I'll read that in a bit, but before I do I just want to say that I've never said plain old intuition is better, or even as good as, logical thought. What I've always said is that a "trained intuition," i.e. an intuitive thought process that has been *modified by logic* over the years, is sometimes superior to just a linear logical thought process. The trained intuition still has the ability of extreme lateral thought, and once it learns to conform to rational parameters, is much faster, more efficient at drawing out the right answer from a huge number of data points at once. Lateral thinking is not always the best choice, sometimes linear, logical thought is, and knowing which to use is a part of being balanced as a person.
Just wanted to make that clear. I'll comment again after I've read the link.
I had this amazing Lucid Dream experience the other day, in the afternoon during a nap. (weird hours I keep) I hope that even a rationalist can derive entertainment from it at the bare minimum.
http://salviaspace.blogspot.com/2014/01/traipsing-through-afterlife.html "Traipsing Through the Afterlife"
Also as a general rule, or lack thereof maybe, just an FYI, if anybody sees something on the other blog that they ever want to comment upon, it doesn't make a difference to me which one you do that on, but don't fear to comment over there either. Or also. Or whatever. You get the gist.
To exemplify my concept of a 'trained intuitive side" I think it best illustrated by a mathematician like say, young Albert Einstein, famous for claiming to use intuitive thought processes such as finding the answer in a dream. How could *untrained* intuition provide an answer to a difficult problem in say, celestial mechanics, if it were not modified by years of logical, mathematical training? No, learning all the logical thought processes related to such a thing is linear logical thought, but being able to just intuit a complex answer to a complex logical problem is far beyond the untrained intuitive mind.
Well I think that when you say 'trained intuitive', you're really saying, 'not really intuitive'. There's plenty about how our consciousnesses work that is non-verbal since we've been using them since before we could talk, it had to be there to learn how to talk. I don't get the feeling that I'm thinking logically or thinking intuitively, so I just don't understand the supposed difference between logical thinking and 'trained intuitive' thinking. I DO understand the difference between choosing the ice-cream I prefer and following the rules of math to solve a problem, that kind of thing. Also, dreaming up a solution, or coming up with a solution to a problem after a good sleep isn't a new thing really. Sometimes when we're faced with a problem and the whole thing is 'new' to us, we can look up any relevant stuff on the 'net, ask as many people as possible, but once we've done that, the more time that can go by, without just forgetting about the whole thing, the better. I'm not sure how 'logical' or otherwise that'd be. I think we're just talking past each other here, you using a word which I consider the opposite of logic/reason, that is 'intuition', differently than how I use it.
This country was founded on judeo Christian values! To remove God from that concept would be like removing freedom from America. Oh wait a minute that's what the liberal democrats are trying to do.... Both God and freedom.
You can't imagine what it's like to be anybody but a self-important Christian, so when you read the above argument Atheist V Christian, you immediately think of your hate, and find a way to be scornful, rather than imagining what it's like to be us! You don't give a SHIT, do you? Tell the truth. We're atheists that you don't give a shit about, because if you did, you would see how YOU make us FEEL in this society. And I bet what you think when I say that is "Well, get out, then!" If I got that right, then you're no follower of Jesus. Hell, you're an Xtian!
Brian are you crying? There's no crying about majority rule... The fact that Christians are the majority in America is reason enough for you to live a peaceful life without rocking the boat.... Christianity is not bring forced on anyone here, it is being practiced in a free country by its majority. Now you can practice your nonbelief and enjoy your freedom here as well
We never want to take anything away from you, at least not anything you're not trying to steal from us. You hate our freedom to be not like you! Shame on you, false follower of Jesus. Shame on you. But you have no shame because you've deluded yourself that you can be selfish about freedom and still a Christian. You can't even see your own lack of human compassion, lack of fairness, lack of empathy. Hell, you don't even know what that last word *means.*
So Mike, would you kill me if God told you to? Would you kill your son or daughter? Maybe not, but that would be being a hypocrite because the Bible tells you to do precisely that.
No, No, No, The Bible does not tell me to kill anyone. In fact it says let both grow together and He will send His angels and they will cut the unbelievers asunder. No Brian that's not our job!
You're supposed to love others as they are, not as they might be in an unlikely hypothetical future where the other person becomes just like you. That's being judgmental, not loving others. One thing that I get about your religion that you are totally fucking blind to is that the path of Jesus, the path of True Compassion and love, is not EASY. You hate the very idea of being like how you need to be to follow that path. It's called "The Narrow Path" because it's hard to find and easy to fall off of. You being an example of that.
So Ian, today while on Twitter for the first time I searched for the word "salvia" as #salvia, which groups all people with that in their name together, or tweets on that subject, I think. Anyhow I found a few people to follow, but I also noticed with slight disappointment that a lot of people just had "salvia" in their names, like "Salvia Cortes" or "Mike DiSalvia"
That was like four hours ago or so.
So just now I'm watching Larry O'Donnell on MSNBC and he's introducing the former head of a republican gay group that just turned Democrat. I just paused it at the very beginning, because the guy's name is "Jimmy LaSalvia..."
It's all consciousness, dude. Sorry to so inform. Getting more sure every day.
Well I think that when you say 'trained intuitive', you're really saying, 'not really intuitive'. -------- Perhaps. On reflection it might be more accurate to say "combined intuitive and logical in harmonious balance"
It's logical thought and intuitive thought combined. Each helping the other to be maximally efficient together. I say "trained intuition" but it's the same thing, really.
No. No Brian, you can say, what I really mean is this something else and now that I've explained the something else it's the same as what I was saying before but it's different to how you mean it, and not just be talking past me. When I say 'intuition', I mean 'gut feeling'. You seem to be saying that you can 'train' your gut feeling by also using logic. These words are so easily bandied about as if we really know what we're meaning when we say them. Thinking logically means.. I have reasons why I think this or that. A theist certainly DOES have reasons for being one. Could be that's how she grew up, that's very mportant. e.g. not likely to have 'internalized' the Thor/Odin pantheon outside a certain sphere of influence. Most English speakers don't know that Thorsday follows Odinsday, in fact I talked with this older woman over a few beers and she said she would NEVER believe that Wednesday cam from Odinsday, just NEVER, her worldview was Christian, full stop.
Sorry, I digress a bit there, just woke up. I think the difference between what we call 'logical' thinking and 'intuitive' thinking is, to simplify, if we have four choices, the intuitive choice is the one we prefer without considering it, the unconsidered thought. This seems to give you an 'in' to 'poopoo' my 'logical thinking' compared to your ''combined intuitive and logical in harmonious balance". But I think this is so much hot air as I do believe we all do that anyways. We WILL have the 'intuitive' selection, then we'll think about it, right? You can call your final answer anything you want. 'logical', some kind of mix, whatever. To my mind you're putting this stuff 'out there' to seem exotic. Also, when it comes to women generally being more 'intuitive' than men, how I see that is a woman using diplomacy, hypnotism, sex, trust and guile to get what she wants. There's a lot of mixed up ideas here, but I'm thinking there's a correlation between being literal and being allegorical/figurative. I, for one, would like an explanation of the difference between 'logical thinking' and this 'enhanced logical thinking' that you feel you can use to more advantage. Really. Examples would be nice. Then we can see, in black and white, what it is, if it's not merely a way to say that we can think figuratively, or we are adept at expressing ourselves in a more figurative way. This is not a challenge, Brian. I'm quite willing to accept that we're just talking past each other.
Emotional thought can be trained. It's that simple. It can get more accurate with time if one allows one's self to make corrections, and is not too proud to let go of one's 'feelings' and learn new ones. One's hunches get more accurate the more one is holistically familiar with the world. Because while linear logical thought is an amazing tool, it's more amazing when used in conjunction with 'hunches.' As long as one does not blindly believe the hunches but always polices them in the mind, they get more and more accurate. This is really simple stuff. You still not following me? See, reality is not LINEAR! Surprise! It's like a fucking fractal in that every facet of every problem you face in the real world, has it's own complex history and causes and associations. So it's like a web of facts and data. That's reality. So you can play linear thought games with just the surface layer, which may look one way, or you can use lateral thinking (intuitive) to grasp a higher percentage of that web, of those complex causes. Still no good, right? I mean, I'm not expecting you to see this anymore. I'm just typing 'cause I'm bored right now...
You're on a space station preparing for a space walk. Everything looks good; you've triple-checked everything. You are tethered to a boom. You notice 'something amiss' about it but you can't put your finger on it. You have a 'bad feeling' about the boom attachment. It looks okay, but you sense something wrong. You put tentative pressure against the tether, and it gives more than it should. It's not attached correctly; one of the bolts has given way, but from the top it looked fine. You aren't really sure how you noticed anything amiss... it was likely the slight difference in angle of the boom, it was slightly off. You didn't consciously see that; it was too subtle for your conscious mind to catch, but you've been practicing this stuff and doing it for years now, so you somehow caught a whiff of something wrong, and it saved your life.
In one scenario you are satisfied that you've checked everything on the checklist, so it must be fine, you go for the walk, and you die. In the other one you sensed something amiss with the *whole picture* at once, something off with the overall configuration that you could not readily identify in any way; you let yourself be warned by that feeling, applied more logic by additional testing, and you lived.
Or hey, even simpler. When you first learn to drive a car, it's all intellectual knowledge. You know how to, but you have no experience. When you drive, you must think and think and think all the time to make sure you're not making a mistake. After thirty years of driving it, do you think about what you're doing anymore, or do you just drive the car? Who is the better driver? The first, with only a linear understanding of the concept of "driving a car," or the second one who just does it with no thought at all? You've trained your reflexes sure, but you've also trained your intuitions. You just 'feel' it and do it, and it's right. This too is intuitive thought. It's no longer in the purview of your conscious mind.
The Japanese concept of mushin-no-shin, or 'no mind' is learning all the techniques of physical combat, practicing them incessantly until they become second nature, and then when in actual combat, letting go of all of that and just being in the moment; your body responds correctly, and far more efficiently and quickly than if you had to think about every move. Intuitive fighting is far superior to executing techniques with conscious deliberation.
Intuitive fighting is far superior to executing techniques with conscious deliberation.
It is - right up to the point that an opponent throws in a curve. Repetitive physical activities basically create cerebellar algorithms that can play without the need for higher cortical control. Ie. walking while having a nice discussion. It's also why when we are distracted we sometimes drive to a routine destination instead of where we wanted to go. (I had one extremely unfortunate brush with that as a young man). Most people who play the piano learn cerebellar algorithms. It's why when they get distracted they might have to go back to the start or have trouble because they have to shift to higher cortical control.
And the far extreme of intuitive grasp of logic, someone like Daniel Tammet, who can do complex mathematics by feel alone, can memorize PI to twenty thousand places, and so forth, because he perceives numbers intuitively, not as quantities but as feelings; the number one might be a flash of purple with a rumbling sound, the number two a swirl of motion and a high-pitched whine, the number three a white flash and sensation of heat... that sort of thing...
We humans seem to have a 'main mind' and many 'satellite minds' that we utilize. I think that logical thought is all in the main mind, but intuitive thought is a committee meeting of the satellite minds. However of course, that's just an intuition.
There is a dichotomy between logical and intuitive thought. What I refer to as the 'yin and yang' of it. The better you are naturally at logical thought, the worse you are at the intuitive kind. If you're totally focused on logic, hell, you can't see the intuitive side as even existing. (You taught me this) The same applies in reverse. The astrologer flake who spouts new-age nonsense all the time, or the religious person who lives through his feelings and his gut with no recourse to logic, those people are blind to the existence and utility of logic altogether.
I believe the optimal state is a balance of some kind between the two.
My wife has good logic, but she's a very emotionally oriented person. She uses her intuitions in life very effectively. For instance, due to her job, she can take a GLANCE at a legal contract and all the "gotchas" and "catches" and "lies" stand out to her like they were highlighted. I've never seen anything like it. I've seen her glance at a two-page contract for less than ten seconds and just spout off all the misleading stuff in it. It amazes me.
I'm a much faster reader than she is, by far. But I can't read a two-page contract in ten seconds at all, much less pick out all the problems with it in that time. So what is she doing?
"..cerebellar algorithms.." Everyone does that. I'm doing it right now, reading the words as they appear on the monitor and correcting as I go. What's not logical about this? In computereze it would be a sub-routine. I'm not 'getting' how this is 'intuition' as opposed to 'logic' at all. Driving, the same thing. No doubt this is how hypnotism works, 'getting you to go into one of these sub-routines' for a bit. I think you're conflating intuition/logic with 'cerebellar algorithm'/'focus'. I think that religious people, very religious people 'do' religion that way. They'll focus on Jesus, or 'faith itself' and be lost in these cerebellar algorithms they've built for themselves, all connected with the Bible and their Bible study. So there we have it, we are talking past each other, and I do forgive you for trying to put as many digs about it in as you possibly can.
Yea, well your examples are shite, Brian. The Big Brain isn't a brain, it's more of a consciousness, but it isn't really a consciousness. Your 'intuition' is more to do with how we've learned to type, play music, drive etc. etc. I think it's kind of pitiful if you explain something one way then have to change the explanation because, 'it's not quite that I mean', then blame me for not 'intuiting' what it is you actually mean. I honestly don't imagine that you don't think you don't know what it is you mean. but, those digs you take at me are telling, and they're not telling me anything at all about what you are trying to explain.. They might make you feel better about not being able to explain, but neither of us are experts on how the brain stores memories, embeds memories creating expertise in everything from math, art, driving, reading lawyerese, and so on and so forth. I think you feel that you've learned 'something', but, and this is just my personal take on it, if you can't explain it, or if you imagine that you HAVE explained it and I'm just not understanding, well, maybe your stuff is a little vaguer than you're willing to let on to yourself. Once again, my touchy friend, no offense meant.
"This country was founded on judeo Christian values! To remove God from that concept would be like removing freedom from America." - Mike.
How cute. Mike thinks he's free. Now I'm pretty sure, off hand, that Mike isn't in prison, that's not what I mean. Maybe a better way of saying it would be, Mike thinks he has 'freedom', how cute. Mike imagines he's free, since, "This country was founded on judeo Christian values!", but non-Christians don't have this elusive freedom, you can be damned sure of that!!! You should google 'freedom', Mike and tell us which of YOUR 'freedoms' you mean would be somehow compromised if, say, atheists got their way???
Anyways, Brian, can you explain what it is you mean? Is it like, "Relax and close your eyes. Now expand your mind. As your mind grows bigger than the house you can imagine looking down on it and you can expand it further and further 'till you're looking at the Earth, looking at the Solar System, looking at the Milky Way... and out .. and out... in complete awe of the never-ending vastness of it."? And it's your 'mind' That kind of thing? I wouldn't be half-surprised if your emotional side of your, (I'm sorry, what was it again?) reasoned intuition(?) kicked right in here, dismissed this comment as 'snark' and jumped on it from ten thousand feet, giving me a good berating, for daring! Here's my (eww, how inside the box I am!) thoughts, so far on this. My streaming consciousness, my awareness together with my memories and my ability to focus and to rationalize(we do a lot of that) OF my environment, feedback from my senses and my imaginings, is to me as these programs up and running is to the computer. My heart beating blood around my body soaking up oxygen rich blood and taking it to my brain to burn the fuel that I've digested and incorporated, is to me as the wires and chips and so on is to the switched on physical computer. My body is to a chunk of meat, a carcass as the box of wires and motherboard and odds and ends is to the computer you can carry around or throw into the rose bushes.
When you say all is consciousness and the physical reality around us manifested by this consciousness, to me that's not some kind of controlled intuitive thinking outside the box realization, Brian, that's just turning everything we should know about how consciousness comes to be, a manifestation of a living being, upside-down. Worse, it's doing that for no reason at all. (contd.)
(contd.) If there is some substance which the universe and everything in it is made of, it's not consciousness, unless you're just playing a word-game, since consciousness is as I described it above, a process through which we can make sense of our living material bodies interacting with and contemplating the universe itself, including each other of course. So 'consciousness' is a horrible word to describe what you are trying to explain to us since it cannot possibly make sense, it's viciously circular, it's saying, "When I look out at the universe, I'm looking in a mirror, but there's no mirror, just a reflection of my consciousness. No, no, I can hear you say, "Our collective consciousnesses!", as if using the basic pattern finding skill we need to learn about the world around us and how to act/react in society on itself, making a set of all consciousnesses somehow 'magnifies' it or does something more than imagining that thinking, "Oh wow, man, there's like 7 billion human consciousnesses in the world and they're all like one, you know man.. here, take a hit!" But, and this is important, much like we can crate up each egg to make a dozen eggs and that's just 12 individual eggs, each consciousness is individual and cannot be combined to make something greater than the 'parts'.
Now, perhaps you're imagining that consciousness isn't a process at all, but a substance, then each individual person is but a concentration of that substance, and I can dig that homie, high fives, I'd buy that for a dollar, if a man says, "I lie 100% of the time!", is that man lying now?
So, what do you think Brian? Are our minds processes which we can be called streaming consciousnesses which can end abruptly if our living material bodies fail to maintain them(the consciousnesses), or is the mind a substance out of which the material universe is made and maintained? I'm going with the former since the latter makes no sense to me at all, intuitively, logically, reasonably, non-paradoxically, whatever. This comment was not intended as any kind of put-down, wasn't intended to be sarcastic, wasn't intended to be smarter-than-thou. It was intended solely to encourage you to explain, if you so wish, what it is you mean, if I'm not 'getting it'.
It's a dream. A communal dream state. That's what I mean by 'made of consciousness." What else to call it? It's not really made of anything. It's a dream.
You often take a mocking tone with me you know. Like you just did. My instinct is to take one back. But then you complain. So whatever. You refuse to consider anything but the one paradigm that makes sense to you. So, why am I talking again?
I'd have been likely to believe you about reality, but the problem is, I know differently. The synchronicities, all the time. And don't think I didn't notice you avoid it when I post about them. You have no good answer for them. And now, disturbing my wife many times, lately on purpose. The dog. I sense more to this reality than you can imagine is possibly true, that's the gist of it.
So cling to your illusion of reality and pretend it's real, and the more you focus on that the realer it will be to you, so very real, because that is what you wish it to be. I no longer wish that, I wish to see truth, not my own belief reflected back at me. So I look for inconsistencies, expecting to find them rather than cynically denying the very possibility to myself before I even look. And find them I do. A lot of them. Every single day. This place is a dream state, a "purely psychological' reality, with no real thing in it, not in the sense of how you think of it. We dream it's real, so it is. The closer we focus on a dream, the more detail we see. Thus, SCIENCE!
I had to totally alter the way that I meditated recently, a couple of weeks ago. Know why? Because every time I slipped into the state of concentration on the light inside my head, and it became more noticeable, my son in the other room woke up. Every single time for a week or so. On cue. I eventually became conditioned to expect it, because of course I didn't want it to happen, I began to *fear* it happening, and when that happened it happened more reliably. My wife literally told me to STOP.
But wait honey, my friend Pboy tells me this is not happening, so go back to bed!
I look at consciousness (ours) as a blend of intuitive and rational thought, but the intuitive can be rational also if one is experienced enough and pays attention to when it's wrong and when it's right. You see this as nonsense. So what? I may be wrong, you may be wrong... what I call intuition you may see as cerebral algorithms. You want to make our minds like fancy computers, but no computer will ever achieve true self-consciousness, at least I think not. We can program to say that they do and pass any test that they do, but we both know that's an imitation, pure and simple. So I'll continue to see it as I see it. I like it this way better, and you certainly have given me no compelling reason to change. All you cite as evidence is what I'd expect you to cite as evidence. You see the dream and it satisfies you, in the sense of you're content that it's real, and that's all there is to it. I am simply not so easily satisfied.
I once did a thing called "sigil magic." Meditated while drawing an appropriate design on a piece of paper, for two hours. Maybe three. Then I was driving in my car, and threw it out the driver's side window in the general direction of a hill that I was going by. As I threw that piece of paper out the window, at that split second, on a clear day with some haze but no noticeable clouds and no rain, lightning struck the top of the hill. The top of the hill, btw, was maybe a couple hundred feet away from my car at the time, so it was DEAFENING.
Things like this happened a lot at that time of my life, when I was first exploring the idea of suspending my disbelief and trying 'magic.' If they had not, I would have stopped. When they did happen, I needed an explanation. Mere coincidence did not cut it. So I eventually came to the conclusion that the only kind of a universe that would both satisfy people like you seeking it to be rational, and people like me willing to (temporarily) believe that it's not, is a dream state, pure consciousness if you will.
See, first came the coincidences. They prompted me to begin to wonder if this reality conformed to our expectations. So then I tried magic, because all that is is self-hypnosis to alter reality. Mental gymnastics, pure and simple. Figured if that worked I was definitely onto something. It worked. Here I am.
Also, recall that the coincidences had a very exact and specific start date and time.
They started less than an hour after I had that really bizarre lucid dream experience where I tried to awaken myself, to 'open my third eye,' as silly as that sounds.
The fact that they specifically started an hour after than and have never let up, is a piece of DATA that I consider. It means something.
I don't know why you wake your family with your 'concentrations'. I don't know how either. I don't know why or how 'synchronicities' happen to you. But you admit that these phenomena aren't in your control, right? Fearing something happening causing it to happen more suggests a lack of control to me. I can't see how these things allow you to jump to the conclusion that, life, the universe and everything is a communal dream rather than a more obvious one of solipsism. If no material thing is real, why don't you just go ahead and believe that everything actually depends on your streaming consciousness? Once again, not being sarcastic or making fun or anything like that, just want to know your thinking on that.
By the end of that day I was like "What the fuck is happening today?"
I mean, I had noticeable coincidences one after the other that day. Of course they continued till present day, but the point is, on the first day they were so noticeable that they stood out in stark contrast to any other day previous in my life.
Now, I had a weird lucid dream. Why on earth would I ever in a million years believe that that would start causing coincidences? I mean, that would have never occurred to me. So when I started to see them, at first I didn't even connect the two things. Only by the end of that day did I start to realize that they were not readily explicable by random chance, and so I had to connect them to the dream because it was the only thing that could have been any kind of causative agent. I mean, after all, what did I try to do in that dream? Open my third eye. And suddenly I was *seeing* things that I'd never seen before. So it wasn't me expecting to have coincidences, it was me noticing them because they were everywhere, and then realizing what must have caused them to start.
But you admit that these phenomena aren't in your control, right? Fearing something happening causing it to happen more suggests a lack of control to me. ---------------- N, it makes perfect sense. If we manifest this AWFUL reality together, then it can't be just our hopes and good aspirations, or our wishes; it must be any strong subconscious thought, and fear is one of the strongest kinds of thought.
Who says I can't control it? Control your fear, control your expectations, police your mind, and you control it. Now, that's fucking hard, but every time I manage it, it works.
I can't see how these things allow you to jump to the conclusion that, life, the universe and everything is a communal dream rather than a more obvious one of solipsism. ------------ I've flirted with it. I always consider it as one possibility. That's all the thought I give it though, because it's a dead end, and furthermore I've realized that saying everybody but me is not a real person isn't so far from saying that NOBODY including ME is a real person! We're all under the delusion that we're real.
If it's solipsism, then it's still a dream. So either way, reality is a dream. It makes more sense to me that we're all equally real, or equally unreal, take your pick, than that nobody but me is real. But I can't eliminate it of course. The way out of solipsism is to realize that there is indeed only one consciousness in existence, but instead of it just being mine, it's everybody's; we all share in it. The person inside of me that says to himself "I EXIST!" is the same person inside of you saying that. We just have different accessories.
I don't know why you wake your family with your 'concentrations'. I don't know how either. I don't know why or how 'synchronicities' happen to you. -------------- Thank you. I know.
This should, I think, worry you a lot more than it does, my friend.
Now, most people that believe A, stop trying to confirm B.
That's also a dead end. I mean, it is the nature of option B that, if true, to give you the impression that only option A is true!
If I choose to be satisfied with A, I cease to explore B. So then I'd be right back to where I was just before that lucid dream.
What can I accomplish in the further exploration of option A? Am I a quantum physicist? Am I Stephen Hawking? No. I can accomplish exactly NOTHING if I choose to only explore option A.
So then, why not choose to explore option B, while keeping option A as a fall-back in case it doesn't pan out? What do I have to lose? Not my sanity; if I were to lose that, it would already be gone, I think. I seem to be capable of adhering to this reality AS IF it were real, all the while exploring the idea that it is not. So, no harm to me.
If I only explore option A, I will definitely not learn anything new about the universe. I will not contribute to human knowledge.
So I choose to explore option B. At least there's a chance that I'll happen across something truly different and exciting on that path, no? And if not (although I already have, so a moot point) I can still always just fall back to being a realist.
I used to worry about money all the time. In recent times I just stopped that. I mean, while it was still a concern, I stopped fearing it, and just accepted it as a part of life.
Know what happened? Um, money fell into our laps. Old lawsuits from years ago panned out, inheritances from relatives that passed away that I never thought I'd see, tax returns a lot larger than anticipated, that sort of thing.. Hell, in the last two weeks over $77,000.00 fell into our laps. We're shopping for a new house in the spring.
Mike learned his on his parent's knee, and looked to reality to confirm it, insisted that it did, and so to him, it does.
I went into this open, but if anything believing mostly as you do now. Then saw things that caused me to change.
His is top-down, mine is bottom-up. I saw evidence first, he looked for evidence to conform to what he already believed. Huge difference that you will not, I suspect, give me any credit for.
Also I should note that if I am right about reality, people like Mike who do that will *see* things in it that seem to confirm his already-held convictions.
What's the difference?
His pre-disposition was to see his God in the world. My pre-disposition, which I intentionally created as such to test reality, was that reality deceives us into believing it is whatever we believe it is.
I designed the goal to provide actual confirmation if it panned out, by setting my goal as merely seeing that reality deceives us as to its nature. Seeing evidence for THAT, is actual evidence for that, because it confirms how we're all deceived, regardless of pre-disposition.
I don't think it should worry me anymore than Mike's revelation since that was real to him, so real that he's dedicating his life to it. Do you? -------------- Why yes, as a matter of fact. You told me why. Here:
"I don't know why you wake your family with your 'concentrations'. I don't know how either. I don't know why or how 'synchronicities' happen to you."
I must have missed where you told Mike that you don't know why he thinks he has been 'born again.'
Because you didn't tell him that, maybe?
Because we both understand that just fine, don't we?
Come on Brian, not everything is observable reality. The air you breath is not observable, the love you feel for your family, gravity is not observable but the falling apple proves it exist. You take many things on faith, yes faith yet you reject the notin of God.
If you only knew the extent to which you misunderstand every thing that I say, you'd dig a hole, get into it, and pull the hole in after you. You're like a computer program that provides amusing misunderstandings of everything you enter into it. One can always count on you. :-)
(sigh) Okay, I'll 'splain this to you yet again. You can observe air. You can observe gravity. Observe is not only with the eyes. Instruments count. Feeling the wind on your skin, counts. We know what AIR is, Mike. None of that is in any way, Faith.
If you look for evidence of God in my kind of dream reality and see it, it proves nothing. But if instead you look for evidence that reality deceives us into seeing evidence for whatever we already believe, and then manage to alter your belief structure, varying it so that you can test for that, and you see it, see the evidence, it proves everything.
I should add to that first sentence: "and also if you look for evidence of this reality not being a dream but that it's all explicable through science and logic and mathematics and so forth, it also proves nothing in my kind of dream reality. Same thing as Mike, really. You have a pre-determined belief that you are right, so that will be what you will see."
It's like, imagine if Mike decided to alter his belief structure so that instead of believing in his God he believed in another one, say Cernunnos and The Goddess for instance, Wiccan belief system, and he managed to do it, just temporarily so as to see what would happen, and the Goddess appeared to him in a dream and told him she was real, so he felt 'born-again-again.' What would that prove about his original beliefs? That's the general kind of testing of reality that I do.
I long ago determined that the only possible way to test reality in order to see if it's basic nature deceives us into believing whatever we already believe, is to alter said beliefs and test again.
Logical, no?
To alter them so that your belief, is that reality will conform to whatever belief you hold, is best of course. It turns the 'trickster' nature of reality back on itself.
I also alter my beliefs so that I temporarily believe that certain things will happen, and then see if they do. This gets surprising results very consistently.
Oooooh, magic!
All it ever was, was altering one's own belief structure. Which is not easy, hence the props.
Congress just made a climate-change denier the head of the EPA's division that deals with climate change. Mike, this is the kind of SHIT that makes me hate your religion worse than shingles.
You christians never think 'but what if I'm wrong?"'
Climate change for instance. It makes sense, even if you doubt it, to try to do everything in your power to get mankind to do less of the things that seem to make it worse, because WHAT IF YOU ARE WRONG? If you're right no problem, but if you're wrong, as the VAST majority of scientists say you are, millions will DIE. But no, you'd rather pretend science is all wet, so you can laugh at it, even as you sit here on a fucking computer that is pure science in a box.
Science invented the computer, because millions of christians didn't fight it like it was evil. If they had, we'd probably all be writing all this on paper. You guys are the BRAKES on progress.
The events of the Great Flood would kill all land-dwelling life on earth save for a 'seed' population at a single location - the landing point of the ark. The land area today is discontiguous - this presents a problem for the flood account, as there is no apparent means by which animals may migrate to disconnected land.
Creationists have found possible solution to these apparent problems. Volcanoes
The Post-Noachian Flood Volcano Theory comes from the example of Krakatoa, which, in 1883, erupted and destroyed most of the island, thus remaining lifeless for many years. Still the same life that was there before the eruption eventually came back. It is possible that volcanoes in the Mount Ararat region were able to transport the smaller animals over much greater distances than the animals could get just by walking.[Biblical Citation Needed] " http://conservapedia.com/Post-Diluvian_Diasporas
You twats are willing to believe that small animals were fucking EXPLODED across the globe by an erupting volcano, rather than realizing that you're more all wet than the fucking Pacific Ocean. Load a baby mouse into your shotgun sometime with a blank shell (powder but no shot) and let me know how far you safely transported it when you pulled the trigger, ok?
"Still the same life that was there before the eruption eventually came back."
Just like it 'comes back' to a new volcanic island when it breaks the surface of the ocean for the first time. As in, the original life is all dead, and new species eventually come in an populate it. If however there were any species on Krakatoa that lived nowhere else, do you think they also "came back?" No, they're fucking extinct forever. Other, similar ones might come in later, but the original unique species is wiped out. Period.
Oh, and did you all notice how it went from 'Krakatoa killed off all the life on the island but it came back" to "maybe volcanoes BLASTED the animals to their respective other continents"???!!!
"Creationists have found possible solution to these apparent problems."
So has my dog. He follows the "Pan-bonia" theory, that it's all doggy bones in the end. Hey, he's as qualified to think of these "solutions" as whoever made that Conservapedia entry is.
And you disconnected atheist from all reality believe in some bullshit story that billions of years ago there was a Big Bang and now billions of years latter we have what is known today as life on earth. Talk about twisted logic.... Geee
Hey geniuses, it is scientifically impossible for life to begin from a nonlife source! Lol, In the beginning there was nothing, and from nothing there was a Big Bang and suddenly there was time and and billions of years past then life begin from under the sea.... Organisms emerged from nothing and suddenly they begin to naturally select the newer and improved organisms until one day little tadpoles developed, one day the little tad poles decided to walk on land and then they became a monkey then a man... TALKING about HARD to BELIEVE. You guys win the academy award for most fabeled story. Hey Ian, pass that jug over to Brian will ya, Walt Disney doesn't have nothing on you guys. What an imagination , lol
You understand evolution like my dog understands compound interest, so all we can do when you pretend to yourself that you get it, is laugh at your monkey chimp antics. And there you go again... (sigh)
You are a little girl. There, I said it. Now untwist your panties and listen. Evolution is easy to understand if you are logical and pay attention to details. It's fucking easy! All you do when you act like it's mysterious like that is stand out in this crowd, dude. You telling me that you can't grasp the idea of the strongest surviving? Well, it's not the strongest physically, it's the strongest as in best survivors, whatever it takes........... >>>Ahh, you almost got me, you sly devil! I was going to explain evolution to you yet again! You're good! I get all tired going through basic shit for twenty minutes and you respond like a rockhead, making me realize how much of a waste of time it was. Nice.
it is scientifically impossible for life to begin from a nonlife source! ------------- No it most certainly is not. Proteins and amino acids left on their own for a billion or three years produces life because that's how those molecules bond. Of course I realize that telling you this is like telling a marmoset how to tie it's shoes...
Mueller proved otherwise by creating amino acids in a closed system with nothing but basic ingredients that would have been around on early earth. All science would need to finish that experiment would be a billion years time or so. But you don't CARE about this, about learning anything here, do you? Be honest. You're here to try in your lame-o way to poke fun at us and piss us off, because that's what gets you off. Anytime we prove you wrong, you let it pass in one 'ear' and out the other, because you don't give a flying fuck about what we atheists tell you. I'm not mad at you btw. Not even close. I'm fucking past that stage now. I'm laughing at your sorry ass.
And it never fails.... You posers always fall back on the well we need a billon years to prove it. What a joke you are. I done trying to help you understand the flaws in you Big Bang theory. Live a lie walk in your darkness rest in your false beliefs.
Yes, you can see the " results " of the wind, you can feel it, you can even measure its speed... But you can not SEE it. One can see the results of God too, He can be felt just as the wind and His power can be measured by how much is manifested at times
Mike, all you've got is rhetoric, and bad rhetoric at that. Your analogy completely fails because with the right instruments, you can actually see air (you know, the stuff that when it moves is known as wind), what instrument would one use to see god?
Yea Mike, and God flooding the world in so many days seemed possible, maybe even plausible, at the time it was written, or no, we don't know, maybe it was understood that it was simply a legend.
:In the Ark, Noah toiled by day and by night, caring for the living things under his management. Although many animals went into hibernation, this huge menagerie still taxed the efforts of Noah and the 7 members of his family. During these months of superhuman toil, Noah learned an important lesson: "Man is responsible for the preservation of the world!" His misdeeds can cause universal disaster, and his virtue can uphold its existence."
Did you learn this lesson from the Flood story, Mike? Oh, no, wait, you learned that Christians are on the same side as those giant corporations causing oil spills and poisoning the aquifers by fracking, turning Alberta into a Hellscape and so on, no, you'll be blaming the sins of man(like atheism and such) for the World becoming uninhabitable, all the while hoping that Jesus is going to show up, right?
I'm done explaining grade-school science to Mike. I'm leaving it at this: If you can't understand something as simple as evolution, you are a little pussy.
Brian what a shallow little man you are. As soon as you get your azz handed to you you start your dirty little mind games. What a vulgar imagination you have , or should I say vulgar desire. Get help soon.you sick poser.
You were touching my ass? I thought you knew that I wasn't into that sort of thing, Mike. Find a respectable airport men's room for that stuff like a good Christian.
I have no desire that I have not satisfied countless times. I'm good. Really. Do you know that I slept around in my younger days? Any idea how much? I have had sex with more women than exist in your entire congregation unless you're in a Megachurch. Every race, too. No desires left, really. You were working out in the gym, while I slept with your women... lol. At least they learned that sex could feel good.
Now that that's over, wanna learn about evolution? Ahh, relax, just fucking with you.
Mike's God tells him "Thou Shalt Not Say Ass!' "Sayeth Thou Instead "Azz" as it is more pleasing unto my virgin ears!"
I love being an atheist at moments like these, it feels so free. Imagine being so twisted up inside that you're afraid of a word. Wow. It blows the mind.
As soon as you get your azz handed to you you start your dirty little mind games. ------------------ You come here to play mind games on us, Mike. Tit for tat. Frankly it looks like I've "blown you" out of the water with mine, though. Weak.
oops I said "tit." didn't mean to offend you there.
If you're done rocking in the corner, we can still have a conversation here. Just know that you can't get away with your little namby-pamby games anymore, no more trying to get us to jump through hoops while you scoff at things you don't know about in the least. Because dude, I can do this to you all night.
Jefferey Williams:- And I don't want ATHEISM shoved down MY throat anymore than you want RELIGION crammed down YOURS!
Observant:- This country was founded on judeo Christian values! To remove God from that concept would be like removing freedom from America.
So, you disagree with Jefferey then. You don't like ATHEISM being crammed down your throat WHILE you're cramming RELIGION down everyone's throat, right? Obviously if you disagree with Jefferey's premise, David's answer means nothing to you. You feel you are, or at least ought to be a privileged American since you're Christian. So much for 'equality' and 'freedom'.
Freedom is only for Christians. That's Mike's view. He's not shy about saying it, either. A very un-American man, is Mike. Goes against everything we stand for in the world. Makes a mockery out of the very word.
Cancer (the disease) is when a few cells stop noticing the overall plan of their reality, and start to not 'listen' to anything but their own urges to grow bigger and bigger, more and more.
Mike's brand of Christianity is exactly like cancer.
This is the shit that Mike is obliged to believe:- A lady who was a deadly professional prostitute, she did prostitution for a living and had a lot of customers around. She knew that no man will never accept her as a wife, so she went to a hospital and told the doctor to remove her womb so that she will no longer be coming for abortions. After some years, someone introduced the word of God to her and immediately, she gave her life to Christ and started working in the church and became dedicated to God. As time went by, one of the Pastors called her and said 'my sister, 'the Lord spoke to me that you are my wife, i want to marry you.' The lady smiled and said 'Brother, the Lord didn't tell u anything or maybe u didn't hear him clearly, go back cause am not even planning to marry any man. The man came back and said to her again 'the Lord said that u are my wife'. The lady smiled and narrated her story to him. The man still insisted to marry her and she told the Pastor, 'I don't have a womb, I removed it after several abortions', but the pastor still insisted, 'The Lord said u are my wife', so they got married. Not too long after some months she became pregnant. The lady and the man went to the hospital were her womb was removed, the doctor thought she was coming for another business...but the lady told the doctor that 'i am pregnant and i have come to your hospital to register'. The doctor was shocked, with laughter he said, 'u told me to remove your womb, u can no longer have children'. but the lady told him it is the GRACE, FAVOUR and MERCY of GOD that she's pregnant. The doctor conducted a pregnancy test which showed that she was one month pregnant. Out of disbelief and tears, the doctor said, 'please, show me ur God, I want to worship Him'. Not too long the lady gave birth to a baby boy.. IT WAS THE GRACE, FAVOUR AND MERCY OF GOD that the prostitute could have a child.
Therefore, I decree upon ur life that whatsoever that has or might have damaged in your life, in your body, in your skills, your carrier, your academics, your business, MAY THE FAVOUR, MERCY, GRACE AND MIRACLE OF GOD LOCATE YOU AS YOU TYPE AMEN TO THIS PRAYER, IN JESUS MIGHTY NAME, AMEN. My brothers & sisters, God still does this kind of miracles, just write "Amen" and share this story to your friends, you will see GOD perform a Miracle in your life today!!! ''''' ................................................................. I said, " This is Christian truth, as opposed to truth, just like 'the concept of God' is to God(which is just 'the concept of God', in reality). Tough to not twist your brain on that, 'God vs. Concept-of-God', isn't it? It's called Confusion Technique, and judging by the amount of believers, it works. .....................................................................................................................
... and:- " I'm so putting "Deadly professional prostitue" in my CV." It's just my job five days a week! A D.P.P. oh, yea! And all the sights I don't understand, from the biggest dong to the Little Brown Mushroom, a D.P.P ee-ee-ee, oh, yea, a D.P.P. A stinky alley's no place to raise your kids, in fact it's cold as Hell... (sorry I can't be bothered thinking of any more D.P.P. as Rocket Man stuff)
If we discovered a whole planet of beings that thought like this, we'd be obliged to nuke it back to the microbe level just to increase the cumulative IQ of the universe by ten points.
Her[Marina Abramović] bravest piece, however, is my favorite. This piece was primarily a trust exercise, in which she told viewers she would not move for six hours no matter what they did to her. She placed 72 objects one could use in pleasing or destructive ways, ranging from flowers and a feather boa to a knife and a loaded pistol, on a table near her and invited the viewers to use them on her however they wanted.
Initially, Abramović said, viewers were peaceful and timid, but it escalated to violence quickly. “The experience I learned was that … if you leave decision to the public, you can be killed… I felt really violated: they cut my clothes, stuck rose thorns in my stomach, one person aimed the gun at my head, and another took it away. It created an aggressive atmosphere. After exactly 6 hours, as planned, I stood up and started walking toward the public. Everyone ran away, escaping an actual confrontation.”
This piece revealed something terrible about humanity, similar to what Philip Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment or Stanley Milgram’s Obedience Experiment, both of which also proved how readily people will harm one another under unusual circumstances.
This performance showed just how easy it is to dehumanize a person who doesn’t fight back, and is particularly powerful because it defies what we think we know about ourselves. I’m certain the no one reading this believes the people around him/her capable of doing such things to another human being, but this performance proves otherwise. Silly person. did she imagine school bullies were a myth? Or Christians?
The Copenhagen solution left us with the possibility, believed by Bohr and others, that consciousness influenced the collapse of the wave form. This leaves open the *possibility* that our consciousnesses, our expectations, fears, and so forth, influence the unfolding of events. What did science immediately begin to do? Try to prove that is not the case. And while they haven't proven it, they have come up with things like decoherence and so forth that seem to contraindicate it. So anybody today that still pursues research into that other, earlier line of thought that consciousness is involved, is ridiculed or at least marginalized to the fringe. And yet, once science came up with the *possibility* that consciousness was involved, it was OBLIGATED to pursue that line of thought, as well as attempt to disprove it. To test for whether expectations affect events. To yes, get involved with the human mind, as distasteful as that must be to hard scientists. Sure, have some trying to disprove, but definitely need to also pursue the consciousness angle, *especially* because by its nature it may well skew even experimental results if researcher's expectations are uniformly negative. Once consciousness came into the mix, science was obligated to check if whether the consciousnesses of the researchers could affect results when the subject of the testing would be not only physical science or even that plus quantum physics, but both of those *and* the human mind. It needed consideration, and got little if any.
I was thinking, if you could set up an experiment that showed how you use your concentration to wake people up, you might be in line for that 1000,000 dollars that James Randi is offering! Man, if you could see your way to sending me 1% of that for thinking of it, I could sure use it to buy us a new(to us) car!
I'm serious. I didn't see anything in it that applied to me, for reals. You showed it to me for a reason, so it must be that you thought it applied to me. You can perhaps use it to dismiss me and my thoughts. Maybe that's why you showed it to me. What I said was that I thought it was a mistake not to take the consciousness angle seriously, since it was implied by the Copenhagen solution. Science ignored it as if it wasn't real, and so of course it provided science with indications that it wasn't. So if that article applied to anyone, it was to Neils Bohr. He thought consciousness was involved, and so it should have been investigated in the light of that, in the light of "Hey, let's see if it is" instead of "let's try to prove that it is not' because if it is, it would give false results if you investigate it in that manner...
you misunderstand Brian, I'm not scouring the 'net for 'gotcha' articles. I posted this up on your blog because I thought you'd be interested in it. I hadn't read your comment about Bohr even. I come across a lot of stuff posted to the Facebook, some I imagine you'd be interested in, others not so much. The article suggests that someone with a theory they think scientists are overlooking or haven't thought of should learn the stuff, seriously know everything that other scientists are saying about it and if that article points at something they might have genuinely overlooked, other scientists may well look into it. But asking scientists to take your word for it that they haven't done enough along certain lines, because you read some stuff on the 'net, well, as the original explains, they're not likely to be impressed. The fact that you had that comment about the Copenhagen solution was pure synchronicity, if you can see how it relates and and nothing at all to do with it if you don't, since I hadn't read your comment.
"1 (A Psalm of Asaph.) God standeth in the congregation of the mighty; he judgeth among the gods.
2 How long will ye judge unjustly, and accept the persons of the wicked? Selah.
3 Defend the poor and fatherless: do justice to the afflicted and needy.
4 Deliver the poor and needy: rid them out of the hand of the wicked.
5 They know not, neither will they understand; they walk on in darkness: all the foundations of the earth are out of course.
6 I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High.
7 But ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes.
8 Arise, O God, judge the earth: for thou shalt inherit all nations." - KJV
How would an apologist weasel his way around the obvious contradiction that there is supposed to be one and only one(three in one) GOD?
"Psalm 82 is the shortest of the psalms I have commented on these four weeks, but it is far and away the most difficult to interpret. The volume of scholarly literature is enormous, and not simply because scholars like to get published. The interpretive challenges are real, but the reward for engaging them is substantial.
Pastors and worship leaders who tackle Psalm 82 for this Sunday will be blessed by one of the most theologically profound texts in the Psalter, and perhaps in the whole Bible.1 There really is something here for everyone: questions about the origins of Israel’s religion, connections to the prophetic witness for justice, affirmation of God’s involvement in human history, and links to the theology of the New Testament.
For these reasons, one is hard-pressed to know where to begin and end the exegetical journey, much less the eventual homiletical product. The good news is that while interpreters sharply disagree over the background and meaning of the Lord’s relationship with the “gods” of Psalm 82, they generally agree on the eventual destination -- namely, that the one, true God is unfailingly committed to justice for the most vulnerable of earth’s inhabitants.
Therefore, my advice is that sermons based on this psalm should inform the congregation about the possible strands of meaning without feeling the need to tie up all their loose ends.2 The psalm seems to invite this holistic view based on its consistent poetical use of sounds and wordplay and by a carefully ordered structure:
A God stands and judges in the assembly of the gods (verse 1) B The gods are confronted over their injustice (verses 2-4) C The chaos left by the gods is described (verse 5) B’ The gods are confronted with their mortality (verses 6-7) A’ God is asked to rise in the assembly and judge the earth (verse 8)3
The structural coherence of the poem’s final form encourages us to draw several themes together in a developing portrait of God’s desire for a just world."
1) "It's a POEM people!" 2)"Concentrate on 'what we know, God will judge us. Just blow the rest off." 3)"Just saying, 'it's difficult' is a start, your audience will know that you're going to dance around it." 4)"If you can explain this without explaining it, completely avoid the admission that there are, we hear 'an ASSEMBLY of gods' that seem to neglect the 'big issues', you can explain ANYTHING!" 5)"Don't even bother explaining the context, just take lines of possible 'themes' and pull them all together with the last line, where thankfully we're back to our one true GOD dealing with people! Phew!"
No, that's for children. Adults can swear. It's part of being an adult, to not fear words. Nobody here is going to be offended by it but you. I was making just that point, you know. You are more childlike than adult in many ways like that. You let fear and guilt rule you. Also, you were the one jerking our chains, letting us explain science to you *yet again* just to get us to waste time and get frustrated with your impermeable Christian Mind Shield.
Anybody that can't even say "ass" but isn't bothered by the plight of our poor, has no respect from me. If I could only respect you, you wouldn't earn the profanity so easily.
I'd much rather that you cared about and loved all others like your god told you that you were supposed to, and swear like a sailor, than talk like my grandmother and not give a shit about anybody not wearing a cross, as you do.
You never commented on the actual post, the argument. What the atheist said. Why is that, I wonder...
Did you read it?
Do you disagree that you Christians did or still do all that stuff? I mean, this is the core of what pisses us off about you, these things, and your attitude that you don't even do them but instead are the real victims. That's really fucking low.
Do you admit that Christians did all that stuff, and still do?
What pisses me off is little loud mouth punks like you who act as if you are far more superior then others. You like to believe you can see my faults when in fact you are so broken you can't even see your twisted self.
Hey, tell yourself whatever you have to to deny to yourself that you could *possibly* be wrong on anything in the world. Go ahead, makes no difference to me. You hate this 'loud mouth punk' for showing you what a fucking mirror looks like. Fine. Sure, no way you can be wrong, I mean, it's not as if you don't know science and how to ask yourself hard questions about yourself. It's not as though you're caught up in a herd of mindless sheep all following a belief system that makes them mindless sheep in the first place.
Sure, live your life in ignorance of what you've become. It surely can't be that baaa-aaaaad.
I'm still waiting for your ANSWER to this whole post of mine, btw. Don't think I didn't notice that you once again sidestepped it. You can't answer me, because the lie you'd have to tell is too obvious; even you realize that it won't fly.
HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH! You've painted yourself into a belief-corner.
I mean, you look at the list there of what you christians have done to this country and then see how you accuse us, the very ones you've done it *to,* of those very kinds of things, and you realize there's just no defense for it, no way to spin it back to us at all, so you call me names. A level of childishness that I've come to expect from you, I'm afraid.
They see their privilege as 'the norm', hence 'This is a Christian Nation'. Works the other way too. Anyone who has the gall to say, "This is a Christian Nation.", is declaring their own privilege over every other religion, secularisim and atheism. They, with their typical double-standards are humbly, very humbly declaring their superiority. Their historical superiority(even if they have to rewrite history, their moral superiority(even though they can claim different morals from those espoused in the O.T. and the N.T., and of course the Old Boys Club, nepotism, cronyism etc. etc.
Here's a historical fact for you... The Christians in Europe were being persecuted by the government and the Roman Catholic. So they came to America and established a democracy that guaranteed freedom of religion. The world has always had freedom from religion.People were not hanged, burned, murdered, persecuted because they didn't believe in God.... It was only the believers who suffered at the hands of atheist and false religions like the Catholic Church the fake Christians.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Christians#English_colonies_in_North_America So, Mike, there's some history for you. Everyone callin everyone else heretics, what's new? "So they came to America and established a democracy that guaranteed freedom of religion." This doesn't make sense in the light of your earlier statement about the U.S.A. being formed as a Christian Nation.(surely freedom of religion doesn't mean free to be Christian and only free to be Christian?) "The world has always had freedom from religion.People were not hanged, burned, murdered, persecuted because they didn't believe in God.... " This is nonsense. How many States have laws on their books saying atheists cannot hold office and such, to this day? And to this day, someone is trying to enforce them! ".. It was only the believers who suffered at the hands of atheist and false religions like the Catholic Church the fake Christians." Mostly religious people suffered at the hands of other religious people! Your 'notion' of false and true belief being totally beside the point. You're cavilling! Christians did NOT immigrate into the Americas to escape the murderous atheist hordes, and the Catholics had it just as bad in some states, as Protestants had it in other states. Later, many people emmigrated to the U.S.A. to escape communism, that is true. But one can be a communist and a Christian, the two are not mutually exclusive.
The real history is that fringe Christian sects left Europe to avoid persecution, and then proceeded to establish colonies with their own brand of persecution, seemingly having learned nothing.
They need freedom for persecution! Not from! For! They wanted to be free to persecute in the Old World, but they weren't so they came here. Basically that's it.
Mike sorta tried to answer with predictable effects. He can't answer it without looking like an ass and he knows it. He tried, and just look at what an idiot he makes of himself.
People were not hanged, burned, murdered, persecuted because they didn't believe in God.. ------------------ Inquisition, Protestant Reformation, Crusades. When you're wrong, you're often spectacularly wrong. Wow.
Christians: "We want freedom of religion!" -Um okay, great. So everybody's free to practice their own religion, or none at all? Fantastic! Christians: NO NO! We are the only true religion, the others are all false, so we're the only ones that need it!
-But, your religion is much like everyone else's!
-Christianity is not a religion! It's a partnership and a way of life and...
See, this is how the delusional argue for their delusion. They change around, are inconsistent, because their delusion is inconsistent. What they want is totally unfair because their delusion is totally unfair, but it seems fair to them because they're delusional. It's all sheer egotism, sheer Pride, of course.
Hey, apparently Dinesh DaSouza is in all kinds of Federal trouble for falsifying campaign donations! Not looking good for our friend. I love it when the inherent immorality of these opportunistic snake oil salesmen shines through.
Mike: Your lack of understanding/revision of history is astounding!! Jews (my forbears) were routinely beaten, burned at the stake and otherwise abused for centuries, all over Europe, by both the notorious Catholic Inquisition and after the Protestant Reformation in by Protestants in England. Since we did not "accept" the divinity of Jesus, we were effectively "atheists" in the eyes of every church, and therefore deserved to either be forced to convert or die. Among the early U.S. colonies, only Rhode Island and Pennsylvania permitted true freedom of religious observance and neither of these allowed anyone who did not declare himself a believer in God (the Christian God, that is) to serve in any public office. It is apparent that, as a fundamentalist protestant, you choose to see the Catholic Church as "not really Christians", and therefore to ignore their long history of persecution of non-believers (including, BTW, early protestants), but it was the early members of your protestant church in America that were responsible for witch trials and other abuses, noteably including all of the abuses of slavery. As Brian likes to point out, you are totally blinded to the realities of history, and your "Christian privilege" attitudes force you to ignore or deny these truths.
Mike: Aside from the fact that none of us here agree with you regarding the existence of ANY God, what do you mean by "I'm not Protestant!" Although this may turn out to be semantics regarding the place your personal church declares for itself, must not a Christian Church be either Catholic/Eastern Orhotodox/Coptic OR Protestant? God Help Me, but I think that I am actually interested in this issue.
The sect of Baptist that I am affiliated with was never a part of the Church of Rome nor did it descened from any church that came from the catholic. Contray to popular belief the Baptist Church was befor the catholic.
Mike: Are not all Baptists considered "Protestant"? I thought that all of the Christian Churches that began with Martin Luther's separation from Catholicism are, by definition, Protestant. (BTW, my wife of over 30 years is Lutheran) Also, can you explain to me your statement that the "Baptist Church" predates Catholicism.
Harvey, Mike thinks his church is the original church, even though it started in the 16th c. I suspect most "true believers" from one sect or another believe some variation of this.
Pliny: I got to your blogsite by deleting the "Harvey". Really top-notch stuff! You border on gifted as an observer of life's absurdities, but always with a touch of gentle humor. Kudos!!
Mike's strategy seems to be a popular one; I run across it a lot on Twitter. Christians asking for us to explain evolution, I think with the expectation that we can't, and then busting our ass and fucking around as we do so, poking fun at it, and afterwards acting like they never heard a word we said. They like how pissed off it makes a person, to go through the effort for nothing but shallow scorn. I posted a page explaining it in detail to them with footnotes, and they laughed at me 'not being able to explain it yourself' and 'do we get jackets with the handouts' and other mind-rottingly pustulent behavior. Doesn't matter to them, they don't want an explanation of anything, they just want to be self-satisfied and have their circle-jerk at your expense.
Oh, and make hate remarks at Obama while they're doing it. Gotta have that apparently. And telling us how atheism is a religion. It's like they study how to be loathsome and despicable, like it's their life's work or something.
And hinting at our "final destination" with vampiric glee. Instead of Sigmund Freud, their whole psychology seems to be based on his asshole brother Schaden.
... and I suppose Mike feels he's being 'gentle' with us considering what he and his friends must say to each other. "It's easier to fool a person that to convince him that he has been fooled."- Samuel Clemens
Picture a 'world' where there is a continuing SUPERNATURAL war for control of your mind. Picture a 'world' where you feel that everything is absurdly black or white, where happiness is a zero sum game, the less happy everyone else is, the happier you must be. There are also those who are only truly happy when they're making as many other people as possible as miserable as possible. I have to wonder if radical religionists can see that if one were truly evil one would do it as loudly, publicly and deviously as possible, It seems to me that they can see that flaw in varieties of even their own chosen 'umbrella group', Catholicism if you're an Evangelist and vice versa, but are blind to that in their own. They're not being evil and pretending it's good, no. What they're doing is balancing out their evil with their goodness(godliness). Still, you'd imagine that they'd wonder if perhaps some of those who seem the most godly aren't just covering their bad intent projecting that bad intent on as many as possible. Are atheists simply people who don't believe that the 'world' is a black and white supernatural war, or, are they really angry-at-God, unwilling to end(or at least be ashamed of) their evil ways? Confess, radical religionist! Tell us what you're guilty of, tell us what you're ashamed of! Or are you just in it for the money?
Am I angry at fairies? Goblins? Unicorns? You know why I'm angry at Creationists, right? They are quite happy to use science when it suits them but they're trying to dumb down the World to their standard. Ignoramuses. For example you, you can read, but you don't seem to be able to understand. But just get sick and you'll run to the doctor, get the latest medicine, and give your invisible dad in the sky credit. The Bible has no natural explanation of how things work in this material universe, only mythological supernatural ones, legends and fables.
If you want 'intelligent design' look no further than science. Dogs are 'intelligently designed', wolves aren't. Milk cows and beef cattle are intelligently designed, deer, elk, buffalo etc. aren't, any more than polar bears are. The 'good' question is, why do you think what you believe is 'good' and not just 'godly'? All the different varieties of Christianity are wrong, except yours, right? The JWs are wrong, the Mormons are wrong, the Catholics are wrong, and on and on. All the variety of other religions are wrong, the Muslims, the Hindus, the Sikhs, the Buddhists and on and on. Once again, we agree with you, they ARE all wrong. We just think you're wrong too. And you're dangerous, and I think you're proud of that, and it's nothing to be proud of. You guys say you believe in objective morality, God's morality which never changes. But you know you are lying. The morality in the Bible is not even similar to today's Christian morality. What's objective about that, what's unchanging about that?? You're just lying and worse, you're lying to yourself and your children.
Just for the record I'm not Protestant! --------------- Oh, that's right, you belong to that group, the one that was started after the Protestants had their reformation but believe you've been here all along. That gives you one false belief over the other groups.
Craptists? No that isn't it... damn, it's right on the tip of my tongue... tastes fucking awful there, too.
Are you angry at God? That would certainly explain the hostilities toward Christians. ------------------------ If you saw a bunch of people that believed in a demon that they said wanted them to destroy the world and they were very active in politics, would you have to believe in the demon in order to be angry at them for their belief in it?
Hope you get that. It was my best second-grade-level explanation.
Here's a quote from a Fundy, "Spiritually, our nation is dying. In response, conservative Christians are caught between righteous judgements and somber humility." This is a common belief as far as right-wing Christians are concerned. They only oppress the population as much as they can for our own good, for the good of the nation and so on, right?
Still, at the exact same time:- "According to their faith, they are required to believe that everything is happening just the way God wants it to happen, and yet when they lift their eyes from the Bible and look at the real world, it looks like God is totally screwing up His end of the deal. And they’re not allowed to even think of complaining about it. God has to be perfect, so you can’t acknowledge, even to your self, that He’s failing to perform as expected."- Deacon Duncan.
How can you hold those two beliefs in your head at the same time? One, that the nation failing to be 'good' Christians is causing grief, and Two, that God is in control and it's all part of a master plan?
HOW is it even possible to reconcile that in your own head, Mike? "There's a master plan, but we have to try to fix it for God!!!" It doesn't make sense now, be honest, it must be either God's master plan OR it's up to you to do the heavy lifting FOR GOD. Right? Right?
Christians are caught between righteous judgements --------------- There's the Pride I like to talk about. Who the fuck are you to judge others? Unbelievable.
It's like, "I don't like how you people are living your lives so I'm caught between keeping it to myself like an American, or righteously judging all of you like my God says that only He can do."
I think that was one of those where Mike will read it and come to the conclusion that he must not think about it because it is trying to lead him away from GOD. Can we not see how Satanic that is? Pointing out that he has to hold two opposing opinions in his head at the same time?? Of course, wise old Mike, he's not falling for our tricks! They've got paradoxes like, "How can something come from nothing?" So, instead of facing the unface-able, he'll do a, "I know you are but what am I?", and pivot away from it like a politician in an oligarch's trouser pocket.
Really, Pliny, I predicted this since there's nowhere else for D'Sousa to go! I had his next book down for calling them, Fascist-socialist-Al Queda, for having the nerve to call him on the law he loves so much when it's not directed at himself, of course. If he ever said, "The USA is a NATION of LAWS!", and that's very likely, he should be feeling the burn.
Re: Dinesh. Is it just me or does this fall from grace happen SOOOO much more often on the right than it does on the left? Sure, we have the occasional John Edwards, but still.
Anyway, I find schadenfreude to be unproductive and try not to engage in it, but OH MAN!!!!
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Jeffrey likely said, "I don't do those things." LOL
ReplyDeleteHere's one about intuition:-
ReplyDeletehttp://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2011/06/14/when-our-intuition-leads-us-to-bad-decisions/
I'll read that in a bit, but before I do I just want to say that I've never said plain old intuition is better, or even as good as, logical thought. What I've always said is that a "trained intuition," i.e. an intuitive thought process that has been *modified by logic* over the years, is sometimes superior to just a linear logical thought process. The trained intuition still has the ability of extreme lateral thought, and once it learns to conform to rational parameters, is much faster, more efficient at drawing out the right answer from a huge number of data points at once. Lateral thinking is not always the best choice, sometimes linear, logical thought is, and knowing which to use is a part of being balanced as a person.
ReplyDeleteJust wanted to make that clear. I'll comment again after I've read the link.
I had this amazing Lucid Dream experience the other day, in the afternoon during a nap. (weird hours I keep)
ReplyDeleteI hope that even a rationalist can derive entertainment from it at the bare minimum.
http://salviaspace.blogspot.com/2014/01/traipsing-through-afterlife.html
"Traipsing Through the Afterlife"
Also as a general rule, or lack thereof maybe, just an FYI, if anybody sees something on the other blog that they ever want to comment upon, it doesn't make a difference to me which one you do that on, but don't fear to comment over there either. Or also. Or whatever. You get the gist.
To exemplify my concept of a 'trained intuitive side" I think it best illustrated by a mathematician like say, young Albert Einstein, famous for claiming to use intuitive thought processes such as finding the answer in a dream.
ReplyDeleteHow could *untrained* intuition provide an answer to a difficult problem in say, celestial mechanics, if it were not modified by years of logical, mathematical training? No, learning all the logical thought processes related to such a thing is linear logical thought, but being able to just intuit a complex answer to a complex logical problem is far beyond the untrained intuitive mind.
Well I think that when you say 'trained intuitive', you're really saying, 'not really intuitive'. There's plenty about how our consciousnesses work that is non-verbal since we've been using them since before we could talk, it had to be there to learn how to talk.
ReplyDeleteI don't get the feeling that I'm thinking logically or thinking intuitively, so I just don't understand the supposed difference between logical thinking and 'trained intuitive' thinking.
I DO understand the difference between choosing the ice-cream I prefer and following the rules of math to solve a problem, that kind of thing.
Also, dreaming up a solution, or coming up with a solution to a problem after a good sleep isn't a new thing really.
Sometimes when we're faced with a problem and the whole thing is 'new' to us, we can look up any relevant stuff on the 'net, ask as many people as possible, but once we've done that, the more time that can go by, without just forgetting about the whole thing, the better.
I'm not sure how 'logical' or otherwise that'd be.
I think we're just talking past each other here, you using a word which I consider the opposite of logic/reason, that is 'intuition', differently than how I use it.
This country was founded on judeo Christian values! To remove God from that concept would be like removing freedom from America. Oh wait a minute that's what the liberal democrats are trying to do.... Both God and freedom.
ReplyDeleteOh PUH-LEEEEZE!
ReplyDeleteYou can't imagine what it's like to be anybody but a self-important Christian, so when you read the above argument Atheist V Christian, you immediately think of your hate, and find a way to be scornful, rather than imagining what it's like to be us! You don't give a SHIT, do you? Tell the truth. We're atheists that you don't give a shit about, because if you did, you would see how YOU make us FEEL in this society. And I bet what you think when I say that is "Well, get out, then!" If I got that right, then you're no follower of Jesus. Hell, you're an Xtian!
Brian are you crying? There's no crying about majority rule... The fact that Christians are the majority in America is reason enough for you to live a peaceful life without rocking the boat.... Christianity is not bring forced on anyone here, it is being practiced in a free country by its majority. Now you can practice your nonbelief and enjoy your freedom here as well
DeleteWe never want to take anything away from you, at least not anything you're not trying to steal from us. You hate our freedom to be not like you! Shame on you, false follower of Jesus. Shame on you. But you have no shame because you've deluded yourself that you can be selfish about freedom and still a Christian. You can't even see your own lack of human compassion, lack of fairness, lack of empathy. Hell, you don't even know what that last word *means.*
ReplyDeleteSo Mike, would you kill me if God told you to? Would you kill your son or daughter? Maybe not, but that would be being a hypocrite because the Bible tells you to do precisely that.
ReplyDeleteHey, whatever. Peace, I guess. (sheesh!)
No, No, No, The Bible does not tell me to kill anyone. In fact it says let both grow together and He will send His angels and they will cut the unbelievers asunder. No Brian that's not our job!
DeleteYou're supposed to love others as they are, not as they might be in an unlikely hypothetical future where the other person becomes just like you. That's being judgmental, not loving others.
ReplyDeleteOne thing that I get about your religion that you are totally fucking blind to is that the path of Jesus, the path of True Compassion and love, is not EASY. You hate the very idea of being like how you need to be to follow that path. It's called "The Narrow Path" because it's hard to find and easy to fall off of. You being an example of that.
So Ian, today while on Twitter for the first time I searched for the word "salvia" as #salvia, which groups all people with that in their name together, or tweets on that subject, I think. Anyhow I found a few people to follow, but I also noticed with slight disappointment that a lot of people just had "salvia" in their names, like "Salvia Cortes" or "Mike DiSalvia"
ReplyDeleteThat was like four hours ago or so.
So just now I'm watching Larry O'Donnell on MSNBC and he's introducing the former head of a republican gay group that just turned Democrat. I just paused it at the very beginning, because the guy's name is "Jimmy LaSalvia..."
It's all consciousness, dude. Sorry to so inform. Getting more sure every day.
.. and similarly to 'intuition', 'consciousness' as you mean it here isn't an individual's consciousness like I mean it.
ReplyDeleteWell I think that when you say 'trained intuitive', you're really saying, 'not really intuitive'.
ReplyDelete--------
Perhaps. On reflection it might be more accurate to say "combined intuitive and logical in harmonious balance"
It's logical thought and intuitive thought combined. Each helping the other to be maximally efficient together. I say "trained intuition" but it's the same thing, really.
No.
ReplyDeleteNo Brian, you can say, what I really mean is this something else and now that I've explained the something else it's the same as what I was saying before but it's different to how you mean it, and not just be talking past me.
When I say 'intuition', I mean 'gut feeling'.
You seem to be saying that you can 'train' your gut feeling by also using logic.
These words are so easily bandied about as if we really know what we're meaning when we say them.
Thinking logically means.. I have reasons why I think this or that. A theist certainly DOES have reasons for being one. Could be that's how she grew up, that's very mportant. e.g. not likely to have 'internalized' the Thor/Odin pantheon outside a certain sphere of influence. Most English speakers don't know that Thorsday follows Odinsday, in fact I talked with this older woman over a few beers and she said she would NEVER believe that Wednesday cam from Odinsday, just NEVER, her worldview was Christian, full stop.
Sorry, I digress a bit there, just woke up. I think the difference between what we call 'logical' thinking and 'intuitive' thinking is, to simplify, if we have four choices, the intuitive choice is the one we prefer without considering it, the unconsidered thought.
This seems to give you an 'in' to 'poopoo' my 'logical thinking' compared to your ''combined intuitive and logical in harmonious balance".
But I think this is so much hot air as I do believe we all do that anyways. We WILL have the 'intuitive' selection, then we'll think about it, right?
You can call your final answer anything you want. 'logical', some kind of mix, whatever.
To my mind you're putting this stuff 'out there' to seem exotic.
Also, when it comes to women generally being more 'intuitive' than men, how I see that is a woman using diplomacy, hypnotism, sex, trust and guile to get what she wants.
There's a lot of mixed up ideas here, but I'm thinking there's a correlation between being literal and being allegorical/figurative.
I, for one, would like an explanation of the difference between 'logical thinking' and this 'enhanced logical thinking' that you feel you can use to more advantage.
Really. Examples would be nice.
Then we can see, in black and white, what it is, if it's not merely a way to say that we can think figuratively, or we are adept at expressing ourselves in a more figurative way.
This is not a challenge, Brian. I'm quite willing to accept that we're just talking past each other.
This is like trying to teach a computer to be creative.
ReplyDeleteEmotional thought can be trained. It's that simple. It can get more accurate with time if one allows one's self to make corrections, and is not too proud to let go of one's 'feelings' and learn new ones. One's hunches get more accurate the more one is holistically familiar with the world. Because while linear logical thought is an amazing tool, it's more amazing when used in conjunction with 'hunches.' As long as one does not blindly believe the hunches but always polices them in the mind, they get more and more accurate.
ReplyDeleteThis is really simple stuff. You still not following me?
See, reality is not LINEAR! Surprise! It's like a fucking fractal in that every facet of every problem you face in the real world, has it's own complex history and causes and associations. So it's like a web of facts and data. That's reality. So you can play linear thought games with just the surface layer, which may look one way, or you can use lateral thinking (intuitive) to grasp a higher percentage of that web, of those complex causes.
Still no good, right? I mean, I'm not expecting you to see this anymore. I'm just typing 'cause I'm bored right now...
You're on a space station preparing for a space walk. Everything looks good; you've triple-checked everything. You are tethered to a boom. You notice 'something amiss' about it but you can't put your finger on it. You have a 'bad feeling' about the boom attachment. It looks okay, but you sense something wrong. You put tentative pressure against the tether, and it gives more than it should. It's not attached correctly; one of the bolts has given way, but from the top it looked fine. You aren't really sure how you noticed anything amiss... it was likely the slight difference in angle of the boom, it was slightly off. You didn't consciously see that; it was too subtle for your conscious mind to catch, but you've been practicing this stuff and doing it for years now, so you somehow caught a whiff of something wrong, and it saved your life.
ReplyDeleteIs this purely logical thought?
In one scenario you are satisfied that you've checked everything on the checklist, so it must be fine, you go for the walk, and you die.
ReplyDeleteIn the other one you sensed something amiss with the *whole picture* at once, something off with the overall configuration that you could not readily identify in any way; you let yourself be warned by that feeling, applied more logic by additional testing, and you lived.
Or hey, even simpler. When you first learn to drive a car, it's all intellectual knowledge. You know how to, but you have no experience. When you drive, you must think and think and think all the time to make sure you're not making a mistake. After thirty years of driving it, do you think about what you're doing anymore, or do you just drive the car? Who is the better driver? The first, with only a linear understanding of the concept of "driving a car," or the second one who just does it with no thought at all? You've trained your reflexes sure, but you've also trained your intuitions. You just 'feel' it and do it, and it's right. This too is intuitive thought. It's no longer in the purview of your conscious mind.
ReplyDeleteThe Japanese concept of mushin-no-shin, or 'no mind' is learning all the techniques of physical combat, practicing them incessantly until they become second nature, and then when in actual combat, letting go of all of that and just being in the moment; your body responds correctly, and far more efficiently and quickly than if you had to think about every move. Intuitive fighting is far superior to executing techniques with conscious deliberation.
ReplyDeleteIntuitive fighting is far superior to executing techniques with conscious deliberation.
DeleteIt is - right up to the point that an opponent throws in a curve. Repetitive physical activities basically create cerebellar algorithms that can play without the need for higher cortical control. Ie. walking while having a nice discussion. It's also why when we are distracted we sometimes drive to a routine destination instead of where we wanted to go. (I had one extremely unfortunate brush with that as a young man). Most people who play the piano learn cerebellar algorithms. It's why when they get distracted they might have to go back to the start or have trouble because they have to shift to higher cortical control.
And the far extreme of intuitive grasp of logic, someone like Daniel Tammet, who can do complex mathematics by feel alone, can memorize PI to twenty thousand places, and so forth, because he perceives numbers intuitively, not as quantities but as feelings; the number one might be a flash of purple with a rumbling sound, the number two a swirl of motion and a high-pitched whine, the number three a white flash and sensation of heat... that sort of thing...
ReplyDeleteWe humans seem to have a 'main mind' and many 'satellite minds' that we utilize. I think that logical thought is all in the main mind, but intuitive thought is a committee meeting of the satellite minds. However of course, that's just an intuition.
ReplyDeleteThere is a dichotomy between logical and intuitive thought. What I refer to as the 'yin and yang' of it.
ReplyDeleteThe better you are naturally at logical thought, the worse you are at the intuitive kind. If you're totally focused on logic, hell, you can't see the intuitive side as even existing. (You taught me this)
The same applies in reverse. The astrologer flake who spouts new-age nonsense all the time, or the religious person who lives through his feelings and his gut with no recourse to logic, those people are blind to the existence and utility of logic altogether.
I believe the optimal state is a balance of some kind between the two.
My wife has good logic, but she's a very emotionally oriented person. She uses her intuitions in life very effectively.
ReplyDeleteFor instance, due to her job, she can take a GLANCE at a legal contract and all the "gotchas" and "catches" and "lies" stand out to her like they were highlighted. I've never seen anything like it. I've seen her glance at a two-page contract for less than ten seconds and just spout off all the misleading stuff in it. It amazes me.
I'm a much faster reader than she is, by far. But I can't read a two-page contract in ten seconds at all, much less pick out all the problems with it in that time. So what is she doing?
ReplyDeletePattern recognition, only she's seeing patterns of words. It's instant. Very impressive, too.
Delete"..cerebellar algorithms.."
ReplyDeleteEveryone does that. I'm doing it right now, reading the words as they appear on the monitor and correcting as I go. What's not logical about this?
In computereze it would be a sub-routine. I'm not 'getting' how this is 'intuition' as opposed to 'logic' at all.
Driving, the same thing. No doubt this is how hypnotism works, 'getting you to go into one of these sub-routines' for a bit.
I think you're conflating intuition/logic with 'cerebellar algorithm'/'focus'.
I think that religious people, very religious people 'do' religion that way. They'll focus on Jesus, or 'faith itself' and be lost in these cerebellar algorithms they've built for themselves, all connected with the Bible and their Bible study.
So there we have it, we are talking past each other, and I do forgive you for trying to put as many digs about it in as you possibly can.
Ahh cmon, I only got in two digs at most.
ReplyDeleteI think it best to agree to disagree here. I know how I think about it, and I think our differences are too great to bridge the gap.
How about my wife tho? Cerebral algorithm?
ReplyDeleteBy the way sir, you have one enormous yang. I'd be showing that thing off more often... oh yeah, you are.. lol...
ReplyDeleteA side question, a tangent.
ReplyDeleteDo you yourself have beliefs?
I am not even sure how I'd answer that. Guess it depends on the definition of 'beliefs.'
?
Yes I do have beliefs - For example, I believe that there are real humans called St B, Ian, Harvey, Ryan, etc, who appear here in passing...
ReplyDeleteYea, well your examples are shite, Brian. The Big Brain isn't a brain, it's more of a consciousness, but it isn't really a consciousness.
ReplyDeleteYour 'intuition' is more to do with how we've learned to type, play music, drive etc. etc.
I think it's kind of pitiful if you explain something one way then have to change the explanation because, 'it's not quite that I mean', then blame me for not 'intuiting' what it is you actually mean.
I honestly don't imagine that you don't think you don't know what it is you mean. but, those digs you take at me are telling, and they're not telling me anything at all about what you are trying to explain.. They might make you feel better about not being able to explain, but neither of us are experts on how the brain stores memories, embeds memories creating expertise in everything from math, art, driving, reading lawyerese, and so on and so forth.
I think you feel that you've learned 'something', but, and this is just my personal take on it, if you can't explain it, or if you imagine that you HAVE explained it and I'm just not understanding, well, maybe your stuff is a little vaguer than you're willing to let on to yourself.
Once again, my touchy friend, no offense meant.
"This country was founded on judeo Christian values! To remove God from that concept would be like removing freedom from America." - Mike.
ReplyDeleteHow cute. Mike thinks he's free.
Now I'm pretty sure, off hand, that Mike isn't in prison, that's not what I mean. Maybe a better way of saying it would be, Mike thinks he has 'freedom', how cute.
Mike imagines he's free, since, "This country was founded on judeo Christian values!", but non-Christians don't have this elusive freedom, you can be damned sure of that!!!
You should google 'freedom', Mike and tell us which of YOUR 'freedoms' you mean would be somehow compromised if, say, atheists got their way???
.. your freedom to be a bigoted cunt? Comes to mind right away! LOL
ReplyDeleteAnyways, Brian, can you explain what it is you mean?
ReplyDeleteIs it like, "Relax and close your eyes. Now expand your mind. As your mind grows bigger than the house you can imagine looking down on it and you can expand it further and further 'till you're looking at the Earth, looking at the Solar System, looking at the Milky Way... and out .. and out... in complete awe of the never-ending vastness of it."?
And it's your 'mind'
That kind of thing?
I wouldn't be half-surprised if your emotional side of your, (I'm sorry, what was it again?) reasoned intuition(?) kicked right in here, dismissed this comment as 'snark' and jumped on it from ten thousand feet, giving me a good berating, for daring!
Here's my (eww, how inside the box I am!) thoughts, so far on this.
My streaming consciousness, my awareness together with my memories and my ability to focus and to rationalize(we do a lot of that) OF my environment, feedback from my senses and my imaginings, is to me as these programs up and running is to the computer.
My heart beating blood around my body soaking up oxygen rich blood and taking it to my brain to burn the fuel that I've digested and incorporated, is to me as the wires and chips and so on is to the switched on physical computer.
My body is to a chunk of meat, a carcass as the box of wires and motherboard and odds and ends is to the computer you can carry around or throw into the rose bushes.
When you say all is consciousness and the physical reality around us manifested by this consciousness, to me that's not some kind of controlled intuitive thinking outside the box realization, Brian, that's just turning everything we should know about how consciousness comes to be, a manifestation of a living being, upside-down.
Worse, it's doing that for no reason at all.
(contd.)
(contd.)
ReplyDeleteIf there is some substance which the universe and everything in it is made of, it's not consciousness, unless you're just playing a word-game, since consciousness is as I described it above, a process through which we can make sense of our living material bodies interacting with and contemplating the universe itself, including each other of course.
So 'consciousness' is a horrible word to describe what you are trying to explain to us since it cannot possibly make sense, it's viciously circular, it's saying, "When I look out at the universe, I'm looking in a mirror, but there's no mirror, just a reflection of my consciousness.
No, no, I can hear you say, "Our collective consciousnesses!", as if using the basic pattern finding skill we need to learn about the world around us and how to act/react in society on itself, making a set of all consciousnesses somehow 'magnifies' it or does something more than imagining that thinking, "Oh wow, man, there's like 7 billion human consciousnesses in the world and they're all like one, you know man.. here, take a hit!"
But, and this is important, much like we can crate up each egg to make a dozen eggs and that's just 12 individual eggs, each consciousness is individual and cannot be combined to make something greater than the 'parts'.
Now, perhaps you're imagining that consciousness isn't a process at all, but a substance, then each individual person is but a concentration of that substance, and I can dig that homie, high fives, I'd buy that for a dollar, if a man says, "I lie 100% of the time!", is that man lying now?
So, what do you think Brian? Are our minds processes which we can be called streaming consciousnesses which can end abruptly if our living material bodies fail to maintain them(the consciousnesses), or is the mind a substance out of which the material universe is made and maintained?
I'm going with the former since the latter makes no sense to me at all, intuitively, logically, reasonably, non-paradoxically, whatever.
This comment was not intended as any kind of put-down, wasn't intended to be sarcastic, wasn't intended to be smarter-than-thou.
It was intended solely to encourage you to explain, if you so wish, what it is you mean, if I'm not 'getting it'.
It's a dream. A communal dream state. That's what I mean by 'made of consciousness." What else to call it? It's not really made of anything. It's a dream.
ReplyDeleteYou often take a mocking tone with me you know. Like you just did. My instinct is to take one back. But then you complain. So whatever.
ReplyDeleteYou refuse to consider anything but the one paradigm that makes sense to you. So, why am I talking again?
I'd have been likely to believe you about reality, but the problem is, I know differently. The synchronicities, all the time. And don't think I didn't notice you avoid it when I post about them. You have no good answer for them. And now, disturbing my wife many times, lately on purpose. The dog. I sense more to this reality than you can imagine is possibly true, that's the gist of it.
ReplyDeleteSo cling to your illusion of reality and pretend it's real, and the more you focus on that the realer it will be to you, so very real, because that is what you wish it to be. I no longer wish that, I wish to see truth, not my own belief reflected back at me. So I look for inconsistencies, expecting to find them rather than cynically denying the very possibility to myself before I even look. And find them I do. A lot of them. Every single day.
ReplyDeleteThis place is a dream state, a "purely psychological' reality, with no real thing in it, not in the sense of how you think of it. We dream it's real, so it is. The closer we focus on a dream, the more detail we see. Thus, SCIENCE!
I had to totally alter the way that I meditated recently, a couple of weeks ago. Know why? Because every time I slipped into the state of concentration on the light inside my head, and it became more noticeable, my son in the other room woke up. Every single time for a week or so. On cue. I eventually became conditioned to expect it, because of course I didn't want it to happen, I began to *fear* it happening, and when that happened it happened more reliably. My wife literally told me to STOP.
ReplyDeleteBut wait honey, my friend Pboy tells me this is not happening, so go back to bed!
I look at consciousness (ours) as a blend of intuitive and rational thought, but the intuitive can be rational also if one is experienced enough and pays attention to when it's wrong and when it's right. You see this as nonsense. So what? I may be wrong, you may be wrong... what I call intuition you may see as cerebral algorithms. You want to make our minds like fancy computers, but no computer will ever achieve true self-consciousness, at least I think not. We can program to say that they do and pass any test that they do, but we both know that's an imitation, pure and simple. So I'll continue to see it as I see it. I like it this way better, and you certainly have given me no compelling reason to change. All you cite as evidence is what I'd expect you to cite as evidence. You see the dream and it satisfies you, in the sense of you're content that it's real, and that's all there is to it. I am simply not so easily satisfied.
ReplyDeleteI once did a thing called "sigil magic." Meditated while drawing an appropriate design on a piece of paper, for two hours. Maybe three.
ReplyDeleteThen I was driving in my car, and threw it out the driver's side window in the general direction of a hill that I was going by. As I threw that piece of paper out the window, at that split second, on a clear day with some haze but no noticeable clouds and no rain, lightning struck the top of the hill. The top of the hill, btw, was maybe a couple hundred feet away from my car at the time, so it was DEAFENING.
Things like this happened a lot at that time of my life, when I was first exploring the idea of suspending my disbelief and trying 'magic.' If they had not, I would have stopped. When they did happen, I needed an explanation. Mere coincidence did not cut it. So I eventually came to the conclusion that the only kind of a universe that would both satisfy people like you seeking it to be rational, and people like me willing to (temporarily) believe that it's not, is a dream state, pure consciousness if you will.
See, first came the coincidences. They prompted me to begin to wonder if this reality conformed to our expectations. So then I tried magic, because all that is is self-hypnosis to alter reality. Mental gymnastics, pure and simple. Figured if that worked I was definitely onto something. It worked. Here I am.
ReplyDeleteAlso, recall that the coincidences had a very exact and specific start date and time.
ReplyDeleteThey started less than an hour after I had that really bizarre lucid dream experience where I tried to awaken myself, to 'open my third eye,' as silly as that sounds.
The fact that they specifically started an hour after than and have never let up, is a piece of DATA that I consider. It means something.
I don't know why you wake your family with your 'concentrations'.
ReplyDeleteI don't know how either.
I don't know why or how 'synchronicities' happen to you.
But you admit that these phenomena aren't in your control, right? Fearing something happening causing it to happen more suggests a lack of control to me.
I can't see how these things allow you to jump to the conclusion that, life, the universe and everything is a communal dream rather than a more obvious one of solipsism. If no material thing is real, why don't you just go ahead and believe that everything actually depends on your streaming consciousness?
Once again, not being sarcastic or making fun or anything like that, just want to know your thinking on that.
By the end of that day I was like "What the fuck is happening today?"
ReplyDeleteI mean, I had noticeable coincidences one after the other that day. Of course they continued till present day, but the point is, on the first day they were so noticeable that they stood out in stark contrast to any other day previous in my life.
Now, I had a weird lucid dream. Why on earth would I ever in a million years believe that that would start causing coincidences? I mean, that would have never occurred to me. So when I started to see them, at first I didn't even connect the two things. Only by the end of that day did I start to realize that they were not readily explicable by random chance, and so I had to connect them to the dream because it was the only thing that could have been any kind of causative agent. I mean, after all, what did I try to do in that dream? Open my third eye. And suddenly I was *seeing* things that I'd never seen before.
So it wasn't me expecting to have coincidences, it was me noticing them because they were everywhere, and then realizing what must have caused them to start.
But you admit that these phenomena aren't in your control, right? Fearing something happening causing it to happen more suggests a lack of control to me.
ReplyDelete----------------
N, it makes perfect sense. If we manifest this AWFUL reality together, then it can't be just our hopes and good aspirations, or our wishes; it must be any strong subconscious thought, and fear is one of the strongest kinds of thought.
Who says I can't control it? Control your fear, control your expectations, police your mind, and you control it. Now, that's fucking hard, but every time I manage it, it works.
I can't see how these things allow you to jump to the conclusion that, life, the universe and everything is a communal dream rather than a more obvious one of solipsism.
ReplyDelete------------
I've flirted with it. I always consider it as one possibility. That's all the thought I give it though, because it's a dead end, and furthermore I've realized that saying everybody but me is not a real person isn't so far from saying that NOBODY including ME is a real person! We're all under the delusion that we're real.
If it's solipsism, then it's still a dream. So either way, reality is a dream. It makes more sense to me that we're all equally real, or equally unreal, take your pick, than that nobody but me is real. But I can't eliminate it of course.
ReplyDeleteThe way out of solipsism is to realize that there is indeed only one consciousness in existence, but instead of it just being mine, it's everybody's; we all share in it. The person inside of me that says to himself "I EXIST!" is the same person inside of you saying that. We just have different accessories.
I don't know why you wake your family with your 'concentrations'.
ReplyDeleteI don't know how either.
I don't know why or how 'synchronicities' happen to you.
--------------
Thank you. I know.
This should, I think, worry you a lot more than it does, my friend.
Reality is either not a dream, or it is one.
ReplyDeleteEither or.
A or B
Now, most people that believe A, stop trying to confirm B.
That's also a dead end. I mean, it is the nature of option B that, if true, to give you the impression that only option A is true!
If I choose to be satisfied with A, I cease to explore B. So then I'd be right back to where I was just before that lucid dream.
What can I accomplish in the further exploration of option A? Am I a quantum physicist? Am I Stephen Hawking? No. I can accomplish exactly NOTHING if I choose to only explore option A.
So then, why not choose to explore option B, while keeping option A as a fall-back in case it doesn't pan out? What do I have to lose? Not my sanity; if I were to lose that, it would already be gone, I think.
I seem to be capable of adhering to this reality AS IF it were real, all the while exploring the idea that it is not. So, no harm to me.
If I only explore option A, I will definitely not learn anything new about the universe. I will not contribute to human knowledge.
So I choose to explore option B. At least there's a chance that I'll happen across something truly different and exciting on that path, no? And if not (although I already have, so a moot point) I can still always just fall back to being a realist.
And hey, at least then you'd like me more. Lol.
Silly dribble!
DeleteWhen Captain Silly calls someone else silly, it's just more silly from Captain Silly!
Delete;-)
It's okay Ian, some of my favorite fictional characters are the ones that believe they're not fictional characters. :-)
ReplyDeleteI used to worry about money all the time. In recent times I just stopped that. I mean, while it was still a concern, I stopped fearing it, and just accepted it as a part of life.
ReplyDeleteKnow what happened? Um, money fell into our laps. Old lawsuits from years ago panned out, inheritances from relatives that passed away that I never thought I'd see, tax returns a lot larger than anticipated, that sort of thing.. Hell, in the last two weeks over $77,000.00 fell into our laps. We're shopping for a new house in the spring.
My wife took a test for a new job with the state. A really good job. Before taking it I forced myself to believe that she'd nail it.
ReplyDeleteAlmost three hundred people took that test in one room.
Wanna know where she placed out of almost three hundred people?
Number one.
She loves her new job, btw. Huge raise.
I don't think it should worry me anymore than Mike's revelation since that was real to him, so real that he's dedicating his life to it. Do you?
ReplyDeleteMike learned his on his parent's knee, and looked to reality to confirm it, insisted that it did, and so to him, it does.
ReplyDeleteI went into this open, but if anything believing mostly as you do now. Then saw things that caused me to change.
His is top-down, mine is bottom-up. I saw evidence first, he looked for evidence to conform to what he already believed. Huge difference that you will not, I suspect, give me any credit for.
Also I should note that if I am right about reality, people like Mike who do that will *see* things in it that seem to confirm his already-held convictions.
What's the difference?
His pre-disposition was to see his God in the world. My pre-disposition, which I intentionally created as such to test reality, was that reality deceives us into believing it is whatever we believe it is.
I designed the goal to provide actual confirmation if it panned out, by setting my goal as merely seeing that reality deceives us as to its nature. Seeing evidence for THAT, is actual evidence for that, because it confirms how we're all deceived, regardless of pre-disposition.
I don't think it should worry me anymore than Mike's revelation since that was real to him, so real that he's dedicating his life to it. Do you?
ReplyDelete--------------
Why yes, as a matter of fact. You told me why. Here:
"I don't know why you wake your family with your 'concentrations'.
I don't know how either.
I don't know why or how 'synchronicities' happen to you."
I must have missed where you told Mike that you don't know why he thinks he has been 'born again.'
Because you didn't tell him that, maybe?
Because we both understand that just fine, don't we?
Come on Brian, not everything is observable reality. The air you breath is not observable, the love you feel for your family, gravity is not observable but the falling apple proves it exist. You take many things on faith, yes faith yet you reject the notin of God.
ReplyDeleteIf you only knew the extent to which you misunderstand every thing that I say, you'd dig a hole, get into it, and pull the hole in after you.
DeleteYou're like a computer program that provides amusing misunderstandings of everything you enter into it. One can always count on you. :-)
(sigh) Okay, I'll 'splain this to you yet again.
DeleteYou can observe air. You can observe gravity. Observe is not only with the eyes. Instruments count. Feeling the wind on your skin, counts. We know what AIR is, Mike. None of that is in any way, Faith.
Was it Glen Beck that said "The tide comes in, the tide goes out, and no-one knows why..."
DeleteJesus Christ people, open up a fucking book other than that one single one that you own!!!
No - it was Bill O'Reilly
DeleteI was torn between the two. Both dipshits. Beck is worse tho.
DeleteB check out my latest - it should appeal to your sense of humor
ReplyDeleteI'm afraid that I did not 'get' the joke, Sir Pliny. What was the significance of the two 'holy men?'
Deletelook closer at their symbology.
DeleteOkay, missed the symbol both are wearing. An oil derrick? A trebuchet? A fucked-up masonic symbol? Half a clock? I'm stumped.
Deletetrebuchet
DeleteNeeds a bucket.
DeleteToo bad they didn't kill Jesus by forcing him to die by having sex with fifty hot women at the same time.
DeleteJust imagine what Christmas would be like!
If you look for evidence of God in my kind of dream reality and see it, it proves nothing. But if instead you look for evidence that reality deceives us into seeing evidence for whatever we already believe, and then manage to alter your belief structure, varying it so that you can test for that, and you see it, see the evidence, it proves everything.
ReplyDeleteI should add to that first sentence: "and also if you look for evidence of this reality not being a dream but that it's all explicable through science and logic and mathematics and so forth, it also proves nothing in my kind of dream reality. Same thing as Mike, really. You have a pre-determined belief that you are right, so that will be what you will see."
DeleteIt's like, imagine if Mike decided to alter his belief structure so that instead of believing in his God he believed in another one, say Cernunnos and The Goddess for instance, Wiccan belief system, and he managed to do it, just temporarily so as to see what would happen, and the Goddess appeared to him in a dream and told him she was real, so he felt 'born-again-again.' What would that prove about his original beliefs? That's the general kind of testing of reality that I do.
ReplyDeleteI long ago determined that the only possible way to test reality in order to see if it's basic nature deceives us into believing whatever we already believe, is to alter said beliefs and test again.
ReplyDeleteLogical, no?
To alter them so that your belief, is that reality will conform to whatever belief you hold, is best of course. It turns the 'trickster' nature of reality back on itself.
I also alter my beliefs so that I temporarily believe that certain things will happen, and then see if they do.
ReplyDeleteThis gets surprising results very consistently.
Oooooh, magic!
All it ever was, was altering one's own belief structure. Which is not easy, hence the props.
Congress just made a climate-change denier the head of the EPA's division that deals with climate change.
ReplyDeleteMike, this is the kind of SHIT that makes me hate your religion worse than shingles.
You christians never think 'but what if I'm wrong?"'
ReplyDeleteClimate change for instance. It makes sense, even if you doubt it, to try to do everything in your power to get mankind to do less of the things that seem to make it worse, because WHAT IF YOU ARE WRONG? If you're right no problem, but if you're wrong, as the VAST majority of scientists say you are, millions will DIE.
But no, you'd rather pretend science is all wet, so you can laugh at it, even as you sit here on a fucking computer that is pure science in a box.
Jackass much?
Science invented the computer, because millions of christians didn't fight it like it was evil. If they had, we'd probably all be writing all this on paper. You guys are the BRAKES on progress.
ReplyDeleteYou christians see a fact you don't like and say to yourselves 'all we have to do is get one of *us* in charge of that stuff and change that fact..."
ReplyDeleteI mean, it's like you're the Great Crawling Army of Stupid.
ReplyDeleteCan't you guys stop that crap?
Here's how religious people think:
ReplyDelete" Explanation for spread of animals
The events of the Great Flood would kill all land-dwelling life on earth save for a 'seed' population at a single location - the landing point of the ark. The land area today is discontiguous - this presents a problem for the flood account, as there is no apparent means by which animals may migrate to disconnected land.
Creationists have found possible solution to these apparent problems.
Volcanoes
The Post-Noachian Flood Volcano Theory comes from the example of Krakatoa, which, in 1883, erupted and destroyed most of the island, thus remaining lifeless for many years. Still the same life that was there before the eruption eventually came back. It is possible that volcanoes in the Mount Ararat region were able to transport the smaller animals over much greater distances than the animals could get just by walking.[Biblical Citation Needed] "
http://conservapedia.com/Post-Diluvian_Diasporas
You twats are willing to believe that small animals were fucking EXPLODED across the globe by an erupting volcano, rather than realizing that you're more all wet than the fucking Pacific Ocean.
Load a baby mouse into your shotgun sometime with a blank shell (powder but no shot) and let me know how far you safely transported it when you pulled the trigger, ok?
"Creationists have found possible solution to these apparent problems."
DeleteI love this line the best of all.
"Still the same life that was there before the eruption eventually came back."
DeleteJust like it 'comes back' to a new volcanic island when it breaks the surface of the ocean for the first time. As in, the original life is all dead, and new species eventually come in an populate it.
If however there were any species on Krakatoa that lived nowhere else, do you think they also "came back?" No, they're fucking extinct forever. Other, similar ones might come in later, but the original unique species is wiped out. Period.
Oh, and did you all notice how it went from 'Krakatoa killed off all the life on the island but it came back" to "maybe volcanoes BLASTED the animals to their respective other continents"???!!!
DeleteNice leap of logic there. If A, then snozzlefish!
"Creationists have found possible solution to these apparent problems."
DeleteSo has my dog. He follows the "Pan-bonia" theory, that it's all doggy bones in the end. Hey, he's as qualified to think of these "solutions" as whoever made that Conservapedia entry is.
I think they're right, because this solves the mystery of why baboons don't have any fur on their asses.
ReplyDeleteThe blast blew it all off!
Holy Shit, I can talk...
ReplyDeleteAnd you disconnected atheist from all reality believe in some bullshit story that billions of years ago there was a Big Bang and now billions of years latter we have what is known today as life on earth. Talk about twisted logic.... Geee
ReplyDeleteYou have trouble understanding the mechanics of eating breakfast cereal, so tell me again why I should listen to you...
DeleteHey Ian, if there's a Big Bang and there is no one around to here it, does it still make a sound? Lol
ReplyDeleteMike, if you had a Zen Master he'd spend all his time hitting you across the head with his shoe.
DeleteHey geniuses, it is scientifically impossible for life to begin from a nonlife source! Lol, In the beginning there was nothing, and from nothing there was a Big Bang and suddenly there was time and and billions of years past then life begin from under the sea.... Organisms emerged from nothing and suddenly they begin to naturally select the newer and improved organisms until one day little tadpoles developed, one day the little tad poles decided to walk on land and then they became a monkey then a man... TALKING about HARD to BELIEVE. You guys win the academy award for most fabeled story. Hey Ian, pass that jug over to Brian will ya, Walt Disney doesn't have nothing on you guys. What an imagination , lol
ReplyDeleteYou understand evolution like my dog understands compound interest, so all we can do when you pretend to yourself that you get it, is laugh at your monkey chimp antics. And there you go again... (sigh)
ReplyDeleteYou don't understand it yourself you poser. You are making assumptions just like the good ole boys that taught you.
DeleteYou are a little girl. There, I said it. Now untwist your panties and listen. Evolution is easy to understand if you are logical and pay attention to details. It's fucking easy! All you do when you act like it's mysterious like that is stand out in this crowd, dude. You telling me that you can't grasp the idea of the strongest surviving? Well, it's not the strongest physically, it's the strongest as in best survivors, whatever it takes...........
Delete>>>Ahh, you almost got me, you sly devil! I was going to explain evolution to you yet again! You're good! I get all tired going through basic shit for twenty minutes and you respond like a rockhead, making me realize how much of a waste of time it was. Nice.
it is scientifically impossible for life to begin from a nonlife source!
ReplyDelete-------------
No it most certainly is not. Proteins and amino acids left on their own for a billion or three years produces life because that's how those molecules bond. Of course I realize that telling you this is like telling a marmoset how to tie it's shoes...
That's wishful thinking at best. It's been tried by scientist with NO success. Try again star gazer.
DeleteBlow me.
DeleteMueller proved otherwise by creating amino acids in a closed system with nothing but basic ingredients that would have been around on early earth. All science would need to finish that experiment would be a billion years time or so.
DeleteBut you don't CARE about this, about learning anything here, do you? Be honest. You're here to try in your lame-o way to poke fun at us and piss us off, because that's what gets you off. Anytime we prove you wrong, you let it pass in one 'ear' and out the other, because you don't give a flying fuck about what we atheists tell you.
I'm not mad at you btw. Not even close.
I'm fucking past that stage now. I'm laughing at your sorry ass.
And it never fails.... You posers always fall back on the well we need a billon years to prove it. What a joke you are. I done trying to help you understand the flaws in you Big Bang theory. Live a lie walk in your darkness rest in your false beliefs.
DeleteLive a lie walk in your darkness rest in your false beliefs.
Delete-------------
Isn't that one of the Commandments?
Yes, you can see the " results " of the wind, you can feel it, you can even measure its speed... But you can not SEE it. One can see the results of God too, He can be felt just as the wind and His power can be measured by how much is manifested at times
ReplyDeleteSo you're really gonna blow me then...
DeleteMike, all you've got is rhetoric, and bad rhetoric at that. Your analogy completely fails because with the right instruments, you can actually see air (you know, the stuff that when it moves is known as wind), what instrument would one use to see god?
DeleteIm beyond sigh dude. I'm at OMG!
ReplyDeleteDid you just cum? Do tell.
DeleteYea Mike, and God flooding the world in so many days seemed possible, maybe even plausible, at the time it was written, or no, we don't know, maybe it was understood that it was simply a legend.
ReplyDelete:In the Ark, Noah toiled by day and by night, caring for the living things under his management. Although many animals went into hibernation, this huge menagerie still taxed the efforts of Noah and the 7 members of his family. During these months of superhuman toil, Noah learned an important lesson: "Man is responsible for the preservation of the world!" His misdeeds can cause universal disaster, and his virtue can uphold its existence."
Did you learn this lesson from the Flood story, Mike? Oh, no, wait, you learned that Christians are on the same side as those giant corporations causing oil spills and poisoning the aquifers by fracking, turning Alberta into a Hellscape and so on, no, you'll be blaming the sins of man(like atheism and such) for the World becoming uninhabitable, all the while hoping that Jesus is going to show up, right?
I'm done explaining grade-school science to Mike. I'm leaving it at this:
ReplyDeleteIf you can't understand something as simple as evolution, you are a little pussy.
:-) Have a nice day, Mike! Muah!
You know I was just thinking. I just told a strong, macho christian man to 'blow me.'
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't tell a Christian man to "blow me" in person.
Not because I think they'd beat me up.
Because I'd be afraid they'd kneel down.
Sorry I've been so profane tonight, people. Sometimes I get in the mood to let loose. It was good for me...
ReplyDeleteBrian what a shallow little man you are. As soon as you get your azz handed to you you start your dirty little mind games. What a vulgar imagination you have , or should I say vulgar desire. Get help soon.you sick poser.
ReplyDeleteDo you think it's not a "sin" if you intentionally misspell the word, you fucking retard?
DeleteNo I don't you sissy.
DeleteYou were touching my ass? I thought you knew that I wasn't into that sort of thing, Mike. Find a respectable airport men's room for that stuff like a good Christian.
ReplyDeleteI have no desire that I have not satisfied countless times. I'm good. Really. Do you know that I slept around in my younger days? Any idea how much? I have had sex with more women than exist in your entire congregation unless you're in a Megachurch. Every race, too. No desires left, really. You were working out in the gym, while I slept with your women... lol. At least they learned that sex could feel good.
Now that that's over, wanna learn about evolution? Ahh, relax, just fucking with you.
Why am I in such a good mood?
You know Mike, now that I'm not mad at you anymore, I kinda like you. You're very funny!
ReplyDeleteMike's God tells him "Thou Shalt Not Say Ass!' "Sayeth Thou Instead "Azz" as it is more pleasing unto my virgin ears!"
ReplyDeleteI love being an atheist at moments like these, it feels so free. Imagine being so twisted up inside that you're afraid of a word. Wow. It blows the mind.
As soon as you get your azz handed to you you start your dirty little mind games.
ReplyDelete------------------
You come here to play mind games on us, Mike. Tit for tat. Frankly it looks like I've "blown you" out of the water with mine, though. Weak.
oops I said "tit." didn't mean to offend you there.
I could learn to love you Mike. You make of yourself such an easy target, it's like shooting a hummingbird with a howitzer...
ReplyDeleteIf you're done rocking in the corner, we can still have a conversation here. Just know that you can't get away with your little namby-pamby games anymore, no more trying to get us to jump through hoops while you scoff at things you don't know about in the least. Because dude, I can do this to you all night.
ReplyDeleteOh, and Mike?
ReplyDeleteThis is for you. Print it up and do handout day at the church for me, okay?
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/search/topicbrowse2.php?topic_id=46
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0K5_JE_gOys
ReplyDeleteJefferey Williams:- And I don't want ATHEISM shoved down MY throat anymore than you want RELIGION crammed down YOURS!
ReplyDeleteObservant:- This country was founded on judeo Christian values! To remove God from that concept would be like removing freedom from America.
So, you disagree with Jefferey then. You don't like ATHEISM being crammed down your throat WHILE you're cramming RELIGION down everyone's throat, right?
Obviously if you disagree with Jefferey's premise, David's answer means nothing to you.
You feel you are, or at least ought to be a privileged American since you're Christian. So much for 'equality' and 'freedom'.
Freedom is only for Christians. That's Mike's view. He's not shy about saying it, either. A very un-American man, is Mike. Goes against everything we stand for in the world. Makes a mockery out of the very word.
ReplyDeleteCancer (the disease) is when a few cells stop noticing the overall plan of their reality, and start to not 'listen' to anything but their own urges to grow bigger and bigger, more and more.
ReplyDeleteMike's brand of Christianity is exactly like cancer.
This is the shit that Mike is obliged to believe:-
ReplyDeleteA lady who was a
deadly professional prostitute,
she did prostitution for a living
and had a lot of customers around.
She knew that no man
will never accept her as a wife,
so she went to a hospital and
told the doctor to remove her
womb so that she will no longer
be coming for abortions.
After some years, someone
introduced the word of God to her
and immediately, she gave her life
to Christ and started working in
the church and became
dedicated to God.
As time went by, one of the Pastors called
her
and said 'my sister, 'the Lord
spoke to me that you are my
wife, i want to marry you.' The
lady smiled and said 'Brother, the
Lord didn't tell u anything or maybe u
didn't hear him clearly, go back
cause am not even planning to
marry any man. The man came
back and said to her again 'the
Lord said that u are my wife'. The
lady smiled and narrated her story to him.
The man still insisted
to marry her and she told the Pastor,
'I don't have a womb, I removed it after
several abortions', but the pastor still
insisted, 'The Lord said u are my wife',
so they got married.
Not too long after some months
she became pregnant. The lady
and the man went to the hospital
were her womb was removed,
the doctor thought she was coming
for another business...but
the lady told the doctor that 'i am
pregnant and i have come to
your hospital to register'.
The doctor was shocked, with laughter he
said, 'u told me to remove your womb,
u can no longer have children'.
but the lady told him it is the GRACE, FAVOUR
and MERCY of GOD that she's
pregnant. The doctor conducted a pregnancy
test which showed that she was one month
pregnant. Out of disbelief and tears, the
doctor said, 'please, show me ur God,
I want to worship Him'.
Not too long the lady gave birth to a baby
boy..
IT WAS THE GRACE, FAVOUR AND MERCY OF
GOD that the prostitute could have a child.
Therefore, I decree upon ur life that
whatsoever that has or might
have damaged in your life, in your body,
in your skills, your carrier, your academics,
your business, MAY THE FAVOUR, MERCY,
GRACE AND MIRACLE OF GOD LOCATE YOU
AS YOU TYPE AMEN TO THIS PRAYER,
IN JESUS MIGHTY NAME, AMEN.
My brothers & sisters, God still does this kind
of miracles, just write "Amen" and share
this story to your friends, you will see GOD
perform a Miracle in your life today!!! '''''
.................................................................
I said, " This is Christian truth, as opposed to truth, just like 'the concept of God' is to God(which is just 'the concept of God', in reality).
Tough to not twist your brain on that, 'God vs. Concept-of-God', isn't it? It's called Confusion Technique, and judging by the amount of believers, it works.
.....................................................................................................................
... and:-
" I'm so putting "Deadly professional prostitue" in my CV."
It's just my job five days a week! A D.P.P. oh, yea! And all the sights I don't understand, from the biggest dong to the Little Brown Mushroom, a D.P.P ee-ee-ee, oh, yea, a D.P.P. A stinky alley's no place to raise your kids, in fact it's cold as Hell... (sorry I can't be bothered thinking of any more D.P.P. as Rocket Man stuff)
If we discovered a whole planet of beings that thought like this, we'd be obliged to nuke it back to the microbe level just to increase the cumulative IQ of the universe by ten points.
ReplyDeleteI am wondering something. Why if Mike "handed me my azz" is he off hiding somewhere licking his stigmata?
ReplyDeleteRicky Gervais said it best, I think. "If I have offended you, I don't care, because it amuses me and shortens your life..."
ReplyDeleteHer[Marina Abramović] bravest piece, however, is my favorite. This piece was primarily a trust exercise, in which she told viewers she would not move for six hours no matter what they did to her. She placed 72 objects one could use in pleasing or destructive ways, ranging from flowers and a feather boa to a knife and a loaded pistol, on a table near her and invited the viewers to use them on her however they wanted.
ReplyDeleteInitially, Abramović said, viewers were peaceful and timid, but it escalated to violence quickly. “The experience I learned was that … if you leave decision to the public, you can be killed… I felt really violated: they cut my clothes, stuck rose thorns in my stomach, one person aimed the gun at my head, and another took it away. It created an aggressive atmosphere. After exactly 6 hours, as planned, I stood up and started walking toward the public. Everyone ran away, escaping an actual confrontation.”
This piece revealed something terrible about humanity, similar to what Philip Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment or Stanley Milgram’s Obedience Experiment, both of which also proved how readily people will harm one another under unusual circumstances.
This performance showed just how easy it is to dehumanize a person who doesn’t fight back, and is particularly powerful because it defies what we think we know about ourselves. I’m certain the no one reading this believes the people around him/her capable of doing such things to another human being, but this performance proves otherwise.
Silly person. did she imagine school bullies were a myth? Or Christians?
Civilizations is just the thin crust of order we cultivate to keep us all from acting like beast.
DeleteHoly shit.
ReplyDeleteI think science made a mistake.
ReplyDeleteThe Copenhagen solution left us with the possibility, believed by Bohr and others, that consciousness influenced the collapse of the wave form. This leaves open the *possibility* that our consciousnesses, our expectations, fears, and so forth, influence the unfolding of events. What did science immediately begin to do? Try to prove that is not the case. And while they haven't proven it, they have come up with things like decoherence and so forth that seem to contraindicate it. So anybody today that still pursues research into that other, earlier line of thought that consciousness is involved, is ridiculed or at least marginalized to the fringe. And yet, once science came up with the *possibility* that consciousness was involved, it was OBLIGATED to pursue that line of thought, as well as attempt to disprove it. To test for whether expectations affect events. To yes, get involved with the human mind, as distasteful as that must be to hard scientists. Sure, have some trying to disprove, but definitely need to also pursue the consciousness angle, *especially* because by its nature it may well skew even experimental results if researcher's expectations are uniformly negative. Once consciousness came into the mix, science was obligated to check if whether the consciousnesses of the researchers could affect results when the subject of the testing would be not only physical science or even that plus quantum physics, but both of those *and* the human mind. It needed consideration, and got little if any.
Oh, ah... er... forgot to say "Tangent Alert!"
Deletehttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2007/06/19/the-alternative-science-respectability-checklist/#.UtyYMdLTnIU
ReplyDeleteI liked that article. Is it supposed to apply to me or to something I said?
ReplyDeleteOr are you suggesting that Neils Bohr should have read it?
I'm not implying anything Brian. The guy in the article is.
ReplyDeleteI was thinking, if you could set up an experiment that showed how you use your concentration to wake people up, you might be in line for that 1000,000 dollars that James Randi is offering!
ReplyDeleteMan, if you could see your way to sending me 1% of that for thinking of it, I could sure use it to buy us a new(to us) car!
I'm serious. I didn't see anything in it that applied to me, for reals. You showed it to me for a reason, so it must be that you thought it applied to me.
ReplyDeleteYou can perhaps use it to dismiss me and my thoughts. Maybe that's why you showed it to me. What I said was that I thought it was a mistake not to take the consciousness angle seriously, since it was implied by the Copenhagen solution. Science ignored it as if it wasn't real, and so of course it provided science with indications that it wasn't. So if that article applied to anyone, it was to Neils Bohr. He thought consciousness was involved, and so it should have been investigated in the light of that, in the light of "Hey, let's see if it is" instead of "let's try to prove that it is not' because if it is, it would give false results if you investigate it in that manner...
you misunderstand Brian, I'm not scouring the 'net for 'gotcha' articles. I posted this up on your blog because I thought you'd be interested in it. I hadn't read your comment about Bohr even.
ReplyDeleteI come across a lot of stuff posted to the Facebook, some I imagine you'd be interested in, others not so much.
The article suggests that someone with a theory they think scientists are overlooking or haven't thought of should learn the stuff, seriously know everything that other scientists are saying about it and if that article points at something they might have genuinely overlooked, other scientists may well look into it.
But asking scientists to take your word for it that they haven't done enough along certain lines, because you read some stuff on the 'net, well, as the original explains, they're not likely to be impressed.
The fact that you had that comment about the Copenhagen solution was pure synchronicity, if you can see how it relates and and nothing at all to do with it if you don't, since I hadn't read your comment.
Oh, okay. Makes sense because as I said, I didn't see the connection. I wasn't pissed you know. Confused.
ReplyDelete"1 (A Psalm of Asaph.) God standeth in the congregation of the mighty; he judgeth among the gods.
ReplyDelete2 How long will ye judge unjustly, and accept the persons of the wicked? Selah.
3 Defend the poor and fatherless: do justice to the afflicted and needy.
4 Deliver the poor and needy: rid them out of the hand of the wicked.
5 They know not, neither will they understand; they walk on in darkness: all the foundations of the earth are out of course.
6 I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High.
7 But ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes.
8 Arise, O God, judge the earth: for thou shalt inherit all nations." - KJV
How would an apologist weasel his way around the obvious contradiction that there is supposed to be one and only one(three in one) GOD?
"Psalm 82 is the shortest of the psalms I have commented on these four weeks, but it is far and away the most difficult to interpret. The volume of scholarly literature is enormous, and not simply because scholars like to get published. The interpretive challenges are real, but the reward for engaging them is substantial.
Pastors and worship leaders who tackle Psalm 82 for this Sunday will be blessed by one of the most theologically profound texts in the Psalter, and perhaps in the whole Bible.1 There really is something here for everyone: questions about the origins of Israel’s religion, connections to the prophetic witness for justice, affirmation of God’s involvement in human history, and links to the theology of the New Testament.
For these reasons, one is hard-pressed to know where to begin and end the exegetical journey, much less the eventual homiletical product. The good news is that while interpreters sharply disagree over the background and meaning of the Lord’s relationship with the “gods” of Psalm 82, they generally agree on the eventual destination -- namely, that the one, true God is unfailingly committed to justice for the most vulnerable of earth’s inhabitants.
Therefore, my advice is that sermons based on this psalm should inform the congregation about the possible strands of meaning without feeling the need to tie up all their loose ends.2 The psalm seems to invite this holistic view based on its consistent poetical use of sounds and wordplay and by a carefully ordered structure:
A God stands and judges in the assembly of the gods (verse 1)
B The gods are confronted over their injustice (verses 2-4)
C The chaos left by the gods is described (verse 5)
B’ The gods are confronted with their mortality (verses 6-7)
A’ God is asked to rise in the assembly and judge the earth (verse 8)3
The structural coherence of the poem’s final form encourages us to draw several themes together in a developing portrait of God’s desire for a just world."
1) "It's a POEM people!"
2)"Concentrate on 'what we know, God will judge us. Just blow the rest off."
3)"Just saying, 'it's difficult' is a start, your audience will know that you're going to dance around it."
4)"If you can explain this without explaining it, completely avoid the admission that there are, we hear 'an ASSEMBLY of gods' that seem to neglect the 'big issues', you can explain ANYTHING!"
5)"Don't even bother explaining the context, just take lines of possible 'themes' and pull them all together with the last line, where thankfully we're back to our one true GOD dealing with people! Phew!"
So while we're supposed to be monotheistic, God is polytheistic?
ReplyDeleteThat fucking book doesn't make any fucking sense, does it?
ReplyDeleteApparently Mike really was wounded. I was just showing him his weakness... prudishness. You'd think he'd thank me.
ReplyDeleteNo wounds , I think adults should be able to have a conversation without all the vulgarity.
ReplyDeleteNo, that's for children. Adults can swear. It's part of being an adult, to not fear words. Nobody here is going to be offended by it but you.
ReplyDeleteI was making just that point, you know. You are more childlike than adult in many ways like that. You let fear and guilt rule you. Also, you were the one jerking our chains, letting us explain science to you *yet again* just to get us to waste time and get frustrated with your impermeable Christian Mind Shield.
Anybody that can't even say "ass" but isn't bothered by the plight of our poor, has no respect from me. If I could only respect you, you wouldn't earn the profanity so easily.
ReplyDeleteWhy profanity, you might ask?
Ask Achilles why his heel...
I'd much rather that you cared about and loved all others like your god told you that you were supposed to, and swear like a sailor, than talk like my grandmother and not give a shit about anybody not wearing a cross, as you do.
ReplyDeleteYou never commented on the actual post, the argument. What the atheist said. Why is that, I wonder...
ReplyDeleteDid you read it?
Do you disagree that you Christians did or still do all that stuff? I mean, this is the core of what pisses us off about you, these things, and your attitude that you don't even do them but instead are the real victims. That's really fucking low.
Do you admit that Christians did all that stuff, and still do?
What pisses me off is little loud mouth punks like you who act as if you are far more superior then others. You like to believe you can see my faults when in fact you are so broken you can't even see your twisted self.
ReplyDeleteHey, tell yourself whatever you have to to deny to yourself that you could *possibly* be wrong on anything in the world. Go ahead, makes no difference to me. You hate this 'loud mouth punk' for showing you what a fucking mirror looks like. Fine. Sure, no way you can be wrong, I mean, it's not as if you don't know science and how to ask yourself hard questions about yourself. It's not as though you're caught up in a herd of mindless sheep all following a belief system that makes them mindless sheep in the first place.
ReplyDeleteSure, live your life in ignorance of what you've become. It surely can't be that baaa-aaaaad.
I'm still waiting for your ANSWER to this whole post of mine, btw. Don't think I didn't notice that you once again sidestepped it.
ReplyDeleteYou can't answer me, because the lie you'd have to tell is too obvious; even you realize that it won't fly.
HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH! You've painted yourself into a belief-corner.
I mean, you look at the list there of what you christians have done to this country and then see how you accuse us, the very ones you've done it *to,* of those very kinds of things, and you realize there's just no defense for it, no way to spin it back to us at all, so you call me names.
ReplyDeleteA level of childishness that I've come to expect from you, I'm afraid.
They see their privilege as 'the norm', hence 'This is a Christian Nation'.
ReplyDeleteWorks the other way too. Anyone who has the gall to say, "This is a Christian Nation.", is declaring their own privilege over every other religion, secularisim and atheism.
They, with their typical double-standards are humbly, very humbly declaring their superiority. Their historical superiority(even if they have to rewrite history, their moral superiority(even though they can claim different morals from those espoused in the O.T. and the N.T., and of course the Old Boys Club, nepotism, cronyism etc. etc.
Here's a historical fact for you... The Christians in Europe were being persecuted by the government and the Roman Catholic. So they came to America and established a democracy that guaranteed freedom of religion. The world has always had freedom from religion.People were not hanged, burned, murdered, persecuted because they didn't believe in God.... It was only the believers who suffered at the hands of atheist and false religions like the Catholic Church the fake Christians.
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Christians#English_colonies_in_North_America
ReplyDeleteSo, Mike, there's some history for you. Everyone callin everyone else heretics, what's new?
"So they came to America and established a democracy that guaranteed freedom of religion."
This doesn't make sense in the light of your earlier statement about the U.S.A. being formed as a Christian Nation.(surely freedom of religion doesn't mean free to be Christian and only free to be Christian?)
"The world has always had freedom from religion.People were not hanged, burned, murdered, persecuted because they didn't believe in God.... "
This is nonsense. How many States have laws on their books saying atheists cannot hold office and such, to this day? And to this day, someone is trying to enforce them!
".. It was only the believers who suffered at the hands of atheist and false religions like the Catholic Church the fake Christians."
Mostly religious people suffered at the hands of other religious people! Your 'notion' of false and true belief being totally beside the point.
You're cavilling!
Christians did NOT immigrate into the Americas to escape the murderous atheist hordes, and the Catholics had it just as bad in some states, as Protestants had it in other states.
Later, many people emmigrated to the U.S.A. to escape communism, that is true. But one can be a communist and a Christian, the two are not mutually exclusive.
The real history is that fringe Christian sects left Europe to avoid persecution, and then proceeded to establish colonies with their own brand of persecution, seemingly having learned nothing.
ReplyDeleteThey need freedom for persecution! Not from! For! They wanted to be free to persecute in the Old World, but they weren't so they came here. Basically that's it.
ReplyDeleteMike sorta tried to answer with predictable effects. He can't answer it without looking like an ass and he knows it. He tried, and just look at what an idiot he makes of himself.
People were not hanged, burned, murdered, persecuted because they didn't believe in God..
ReplyDelete------------------
Inquisition, Protestant Reformation, Crusades.
When you're wrong, you're often spectacularly wrong. Wow.
Christians: "We want freedom of religion!"
ReplyDelete-Um okay, great. So everybody's free to practice their own religion, or none at all? Fantastic!
Christians: NO NO! We are the only true religion, the others are all false, so we're the only ones that need it!
-But, your religion is much like everyone else's!
-Christianity is not a religion! It's a partnership and a way of life and...
See, this is how the delusional argue for their delusion. They change around, are inconsistent, because their delusion is inconsistent. What they want is totally unfair because their delusion is totally unfair, but it seems fair to them because they're delusional. It's all sheer egotism, sheer Pride, of course.
DeleteHey, apparently Dinesh DaSouza is in all kinds of Federal trouble for falsifying campaign donations! Not looking good for our friend.
ReplyDeleteI love it when the inherent immorality of these opportunistic snake oil salesmen shines through.
Mike:
ReplyDeleteYour lack of understanding/revision of history is astounding!!
Jews (my forbears) were routinely beaten, burned at the stake and otherwise abused for centuries, all over Europe, by both the notorious Catholic Inquisition and after the Protestant Reformation in by Protestants in England. Since we did not "accept" the divinity of Jesus, we were effectively "atheists" in the eyes of every church, and therefore deserved to either be forced to convert or die. Among the early U.S. colonies, only Rhode Island and Pennsylvania permitted true freedom of religious observance and neither of these allowed anyone who did not declare himself a believer in God (the Christian God, that is) to serve in any public office.
It is apparent that, as a fundamentalist protestant, you choose to see the Catholic Church as "not really Christians", and therefore to ignore their long history of persecution of non-believers (including, BTW, early protestants), but it was the early members of your protestant church in America that were responsible for witch trials and other abuses, noteably including all of the abuses of slavery.
As Brian likes to point out, you are totally blinded to the realities of history, and your "Christian privilege" attitudes force you to ignore or deny these truths.
Just for the record I'm not Protestant!
DeleteMike: Aside from the fact that none of us here agree with you regarding the existence of ANY God, what do you mean by "I'm not Protestant!" Although this may turn out to be semantics regarding the place your personal church declares for itself, must not a Christian Church be either Catholic/Eastern Orhotodox/Coptic OR Protestant? God Help Me, but I think that I am actually interested in this issue.
DeleteThe sect of Baptist that I am affiliated with was never a part of the Church of Rome nor did it descened from any church that came from the catholic. Contray to popular belief the Baptist Church was befor the catholic.
DeleteMike:
DeleteAre not all Baptists considered "Protestant"? I thought that all of the Christian Churches that began with Martin Luther's separation from Catholicism are, by definition, Protestant. (BTW, my wife of over 30 years is Lutheran) Also, can you explain to me your statement that the "Baptist Church" predates Catholicism.
Harvey, Mike thinks his church is the original church, even though it started in the 16th c. I suspect most "true believers" from one sect or another believe some variation of this.
DeleteHarvey, my take on 'Christian Privilege is here
ReplyDeletehttp://pictoraltheology.blogspot.com/2014/01/and-man-created-god.htmlHarvey
Page doesn't exist
DeletePliny:
DeleteI got to your blogsite by deleting the "Harvey". Really top-notch stuff! You border on gifted as an observer of life's absurdities, but always with a touch of gentle humor. Kudos!!
Mike's strategy seems to be a popular one; I run across it a lot on Twitter. Christians asking for us to explain evolution, I think with the expectation that we can't, and then busting our ass and fucking around as we do so, poking fun at it, and afterwards acting like they never heard a word we said. They like how pissed off it makes a person, to go through the effort for nothing but shallow scorn. I posted a page explaining it in detail to them with footnotes, and they laughed at me 'not being able to explain it yourself' and 'do we get jackets with the handouts' and other mind-rottingly pustulent behavior. Doesn't matter to them, they don't want an explanation of anything, they just want to be self-satisfied and have their circle-jerk at your expense.
ReplyDeleteOh, and make hate remarks at Obama while they're doing it. Gotta have that apparently. And telling us how atheism is a religion. It's like they study how to be loathsome and despicable, like it's their life's work or something.
DeleteAnd hinting at our "final destination" with vampiric glee. Instead of Sigmund Freud, their whole psychology seems to be based on his asshole brother Schaden.
Delete... and I suppose Mike feels he's being 'gentle' with us considering what he and his friends must say to each other.
ReplyDelete"It's easier to fool a person that to convince him that he has been fooled."- Samuel Clemens
.. than..
DeletePicture a 'world' where there is a continuing SUPERNATURAL war for control of your mind.
ReplyDeletePicture a 'world' where you feel that everything is absurdly black or white, where happiness is a zero sum game, the less happy everyone else is, the happier you must be.
There are also those who are only truly happy when they're making as many other people as possible as miserable as possible.
I have to wonder if radical religionists can see that if one were truly evil one would do it as loudly, publicly and deviously as possible,
It seems to me that they can see that flaw in varieties of even their own chosen 'umbrella group', Catholicism if you're an Evangelist and vice versa, but are blind to that in their own.
They're not being evil and pretending it's good, no. What they're doing is balancing out their evil with their goodness(godliness).
Still, you'd imagine that they'd wonder if perhaps some of those who seem the most godly aren't just covering their bad intent projecting that bad intent on as many as possible.
Are atheists simply people who don't believe that the 'world' is a black and white supernatural war, or, are they really angry-at-God, unwilling to end(or at least be ashamed of) their evil ways?
Confess, radical religionist! Tell us what you're guilty of, tell us what you're ashamed of!
Or are you just in it for the money?
That's a good question! Are you angry at God? That would certainly explain the hostilities toward Christians.
DeleteAm I angry at fairies? Goblins? Unicorns?
ReplyDeleteYou know why I'm angry at Creationists, right? They are quite happy to use science when it suits them but they're trying to dumb down the World to their standard. Ignoramuses.
For example you, you can read, but you don't seem to be able to understand.
But just get sick and you'll run to the doctor, get the latest medicine, and give your invisible dad in the sky credit.
The Bible has no natural explanation of how things work in this material universe, only mythological supernatural ones, legends and fables.
If you want 'intelligent design' look no further than science. Dogs are 'intelligently designed', wolves aren't. Milk cows and beef cattle are intelligently designed, deer, elk, buffalo etc. aren't, any more than polar bears are.
The 'good' question is, why do you think what you believe is 'good' and not just 'godly'?
All the different varieties of Christianity are wrong, except yours, right? The JWs are wrong, the Mormons are wrong, the Catholics are wrong, and on and on. All the variety of other religions are wrong, the Muslims, the Hindus, the Sikhs, the Buddhists and on and on.
Once again, we agree with you, they ARE all wrong. We just think you're wrong too.
And you're dangerous, and I think you're proud of that, and it's nothing to be proud of.
You guys say you believe in objective morality, God's morality which never changes. But you know you are lying. The morality in the Bible is not even similar to today's Christian morality.
What's objective about that, what's unchanging about that??
You're just lying and worse, you're lying to yourself and your children.
Very well said, Ian. Why, it's almost impossible to believe that any sane person could read that, and not agree.
ReplyDeleteLet's watch Mike do it though.
Mike? Your turn.
Just for the record I'm not Protestant!
ReplyDelete---------------
Oh, that's right, you belong to that group, the one that was started after the Protestants had their reformation but believe you've been here all along. That gives you one false belief over the other groups.
Craptists? No that isn't it... damn, it's right on the tip of my tongue... tastes fucking awful there, too.
Are you angry at God? That would certainly explain the hostilities toward Christians.
ReplyDelete------------------------
If you saw a bunch of people that believed in a demon that they said wanted them to destroy the world and they were very active in politics, would you have to believe in the demon in order to be angry at them for their belief in it?
Hope you get that. It was my best second-grade-level explanation.
Here's a quote from a Fundy, "Spiritually, our nation is dying. In response, conservative Christians are caught between righteous judgements and somber humility."
ReplyDeleteThis is a common belief as far as right-wing Christians are concerned. They only oppress the population as much as they can for our own good, for the good of the nation and so on, right?
Still, at the exact same time:- "According to their faith, they are required to believe that everything is happening just the way God wants it to happen, and yet when they lift their eyes from the Bible and look at the real world, it looks like God is totally screwing up His end of the deal. And they’re not allowed to even think of complaining about it. God has to be perfect, so you can’t acknowledge, even to your self, that He’s failing to perform as expected."- Deacon Duncan.
How can you hold those two beliefs in your head at the same time? One, that the nation failing to be 'good' Christians is causing grief, and Two, that God is in control and it's all part of a master plan?
HOW is it even possible to reconcile that in your own head, Mike? "There's a master plan, but we have to try to fix it for God!!!"
It doesn't make sense now, be honest, it must be either God's master plan OR it's up to you to do the heavy lifting FOR GOD. Right? Right?
Christians are caught between righteous judgements
ReplyDelete---------------
There's the Pride I like to talk about. Who the fuck are you to judge others? Unbelievable.
It's like, "I don't like how you people are living your lives so I'm caught between keeping it to myself like an American, or righteously judging all of you like my God says that only He can do."
ReplyDeleteBWAH HAH HAH HAH HAH!
God-wannabes.
Did you see how all of D'Souza's supporters are starting to compare his indictment to a nazis agenda?
ReplyDeleteThat was unavoidable. That's where they always go. Ironic since they're the very people in this country that most act like Nazi supporters.
DeleteI think that was one of those where Mike will read it and come to the conclusion that he must not think about it because it is trying to lead him away from GOD.
ReplyDeleteCan we not see how Satanic that is? Pointing out that he has to hold two opposing opinions in his head at the same time??
Of course, wise old Mike, he's not falling for our tricks! They've got paradoxes like, "How can something come from nothing?"
So, instead of facing the unface-able, he'll do a, "I know you are but what am I?", and pivot away from it like a politician in an oligarch's trouser pocket.
Really, Pliny, I predicted this since there's nowhere else for D'Sousa to go! I had his next book down for calling them, Fascist-socialist-Al Queda, for having the nerve to call him on the law he loves so much when it's not directed at himself, of course.
If he ever said, "The USA is a NATION of LAWS!", and that's very likely, he should be feeling the burn.
Re: Dinesh. Is it just me or does this fall from grace happen SOOOO much more often on the right than it does on the left? Sure, we have the occasional John Edwards, but still.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I find schadenfreude to be unproductive and try not to engage in it, but OH MAN!!!!
New Post is up!
ReplyDeleteNEW POST!
Dineshenfreude! (Wish I'd made that one up!)
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