If Judaism was like Islam.

Around 14 million Jewish people are in the world today. Of that, its unclear how many practice the religion.
The Muslim faith has about 1.8 billion followers maybe more.

One billion is BIG. (Every new term greater than million is one thousand times as large as the previous term. Thus, billion means a thousand millions (10⁹) 14 million  =  0.014 billion)

About 70% of that 1.8 billion want Sharia law. This is the law set that is, well - not very good for anyone. Its got lots of bad things for non-believers of the faith and pretty harsh penalties for doing (X)(Y) & (Z) you name it, its most likely not allowed.

Unlike the Torra that has 613 commandments nicely explained, Sharia law is more muddled and requires good old "interpation" so people do not really agree on what horrable terrable things to do if that law is in place. 

But, we know for the most part the penality for doing anything wrong of the 613 commandments depends, mostly its stoning but it can also be being burned to death or killed by a sword. 

So if 70% of a million Jewish people were practicing this barbaric set of laws &/or WANTED to do so, would people be against it? Would we see people saying that we should not be so Jewophobia for saying bad things about the religion?

What would a world look like if we swapped around these things just a bit?
Now, of course, no Jewish person does practice the punishment parts of the Torah anymore because there is no more Temple. Presumably, if the temple was rebuilt, I guess they would follow or want to follow them all? No idea. No one's done a poll that I know of on this.

Still - I can't help but wonder if people who say "Islamophobia" would be saying "Jewophobia". Seems to me that these religious practices that subscribe death and killing and maiming as """"""justice"""""" should have been discarded ages ago. What do you think?

God.

God.
What is a God?
What things must something have to be called a God?
Must the thing in question have power to make a universe?
Must it have all knowledge?
Must it always exist?
Why?
Let me talk about a few God examples.

Haruhi Suzumiya. (spoilers for anime/manga)

The God that isn't aware that it is, in fact, God.

Its highly possible in the world of Haruhi that she is God. That she has made the reality that is all around her, and she has made it, perhaps - last Thursday She wants the world to not be normal, but if the world is not normal, then she will be aware that she is in fact God, and thus not be happy. If God is unhappy - well then the world as we know it, most likely will end. This is the "Melancholy". The anime asks the question - what does God want? I think the answer is given when Kyon kisses her, God wants (or needs) love.

This kiss resets everything to normal again. Although its not normal for aliens, time travlers and espers do exist in reality, but Haruhi must never know this. The careful balance of keeping her happy and unaware, is put on Kyon who must love her enough to put up with her, and the insanity that she is causing him.

In this world, God is not aware that it is in fact God. 

How would we know if we were in a world like this?

You might object by saying that there are no aliens, time travelers or espers - but then again you might not be the main protagonist. Your not Kyon, and thus are also unaware of what is the true nature of reality. Perhaps God got board, and the reality we have here is the result. Then God erased its memory that it was God.

How would you possibility hope to know if that wasn't the case?

~~~

Q

God is a trickster.

"Oh, you'd like me to connect the dots for you, lead you from A to B to C, so that your puny mind could comprehend? How boring."

Q from Star Trek The Next Generation was shown to do things that no human could do, that no technology could do. Q could very well be a God - or THE God. If Q did have the powers "he" claims to have, then all bets are off. If Q said it was a God, and did all sorts of things that defy understanding, how could you say it wasn't God?

Q is of course, a trickster, or at the very least a tester. Or well, insane. We get told by Q and others but who knows - if Q really is at a level beyond us, then it could simply lie about its own past and its own abilities. There is simply no way to know. If this is God, then we are mere playthings. Perhaps we are. How could we hope to know?

~~~

Humanity

"We are you, and you are us! ... Stop playing games!"

Humans are God. In that, we made God in our image, because we are pattern seeking creatures. Because we lack all knowledge. Because the mundane world is fighting or dull. Because others said there was a God. Because we were taught this. Because people believe it. 

God is you. You are God. We are God. God is nothing more then our own brain. When you pray, you are talking to you. When you worship, you are worshiping yourself. 

Religion takes you on this ride of promises that it can't prove, and promises answers it can't provide. God fills a roll of not wanting to be alone. Not wanting all this to not "matter". God is the answer when you have no answer. Here there be dragons, here there be Gods.

Goblins, Ogres, Dragons do not exist, and that really doesn't upset anyone. Yet when you say G.O.D. does not exist, suddenly you have a debate on your hands.

If we are God, then all God ideas are made from us, and by us. This would explain why God never does anything that nature can not do. This would explain why random things bad and good can happen. This wouldn't explain the mystery's we have, but nether does invoking God - for perhaps we should "save a step" and learn to love the mystery. To say "We do not know now.... but we one day might." To not insert God into the gaps. 

Yet, people think there really is a God, that it is not humanity. That it is out there, unproven, untestable, non-observed, abstract and strange. That you must work to "find" God - when perhaps, God is right there, in you and is you. If true, we must be the best possible God we could be. I suspect we will do better then the made up Gods... but we might do just as bad, or worse. 

~~~




Or maybe its a lobster.

Twitter polls: useless.

I've seen someone doing twitter polls having someone vs someone else in some sort of strange popularity contest - who is "winning" well, whoever has more fans will "win" that sort of poll.

I've seen polls asking silly things and semi-serous things.

However, twitter polls are not going to yield you results that are worth anything.

The issues are numerous.

You have a limited sample size.

Whatever your current following on twitter is, it is limited in scope the demographics of who you are polling is narrow due to this. Any data collected will be very biased.

You can't make the poll a good one.

A yes/no/other poll is simply not a very good poll. Proper polls conceal what it is that they are polling for, so that you as the poll taker do not know what the poll is about, and, thus are more likely to be honest in the answers. Although there is always a margin for error (something that twitter polls could never account for) you are looking to get answers from the people who agree to take the poll, and also guard against people being non-honest actors. This is why you see polls have similar questions latter on, worded in other ways to see if the answer you gave last time is consistent with the answer you give this time. Its hard to remember a lie, easy to remember the truth. This is also why investigation people ask the same question more then once. This can't happen with a twitter poll.

You can't set any controls in place.

Blind, or double blind methods as well as other controls can not be put into place in twitter polls.

Your question might be formatted badly.

Unless you are using formalized logic to make your question (and even then) you run the risk that your question is a leading one, with a desired result in mind. Proper questions are very hard to make in a decent poll.

"So? Its only twitter."
Yes, but people are getting fired for things they put on twitter, so people do seem to take what is said here seriously, for good or for ill. Thus, polls should be subject to the sort of critical analysis that we would subject public polling. In this case, due to how it functions, I submit we should simply not use twitter to poll anything, as nothing those polls yield will tell us anything much... other then who is popular in a popularity contest, and honestly, I simply do not care about such data. I suppose if you do, then well - have at it, but remember due to the above you can never know for sure who is in fact more popular because you can not block bad-faith actors from voting in strange ways.

Righteous Anger

So I was in a hangout here: Rage
Some background, I've spoken to the person that some are calling "Jil" (as his youtuber name is jesus is lord) and I've heard him claim before that he gladly ripped out pages from text books on evolution to teach it to kids. This is either a lie, or the truth. If a lie, he is a horrible person for lying, if the truth he is a monster for teaching kids a lie and for being okay with that.

Yes, we should attack the argument, not the man. Yet my anger was full boil he had to be put in his place, did I do this? I'm not sure. In the past if and when I've lost my cool live I've regretted doing so. This time, I feel justified at being so angry at this waste of human flesh. I draw the line at teaching nonsense to kids and being smug about doing so.

But lets go over what I revealed to be his "arguments".

He wanted to debate the flood mentioned in the bible. His proof that event occurred is that other stories also talk about a flood. Stories that happened before the flood are proof that the flood happened, so the Epic of Gilgamesh you see tells of this tale because the bible doesn't tell you a location or time, so all stories about any floods before or after (since we do not know the event time) will be pointing at the bible story (and other accounts might be corrupted or something) also everyone of every nation just had it put "in there heart" that this event happened, thus explaining all the stories about floods. So that is the "proof" that the bible flood happened.

This is the nonsense we must put up with. Now, what about the age of the earth/universe - he never said what he thought that was, but he is really, really against evolution because - of course, he asserts there isn't evidence. Perhaps if he had read the books he ripped out the pages from he would know what the evidence was. Also, also he would not debate this, because he doesn't have the proof that it is true. What!? Yep. He said that. I got him to basically admit that nothing would change his mind, even though he has said that if he had evidence that would change his mind (it will not).

I cornered him with the fact that miracle.are never identifiable as such - the appeal to ignorance fallacy is all you got with those. You see pigs fly (his analogy not mine) that must be a miracle. How do you know? Because everything we know about pigs says they should not fly. So, I'll go down that rabbit hole awhile - say you have found a flying pig and used all science and still do not know how it flies - is it a miracle- yes it is. What if tomorrow its found out how the pig flew showing it to be mundane? Well then... yeah. The point is, the same fallacy of thinking lighting is a miracle is the same fallacy of thinking a flying pig is a miracle: appeal to ignorance. Yet then he equivocates to there being "other types" of miracles - and that yes, lighting is still one of those types of miracles.

Ugh. He also constantly shifted the burden of proof and gave zero anything for any of his claims. Typical.

My anger, however, came from his smugness regarding what he did to those kids. It made my blood "boil" so to speak. I concluded he was dead to me and will not again talk to this person. The argument didn't even exist to attack in this case. All we have is a human that is okay with teaching nonsense he knows nothing about to kids. Oh sure, I would debate him if someone set it up, but I'd require him to have a syllogism and require the debate to be about evolution - something he will not debate "atheists" about (what about a Christian who agreed with evolution, hmmm? Oh those are fake Christians I bet) with that wall in place, we would never debate.

I've said plenty of times on my channel to attack the argument, not the person. The fact that this guy is an utter waste of flesh who lies to kids and lies to us is not relevant to his argument... but he doesn't have an argument. So... well... there is just a big nothing here.

I've had far better talks and debates with theists. This is an example of someone who we must leave behind as we move forward in progress.

Perhaps others will have fun with him. I'm moving on.