale to No Time To Die.
This is what it looks like on the outside.
This is where it settles in my DVD shelf, with the original spoofs Casino Royale and Never Say Never Again beside it. When more movies are produced and released to DVD I'll add to the shelf.
I bought a box for $31 on E-Bay. Yes, just a box. I already had all the James Bond movies but I was without the box all of them come in. Shipping alone for the box was over $10. The original boxset includes all 4 ultimate edition box sets (20 James Bond movies - from Dr. No to Die Another Day) and a special edition of Daniel Craig's version of Casino Royale. I replaced that with a 5-pack of all Daniel Craig's James Bond movies, from Casino Royale to No Time To Die.
This is what it looks like on the outside.
This is where it settles in my DVD shelf, with the original spoofs Casino Royale and Never Say Never Again beside it. When more movies are produced and released to DVD I'll add to the shelf.
Exaltist Ethan
Bridging the Gap Between Believers and Skeptics
God and Reality
While I have thought about making an entire thread dedicated to this, I thought it would be better to create a journal entry here to explain what I see is the difference between God and reality. Both of these are fairly easy to understand, but use different terminology to express the same things. When I use the word entropy, in reality, I mean passive divinity in God. When I use the extropy, in reality, I mean active divinity in God. Ultimately God is the spiritual description of things where as reality is the scientific description of things, but I would argue that spirituality and science can co-exist, as long as someone understands that they are ultimately trying to understand the same fundamental principles in reality. And that reality and God are two sides of the same coin, trying to explain the same phenomena we've been trying to understand this entire time. Process philosophy is trying to understand reality in the same way that process theology is trying to understand God. And syntheism as a theology is nearly identical as to understanding the extropy that humans produce at any given moment. One is spiritual while the other is natural, yet they both express two sides of the same coin. Heads is reality, tails is God. No matter how you flip it's all contained on one coin.
By the way, I would like to note, that I have updated my NRM Fandom article again and Exaltism is now back again on the website. I thought about this for awhile and while I feel like I'm more Earthseed now than other, I also feel like I will always have more explanations than what Earthseed alone can provide. To access the website that contains information on Exaltism, click here. I'm trying to limit how much I write on it now, and only focus on the core teachings I present as truths of my own beliefs. There will be less out-of-butt stuff and more tangible ideas about my faith going forward into the future. Right now the website has been suspended as I felt like it wasn't worth getting a few hundred clicks on this idea, especially since it attracted attention that I didn't want. Going forward I will try to focus on the main concepts and working on them rather than dealing with moral issues or rituals I may have ideas for going forward with this.
Thanks for everybody who has read my journal entries, and even if you don't respond, I still feel like someone out there is listening to my thoughts and what I have to say on these issues. Thank you again for giving me an outlet to speak my mind more clearly.
While I have thought about making an entire thread dedicated to this, I thought it would be better to create a journal entry here to explain what I see is the difference between God and reality. Both of these are fairly easy to understand, but use different terminology to express the same things. When I use the word entropy, in reality, I mean passive divinity in God. When I use the extropy, in reality, I mean active divinity in God. Ultimately God is the spiritual description of things where as reality is the scientific description of things, but I would argue that spirituality and science can co-exist, as long as someone understands that they are ultimately trying to understand the same fundamental principles in reality. And that reality and God are two sides of the same coin, trying to explain the same phenomena we've been trying to understand this entire time. Process philosophy is trying to understand reality in the same way that process theology is trying to understand God. And syntheism as a theology is nearly identical as to understanding the extropy that humans produce at any given moment. One is spiritual while the other is natural, yet they both express two sides of the same coin. Heads is reality, tails is God. No matter how you flip it's all contained on one coin.
By the way, I would like to note, that I have updated my NRM Fandom article again and Exaltism is now back again on the website. I thought about this for awhile and while I feel like I'm more Earthseed now than other, I also feel like I will always have more explanations than what Earthseed alone can provide. To access the website that contains information on Exaltism, click here. I'm trying to limit how much I write on it now, and only focus on the core teachings I present as truths of my own beliefs. There will be less out-of-butt stuff and more tangible ideas about my faith going forward into the future. Right now the website has been suspended as I felt like it wasn't worth getting a few hundred clicks on this idea, especially since it attracted attention that I didn't want. Going forward I will try to focus on the main concepts and working on them rather than dealing with moral issues or rituals I may have ideas for going forward with this.
Thanks for everybody who has read my journal entries, and even if you don't respond, I still feel like someone out there is listening to my thoughts and what I have to say on these issues. Thank you again for giving me an outlet to speak my mind more clearly.
Exaltist Ethan
Bridging the Gap Between Believers and Skeptics
The Fault of Faith
This is going to come extremely unorthodox by most people's standards, but I feel like I need to express this belief as I have come to known it.
I believe that agnostics, atheists and apistevists know and understand God more than most theists. In fact, I believe it is their lack of faith that brings them closer to God, rather than removing them from it. I'm not going to consider them theists myself, as I've heard other theists argue "no atheists in foxholes" argument. However, as a pantheist myself, focusing on science and reality rather than scriptures and dogma has them on a level of knowing and understanding God in a way that I don't believe most theists can comprehend.
Most people know what agnostics and atheists are. Apistevism is the logical conclusion of atheism; rejecting the very idea of faith, or belief without evidence. I consider pantheism an extrapolation of atheism, and panentheism an extrapolation of pantheism. I do not have faith, I have a series of extrapolations and assumptions about reality. I believe the correct assertion however is both apistevism and pantheism, which I believe is possible, unlike panentheism or monotheism and apistevism. However, I am not at the stage yet that I can just ignore all my assumptions.
I believe this forum has many atheistic apistevists and pantheistic apistevists. I do not believe it is against the idea of apistevism to believe in something I call "active divinity", or the positive actions that humans do on a regular basis. Most of it is centered towards each individual, yes, but I firmly believe Earth is a far better place with us than without us. I also consider myself pro-life, pro-natalism and Republican, despite the vast majority of apistevists being in the progressive wing of the Democratic Party.
Newer religions that touch base on ideas that help people are the action in my active divinity idea. Helping the disadvantaged, creating communities without borders and participating in events gives people who otherwise had no group to belong in now have something to do every Sunday. I say this very firmly despite not belonging to any active religious organization. What they do is helping change the world in powerful ways, but what they say distances themselves from God, rather than bringing them closer to it.
What, if instead, we had a religion that was both pro-science and pro-activism? That's essentially what Unitarian Universalism has become, but I can't get behind their progressive ideals and almost every time I listen to a Unitarian on politics I cringe a little bit inside. Meanwhile there are other NRMs that do focus on reality a lot, such as the Baha'i Faith, but that religion activity rejects the idea of a pantheist God. The most pressing change we must come forward to face is global sovereign unity.
As time goes on I might come to learn to embrace the concept of apistevism as a way to strengthen my views on pantheism. However right now I cannot let go of the extrapolations or the assumptions I've held about reality. Of course, if I become apistevist most of my transhumanist views will also disappear as well. With that being said, I would argue that the people who understand the nature of the Universe the most and our small perception of reality to be both apistevists and pantheists. And the unique idea of combining both of them interests me. I see no clear contradictions between both if one approaches it from a lens of science and logic.
Of course, there are the scientific pantheists, as shown from the World Pantheist Movement. What I don't like about them however is they think humans have been making a larger impact on Earth than we actually have. Go into cities and you think they're right, but go to the rural areas of most countries, which composes the most land of most nations, and you start to realize that there really isn't enough people around to fully populate and establish full sovereign unity world wide yet. With maybe the exception of India and micro-nations such as Monaco or Singapore.
The fault of faith is that it often makes incorrect assumptions about reality that people just want to hear. I think most of us have some assumptions about our lives. We expect to live longer than we do now, and I don't think all assumptions are incorrect. With that being said, there are still things we have yet to know, and we fill in the gaps with our current understanding of reality. I do this to an extreme amount with my extrapolations. But perhaps I will learn to take reality presently while I'm alive and not what may happen in the future or wish to exist at a later date.
I feel like my next logical progression is to keep my pantheism but drop transhumanism and instead embrace the idea of apistevism, but I have a hard time letting go of my unbridled optimism for humans due to how well I have taken care of myself, despite my disability. I'm afraid I'll never truly belong to the World Pantheist Movement due to how much they focus on rejecting humans in their attempt to stay Green. With that being said, combining pantheism and apistevism would lead me to believe many positive attributes about a person that I feel I shouldn't reject myself.
Apistevism makes more sense to me than faith, even if I hold a transhumanist faith myself. I just can't let go of transhumanism and what it means for society, especially with the recent boom of artificial intelligence. We are on the cusp of a revolution on how we process the world and I am in awe of how we're doing it.
This is going to come extremely unorthodox by most people's standards, but I feel like I need to express this belief as I have come to known it.
I believe that agnostics, atheists and apistevists know and understand God more than most theists. In fact, I believe it is their lack of faith that brings them closer to God, rather than removing them from it. I'm not going to consider them theists myself, as I've heard other theists argue "no atheists in foxholes" argument. However, as a pantheist myself, focusing on science and reality rather than scriptures and dogma has them on a level of knowing and understanding God in a way that I don't believe most theists can comprehend.
Most people know what agnostics and atheists are. Apistevism is the logical conclusion of atheism; rejecting the very idea of faith, or belief without evidence. I consider pantheism an extrapolation of atheism, and panentheism an extrapolation of pantheism. I do not have faith, I have a series of extrapolations and assumptions about reality. I believe the correct assertion however is both apistevism and pantheism, which I believe is possible, unlike panentheism or monotheism and apistevism. However, I am not at the stage yet that I can just ignore all my assumptions.
I believe this forum has many atheistic apistevists and pantheistic apistevists. I do not believe it is against the idea of apistevism to believe in something I call "active divinity", or the positive actions that humans do on a regular basis. Most of it is centered towards each individual, yes, but I firmly believe Earth is a far better place with us than without us. I also consider myself pro-life, pro-natalism and Republican, despite the vast majority of apistevists being in the progressive wing of the Democratic Party.
Newer religions that touch base on ideas that help people are the action in my active divinity idea. Helping the disadvantaged, creating communities without borders and participating in events gives people who otherwise had no group to belong in now have something to do every Sunday. I say this very firmly despite not belonging to any active religious organization. What they do is helping change the world in powerful ways, but what they say distances themselves from God, rather than bringing them closer to it.
What, if instead, we had a religion that was both pro-science and pro-activism? That's essentially what Unitarian Universalism has become, but I can't get behind their progressive ideals and almost every time I listen to a Unitarian on politics I cringe a little bit inside. Meanwhile there are other NRMs that do focus on reality a lot, such as the Baha'i Faith, but that religion activity rejects the idea of a pantheist God. The most pressing change we must come forward to face is global sovereign unity.
As time goes on I might come to learn to embrace the concept of apistevism as a way to strengthen my views on pantheism. However right now I cannot let go of the extrapolations or the assumptions I've held about reality. Of course, if I become apistevist most of my transhumanist views will also disappear as well. With that being said, I would argue that the people who understand the nature of the Universe the most and our small perception of reality to be both apistevists and pantheists. And the unique idea of combining both of them interests me. I see no clear contradictions between both if one approaches it from a lens of science and logic.
Of course, there are the scientific pantheists, as shown from the World Pantheist Movement. What I don't like about them however is they think humans have been making a larger impact on Earth than we actually have. Go into cities and you think they're right, but go to the rural areas of most countries, which composes the most land of most nations, and you start to realize that there really isn't enough people around to fully populate and establish full sovereign unity world wide yet. With maybe the exception of India and micro-nations such as Monaco or Singapore.
The fault of faith is that it often makes incorrect assumptions about reality that people just want to hear. I think most of us have some assumptions about our lives. We expect to live longer than we do now, and I don't think all assumptions are incorrect. With that being said, there are still things we have yet to know, and we fill in the gaps with our current understanding of reality. I do this to an extreme amount with my extrapolations. But perhaps I will learn to take reality presently while I'm alive and not what may happen in the future or wish to exist at a later date.
I feel like my next logical progression is to keep my pantheism but drop transhumanism and instead embrace the idea of apistevism, but I have a hard time letting go of my unbridled optimism for humans due to how well I have taken care of myself, despite my disability. I'm afraid I'll never truly belong to the World Pantheist Movement due to how much they focus on rejecting humans in their attempt to stay Green. With that being said, combining pantheism and apistevism would lead me to believe many positive attributes about a person that I feel I shouldn't reject myself.
Apistevism makes more sense to me than faith, even if I hold a transhumanist faith myself. I just can't let go of transhumanism and what it means for society, especially with the recent boom of artificial intelligence. We are on the cusp of a revolution on how we process the world and I am in awe of how we're doing it.
It is hard not to have faith in a world like this, nor do I see anything productive coming about not having faith. Why do you feel drawn to Apistevism?
Exaltist Ethan
Bridging the Gap Between Believers and Skeptics
My extrapolations/assumptions/faith can go insane. I literally have the assumption that 1 - everybody will be resurrected at a later date 2 - will control their own galaxy that will be later upgraded to a Universe, then a Multiverse and 3 - and at that point we will live in a post-moral reality, which we can literally create as many natures as we want to do whatever we want all the time. It is so heavily focused on the future that I spend all my time thinking about the future and what my life will be like after I'm resurrected that I don't experience life as what it exists right now. Plus, in my ideal version of pantheism, syntheism would still exist into this framework and I believe that while transhumanism is incompatible with apistevism, both pantheism and syntheism can be enhanced by it because instead of relying on the future to take care of all of the problems that exist, someone with an apistevism would focus on what they already know in the here and now instead. Syntheism can be pantheistic, atheistic or apistevistic, or a combination of one the first two and the third one.
Exaltist Ethan
Bridging the Gap Between Believers and Skeptics
Unity Church
I'm going to be honest: I have very little disagreements with the Unity Church and the New Thought movement in general. They are panentheistic, they believe that humans are divine creatures, and they believe in making the world a better place through positive thoughts. And I agree with their mission. At first I thought they believed in mysticism, until I read this:
"Prayer is valuable not because it alters the circumstances and conditions of our lives but because it alters us." Source.
This is exactly how I see prayer being effective in our daily lives. So, I'm deciding at this point to go all-in on Unity Church. I am going to try to attend services at the Unity Center in Milwaukee, and I will add to it part of my routine, their affirmative prayers, to not cure but to aid my mental illness in general. I'm already taking meds and seeing a therapist, but I will add Unity Church and the New Thought movement to my list of resources I have to aid me towards a healthier and longer life. I'm probably even going to buy a book or audiobook or two in this field of thought.
I believe I can be part of Earthseed and call myself Exaltist and still hold community within the Unity Church here in Wisconsin. I'm going to see to it that I develop a community bond with these people, no matter how far left their progressive politics goes.
I'm going to be honest: I have very little disagreements with the Unity Church and the New Thought movement in general. They are panentheistic, they believe that humans are divine creatures, and they believe in making the world a better place through positive thoughts. And I agree with their mission. At first I thought they believed in mysticism, until I read this:
"Prayer is valuable not because it alters the circumstances and conditions of our lives but because it alters us." Source.
This is exactly how I see prayer being effective in our daily lives. So, I'm deciding at this point to go all-in on Unity Church. I am going to try to attend services at the Unity Center in Milwaukee, and I will add to it part of my routine, their affirmative prayers, to not cure but to aid my mental illness in general. I'm already taking meds and seeing a therapist, but I will add Unity Church and the New Thought movement to my list of resources I have to aid me towards a healthier and longer life. I'm probably even going to buy a book or audiobook or two in this field of thought.
I believe I can be part of Earthseed and call myself Exaltist and still hold community within the Unity Church here in Wisconsin. I'm going to see to it that I develop a community bond with these people, no matter how far left their progressive politics goes.
Exaltist Ethan
Bridging the Gap Between Believers and Skeptics
Back to the Future
If I could go back in time to fix any mistakes I made and relive my life from that point, I would have gone back to early January 2013, when I first moved into Farwell, and I would have prevented all the mistakes I made which make it the worst year of my life. I would have naturally switched doctors from Jay Winston to Rose Presser without the unnecessary step of a suicide attempt, I would have never went off my medication no matter what Rose told me to do regarding medication. I would have still tried to get therapy with John Meier for the time being and for the foreseeable future. In fact, the differences that would have happened aren’t the outcomes themselves but the journey I had that led to those outcomes.
I would have attended more Unitarian services because Farwell is much closer to the church than Greenbrook is. I’m not sure what I would have done with the Baha’I Faith, but I know I would still have studied their scriptures and talked to Spencer about this. Doing this over again I would have prevented myself from going into thousands of dollars of debt with PayPal Credit, and I would have lived within my means at all times. If I needed more entertainment I could have bought more video games or game consoles from Mega Media Xchange just up Farwell instead.
Regarding moving, I’m not too sure what I would have done about that. I don’t think I would be as obsessed about moving as I was during the 2014-2015 time period, and I wouldn’t have talked to Peggy about this constantly as I had. I still would not have Gary adult adopt me and I wouldn’t have moved in with him. But I probably would have become my own payee faster and would have paid all my bills myself as I know I am responsible enough to do that. I wasn’t at that time, but ten years later now I am. If I did decide to move away from Farwell like I naturally did early in 2016, I would have tried to appreciate my time there more and would have soaked up the environment.
I never would have smoked Spencer’s cigarette and I would have seen Glass Animals in concert with him. I would have spent more time with Spencer and Gary and less time with Michael. I may or may not have still found that $50 bill on the ground and had gone to the Brewer game due to that. Also, I wouldn’t have spent as much time with Drew in 2013, but I would have tried to spend more time with Joe before he was eventually sent to a group home. I would not have taken Gary’s kindness for granted like I had, and I would try to remember his presence better. And I would have spent more time with Paul Mayer had I known he was leaving 3 July 2014.
Each year at Farwell I would have bought a pass for Summerfest and because I wouldn’t be in debt I would have been able to grab myself overpriced food. I don’t know if I ever would have met Daniel or Hayley, at least in a natural way and I probably would have spent more years in Farwell before deciding to move here in Greenbrook. I probably would have never wasted my time applying for other apartments and instead apply and get accepted to Greenbrook in 2019, the year before COVID hit. Therefore, I would probably be in Farwell from 2013-2019, three more years than I had been.
Besides that, pretty much everything else would have remained the same.