Recent content by Father of Worlds

Anathem, Neil Stephenson. Only book I've ever read that literally made me dizzy from the ideas woven into its narrative.

If having your actual identity attached to your actions prevented bullying, then bullying wouldn't happen in real life. Anyone who's ever been in school beyond the age of 4 knows that it does happen. Losing anonymity wouldn't help.

To prove that something does not exist, you must either prove that its existence would necessarily have effects that are not observed (if there's a man-eating dragon in my garage with no self control, then going into the garage would result in getting eaten. I can go in without getting eaten...

The ability to consciously control the perceptions of others.

The Name of the Wind, first part of the Kingkiller Chronicle. I've not read book 2 (it came out a week ago, and I'm broke), but Name of the Wind blew me away. Great narrative flow, amazing world, remarkable characters, everything you'd want in a great book.

That's why.

Life only has meaning because it's finite. If I was going to live forever, than no particular act would be significant - after all, eventually I'll be faced with that choice again. But I'm only going to live, probably, about 80 years, give or take a decade or two. What I do with that time...

You can be antitheistic without it being because of emotional or psychological abuse. If you firmly believe that religion, on the whole, is a force for suffering and social destruction, then you are (or at least probably are) an antitheist. There's nothing about coming to view religious...

That ex-theists left their theism behind because of emotional or psychological abuse of some form. I'm sure there are some, but most become convinced for primarily intellectual reasons that their beliefs are wrong, and therefore change them.

Tolkien drew together the myths and legends into a cohesive whole that was easily understood by people who'd not otherwise come into a lot of contact with them. He gave fantasy a common language. Just as Star Wars and Star Trek gave science fiction a common language for the public - there were...

When everyone involved is aware of what's happening, accepts what's happening, and isn't emotionally injured by the fact that it's happening, then whatever. When that's not the case, very much not whatever. My wife and I have already had a talk about this - if we meet someone who we both...

Evidence for reincarnation? Evidence for the soul? Really? Don't take this as me being condescending or anything, but I've never encountered such evidence. I'm quite curious what it might be. Could you share?

No worries. Just a pet peeve, having been repeatedly strawmanned on the basis solely of describing myself as an atheist. And, on that note, your earlier statement about belief in a soul negating one's atheism is also false. Example: Buddhists. The idea of a soul may draw some of its...

No, they don't. The only thing that describes all atheists is that they don't actively maintain that 1 or more beings that could accurately be called "gods" exist. *Some* atheists have a church, certainly. And some probably read the Christian Bible for moral lessons. But saying (or...

"Nobody's ever died all the way and then come back to tell us. So we don't know. Different people think different things for different reasons."