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dick-richardson
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Registered: Oct 2000
Location: Aberdeen, SD
Posts: 2531

quote:
Originally posted by Toby
Which God?

My belief is there is only one.

quote:
What's it have to do with anything?

Mr. McD hit the nail on the head. You made the comment that, "What is there to possess if it has no animating force?" And I responded by asking if you had seen Child's Play. Dolls have no animating force, yet Chucky was surely possessed.

quote:
But if sensory input can be faked (or subject to defects like schizophrenia), it all goes out the window.

And yet, we can only act on the input we're receiving - regardless of if it is faked. God's Debris touches on that subject ([sic] Wouldn't it be easier for an omnipotent God to give the illusion of free will?). That's one of the fallacies I enjoyed finding. Nothing would be easier or harder than anything else to one of omnipotence. But, that is off topic.

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06-13-2002 05:39 PM

Yorick
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Registered: Mar 2001
Location: Out of my skull, back in five minutes
Posts: 1435

Possession, in a supernatural sense, refers to one entity taking over the operation of another entity's physical shell. The original entity is displaced or sublimated. (or, in some cases, the new entity can operate a shell that was unoccupied. Hence, vampires, zombies, and Child's Play.)

For example, in The Exorcist little Regan was possessed by the "devil" and her personality was no longer available, i.e. sublimated. We know she was not displaced because the priests exorcised the demon by the end and Regen was back to (apparently) being just a little girl.

In The Matrix, the computer network "possessed" the human shells to power itself, providing sensory input so they would not be aware that they actually had no lives (sublimated).
As Neo was able to come back to himself, he too was not displaced.

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06-13-2002 05:39 PM

Toby
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Registered: Jul 2000
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Re: 'splaining movies..

quote:
Originally posted by NeilMcD
adding to the allure of inane ramblings:

childs play was about a doll that is possessed by an evil spirit. Hence, josh's comment about no possessions in matrix.

Actually, in case one didn't watch The Matrix closely, the Agents got around by possessing the occupants of The Matrix (remember the helicopter pilot?..."dodge this!").

06-13-2002 05:43 PM

Yorick
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Registered: Mar 2001
Location: Out of my skull, back in five minutes
Posts: 1435

Originally posted by dick-richardson
My belief is there is only one.
Do you accept that there can be multiple aspects, or is this an "I'm right everyone else is wrong" kind of thing?

But, that is off topic.
Off-topic? here!?

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Last edited by Yorick on 06-13-2002 at 05:51 PM

06-13-2002 05:44 PM

Toby
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Registered: Jul 2000
Location:
Posts: 3034

quote:
Originally posted by dick-richardson
My belief is there is only one.

Like in Highlander? (hey this argument by movie is neat!)

quote:
Mr. McD hit the nail on the head. You made the comment that, "What is there to possess if it has no animating force?" And I responded by asking if you had seen Child's Play. Dolls have no animating force, yet Chucky was surely possessed.

Except that it only counts in this argument if one considers The Bible a work of fiction as well.

quote:
And yet, we can only act on the input we're receiving - regardless of if it is faked. [...]

So how do we know that God really _wasn't_ talking to Davy Berkowitz?

06-13-2002 05:46 PM

NeilMcD
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Registered: Apr 2002
Location:
Posts: 74

Matrix

Actually: you could say that since they (the nasty FBI/CIA/ATF-looking agents) were actually the people who controlled the matrix's environment, they weren't actually possessing anything, they were just manipulating the environment.

Let's lighten this up a bit. Out of all the thousands of movies ever put on celluloid, which one do you think BEST describes your life experience?

Me: My current favorite is "O' Brother". I can kind of relate to the ups-and-downs that the characters go through and nifty music to boot.

06-13-2002 06:06 PM

Toby
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Registered: Jul 2000
Location:
Posts: 3034

Re: Matrix

quote:
Originally posted by NeilMcD
Actually: you could say that since they (the nasty FBI/CIA/ATF-looking agents) were actually the people who controlled the matrix's environment, they weren't actually possessing anything, they were just manipulating the environment.

Nope, because if you noticed, when/if they were killed, the '_real_' person dropped dead.

quote:
Toby, I may be lost but what does chucky the doll as a non-animated object have to do with considering the bible a work of fiction?

Let's substitute the 'religious' word then... If something doesn't have a soul, what can be possessed and need exorcism? Possessions and exorcisms are biblical concepts. When I said that something can't be possessed unless it has an animating force, that's the context I was using. To refute it with a movie (not that I necessarily think Josh was serious, but who knows...) is tantamount to saying that the 'rules' established in the Bible for what possession is are the same as those of a movie.

06-13-2002 06:18 PM

Toby
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Registered: Jul 2000
Location:
Posts: 3034

Re: Matrix

quote:
Originally posted by NeilMcD
[...] Let's lighten this up a bit. Out of all the thousands of movies ever put on celluloid, which one do you think BEST describes your life experience? [...]

The Matrix works as well as any other.

06-13-2002 06:25 PM

NeilMcD
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Registered: Apr 2002
Location:
Posts: 74

Matrix

They only "dropped dead" because they were no longer needed to support the Matrix's conception of how Neo needs to see the world.

From what I remember of morpheus telling Neo, is that people are booted from the pod when they're either dead or no longer physically viable for providing energy to the Matrix. He didn't say anything about agents taking over your body then you dropping dead.

06-13-2002 06:29 PM

Toby
Member

Registered: Jul 2000
Location:
Posts: 3034

Re: Matrix

quote:
Originally posted by NeilMcD
They only "dropped dead" because they were no longer needed to support the Matrix's conception of how Neo needs to see the world.

Nope, when you die in the Matrix, you die in the 'real world'. That guy definitely had a bullet hole in him.

quote:
From what I remember of morpheus telling Neo, is that people are booted from the pod when they're either dead or no longer physically viable for providing energy to the Matrix. He didn't say anything about agents taking over your body then you dropping dead.

Actually, ISTR something along those lines being mentioned. I suppose I'll have to endure another sitting of the Matrix to confirm it. *sigh* Note: I'm not saying the possession is what makes them drop dead. The agents move so much faster than the average Matrix resident that if they saw their 'host' was unavoidably about to be killed, they'd just transfer elsewhere and let the 'host' go. After all, would you really be that careful with a single battery, if you had billions of them and were producing more constantly?

06-13-2002 06:38 PM

dick-richardson
Member

Registered: Oct 2000
Location: Aberdeen, SD
Posts: 2531

quote:
[i]Originally posted by Toby
Like in Highlander?

Not familiar with it. Saw bits and peices a while ago.
As Yorick mentioned, I believe there are many aspects of God.

quote:
Except that it only counts in this argument if one considers The Bible a work of fiction as well.

Why?

quote:
So how do we know that God really _wasn't_ talking to Davy Berkowitz?

How do we know the spoon didn't really exist?

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Abortion: Darwinism at its finest.

06-13-2002 06:50 PM

Toby
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Registered: Jul 2000
Location:
Posts: 3034

quote:
Originally posted by dick-richardson
Why?

Because possession and exorcism are functions of it.

quote:
How do we know the spoon didn't really exist?

How do we know what Tasty Wheat really tastes like? Why do so many things 'taste like chicken'?

06-13-2002 06:53 PM

dick-richardson
Member

Registered: Oct 2000
Location: Aberdeen, SD
Posts: 2531

Re: Re: Matrix

quote:
Originally posted by Toby
(not that I necessarily think Josh was serious, but who knows...)

I wasn't, but to make it so...

Pigs were possessed in the Bible. Christian belief is that pigs have no soul.

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Abortion: Darwinism at its finest.

06-13-2002 06:54 PM

dick-richardson
Member

Registered: Oct 2000
Location: Aberdeen, SD
Posts: 2531

quote:
Originally posted by Toby
Because possession and exorcism are functions of it.[B]How do we know what Tasty Wheat really tastes like? Why do so many things 'taste like chicken'?

My point exactly. Maybe Davy was speaking with God. My disbelief doesn't make it so.

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Abortion: Darwinism at its finest.

06-13-2002 06:57 PM

Toby
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Registered: Jul 2000
Location:
Posts: 3034

Re: Re: Re: Matrix

quote:
Originally posted by dick-richardson
Pigs were possessed in the Bible. Christian belief is that pigs have no soul.

Where does it say in the Bible that they have no soul?

06-13-2002 07:18 PM

Yorick
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Registered: Mar 2001
Location: Out of my skull, back in five minutes
Posts: 1435

Re: Re: Re: Matrix

quote:
Originally posted by dick-richardson
Pigs were possessed in the Bible. Christian belief is that pigs have no soul.

Where does it say in the Bible that they were possessed?

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06-14-2002 02:31 AM

Toby
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Registered: Jul 2000
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Posts: 3034

Re: Re: Re: Re: Matrix

quote:
Originally posted by Yorick
Where does it say in the Bible that they were possessed?

Here's your proof.

06-14-2002 01:51 PM

BobbyMike
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Registered: Dec 1999
Location: "Children are a gift from God, they are a reward"
Posts: 1049

Toby,
I think that we're talking around each other. Without qouting and requoting several pages of text, I'm going to try and boil down what I was trying to say in a sentence. Or two.

I believe that children do not possess an innate ability to differentiate between right and wrong and need to be guided until they reach an emotional/mental maturity where they can then "sift the data" and come up with there own conclusions.

I also believe that our culture currently doesn't do too good of a job doing that right now which is why so many young people get pregnant, overdose, go to jail, get shot, and become staunch Republicans or Democrats.

Like the old saying "Trying to run before you walk".

As to how "rough" it is to be different in this country (non-christian, etc), I still don't think you really know what goes on in other parts of the world (either that, or I wasn't clear to you on what I meant). I'm not referring to a person, or two, killed here and there. I'm talking about the wholesale slaughter (tens of thousands) of people a day who die every day, because someone finds them spiritually offensive- or in some way reprehensible. Regardless of your observations on Christians in the South, or other "morons", that just doesn't happen here. "Persecution" in this country, as a whole, pales with what goes on in other countries.

As to the disease, dementia, etc. I at first assumed that you were talking about the current view of some "Christians" that states that if you're not "right" with God you will suffer bad health and be poor. (which is why I said what I said) Then you clarified the matter with the comment about the trials of Job. A whole thread could be done on trials of "just" men/women in the Bible, and why God did/does things like that.

As to a spoon tellling you it's God. Thats all fine and dandy, but what makes you believe it would be telling you the truth? Spoons are a notoriously untrustworthy lot. I seem to remember a story from my youth about one runnning away.
Seriously, if someone "hears" an inanimate object speaking, wouldn't they be the possessed one?

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06-14-2002 03:08 PM

Toby
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Registered: Jul 2000
Location:
Posts: 3034

quote:
Originally posted by BobbyMike
I think that we're talking around each other.

Didn't I say that already?

quote:
Without qouting and requoting several pages of text, I'm going to try and boil down what I was trying to say in a sentence. Or two.

hundred?

quote:
I believe that children do not possess an innate ability to differentiate between right and wrong and need to be guided until they reach an emotional/mental maturity where they can then "sift the data" and come up with there own conclusions.

I'm not sure if I agree universally, but I do think that children need to be taught right and wrong. However, I don't consider religion to be a necessary component of that.

quote:
I also believe that our culture currently doesn't do too good of a job doing that right now which is why so many young people get pregnant, overdose, go to jail, get shot, and become staunch Republicans or Democrats.

LOL!

quote:
[...] As to how "rough" it is to be different in this country (non-christian, etc), I still don't think you really know what goes on in other parts of the world (either that, or I wasn't clear to you on what I meant).

I don't think it's a matter of either. I think it's a question of scale and of exposure. I don't think it's cultural _at_all_. IOW, I don't think there's anything inherently different from the Sudanese despots to a corrupt local Sheriff, other than the fact that a corrupt local Sheriff has a much higher chance of being exposed to someone with a bigger stick who'll stop him.

quote:
I'm not referring to a person, or two, killed here and there. I'm talking about the wholesale slaughter (tens of thousands) of people a day who die every day, because someone finds them spiritually offensive- or in some way reprehensible.

Have you been to the Sudan to confirm it? The claims sound an awful lot like what the Palestinians claim Israel does to them.

quote:
Regardless of your observations on Christians in the South, or other "morons", that just doesn't happen here. "Persecution" in this country, as a whole, pales with what goes on in other countries.

We don't disagree there, necessarily. Where we disagree is the 'it couldn't happen here' aspect.

quote:
As to the disease, dementia, etc. I at first assumed that you were talking about the current view of some "Christians" that states that if you're not "right" with God you will suffer bad health and be poor. (which is why I said what I said) Then you clarified the matter with the comment about the trials of Job. A whole thread could be done on trials of "just" men/women in the Bible, and why God did/does things like that.

He's an insane prankster. Just look at the platypus.

quote:
As to a spoon tellling you it's God. Thats all fine and dandy, but what makes you believe it would be telling you the truth?

It's a talking spoon.

quote:
Spoons are a notoriously untrustworthy lot. I seem to remember a story from my youth about one runnning away.

No one ever said it was complicit. The dish could have been kidnapping it.

quote:
Seriously, if someone "hears" an inanimate object speaking, wouldn't they be the possessed one?

Or maybe they just need to take their meds?

06-14-2002 03:36 PM

Birddogrdrgz
Member

Registered: Jun 2002
Location: Borger Tx.
Posts: 3

I just got back into town and I must say this is an interesting thread, too bad I'll never have time to read all of it.

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Thanks,
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06-15-2002 09:05 AM

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