Husband, father | AI, software engineering, investing, homeschooling, fitness, theology

Joined July 2012
The Platonists were right and were always right.
Replying to @SecondChanceGme
Every single idea you can type out already exists in mathematical space. This can be proven right now. Go type it in, type in anything, you will get an exact location of where it is located in the library of babel If you're not trolling, you'll spend the rest of the day learning how this works mathematically. If you are trolling, carry on, only helps my engagement. libraryofbabel.info/search.h…
9
Very glad to stumble on this. Retrocausality hasn’t been tapped enough even though it can explain the mechanics of many odd things in Scripture. What Jesus did on Mt Tabor was an example. I like to think he did it to drop us a hermeneutical key.
Adam sinned outside of space and time. Before the Fall Death never existed; after the Fall Death has always existed. I am using the terms “before” and “after” very loosely here
1
1
108
how can you not believe in God when octopuses DREAM and otters have a favorite rock they carry around in a little SKIN POCKET and cows have BEST FRIENDS and bees are out there communicating the coordinates of flowers through INTERPRETIVE DANCE and they have REGIONAL DIALECTS?? cats are PURRING at frequencies associated with bone healing??? forests get absolutely incinerated and respond by growing FLOWERS??? dolphins literally invent NAMES for themselves and yell them across the ocean??? penguins are waddling around Antarctica looking for the PERFECT LITTLE ROCK to give their beloved??? CROWS REMEMBER YOUR FACE. THEY TELL OTHER CROWS ABOUT YOU. THEY TELL THEIR CHILDREN ABOUT YOU. YOU CAN HAVE GENERATIONAL BEEF WITH A BIRD. goats have ACCENTS. rats GIGGLE when you tickle them. elephants mourn their dead. whales make SONGS and then OTHER WHALES LEARN THE SONG and suddenly everybody across the ocean is singing the new hit single. monarch butterflies are born knowing how to fly thousands of miles to a place THEY HAVE NEVER BEEN. sea turtles hatch out of an egg, immediately sprint toward an OCEAN they have never seen, disappear into it for like THIRTY YEARS and then somehow come back to THE SAME BEACH??? birds can see COLORS THAT WE CANNOT SEE. there are colors happening RIGHT NOW that we don’t even get to know about. there are sea slugs that eat algae and STEAL ITS CHLOROPLASTS and then are just like great thanks I’ll be PHOTOSYNTHESIZING NOW. there are mushrooms communicating underground. there are seeds sitting in the dirt for DECADES like no actually I will wait. squirrels plant MILLIONS OF TREES because they simply cannot remember where they put their snacks. A CATERPILLAR GOES INTO A LITTLE BAG, DISSOLVES MOST OF ITS BODY INTO ORGANIC SOUP, REARRANGES ITSELF, GROWS WINGS AND LEAVES. and you’re telling me a tiny acorn knows how to become a 70-foot oak tree??? nobody tells it what to do??? it just has TREE INSTRUCTIONS INSIDE IT??? your body started as ONE CELL. ONE. and that cell divided itself into a brain that can think about its own existence and eyes that can look at stars and hands that can hold somebody else’s hands and a heart that runs on ELECTRICITY without you even asking it to??? the iron in your BLOOD was made inside a STAR. I’M SORRY????? we are walking around on a wet rock covered in bioluminescent oceans and singing whales and laughing rats and birds holding lifelong grudges and flowers exploding out of FIRE and somehow we’re supposed to act like this is a normal place to live?????????
how can you not believe in God when octopuses dream, otters have a favorite shell that they carry all their lives, cows have best friends, bees have different "dialects" of dance depending on the region, cats purr at a frequency that accelerates bone healing, the forest grows flowers first after a fire, dolphins give each other names and respond to them, penguins make proposals by giving each other the most beautiful pebble, crows will tell their children about you, goats have accents, rats giggle when you tickle them, sea slugs become powered by the sun just by green algae and squirrels plant millions of trees every year just by forgetting where they've buried their nuts!
672
7,357
651
33,768
1,157,590
We allow kids to take hundreds or thousands of reps in sports before we expect them to perform well. Kids need reps at 'life,' too. Those are stories, or simulations. Traditionally you gave them reps via books, but increasingly video games are about as effective.
my contrarian take is that playing video games when you are younger will become *even more* important to longterm success than it has been up to this point i don't mean firing up CoD or Smash Brothers (though still much, MUCH better than scrolling TikTok / Instagram) but rather, i mean games which force you to make deeply impactful decisions (strategy games, RPGs, etc.) simply possessing high levels of intelligence will no longer be as valuable as it was before what becomes more valuable is having excellent judgement. while they may look like child's-play, many video games should instead be considered as "simulations" of real world and imagined situations having diverse experience making good decisions with incomplete information is the rudiment of good judgement you can and should get this from real world activities as well (participating in social activities, clubs, etc.), but simulations can be a very powerful supplement
1
1
209
Playing video games can be healthier than mindlessly scrolling or watching Netflix slop while teaching valuable life skills.
Frequent video gamers performed on cognitive tests like non-gamers that were ~13.7 years younger
90
464
37
5,989
483,537
I have come to Christianity piecemeal, by stages, in slow and incremental changes over the years. First it was accepting there was a moral framework to the universe and one had to follow it if they wanted a chance of success. Then it was the laughing truce I made with a God I didn't believe in who told me to pour whiskey down the sink as a menial sacrifice, and as a result I gave him permission to completely transform me. Then coming to accept God was real. Then pursuing the truth of Jesus because I could no longer ignore how I saw the result of his truth shining everywhere. And I don't completely understand why, but the closer my life resembles that of a Christian, the happier I become. In many ways my life is more difficult. It's heavier. To be a Christian is to take on the burdens of the responsibilities that have been laid out for you by reality itself. Yet in a seeming paradox, accepting this burden has also made me free. I no longer have to flounder in the confused dark of my stupid choices, stubbornly refusing a gift freely offered. I am happy. And I am free.
46
89
8
1,088
16,381
3
119
1,276
10,248
“In my misery I kept crying - How long shall I go on saying tomorrow, tomorrow why not now? Why not make an end of my ugly sins at this moment.” —Saint Augustine, The Confessions
22
1,044
39
7,198
85,678
One of my all time favorite quotes
18
248
18
1,902
32,845
Peter Brown's summary of one of the recently-discovered letters of Augustine: "we find Augustine, at the age of seventy-three (only three years before his death), interviewing a terrified country girl who described how her farm had been raided by slave traders. The poor child could not even speak Latin - only Punic. Her older brother translated for her. This was part of a dogged attempt by Augustine and his congregation to break a ring of slave-traders who operated (with the full protection of local bigwigs), out of the port of Hippo."
25
243
24
2,028
168,899
Kern retweeted
keep your eyes fixed on Christ and let the world rage around you
2
409
4
4,739
44,002
"We must, then, avoid the 'Babel syndrome,' namely the idolatry of profit that sacrifices the weak, a uniformity that neutralizes differences, and the pretense that a single language — even a digital one — can translate everything, including the mystery of the person, into data and performance."
39
9,678
318
51,868
737,900
As evidenced by the unbridled promotion and implementation of technology at the expense of human dignity, we are truly experiencing an eclipse of the sense of what it means to be human. It is imperative to recover an understanding of the true meaning and grandeur of humanity as intended by God. It is in this sense that the challenge we currently face is not technological, but anthropological, and it is my hope that the Encyclical Letter to be published within a few days will contribute to answering this challenge.
1,025
4,751
518
25,609
1,323,927
If your marriage is like this, your perfection will rival the holiest of monks. “Never speak to your wife in a mundane way but with compliments, with respect and with much love. Tell her that you love her more than your own life, because this present life is nothing, and that your only hope is that the two of you pass through this life in such a way that in the world to come, you will be united in perfect love. Say to her, ‘Our time here is brief and fleeting, but if we are pleasing to God, we can exchange this life for the Kingdom to come. Then we will be perfectly one both with Christ and with each other, and our pleasure will know no bounds. I value your love above all things, and nothing would be so bitter or painful to me as our being at odds with each other. Even if I lose everything, any affliction is tolerable if you will be true to me.’ Show her that you value her company, and prefer being at home to being out at the marketplace. Esteem her in the presence of your friends and children. Praise and show admiration for her good acts; and if she ever does anything foolish, advise her patiently. Pray together at home and go to Church; when you come back home, let each ask the other the meaning of the readings and the prayers. If your marriage is like this, your perfection will rival the holiest of monks.” St John Chrysostom
34
341
19
2,231
59,749
When you condemn a fallen man, you condemn God Himself. If you see a robber, a prostitute, or a drunkard lying in the street, do not judge them, for the Lord has allowed their passions. Perhaps this is how they must find their way to God, so they may humble themselves, see their own weakness, know God, and repent. Are you virtuous? That is only because God is restraining your passions. If He were to loosen His hold on you, you might fall into even greater sins and perish. ~ St. Gabriel (Urgebadze) of Georgia
52
643
30
3,648
77,153
In the light of #Easter, let us allow ourselves to be amazed by Christ! Let us allow our hearts to be transformed by his immense love for us! Let those who have weapons lay them down! Let those who have the power to unleash wars choose peace! Not a peace imposed by force, but through dialogue! Not with the desire to dominate others, but to encounter them!
730
6,067
238
31,802
762,428
"We need Jesus - whether on Earth or circling the Moon." -- Victor Glover, Pilot of Artemis II
374
4,648
253
31,699
504,486
A cutting reflection from Cardinal Ratzinger, Good Friday 2005: "Pilate is not utterly evil. He knows that the condemned man is innocent, and he looks for a way to free him. But his heart is divided. And in the end he lets his own position, his own self-interest, prevail over what is right. Nor are the men who are shouting and demanding the death of Jesus utterly evil. Many of them, on the day of Pentecost, will feel "cut to the heart," when Peter will say to them: "Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God... you crucified and killed by the hands of those outside the law." But at that moment they are caught up in the crowd. They are shouting because everyone else is shouting, and they are shouting the same thing that everyone else is shouting. And in this way, justice is trampled underfoot by weakness, cowardice and fear of the diktat of the ruling mindset. The quiet voice of conscience is drowned out by the cries of the crowd. Evil draws its power from indecision and concern for what other people think."
303
4,225
385
18,569
887,554
St. Joseph is honored as having the happiest of deaths, departing this life in the arms of Jesus and Mary.
41
624
10
5,927
52,063