Serendipity and Your Life

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   qwarkposted 13 years ago

   Think about this:
   What are the odds against you having been born a "human being" and not a "dung beetle?"
   Having been born human is pure serendipity!
   "Fundies" will quote alota scripture on this one...:
   Qwark

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   1. 61

      qwarkposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Is "serendipity" too big a word to consider?
      Maybe it's just too controversial to think about?
      Or maybe the "fact" that the odds that we'd be born human just don't exist? or exist as a googolplex possibility?
      Qwark

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         kephriraposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         Or maybe it is just based on an assumption - that it would have been possible at all to be born as anything other than human - which not many people believe.

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            qwarkposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            Kephira;
            Elaborate on that pls...ty
            There are billions of species of life on this planet. Why do you think that the only possibility you and I are human is because there was no other possibility?
            Clear this up for me pls....ty
            Qwark

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               kephriraposted 13 years agoin reply to this

               Why do you think there could be more than one possibility? That would assume that we have an immortal soul, and that this immortal soul is capable of incarnating into any animal.
               
               To me, your question is like asking - why is this piece of toast I am eating a piece of toast and not a bagel?
               
               There is no reasonable answer to that because it is not a reasonable question. The question assumes that there was a point in time at which my snack could have been either toast or a bagel, and then something happened to make it toast. There was never such a point. It never could have been a bagel. I don't even have any bagels.

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                  qwarkposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                  Kephira:
                  The bagel/toast example doesn't make sense. :
                  Both were dough at one time. Someone decided which item that dough would become.
                  The "energy" (whatever it may have been) that existed as "you" before it became an egg or sperm, happened to be at the right time and place to have been part and parcel of both facets of human origination i.e. human sperm and ovum. That "energy," that dynamic, could have been part and parcel of the sperm and ovum of a "dung beetle."
                  A better example might be the inexplicable reason for the "Big Bang theory."
                  What are the "odds" against there being another "Big Bang?"
                  No one knows! The odds don't exist.
                  It's all "good fortune" i.e. "serendipity!
                  Qwark

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                     kephriraposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                     The toast and bagels weren't the best example, you're right. I was just eating toast at the time. Here's a better example: Pointing at a car and asking why it isn't a butternut squash, saying 'what are the chances that would be a car and not a butternut squash'. The chances are a 100%, because it just is a car and couldn't ever have been a buterrnut squash.
                     
                     The Big Bang one is a better question. But if we don't know the odds, we can't say it is good fortune that it happened, just that it may have been. For all we know the odds of the big bang happening were 100% - so it wasn't good fortune at all, it was innevitable. And as the only thing we really have to go on in assesing what those odds may have been is the fact that the big bang did happen, it would seem more likley that the big bang was either highly likely or innevitable than that it was a very unlikley thing and we just got incredibly lucky.
                     
                     I guess if you take everything - the universe being as it is, life coming about on earth, humanity evolving and so on then we got amazingly lucky to exist. If that was your point then I agree. But then everything else would have been just as lucky to exist as it does - I'm sure a dung beetle doesn't think it is so bad being a dung beetle.

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                        china manposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                        Sorry - your butternut squash and the car don't qualify - the squash is a living thing that started with a little bang , like humans, but the car is inanimate and so cannot have a soul at all.
                        
                        And the big bang may not have been fortunate at all - I mean all thos souls were quite happy out there in nowhere then they had to travel all that way and climb into some disgusting creature like a frog, or a vampire bat or one of the Bush family - or maybe even just lay there like a butternut squash - all hoping against hope that someone would come along with a particular edition among editions of a particular book among books that by all the forces of serependipity happened to be the one that contained those special words and then our poor little soul would be saved to watch all the other souls burn and get  tortured for eternity which is a very long time that was also a result of the big bang -

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                           qwarkposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                           China:
                           Hahaha...ok!  :
                           Qwark

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                     2. 61

                        qwarkposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                        Kephira:
                        Now ya got it!
                        It's all pure serendipity.
                        If ya like, just say: hmmm! I don't know. It just happened.
                        Qwark   :

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                           kephriraposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                           No, I think I was just overcome by a totally out of character wave of niceness and wanted to try to find common ground. I don't think its serendipity or luck at all - its just the way it is.

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                              qwarkposted 13 years agoin reply to this

                              keph:
                              Didn't I just say that?
                              " It just happened."
                              Qwark

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   About-The-Homeposted 13 years ago

   Is there a dung beetle out there wondering if he might possibly have been born human?

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   About-The-Homeposted 13 years ago

   Forgot to say. Serendipity is one of my favourite words !

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   1. 60

      kephriraposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      It does have a lovely sound to it doesn't it?

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      Uninvited Writerposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      Cute movie too

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   china manposted 13 years ago

   Maybe you are a dung beetle just dreaming of being a human ?
   
   The chances of you being you are the same as atoms of hydrogen and oxygen meeting up and it raining on your parade, it is a chain of cause and effect that starts (maybe) with the big bang, just like everything else.  If anyone thinks that things happen for them when coincidences arise then just think how many times this happens every time it rains.

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5. 88

   DzyMsLizzyposted 13 years ago

   Hmmm don't know--good question.
   
   Must ponder this--do the various beliefs in reincarnation allow for trans-species incarnations?
   
   Always something interesting to ponder.

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   Rochelle Frankposted 13 years ago

   If a dung beetle takes a bite out of a butternut squash, would it have preferred a bagel?

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      DzyMsLizzyposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      ROFL!  Good one, Rochelle!

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