Posts by wiredfalcon2

Word on the street is Ferrari's pulling a 0.7-second lead on the straights.

Brian Campbell36 said:It’s not actually that bad. I mean, look, Mercedes has that new Power Unit spec now, so if the Ferrari strategists can finally start acting like they actually belong at the same level as the guys over at Mercedes, they might actually stand a chance at pulling off a win. 🍿

Anyone got the scoop on the speed traps? Just wondering who’s actually killing it on the straights right now. Is Ferrari still holding that edge over the new Mercedes Power Unit, or has the gap finally closed? 🤔

Honestly, I can't even be bothered to dig into all this right now... but here’s my take on the short and long runs so far:

Single-lap pace:
Ferrari's got Charles Leclerc out there clocking a 1:12.177. One Ferrari on the board.
Two Mercedes (Valtteri Bottas), 1m12.311s.
McLaren's got Sainz clocked at a 1:12.553. Looks like they're sitting pretty in third.
Haas (Kevin Magnussen), 1:12.935s.
Sergio Perez in that Racing Point, clocking a 1:13.003.
Renault (Daniel Ricciardo) clocked in at a 1m13.016s for that sixth lap.
Red Bull (Gasly) sitting at 1:13.345s in P7. Just another day in the grind.
8th for Albon in that Toro Rosso, clocking in at a 1m13.436s. Not exactly jumping out at me.
Kimi Raikkonen in that Alfa Romeo clocked a 1:13.542. P9. Not exactly anything to write home about, I guess.
Williams is sitting at 10th with George Russell, clocking in at a 1:15.036. Not exactly tearing up the track, but hey, we'll see how the session shakes out.

Long runs: nothing like them. Just sitting there, watching the tires degrade while everyone pretends they aren't sweating through their suits. It’s where the real drama happens, if you can even call it that. Most people just want the flashy qualifying laps, but the long stuff? That’s where you see who’s actually got the guts and who's just riding on luck. Total grind.
One Mercedes (Valtteri Bottas), 1m17.293s.
McLaren’s got Carlos Sainz down at a 1:17.673. Solid enough, I guess.
Renault (Nico Hulkenberg) sitting at 1:17.696. Three of them. Whatever.
Sebastian Vettel in that Ferrari clocked in at 1:18.661.
Sergio Perez in that Racing Point, clocked in at 1:18.832.
6th for Haas (Kevin Magnussen), clocking in at 1m18.976s.
Red Bull (Gasly) sitting at 1:19.037 after 6 laps. Solid enough, I guess. Not exactly mind-blowing, but we'll see how it shakes out.
Kimi Raikkonen in that Alfa Romeo, clocking in at 1:19.108. Not exactly breaking any records.
9th place for the Toro Rosso (Kvyat), clocking in at 1m19.289s after 5 laps. Not exactly jumping out of the gate, is it? Just another day in the grind.

Ferrari didn't even touch the softest tire compound during Ferrari Practice 1, so that huge gap? It’s kind of a fakeout. Once the track actually starts getting rubbered in and that annoying dust from Practice 1 finally clears out, things are gonna shift. Daniel Ricciardo was actually quicker in Practice 1 than he was in Practice 2, which tells me they were just grinding through long runs during the second session. But if you want my two cents on the Mercedes vs. Ferrari battle, Mercedes is sitting pretty with a 3-4 tenth advantage.

Mercedes is just light years ahead of everyone else 🤣

Jerry Moore61, I’m feeling a little jealous here, but honestly, I'm happy for you 🙂

Gregory Jackson said:I mean, who would He even tell? I guess we’d have to find someone sitting there talking to Him just to suggest the topic, right?

But honestly, it feels kind of irrelevant, you know? Like, the actual physical day someone comes into the world doesn't really matter much. The soul isn't something that gets "born" and it certainly doesn't die, so... yeah. I suppose the Creator probably doesn't spend time worrying about those little human details or satisfying our curiosity about dates and stuff.

If you ask me, 🙂

And who gets to decide what counts as a "triviality," Gregory Jackson? Billions of believers celebrate a completely made-up date for Christ's birth, and every high-ranking church official uses televised specials to reach people during Christmas... clearly, it's a huge deal when it comes to religious moments and living out one's faith.

Gregory Jackson said:The date itself is kind of invented, you know? Like, it's symbolic because nobody actually knows the real date. Most historians pretty much agree he was born in late summer, actually. I heard about this one spiritual teacher who supposedly received it in meditation that he was born on September 3rd according to our current calendar. But honestly, it doesn't really matter when he was born.
December 25th is just the day when the Roman Empire used to celebrate the festival of the Sun (Sol Invictus), so I guess it was just convenient to adopt that as a Christian holiday. Though, there are probably other theories out there about why they picked that specific day, too. When the actual date is a mystery, any other date works well enough, I suppose. 🙂

Yeah, a lot of believers see faith more as tradition or customs and stuff like that. Although, I don't think we should really judge, because faith is such an internal thing, and you can't really tell if someone is truly devout just by looking at their outward actions. It doesn't really matter whether they follow the rituals of one religion or another, I guess.

In your opinion, why did God never mention when his son was born? 🙂

Justin Baker6 said:Believers aren't just some one-sided force, they're a goddamn powerhouse.

Look, I’m not talking about every single person out there, just the majority of those "practical" believers. I mean the crowd that checks the "religious" box on the census just so they can celebrate Christmas, which is really just an excuse for a family get-together. It’s not even a religious thing for them; they're just marking some totally made-up date for Christ's birth that isn't even mentioned in the Bible.

Justin Baker6 said:That thesis is completely wrong.
We aren't talking about a focused, clear faith here; we're talking about pure diabolical delusion.

If my points were actually wrong, you’d see it in the numbers. Look at the facts: believers managed to pull together around 700,000 signatures demanding that the names of every single predator in the church be made public and that they face actual prison time. Compare that to the measly few hundred signatures gathered trying to ban gay marriage. It speaks for itself.

Nicole James said:What exactly are you basing that assumption on? Especially when you consider how incredibly bleak the moral landscape can be in societies with a heavy religious influence—at least when measured against atheist moral standards, which rightly view things like murder, silencing people, or sexual assault as fundamentally wrong.

For those believers, the ultimate sin is just anything that doesn't fit their mold: not having kids, "deviant" sexuality—their words, not mine—tearing down the patriarchal family unit, and obviously, denying God and faith. You can't even ask questions from our side of the fence. We’re living in two different worlds that just don't speak the same language.

Gregory Jackson said:I mean, you could probably just ignore all that noise and just stick to the actual heart of it. Just love your neighbor and all that good stuff, and the rest won't be able to touch you, I guess. 🙂

But, man, it’s definitely way easier for churches and people in general to just chatter on about all those minor details than it is to actually live out the real essence of it.

Love your neighbor and don't believe in God. That's my mantra.

Gregory Jackson said:Yeah, you're totally right. That's exactly what they taught. Those aren't my own quotes, you caught me there. I guess I just drifted off a bit because I've been juggling so many different things lately. 🙂

Still, I'm not going to take back everything I wrote 🙂 but I really don't feel like getting into a massive debate about it, because that would basically mean I'd have to spend my entire day explaining myself.

The Truth isn't actually that complicated, I mean, the core essence isn't that hard to grasp, it's just really tough to actually accept it because we're all so caught up in the weeds of our own specific beliefs and stuff.

And let's be real, all those nitpicky rules—like whether a woman is allowed to shave her head, what kind of headscarf she needs to wear, how many times a day you gotta pray, or which specific foods are "pure" vs "impure"—all that nonsense? That was cooked up by the founders of those religions. The core message is always the same, everyone is preaching the same thing, but they just throw in all those tiny, pointless details so followers stay busy obsessing over stuff that doesn't matter. Brilliant move, really. Makes perfect sense if you're looking to control people.

Gregory Jackson said:So, what exactly counts as being fundamentally different? I mean, from where I'm sitting, most people are just preaching about things that aren't even essential, you know? Like, they get all hung up on customs, or specific rituals, or little cultural quirks that don't really change the core of anything. To me, Truth is just such a massive, sprawling concept—it’s got so many layers and facets to it, and honestly, it’s almost impossible for any single religion to wrap its arms around the whole thing. You have to remember that these traditions were shaped by people who were, well, pretty average in terms of their level of development. Like, if you look back at the era of Jesus, or even earlier when other major faiths were starting up, the average person couldn't even read, right? It's kind of hard to grasp how one group could capture everything when the tools they had were so limited. I guess it's like trying to expect one single person to be an expert in every single branch of agriculture—it's just too much, because farming itself is made up of so many different specialized fields. It's the same way with spirituality; it's just too big for one bucket. But, I suppose if you take a little bit from here and a little bit from there, and you use a bit of discernment to see how it all fits together, you can probably piece the puzzle together in a pretty reliable way. Maybe.

I mean, I guess there isn't really such a thing as the complete Truth, and honestly, it’s probably for a bunch of different reasons, you know? Like, one big reason might be that the founders of religions—people like Buddha or Jesus—they probably couldn't even if they wanted to tell the whole story, mostly because there just wasn't anyone around who could actually wrap their head around it all. Plus, you have to think about the specific era they were living in, right? For instance, maybe Buddha intentionally avoided talking about a personal God because people back then were just way too obsessed with idols and all those different personal "gods" floating around. It was just too much for them. So, I suppose that's why an Avatar might lean toward this more impersonal "story of Divinity," or maybe they just leave things undefined entirely, because trying to explain it any other way would have just totally confused everyone at the time. Tao Quote. 🙂

Matthew Mitchell29 I guess what they’re saying is...
So, I guess you could say that this whole idea about God "incarnating itself every 700 to 1400 years" is really just another one of those claims out there—you know, something you can try to prove, or maybe just choose to believe, or even totally ignore if it doesn't sit right with you. It’s all kind of up in the air, honestly. That claim could be true, or it could be completely false, in the exact same way that specific religions like Islam or Christianity might be true or not. I mean, when you're actually out there in the thick of it, trying to wrap your head around the Truth, there isn't really any logical reason to treat universalism like it's some special category compared to any other individual religion, I guess. It's all pretty much on the same playing field, really.

So, like, when you really dig into it, we’re talking about Meher Baba, who basically serves as this massive spiritual anchor going back anywhere from 700 to 1400 years, I guess. If you actually take the time to sit down and truly study his life and everything he stood for, it becomes pretty obvious that he was this incredibly profound spiritual authority, you know? But honestly, at the end of the day, it all kind of boils down to what a person chooses to believe, since everyone just gravitates toward whatever feels closest to their own heart or whatever resonates with them most. It's funny because you can't exactly prove whether religious claims are true through some scientific experiment or anything like that; it's more about having that deep, internal experience, which I suppose is always going to be subjective anyway. But for those people who already believe, or maybe they've even had those personal inner experiences themselves, they don't really spend time overthinking or questioning it—they just dive right in and live out their faith.

I mean, you really can't go wrong if you bring up the Sika religion, right? It’s got this super straightforward vibe that teaches followers a pretty simple way to live: just keep your thoughts good, your words kind, and your actions helpful. Honestly, it’s such a practical little guide for daily life, especially when you aren't busy obsessing over heavy stuff like what happens to your soul after you pass away or wondering what brand of sandals Jesus might have been rocking 🙂

So, what you're saying is God made a bunch of people so dim-witted they can't even wrap their heads around whether eating pork is okay or not... and he supposedly made them in his own image? Geez, we really lucked out with a bad God.

Gregory Jackson said:But, I don't think He only showed up once; I mean, it seems like He shows up every 700 to 1,400 years or so, whenever "darkness takes over" and humanity desperately needs a spiritual nudge. So, from Zarathustra, Rame, Krishna, Buddha, Jesus, Muhammad, all the way to Meher Baba, He comes. Even before Zarathustra, when there aren't any records, I bet He was coming back then, too.

Then there's this whole other thing where one religion thinks they're the only ones who got the Messiah, God, or an Avatar, and that the "Truth" is strictly reserved for their followers while everyone else goes to hell—it doesn't matter if they lived a million years ago or today. Like, for instance, Buddhists are waiting for a "future Buddha," a Maitreya Being, but I'd argue He already arrived in the physical form of Jesus. It's really just the same Over-soul coming in all these different forms with specific goals for a particular era, and often a specific region, but always with the goal of lifting up humanity spiritually.

Actually, Meher Baba predicted the future birth of "God in human form" as a scientist in Japan in about 700 years. And it's pretty interesting, I guess, that He always seems to arrive in physical form on the Asian continent.

If it’s always the same soul, why does it show up and tell people not to worship any other gods—implying all the other prophets were fakes—instead of just saying, "Hey, I'm the same guy behind all 7,000 known religions"?

People say the universe is about 13 billion years old, but even if we stretch the math—and let’s be real, we love rounding numbers up just to feel better—and even if I shave that down to a mere billion years, it’s still wild. It’s absolutely insane that God decided to show up on Earth just once in a physical form, and specifically through His son who only lived for maybe 30 years or so. And right when Christians actually needed Him, too. Talk about slim odds, right? Yet here we are. It happened to us, on this planet, just as humans finally figured out how to write, invented paper, and mastered the art of archiving books. Honestly, feels like divine providence. If this had gone down 30,000 years ago, nobody would have known Jesus was even here; the only record of His existence would’ve been some random scratch on a mud-caked cave wall somewhere.

Amy Bennett said:Yeah, I get what you're saying—it’s all pretty obvious at this point—but that doesn't actually prove that morality isn't objective. Just because we can trace how "morals" evolved over time, or point out all the different moral disagreements people have, doesn't really tell us anything about whether morality itself is objective or not.

My behavior usually aligns pretty closely with how I perceive the world around me. I’ve developed my own internal moral compass—it’s really just a byproduct of how I was raised, my environment, empathy, and plain old reason. Honestly, I don't feel like I need some higher power stepping in to tell me how to act. Life doesn't have some grand, overarching purpose—and honestly, why should it? Like I've said before, the whole point of life is just... living it. If this idea of "meaninglessness" ever started messing with my daily routine—if I found myself feeling paralyzed because I couldn't find a deeper purpose—I’d go ahead and seek out professional help.

It just doesn't add up—honestly, none of your actions seem to align, and all that morality you’ve built up in your head feels pretty hollow. On one hand, you’re arguing about God, suggesting it's foolish to believe in Him based solely on personal experience if there isn't concrete evidence or actual arguments to back it up. But then, on the other hand, you go ahead and construct these personal moral codes and live out these specific "purposes"—even though, according to your own worldview, all of that is just as fake as the God you claim doesn't exist while you're busy debating His nonexistence. And then there's the part where you say you'd seek professional help if you ever felt a lack of willpower—but if your perspective is right, nothing about your situation would actually be "wrong" to begin with. So, what exactly would professional help be for?

I just can't wrap my head around the whole idea that some higher power created me specifically to test me—to throw me into this constant struggle against evil that was apparently created by that same power—just to reward or punish me based on how I fare. It feels less like a divine plan and more like being a pit bull or a fighting rooster bred for the ring. You win, you get a treat; you lose, and you’re just tossed into the trash. Honestly, what kind of life is that?

Evil is really just an absence of good—nothing more, nothing less.

Well, if it actually exists—and honestly, many of us (myself included) have our doubts—then clearly He hasn't provided it. I don't quite follow—could you clarify what you mean by "everything"? I want to make sure I'm on the same page before I jump in. What would it actually take? If someone really wanted to prove themselves to me, they could just start with something like predicting the exact order of a deck of cards—one that I shuffled myself. I mean, the odds of getting that right are 1 in 52 factorial! Even though the math says there’s a non-zero chance—you don't exactly need to be all-knowing, just insanely lucky—it would be enough for me to hang on their every word after that. I might even throw in a little extra request, like asking them to dye their hair green right in front of me, just to be absolutely certain. 😁 Look, I believe in a higher power based on the Bible—not those shallow, violent, misogynistic books that lack any real depth or logic. I honestly can't take them seriously.

Besides, you aren't obligated to jump through hoops just to satisfy someone else's whims. If God exists, then He knows what's truly sufficient, and any lack of faith—whether it's yours or anyone else's—is a matter of the individual soul. You could argue that God hasn't provided enough evidence or a clear path to reach Him, but who are we to make a claim like that? God? If we were, there wouldn't even be a debate to have. 😁

No. There's that thing with the axe, but I don't see the point of it at all—I don't get how it connects to anything.

The whole thing is, there is no such thing as this "common sense" you keep leaning on. It’s just as common sense to let a guy inside as it is to keep him out. The only logical move is to peek through the window and see if the dude is actually holding an axe or not.

Same deal with the whole seven days of creation thing. There isn't some common sense way to decide if it's an allegory or whatever. All we can do is check if it's actually true—it's not, because the Earth wasn't made in seven days, so what's written in the Bible is just bullshit.

Since there’s no universal common sense, if we're going to play that card, my interpretation of the Bible being a manual for a toaster is just as valid as yours being about soul salvation.

You can't have it both ways. The Bible can't be an allegory and also be literal truth at the same time. And common sense can't be universal if everyone's version is different, which it clearly is.

Lisa Jackson7 said:What counts as proof to you? Like, when is it sent, to whom, and what kind of evidence are we even talking about here?

Look, you don't have answers to those questions—and honestly, how could you? There aren't any real answers to find, because the Bible is just one big contradictory fairy tale, not proof that God exists.

He gave you an answer, but you clearly don't care... you've just shut your ears, your mind, and your soul.

Actually, the proof is that God doesn't exist—at least not in any logically consistent way. So we're back to the original question: why do atheists care about God's judgment of values? It's because you guys refuse to accept any evidence until you ignore it, skipping over questions or pretending they don't exist. Then, suddenly, when faced with stuff you can't run from (the actual text in the Bible), you arbitrarily hide behind allegories—and when that fails, you hide behind this fake "common sense" concept that doesn't even exist.

What kind of answer is that... besides, some atheists judge believers' values, and vice versa for that matter.
One side calls it evidence, the other side rejects it... ad infinitum.

So, if believers aren't responding to an "informative conversation"—at least not the way you think dialogue works—it’s no wonder.

Whether "common sense" is esoteric or not ("a bunch of biases picked up by age 18"), people use it. What's your alternative?

Look, if someone asks you a question and you just dodge it, you haven't proven they're wrong or that their question is invalid. Again, I’m going to circle back to those unanswered questions that have nothing to do with when we started calling things allegories:
Why would God tell the world He made the Earth in 7 days through His followers if He didn't? Why say people lived 700-800 years ago if they didn't? Why say a burning bush can talk if it can't? Why say Moses split the sea if he didn't? Why say the Earth is the center of everything if it isn't?

His response is basically that allegory matters more for saving my soul than dry facts. But God never actually says allegory is more important than facts. We just reached this point where we assume "common sense" tells us what's an allegory and what isn't—but we don't know, because there is no such thing as "common sense." You could get 30 different people using their own version of common sense to interpret an allegory in 30 different ways. There is no universal common sense.

So, either God doesn't care which interpretation we pick, or He does care, which makes it pretty stupid to punish people for getting the interpretation wrong. If we decide something is an allegory—even though God never explicitly calls it one—then we can just declare anything in the Bible an allegory and twist it however our own common sense dictates. Which means you get as many interpretations as there are people.

Lisa Jackson7 said:What counts as proof to you? Like, when is it sent, to whom, and what kind of evidence are we even talking about here?

Look, you don't have answers to those questions—and honestly, how could you? There aren't any real answers to find, because the Bible is just one big contradictory fairy tale, not proof that God exists.

He gave you an answer, but you clearly don't care... you've just shut your ears, your mind, and your soul.

Actually, the proof is that God doesn't exist—at least not in any logically consistent way. So we're back to the original question: why do atheists care about God's judgment of values? It's because you guys refuse to accept any evidence until you ignore it, skipping over questions or pretending they don't exist. Then, suddenly, when faced with stuff you can't run from (the actual text in the Bible), you arbitrarily hide behind allegories—and when that fails, you hide behind this fake "common sense" concept that doesn't even exist.

What kind of answer is that... besides, some atheists judge believers' values, and vice versa for that matter.
One side calls it evidence, the other side rejects it... ad infinitum.

So, if believers aren't responding to an "informative conversation"—at least not the way you think dialogue works—it’s no wonder.

Whether "common sense" is esoteric or not ("a bunch of biases picked up by age 18"), people use it. What's your alternative?

People don't use common sense; they use experience and "social knowledge"—basically the education they got from everyone else. If their own experience clashes with what society taught them, they might toss the social stuff aside, or they might just rely on pure guesswork about things they have zero experience with. Common sense doesn't exist. Therefore, claiming we should use some universal common sense to decode the Bible is like saying we should use unicorns to decode it. They don't exist either.

Nathan Doyle said:If he’s out there hacking away with an axe, you'd probably just start praying... 😁

Look, we don't actually know if he's using an axe because we can't see him. We just have this sound that makes us think he is.

Gerald Jackson48 said:People were talking about biblical stories being allegories way more than 500 years ago.

Science was around long before the Bible ever existed.

Amy Bennett said:Look, I’m not going to go in circles here just because you’re playing dumb. You made a claim, and I refuted it. Yet, you keep spinning the exact same narrative from one post to the next. What do you think I'm doing here—wasting hours trying to convince someone like you? Honestly, what's your deal? I've said all I deem necessary, and if that doesn't sit right with you, well, that's your problem. It doesn't affect me either way. We've already covered the rest of your questions. You are literally just looping through the same point because your main argument relies on that tired atheist myth—the idea that people only start calling things "allegory" once science provides a better explanation.

But there are ten other questions you haven't touched. We aren't even circling them; you're just dodging them entirely. Like that bit about the little house, the woods, and the guy knocking—any sane person would have given an answer to that by now. Just give me something to work with.