Religion general

@SeraphimDawn  
I keep coming back to this picture because it weirds me the fuck out.
 
I look at it and I see him kissing a Tatzenkruez at first, which is more commonly associated with the German military than it is Christianity these days so odd choice and all, but then I keep looking and I try to make out whether the bottom length of the cross is longer and I stare at it for so long that I can’t tell and I just am on the verge of a mental breakdown because of this image
 
why have you done this to me

@SeraphimDawn  

 
He kinda looks like a jackass.  
No offence to you Christians.

@ghostfacekiller39  
Didn’t the Iron Cross have it’s roots in the Teutonic Order’s black cross?
 
 
@HJSDGCE  
APH Prussia ftw.

@SeraphimDawn  
Yuh, it does.
 
Teutonic Order is best religious order by the way, they kicked ass and looked fucking fabulous while doing so.
 

 
I mean, if you want to talk about making Christianity look kickass…

@ghostfacekiller39  
Reminds me of 2011-2013 Brony fandom when we actively sought mass conversion into the fandom :P
 
This music says how fucked you are against the Teutonic Order.

In some ways I am interested in Buddhism.

@YateWorldOrder  
Eastern religions are quite interesting, speaking as a Westerner.

@YateWorldOrder  
Don’t forget to also check Hinduism, as well as Jainism and Sikhism.

Buddhism to East Asia is like Christianity to Europe. The original Chinese religion is Taoism, which was the mainstream belief system during the Han Dynasty. Buddhism existed in China as far back then, but it was still just a small niche religion until after the Three Kingdoms period when Mongolic Xianbei tribes took over most of Northern China from the Jin Dynasty that previously ended the Three Kingdoms period and united China. Buddhism became widespread at that time, and became the mainstream during the Tang Dynasty.
 
It was from the Tang Dynasty when countries like Korea and Japan acquired the religion. Many Japanese customs had their roots in the Tang Dynasty China.

What if the gods are 4th Dimensional beings, or even higher?
 
Anything in the 4th dimension would be so far beyond us as to basically be gods. They’d be able to see everything occurring in the 3rd dimension, making them basically omniscient. Their interactions in our plane would be perceived as nothing more than apparitions as we can’t perceive things in the 4th dimension, boom you’ve got miracles.
 
I’ve also heard an interesting theory put forth by pantheists that we’re all shadows of a larger, more complex 4th or higher being. No more separate from each other than the fingers on a hand. Think Jung’s collective conciseness on the cosmic scale.
 
If I was asked where I think the gods would reside, it’d have to be a dimension higher than our own, but still confined within the universe.

@Zincy  
I’d rather just resort to eugenics and genetics research to make Einstein babies to make an AI.
 
Then we’d have a God of our own.

@Zincy  
But we are 4 dimensional beings. 3 of space, 1 of time :p
 
Time and space are rather interchangeable. It’s quite exotic, really. A good illustration of this is the barn paradox. Let’s say Rainbow Dash has got a twenty yard ladder and there’s a ten yard barn. She’ll fly at 87% the speed of light, so Applejack at her barn will see the ladder shrink to only ten yards long due to Lorentz length contraction, and AJ slams the barn doors closed right when the ladder is inside, then opens them again.
 
Well, from Dash’s view, her ladder is still twenty yards long, except now the barn is rushing by her and is only 5 yards long. So what does she see?
 
The barn door in front of her will slam shut then open when the front of her ladder is flush with it, then the same when the back of her ladder is flush with the back of the barn.
 
The two doors closing are two events, let’s label them P1 and P2.
 
In Applejack’s frame, P1 and P2 have a spatial separation, but no time separation (front of barn to back, ten yards, no time) . In Dash’s frame, there’s an extra time separation… That seems to have also spawned a spatial separation, since the two events occur at the front of the ladder and the back (twenty yards separation in space, and some time in-between the two events).
 
As you switch between their views, there’s an extra time and space component that are intimately linked, and follow the metric
 
x _AJ ² = x _RD ² - ct _RD ²
 
, where x is distance, c is speed of light, and the subscripts denote from who’s view.
 
My point? 4 dimensional physics is actually known, and it’s more than metaphorical, it’s quite literal to say we are 4D beings, and time is related to the spatial dimensions in an interesting way…
 
I have some more that’s… Honestly more to the point about higher dimensions. I’ll get to it when I’m on my computer instead of my darn phone, though, heh.
 

 
…I’m quite obsessed with this stuff xD
 

@Cirrus Light
 
I appreciate the physics lesson, but I was more using 4d as just a point of reference since I don’t grasp the mathematics at that level. The highest level math I mess around with is F Tests and Persons r.
 
It was more to the point that the gods, if they exist, would still be a function of the universe. Not removed from it, just at a higher point in it. I used the sci-fi version of the 4th dimension as an illustration to that effect. I’ve never much cared for the Abrahamic idea that god is a step beyond reality, in some far removed plane separate from us. I prefer to see the gods as just being at a higher step up. They’re not beyond the universe, just at it highest point.

@Zincy  
Oh. This thread was that other thing I forgot to do :p
 
Eh, you’ve still got the idea pretty much right, though. An N-Dimensional Being sees the world in an (n-1)-Dimensional projection. A 3-being sees 2d images, a 4-being sees 3d images, etc.

Making an AI is better. Accept it and submit

@Whatevs
 
You’re talking to a trans-humanist, why make an AI when you can simply make humans perfect?

@Zincy  
Because an AI will always be better

@Whatevs
 
“To fail is to be flesh, only metal endures.”
 
– The Dogma Mechanicus
 
Everything organic we know of is simply machinery, in one form or another. Tendons replace pistons; flesh in the place of steel; blood is simply biological coolant.

@YetAnotherBrony  
Now this I can get behind.

So the Anglican Church just suspended the Episcopal for 3 years
 
Apparently, this is what came out of the meeting in Canterbury. The Anglican church has suspended the Episcopal church from participating in internal decision making, and religious representation for 3 years due to the latter’s more liberal stance on same-sex relationships.
 
Apparently, the most prominent voices in this decision came from Africa, where church leaders hold a… fucked up and utterly repugnant backwards ass less than favorable view of homosexuals. Another source on the issue

@Zincy  
Wow. The Anglican church was actually traditional for once

@Whatevs
 
Their orthodoxy is idiotic in this case, as it will further sink their relevance and they know it.
 
Not because of the conservative/liberal divide, but because it was basically Europe bending to Africa of all places. Reports show that all the dissenting churches were European or otherwise non-African, this charge was led mostly by orthodox African clergy.
 
The brand of Christianity practiced in Africa has prove time and time again to represent the worst aspects of Christianity. At least Europe, North America, and Asian sects aren’t that bat shit crazy.
 
 
Hilariously enough, I just read a post that honestly, ended with the phrase “ This is the first step towards a re-orientation in global Christianity away from the domination by the liberal, intellectual, critical and relativistic Northern establishment”.
 
I can understand wanting to shift away from Liberal/Relativistic stuff, again that falls on the R/L line. But really? Just out and out saying you want people to be less intellectual and critical?

@Zincy  
Actually, liberalising churches seems to deplete their numbers faster.
 
But africanization is probably worse

@Whatevs
 
Most certainly is, lest we want to see Western Christianity become more like Middle eastern Islam.
 
At least European and American conservative orthodox just make bigoted remarks and pass shitty laws. I’d rather not see a return to stoning gays, burning witches, and cutting off the hands of thieves.

@Zincy  
Oh don’t worry. If Europe keeps this pattern up you’ll be seeing Eurabia.
 
And it will be the fault of people like you!