Human beings only think in terms of all things having a beginning because in our limited frame of reference everything we know always has.
First, let's consider that up until fairly recently in human society, writing has been the domain of the wealthy and not entirely accessible to everyone. The rich could write whatever they want or patronize those who could write what they wanted for them. The rarity - relative to the greatest developments of proliferation being chiefly the printing press and recently the internet - of written works, demanded that anything someone bothered to put into physical written form must have considerable innate value to someone. If they didn't, nobody would have bothered with the effort or expense.
I no longer have access to the reference for a citation and am having trouble digging it up, but I saw (probably on a blog about AI) some figures recently describing the amount of written "material" produced by humanity on a daily basis (or some other comically short time) in 2023 being comparable to the amount produced in the ~five thousand preceding years since the written word is thought to have been invented.
With as much "writing" being produced, most of it being spam or low-effort shitposting, the signal to noise ratio is unbelievably high. Regardless of the profundity of the thought being born and described, the chance of having anything written today - randomly on the internet - recognized for its quality is infinitesimally small.
I believe that there IS a fantastic amount of truly remarkable writing being done every day all over the internet. Nearly all of it will be retained on some form of media basically forever, even until the media is woefully obsolete / destroyed / the heat death of the universe. Most of it will never be set upon by human eyes again after this weekend.
Today, like hundreds of years ago, what rises to the surface does so due to commercial pressures. If you are awesome and impress a publisher with deep pockets, your words could be preserved in a form that will be read in 2434. Of course, it will have to continue to be impressive long after most of the books selected by Oprah's Book Club.
Everyone thought it could have been an honest mistake. After all, she was home schooled. But then, they found out her name is actually Margaret.
It’s alright that you don’t believe what I do but there’s no need to berate or mock what I believe.
I will be respectful to you. No such courtesy is owed to beliefs. Anyone here is free to berate or mock beliefs all they like.
I don’t go around telling people they’re going to hell because they’ve been mostly a horrible person.
Good for you?
I do know God is real
No, you don't.
if it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t have made it through such a bullshit life as I have.
Apparently you are a stronger person than you think, even if you humbly choose to give that credit to mythological figures.
I’m sorry you don’t want me here.
First of all, I never said or implied that. Second, don't apologize for what you perceive to be my desires. It's disingenuous and childish.
if this is how an atheist looks on social media then what is the difference in your thoughts towards me and my belief if this is how you conduct yourself?
I don't understand what you are implying here. If you exist in a bubble where beliefs are sacrosanct, beyond reproach, you may not want to involve yourself in a community that is effectively the antithesis of that mindset. That has nothing to do with whether I want you here or not. It has to do with feeling comfortable.
I guess you put everyone who talks about God in the same box. Such a shame!
Again, I'm not going to guess at your implication here. There's nothing shameful, in a community called /c/atheism, to make a distinction between 1) people who believe in gods, and 2) people who do not.
It’s like me saying that I think people that wear shoes are delusional.
If those people are insisting that they have shoes on their bare feet, run around saying how awesome those shoes are, and prattle on about how they wouldn't have gotten to where they are today without those shoes, all the while you're looking at their naked toes... then they are delusional. You would be right to say they are, and you should make sure everyone around you can hear it.
As unfortunate as it is, there is almost certainly no such thing as hell, either. Sometimes, people who behave abhorrently get to live out their entire lives being hateful and influencing others to be the same way for the sake of superstition and fear, and then they die peacefully in their beds. Some excellent people get abducted and murdered. Innocent children are trafficked, starve to death, and die of causes that have been treatable for a hundred years.
There's no rationality to it, no fairness. It's just how it is. Armed with rationality, unclouded by paranoia and cult worship, maybe we can help a handful of others around us to see the mess for what it is and they can get some social comeuppance while they're alive to experience it.
I don't mean to yuck your yum, but this is a community supporting atheism, not supernatural revenge theory :)
The only one among those with whom I am familiar is Sam Harris. I like Sam's work. He and I don't agree about everything but generally about the important parts. That said, I haven't read that specific book.
Like another commenter said and I concur, I'm not much into "spiritualism." It's a trigger word for me, which evokes a lot of hogwash and superstition. Maybe it doesn't do the same for others and in context may have nothing to do with it.
Not to put too fine a point on it, I am not one to dissuade others or to be judgmental about maintaining an awareness, concern and respect for "meta" aspects of life. Emotional things, connections to other human beings, etc. Human beings have brains and there's nothing inherently rational about the way we interpret their workings. It's fine. I ponder the complexities of life and the pursuit of happiness as well, I imagine we all do. Should someone want to refer to that as "spirituality," fine. You can call it "banana" if you want to, I'm not the semantic police.
Where I draw a line personally as at the moment when superstitious "faith" or mysticism enters the picture.
When consuming literature like this, I think it's best to keep a skeptical lens and always be asking whether you're replacing a house of cards with a bridge of toothpicks. If the new foundation is just as flimsy as the old one, it's not a foundation at all. On the other hand, if the work helps to organize thought without introducing new ghosts, it's probably just a matter of taste after that.
The meaning of words is not important to propagandists. The value is in the power of uninhibited emotional reaction of the proletariat and the influence those people have over others in their social circles.
I was in exactly the same boat as you until I was about confirmation age. Around mid way through college, I was pretty much over it. Late bloomer.
Carrots. Same as potatoes. Boil em, mash em, stick em in a stew. Someone already mentioned onions, same idea.
I know your edit says you were thinking about dishes, and I think carrots can be their own dish with very little preparation. I like to bake mine on a sheet for half hour or so at 425f, and they are wonderful on their own. Also so low-calorie you can eat a practically infinite amount of them without spoiling a diet!
I try not to let the overt self contradictions and mental gymnastics rattle me too much. They call it "alternative truth" or something. George Orwell wrote a book about it.
Not so much a move as an addition. And there are a few reasons.
One, I like projects where the outcome is a useful tool, but the project aspect itself is a significant part of my motivation.
The reason for the Voron being that project is that it will be a WAY faster and more competent tool than my ender, which was a prohibitive limitation especially for larger prints. A failure at hour 23 of a 24 hour print sucks, but the same print failing at hour 3:45 of 4 hours is way easier to accept. At that point the loss of filament matters more than the lost time in my eyes.
Also Voron2 has a much better design than ender 3 pro for exotic filaments, making ABS / ASA / nylon more approachable. Better tuning options, compensation (lower / less moving mass), bigger plate, taller build volume.
The bigger plate is significant for things like ergo mechanical keyboard chassis. I'm a Dactyl Manuform user and builder, and the ender 3 pro can only print one half at a time and takes more than a full day each half. Voron should be able to knock out two halves at once inside of a work day, and do so with better quality to boot.
The ender still has a place, particularly with the mods I have on it. Specifically, TPU can't benefit from the speed of Voron, so there's no reason not to print it on ender. Also it never hurts to have a tuned, working machine if you have to take one offline for maintenance.