Monday, June 17, 2013

The Doofus Cat Project

Donate Now to the Doofus Cat Project! We have assembled a team of Feline Geneticists at the cutting edge of their field, along with Cat Breeders and Molecular Biologists and top experts in various disciplines including Animal Husbandry and Feline Kinesthesiology as well as various Proud Proponents of Proper Paw Placement, in order to tackle one of the longest-standing challenges in Human History. Yes, I am sure that you already know what I am referring to here. Finally, after millenia of living side-by-side with representatives of the genus Felis and more specifically the species Cattus which serve by our long-standing mutual co-habitation to constantly remind us of our utter comparative physical incompetence with their constant displays of inspired acrobatic genius and stunning super-human (but sadly not super-cat) physical co-ordination and speed, we are taking advantage of the Miracle of Modern Science to tackle this seemingly-unresolvable and insurmountable dillema: We love our cats, but not their effete and utterly snobbish level of physical competence. Therefore, the ultimate long-term goal of the Doofus Cat Project is, in simple terms, to finally breed the agility out of the kitty. We will initially select only the very most un-coordinated cats, the clumsiest kittens, and the most wrong-footed felines that can be found in the entire country as our base breeding stock, with additional genetic manipulation being intermittantly done at the molecular level, along with the introduction of additional non-species genetic material (pug) to finally, once and for all eliminate the cat's ability to make us feel clumsy and slow. In as little as five to seven years we would expect results varying from initial examples of feline stumbling, to eventually, actual instances of tripping over their own feet and subsequent face-planting. No longer must we witness some incredibly accurate jump of comparative Olympian proportions; no, instead we will be able to enjoy repeated failed feline attempts to even attain enough vertical height to land successfully on a typical kitchen chair without sliding into the waste basket. We will someday soon, with the Miracle of Modern Genetic Science and your kind donations to and participation in this Dream, be able to feel secure in the knowledge that our cats will, instead of constantly humiliating us with their ninja-esque displays of their annoying physical abilities, provide us with hours and hours of endless side-splitting entertainment merely in their many failed attempts to successfully eat out of a dish. To think! Within your own lifetime you can live to see cats everywhere experiencing the sensation of "falling down," "running headfirst into walls," and even "accidentally jumping into the toilet in the hopes that it was a lower chair than the one in the kitchen near the waste basket." So donate now to the Doofus Cat Project, and become a part of History!

165 comments:

  1. Be sure and add psychology to the mix. Kitty humility should be the concomitant cattitude that goes along with less than purrfect agility.

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  2. Got a new(to us) car today! And you'll never guess, she's an atheist too!!! (Who woulda thunk it?)

    Her name is Lucky, she's a 1992 Olds 88 and she cost us $600 plus $110 government extortion fee!

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  3. Congratulations Ian, and good luck with it!

    And Harry, I agree... they need to be taken down a couple of pegs. I guess I was thinking that they'd automatically be humbled when they tripped over baby toys... (I know how that humbles me!)

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  4. You know, this blog may be nearly dead, but looking at its stats it appears to get over fifty to seventy-five hits a day from all over the world. Over seventy-five just today in fact... even Serbia... weird.

    What I'm wondering is, WHY?

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  5. Oh that's me and Harry, we jet around and look in on you!

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  6. Tony Soprano is dead at 51. Sheesh!

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  7. I just heard myself. Sad. Heart attack in Italy. Hope he died happy. Of course, I'm pretty sure nobody does, since hey, you're dying at the time.

    Poor guy. I'm a year older than him. It gets weird when you're old enough to see old-looking people die and then you find out you're older than them.

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  8. B - The numbers are probably bolstered by Eastern European pornbots and Chinese hackers...

    Which of course is still far bigger an audience than I'll ever get ;)

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    Replies
    1. Pliny, my blog is the chaff to your blog's wheat. So no need for false modesty, my friend. You have a keen mind and a vivid imagination. And I'm apparently crawling with pornbots.... I'm almost scratching imaginary itches at the thought of it!

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    2. One of my cartoons got picked up by Jerry Coyne's blog. In 2 days I got more real hits than in the last 2 years. Meh...

      Delete
  9. Great! Just great!

    I think I once dated an eastern European pornbot. Ahh, memories.

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  10. Was just watching "The Cycle" on MSNBC.

    S.E. Cupp is such a tool. She puts forth things that try to implicate the democrats in the congressional malfunction that was the Farm Bill, as all republicans are doing now, and as she hears other people disagreeing with her, she scrunches up her face as if she's just not able to comprehend how people can be so stupid as to disagree with her.
    I have to admit, she's a very attractive woman. And that's all the good I can say about her. Her attutude is so supercilious, it's sickening. Republicans seem to believe that when you have no facts or truth on your side, if you sneer convincingly enough, the people will just have to side with you. And those who love to sneer at everything, do.

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  11. And what's her game? She claims to be an atheist, but she always sides with right-wing religious ideology, and says that she loves religion and wishes she was religious but she just can't believe in God so she's an atheist.... I'm seeing "niche marketing" here. Same thing with Black GOPers. She realizes that no sane atheist would agree with the right wing teaparty nutsacks, so she pretends to be just that, classifying herself as a highly desirable "rara avis" to said nutsacks and apparently MSNBC as well. She's the female white atheist equivalent of an "Uncle Tom."

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  12. I'd volunteer Spazz for the Doofus Cat Project, but we cut his little kitteh nuts off years ago...

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  13. The way you say it, it sounds like it was a home project: everybody around the kitchen table, daddy's gonna cut Spazz's nuts off now.... MMMRRRREEEEOOOOOWWWW!!!!

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  14. Ha! No... no "Rambo Veterinary Clinic" on Ed's kitchen table...

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  15. And here I was thinking that that was why your axe there had blood on it.

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  16. Oh, that... that's "artistic license".

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  17. When you look at it, that's actually a very poorly balanced scythe/axe the old Death Dealer has there. That thing would twist in the hand something fierce.

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  18. Some weird synchronicities in the last two days. Really bizarre. I'll elaborate later. Just some stuff that would even give you pause, Pboy. Involving a fly, of all things. A green bottle fly.

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  19. The sawing a woman in half trick is designed to look like the magician places his 'victim'(assistant) into the box, saws through the box, cutting the 'victim' in half, then miraculously undoing the horrific results.

    From a phenomenological perspective the woman(usually) is sawn in two then restored, right in front of our eyes!
    From the designer(of the trick)'s perspective, the box is designed to make it look as if that's what happened, while, in fact, not actually sawing through any human tissue whatsoever.

    Now the Bible is considered to be God's Word, and Him being God and all, wouldn't lie or mislead us since He'd have no reason to.

    In the First Book of the Bible, considered the First book of five books written by Moses, apparently Moses is compelled by GOD to inform us how the Heavens and the Earth, the vegetation, the birds, insects, etc. and finally mankind came to be.

    The trouble with this story is that it is written from a phenomenological perspective, that is, some guys figuring out what must have happened by how things looked to them, and can still appear to be how they are represented, by us today.

    Now much like the designer of the sawing-in-half trick knows that the victim is never really sawed in half, the Designer of the Universe would know that things are not necessarily the way they look to us humans.

    Given the perspective that Genesis is written from, Genesis is inspired by people attempting to explain what God did how God did it, and certainly not from the perspective of a designer.

    How are we to explain this? Genesis may well have been written by people inspired by their belief in God, but it must be hard, even for a Creationist to imagine God inspiring men to write Genesis from the men's own perspective. Are we to believe that God put it in men's minds to write down any old crap which looks obviously, phenomenologicaly correct, basically, any old shit will do if it seems right?

    This can't be the so-called 'Inspired Word of God', surely?

    Christians really have to be gaslighting each other all the time to maintain this illusion among themselves that the Bible is The Inspired Word of God.

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  20. It's a self-created ongoing mass psychosis, to be precise. The programming makes them want to mentally neuter themselves and be the bestest believer in their peer group. Ya Hafta Have Faith(to be a moron)...

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  21. I decided to write up my most recent synchronicity story on the Salvia blog, if anybody wants to read it:

    http://salviaspace.blogspot.com/

    It's pretty amazing. I think I may be Mephistopheles. (snark!)

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  22. I was sitting outside this morning looking at the scenery. I noticed that if I moved my head the tree, about 1/2 a mile away, no longer lined up with the same crag on Mount Arrowsmith, way off in the distance.
    IOW, I have a unique perspective of this World.
    I'm not saying that your unique perspective of this World we live on is wrong, Brian. Your perspective may well be nutz, but it can never be wrong.

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  23. The mystery of the disappearing socks solved!

    We all know that sometimes, when the laundry is getting done, sometimes there is a sock missing!

    It's not magic people! It's SCIENCE! Black holes!

    Where do black holes come from, how could a black hole appear in your dryer?

    This is just so obvious, I don't know why no-one has thought of this before!

    Worn out socks get holes in them. Worn out black socks get black holes in them!

    QED

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  24. I'm pretty sure you've told us this before Brian, but could you tell us again, exactly what would be the benefit to us to believe your Big Brain Theory?
    Exactly what would be the benefit for us of smoking Salvia?

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  25. A lot of people smoke salvia and don't get what I'm getting out of it, so I can't say that there would be any benefit for you to try it at all. I'm getting real-world effects with it, but few others get that sort of thing.

    If the BB stuff is not true than there's no benefit in anybody believing in it, but if it is, then it places consciousness before matter, and that gives a lot of people solace. It introduces the possibility of existence of some kind after death, for instance. It opens up a lot of possibilities, including the manipulation of *outcomes.*

    Did I tell you my wife just got a huge promotion? We needed more money. She had to take a test for CPI (Child Protective Investigator) along with over 200 others in one big lecture hall... she placed in at #1 of all of them. No guarantee of getting the job, had to interview of course, did stellar at the interview, so they hired her. She'll be great at it, she's a natural at seeing through BS and had a good logical mind and already has investigative experience.
    Now, did the fact that I did magic for her to get this, actually make it happen? Not sure, but we're having a good run.

    I guess my point is, I do this for me, because I want to, and because I seem to be getting interesting results. I find it liberating. If you were to read my second most recent post on the salvia site about the fly, it includes some biographical material that you may not know about... I think I have a natural predilection toward "seeing things," and that plus salvia seems a potent mix.

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  26. I want to clarify something. A difference between two kinds of "Big Brain" scenario. (I truly hate that name now)

    The one that I generally argue from, is the idea that everything we see as matter and energy and such, is in reality literally composed of consciousness, as in, a hydrogen atom is a unit of consciousness of some kind. It's all consciousness. However that gives the impression that what we see, is pretty much arranged as we see it. So we see cars and rocks and trees and such, and they will behave as we always thought that they would, and even if they're made up of units of consciousness instead of atoms, they're still arranged in these patterns in space that seem solid and real to us. A "Universe" exists, but it's made up of consciousness, and we see that consciousness as building blocks of some kind, arranged in space somehow, forming objects and such.

    I have clarified my thinking on this matter.

    I think it's a lot more like we are in a dream, and when we examine the dream, we get what we already have established as the "normal" results. I think there is no universe, no 'place' where all this is happening. It's all purely psychological in nature, a more sophisticated kind of dream in which there are multiple dreamers all participating. So in reality, no SPACE exists. Space is not real. Nothing is real. There are no locations; everything is right here, occupying no volume. No size. No area. All that is, is mind, and in that mind, we "thoughts" have become self-aware and have come to believe that we are solid, physical individuals and separate from everything else. All of that is illusion; you and I are right here, right where everything else is. The Andromeda Spiral is also here with us, as is the Hubble Deep Field. It's all in the mind. Even our bodies, are all in our minds, which are all connected because they are parts of the larger mind. You are a figment of my imagination, but I am also a figment of yours.
    There's an economy to this sort of thinking. Less waste. Ockham's Razor would approve.

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  27. Plus, if a universe occupies no space nor volume, then the idea of an infinite number of them, is no longer that hard to imagine. In fact, that seems to me to be the *only way* that there *can be* an infinite number of universes, or even a large number of them.

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  28. Still not 'getting it'.(sorry)
    What's the point of this dream?
    It seems to me to be to instill us with values and morals, then to crush those same values and morals that we have been instilled with.

    In the movies, children's stories, the GOOD BOOK(insofar as good shit is happening/predicted/etc., good overcomes evil, good is destined to prevail, but that's not the case. Greedy bastards sit around figuring out how to put crap in small print, figuring out how to express their evil nonsense AS good sense.

    In your 'World', why would this be? We're not all acknowledging the unrealness of the universe and using spells?

    WTF?

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  29. Oh. You need a point. What's the point of your version of reality? Did it have a point before I told you that it might be consciousness? Why does mine need to have one if yours does not?
    I don't know the point, if there is one, but that is again more likely in my version than yours. Maybe there is a point. However in a pure matter universe, there's no point to life other than 'REPRODUCE!' I prefer the possibility of more than that.

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  30. In fact, there is every possibility that the actual "point" to this universe, is an escape from something far worse: The state of being the only consciousness in existence. The ultimate loneliness which drives it insane and shatters it into fragments. You don't hear New-Agey people ever say that one, do you? That's because they need the truth to be better than this place. I just want to know the truth. I often get the impression of incredible loneliness and insanity when I 'go deep' on SD. I mean, imagine being conscious, but the only thing you can do is think, inside your mind, for there is nothing else to see or interact with, and you know it, and that can never change, and you can't even die. If that mind is a powerful one, it would likely fragment and it would have a lot of time to create fantasies to distract itself from the fact that nothing else actually exists outside its own mind. Pretty fucking sad. One time, so strongly could I feel "it" that I almost shed tears for "it" because I felt so bad for "it" and then I realized, I AM IT! I am that lonely being, pretending to be me. So I can feel sorry for myself... that got depressing fast, so I left that subject alone.

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  31. Exactly, the point of life is to be alive, to reproduce life. What's wrong with that? Seemed to work fine right up until us with our conscious self-awareness, opposable thumbs and language came along, right?

    Imagine if you were a cow. Well, a bull. Even if you were consciously self-aware, and cows aren't that dumb, they have an idea what's going on, what would you, do you think, think of? Would you be all chewing the cud and mourning the crappiness of being a fucking cow? I don't think so. You'd form family alliances, very primitive politics really, you'd have your herd of ladies that you'd fight for, just cow stuff, right?

    Being human is a bitch, we're practically, or functionally, infesting this planet 'cos nothing seems to be able to stop us.
    What do we do with our self-awareness and our opposable thumbs and that, well we try to own a much shit as much control over everyone else as we possibly can, that's what we do.

    I handle the absurdity of our 'condition' with booze! You handle it, well, your way.
    Nothing 'really' does exist in the sense of good or bad, moral or immoral, smart or stupid, outside of our minds, because we're the only one's who try to make it make that kind of sense.

    If we were all cows, or elephants, we might be mad if some lions try to eat our young, sad of one of us dies, that kind of thing, but if we lived long enough, we'd know that this shit repeats, this shit was bound to happen sooner or later, this shit is ongoing, whether it's all in the mind of material beings or all in the mind of consciousness beings.

    Have fun imagining that we are all not material since consciousness-created material, to me, is just as material as material-created consciousness.
    Except there's no magic.

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  32. And did you notice that life as in DNA, down at that level, is all life, material life, carbon-based life, is split up into, you know plants and fungi and insects and so on, basically all encompassed by DNA based life, just 'fractured', split up, expressing itself in different ways, sort of like your consciousness splitting up creating this soap opera we live in?

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  33. Will life on the planet Earth end? Who gives a shit, I'm 100% sure that MY life will end!

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  34. "...is in reality literally composed of consciousness, as in, a hydrogen atom is a unit of consciousness of some kind."

    This is where things get fuzzy for me, since my last couple of comments have been along the lines of, 'Well, it seems to be six of one compared to a half-dozen of the other.'

    Seems to me that consciousness is not a thing, it's a process. It's not that we don't know that firing neurons is the short answer to, "Why are we conscious?", it's that there's a huge gap between firing neurons and consciousness as we experience it.

    Now I know that you're going to say something like, "Well, consciousness isn't exactly what I mean.", but if it's just some nebulous 'force' then what's wrong with magnetism, electro-magnetic forces which enable us to see, makes stuff solid/liquid/gas, then there's plasma which has too much energy to be influenced by electro-magnetism, basically electro-magnetism is overwhelmed, albeit temporarily.

    If you just want the notion that everything is connected, well you can go to quantum physics and they have some sort of 'everything is connected' theory there.

    Right there you have your basis for believing that everything is interacting and perhaps the process of consciousness itself is able to interact with the process of the universe, um, well, proceeding.(processing?)

    As you can see I have a problem with your terminology, that your 'bits of consciousness' notion isn't clear since 1/100th. of an apple isn't the same as 1/00th. part of, say, a 5 mile jog.
    Sure they both have 1/100th parts, but one is a thing and the other is a process.

    BTW I was really tired last night and I apologize if my last few comment seem 'short'. I guess I wasn't being diplomatic.

    But I guess I really am trying to push forward the idea that consciousness is a process, a process of our brains and not a thing(each of us having a separate 'thing'((our consciousness)) as such.

    This is where it gets tricky if we're trying to argue/debate the 'other side', separating things from processes can be infinitely regressive.

    And.. and.. and saying that when you say 'consciousness' that you don't really 'mean' consciousness, might help you, it's just not helping me at all.

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  35. We (most of us atheists and most scientists) believe that consciousness is a process, an emergent phenomena from the complexity of the matter that composes our brains. What I keep on saying is that that is not true in my speculations. Consciousness is a "thing" in these theories. In fact, it is the only "thing" that there is in existence. For one thing, it's the "thing" that collapses the waveform in our experiments. However all of that is in the dream; we expect certain results and the conscious universe obliges us by letting things unfold in that manner. Science is us looking around and seeing phenomena that we then explain based upon the results of our expectations, which in turn are based in our knowledge of the preceding science, so it must conform to that because we need this place to seem utterly real and to make sense as if it were real.
    We are putting the horse before the cart, as it were. We assume that consciousness is an end result when it's the prime mover, the basis of everything we perceive, and our own bodies are included in that. This reality is the result of many human and animal and plant and whatever else consciousnesses over time creating it in order to be separate individuals. We craved a reality and so we wrought one from our dreams

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  36. This morning I was still asleep in bed. My wife had awakened so as to let me sleep in. I had smoked SD the night before, but not a lot. So she was bustling about with my son, and of course they were making various noises. So I noted in my light sleep, without any excitement, being asleep after all, that I was sensing the noises just before they happened. Then I sensed (like hearing it in my head) a door slamming. About three seconds later a door slammed out in the house. (my son had slammed it) Now this is important: The sound was identical, the same sound precisely, and I am not mistaken about me hearing it, and everything else for that matter, before it happened. I am very certain of that. It was a lot like I was having a dream, but reality conformed to it a few seconds later, like I had a sound track in my head and the identical sound track was also playing outside the bedroom with a three second delay. Reality seemed to be following *my script.*
    Then I realized what the fuck was happening and THAT woke me up to full consciousness.

    I heard that door slam just before it did slam. I know that I did.

    My meditations and experiences with SD are getting more and more interesting.

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  37. The slamming of the door awakened me to full consciousness, right at the point where I could recall all that had happened in the dream for the previous minutes. It was the realization that I'd literally heard it twice that shocked me into waking up when I heard it.

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  38. Yea, well, I knew you were going to say something like that!

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  39. Indeed. Without saying a word, I can waggle a candy bar and the dog will jump right up on the bed! It's scary I tells ya!

    I give him the tiniest bits of chocolate melted between my fingers, but he can't read, so he doesn't know it's chocolate, how could he excepting for my powerful mind powers!

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  40. I understand that chocolate is very bad for doggies, Pboy. Hope you only give him a tiny bit.

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  41. I tell you (knowing that there's no way you'll believe me) that it was like I was having this running dream in my head, very faint, I had to "tune" my mind to it (hard to explain, it's a salvia thing, and I wasn't even on it at the time) and still it was faint, but very clear, and there were sounds going on in it, just normal background sounds of noises from the A/C and from outside the room from my wife and son, and all of a sudden in it, the sound of a door slamming, very clear and distinctive, and a few seconds later the exact door slam for real from outside the room, The instant I heard it it made me realize that *all* of the sounds that I'd been hearing were echoed for real a few seconds later, and that made me wake up fully and that's the only reason that I remember it. Normally there's no way that would have awakened me, I know this, but for the fact that dreaming is a lot like a SD trip and I have conditioned myself to "snap out of it" whenever something really interesting or bizarre happens in one of them, and it apparently also works when I'm sleeping lightly.

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  42. I have a morbid fear of sociopaths. What would the Greek name for that be? You know, like agoraphobia for fear of the market space.

    Oooo, Oooo, what would, "Fear of people who think they can control outcomes with magic/their MINDS?

    Or would that not just be, "Fear of the deranged."?

    (Joke)

    But no, really, Fear of sociopaths should be 'up there', don't you think?

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  43. So basically you are thinking, and saying, that I am deranged. How nice of you!

    As atheists go, you're a bit of a fundy at times.

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  44. Deranged simply means 'out of order'.
    You put consciousness, a process in the material universe, ahead of material, in the material universe.

    This must be classic derangement, no?

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  45. I'm pretty sure that you cannot possibly imagine a universe that consists only of a 'consciousness'(but not really because you have to uninvoke all the principal elements of our universe then reinvoke them in this 'consciousness' universe.

    I think that your thinking goes along the lines of, "Our self-awareness only works if there is something to think about. What if the something to think about was not material, but in fact a dream!"

    I know, I know, I'm a fucking genius and you can use this as your own if you like!

    Don't be surprised when people want to refute this with the idea that this consciousness/dream has to be based in some kind of not-consciousness/dream reality since it's a process happening in some medium. Since that is true then why not TWO consciousnesses, why not more, in this unknown medium?

    "Which will bring, us, back, to, Doe a deer a female deer, ray a drop of golden Sun..."

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  46. What if all was consciousness and there was no 'material'? Well, you are lying to yourself if you imagine there is no purpose for a universe such as you imagine.

    Your goal is to eliminate death as a 'real' outcome, isn't it?

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  47. The Kalam Cosmological argument is circular since we have to invoke the infinite, 'What has always been?', then refute the infinite, 'There must have been a beginning since nothing has always been.', then reinvoke the infinite, 'The First Cause has always been.'

    Classic Confusion Technique hypnotism with 'escape', since one cannot imagine the infinite, the impossibility of the infinite, one escapes to the 'new' infinite!

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  48. Don't be surprised when people want to refute this with the idea that this consciousness/dream has to be based in some kind of not-consciousness/dream reality since it's a process happening in some medium.
    -------------------
    How can I be when you do that all the time? Like as in, right now for instance.
    Consciousness being the ground of all being is a hard concept to grok. It means that not only is consciousness a 'thing' and not a process, but also that consciousness is the only "real" thing there is. Everything else is a dream set in that consciousness. Including the fact that most of us see this backwards, see it as a process that requires "things" in order to be. It's the consciousness that creates the things, not the reverse.

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  49. The Kalam Cosmological argument is circular since we have to invoke the infinite, 'What has always been?', then refute the infinite, 'There must have been a beginning since nothing has always been.', then reinvoke the infinite, 'The First Cause has always been.
    --------------------------
    How about "nothing can be infinite, except in our minds?"

    And if reality is a mind also, can it not think infinitely?

    The idea of consciousness being the ground of all being, eliminates all pesky infinities. Everything is APPEARANCES; no infinities actually exist, because hey, NOTHING actually exists! Problem solved!

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  50. I'm pretty sure that you cannot possibly imagine a universe that consists only of a 'consciousness'(but not really because you have to uninvoke all the principal elements of our universe then reinvoke them in this 'consciousness' universe.
    -------------------------
    Nope, you're way off. I can indeed imagine it. It's what I see when I close my eyes and sleep. A series of dreams and such, all internal, since my senses are not operating. It would be a mind. A mind with nothing at all external to it. No space required; it occupys no volume because space itself is a dream. It has no location because all our locations are within it to begin with; it's always *right here* and *over there* and *on Alpha Cantauri* and everywhere, but it's really the case that all those places are within it, and not the reverse. It's a mind, with nothing else but that mind to contemplate. It's all internally directed, because nothing is external to it. We are inside it, and it has no volume, nor does it need any, because the idea of needing space or volume in which to exist, is again just a part of the dream. It's easy to imagine what it is. It is us. It is everything. But all of those things exist only as thought patterns within that consciousness, as dreams that this odd sort of "uber-mind" is having.

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  51. Your goal is to eliminate death as a 'real' outcome, isn't it?
    ------------------
    I'm not sure that this does that. It may, but it may not. If so, fantastic! But I won't know until I try it. I'm more motivated by the sheer wonder of this concept, the idea of a great mystery that it right in front of everybody's nose but they can't see it. I feel lucky to be able to perceive even the glimmer that I do. I had already accepted my personal death before ever even having my first synchronicity, so it's okay if that's what will happen... I've always looked at it this way: I was dead once before, as far as I can tell, before I was conceived. So been there, done that. I fear the mangling, as my wife says... the pain of dying. But nonexistence? I've done that before. Pretty painless. Now, would I like to go on somehow in some manner? Absolutely, not gonna lie to you here. Is that the REASON that I went down this path? Absofuckinglutely not. I saw things that did not fit the scientific paradigm before I decided to think outside that paradigm; not the other way around.

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  52. Deranged simply means 'out of order'.
    You put consciousness, a process in the material universe, ahead of material, in the material universe.

    This must be classic derangement, no?
    -------------------
    I am then deranged, as compared to the norm. I am also insane (if I were to give in and throw all my belief eggs into this one basket) as compared to the norm.
    My whole thesis is that the norm, is exactly 180 degrees wrong. Thus it is you that is, by the same definition, deranged and insane! ;-)

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  53. When we first *met,* I was perhaps 50 percent convinced by this stuff and 50% not. Today I am more like 80% convinced. It's not the salvia trips per se, it's the stuff with my wife and dog, and things like my experience recently on awakening where I heard all the sounds in the house a moment before they actually happened, plus a recent uptick in the synchronicities. No hallucination of mine can wake my wife or disturb the dog. Not if I'm silent and still. Not if I'm just sitting there. Can't happen, not in your world, no way. So then I am forced to give a higher probability to the veracity of *my* world.

    Sorry.

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  54. No need to be sorry Brian.
    Let's imagine that your theory is true for a moment.
    What do you mean when you say you were dead before you were conceived? Since everything is consciousness(or dream-stuff) then nothing is dead, right? The idea that your dad had some fun time with your mother and his sperm fertilized her ovum, then that grew inside her to become you, isn't real, no, it's like a soap opera, isn't it?
    Why is this soap opera such a tragedy? Either way, material or no, there's no point to it. You said that the consciousness was lonely and that's why it dreamed us up. So you grow up learning about the World you're born into and when you are asleep you dream of the World you're in.
    'The consciousness' is dreaming you up as a separate living process which sometimes dreams of 'The consciousness', but mostly dreams of the other separate living processes?

    For you to better understand that material reality is a dream, you smoke a drug which affects your consciousness, both of which(the drug and your consciousness) are being dreamed by 'The Consciousness', and 'The Consciousness' dreamed 'you', while under the influence of 'The Consciousness' dreamed drug can influence 'The Consciousness' dreamed other consciousnesses (i.e. your wife and dog)around you.

    I'd be much impressed if you could, under these same circumstances, influence a 'The Consciousness dreamed' rock.
    Wouldn't you?
    I'm talking levitation, changing it to a gemstone, crumbling it to dust or just 'disappearing it'.

    How about just bending a, 'The Consciousness dreamed' spoon?

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  55. What do you mean when you say you were dead before you were conceived? Since everything is consciousness(or dream-stuff) then nothing is dead, right?
    -------------------------------
    Did I really have to specify considering the context? Then let me be clear: I was speaking of death as we know it, the thing that I would have been fearing which propelled me to believe in a philosophy where it may not exist in the first place. That *is* what we were talking about, wasn't it? You ask me: "Your goal is to eliminate death as a 'real' outcome, isn't it?" So I responded in that mode. As if death is the 'real' outcome. I said that I didn't fear it even if it were. I hope that I am clearer now. If the Big Brain thing is true, then it may not be a real outcome, but I did say that I could not know that until I "tried" it, until I actually died.
    You seek always to cross-examine, but you have not had the paradigm shift in your thoughts that would allow you to do that in a more penetrating manner. Your questions are based on assumptions that I do not have nor that I make about this subject. For instance, why is this world so tragic? You speak of me saying that the MIND was lonely and so it dreamed us up, but what I said is not an analog of that. What I said was that it was lonely and *went insane* and fragmented itself due to that insanity, and so that might explain why the dream (this one, at any rate; there may be many, many others) isn't a happy one with good outcomes for all. However, this is *speculation* on my part to begin with! I did after all, get that "insane mind fragmenting" thing out of a salvia intuition, so I do not trust it to be the truth. It is but one possibility out of many. As to why I cannot levitate nor transmute substances, did I ever say that that might be possible? I believe that I've spoken many times in the past about how it seems impossible to *change* the dream, most likely due to the fact that I am not the only dreamer in it! In order for me to transmute a rock into a gemstone for instance, I must not only get myself to believe that I can do that, then I have to believe that I am doing it, then I have to believe that I DID do it, but then everyone else in the world ALSO has to believe that I did it. Um, not likely. The things one can change, are things that others cannot see clearly so that they can disbelieve them. Nobody can say that I magically created my son, for instance. No miracles were involved. It was just manipulation of ODDS. Not some transmutation. I mean, sperm still had to meet egg and so forth. The odds against him happening were very high, but not insurmountable. In this dream there are rules, rules that we likely ourselves made, but they are no less inviolable for all that. You see, the "prime directive" in this sort of dream must be something like "Thou shalt not accomplish anything that can prove to others that this is not a dream!" I mean, that's pretty basic, right? We designed this dream to fool us, for the reason that we want to be fooled, we want to believe that we are *individuals* that make their own fate and so forth, so this is the kind of "place" that you wind up with if you were to do that.

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    1. Let me offer one further elaboration on this. When you dream at night, how often do you just take control of your dream and master it like a god? How often, even though it is your dream, do you realize that it is but a dream, when you are in one? It happens; people do have lucid dreams of course, but it usually involves some kind of training or preparation or a natural predilection for such a talent. I've only ever had the one, for instance; the one that I often refer to where my coincidences started. So if we can't just take control of our own regular, normal dreams and perform dream "miracles" while in them, how much more difficult might this be to do in a communal dream that has literally *all* of our concentration invested in it? I'd say well-nigh impossible, wouldn't you?

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  56. To be absolutely clear, where I am right now is at a point where I am seeing many things that the normal scientific rational paradigm offers no explication for. Thus, all I can say is that I am coming to believe that reality is something very different from that. The most logical choice is that it is consciousness-based. That is where I enter the land of speculation though. All of the things that I have said in an attempt to either elaborate that or rebut your questions are necessarily speculative. I think that I may be pretty close, but there's no way to tell. So of course, you can still use the scientific, rational paradigm to take me down, as it were, since I can't possibly know all the reasons why our reality is the way that it is. However, that only 'takes me down,' only effectively defeats my speculations, within that rational, scientific paradigm, and *I've already left that behind me, haven't I?* I am proposing a new, different paradigm that still contains all of that old one, but has added in a new layer at the bottom, so to speak.

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  57. " I must not only get myself to believe that I can do that, then I have to believe that I am doing it, then I have to believe that I DID do it, but then everyone else in the world ALSO has to believe that I did it."

    "The things one can change, are things that others cannot see clearly so that they can disbelieve them."

    Alright then, this would be you smoking up some Salvia and waking up your sleeping wife and/or dog, with your mind?

    Do you think that you might be able to do it on camera, with your wife confirming it, at least?

    "Thou shalt not accomplish anything that can prove to others that this is not a dream!"

    What about the quantum mechanics stuff you like to point to? Seems to me that scientists are doing their experiments, expecting it to make sense to them yet coming up with strange results.

    " All of the things that I have said in an attempt to either elaborate that or rebut your questions are necessarily speculative."

    A lot of people are willing to believe that spoons can indeed be bent with the power of the mind, and I'm just trying to get a handle on your speculations, no need to think of it as a cross-examination of some kind.

    Seems to me that you want people to be interested in your experiences and experiments but there seems to be a thin line separating interest and 'questioning you', which you apparently feel is kind of off-limits. Obviously Ed, mac and Pliny don't even want to comment on this subject at all.

    And it seems to me that you change perspective at will by the magic trick of explaining that your theory is only speculation. But it's speculation that you believe, isn't it? I'm just asking you to account for it is all, right?

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  58. " I must not only get myself to believe that I can do that, then I have to believe that I am doing it, then I have to believe that I DID do it, but then everyone else in the world ALSO has to believe that I did it."

    "The things one can change, are things that others cannot see clearly so that they can disbelieve them."

    Alright then, this would be you smoking up some Salvia and waking up your sleeping wife and/or dog, with your mind?
    -------------------------
    -My wife, who nobody else will believe any more than they believe me. To prove it means to prove it to the world. Not one or two people. Plus, she is more of a believer in the occult and psychic phenomena than I am.



    Do you think that you might be able to do it on camera, with your wife confirming it, at least?
    -----------------------------
    I've thought of this myself. Perhaps so. Unless the fact that I know it's being recorded distracts me in some way, but it might be possible. All you'd see though, is me sitting there, perhaps for a while, and then she wakes up, and I immediately say that I had just seen the glow touch her when she did. Would you accept that as proof of anything? Me neither.



    "Thou shalt not accomplish anything that can prove to others that this is not a dream!"

    What about the quantum mechanics stuff you like to point to? Seems to me that scientists are doing their experiments, expecting it to make sense to them yet coming up with strange results.
    ---------------------------
    -Science represents the cutting edge of our knowledge. As this edge cuts further into the nature of reality, it is beginning to show signs of it being askew. However, it will oscillate for a long while in this state, of some people thinking consciousness is involved and other people finding things that look like they contraindicate that, such as decoherence, which many of the scientists claim causes waveform collapse without the need for conscious observation. Reality is like that; what we do not wish to believe we find evidence against, even if it's true. So in short, the only way that we ever will PROVE that consciousness collapses the waveform, or further prove that it is the ground of all being, is if science proves it in the usual manner. It will take a long time. It's too hard to believe. Maya (illusion) will give the researchers what they need to prove it to themselves that it cannot be true. Never absolute proof, but things they will accept, because they need to. That's why it will take some time.




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    1. (Disclaimer(see my last reply below): This post above is another speculation as described below, although it makes sense to me in the context of the idea of the universe giving us what we expect it to, or what we fear it will...Maya deceives!)

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  59. " All of the things that I have said in an attempt to either elaborate that or rebut your questions are necessarily speculative."

    A lot of people are willing to believe that spoons can indeed be bent with the power of the mind, and I'm just trying to get a handle on your speculations, no need to think of it as a cross-examination of some kind.
    ---------------------
    Okay, sorry. Without the benefit of facial expressions or vocal tonal qualities being perceived, it can be hard to tell.




    Seems to me that you want people to be interested in your experiences and experiments but there seems to be a thin line separating interest and 'questioning you', which you apparently feel is kind of off-limits. Obviously Ed, mac and Pliny don't even want to comment on this subject at all.
    -------------------------
    -I'm not offended. I feel bad that we don't talk as much, but I can't help it, and they can't help it that this interests them about as much as mulching leaves. I miss them.



    And it seems to me that you change perspective at will by the magic trick of explaining that your theory is only speculation. But it's speculation that you believe, isn't it? I'm just asking you to account for it is all, right?
    ------------------------
    I'm starting to believe that all of reality is consciousness, yes. I can only speculate as to HOW that works. So I do not "believe in" any further speculations of mine, no. That doesn't prevent me from offering them to you as possible explanations, things that I consider likely even. I think that's where we sometimes have a problem. I speculate something, perhaps just write it down extemporaneously with no disclaimer that it's not a hard belief of mine, then if I can't adequately defend my point to you, I tell you that, hey, it was a speculation, and you see that as me welching out. Let me be clear: All that I'm coming to believe, as stated earlier perhaps on the order of say, 80 percent, maybe a tad higher, is that this place is consciousness and not dead matter and energy and time and space as we see it. How on earth can I believe, absolutely believe, anything more than that? I'm not about to pretend that I am SURE of something that I saw while on salvia, no matter what you think. (I am fairly sure that I've been waking the wife, though. On the order of 98% and rising, so that causes me to think that SD is not like other drugs; either that or I am not like other users, which is possible considering my early-in-life hallucinations that went on for many years and still persist to this day in reduced form.)

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  60. But it's speculation that you believe, isn't it?
    -----------------
    To clarify, it used to be all speculation to me, including whether consciousness is the ground of all being, however *on that one point* I have moved to near-certainty. Anything beyond that however, remains, as it must, speculation.

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  61. I do not nor have I ever believed in one of my own speculations. If I did, they wouldn't be speculations.

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  62. For instance, let's take life after death. The concept of holistic idealism (everything is consciousness) does not necessarily imply any such thing. Is this more like a dream? Then perhaps we can dream other dreams afterwards. Is this more like matter is a form of consciousness? Then it becomes likely that, even if "made" of consciousness, the patterns of the matter/consciousness that make up our brain would be necessary to maintain our personal consciousness. In the latter case though, it is still possible that there is a survival, or rather a continuation, of our personal sense of "I AM," the core of our consciousness, due to the fact that it is shared by everyone and everything in the universe. Or any number of other possibilities and/or gradations of those things. So there is a LOT of room for further speculation after one comes to the conclusion that "All Is Consciousness." And that's just on that one question.

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  63. If I were to guess though, it's more like reality is a kind of dream, and not that matter is somehow "made up of" consciousness like it's a kind of Lego bricks. That seems to me to be the most likely scenario in which taking a mind-altering substance can possibly in any way cause another person to awaken from a sound sleep. Then our scientist's observations of quantum physics which show (or seem to show) that consciousness is involved in waveform collapse are understandable due to their own biases influencing their findings. There is no waveform, in my scenario. We only believe that there is.

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  64. As science progresses on this front (toward the idea that reality is a dreamlike state) it will do so in fits and starts (if I'm right) because their results will always be skewed by their expectations. You'll get hints of this, then seeming proofs that it is not this, and then more hints that it is, and so forth. It will be a stagger-progress toward the truth, though.

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  65. Last night, I scared the dog, who was awake on the bed. He ran over to the opposite top corner. I did it, to all appearances, at least to *my* appearances, by flexing reality. I'll write about it later on, on the other blog. Again, the phenomena that I'm seeing and feeling on SD, scares the dog.
    So seriously, at this point, how can I even doubt that at least *something* strange is going on?

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  66. Yea, well, due to the speculative nature of your theory, trying to pin you down on anything is like trying to pin jello to a wall.

    'But it's just speculation' is a 'get out of jail free card', you can say anything and mean nothing by it.

    For example, you're pretty sure you use your mind to affect your wife's or your dog's mind, you have one set of criteria, but if I ask you how it is that you don't seem to be able to affect non-living entities, which by yourselves, in your room, isn't any more subject to 'what people believe in general' than the other thing, it's not allowed on account of other people's general beliefs.

    I don't get that.

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  67. Imagine how convincing you would be if you took some small stones from your garden and turned them into some precious gems, mail them to me to have appraised and sell.
    We could then convince Ed, Pliny and mac, using that same technique and proceed to change the World to suit ourselves!

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  68. Gee, I'm sorry that me doing the impossible isn't nearly enough for you to at the very least, not scoff at everything I say. You think I know how this happens? You think I can explain how she wakes up or the dog or whatever, and KNOW that it's the right answer here? I give you an apparent fucking miracle and you ask for precious stones? What kind of friend are you anyhow?

    You have YET to offer any explanation or attempted explanation of what is happening now, and you want more? Let me tell you something, Ian. Awakening another human being or the dog, every time, over and over, for months now, is to me equally amazing as if I'd turned a pebble into a diamond. It should NOT BE POSSIBLE to do what I am doing routinely now, and this gets NOTHING from you but scoffing jokes at the expense of something that amazes the living fuck out of me, and a suggestion that I become God to prove my point, because that's what I'd be if I could transmute matter at will. I'd say that apparent psychic communication (at the very least) is enough for now. I'd also say that while I have been your online friend for years now, that I should apparently not expect any sort of actual friendship in return, since you'd rather laugh at me than listen to me. Fine. As long as I know the score.

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  69. If the situation were reversed here, I'd have been asking you questions like whether salvia produces a distinctive SMELL that might disturb my wife or the dog, or whether I am unknowingly making some sort of strange noise (perhaps the bubbling of the water pipe?) when I see the green light or whatever. Is my wife a very light sleeper? Does she wake up a lot during the night? Does the dog? Sure I've already considered things like that and eliminated them as possibilities, but hey, you never did go there, did you? You are too certain in your skepticism to even give me the courtesy of feigned interest and/or intelligent questions pertinent to the situation. Instead you confine yourself to shooting me down and laughing at me. Of course I knew that you'd never believe me... but what does that leave? I guess that leaves only two possibilities in your mind, that either I'm totally deceiving myself like a gullible fool, or I'm just pulling this shit out of my ass, right? And of course, neither possibility deserves any of your RESPECT, does it? And Boy Howdy, does it SHOW.

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  70. Harrumph! You thought I was joking? Hmm.

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  71. Let's just say that your little descent into snark there did not go unnoticed.

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  72. Replies
    1. So you're seriously telling me that you wanted me to convert some pebbles into gemstones and send them to you to have appraised and sold, then.

      Sure you were.

      I'm "projecting" the movie you directed.

      No matter though... no worries.

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  73. "Archbishop of Canterbury William Temple once observed, “When I pray, coincidences happen, when I do not pray coincidences do not happen.” Many Christians can resonate with Temple’s wry reference to God’s providence. But atheists demur, charging that such experiences only evince a selection bias that counts the hits and ignores the misses."

    - See more at: http://www.skepticink.com/tippling/2013/07/12/oh-my-randal-rauser-on-prayer-god-or-godless/#sthash.hjCCymCJ.dpuf

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  74. Fantastic! I hadn't seen that one before, thank you. It plays right into what I've always said about the Big Brain thing; that many christians get the coincidences and mistake them for their god. Makes perfect sense... all you have to do is believe it to be possible. I told you that I once met a woman that was getting them and had assumed it t be God speaking to her, but when *coincidentally* she met me and I'd had them too but provided her a differing explanation for them, she freaked (because she had not told me that she'd gotten them too yet!) It's all about belief. No deity required of course, and that's been my point all along. It's the mind set that is required to see these things, that of wonder and openness to them and belief that they are possible and meaningful that brings on more of them.

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  75. I think the fact that an atheist like me can get them, is proof that they aren't "God" but that it's merely that this universe gives us what we expect it to, said expectations being unconscious ones of course. Then since I experimented with them by merely having "faith" that the universe worked in that manner, with zero faith in any god, I determined that the nature of the mechanism is a universal property rather than any deity.

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  76. I think you're missing the post's point. He's saying that the strangest coincidences are bound to happen given the frequency and diversity of things we get up to.

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  77. I think it's you that has missed the point of it, my friend.

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  78. I never thought of synchronicities (didn't even know what they were) or coincidences, other than the way that *you* do, until they started happening to me, Ian. I had no "conversion" before that. I never would have *suspected* that all of a sudden a person could start having conspicuous coincidences all the time. When that happens, as in my case with certainly no expectation nor forethought of it, a person, especially an atheist, *knows the difference.* Recognizes the difference between coincidences on the order of what they'd been having all their lives, the normal level, and this new, far-from-normal level. A person like that in those circumstances, no expectation, taken by surprise by them, *knows the difference.* It's that simple. It was the coincidences that prompted me to even CONSIDER anything smacking of the occult. They happened first, and it was because *I knew the difference* that I started on this unusual path. I'm sorry that you can't see the difference between this, between what I speak of, and the standard dismissal of "the strangest coincidences are bound to happen given the frequency and diversity of things we get up to."

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  79. I already am far more certain that the coincidences were not normal now than ever before, because they led me down a path where I am now awakening people and disturbing dogs with mere visions.

    I note that you have never even addressed this phenomena. No attempts to disprove it to me, really? That's not like you. Giving up on me so soon?

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  80. Or perhaps (and maybe this is me projecting again!) your honest opinion of what is happening to me is something you hold back so as not to offend.
    It wouldn't offend me. I mean, if that's it. I mean, I know you fairly well. What *good* opinion of me could you possibly have?

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  81. I told you my honest opinion of you Brian. I think of you as a buddy, a pal, mi amigo, even though we've never met, and I am worried about you.

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  82. Well, thank you. I appreciate that. Your friendship is valuable to me. I only wish you knew me personally. I truly think that you'd worry less. Nobody would take me for a crackpot or someone in the throes of psychosis. I almost want to apologize to you for telling you so much about my "beliefs." I understand why they would worry someone like you, whom I consider an almost hyper-rational person. All I can do is ask you to consider the possibility that even if this is me going down a road to crazyland, that I have installed safety mechanisms into my personality that will not allow me to go all the way to the town border, if you take my meaning. This is my Great Experiment, not my Great Conversion. I seek after knowledge, not spiritual succor. If I attain more knowledge, I will be satisfied. If I sense myself in a circle of blind belief, I will be repelled by that and self-correct. I have constructed intentional safeguards to that effect.
    Okay, I suppose even that sounds crazy. Let's just say that I appreciate your worry and would assuage it if I could, but I can't right now, so in the meantime wouldn't you like to hear the details of my descent into florid madness?
    Okay, that was a joke, but I hope you get my meaning.

    At any rate, thanks for your concern.

    Talk to you later.

    We differ greatly in outlooks; I truly hope that that never prevents us from being friends.

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  83. http://www.classwarfareexists.com/

    This is not bad.

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  84. Interesting website. Anything specific on it that you wanted to point out or just the whole page?

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  85. http://stephenlaw.blogspot.ca/search/label/%22Can%27t%20Prove%20A%20Negative%22

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  86. Interesting read. I enjoyed that. Seems to be just common sense to me, though. When he used unicorns my mind went right to the fossil record, and so forth.

    Just out of curiosity, did you post that because you thought it applied to me in some way?

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  87. No, Brian, I'm not posting these up because they 'apply to you', I'm posting them up 'cos I think you might like them.

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  88. That's what I thought. Just wanted to be sure.

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  89. I was reading about Jesus, Lazarus, the Sanhedrin and Pontius Pilate.
    It seems that the Sanhedrin considered Jesus a blasphemer for claiming to be the Christ but wanted Pilate to find Jesus guilty of being a terrorist threat to Pax Romana.

    Jesus was also 'guilty' of caring for the poor, you'll notice, and the Sanhedrin sought a political solution. The modern Christian Right seek political solutions against people who care for the poor and claim that those who seek to adjust the system, trying to allow women to be equal(be in control of their reproductive system), trying to make education more to do with intelligence(God given?) than with wealth(God given?), trying to directly aid the poor and so on.

    They 'forever' tell us that we are trying to be like God, thinking that we believe we are God, no doubt unlike themselves who apparently love to wallow in the mire of the greedy, dog-eat-dog, social-Darwinism that they find the World to be, paying tribute to the 'Bride of Christ'(i.e. THEMSELVES) to excuse themselves of their lack of charity.
    They would crucify us all for the religious disrespect we show them(the Bride of Christ), the disrespect we show their GOD, just like the Sanhedrin did to Jesus, but they'd be happy to do it with political machinations, just like the Sanhedrin did to Jesus!
    But WE'RE not 'comparing ourselves to Jesus(except maybe Sergio(LOL)), we're comparing the officious(religious and political) Sanhedrin to the officious(religious and political) Christian Right.

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  90. Later, in Acts 4, Peter and John went before Annas and Caiaphas after having healed a crippled man. Caiaphas and Annas questioned the apostles' authority to perform such a miracle. -
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caiaphas#Matthew:_trial_of_Jesus

    Notice the equivalence here, Republicans asking Americans by whose authority 'we' feed the poor and heal the poor?

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  91. Yes, but now at least we can be granted indulgences via Twitter!

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  92. The gadget that tells you where the hits are coming from, I need that for my new and exciting blog! LOL

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  93. Not a gadget, just click on "design" at the top right of any blogger blog and then click on "stats" on the left, then "audience." Voila!

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  94. And of course, my next question is, "WHAT exciting new blog is that???" Inquiring, slightly warped minds want to know...

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  95. Naw, false alarm. Turned out to be my old and decrepit blog all along.

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  96. Aww.

    Well, this place is getting kinda cobwebby too. And so am I, for that matter.

    The Prez made a great speech yesterday on race. One could hope that it has some effect, but with the other side so well-organized against it and well-heeled to boot, it'll likely get swept under the rug... as usual.

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  97. What with the insane right screaming bloody murder at anything and everything Obama tries to do, no-one is noticing that he's not really very left-wing, his policies could be called middle of the road at best.

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  98. Of course not. They never let the facts get in the way of a good demonization.

    Christians are great at demonizing, since from the very start they were required to. Constantine needed well-trained attack dogs. I honestly think that without someone or something to hate, the religion starts to decay into factions just so they have something to despise and thus bond over. It's a war religion, basically.

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  99. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSIw09oqsYo

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  100. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6zIEfSxqkg

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  101. If you're one of these philosophy types who imagine that time is an illusion, I want to know 'how' time is an illusion.
    Write me a 69 million word book on how time is an illusion. "No way! That'd take me forever!", you say?
    But, 'Time is only an illusion.', right?
    I say, "Time is all we have, it's all we got, so if that is true, and if it is an illusion, then all we have, all we are, is just an illusion."
    This makes the idea, the notion, that time is an illusion, silly, to me. who, if it's true, am just an illusion too. Walking, talking illusions?
    WTF? Wtf is your definition OF an illusion?

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  102. This was one of the best times in my life! Makes me feel good just to hear it. I don't even know what I bought for five bucks.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aP5ikQpTR3c&list=FL_tNstygBvM7ovodpsHIO0A

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  103. Ahh, time. Yes.

    If it's an illusion, that doesn't mean that we do not have to live as if it is not one.

    We're talking about a difference that pretty much makes no difference.

    We each have a 'world line.' If you were to visualize one person's life as everything they ever did from birth to death, as a line through space and time, that's their world line. If time is not real, then the reason that we do not perceive this at birth, do not perceive ALL of our life that is before us at once, is that our consciousnesses can only perceive it in small bits at a time... in the sense that consciousness has a pace that it needs to operate at. The speed at which we are capable of experiencing all of time, is what we see as time passing.

    Or something like that. Quantum physicists have even considered this as a possibility. As for me, dunno. Time is not one of the 'dilemmas' that I tend to concentrate on.

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  104. Think of it this way: If I were a mosquito, I'd experience an hour as a week. (Or something like that) If I were a hummingbird I might experience an hour as a day. (see where I'm going?) It is the pace of the metabolism, and hence the mind encapsulated within that metabolism, that dictates how 'fast' we experience time. Time may be "ALL AT ONCE" but we can only "digest" it at a pace dictated by our ability to comprehend that reality. If we could comprehend reality at double the pace, we'd experience time as passing twice as fast. The passage of time is not a fixed pace. It is how we see it with what we have to see (and understand) it with. So the perception of time is relative to how fast we can comprehend it.

    Now surely you would say 'Brian, a day is defined by one revolution of the planet, so it doesn't matter how fast or slowly you perceive that day, it is a fixed quantity.'

    Is it really? What's so special about a planet spinning, or revolving around it's sun for that matter? It cold still be "ALL AT ONCE" and we only perceive it one day at a time, as it were.

    (This is me speculating NOW, in the moment, here, with you. I did not think this stuff up prior to this conversation, so I might have a hole in my argument. I rely on you to point it out to me. :-))

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  105. A larger question might be, "If this is all analogous to a dream, then would not the passage of time in that dream be as unreal as the dream itself is?"

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  106. I say, "Time is all we have, it's all we got, so if that is true, and if it is an illusion, then all we have, all we are, is just an illusion."
    This makes the idea, the notion, that time is an illusion, silly, to me. who, if it's true, am just an illusion too. Walking, talking illusions?
    WTF? Wtf is your definition OF an illusion?
    ----------------------
    You've GOT IT! (By George!) We are indeed illusions. Illusions that are complex enough to believe they're not one. It's that simple. And that complicated, in the sense that it runs so counter to our intuitions (which are themselves a product of the illusion) that we cannot bring ourselves to BELIEVE it! As for me, I have no problem believing it. None at all. I mean, why the fuck not? All our reasons why not, are based in the illusion!

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  107. Of course, this does mean that there has to be at least ONE mind in the universe. I contend that there is ONLY one. We share it, heck, we live in it, and yet we believe that we are individuals, because that is the dream we find ourselves (our self?) in. A dream of individuality. A dream of separateness.

    There, that ought to provide you with enough fodder to make fun of me for an hour or so! :-)

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  108. Hello to everyone, and thanks St. Brian for the invite back. It's been so many years, I had to make a new google acct., can't even remember what my name was. :-) I thought of you all when Dinesh D'Tool took his moral tumble a few years ago, we all knew it would happen eventually, right? Evil me, I really enjoyed it. Your comments here are great to see again, but of course I'm reading too late to comment on everything I want to. I can be the spoiler of your cat fantasy though...true story. My cat is a polydactyl, 6 toes on each back foot, and a full paw plus a half paw on each front. Picture it in your nightmares, a cat with, for all intents and purposes - opposable thumbs. She can pick up objects (pens, bottle caps, insects) and carry them around. A nail in the coffin of the dufusication of cats plan. Be very, very afraid, I know I am. :-)

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  109. Good to "see" you again, Jude. I do remember a Jude from "the beforetimes..."

    Dinesh isn't doing so badly, is he? I mean, he must have made some money from that ridiculous anti-Obama film he made for the last election. Fat lot of good that did.

    Watcha been up to?

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  110. Yes, that Jude must have been me. I had only been at the Dinesh site for a short time before it got shut down, and with the slew of incredibly knowlegeable and damn funny posters (no better combo than that, and I see the main ones are still here) I stepped into, I'm not surprised if no one recognizes me. Tough crowd to stand out in! LOL I have a soft spot for this place...I laughed a lot and learned a lot, even if I wasn't a really vocal person myself.
    Dinesh got some smidgen of what he deserved, but not all. They never do. No shame, no boundaries, claim ignorance, repent, yet argue how it doesn't conflict with your harsh views, and all is ok. The hypocrisy gets buffed out, free to go on doing what they've always done.
    Time flies...when I was last here, you had a newborn son. I wouldn't be surprised if you told me he is starting college, but I'm guessing he must at least be school age by now.
    What I'm up to... huh. Since we ran into each other on Huffington Post comments section, you know I spend a little time still trying to fight conservatives and religious zealots in my own small way. :-) But in real life...semi retired from our business, I go into work 2 mornings a week. My business? I do old people. Errr, that is to say the family business is Assisted Living residence for seniors. Both sons are adults, oldest has taken over for us as Administrator, youngest just finishing up grad school with History M.A. No, I have NO idea what he will end up doing with this degree. The kid listened to me when I said "choose something you love, and the right career will find it's way." I'll let you know how that works out! LOL
    So, empty nest and semi-retired...leaves lots of time doing what I love most...animals. The menagerie includes 2 labs, 2 horses, 2 sheep, and 2 of the dreaded non-dufus cats. If I wasn't an atheist, I'd consider building an Ark.
    So, it's a quiet life, and I prefer it. There are not a whole lot of people I connect with ...I am odd man out in small town living. Atheist, liberal, progressive,equality and human rights kind of person...not the norm in this area and life is too short, I do my best to minimize exposure to conservative BS in my real life. I feel more at home here on this blog than I do walking through my town.
    Quite enough about me...I want to hear about you and every one else now, will you re-introduce yourselves?

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  111. Hey Jude(!?):
    I don't know if you will remember me (one of the lesser lights when Dinesh was active).
    T am still employed 3 days a week as an ENT Surgeon, in which capacity I have served for 43 years. My wife and I have moved into a lovely "Mature Living" (they don't like to use the R(etired) word) village and we are getting adjusted. Since she is 11 years younger than I am, she is the second youngest person living here.
    I have been trying/planning to retire completely for the last 10 years, but, so far, the Medical Center that employs me has seen fit to keep me working.
    This blog has gone through several attitude/content adjustments in your absence, but it has always managed to keep me interested and involved through its current iteration, although I am not always moved to contribute.

    It's good to see/hear/read(?) that you are back!

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  112. Harvey! I do remember your presence, but probably now know more about you than I did then. :-) I like your characterization of "lesser lights." I'll join you here on the couch, quite dim myself, to enjoy what these other live wires come up with. I hope you do contribute though, it would seem that anyone here has some pretty strong views, and quirky sense of humor.
    It sounds like life is being good to you- contentment, new adventure and rewarding work, a winning combination.
    I'm curious about the attitude adjustments, Brian's still an irreverant smartass I hope? Part of his charm. (This is a check to see if he's reading his own blog.) But change is growth and is inevitable, and even something to work towards. I know what the core is here, so any adjustments must have carried that through. Thanks for the warm welcome!

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  113. Perhaps somewhat less of an irreverant smartass, but not by much I hope.

    This blog has lost a lot of it's zip, I think because I finally pretty much chased Eric off... he was our resident Catholic apologist. I knew if I scared him away that things would get less interesting, but he was really pissing me off a lot at that point, with his constant lying as if it were an Olympic sport or something. Endurance Cavilling or whatever. I sometimes regret that, but not for me, for the others here who would have enjoyed this place more I think, with such a huge asshole to fight against. I see the appeal, I suppose, but I was just sick of it.

    My own ideas as regards those old Big Brain Speculations that you mentioned to me on Huffington Post have evolved somewhat, plus now I also experiment with Salvia Divinorum and practice shamanistic trance type meditations. Check out my other blog that speaks of this side of my life if you wish.
    http://salviaspace.blogspot.com/

    My son Connor is four now. He's autistic, as it turned out. He's doing very well though, getting more verbal, starting to use simple sentences. He's greased lightning on a computer though... gets into everything, even does stuff that we didn't know our comp could do.

    Things are going very well otherwise. My wife just got a huge promotion at work... and other stuff.... all good. I hope your working retirement there gives you happiness... that's what its all about, after all.

    Talk more later. Take care, and welcome here. Glad to "see" you again.

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  114. Oh... about the salvia and the "all is consciousness" side of my life.


    I'm pretty flaky now I guess... however while it verges on theism in some ways, apparently not nearly enough to interest my rationalist friends that much, save pboy and he's mostly being polite I think.. (Hi, Pboy!)
    I understand of course... alas, I cannot replace someone the caliber of Eric. I'm not evil enough to be that interesting.

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  115. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49oBOWgF7js

    I can't be bothered even trying to make heads nor tails of this. Seems like something Brian might like though.

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  116. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KVwHTyo-Sk

    Now THESE guys, I understand what they're saying, I'm trying to plow through it, but I'm trying not to grit my teeth while I'm at it.

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  117. Ah, minute 17, where the very smart man starts talking gibberish and I realize that it was gibberish all along.

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  118. Hi again, Brian! And to you pboy and Ed...members of the brighter lights contingent...you are both remembered well. :-)
    So Brian, it's only been 4 years? It seems much longer that I've been away. But glad to hear of your wife's big accomplishment, and Connor's progress. Not the same thing, but in similar vein, my youngest (25)is ever so slightly and hardly perceptible Aspergers. It took a long time to sort out what it was, he was born with cleft lip and palate with accompanying speech problems in the beginning. He was first thought shy and self conscious about communicating with others due to all that. But it was more and he still is very much an isolationist in many respects, does not make friends easily, or reach out. Everybody likes him, he's funny, kind, smart beyond reason...but does not make the effort himself to stay connected. Watch Conner! LOL Your story of computer wizardry could be a hint. Silence means you don't always know what's going on in the mind - like we didn't. Imagine our shock at finding out by accident that our 3 1/2 year old could actually read and understand adult magazines. (No, not Hustler! That's just pictures :-) I mean Time, Newsweek, etc.) Connor will show you his unique strengths at some point, so watch for them. :-) I'm probably telling you something you already know.
    I've taken a little time to get a sense of what's been happening here. I understand Harvey's allusion to change in attitude and content now. It won't surprise you to hear that for me coming in at this point, not being part of the transition...it feels intense and extreme to an outsider. That is not judgement or advice to you, my immediate thought was is this safe? Are you doing damage? Are you stressing your body? As much as such an absent and practically unknown friend can care about you, I do. You don't need to tell me to fuck off, my respect for you to live life on your own terms will remain. My only point is I care, and trust that you know what is right for you. Any ass kicking you might need for anything seems to be handled quite well by Pboy anyway! LOL You guys go at it pretty good, challenging each other and making each other think and defend your positions. That is only born of true frienship and respect. Looking forward to the discussions to come!

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  119. It feels extreme? You mean the blog or me or both? :-)

    Doing damage? The salvia thing, you mean? I doubt it. I started that three years ago and more. The only differences (and my wife will testify to this) is that my IBS went away the first night I used it and never came back, and I'm generally at least a bit healthier than I was before. Less stress by far, too. It seems a byproduct of me being able to explore inner worlds at will. I'm even starting to "go lucid" when I dream, as in, my regular sleeping dreams. The practice that I have had retaining memories from the altered state transferred to my dream state as well, giving me the ability to realize when I'm dreaming (sometimes) and then master the dream and play around in it. Levitating things, and so forth. Fun stuff. Salvia has a short 'trip' duration time, less than ten minutes, and is so nontoxic that in order to give yourself a lethal dose you'd have to smoke about fifty times the amount that will incapacitate you. So you'd be unable to continue taking it to get to the point where it can hurt you. It's very nontoxic. I've always had a fascination with meditating and going within myself, and SD allows one to do that to the level of a guru or zen master. An amazing substance. I get a lot of insights on how the mind works. For instance, I experience firsthand the 'rule-by-concensus' nature of the mind. It's more of a gestalt, our mind is. A committee, even. And that's only one of many, many things that I've learned. I know what the nature of schizophrenia is, for instance. I've explored how that mechanism works, by defeating one myself while on SD. On SD, the mechanism is apparent; it is a self-sustaining viscous cycle of belief that feeds on fear.

    If this place seems different, I think it's because that side of things interests me more than politics does. The change in attitude can't fail to translate to here. Sorry. I'm still interested in such things, but not nearly as much, and that turns out to be a good thing in my life, too. My life is getting a lot better. Only this blog suffers.

    Really glad to have you back. Hope you continue to comment. Naturally, the more people that are here besides me, the more I feel like being here in the first place.

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  120. Did you read my latest entry in my Salvia blog? It's an account of my first trip, along with some biographical info. I'd like to hear your thoughts. Even if they're going to consist of cautionary tales... :-)

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  121. Incidentally, if I have an ache or a pain, in most instances I can eliminate it by meditating on it while on salvia. True.

    It's an amazing substance. Allows you to focus like a laser on any sensation or thought or image or whatever. I can see why it was used to cure a wide variety of ailments by the old curanderos in Mexico.

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  122. My only point is I care, and trust that you know what is right for you.
    ----------------
    Thank you. I appreciate that. And I understand your concern.

    All druggies will tell you that their drug is not a problem, so my reassurances will hardly make you feel better. All I can say is that I approach this with the attitude of an experimenter, and I don't do it for the jollies. My wife does not partake, and she'd KILL me if I ever let any drug come between me and my family and my responsibilities. She wouldn't let me slide downhill into some morass of lassitude. (Morassitude?) And furthermore, I've never felt any compulsion that could be termed an addiction. It's curiosity that drives me. After three years, I don't think there will be any 'downward spiral' in the cards for me. I think it's okay.

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  123. I thought "viscous cycle of belief" was an appropriate typo! It still fits, can get pretty slimy. :-) I know my comments to my feel for the change were vague, deliberately so. I can't (won't) debate your experience or reasons or interpretations, they are yours alone, and not for me, and outsider to have an opinion on. None of my business, that is life on your terms. Yes, I did read portions of the Salvia blog, hence my comment of extreme and intense, that was only in relation to what physical extremes and intensities you were putting your mind and body through, and does it harm you? That was all I cared about. Since your main interests have shifted in focus, then yes, necessarily the blog changes with you.
    Understand that my backround is medical, which guides my belief in the affects of ANY substance you take in, I don't even trust tylenol, and we're just not gonna agree. :-) We all choose which way we are going to handle the journey...we can have similar backrounds and experiences, but go different ways in finding our peace, as it should be. I am about as polar opposite from your choice as anyone could be. I'll tell you why...
    I had a fantastic dad, and a mentally ill mother. Suicide attempts, hospitalizations, and a life lived on rounds of lithium and valium. She was unpredictable, unreliable and you learned to walk on eggshells around her delicate balance. It made for an insecure, worried and panicky little girl. (Me) Dad was the only thing that saved everyone, then he died, and I was only 16. Mom sunk into deep mental illness and my older sister fled into hard core religious zealotry, as ill as mom but with an "acceptable" cover story. As this happened, something kicked into me....the scared, worried, panicky kid had to either lay down or stand up. I could be my mom or I could be my dad. I chose dad. It was all an act at first, white knuckling my way through knowing I had to make it on my own. I became an emancipated minor. Eventually, with time, what was an outside appearance became an inside truth. I could be sane, normal and strong, even with a not so great start on it.
    I would not be crazy, I would not be fragile, I would not be out of control of my own mind with lithium or valium or anything else. Sober was the only way to be vigilant and in control. And I would never EVER let my kids worry that their mom was unreliable or unpredictable, it was important that they knew every minute of their lives that they could count on me, and I think I did that right. For all the things I've tried to do in my life, I am most proud of that. I am my Dad :-) Long boring story, yes? But I'm interested in being here, of sharing ideas and thoughts, and this post is your heads up that I will not always understand or agree, but I'm ok with that if you are. Cheers!

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  124. Hi, Jude!

    I don't spend as much time in here as I used to because the conversation has died down since all the Christians left (who remained until the last after all that time? Eric, as has been mentioned, MI with her psycho bipolar episodes, and the ever-retarded Observant. Oh, and Botts does a drive-by about once annually...).

    As I did all my heavy drugs in my late teens and early 20s (I'll be 52 in about 2 months), the Salvia dialogues don't interest me so much. I still remember the DD blog fondly, mainly for the free-for-all character of its comments sections.

    As for myself, when the DD blog was going on, I was an employee working in the surveying department of a local small business. When they decided to go out of business in early 2010, myself and the other licensed surveyor bought their equipment (at yard sale prices!) and went into business for ourselves. I've been pretty busy with that since then, too, which limits my free time to comment on the internet.

    Anyway, breakfast (@ 1:30 PM) is calling!

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  125. Hi Ed! So glad you wrote back. As with Harvey, I didn't know this much about you before, even though you are a well remembered character from back in the day. :-) It's an added dimension to know who people are in "real life." Congratulations on the surveying business, it does change things when you are the place where the buck stops, doesn't it? For the good, IMO. What I'm finding suprising, too, is that we are all of an age. I always imagined that I was the old woman on the blog (55 now), and that everyone else was sure to be so much younger. So far, I think I'm only younger than Doc H. up there, but not so far off the charts as thought.
    Hmmm, not much memory of Eric other than his name, do remember Observant as being particularly annoying, and Botts as being likeable and the best at what he did in spite of being on the losing end of every debate. Is that accurate? (You can't/won't win an argument for Christianity on this blog!)I remember a woman being really out there, but MI does not ring a bell. Is MI short for something? The DD blog free for all was great! That is where you guys first had me laughing so hard I probably should have worn diapers before reading it. I have never forgotten a whole days worth of things written regarding "tasty baked goods." I have no clue what it was about at all, I just remember that it was some of the most fun I'd had. To this day, tasty baked goods makes me want to laugh and I don't know why. :-)
    If I can ask a question...how did you end up not being a Christian, or following some other religion if C. is not your family heritage? I'm always interested in how people come to reject belief, most of us are raised that way, and it's a pretty big deal to get to the day you say NO. This may be old rehash for some, but I've not heard it.
    Nice seeing you!

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  126. For me it was that my parents never could answer my questions. I remember distinctly, when I was in the age range of perhaps five to seven, I kept asking them "how do we know that God is real?" and variations on that. Their answers were dissatisfactory. I don't remember all of their answers, but I remember that whenever they gave me one, I'd find out more about it, ask people, figure it out, ask more questions, and not be satisfied. The very last answer they gave me was to the question "How does a woman get pregnant?" My parents answer was "when a woman marries a man, God sends her a baby!" I remember thinking "AT LAST! DEFINITE PROOF THAT GOD EXISTS!" I reasoned that if the woman got pregnant just by marrying a man, and for no other reason, that God must be real! Pretty good reasoning, but in about a year or two or whatever, I found about how they had to have sex, which involved putting a man's thing inside a woman (YECCH!)(My reaction as a young boy) and that killed the very last remaining "Proof" that I had that God was real. Every year after that, whatever shreds of faith that I'd had as a little boy faded, until at fifteen I rarely went to church anymore. I was lucky that my mom's dad also rarely went, so my parents didn't insist anymore. (They had up till that point, so I really hated it intensely by then)

    I always loved science, so the more I learned about it, the less I saw any need for God to be real, and the more I learned about people the more I realized that it's human nature to pull shit out of their asses. Finally, religion explained!

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  127. That's really interesting Brian - I'm impressed that your parents even tried to answer the questions. Awesome too, sex being the cure for faith! LOL!! In spite of giving up on making you go, did they still worry about your immortal soul? I asked my mom a question once, but the reaction to the blasphemy of questioning faith put an end to that. I was an eyelash away from burning in hell for asking. My fear based faith didn't get questioned again until I understood the word hypocrisy, around 12. Then the issues started up again with "religion" as the target....and when I could blow that off by seeing it was evil, that then led again to the question of faith itself. Faith was unsupportable when fear couldn't stop the questions, and there were no answers. I considered myself full atheist by 20.

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  128. Sex being the cure for faith? Well, I didn't exactly say that, but I guess I did act like it for most of my life. I cured myself over and over and over again! I'm as well-cured as a smoked ham!

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  129. How's it going Brian? Looks like you still have the lights on here.

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  130. It does, doesn't it? Good to see you again, Pliny. Things are actually going very well for me lately. How's by you?

    Any interesting projects you're working on?

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  131. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=if-UzXIQ5vw

    So how did you 'lose your religion,' Pliny? Assuming that you ever had one, I mean. Most of us did, I think, but for all I know you were raised by atheist parents.

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  132. Jude, back to your story of your mom and dad and why you and I will not see eye-to-eye on certain issues. Agreed. Not a problem; nobody here does, nor did I expect them to... still friends, though! And friends are concerned for friends. So I get it.

    Wow. That was a difficult childhood. I have a friend that went through similar, his mom also the one with the mental illness. One either becomes very strong from such an experience, or it breaks you like a twig. You went the former route, and that is something that I respect.

    I got the friend phone call one night from Jared, the one I was referring to. It's difficult to know what to say to a friend when the phone rings at two AM and the first thing he says is that his mom killed herself tonight. That was rough. He was the strong one, too. He parented his family in the lack of a responsible adult. Tough going. He's doing well now, though. So I can feel for you, but I can't really relate of course.

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  133. B - work is going well, world dominance is about 30 months away, but hey.

    The comic is going well - just got picked up by JesusandMo as a link! WooHoo! Traffic is building.

    My loss of faith was an inevitable fall starting with the Easter Bunny, then Santa, then Jesus (honest!)

    I grew up in the country and all that I observed fit well with biological science and evolution, but not with theology. The Second Law and the problem of consciousness without anatomy were the final coffin nails. Plus theology has always had a slight of hand desperation to it

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  134. Are you saying that Jared from the blogs phoned you to tell you his mom killed herself?

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  135. Not that Jared, no. I have a real-world friend by that name. And guess how *he* found out about his mom? His dad, being a senseless uncaring asshole, left it in a message on Jared's phone to find when he got home.

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  136. Wow Pliny! Jesus and Mo! That's kinda big-time. Not bad, sir! I see that I'll be needing an autograph someday soon.

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  137. Brian...ok then! That is the unchanged "core" that I expected to still be here, and it is, no matter what else has changed. As to Jared, that's awful. No matter how much we know to expect that the unimaginable really does happen, it is still shocking when it does, if that makes sense. I was on the phone with my dog breeder, got new yellow lab pup, when she started SCREAMING in the phone that her granddaughters' BF shot her in the head and killed her. It's still hard to grasp all the horror of that. I don't even know anybody with guns, really. The unimaginable.
    I do want to say HI PLINY! I've always thought you had the best name, what could be better than Pliny the in between? It scores points on several levels. LOL I also enjoy your ability to take complex and multiple issues and go from A to B to C with such clarity. I find myself saying "yeah, what he said" to much of what you say because it's what I'd say if my mind could organize it like yours. I was reminded of that by catching up on some past blogs, the punitive god one in particular, and saw it in action again. Yeah, punitive god, that guy I was told was ok with torturing the 8 year old by burning her in eternal hellfire for the questions, but only because he loves me so much! :-)

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  138. Grandaughter's BF shot HER in the head, or the yellow lab pup?

    I don't mind guns so much, but I can't stand the gun people. What I mean is, I was raised with guns, so I used to like to shoot as a kid, and had a couple of rifles years ago... but this gun fetish on the far right is pathological! It's made me wish all guns would go away. It's sick, and also it's intentionally cheered on by the NRA and the gun lobby, for money... lives for money... Wayne LaPierre is an evil, sick man. The Tea Party republicans are also absofuckinglutely nuts, not to mention stupid as stupid gets. Any more stupid and you can't figure out where your mouth is to feed it and you die.

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  139. Yes, the God of 'love me or else.' That motherfucker's evil!

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  140. Juxtaposing love and torture, love and anger, love and hatred, is why the Bible is such a potentially evil book, why the religion itself is built up around a core of evil parading itself as the ultimate good. There can be no love in torturing a child's soul forever, no lesson can be learned when the punishment never ever stops... it's just so very sick and deranged..

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  141. Thanks Jude for the kind words. I do like the name as it suits my sense of humor and my classicist nature. It started out as a name I used to respond to Thomas Gassett's rant du Jour after he failed to grok when I used Mr Hanky as a name. I responded to one of his screeds saying that mom wanted him to call and signed it Mr Hanky. He didn't get the joke.

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  142. Jude,

    Eric admitted to us a couple of years ago that he was also known as "Renzo" on the DD blog. He claimed that he was unaware that "sock-puppetry" was highly frowned upon until much later.

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  143. Brian, I couldn't agree with you more on the gun issue. I have never been around them, or wanted to be, but I get the whole hunting thing and rights to have them. But the fight against any kind of reasonable regulation is sickening. The BF shot the granddaughter in the head, because she filed for support of their 4 month old baby. She had a restraining order, and he still was able to have a gun.
    Yes, too, to the evil of that punitive god....keeping believers hostage under the threat of unimaginable torture. And he also apparently fucks with other innocents to make his point, too. Oh, your child is born with defects and deformities? God has a plan and it's a way to make you stronger, it's a test of your faith... JESUS.
    He planned to start my baby's life off like that, he did it on purpose? To test me? To teach a lesson? What an asshole.
    Pliny....can I assume you are a South Park fan? LOL If it's not that Mr. Hanky, then my knowledge and appreciation for all things innapropriately funny (the best kind imo) has gone to waste. :-) I just hate it when folks fail to grok! Good for you for pursuing it, always fun when it works. LOL
    Aha, Ed! Renzo rings a bell where Eric does not. Coming late to that blog, it was often confusing to keep posters straight when 2 or 3 names sounded exactly the same in posts. Perhaps sock puppetry was rampant.

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  144. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/06/dola-indidis-lawyer-overturn-jesus-conviction_n_3713610.html?utm_hp_ref=religion

    Dola Indidis, Kenyan Lawyer, Seeks To Overturn Jesus' Conviction 2,000 Years Later
    ----------------------------
    I hope they do! Then Jesus will be un-crucfied and the whole damned religion will have never happened!

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  145. Jude, I was a fan of South Park though I think they jumped the shark a few seasons back. yes, however - it was THAT Mr Hanky. He didn't get it. Probably couldn't penetrate the foil hat.

    On the other note, the gun fetish in this country is completely out of control. It's beyond rational control.

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  146. http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2013/08/06/the-miracle-of-the-herrings-why-thomas-aquinas-is-a-saint
     
    Information to be used for mocking eric the catholic should he ever return.

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  147. What with Jude being here again, I've been feeling nostalgic. So I've posted a nostalgic NEW POST. It's all about me and how humble I am... no, just kidding... Anyhow, check it out.

    NEW POST IS UP!

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  148. He didn't even eat the herrings? Too funny! And the other guy whose tooth fell out.. A MIRACLE!

    Religion truly makes fools of men.

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  149. Naw Brian, religion doesn't make fools of men - it just flushes the fools out of the bushes...

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