Not having proof for magic doesn't mean the probability of magic existing is 50 %
Where are you pulling that from? I never said it was any probability at all, I said it was unknowable, which it is for scientific purposes. You're the one thats stating unproveable things concretely:
Technically you are correct. However, you seem to imply one should conclude the probability is 50-50. I would say it's about 1E-12 that magic doesn't exist. Thus I claim magic doesn't exist although I only have 99.9999999999 % certainty.
The correct stance for a scientist or empiricist is 'I have no way of knowing what, if anything, precedes or follows death.' Anything else is not based on known, proven data, and is thus not a valid rational position.
I can't offer any more concrete proof than you, but the difference is I am aware my beliefs are not all rational. Saying with certainty that nothing exists beyond death is as reasonable as saying there is a God.
From a logical standpoint, the correct empirical assertion would be : "I have no way of knowing what, if anything, precedes or follows death, so I can't concur the existence of something that would precede or follow death. Ergo, until proven otherwise, we can't attest that something, if anything, precedes of follows death."
The big problem here lies in the fact that you can't prove empirically that something doesn't exist. Beyond what we can experiment, there's nothing we can say, but purely speculatively. And that's the problem with speculative theories : you can't say they're wrong, but you can't say they're true either. Thus, all speculative theories have the same logical value. Maybe the Demogorgon really exist. Maybe there is a race of rare parrots that breathe fire. Maybe I'm just a brain in a tube only imagining all this situation. Maybe God exist and our soul lives on. Sadly, all those assertions possess the same exact logical value. Empirically, until proven otherwise, all these sentences are purely speculative.
However, I'm also a Thomas Kuhn reader, so I wouldn't argue if you would state that science does not work entirely in an empirical manner...
Former Catholic. Not currently so. But let me explain the logic. It is interesting (I think) from a scientific view, if nothing else.
Years ago, I read an idea — I don’t know if it’s even a hypothesis, let alone a theory — by Lee Smolin, a cosmologist, that can be boiled down to this.
Mathematically, a black hole is an event horizon that we can’t see past. Whatever happens inside a black hole is beyond our knowledge, because no information can get from that side of the event horizon to outside it. Escaping would require a velocity greater than the speed of light, which would require infinite energy or abandoning general relativity. However, the latest test of general relativity (involving the precesion of gyroscopes in the space shuttle) was accurate to 15 significant digits. That’s accurate to 1 in 100000000000000. So we can be pretty darn certain about event horizons, given the observational evidence. (Hawking radiation, observations of galactic cores, black ho,es in binary star systems, gravitational waves, etc.)
Mathematiclly, the big bang is an event horizon we can’t see past. Whatever happened outside the big bang, it would require information to reach us by going faster than the speed of light, given the rate that space has been created since then, to have reached the earth in the 13+ billion years since. All evidence points to the big bang model, though of course there are some very interesting questions, but no one has come anywhere near another idea that can explain the data.
Smolin’s idea is that, maybe, just maybe, a black hole is a universe’s way of making more universes. It’s an interesting idea. He presents some mathematical data to show how it might be. But no one has any idea how to test it, so it’s just an idea, for now.
So, given that, it got me to thinking. Let’s assume the universe was created by some entity. Be it God, The Great Magic Yak, a grad student running universe models on a simulator, whatever, let us suppose for a moment that this entity existed and created all we can detect. That would mean that, being the creator, this entity must have existed outside our universe, and likely before it (insofar as we can carry the concept of time back past the big bang). That being the case, how do we detect any information about the existence or non-existence of an entity past the event horizon? If you can come up with a testable idea, I and many others would love to hear it, but so far as I know, there is no test that has even been proposed.
So given all THAT, I am inclined to say that the question of the existence of a creator is beyond knowing. Any evidence to support or refute such an existence is beyond our detection; not due to limits of our biology, nor our technology, nor our intelligence, nor our imagination. It is simply not possible because of the laws of physics, ie, the way mass and energy behave and interact.
Of course, I could be wrong. Things like dark matter, dark energy, hyperinflation, the unexpected energy of the Higgs boson, etc etc etc, remind us that we are on the very frontier of human knowledge. The history of science has shown us that, many times that n the frontier, we’ve had to take our best models and throw them out when new data comes along. There’s no shame in that, of course, it just means we didn’t have as much to go on yesterday as we do today, that we are still making progress, and that there are still cool, strange, puzziling things to discover.
Unless, of course, our creator is lurking somewhere outside that event horizon, and therefore could still send information to us without breaking the laws of physics. Maybe s/he's wandering around outside right now, chasing butterflies and high as a kite.
For the record, I think most supernatural stuff is pure bunk, and it is indeed impossible to prove a negative. However, I do believe in God, so I am aware I'm not strictly rational.
Do I think we'll ever have definitive proof? Not until its pretty much too late to matter. I'm not expecting the end of times any time soon, unless you count climate change...
Last year I had three members of my family come down with cancers. Two died. I didn't have a huge family to begin with and it's smaller now.
If you live long enough people will start dying around you and you will see the tragedy of life - nothing is forever. None of us are getting out of here alive.
I guess we should look on the bright side of life and give a whistle
This thread reminds me of the Life of Brian song, 'Always Look on the Bright Side of Your Life'... I think thats one of the funniest moments in cinema. And I think there is some truth in it, the ugly kind that says 'I create so many of my own problems'.
Of course, if you're Christian that song is pointleas. You should hope to die in order to experience the afterlife. I find that a very disheartening concept.
Of course, if you're Christian that song is pointleas. You should hope to die in order to experience the afterlife. I find that a very disheartening concept.
Why would anyone HOPE to DIE? Short of a painful terminal disease?
For the record, I think most supernatural stuff is pure bunk, and it is indeed impossible to prove a negative. However, I do believe in God, so I am aware I'm not strictly rational.
Do I think we'll ever have definitive proof? Not until its pretty much too late to matter. I'm not expecting the end of times any time soon, unless you count climate change...
Preface: I consider myself an agnostic Deist/pantheist. Reasons:
In the absence of a truly intact model explaining the creation of the universe, I'll hold out on the theory that there's a Creator.
But I am firmly in the camp that whatever that Creator is, it is DEFINITELY not the Christian god.
I point to the Epicurean trilemma, though he preceded Christ. Evil clearly exists in the world, and a perfectly omnipotent and benevolent deity (AKA, the Christian God, or at least God as portrayed by Christians) MUST do something about that to be true to itself.
Personally, I think a deity made the universe, and is now quantumly entangled with it so something of a pantheist. The universe is god, and god is the universe. And thus, by our mere existence, we are part of god.
I don't believe there is a magic man in the sky or whatever for the simple reason, why would a holy all forgiving god give children cancer. Case closed.
Of course, if you're Christian that song is pointleas. You should hope to die in order to experience the afterlife. I find that a very disheartening concept.
Why would anyone HOPE to DIE? Short of a painful terminal disease?
Well, if you believe this life is what separates you from paradise in the afterlife why would you not hope to die?
I don't believe there is a magic man in the sky or whatever for the simple reason, why would a holy all forgiving god give children cancer. Case closed.
who said that life is fair ? i mean mankind slandered, whipped, humiliated and put on the cross someone who did nothing wrong how is that for fairness ?
I don't believe there is a magic man in the sky or whatever for the simple reason, why would a holy all forgiving god give children cancer. Case closed.
who said that life is fair ? i mean mankind slandered, whipped, humiliated and put on the cross someone who did nothing wrong how is that for fairness ?
So your ok with children getting cancer because it's God's will?
I don't believe there is a magic man in the sky or whatever for the simple reason, why would a holy all forgiving god give children cancer. Case closed.
who said that life is fair ? i mean mankind slandered, whipped, humiliated and put on the cross someone who did nothing wrong how is that for fairness ?
So your ok with children getting cancer because it's God's will?
I am gonna answer your question with a question
Are you ok with someone that did nothing wrong to be slandered whipped humiliated and put on the cross ? of course you are not but life isnt fair it is what it is you know there are natural laws that are in effect so that god wont have to intervene all the time such a law is gravity, if you jump of a building you ll fall its not because god wanted to punish you, another law is action reaction meaning that if you punch a wall you ll hurt your hand or even break it and again its not because god punished you, if you walk inside a new clear reactor without proper safety measures you ll get radiation poisoning that ll probably create a tumor, the increasingly appearance of cancer in our age make me believe that is a by product of human activity like cellular telecommunications wifi and or other things that i dont know or remember. but if you ask me eve is the most cursed woman in the entire human history
I don't believe there is a magic man in the sky or whatever for the simple reason, why would a holy all forgiving god give children cancer. Case closed.
The same argument of cancer can be said about hunger in the third world countries here is a picture from wikipedia about wealth distribution
but we are smart enough to know that in our countries the homeless are a side effect of bad politics
i really dont want to changes anyones perspective mostly i like to talk as i have left the discussion at HorribleSubs so i want to fill the void with something
An all powerful deity fixing everything involves the loss of free will. Who here is in favor of never making any decision ever again? According to the Christian model, the universe WAS made perfect, and mankind was given a choice. You can see how that turned out. Hence the existence of heaven. "But ThacoBell!" you say, "wouldn't a perfect afterlife mean that one cannot make a choice of morality for themselves?" Well, technically, yes. Does that sound good to you? That's why this world still exists. Do you want to worship a creator being for all eternity? That's why we have this life. To choose. I mean, this is amazing. An omniscient creator made everything perfect and STILL said that we should be able to have free will and make choices for ourselves. The problem is that perfection is a sterile environment, once imperfection was introduced, it spread like a sickness, infecting everything. Thus all choice was once again robbed from us. But in a supreme act of love, this creator being made himself human and willingly experienced death to pay the price for OUR choice. Even more amazing, this creator didn't just say "okay, your debt is paid, now you are all forced to worship me and follow my rules". No, no this incredible being experienced pain and death to give CHOICE back to us. There was no contract made, no promise of worship. Simply "I experienced death so you can have the CHOICE to follow me if you wish." That is some crazy compassion.
So it's the new born babies fault they have cancer became of some made up fella in the desert? Sounds legit.
Thats nice, you totally ignored his post and put words in his mouth! Class act. Well guess what, I think @Wesboi ssid he thinks Hitler was just awesome in his post, so he's a bad person now. *rolling eyes*
Seriously though, you'd want a God that literally intervenes in minutae?? That sounds like we'd be coerced into belief, something most religions frown on, since it invalidates faith.
An all powerful deity fixing everything involves the loss of free will. Who here is in favor of never making any decision ever again? According to the Christian model, the universe WAS made perfect, and mankind was given a choice. You can see how that turned out. Hence the existence of heaven. "But ThacoBell!" you say, "wouldn't a perfect afterlife mean that one cannot make a choice of morality for themselves?" Well, technically, yes. Does that sound good to you? That's why this world still exists. Do you want to worship a creator being for all eternity? That's why we have this life. To choose. I mean, this is amazing. An omniscient creator made everything perfect and STILL said that we should be able to have free will and make choices for ourselves. The problem is that perfection is a sterile environment, once imperfection was introduced, it spread like a sickness, infecting everything. Thus all choice was once again robbed from us. But in a supreme act of love, this creator being made himself human and willingly experienced death to pay the price for OUR choice. Even more amazing, this creator didn't just say "okay, your debt is paid, now you are all forced to worship me and follow my rules". No, no this incredible being experienced pain and death to give CHOICE back to us. There was no contract made, no promise of worship. Simply "I experienced death so you can have the CHOICE to follow me if you wish." That is some crazy compassion.
Yeah, it's a nice story. I appreciate the fiction. Of course, it's just one personal saviour god cult among many. You believe this because that's how you were raised. Were you Indian you would probably have a different religion.
An all powerful deity fixing everything involves the loss of free will. Who here is in favor of never making any decision ever again? According to the Christian model, the universe WAS made perfect, and mankind was given a choice. You can see how that turned out. Hence the existence of heaven. "But ThacoBell!" you say, "wouldn't a perfect afterlife mean that one cannot make a choice of morality for themselves?" Well, technically, yes. Does that sound good to you? That's why this world still exists. Do you want to worship a creator being for all eternity? That's why we have this life. To choose. I mean, this is amazing. An omniscient creator made everything perfect and STILL said that we should be able to have free will and make choices for ourselves. The problem is that perfection is a sterile environment, once imperfection was introduced, it spread like a sickness, infecting everything. Thus all choice was once again robbed from us. But in a supreme act of love, this creator being made himself human and willingly experienced death to pay the price for OUR choice. Even more amazing, this creator didn't just say "okay, your debt is paid, now you are all forced to worship me and follow my rules". No, no this incredible being experienced pain and death to give CHOICE back to us. There was no contract made, no promise of worship. Simply "I experienced death so you can have the CHOICE to follow me if you wish." That is some crazy compassion.
Yeah, it's a nice story. I appreciate the fiction. Of course, it's just one personal saviour god cult among many. You believe this because that's how you were raised. Were you Indian you would probably have a different religion.
You are aware that some religious people make it a point to learn about other faiths, right? I might be a Christian, but I've done plenty of yoga, been to a Sihk temple, studied dead religions, etc. I've even looked at Atheism, which seems rather dull and short-sighted.
I suspect you're only an Atheist because you think it proves you're smart. Well, hate to break it to you but there have been geniuses that were religious.
An all powerful deity fixing everything involves the loss of free will. Who here is in favor of never making any decision ever again? According to the Christian model, the universe WAS made perfect, and mankind was given a choice. You can see how that turned out. Hence the existence of heaven. "But ThacoBell!" you say, "wouldn't a perfect afterlife mean that one cannot make a choice of morality for themselves?" Well, technically, yes. Does that sound good to you? That's why this world still exists. Do you want to worship a creator being for all eternity? That's why we have this life. To choose. I mean, this is amazing. An omniscient creator made everything perfect and STILL said that we should be able to have free will and make choices for ourselves. The problem is that perfection is a sterile environment, once imperfection was introduced, it spread like a sickness, infecting everything. Thus all choice was once again robbed from us. But in a supreme act of love, this creator being made himself human and willingly experienced death to pay the price for OUR choice. Even more amazing, this creator didn't just say "okay, your debt is paid, now you are all forced to worship me and follow my rules". No, no this incredible being experienced pain and death to give CHOICE back to us. There was no contract made, no promise of worship. Simply "I experienced death so you can have the CHOICE to follow me if you wish." That is some crazy compassion.
Yeah, it's a nice story. I appreciate the fiction. Of course, it's just one personal saviour god cult among many. You believe this because that's how you were raised. Were you Indian you would probably have a different religion.
You are aware that some religious people make it a point to learn about other faiths, right? I might be a Christian, but I've done plenty of yoga, been to a Sihk temple, studied dead religions, etc. I've even looked at Atheism, which seems rather dull and short-sighted.
I suspect you're only an Atheist because you think it proves you're smart. Well, hate to break it to you but there have been geniuses that were religious.
You suspect wrong. And BTW, religiosity is statistically correlated with low IQ. I don't think belief in a higher power implies low intelligence. However, believing in things like a literal reading of genesis -- where there exists no evidence for it and loads of evidence against -- does.
@FinneousPJ Sorry to break your elitist bubble, but I have studied many different religions and am constantly questioning my own. But if you have some evidence against it, go ahead and send it to me. I'd love to see it.
Frankly, there is 0 reason to be so belligerant about what other people believe. My beliefs don't affect you, so the only reason I can see for your blithe comments is to put others down.
Your posts come across as extremely bigotted against religious people. You also freely state as factual things that are not, in fact, factual. While claiming to be a believer in science. Anyways, what I've found is that highly religious people are 7-10 points lower, which would be 100% accounted for by them having a less rigorous education. Note highly religious people tend to teach their kids nothing but religion, and to be poorer (which also is associated with lower IQ) so I don't buy your assertion. Perhaps you can supply a study I haven't seen?
If you're asserting that people shouldn't take an allegorical text literally I agree. Jesus rarely spoke directly on things afterall, and was God. I don't like or agree with all religious people, even if I am one.
It used to be when I was young you could freely mock fat people, religion, and people who have lower than average IQs but aren't identified as disabled... now you have to be nicer to fat people, I guess thats progress.
Bear in mind that insults are against the Site Rules. Debating religion itself is fine, but insulting people because of their religious beliefs is not tolerated here.
Yeah, it's a nice story. I appreciate the fiction. Of course, it's just one personal saviour god cult among many. You believe this because that's how you were raised. Were you Indian you would probably have a different religion.
So you believe that religion is something you are born with and not something you can choose ? i know people that have moved from one religion to another but humor me for a while do you believe that humans are born evil ? and if so isnt that an excuse for one's actions ? being a sociopath or a psychopath is an abnormality in the brain but does not necessarily make you evil you can't feel compassion or the full range of emotions that other people feel but most sociopaths or psychopaths mimic the human emotions in order to fit in (even though they dont feel them)
"The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist. And like that, poof. He's gone."
choice isnt only the actions that someone takes but also the ideas that they adopt meaning that a Christian can not be a fascist not doing evil but thinking evilly (like me) still makes you evil a true Christian (unlike me) is ashamed of making wicked thoughts cause he/she knows that god knows what he/she is thinking. bottom line clean ideas make clean people
Have you watched the movie "The Matrix (1999) ?" The movie was banned in Egypt because it "promotes zionism" cause it has characters named like "Neo" referring to the "New messiah" (god forbid) though i am gonna quote you some lines that i believe make some sense, i will not follow the dialogues in the order they are presented meaning that i will skip quite a few scenes.
Morpheus: The Matrix is everywhere, it is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window, or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work, or when go to church or when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth. Neo: What truth? Spoon boy: Do not try and bend the spoon. That's impossible. Instead... only try to realize the truth. Neo: What truth? Spoon boy: There is no spoon.
if the boy was holding a fork or a knife do you think the dialogue would be any different ?
Comments
The big problem here lies in the fact that you can't prove empirically that something doesn't exist. Beyond what we can experiment, there's nothing we can say, but purely speculatively. And that's the problem with speculative theories : you can't say they're wrong, but you can't say they're true either. Thus, all speculative theories have the same logical value. Maybe the Demogorgon really exist. Maybe there is a race of rare parrots that breathe fire. Maybe I'm just a brain in a tube only imagining all this situation. Maybe God exist and our soul lives on. Sadly, all those assertions possess the same exact logical value. Empirically, until proven otherwise, all these sentences are purely speculative.
However, I'm also a Thomas Kuhn reader, so I wouldn't argue if you would state that science does not work entirely in an empirical manner...
Years ago, I read an idea — I don’t know if it’s even a hypothesis, let alone a theory — by Lee Smolin, a cosmologist, that can be boiled down to this.
Mathematically, a black hole is an event horizon that we can’t see past. Whatever happens inside a black hole is beyond our knowledge, because no information can get from that side of the event horizon to outside it. Escaping would require a velocity greater than the speed of light, which would require infinite energy or abandoning general relativity. However, the latest test of general relativity (involving the precesion of gyroscopes in the space shuttle) was accurate to 15 significant digits. That’s accurate to 1 in 100000000000000. So we can be pretty darn certain about event horizons, given the observational evidence. (Hawking radiation, observations of galactic cores, black ho,es in binary star systems, gravitational waves, etc.)
Mathematiclly, the big bang is an event horizon we can’t see past. Whatever happened outside the big bang, it would require information to reach us by going faster than the speed of light, given the rate that space has been created since then, to have reached the earth in the 13+ billion years since. All evidence points to the big bang model, though of course there are some very interesting questions, but no one has come anywhere near another idea that can explain the data.
Smolin’s idea is that, maybe, just maybe, a black hole is a universe’s way of making more universes. It’s an interesting idea. He presents some mathematical data to show how it might be. But no one has any idea how to test it, so it’s just an idea, for now.
So, given that, it got me to thinking. Let’s assume the universe was created by some entity. Be it God, The Great Magic Yak, a grad student running universe models on a simulator, whatever, let us suppose for a moment that this entity existed and created all we can detect. That would mean that, being the creator, this entity must have existed outside our universe, and likely before it (insofar as we can carry the concept of time back past the big bang). That being the case, how do we detect any information about the existence or non-existence of an entity past the event horizon? If you can come up with a testable idea, I and many others would love to hear it, but so far as I know, there is no test that has even been proposed.
So given all THAT, I am inclined to say that the question of the existence of a creator is beyond knowing. Any evidence to support or refute such an existence is beyond our detection; not due to limits of our biology, nor our technology, nor our intelligence, nor our imagination. It is simply not possible because of the laws of physics, ie, the way mass and energy behave and interact.
Of course, I could be wrong. Things like dark matter, dark energy, hyperinflation, the unexpected energy of the Higgs boson, etc etc etc, remind us that we are on the very frontier of human knowledge. The history of science has shown us that, many times that n the frontier, we’ve had to take our best models and throw them out when new data comes along. There’s no shame in that, of course, it just means we didn’t have as much to go on yesterday as we do today, that we are still making progress, and that there are still cool, strange, puzziling things to discover.
Do I think we'll ever have definitive proof? Not until its pretty much too late to matter. I'm not expecting the end of times any time soon, unless you count climate change...
If you live long enough people will start dying around you and you will see the tragedy of life - nothing is forever. None of us are getting out of here alive.
I guess we should look on the bright side of life and give a whistle
In the absence of a truly intact model explaining the creation of the universe, I'll hold out on the theory that there's a Creator.
But I am firmly in the camp that whatever that Creator is, it is DEFINITELY not the Christian god.
I point to the Epicurean trilemma, though he preceded Christ. Evil clearly exists in the world, and a perfectly omnipotent and benevolent deity (AKA, the Christian God, or at least God as portrayed by Christians) MUST do something about that to be true to itself.
Personally, I think a deity made the universe, and is now quantumly entangled with it so something of a pantheist. The universe is god, and god is the universe. And thus, by our mere existence, we are part of god.
Are you ok with someone that did nothing wrong to be slandered whipped humiliated and put on the cross ?
of course you are not but life isnt fair it is what it is
you know there are natural laws that are in effect so that god wont have to intervene all the time such a law is gravity, if you jump of a building you ll fall its not because god wanted to punish you, another law is action reaction meaning that if you punch a wall you ll hurt your hand or even break it and again its not because god punished you, if you walk inside a new clear reactor without proper safety measures you ll get radiation poisoning that ll probably create a tumor, the increasingly appearance of cancer in our age make me believe that is a by product of human activity like cellular telecommunications wifi and or other things that i dont know or remember.
but if you ask me eve is the most cursed woman in the entire human history
here is a picture from wikipedia about wealth distribution
but we are smart enough to know that in our countries the homeless are a side effect of bad politics
I mean, this is amazing. An omniscient creator made everything perfect and STILL said that we should be able to have free will and make choices for ourselves. The problem is that perfection is a sterile environment, once imperfection was introduced, it spread like a sickness, infecting everything. Thus all choice was once again robbed from us. But in a supreme act of love, this creator being made himself human and willingly experienced death to pay the price for OUR choice. Even more amazing, this creator didn't just say "okay, your debt is paid, now you are all forced to worship me and follow my rules". No, no this incredible being experienced pain and death to give CHOICE back to us. There was no contract made, no promise of worship. Simply "I experienced death so you can have the CHOICE to follow me if you wish." That is some crazy compassion.
Seriously though, you'd want a God that literally intervenes in minutae?? That sounds like we'd be coerced into belief, something most religions frown on, since it invalidates faith.
I suspect you're only an Atheist because you think it proves you're smart. Well, hate to break it to you but there have been geniuses that were religious.
Frankly, there is 0 reason to be so belligerant about what other people believe. My beliefs don't affect you, so the only reason I can see for your blithe comments is to put others down.
If you're asserting that people shouldn't take an allegorical text literally I agree. Jesus rarely spoke directly on things afterall, and was God. I don't like or agree with all religious people, even if I am one.
It used to be when I was young you could freely mock fat people, religion, and people who have lower than average IQs but aren't identified as disabled... now you have to be nicer to fat people, I guess thats progress.
being a sociopath or a psychopath is an abnormality in the brain but does not necessarily make you evil you can't feel compassion or the full range of emotions that other people feel but most sociopaths or psychopaths mimic the human emotions in order to fit in (even though they dont feel them)
"The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist. And like that, poof. He's gone."
choice isnt only the actions that someone takes but also the ideas that they adopt meaning that a Christian can not be a fascist
not doing evil but thinking evilly (like me) still makes you evil
a true Christian (unlike me) is ashamed of making wicked thoughts cause he/she knows that god knows what he/she is thinking.
bottom line clean ideas make clean people
Have you watched the movie "The Matrix (1999) ?" The movie was banned in Egypt because it "promotes zionism" cause it has characters named like "Neo" referring to the "New messiah" (god forbid) though i am gonna quote you some lines that i believe make some sense, i will not follow the dialogues in the order they are presented meaning that i will skip quite a few scenes.
Morpheus: The Matrix is everywhere, it is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window, or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work, or when go to church or when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.
Neo: What truth?
Spoon boy: Do not try and bend the spoon. That's impossible. Instead... only try to realize the truth.
Neo: What truth?
Spoon boy: There is no spoon.
if the boy was holding a fork or a knife do you think the dialogue would be any different ?