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I like it better than the last one

It's good, but I don't see the need with the discussion thread

It's not going to go anywhere good, just lock it now.

[TD1]

Not what I said. I said physically tap someone on the shoulder. He can't physically personally tap them all if he's physically in one place.

[Frumple]

... really going too far into the discussion bit.

Besides, you're not thinking with portals, Dwarf. Something like that can be done with Pun Pun -- and if rules-based omnipotence can manage "tap everyone in existence on the shoulder" freeform omnipotence definitely can. Stick finger through portal that superpositions finger behind everyone's shoulder, then tap. That stuff's easy.

[TD1]

So the omnipotent God needs to work with a portal? So, without first creating a portal he couldn't do it?

Then that's still something he can't do.

[Frumple]

... yes, it could obviously bypass the portal as well. Just... tap. Portal would just be more fun -- wiggly fingers everywhere.

[Helgoland]

Heh, there's an easy answer to that sort of paradox:

Why would an omnipotent god be bound by logic? He created logic as well, after all.

[TD1]

That, or you could just say he's not physical if he does exist, because to be physical is to have limitations. You can say "but God made logic!" but what exactly do you mean by that? It takes any meaning away from claiming he is physical if he can do things which are physically impossible.

[Arcvasti]

Why doesn't religion ever bring humanity forward?

Why can't religion, generally, a profession of truth, ever invent the car, or find reliable means to cure the sick?

What good is there being a God, if it just means hovel in mud is good enough?

There is a quote I've heard[Perhaps mistakenly? You never know.] heard attributed to Albert Einstein:

Religion without Science is lame, Science without Religion is blind

And besides, that is a wildly inaccurate generalization. Islam, for example, was the force that allowed us to make great advances in astronomy and other sciences. We still use the Arabic system of numerals today. A monk planting beans discovered the basic principles of evolution and genetics. Monasteries copying down ancient books helped Europe rise from the Dark Ages. The Church provided basic education[Of mildly questionable quality] to a previously unlearned populace. The cosmological model of the Big Bang was first postulated by a Catholic Priest. The list goes on.

EDIT: Unless the rules for the thread have turned completely upside down while I wasn't looking, freeform discussion of the kind which is taking place is not permitted. Stop.

[Owlbread]

As a former Calvinist (United Free Church of Scotland/Church of Scotland) I am willing to answer questions myself, though I don't know if Playergamer would also be a Calvinist Presbyterian. I also have Catholic, Anglican, Baptist and Scottish Episcopal relatives, one of whom was a nun. I don't believe in God now of course but I don't think that's really relevant.

[i2amroy]

Edit: Redacted, just realized this isn't the religion freeform discussion thread. My apologies.

[LordBucket]

11. You ARE permitted to answer a question directed at another person IF AND ONLY IF
the question asks about your religion and denomination

Given the "reader of esoteric texts" nature of my signup in this thread and the very general nature of the followingquestion, I think I qualify to answer it under the above.

Why doesn't religion ever bring humanity forward?

Where is it in any religious text if P equals nP?

There do exist examples of what you're asking for, but you generally have to look outside of Abrahamic religious texts to find them.  There are hindu texts, for example,that generally encourage humanity to explore technology, harness lightning, build airships, etc. and contain descriptions of gravity, the solar system, atoms, etc.

A few examples:

Yajur Veda
(Yajur-veda 6.21)
   "Through astronomy, geography, and geology, go thou to all the different countries of the world under the sun. Mayest thou attain through good preaching to statesmanship and artisanship, through medical science obtain knowledge of all medicinal plants, through hydrostatics learn the different uses of water, through electricity understand the working of ever lustrous lightening. Carry out my instructions willingly."

(Yajur Veda, 10.19)
   "O royal skilled engineer, construct sea-boats, propelled on water by our experts, and airplanes, moving and flying upward, after the clouds that reside in the mid-region, that fly as the boats move on the sea, that fly high over and below the watery clouds. Be thou, thereby, prosperous in this world created by the Omnipresent God, and flier in both air and lightening."

Aitareya Brahmana
(Aitareya Brahmana 3.44)
   "“The Sun does never set nor rise. When people think the Sun is setting it is not so. For after having arrived at the end of the day it makes itself produce two opposite effects, making night to what is below and day to what is on the other side. Having reached the end of the night, it makes itself produce two opposite effects, making day to what is below and night to what is on the other side. In fact, the Sun never sets.”

means to cure the sick?

how to preserve meat for the winter.

There are lots of instructions for this sort of thing in a wide variety of religious texts. Jewish texts, for example, contain a massive list of rules concerning hygiene, food preparataion, human waste disposal and sanitation in general. The koran forbids muslims from eating pork and carrion because it's "unclean". A large portion of the kama sutra, which most people seem to think is just a list of sex positions, actually has to do with sanitation and how to avoid disease.

A lot of modern science, especially chemistry, astronomy and medicine all have roots in religion.

[Helgoland]

A text that is thousands of years old explicitly mentioning electricity? Excuse my scepticism, but how?

[scrdest]

A text that is thousands of years old explicitly mentioning electricity? Excuse my scepticism, but how?

I suspect the ancient magic of 'modern translation work' is functioning here.

I call bullshit on claiming it's religiously-inspired - science is, and always was, rooted primarily in observation. And those observations have nothing to do with religion - they were simply assimilated from the lore with a made-up, unrelated explaination as to their cause.

Granted, they *are* specific instruction that are applicable with positive net effect, which is what the original question is about, but claiming that religion, specifically, is the basis for those in and of itself is just plain wrong.

Doubly so if you consider the fact that early modern medicine, heavily utilizing herblore, was using the knowledge of people who worked nearly perfectly outside the religious establishment and were, at best, barely tolerated.

[Helgoland]

Gonna have to call bullshit on that last one: Modern medicine was all about vaccinations and such, and less about what old women brewed together.
With pharmacology it's a different story though.

[LordBucket]

A text that is thousands of years old explicitly mentioning electricity? Excuse my scepticism, but how?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity#History

The greeks were aware of electricity because of electric eels as far back as 2750 BC. Thales of Miletus was conducting experiments with both static electricity and magnets in ~600 BC, and was aware that electricity could be made to arc. Remember that the word 'electron' comes from the greek word for amber and that early atomic theory dates back to ~400 BC. The Parthian Batteries are basically Leyden jars, and they've been dug up and estimated to come from 250-200 BC. Though it's controversial whether they were deliberately made for the purpose of generating current or just "accidentally" happened to do so, but it's well established that electricity and magnetism had both been known phenomena for hundreds of years by that time.

As for the vedic reference, I don't read sanskrit, but here's the original text of the Yajur Veda if you want it.

[LordBucket]

I call bullshit on claiming it's religiously-inspired - science is, and always was, rooted primarily in observation. And those observations
have nothing to do with religion - they were simply assimilated from the lore with a made-up, unrelated explaination as to their cause.

claiming that religion, specifically, is the basis for those in and of itself is just plain wrong.

Modern chemistry evolved from alchemy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_chemistry

The original Hippocratic Oath taken by doctors contain invocations to Apollo and various other divinities:

"I swear by Apollo the physician, and Aesculapius the surgeon, likewise Hygeia and Panacea, and call all the gods and goddesses to witness, that I will observe and keep this underwritten oath, to the utmost of my power and judgment."

Astronomy has very deep roots in religion:
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_astronomy
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronomy_and_religion

Remember that the names we use for planets even today come greek gods. Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn...and in most cases the actual naming was so far back into prehistory that nobody actually knows where the names came from. Mars was being actively observed in the second millenium BC.

The earliest doctors were shaman. Isaac Newton, sometimes considered the "father of modern physics" was an alchemist who attributed the motion of the planets to god. And both the sun and moon have been gods or goddess to nearly every culture in the world. Even the formal names for the sun and moon come from this:

 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sol_(mythology)
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luna_(goddess)

Why do you think ancient civilizations were tracking celestial bodies? Why do you the word itself celestial means both:

"positioned in or relating to the sky, or outer space as observed in astronomy.
synonyms:   (in) space, heavenly, astronomical, extraterrestrial, stellar, astral, planetary

belonging or relating to heaven.
synonyms:   heavenly, holy, saintly, divine, godly, godlike, ethereal, otherworldly

(And speaking of Celestial, I suppose now would be a good time for a shout out to our favorite horse goddess on the left. Oh, the things you can sneak past the censors by being clever about it.)

Anyway, point being, science and religion have been married for a considerable portion of human history. Sometimes the guy looking up at all the lights in sky worshiped them, sometimes he watched and measured their motion and sometimes he did both.