Monday, January 28, 2013

Just more room to type...

See above. 


The running subjects seem to be of course the amazing density of the typical right-wing christian, and the behavior of photons. 

Both of which defy all reason.

119 comments:

  1. The right wing Christians are fairly easy to explain, they're libertarians who believe that government is useless and they have their land, their guns and their God, and that's ALL they need.

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  2. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/28/roxanne-rubin_n_2566297.html

    Nevada Republican Woman tries to show how easy voter fraud was, got arrested for voter fraud...

    They need to arrest a lot more of them. Also, "Impulse Control Course?" She more needs a 'critical thinking course.'

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  3. But she was only trying to prove a point. Hey if everyone wrote out a handy letter and sealed it in an envelope, they could cheat, then, if caught, show the letter. Job well done!

    Then, they could pay the bloody fine, just like she did! LOL

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  4. Here's an article from the beginning of the month.

    The Teabaggers eat their own! If they can't win against the Dems, they'll win against themselves! LOL

    http://legalinsurrection.com/2013/01/to-say-that-republicans-in-congress-folded-like-a-cheap-suit-is-an-insult-to-cheap-suits/

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  5. Did you see where the father of a boy that died at Sandy Hook was speaking at a hearing and basically got heckled by gun-nuts?

    They're sub-human. That's my new designation for them. Sub-human.

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  6. I didn't see the heckling. I understand your sub-human designation, especially since religion hypes itself as helping people be good, and people use it as a means to their ends, it's all too human for assholes to justify their point of view, it's all too easy to imagine that just because there is a significant amount of assholes who are total bastards who work on the theory that shit runs downhill, therefore anyone you can give shit to is beneath you, that it's just dandy to go ahead and do that.

    I'm afraid that it's not sub-human, it's just all too human.

    Basically, as a whole, we're all idiots, assholes, self-centred pricks, I'm-alright-Jack fuckheads and so on, in one way or another.

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  7. But it's always been like that Brian. People didn't elect the first city-state kings. Hell, no-one elected the local chief of the village, who was likely the biggest bully, the most feared man, or at least a descendent of a guy like that.

    I don't imagine that God was telling Abraham that he would be the patriarch of a huge tribe because he thought Abraham would be a happy camper with lots of kin, no. He was saying that Abraham would be a big boss of this world with a big say in what goes and what doesn't.

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  8. Well, not really. I do get somewhat depressed when I see all the incredible selfishness, hypocrisy, and sheer stupidity that is displayed by the christian right. I mean, if I were a psycho, which I'm not, but if I were, I'd be sorely tempted to put a few of them 'down' as it were. However, I'm depressingly sane in that regard, so not.

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  9. They say that a year of a dog's life is equivalent to 7 years of a human's life.

    My doggie is a good fuckin' boy, and my ol' lady's grandkid, who I fucking love with all my heart is good with me but apparently a bit of a tyrant sans me and Mozie.

    I think that we, and by we I mesn mostly Eric, MI and Observant, are neglecting to take into account our upbringing, which I think, in fact I'm absolutely sure counts for a helluva lot more than they're willing to admit. In fact I think that these guys actually build a wall, a virtual wall, between their past and now and their need for religion is based on that fact that they're not able to reconcile their childhood with what's going on right now. Fuck 'em, retards.

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  10. I think that 'do as I say, not as I do' style parenting, or hypocrisy parenting if you will, is responsible for a lot of evil in the world, along with the christian non-moral morality code of course, otherwise known as 'coercive morality.' I've noted many times, God the Father is the very WORST father/parent archetype there is, and it is also the most popular role model for uneducated christians. They see their children as possessions more than people, and do not even bother to explain themselves to their kids, not that they really could, since hey, it's not logically explicable in the first place, not in any way that a child would understand. Kids see hypocrisy so vividly, and so they have to be 'broken' so that they do not rebel against the senselessness of the discipline.
    Turning a logical kid into a faithful christian *requires* that the child be broken, in the sense that they abandon their critical thinking ability because hey, they have to or they get spanked, or disowned, or worse.

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  11. In other words, christians (and other faiths such as Islam) take a healthy kid and induce psychosis in him or her, on purpose. They break his or her mind.
    And we wonder why it's a sick world.

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  12. They see their children as possessions more than people...

    This is a core essential of what's wrong with us. Bad parenting. I hate to say it, but even as a kid, I KNEW my father was a giant prick, and I vowed I would never be like him. I was fortunate; I broke out of the vicious cycle. When I was raising our kids, I insisted to my (now ex-) wife that our kids were PEOPLE first and foremost, and that it was our job to help them grow to responsible adulthood, NOT to pretend that they're children who need to be dominated until the day we kick them out on their own the way many parents do.

    (Yes, I still read everything in here...)

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  13. Hey Bri, did you catch the Huffpo article about a decent Xtian?

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  14. Not until just now, Ed. A good Christian indeed,. The do exist, In fact, reading it got me a touch emotional, because I guess deep down in my psyche where the remnants of my own conditioning still exists, I am still conditioned to wish (used to be "believe") that clergy were helpful and empathetic souls just like that guy there... I wish the religious, the bulk of them that would look down on that man and scoff in their knowing manner, were all like him instead. After all, they pretend to be good like him.

    It brings to mind something I was thinking recently, that Jesus quote "by their fruits ye shall know them..." I mean, that's pretty plain. Look not to mere words, which are incredibly cheap; look instead always to actions, and compare them to the words.

    Hell, if everyone did that, there would be no republican party, at least not the bunch of cheap self-important hypocritical cretins that they are today.

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  15. It strikes me that reading the entire four pages of posts that followed that touching story illustrates everything that is wrong with religion in general and Christianity (as it is usually practiced) in particular. There are clearly many "believers" who realize that their particular religons often isolate otherwise normal, even, perhaps, loving individuals for no good reason.
    Yet... they seem to need to stay in those antisocial settings, by and large. All of this is due to their inability to face the often frightening and unpleasant reality of the real world without the "crutch" of belief in "something better" to be hoped for after this life has ended. It is amazing that this Pastor had to "parse" the Bible which he is ordained to preach in order to provide a confused young person with a feeling of self worth and hope. Last, but not least, most of these respondents still don't seem to be able to understand that lack of belief does not equate with "hating" that belief in others, which seems to be due to their inability to imagine that anyone might actually have learned that life is much better when you don't "hate" anything that does no harm to others.

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  16. It doesn't help that homosexuality and bisexuality can cause such a visceral reaction in the heterosexual. The religious, instead of seeing sexual orientation grounded in biology, will see that revulsion as a sign of Zeus' hand in the matter.

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  17. The religious [heterosexual]

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  18. It's learned behaviour Harry. Kids are indoctrinated against being gay. Honestly I think this is why kids are kept in the dark about sex. I think it's deliberate, made into a dirty thing, a bad thing, a secret thing. Why good girls would never do this!

    I really think that if sex education was taught at a bit younger age, trying to beat the time when parents themselves get all shy and metaphorical about it, perhaps even bringing this up to the kids themselves, that you can know the details, it's not dirty or embarrassing but it's packaged as dirty and embarrassing.

    Never underestimate the power of words. I remember sitting in a bar with Henry, his real name, can't hurt him for you to know that, but he was bragging about all the girlfriends he had up and down the coast, him being a fisherman.

    I guess we were supposed to be impressed, but I told him that that just makes him a slut.

    You know, I think I changed that guy's history. He was visibly upset with the idea that he of multiple girlfriends was just a slut.

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  19. I disagree. Let's put the flip on it. Ask any gay man you know about eating pussy and he's going to have a similar (biological) revulsion. The likelihood that any of them were raised in an anti-heterosexual cult is nada.

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  20. http://phys.org/news/2013-02-psychic-cells-scientists-physical-barriers.html#jCp

    'Psychic cells': Scientists discover cells can communicate through physical barriers
    -------------------
    This is what I sense directly when on salvia, btw...

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  21. Kids being indoctrinated against being gay doesn't stop them from being gay. It only causes them to hate themselves for it. And of course, take hateful action against gays in the hope that it 'proves' that they themselves cannot possibly be gay. They hate themselves, so they project that hatred on other gays.

    One thing I've noticed in talking to anti-gay christians, is that they seem to think that all heterosexual men are at least somewhat attracted to other men, that this is normal. This is ridiculous of course, but they need that to be true, because they consider themselves totally heterosexual and yet they are 'tempted' by the gay thing.

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  22. Hey, as an aside, don't you guys love Frank Luntz? I know I do... love, as in, am fascinated by his concentrated form of evil. That man does more harm than Charles Manson ever conceived of.
    Your 'power of words' comment reminded me of him, pboy.
    And you have to like that hair piece.

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  23. Hmm.. I dunno Harry, I know I guy, who explained to me that he just gives blow jobs. Seems to me that he was(I guess is) a slut there too. A woman willing to do this could command a price for it, but I'm thinking that the arrangement gets turned on it's head(hehe) when it comes to guys. I don't see much of a market out there for pussy-lickers, but I don't get out much.

    I think that my point was that sex is certainly used by the religions to fuck with peoples' heads.

    Would the gay slut, willing to perhaps pay to give head to strangers, be willing to make the equivalent transaction with a woman, given the right incentive?

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  24. I've been following Deacon Duncan's blog. It concerns Pastor Feinstein and Russell Glasser's debate.

    The idea that atheists and theists can come to agreements or even help each others' arguments out, as per Debunking Christianity, just screams, "This is bullshit!", when following the good pastor's line of reasoning.

    The atheist, seems to want us, you know, us people, to be the thinking agents, recognising patterns, concocting rules that govern these patterns. Logic, for one example. Reality seems to me to be a pattern that we recognise and concoct rules about.

    The theist, as far as I could tell, was simply calling bullshit, announcing that he'd already won the argument, declaring that we basically all need to presuppose God as THE necessary being.

    Hmm. But since we're imagining God, let's imagine Him ante-universe.

    Is God real? If so, he is in some kind of environment called reality.

    If not, then God is a fantastical being outside reality, just a fiction.

    Is God logical? If so, his environment already contains some kind of mysterious patterns to which God could apply logic.

    If not, then God isn't sane, He isn't orderly, He is insane chaos, and as such He could not 'create' reality and logic.

    So, there seems to be a deliberate confusion about the existence of, the reality of such things as logic and reality itself, and of course of existence itself.

    I'm going to jump straight to the old, Confusion Technique, where, when one realises that meanings of basic words can be played with to confuse the pigeon, the apologist has the escape clause, uses the escape clause on him/herself.

    Spoiler alert! The escape clause is God.

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  25. Hey Brian, (heh yeah I'm still lurking around too) I found this and wondered if you'd seen it yet:

    http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/11/27/physicists-universe-giant-brain_n_2196346.html

    It made me think of you so I though I'd drop it here and see what you thought. `v`

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  26. More like a smiley face on an angry bird...

    I'd seen something similar; it's more talking about structure and development than the idea of 'the Big Brain.' Too bad. Of course, that's still something.

    Eventually they'll get it.

    Thanks, Cogs! Always a pleasure...

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  27. Here's a thought.

    If god exists outside of time, and god still can *think* while he's outside of time...

    Then god is experiencing time inside his mind, regardless of where he is, because all thought is a temporal process. You can't think if time is not. Time is change, and thoughts are changes. No ability to change, no thought.

    But of course Pboy, what we're doing here is applying logic to god, and god's believers don't ever do that in the first place. It's illegal. And a sin.

    So basically, there's no talking to them.

    Once again, the best and really only answer to a christian, is Felis Leo.

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  28. Pboy, I used to think that the best bet for solving the 'buttfuck crazy insane christian problem' was Christ. As in, us atheists, along with the christians that already agree with this point, should not be trying to convince christians that their religion is false, but instead should try to compromise and attempt to convince them to just follow Jesus' words in the bible, a la Jefferson, and hopefully get them to see that it's all about loving others... I mean, I don't need them to lose their belief, but I do need them to stop being insane...

    HAH! What was I thinking??? I thought they would at least see the goodness of the ideas of empathy and humility as shown in the bible.... I mean, Jesus does speak of such things a lot, regardless of his other words that seem to fly in the face of that.... However, trying to change a believer is like trying to put out a forest fire by pissing on it.

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  29. I get that they're determined to make certain contingent 'things' into universal 'things'.

    With stuff like morality, intelligibility and logic(the stuff I'm talking about), they have to trick them into being real as opposed to abstract by proposing an eternal thinking mind which 'houses' them.

    Logic, intelligibility and morals are only real, in a sense, to us as long as we're actually thinking beings.(A carefully placed shot through the head kills those 'things' for the used to be living).

    But there are those other people still thinking away, still thinking about logic etc.

    To trick them into being seen by us as universals, as objective, we need to be tricked into thinking that there must be a thinking mind, a God. The point of this deceit is to claim that you're the one saying what is good etc. and it's not just your opinion.

    After all, opinions are like assholes, everyone's got one.

    To declare that these 'things' which are contingent on us being thinking beings are simply intersubjective, that we can all understand these abstract concepts, more or less, is to deny them their God, to deny them their absolute, their control.

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  30. Harry; good person, terrible christian, depending on how you define "christian" at least.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks man. I'm no longer an xtian though. Oneblood was subsumed under a well-intentioned agnostic.

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    2. Sorry Harry; of course you are a good person, goes without saying. I should have said "decent person, terrible christian..." because I was referring to the minister in the very touching story you posted.

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  31. The Outer Limits came on, and I tried to adjust my set, 'cos that's the way I roll baby!

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  32. Jesus, the man/myth, emphasizes the other to such an extent it's revolutionary. But the kind of revolution it is seems to be lost on many people. Mental revolutions of compassion don't generally fit our apish desires.

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  33. I think that we can agree that we are trying to say something to each other that we are trying to get each other to agree on. I understand that we do understand the topic that understanding is, and to understand it better we have to agree on what understanding is, and with understanding and agreement we can both agree and understand.

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  34. I understand that I agree, and agree that I understand.

    Is my understanding in good standing, or am I under understanding?

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  35. You're all so understanding that it leaves me standing under you...

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  36. Well, we got about 25 inches of snow. Power went out for a few seconds a few different times, the last one for like twenty seconds, but it always went back on so we didn't lose power.

    Fun fun fun.

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  37. Southern PA got a miss. I asked peeb to pray to Neptune with me for some warmer, humid air. Gotta love it when a god comes through... cause it has nothing to do with coincidence.

    Snow blower Bri, or do you "man" up and shovel?

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  38. Neither one actually.... the fuck with that, I've got over two feet of that shit.... I hired a couple of guys with a plow. I'm almost 52 so I only shovel the regular size storms... a few inches, maybe a foot, I can handle, but I don't want to cack out just yet so in this case, I'll spend the coin.

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  39. We've been here for three years now and I've handled all the snow in that time with my trusty shovel, but not today.

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  40. Indeed we all seem to agree and understand.

    About the snow, yep, it's praying to Neptune all the way for me and Harry!

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  41. Two feet? Shiite Muslim... took a look at some of the pictures Huffpo has up. But I'm imagining Norwegians and Canucks cackling at our incredulity in the face of so little snow.

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  42. When I lived in Syracuse, NY for about five years in the early seventies, I had to leave my house through the upstairs window on two or three occasions. We averaged 170 inches a year at that time, so when I moved to Cleveland in 1975, the average 70 inches we get here was like moving to Arizona! We still occasionally get Blitzed here, but this one missed us entirely.

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  43. P.S. Guys, itis Poseidon to whom you must pray; He was around before Neptune.

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  44. Watching MSNBC this morning and had this flash of insight, again, that the Republican representatives have a set of talking points which they keep hammering home, and that these Republican talking points are like Christian talking points, this is why the Christian right are so content with the GOP, even though the supposed message of Jesus is diametrically opposed to the right-wing talking-point-athon.

    Just look at the National Debt!(don't know if you're supposed to capitalize that). But, "My LORD! Did you know that each U.S.Citizen owes over $50,000 at this time!?! Did you know that taxes are the no.1 enemy of 'small businessmen'(earning some 1/4 mill. a year and more)? Did you know that 'we just can't keep kicking the can down the road'?

    I don't know, did I miss any?

    The Christian talking points. Did you know that you're a sinner? Did you know that sinning is the no.1 reason that the most exceptional nation ever(disregarding the Hebrews/Jews) is being encumbered by, you know, sinners?! Did you realise that the greatest sin of all is denying God/Jesus/Holy Spirit's very existence?

    Pretty sure there's more there, but it's the same theme.

    Just as the economy is not the debt, Christianity isn't conflating goodness with Godliness, surely.

    I'll never understand how people can be convinced over and over that somehow balanced budgets are more important than the well-being of the people, all the people, just the same as I'll never understand how giving religious organizations more political clout is more important than the well-being of the people, all the people.

    If we could just grasp that moment of clarity where we see that the politically religious and the religiously political are playing a game, an evil game, and keep hammering home that point.

    The political right don't give a fart about 'the people', they're fooling the average voter into imagining that they do, in exactly the same way that the religious right don't actually care about 'the people', they're just trying to further their own cause.

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  45. All true. However it seems that it's not getting much better.

    Now I understand that whereas before the 'sensible' republicans feared the defense cuts in the coming sequestration, so we didn't have to worry too much about the attendant cuts to our social programs, but apparently the new Tea Party shitheads are okay with the defense cuts if they get to burn the safety net in the process. So great, a bargaining chip turns into a cow chip. And not much to stop them from letting it happen. So I'm worried, is the point. These evil motherfuckers never quit; they are always working at their evil agenda no matter what happens.

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  46. I dunno, you likely read that last comment and was thinking, "Sure yea, same old story.", it seems to go round and round and the message seems to be stale.

    Hey, here's a fun thought. Anyone who knows the details of the story of Socrates demise likely notices the similarity between that and the story of Jesus. Much like the Cinderella story can be encapsulated in a few words, "The shoe fit!", both the Jesus story and the Socrates story amount to, "The mob wins."

    Governing, right-wing style, is telling the mob what to think, telling the mob what they ought to think, then 'finding' a solution based on what the mob thinks.

    Both Jesus and Socrates, according to the stories, had the same point, that something is fucked up here, there's something wrong with society, there's something wrong with the idea that we are raised into a certain society and are not allowed to question it.

    We say, look, this is bullshit, this societal indoctrination we suffer isn't reality, it's a pressure which you can try to go along with or you can resist. But, those stories tell us, if you resist really harshly, you WILL be crushed, harshly.

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  47. The Teabaggers are, and always have been, insane. We all make mistakes but how dumb must the right-wing voter feel when he/she is loaded down with this total assholiness, it being that or nothing as far as they're concerned. I wonder how many of them, say fiscal conservatives, who are imagining that the 'economy' blows, simply because of the National Debt, you know, bean counters, are the least bit happy with these morons who seem desperate to make everyone who is not 'us', 'them', by disenfranchising as many as they can, and the real nut-cases, well, they're not counting beans at all, are they?

    Case in point, the Decider and Cheney, what possible supposed bean counter thought it would be a terrific idea to go from some billions surplus to dive deep into the red? Not many I'm thinking.

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  48. They wanted to play 'cowboys and indians' with our military and convert the world to democracy one arab nation at a time. And their base cheered them on; so however did many democrats. Their brand of stupid was so popular that even democrats were caught up in the moment. Condi and Colin helped that along of course.

    What a turd sandwich this country is.

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  49. Naw, it's too easy for us all to get carried away on some band-wagon or other. If you asked your average Muslim if they think it's a great idea to run through the streets of Denmark and pillage just for the sake of cartoons, they'd think you imagined them all retarded.

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  50. Y'know, Peeb, none of the things you rant about are all that outlandish, if you think about it for a second. The roots of this political philosophy goes back to the involvement of the United States in World War I.

    Yeah, 1917.

    As soon as the U.S. became a player (even IF the U.S. protested vehemently that we were still 'isolationist'...) on the world stage, we have been in the business of trying to determine for the rest of the world how they 'ought' to behave; which political and religious systems are OK as opposed to those which are verboten.

    The League of Nations and the Treaty of Versailles at the end of WWI can be said to be primary causal factors of the rise of Nazism in Germany and the start of WWII; at the end of WWII, we still had a "boogeyman" to contend with: Communism.

    When the Iron Curtain fell (1989-1991, more or less), we were left without a "boogeyman" for an excuse to maintain a large military. Google "Peace Dividend" if you don't believe me.

    And when did the current 'problem' with the Middle East begin? In 1990, when April Glaspie gave Saddam the green light to invade Kuwait, we again had the perfect "boogeyman" excuse to continue to be militarily adventurous (I was on active duty stationed in South Korea, within spitting distance of the border with North Korea at the time...).

    Yes, Bush I was a Reptile. But he was out in 1992. And Clinton was in. Now, say what you will about Wild Bill and his inept foreign policy, his 'presiding over the greatest budget surplusses in modern history', etc.,..

    But Clinton accomplished very little in his 8 years. The surplusses were mainly attributable to the increase in business and economic properties of the private sector (dot com boom, etc...) and Clinton's neglect of the military (the events portrayed in "Blackhawk Down" occurred in 1994, under Clinton).

    The most important factor contributing to the current 'situation' is that the "Miltiary-Industrial Complex" needs a 'boogeyman' threat to justify its existence. When the Soviet Union collapsed, the Islamic world emerged as the nouveau threat. If we successfully defuse the BS in the Middle East anytimme soon, it will just shift to the Chinese as the primary threat.

    Our economy thrives on this shit. That's why they keep finding new 'boogeymen'.

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  51. "In 1970, he won the presidency in a close three-way race, formally elected by Congress as no candidate had gained a majority.

    As president, Allende adopted a policy of nationalization of industries...

    ...Allende winning Chile's 1970 election was deemed a disaster by a US administration which wanted to protect US business interests by preventing any spread of Communism during the Cold War.[45] In September 1970, President Nixon informed the CIA that an Allende government in Chile would not be acceptable and authorized $10 million to stop Allende from coming to power or unseat him.[46] Henry Kissinger's 40 Committee and the CIA planned to impede Allende's investiture as President of Chile with covert efforts known as "Track I" and "Track II"; Track I sought to prevent Allende from assuming power via so-called "parliamentary trickery", while under the Track II initiative, the CIA tried to convince key Chilean military officers to carry out a coup."

    So much for democratic elections.


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  52. Well, I for one won't be missing this Pope on March 1st. I remember talking to Eric about what the Pope says and his answer amounted to, "Yea, but he only means it if he says, "God says..."

    So, that's where they got, "Simon says.", from!

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  53. Poop Been-A-Dick the 16th retiring?

    To his villa in Argentina?

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  54. The real question is of course, are there any Nazi catholics left to pick a new pope from?
    Let the search begin.

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  55. I'm gonna do just fine. Running for the cardinals' vote on a platform of hypocrisy. B & B hypocrisy.

    Bed and breakfast? Nein.

    Bigger and better hypocrisy!

    Harry C for pope!

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  56. Yeah, the pope used to just be infallible, back when the church had the power to make sure no embarrassing questions would be asked, but as time went by and secularism became more accepted, the church was forced to modify that. So now it's 'only if he's speaking ex cathedra.' As always, when facts and data go against faith, faith loses. However also as always, faith never admits the loss, no, heck, did we say 'infallible?' No way we ever said that, you were just not paying attention!
    What a fucking joke. How is it that people tend not to see the glaring stupidity of all of these contortions? It amazes me how efficiently the faithful are blinded.

    So horray, Emperor Palpatine is dead, er, retired, er, has abdicated, long live the new Asshole-In-Chief!

    Harry, you have a moral compass, so you're disqualified, sorry.

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  57. I do kind-of miss Eric the Slick. He was the most creative liar that I've ever had the honor to actually interact with for any length of time. (Usually I tell them where to go way earlier)

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  58. I understand the official line is that Benedict will go into a Vatican cloister and just pray and read.

    I heard Chris Matthews and Melissa Hennenberger, both Roman Catholics, talking about how brave the pope is to relinquish power when he knows that he's incapable of weilding it effectively anymore.... they were like 'For what other reason would a person give up power other than that? How noble...'
    I was like, raising my little hand at the television, screaming in my head 'Oh, Pick me, I know why! Because some huge pile of shit is about to fall on him and he wants to avoid the consequences!!!'

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  59. One other thing... isn't it remarkable how this pope has perhaps the very best face for someone that cooks and eats little children? I mean, can't you visualize it? It's all in the smile. That man can scare off a hungry crocodile with that smile. Sooooo creepy.
    Sometimes the evil men do, shows.

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  60. They just have to keep putting lipstick on that pig Brian, they'll never stop, their jobs are at stake!

    Hell, their job is to keep putting lipstick on that pig.

    Hey, the Vatican struck twice by lightning twice when the Pope announced he was quitting. I'm thinking, "Lightning machine!", hey how hard would it be to install a large Van de Graaff generator to charge up that cross?

    More lipstick on the pig? I wouldn't put it past them.

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  61. 'twice by lightning twice'

    Is it rum or is it Memorex?

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  62. Memorum?

    Pope Tesla the Coil?

    I do like the way your mind works. Heh heh.

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  63. If the universe is a communal dream, the expectations of millions of catholics could easily cause pyrotechnics of that exact sort.

    Same as how that guy who played Jesus in 'Passion Of The Christ" got struck by lightning and momentarily had a pinkish halo while filming the 'Sermon on the Mount" scene...

    Or hey, it's a coincidence......

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  64. James Caviezel. I remember his name now because of his initials.

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  65. It's like my coincidences only on a larger scale. For instance today I was thinking about how my son Connor is so bossy, he should be called Genghis Connor, and then within a minute I was looking at the movie guide and the third one down, "The Shadow," mentioned 'Genghis Khan' in the description...

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  66. In the news, Dorner appears to be on the verge of being caught.

    Newsguy (no really) : The latest reports tell us that they have him pinned down. It's not clear if they mean he is literally pinned down or if they just have him trapped.

    (my immediate thought) : We don't know if they're using clothes pins, bobby pins, bowling pins, needles and pinza, or if in fact they have him cornered in a philosophical debate!! Stay tuned for upcoming information on which brand of pins law enforcement officers are deploying! After the break!

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  67. The newsguy actually said that?

    Niiiiice. Is the whole world in love with stupid? It seems popular.

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  68. Stupid is the new Stupid, I guess....

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  69. I liked this one from Deacon Duncan's blog.

    If God made all the natural laws which makes the universe an orderly place, and He is above those laws, what about the law of cause and effect?

    If God created it, He is the cause, and the law(of cause and effect) is the effect!

    This means that He used the law of cause and effect even before He himself created it.

    Surely not even God can make a rule, using that exact same rule, before He has brought that rule into existence.

    If not, since it would be impossible, similar to the 'married bachelor' and the 'squared circle' stuff, the law of cause and effect is a prerequisite, aka a presupposition, for God himself.

    If the law of cause and effect isn't presupposed even for God, then God would be, by definition random, chaotic, nonsensical.

    This point is driven home by theists themselves when they try to place God as the starting cause of all, even logic, even cause and effect itself.

    As far as we know, all effects have a cause, in the electro-magnetic realm and above of course, but theists, while they agree, they reword it in such a way as to allow for their God(s) to be outside 'this universe', with the notion of 'everything that begins to exist' instead of 'everything that has ever existed' or 'everything that we know of that exists'.

    But God Himself is an effect subject to the law of cause and effect, He must be, or he could never cause the 'cause and effect' effect.

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  70. Of course this kind of thing is what is being expressed when atheists ask, "Well what caused God?"

    Since theists have already been talked into it, even putting it in terms of laws God Himself must be subject to therefore He DIDN'T create them, the argument is subtle enough to be simply scoffed at, "So what? Who cares? God can still be God and be subject to one or two laws like logic, like cause and effect!", that kind of thing.

    But that is simply a diversion. God cannot be what they claim right up until it's pointed out that that's impossible, then adjusted when that is suddenly necessary, right?

    And if one or two laws must be reasonable without God, well there goes the entire thing, barring the theist sticking his fingers in her ears and singing, "Lalalalala!", of course.

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  71. And, of course, Brian, the law of cause and effect must be in effect for the BB theory too, since it cannot be used before being created! Therefore it was NEVER created.

    IOW the BB theory can't just bootstrap up the cause and effect law, since it would have to use the cause and effect law to do it.

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  72. If the law cannot be used before it was created, then either it is eternal, or it was not created.

    It evolved, in this multi-player seemingly solid pseudoreality. We desire separateness because we fear unity. We want 'constantness.'
    Cause and effect is a function of all this, and time, which is also a function of this.

    Hey, you asked. Sort-of.

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    1. ..incidentally, I mean 'we' as 'all consciousness' which may include more than what you usually think of as conscious.

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  73. I do like the argument, though. It's a christian head-spinner.

    I put my money on the 'fingers in ears/lalala' option.

    It would seem that the power of denial exceeds the power of reality.

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  74. "If the universe is a communal dream..."

    Brian, do you mean 'universe' or 'reality'?

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  75. No Brian, you can't say that the law of cause and effect evolved since evolution is a series of causes and effects.

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  76. What's Taking place i'm new to this, I stumbled upon this I've discovered It positively helpful and it has helped me out loads. I am hoping to give a contribution & aid different users like its helped me. Good job.

    my website :: analog bathroom scales
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    1. Sounds like you are a soul-less salesman being obnoxious.

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  77. Different kind of evolution, non-biological. Consciousness needed cause and effect, among other things. As consciousness progressed (see, I changed the word!) it required rules.

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  78. Brian, do you mean 'universe' or 'reality'?
    --------------------
    In this context it doesn't really matter, since reality is perceived as the universe. In other contexts there is a big difference, but not so in a holistic idealism paradigm.

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  79. I wonder how we helped out that stranger 'loads...'

    Salespeople make me nauseous. Internet hucksters even more so.

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  80. yea, sales techniques. bring them to your site! meh.

    Anyways, biological or no, cause and effect seems to override everything. It's one of these terms which is at once clear and nebulous, and can be misused by theists for their purposes.

    Much like the wordgame of splitting off things which begin to exist from things which didn't, which allow them to point at a God, they can play with cause and effect, "Are we talking material cause, efficient cause or what?"

    Eric played that word-game very well, knowing when to keep his cards close and just say something like, "Oh yes, I see, you are an uneducated lout is all!", instead of defining his terms.

    The KCA seems to work in the theists' favour for the most people, the less they understand the terms, therefore it is propaganda, a tool of persuasion, not an explanation of truth.

    It is clear to me that the orderly progression of events through time depends on cause and effect since any change, any effect, needs a cause.

    That everything needs to have a cause is a principle we all live by. You say, the universe began as, or simply is, a nebulous consciousness, many eons later(?), our consciousnesses are parts of that, wanting to be separate but ultimately part of the whole.

    I think part of your reasoning involves the idea that the closer we look at physical matter, the more 'nothing there' we see, and the supposed actual matter, actual solid stuff, is relegated to tinier and tinier bits.

    A chair, wood, molecules, atoms, protons and neutrons, up and down quark combos plus electrons and photons and so on.

    "What's causing it to hold together, dammit!!!?"

    Well, theists, without knowing anything at all about that chain of ever smaller parts, jump to the conclusion they like, the conclusion they were already aiming at, Goddidit!

    Apparently even the most primitive of minds and/or the most uneducated of minds can, with a sense of wonder, slip past the technical details and gain some inspired knowledge.

    Tribesmen venerating their anscestors are on some kind of different track to knowledge, pointing at GOD or an ultimate consciousness, whereas those poor fools looking at data, collecting evidence, making predictions based on the facts don't realise that the divine knowledge 'knowers' rely on persuasion, since they need no facts.

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  81. Anyways, biological or no, cause and effect seems to override everything. It's one of these terms which is at once clear and nebulous, and can be misused by theists for their purposes.
    -------------
    Cause and effect is a result of materiality, so as materiality developed, cause and effect came into being. A material world in which time passes and objects cannot just pop into being, necessitates cause and effect. The fact that said materiality is a group illusion, doesn't matter in the least. In order for the illusion to continue to exist as it does, certain rules are implicit. Two objects cannot occupy the same space, energy and matter cannot be created nor destroyed, entropy flows from low to high creating the perception of time passing, and so forth. Oh, and one thing leads to another, as it were. It's all about the logic of a solid reality, as opposed to a dream state. It's all about the logic of a good story in which one moment leads logically to the next moment. We live a story, and think it real.

    In "salvia space," I have perceived what seemed like a dream, right there in front of me, and the more I focused on it, the more real it became, but it is important to note that simultaneously, the less real my normal reality became, until I got the impression that, should I continue to focus on the dream, it would become totally real, and my existence in this particular dream we agree to call reality would come to an end, and I would be in the dream, believing it to be my reality. Since I didn't want that, I relented. This has happened at least twice, that I can recall. I get strong physiological effects just by focusing on the dream such as mild (but increasing) cardiac arrhythmia, and I have a strong heart... it immediately stops when I de-focus my attention on the dream and intentionally discard it.

    Hey, who knows? I'm merely answering you off-the-cuff using my own thoughts coupled with my experiences in alternate reality. You may still be the one that has the right answer, or at least, more correct than mine. I have to admit that.

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  82. "Cause and effect is a result of materiality, so as materiality developed, cause and effect came into being."

    I don't know Brian, seems to me that there are these laws there have to be these natural laws before material reality could exist, e.g. cause and effect, but theists ascribe such natural laws to God, God is the great Architect.

    But the cause and effect law cannot be attributed to God since He himself is subject to it. If He isn't, then he couldn't be the necessary cause of anything, not even the law of cause and effect itself, since there'd be no such thing as cause and effect for him to be the cause of any effects.

    Once one natural law is outside of God's bailiwick, "What, I didn't do that, calling cause and effect a 'law' is bullshit!", pulls all the legs out of their arguments for God, since natural laws AREN'T written out laws, aren't prescribed laws at all, they're just descriptions of how things are, even God.

    This slips and slides down that slippery slope to the point where God is not necessary, in fact the Abrahamic God is contingent on people believing in (the different versions of) Him, instead.

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  83. I don't know Brian, seems to me that there are these laws there have to be these natural laws before material reality could exist, e.g. cause and effect, but theists ascribe such natural laws to God, God is the great Architect.
    -----------------------
    Yes, but that agrees with what I just said. First there is consciousness, then consciousness develops (evolves? maybe) to the point where we sense a material world, a little bit at a time, and so forth...

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  84. (the 'we' here is primitive first life forms or even perhaps organic molecules)

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  85. Hmm. What I'm saying is that certainly we evolved from simpler animals through more complex ones, through social animals, to a real understanding of how things naturally work, not just an acceptance of nature, or an anthroporphization of nature, but the rules we can acribe to it.

    In your philosophy, this is a dream, and nature is almost not even hinting at it, is that right?

    I say, 'almost', since you seem to see some hints.

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  86. I see hints, yes, and even indications. Admitted. In my opinion, evolution happened as described, the only difference being that it was an evolution of consciousness that was only reflected in the accompanying forms.

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  87. I think that since even the basic molecules of life evolve, as in the primordial slurry etc., that there is an innate tendency toward life inherent in the very atoms themselves. Perhaps in the quarks. What that really means of course, is just that everything is conscious, being made up of consciousness.
    I know, pretty flaky.

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  88. I'm pretty sure that quarks don't hang about by themselves. Two ups and a down is a proton and two downs and an up is a neutron.

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  89. Plus this is of course a model, just a model.

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  90. I know that; it doesn't change the idea that they are bits of consciousness.
    And of course, this is a model; just a model.

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  91. I have to say that I appreciate the fact that you're no longer easily aroused to irritation when I talk about this stuff. I used to feel kinda like I was walking on eggshells. Hell, I always knew, and still do, that it's VERY possible that my ideas (beliefs?) are dead wrong, and I don't pretend to know the 'real answer' to all of this, or if I'm even in the ballpark. I recognize that the *fact* that all our senses, which are our only way to sense reality *out there,* lead to our brains and it is in our brains, in our minds, that we sense reality and not in our fingertips etc, thus *of course* it would appear that it's all in the mind, because hey, all our sense of reality is in our minds.... I get that more than you know. I understand that it is easy to deceive myself in these matters due to that, and perhaps I am... I get it. I guess that, since if you are right about reality, it becomes much less interesting to me and basically the entire subject dead-ends, that I decided to pursue the other avenue in spite of the high chance of it being erroneous, because at least it is more interesting.

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  92. Y'know, as long as we're speculating on possible universe theories, I'll throw mine in too. :3

    Soul_Theory

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  93. consciousness, soul, you affecting the world and the world affecting you, demons, things that go bump in the night.

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  94. While I'm not quite done reading that, Cogs (keep getting interrupted by my son who for some reason finds your blog design irresistible and takes over the computer when I have it up) from what I've read so far, it's not so different from thoughts I've had in the past, wondering if a christian might create a version of heaven for themselves in the afterlife, wondering if everybody does, if we get what we expect, and so forth... then of course I thought, what if this is one such afterlife and we just don't recall each life very well, and so forth. I'll talk more with you when I get a chance about this... on your blog. If my son lets me. :-)

    Oops, I forgot who I was emoticoning to there for a second... here: :/#^^)(P

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  95. Two things .. I forgot your son's name again, how's he doing?

    And...If we kind of are creating our own reality, are we 'destined' to be hit by a meteor while that doomsday volcano is exploding while WWIII is commencing, while the aliens are just setting down?

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  96. His name is Connor... he's in school now. And doing really well; speech is coming along nicely.

    And perhaps some of us will see that, and some of us will not, depending on their beliefs. Dunno.

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  97. Bri, imho, you still have a cart before the horse problem.

    Cogs, while it would be nice to believe in a never-ending ego, there isn't any evidence for it.

    Question though, was your metaphysics a response of sorts to Brian's, or something you'd been ruminating on outside of St. B's Tavern?



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  98. Bri, imho, you still have a cart before the horse problem.
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    How so?

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  99. Hey, hey, hey, I'm rooting for Pope Stephen Colbert!! He's Catholic, right?

    I think that Harry is just saying that, since everything is the conclusion of input from objective reality, you're twisting it to be that everything starts from our conciousnesses.

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  100. That's actually what I said above in my post to you, Ian. (trying your actual name on for size... hey, it fits!) (The Feb. 15th 8:43 pm one)

    That I realize that, and it's the main thing that stops me from just totally accepting my little pet paradigm there.
    See, to balance that out, I've had a lot of things happen to me that the realist paradigm is at a loss to explain. They still happen, in fact. So there's that.
    Also, it's totally yin-yang, a balanced 50-50 probability thing, and by that I mean that the fact that we sense reality in our minds and with our minds, and thus cannot directly sense it to be external to ourselves, points toward the realist paradigm, but also if we live in a "dream" in which we what we sense is what *makes sense in a realistic way" to us (and that's the logical thing that would happen, after all) then what we would sense, is that reality is only experienced in our minds, pointing to a materialist paradigm, AS WOULD BE EXPECTED IN A DREAM IN WHICH WE ARE SEEKING TO DECEIVE OURSELVES IN THE FIRST PLACE.
    See? So if the dream world idea is correct, in that dream world, OF COURSE we would sense that it's not a dream world.

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  101. "So if the dream world idea is correct, in that dream world, OF COURSE we would sense that it's not a dream world."

    But you seem, to me at least, to be disregarding Occam's razor. Why complicate it? If it's reasonable to you that the World around you is objective, that people are other beings that exist only because they are objective beings, organic beings, why put this cart in front of the horse and imagine that there is a hidden truth and that objective reality doesn't really exist, as such, at all?

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  102. To me it's like you're saying that having children is only going along with the program, creating another separate 'thought bubble' that really shouldn't be if we were to only realise 'the truth'.

    Shit, as a guy with no kids, it's like I am the one who would be imagining that state of affairs and you, as a dad, ought to be opposed to it.

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  103. For me, the evolution of civilization is easy, hunter-gatherers tried to keep young animals simply because we're social beings, we went out and gathered fruit and spit the seeds out.

    Before you know it(hehe), we had domesticated animals and fruit trees etc. growing all around us.

    Then some 'boss' decided to couch his bossiness(business?) in terms of the cosmos. Why, he isn't telling you what to do, God(the gods) is.

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  104. But you seem, to me at least, to be disregarding Occam's razor. Why complicate it?
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    From your point of view, materialism is the logical answer and the simplest one; from mine, the opposite is also true. Sorry, but that's the case. It's a LOT simpler if all of this is thought. It just is.

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  105. All of the reasons that one would likely give for the materialist paradigm being simpler, are only simpler in the context of what we already know about a material universe. If that is an illusion, and it's all thought, all mysteries are answered, such as infinite distances, infinite time, and many, many other problems. In a thought or consciousness based reality wherein we most desire it to *not look like merely a thought-based reality,* we would think that the materialist paradigm is the right one AND the simpler one, but that is just our false 'reality-bias.

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  106. I don't think that's true. It's all simpler because the notion of an objective reality makes more sense than sylopsism.

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  107. So, in a way Bri, you're falling into the same trap (albeit an understandable one) the theist is. Since the material world we experience through our senses and technology we've developed, still can't begin to answer a fundamental paradox such as infinite regress, why not postulate an immaterial answer which can?

    But this is such a far reaching expectation we are forced to fall back onto "what's useful." The material world can be explored, tested, and postulated about. This isn't possible with minds or gods.




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  108. Let's move on to a NEW POST...
    One inspired by this very conversation.

    NEW POST IS UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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  109. And yes, this time it's really a post with an actual subject.

    NOVUM POSTUM EST UPPUM!

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