You just look stupid when you resort to that "Hey gang... isn't this guy stupid?" tactic. Either try to add to the post with real substance or just sit this one out.
I think we have all moved on from this sort of thing.



*cue all the supporting accounts*

Are you for real? Are you seriously defending the intellectual foundation of this statement:

The Theory of the Big and Little Dipper?!?

The reason this got kicked out of the SMP forum is because you couldn't get anyone to take such an assinine statement seriously. This is beyond the topics of God, Religion, and Theology. You guys should start your own forum for the willfully gullible and ignorant. You guys could talk dumb to each other all day long without bothering others.

Wow... here's an idea....just going to toss this out there... how about you ask the "originator of said thread" to clarify their point if you don't understand it...or you could just continue to post things like this.

Lestat, the fact that you’re trying to demean my post by diverting attention to the way I worded it just encourages me to suspect that you can’t come up with a better way to answer it.

keep telling yourself that

come on everyone, let's play nice.

Pretty sure this shows that you know exactly where I'm coming from.

If you don't believe me, you can search through all of my posts and see for yourself that it takes an incredible amount of talking to walls before I resort to name calling. In the case of Big Erf and Joey Diamonds I'm at a complete loss for anything else to say. So my bad. I probably shouldn't say anthing.

The short bus?

Hopey, you do have a gift that makes me smile.

You think like a great philosopher:

Kant

Not surprising no one in the (ha ha) philosophy forum noticed it.

He does that often.

I'm pretty sure the substance of the answer to your problem has been clearly stated by a few posters, but in case it was unclear through the insults* the answer is: with so many stars visible with varying intensities of light, it would be odd if there were NO patterns to be viewed from the angle we have on earth.

What I find interesting about the constellations is the fact that anyone considers them interesting. As someone pointed out, it is fun in the sense of a game I can play with my son to find figures, such as we might do with the clouds, but at the end of it what we are doing is just connecting a select number of particularly bright dots in relatively arbitrary manners.

Joey I think you are exactly right that the expanse of the universe shows how insignificant we really are. Most atheists would agree 100% with you. Doubt many theists would though.





*why do you guys always need to throw insults so we can waste a dozen replies talking about the insults?

Really?

Maybe you have been around a different type of theist than I have. Most every theist I know feels that we are very insignificant. Not in a manner that God doesn't care about us...but just that when it comes to the billions of people who will walk the Earth and the fact that we will each individually occupy a spot on the planet for around 88.5 years on an eternal time line... maybe that's why God doesn't answer every prayer we make.

You're right, I haven't many of those types, the ones I've spoken to and the ones I see on this site I believe consider humans to be the pinacle of God's plan, that God loves each and every one of us, and many believe the have a personal connection to that god.

God can love each and every one and someone can have a personal connection to God.... but each individual is still insignificant in the grand scheme of things.

If God orchestrates the grand scheme of things, and God loves, has a personal relationship with, and interacts with, favours, and endeovors to bring to his bosom, humans, then I don't see how humans can be considered to be insignificant in that framework.

Seriously?

I think you may be confusing "humans" with a human.
I'm speaking about you...one person.... one human out of billions and billions on this planet.

If the humans on our planet are the primarily focus of God's love., then each individual human is measurably more significant than any of the gazillions and bajillions of living things on this planet and even more so vis a vis anything found in the rest of the billions upon billions of planets, etc. out there that are represented by the stars which provide them with light (which you look at to figure out how insignificant you are).

maybe insignificant to *you*, but to an Omni3 God that apparently knows how many hairs there are on my head, cares about the salvation of *every single person*, cares about the sins of an individual, then I would say that theists don't think they, as an individual, or insignificant to God. Saying that humans, on an individual basis, or insignificant to God, is basically an insult to God, and in particular, Jesus.

Unless another few Christians on this board speaks up and agrees with you, I'm just going to assume that your view is held by a minority of Christians, which includes you and your group of friends.

Ahhhh...but now you are assuming that we (humans on Earth) are the only ones.

I assume nothing of the sort. We're talking about the theist point of view particularly the judeo-christian model.

Again, check my previous posts. I really don't. It's only when logic repeatedly fails to penetrate thick one way myopic thinking.

I'm not even sure what your question is Erf. Is it do the stars make me wonder? The answer is, yes. But in my case, it is genuine wonder. Do you even have to wonder at all? I thought you already know the answers to everything. It's god, right? So what's left for YOU to wonder about?

As Dying Actors astutely points out, it would be miraculous if the stars did not create some patterns in the sky! What is it about 7 stars lining up in such a way from our view on earth that you find so baffling?

you realize that in 50,000 years from now, the big dipper will look very different, right? 50,000 years previously it looked different as well. Human kind has mapped out patterns in the stars for as long as history has been recorded. It's what we do. We seek patterns. We see lions, fish, and virgins in the stars. People depended on these stars to survive. They told them when to plant their crops, when to prepare for winter, which way to go, etc.

The bottom line is, we both look up and wonder. My wonder is genuine. I don't know what yours is, if you feel you already have the answer in god.

There's something about the Little Dipper that seems out of place. You have to see it on a clear night for yourself, not a picture of it. I'm sure every one of us has looked at it before but the next chance you get, do it again. But this time look at it compared to the rest of the stars. The Little Dipper is eerily in form.

You know how my mind works, I believe God, through my imagination, places thoughts and circumstances for me to recognize and build from. TBH when I first made this thread it was to **** with Zeno, but then I thought it was interesting some of the replies that were given. The next night I went out I happened to see the BD again and I remembered this thread and what I was told. I didn't necessarily believe the BD was random but I was willing to go with it.. and then I saw the LD. The Little Dipper!!!! Oh yeah!!!! How come I never thought about the LD????

If I can use creative explaining I'll say that God waited for this thread to take form before showing me the LD. BECAUSE THE LITTLE DIPPER MAKES THE BIG DIPPER THAT MUCH MORE UNLIKELY TO BE RANDOM. Here we have the entire universe and within an inch or two of eye movement is two clusters that take the same form, almost in a creative "notice me" way. So that's what I did, and that's what I do, I notice things.

And I'll tell you what, I ain't budgin' on this one. This one's too cool to be swayed from and I'd be willing to bet you all felt the same way at one point, until of course you talked yourself out of it.