Sorry, folks. Should be up by lunch-ish PST.

Yep.

Model is not  mine, Lightwave is my primary 3D software.

Damn. Good post.

As has been noted by more than a few people here and elsewhere, I tend to err more to the "let's just shut up and be nice" side of things.

Call it upbringing or something, my good, polite Christian mom taught me to do what you believe and believe what you want, and when your mouth opens, say something kind. I take a lot of pride in knowing that our community has had quite a long conversation back and forth across the issues without being unkind, so I'm comfortable reading and enjoying the arguments back and forth.

In terms of aggressive participation, I've lost interest in the aforementioned taboo conversation topics. I have a huge interest in the subjects at hand - but not in the form the conversations usually take, after years and years of having them.

There was a time when I was actively trying to convince Dorkman of the fallacies I found in his Christianity. In a long, unrelated simmering down, I've gotten to the point where people can talk about just about any damned thing and I don't feel the need to respond.

But, for full disclosure and because it's the question at hand...

I'm an atheist, and a very strong one, according to these terms. The part of the conversation I've always been most interested seems to be something that occurs in a proof far back in the arguments back and forth about "God" and the Bible and whatnot, and that is essentially a boiling down of what I see as the real question.

"Do you think the mechanism that facilitated the creation of the Universe cares about us?"

There may be more elegant ways to put it, but frankly, I find this pretty elegant. It pre-questions most of the arguments I've heard.

The mechanism. God? A cosmically inevitable cycle of bouncing gravity? An alien race in desperate need of more space, creating universes left and right for some unfathomable reason?

Facilitated. Through existence allowed or caused the universe to be created. God made it? The universe simply does this? Aliens artificially induced it?

Cares. Comes before all questions of worship, assuming knowledge in the first place. (The only leaping of a conclusion I detect in my sentence.) If God, or a God, did it, were we part of whatever he/they were doing, or a side-effect? If it's an eventuality of cosmic existence and the Drake equation, naturally there's not much of a question. If alien creatures are to blame, does whatever their plan happens to be preclude the existence of little ants mulling around on a rock within it?

It also has the effect of pouring water on the debate, and cools me down when I want to start nitpicking Bible verses. I sort of reject the premise of the Bible entirely, because it absolutely doesn't matter. An intelligent, spiritually active creator is what matters, and only insofar as it's one of many available possibilities. And as it's the keystone of major religions throughout history, not just modern ones, I'd say it's the safest representative of human interpretation in general.

What interests me is that the notion keeps happening - or at least, kept happening, until at least two thousand years ago - not whatever the fuck someone in one particular year in history believes.

I'm not intellectually opposed to some intelligent force creating the universe, that covers two of my basic three possibilities handily. The thing that strikes me as extremely unlikely is that anything responsible for creating a universe, and think about the term universe, cares at all about the various conglomerations of carbon extremely rarely scattered around within it.

Another great, articulate post. (That I happen to wholly disagree with.) In any case, serious thanks are in order for having this conversation here and for putting up with our crazy atheist bullshit on the show and on the forum.

That being said, it would be unfair for me to not admit that I greatly look forward to Mike's response and the continuation of this conversation.

Great post, thanks for sharing.

As to your last two paragraphs, because I have no reason to think "God"* exists (neither do you, since as mortal beings we all have the same evidence to look at and critique), I'd chalk what you experienced up to your friend having a hunch, and your faith acting as a placebo.  (Perhaps intensified due to your great pain and lessened coherence.) Presumably afterward you followed up on the matter medically, and it hasn't been a problem since.

*I use quotation marks not to be a dick, but to imply that I mean a persona specifically and not some general flow of energy and hormones, intuition, and probability.

What just happened? It's a tie.

Because I understand the enthusiasm of the yes-es, I'd be interested to hear the reasoning of some of the no's. The only viewpoint I've heard to approach that angle is this one, which I do understand. Is this your feeling?
_____________________________

Kyle Mattingly: I don't know if this is representative of the rest of the fan feedback, but as a rule I'd rather hear you, Dorkman, Trey, and Brian than lose one of you, even if you scooped Peter Jackson for your LOTR commentary or something.

ieatyouremo: really?

Kyle Mattingly: Serge and the guy you got for Orgazmo and all that... that's cool, but personally I find myself sitting there going "I really want to hear what Dorkman has to say about this.

Kyle Mattingly: Friends in my head, man.

Kyle Mattingly: I'd rather hear the crew talk about Star Trek than lose two of you to accommodate Shatner and Nimoy.

Kyle Mattingly: Don't get me wrong, I know it does wonders for your podcast to book a "name" on the show, trust me I get that. But it's kinda like wrestling- sure, you can bring in 500 fans if you pay a famous guy 3 grand to show up, but next month when there's no names your regular crew's going to be working in front of 30 people. The ultimate goal is to make the audience emotionally bond with the regulars to the point where they don't care if the 3 grand guy is there so much. You guys have, at least with this particular mark, accomplished that.

Kyle Mattingly: Probably because you all fill a very specific role, whether you noticed or not.

ieatyouremo: to the first: yeah. see what you're saying.

Kyle Mattingly: Dorkman is right about everything, knows what he's talking about, and always has a viewpoint that you never considered before ever. Trey is sarcastic and awesome and old and snorted coke out of model's assholes and brings an old school perspective. Finifter... god fucking bless the boy, he's got more genuine youthful love and enthusiasm for the movies.

ieatyouremo: ROFL

Kyle Mattingly: Trey is Egon, Dorkman is Ray, Brian is the black guy.

ieatyouremo: that makes me bill murray.

Kyle Mattingly: Sir.

Kyle Mattingly: Nobody is Bill Murray.

Kyle Mattingly: You're Venkman if he'd been played by David Spade.

Jeffery, it would be. Then again, so far, the results are overwhelming. So it looks like a no as yet.

I never got the vibe that she didn't believe in god as a result of her dad dying. I don't see how they're related.

We just recorded a kick ass commentary for this with Ryan, Dorkman and Brian.

You can't wait for this episode.

(But you will.)