# God and Life **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 26, 2018, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-and-life/813192 "2018-04-26T22:27:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 13
**Author:** ![Grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2018, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-and-life/813192/241 "2018-05-04T15:34:00Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > If there was no stuff, would that mean there was no god? What good is a god without stuff? And by that logic, did stuff itself create god, since it would not have existed before there was stuff? Have you seen stuff? It gets everywhere. šŸ™‚ ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2018, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-and-life/813192/242 "2018-05-04T15:42:07Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Theyā€™ve run out of places to hide their gods, so now they claim their gods are disguised as emotions and/or states of being. I canā€™t wait for the next volume of _Whereā€™s [del]Waldo[/del]God?_. But not before theyā€™re done with their abuse of popular scientific theories: Why is there God rather than No God? God out of nothing. Is absence of God inherently unstable? God abhors a vacuum. The Unified G-Theory. Fuck you Hitchens! Not so great now, are you?! ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2018, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-and-life/813192/243 "2018-05-04T16:11:46Z")
> [@Biffster](#): > > If you tell a really funny joke to an auditorium full of people and nobody laughs, does that mean the joke wasnā€™t actually funny? Not necessarily - perhaps they just didnā€™t hear you. TAP TAP TAP Is this thing on? > [@Biffster](#): > > Seems the communication takes place somewhere between the senderā€™s brain and the receiverā€™s brain, and it would seem a lot of it is in the delivery. Iā€™m not by the way suggesting telepathy is even possibleā€”maybe it is, maybe notā€”but every time we connect as people through language, like on this forum, we share a bit of ourselves. Whatā€™s the expression? Namaste. The spirit in me recognizes the spirit in you. And yes, it would be very cool to levitate cars. But maybe, say, only certain brands of cars, like KIAs. The power would be useless on Toyotas. Communication takes place when one personā€™s mind encodes some information/message in some form, which conveys it to the recipient, whose mind is able to decode that information/message _hopefully_ into a something vaguely resembling what the encoder intended. If the recipient is unable to receive or decode the message for whatever reason --the microphone wasnā€™t on, the speaker was mumbling, mĆ³wca mĆ³wił w innym języku, the speaker was trying to use the term ā€œGodā€ to mean ā€œa maybe-sentient telepathic forceā€ and everyone else understood the term to mean ā€œThorā€-- then communication will partially or entirely fail. There is no evidence whatsoever that there is any supplemental connection that conveys meaning above and beyond the encoded/decoded messages. If there _was_ such a connection then this thread probably wouldnā€™t be five pages long. ---
**Author:** ![Biffster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biffster/32/339_2.png) [@Biffster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffster)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2018, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-and-life/813192/244 "2018-05-04T19:24:03Z")
> [@Grey](#): > > All I get out of this is you defining ā€œgodā€ as the property shared by all existing things - the essence of existence. Since things exist there must be a god which gives them the property of existence. > > Sounds a lot like the Ontological argument for god. Good words. Why not. šŸ™‚ ---
**Author:** ![Biffster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biffster/32/339_2.png) [@Biffster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffster)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2018, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-and-life/813192/245 "2018-05-04T19:25:51Z")
> [@Grey](#): > > Have you seen stuff? It gets everywhere. šŸ™‚ Like sand. It gets everywhere. And it is Star Wars day today. ---
**Author:** ![Biffster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biffster/32/339_2.png) [@Biffster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffster)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2018, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-and-life/813192/246 "2018-05-04T19:32:57Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Not necessarily - perhaps they just didnā€™t hear you. TAP TAP TAP Is this thing on? > > Communication takes place when one personā€™s mind encodes some information/message in some form, which conveys it to the recipient, whose mind is able to decode that information/message _hopefully_ into a something vaguely resembling what the encoder intended. If the recipient is unable to receive or decode the message for whatever reason --the microphone wasnā€™t on, the speaker was mumbling, mĆ³wca mĆ³wi w innym jzyku, the speaker was trying to use the term ā€œGodā€ to mean ā€œa maybe-sentient telepathic forceā€ and everyone else understood the term to mean ā€œThorā€-- then communication will partially or entirely fail. > > There is no evidence whatsoever that there is any supplemental connection that conveys meaning above and beyond the encoded/decoded messages. If there _was_ such a connection then this thread probably wouldnā€™t be five pages long. Iā€™m not saying people donā€™t have their own separate independent experiences. Itā€™s just that at some point all of our individual experiences get shared with one another (a great many of them anyway) which becomes the sum total of human experience. We humans are actually pretty sophisticated in our language sharing abilities, and with books, movies and whatnot, a great deal of our human experience gets passed on from one generation to the next. Now that observation proves neither God nor Life, but it is pretty cool when you think about it. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2018, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-and-life/813192/247 "2018-05-04T19:50:13Z")
> [@Biffster](#): > > Iā€™m not saying people donā€™t have their own separate independent experiences. Itā€™s just that at some point all of our individual experiences get shared with one another (a great many of them anyway) which becomes the sum total of human experience. No, they do not. The vast majority of peopleā€™s experiences effect an extremely small proportion of the Earthā€™s population. > [@Biffster](#): > > We humans are actually pretty sophisticated in our language sharing abilities, and with books, movies and whatnot, a great deal of our human experience gets passed on from one generation to the next. Now that observation proves neither God nor Life, but it is pretty cool when you think about it. you seem to find a lot of things ā€œpretty coolā€ in this thread. Got anything to say directly about your unsupported proposition that ā€œGodā€ and ā€œLifeā€ are synonymous, now that people have given reasons why it doesnā€™t fly? ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2018, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-and-life/813192/248 "2018-05-04T20:40:00Z")
> [@Biffster](#): > > Iā€™m not saying people donā€™t have their own separate independent experiences. Itā€™s just that at some point all of our individual experiences get shared with one another (a great many of them anyway) which becomes the sum total of human experience. We humans are actually pretty sophisticated in our language sharing abilities, and with books, movies and whatnot, a great deal of our human experience gets passed on from one generation to the next. Now that observation proves neither God nor Life, but it is pretty cool when you think about it. I disagree that there is some supernatural mechanism that shares ā€œa great manyā€ of our personal experiences with other humans - if that were happening then it seems basically inevitable that some small percentage of this knowledge would have found its way into my brain and forced me to be aware of everybodyā€™s underwear sizes from all of history. (Yeah, Iā€™d get the underwear sizes. Thatā€™s how things generally go for me.) Because I have not been crammed full of underwear size knowledge, I can safely conclude that thereā€™s not a supernatural firehose piping the sum total of human knowledge back into individual people. Which is not to say that all human knowledge vanishes with death; as you note humanity has developed various cultural habits of retaining various kinds of accumulated knowledge, both passing them along directly via speaking to others or indirectly by writing stuff down. Thereā€™s nothing supernatural about this, though, and the only things retained are the encoded and transferred messages of communication. By all available evidence, no part of a personā€™s actual mind or personal identity persists after death. (Common sense supports this opinion as well - dead people _rot_. They just break down into generic unremarkable particles and in any individual sense just vanish.) But in any case thatā€™s what _reality_ does - Iā€™m actually curious about your _mythos_. Despite all the prior posts I still donā€™t understand it. Let me explain, and ask for clarification. As best I can tell you posit that humans all have souls or something which are composed of some sort of metaphysical matter - a substance which is not destroyed on death. (These souls are presumably stored in the appendix; people who have their appendixes removed are demons.) This substance records and retains something of human experience, and is capable of sharing these recorded experiences with others. It can do this while everybodyā€™s still alive, even, through telepathy/connectedness/wireless internet/whatever (ie: just telepathy), but also comes loose when people die to glom onto other soulstuff and transmit the recorded experiences directly. You call this soul substance, or at least the collected set of all such soul substance, capital-L-ā€œLifeā€, or ā€œGodā€. This is what Iā€™ve gotten from your posts. Am I close so far? In any case, questions. 1. You posit that having your Life/God/Soul part removed removes your life (by the identity property of puns, it seems), and thus if you had your soul removed would be immediately fatal. But does soul-stuff do anything for you beyond that? Is it an integral part of consciousness? Emotions? Memories? Sensations? Does your optic nerve require it to function? And of course the flipside of this is, how much work is left for the brain to handle? Does a person _need_ a brain? Could it be charitably donated to the zombie food bank? TL;DR: Is the soul your mind, or not? 1. Putting aside what Life does for you while itā€™s inside of you, does Life do anything else? Does it store knowledge independent of the knowledge stored in the minds all the individual people? (Like historical underwear sizes?) Does it have feelings independent of individual peopleā€™s minds? Does it have a _mind_ independent of other peopleā€™s minds? Is the collective pile of soulstuff have a conscious mind of its own? Is it an actual singular entity of its own? TL;DR: Is there a God? ---
**Author:** ![Biffster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biffster/32/339_2.png) [@Biffster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffster)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2018, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-and-life/813192/249 "2018-05-04T20:42:01Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > No, they do not. The vast majority of peopleā€™s experiences effect an extremely small proportion of the Earthā€™s population. you seem to find a lot of things ā€œpretty coolā€ in this thread. Got anything to say directly about your unsupported proposition that ā€œGodā€ and ā€œLifeā€ are synonymous, now that people have given reasons why it doesnā€™t fly? You seem to have a fixation on proving someone wrong. Why? What does it matter if their beliefs are different from yours? Iā€™m pretty comfortable with my beliefs, which Iā€™ve described to some extent here, whether anyone else shares them or not. And, like I said, if you want to find out more about this God=Life hypothesis, check out Neale Donald Walsch. Why? Because itā€™s pretty cool, thatā€™s why. ---
**Author:** ![Biffster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biffster/32/339_2.png) [@Biffster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffster)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2018, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-and-life/813192/250 "2018-05-04T20:48:50Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > I disagree that there is some supernatural mechanism that shares ā€œa great manyā€ of our personal experiences with other humans - if that were happening then it seems basically inevitable that some small percentage of this knowledge would have found its way into my brain and forced me to be aware of everybodyā€™s underwear sizes from all of history. (Yeah, Iā€™d get the underwear sizes. Thatā€™s how things generally go for me.) > > Because I have not been crammed full of underwear size knowledge, I can safely conclude that thereā€™s not a supernatural firehose piping the sum total of human knowledge back into individual people. > > Which is not to say that all human knowledge vanishes with death; as you note humanity has developed various cultural habits of retaining various kinds of accumulated knowledge, both passing them along directly via speaking to others or indirectly by writing stuff down. Thereā€™s nothing supernatural about this, though, and the only things retained are the encoded and transferred messages of communication. By all available evidence, no part of a personā€™s actual mind or personal identity persists after death. (Common sense supports this opinion as well - dead people _rot_. They just break down into generic unremarkable particles and in any individual sense just vanish.) > > But in any case thatā€™s what _reality_ does - Iā€™m actually curious about your _mythos_. Despite all the prior posts I still donā€™t understand it. Let me explain, and ask for clarification. > > As best I can tell you posit that humans all have souls or something which are composed of some sort of metaphysical matter - a substance which is not destroyed on death. (These souls are presumably stored in the appendix; people who have their appendixes removed are demons.) This substance records and retains something of human experience, and is capable of sharing these recorded experiences with others. It can do this while everybodyā€™s still alive, even, through telepathy/connectedness/wireless internet/whatever (ie: just telepathy), but also comes loose when people die to glom onto other soulstuff and transmit the recorded experiences directly. You call this soul substance, or at least the collected set of all such soul substance, capital-L-ā€œLifeā€, or ā€œGodā€. > > This is what Iā€™ve gotten from your posts. Am I close so far? > > In any case, questions. > > 1. You posit that having your Life/God/Soul part removed removes your life (by the identity property of puns, it seems), and thus if you had your soul removed would be immediately fatal. But does soul-stuff do anything for you beyond that? Is it an integral part of consciousness? Emotions? Memories? Sensations? Does your optic nerve require it to function? And of course the flipside of this is, how much work is left for the brain to handle? Does a person _need_ a brain? Could it be charitably donated to the zombie food bank? > > TL;DR: Is the soul your mind, or not? > > 1. Putting aside what Life does for you while itā€™s inside of you, does Life do anything else? Does it store knowledge independent of the knowledge stored in the minds all the individual people? (Like historical underwear sizes?) Does it have feelings independent of individual peopleā€™s minds? Does it have a _mind_ independent of other peopleā€™s minds? Is the collective pile of soulstuff have a conscious mind of its own? Is it an actual singular entity of its own? > > TL;DR: Is there a God? You ask great questions. Short answer: I donā€™t know. Longer answer: let me think about it and get back to you. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2018, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-and-life/813192/251 "2018-05-04T20:50:23Z")
> [@Biffster](#): > > You ask great questions. Short answer: I donā€™t know. Longer answer: let me think about it and get back to you. Sure, no hurry. I like a well-thought out answer almost as much as I rambling! šŸ™‚ ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2018, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-and-life/813192/252 "2018-05-04T21:29:00Z")
> [@Biffster](#): > > You seem to have a fixation on proving someone wrong. Why? What does it matter if their beliefs are different from yours? Look at the header image at the top of the page. Note the line below the large ā€œTHE STRAIGHT DOPE.ā€ This site attracts people interested in doing that. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2018, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-and-life/813192/253 "2018-05-04T21:31:00Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > Look at the header image at the top of the page. Note the line below the large ā€œTHE STRAIGHT DOPE.ā€ This site attracts people interested in doing that. Itā€™s easier to lure people into beartraps with honey than vinegar, though. Did I say that out loud? Whoops! šŸ˜› ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2018, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-and-life/813192/254 "2018-05-04T21:34:10Z")
> [@Biffster](#): > > You seem to have a fixation on proving someone wrong. Why? What does it matter if their beliefs are different from yours? Iā€™m pretty comfortable with my beliefs, which Iā€™ve described to some extent here, whether anyone else shares them or not. And, like I said, if you want to find out more about this God=Life hypothesis, check out Neale Donald Walsch. Why? Because itā€™s pretty cool, thatā€™s why. If what you want to do is ask questions you find interesting, eventually you will have to get used to the fact that the answer to some of those questions will be ā€œNoā€. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2018, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-and-life/813192/255 "2018-05-04T21:35:19Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Itā€™s easier to lure people into beartraps with honey than vinegar, though. > > Did I say that out loud? Whoops! šŸ˜› What is the purpose of this thread, again? ---
**Author:** ![Biffster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biffster/32/339_2.png) [@Biffster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffster)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2018, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-and-life/813192/256 "2018-05-04T22:07:19Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > Look at the header image at the top of the page. Note the line below the large ā€œTHE STRAIGHT DOPE.ā€ This site attracts people interested in doing that. Those things do not appear on my phone. Iā€™m using Tapatalk. Which illustrates once again why we canā€™t assume someone elseā€™s experience is the same as our own. ---
**Author:** ![Biffster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biffster/32/339_2.png) [@Biffster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffster)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2018, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-and-life/813192/257 "2018-05-04T22:08:34Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > If what you want to do is ask questions you find interesting, eventually you will have to get used to the fact that the answer to some of those questions will be ā€œNoā€. No problem. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2018, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-and-life/813192/258 "2018-05-04T22:12:32Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > What is the purpose of this thread, again? Iā€™ll just assume youā€™re asking seriously. This thread is witnessing. Maybe Iā€™m just an asshole, but I was under the impression that the social contract regarding witnessing is the witnesser gets to propose whatever ideas they want - and everybody else gets to respond however they like, up to and including debating it, refuting it, and blowing giant holes in it with a double-barreled shotgun (bland acceptance of the witnesserā€™s ideas is uncommon at best, in these parts). And because the witnesser basically asked for it, ripping into their ideas like this is somehow _not_ threadshitting. The only thing thatā€™s actually disallowed is personal insults - and usually shredding the personā€™s idea isnā€™t considered a personal insult. Iā€™d say itā€™s good clean fun for all, except that as often as not the witnessers themselves are unaware of how the game is played here and are surprised to find themselves getting ripped into. For myself Iā€™m entertained by strange ideas, as long as theyā€™re not boring - and to me this weird soul/god/telepathy business is not yet boring. Iā€™ll not be convinced, obviously, but Iā€™m having fun drawing explanations of this odd concept of him and seeing how well his ideas adapt to having their logical flaws pointed out. I do hope he doesnā€™t expect to _convert_ me or anything (and Iā€™ve tried to make it very clear nothing like that will happen), but as long as heā€™s enjoying the discussion (which he seemingly is) I donā€™t even feel like Iā€™m tweaking the guy. ---
**Author:** ![Biffster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biffster/32/339_2.png) [@Biffster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffster)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2018, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-and-life/813192/259 "2018-05-04T22:15:17Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > What is the purpose of this thread, again? I shared an excerpt from a book by Neale Donald Walsch that posits the possibility that God and Life are one and the same. Iā€™m looking at the characteristics of both abstract nouns, God and Life, to see what they might have in common that could make that hypothesis true. Some would rather dissect the semantics of the words themselves, which is fine, though not what I was hoping for. Each person comes at the theory with their own perspective. While I am quite happy to regard the God of my upbringing as obvious mythology (not that thereā€™s anything wrong with that), I am not quite ready to abandon the concept of God entirely. I believe God needs to be redefined to match with what I now believe. And this is my attempt to do that. You donā€™t have to believe the same way I do, but if you have read anything else by NDW, Iā€™d be interested to hear what you think about his philosophy. ---
**Author:** ![Biffster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biffster/32/339_2.png) [@Biffster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffster)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2018, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-and-life/813192/260 "2018-05-04T22:19:26Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Iā€™ll just assume youā€™re asking seriously. > > This thread is witnessing. > > Maybe Iā€™m just an asshole, but I was under the impression that the social contract regarding witnessing is the witnesser gets to propose whatever ideas they want - and everybody else gets to respond however they like, up to and including debating it, refuting it, and blowing giant holes in it with a double-barreled shotgun (bland acceptance of the witnesserā€™s ideas is uncommon at best, in these parts). And because the witnesser basically asked for it, ripping into their ideas like this is somehow _not_ threadshitting. The only thing thatā€™s actually disallowed is personal insults - and usually shredding the personā€™s idea isnā€™t considered a personal insult. > > Iā€™d say itā€™s good clean fun for all, except that as often as not the witnessers themselves are unaware of how the game is played here and are surprised to find themselves getting ripped into. > > For myself Iā€™m entertained by strange ideas, as long as theyā€™re not boring - and to me this weird soul/god/telepathy business is not yet boring. Iā€™ll not be convinced, obviously, but Iā€™m having fun drawing explanations of this odd concept of him and seeing how well his ideas adapt to having their logical flaws pointed out. I do hope he doesnā€™t expect to _convert_ me or anything (and Iā€™ve tried to make it very clear nothing like that will happen), but as long as heā€™s enjoying the discussion (which he seemingly is) I donā€™t even feel like Iā€™m tweaking the guy. The guy does not feel tweaked. Not yet anyway. šŸ˜‰ [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-and-life/813192.md?page=12) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/god-and-life/813192.md?page=14)