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This subject is always pleasant to contemplate, for its power to suggest something of grandeur and perspective, apart from anything else. I proposed a few months back in another thread that an advanced artificial intelligence might fit the description of an undying and untroubled divinity figure. And other figures present themselves for consideration. There is in Utah, for instance, a clonal colony of a single quaking aspen tree, called Pando (I spread out, in Latin) all sharing one individual's…

In the main I don't think I find fault with those objections, Hiram; and at any rate, the value in such beings is not in their being, per se, but in the human frame of mind that allows for their being. I, like Godfrey, am an atheist as I understand the term. I deny the existence of the God of theism, since by definition that God is creative and supernatural (an impossibility), intercessory (a contradiction with lived experience), and revelatory (a gross offense against the intellect of the commo…

Not "autharton" but "aphtharton". Incorruptible turns up in most entries, but so does immortal. In the New Testament the adjective is applied to God.

Well as for Joseph Smith, he was living (and composing, to select a term advisedly) in the period during which it was generally suspected that the other immediate planets of the solar system might harbor life. Astronomy was sufficiently advanced by then to know what a planet was, but not advanced enough to know about what Mars and Venus were really like on their surfaces. This is the century that gave birth to science fiction (Jules Verne, H. G. Wells, Mary Shelley)—unless we count Lucian and hi…

PD 1 employs "aphtharton", as mentioned above. Perhaps this is Epicurus' preferred word when describing gods? Vatican saying 78 uses "athanaton", speaking of immortal good. The Letter to Menoeceus uses "athanatois", a slight variation of the same word. This change reflects the agreement of the word with the plural "agathois" (goods). "Agathon", singular, is used in the previous formulation. Both relevant words, aphtharton and athanaton, are formed by prefixing the word stem with the negation "a-…

"Known for telling tall tales"... Also known for multiple fraud convictions in Ohio and upstate New York 😁. http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/2003JRASC..97..158Z There's a good article on 19th century astronomy and the "extra-terrestrial" problem. And one of my favorite Thoreau quotes is relevant; (Quote)