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You made that jump, not me; a common misconception among monotheists. It is not that a powerful being is playing with you, it's that you are the powerful being and you are at play. To view oneself as God is often the ultimate conceit, the sin of sins, in monotheism. I've not studied Hinduism in detail, but my understanding is that there is no single point of all creation, but rather an endless cycle of birth, sustenance and death. Destruction is as divine as creation - it's all part of the cosmic play. There's a fundamental difference in perspective between many Eastern religions (and some Paganism/neo-paganism interestingly) and monotheism. We aren't things that come into the universe, created as if molded by some creator. We come out of the universe, as an apple will grow from an apple tree. Buddhism teaches rebirth - certainly circular. The difference seems to be they actually learn to enjoy chasing their tail whereas monotheists get all wound up when people don't take their tail chasing seriously. Just how it seemed to me when i was young and looking at these things. Now i'm discovering that Europe has always had similar traditions, from Hellenistic and Stoic thought, through to Northern Shamanic practices: unfortunately Christianity erased those traditions. But my point was about discarding sophisticated theological cleverness for direct experience, which you seem to agree with.

Am I missing something? You linked to an article* that provides an explanation? Why is your idea a better explanation? I don't understand the logic here. Constellations** are collections of stars. And according to your idea those specific stars have a large impact on earth? How about other stars, not part of ancient imaginary patterns? *) https://www.britannica.com/science/precession-of-the-equinoxes **) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constellation

It all comes down to the fact that the Earth is not a perfect sphere and its axis of rotation is not perpendicular to its orbit around the Sun or the Moon's orbit. Because of the Earth's slight oblate shape, the differential in force acting across it due to the gravity of these two bodies, applies a torque to the Axis in an attempt to align the axis to being perpendicular. But the mass of the Earth has a set angular momentum that it tries to conserve. the end result is the This torque ends up being "deflected" into producing the "wobble" known as precession. If the Earth were a perfect sphere, there would be nothing for the gravity differential to get a "handle on" and we would get no precession.

I see numerous issues with the idea. A basic question: As far as I know matter has mass and light has no mass, can you explain?

Maybe Mike should stop worrying about unsolvable math problems.

As Mordred say, it's a guess, because we don't know the particulars. But space is really big. You look out at the night sky, and there's a lot of empty out there (more if you ignore everything in the Milky Way) — meaning if there is anything in a particular direction where the sky is black, it's too far away for us to see unaided. We can only see 7 other galaxies with the naked eye. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_galaxies#Naked-eye_galaxies

The 2mg is the mass (not weight) of active ingredient in a pill, not the mass of the pill. When measuring pharmaceutical amounts the difference between mass and weight and bouyancy in air can become important. I agree with others, there is insufficient information and the whole question is clouded in extraneous detail, some of which is conradictory. I would further observe that a proper trial would never supply the placebo and actual pills differently as apppears here. Otherwise it would be possible to distinguish simply from these differences alone.

This is correct. My original list is my own, the second is my guesstimate of centrist positions.

If it''s measurable, it's physical (but it''s not a substance). Length is physical but not a substance.

JC is answering a question from Ten Oz, who requested an example set of policies to explain what position a moderate candidate in the US system may take. He misunderstood the previous question (I believe) and explained his own position, which may be different from the hypothetical centrist US person.

To the OP: In my experience, the concept of free will gets blamed here and then any logical inconsistencies get paper-overed with empty platitudes like “god works in mysterious ways.”

Today I learned about the Ashtiname of Muhammad

Exactly. There are many forms of Hinduism, even materialism. That seems to be from Advaita Vedanta. In materialism this is simple: there is no thing as a soul or independent self. Consciousness of course exists, but is explained as a process, mainly of the brain. That answers the questions you raised. Of course not. The 'self' is more or less the complete organism: the organism is trying to protect and preserve itself, not "its self". I hope you see the difference... All these questions evaporate from the materialistic (or naturalistic) world view. There does not exist such a thing. You probably mean Jung's 'collective unconsious': but this is not an entity with which we all connect. It is the set of archetypes we have from birth, uninfluenced from culture. From the link, in Jung's own words: So the archetypes are not in some metaphysical 'collective unconscious', but are in every human individual, inherited biologically from our parents. All humans, according to Jung, share the same archetypes, because we all belong to the same species. Really? Or anekdotes, ideology, false interpretations, unproven religious world views? It is too easy. Feel like a soul? Then there is one. Feel connected? Then we are, (in the metaphysical sense of course; in psychological, sociological, environmental and biological sense we of course are connected; but we do not have to invoke magic for that...). Just to be aware that nothing exists independently.

At last, you have said something I can agree with. It doesn't say that. The description of the Religion section of the forum is: "Forum for the discussion and examination of the rational foundations of religion." (Not that that happens very often. It is mainly used for irrational attacks on religion. And occasionally for irrational preaching.) I just thought that a forum dedicated to theology or philosophy, or one of the specific religions referenced, might have more people interested in, and knowledgable about, the question. Most people on this forum seem to be uninterested in or strongly opposed to religion.

Well on my computer, the top of the page reads as follows: Philosophy Religion What does religion say about this? Maybe your computer is different? My thought is that it is the "typo" effect. (chuckle) Well, if you were a "pretend" philosopher like me, you would understand that most people do not actually like to think -- especially about things that are difficult to understand. I suspect it gives them a headache. Most people choose to either believe in their Religion or not, but they don't really want to understand the theology or history behind the story. If you really want people, who are knowledgeable, you will have to find a way to protect them from the emotional downvoting members, who are angry with Religion or angry with their parents -- as that is often the same thing (per Psychology). The Pretend Philosopher I want to thank whoever downvoted this post for going out of your way to prove my point. Thank you.

I disagree with spanking children because it can leave psychological damage. However I think we MUST legalize caning for people 16-35 At that age you should know what is ethical and unethical. Plus the kids will understand that if they misbehave when they are young, it will be hard to remove bad behavior when they'll be older so they will learn to behave at young age.Paying fines will not work because its not strict enough. Have you ever felt like there's no justice? Police can't take care of minor stuff ("minor stuff"). If we legalize that we will have MORE WORK because well have special police, special lawyers, everything. Better society. Its legal in Singapore. This is a free society. People should be allowed to have freedom of speech and opinion but always have to be respectful and use proper language. I see people spit, kids use vulgar language... But that's ok. I think the worst part is sexism, racism or discrimination... Cameras and microphones should be installed everywhere. If women misbehave they will be caned. Why caning? Paying fines isn't strict enough. They cant go to jail because we need workers. Hard caning is perfect because it wont hurt their health and women are going to be scared that they will lose sexual attractivity. There are methods that are not effective and people will complain about sexism, racism, homophobia and INJUSTICE all the time. Nothing will change. We need THIS CHANGE. THATS THE IDEA THAT Ive THOUGHT ABOUT ov the last few days. can't take care of minor stuff ("minor stuff"). If we legalize that we will have MORE WORK because well have special police, special lawyers, everything. Better society. Its legal in Singapore. This is a free society. People should be allowed to have freedom of speech and opinion but always have to be respectful and use proper language. I see people spit, kids use vulgar language... But that's ok. I think the worst part is sexism, racism or discrimination... Cameras and microphones should be installed everywhere. If women misbehave they will be caned. Why caning? Paying fines isn't strict enough. They cant go to jail because we need workers. Hard caning is perfect because it wont hurt their health and women are going to be scared that they will lose sexual attractivity. There are methods that are not effective and people will complain about sexism, racism, homophobia and INJUSTICE all the time. Nothing will change. We need THIS CHANGE. THATS THE IDEA THAT Ive THOUGHT ABOUT ov the last few days.