Sorry to hear about your bad news Jude. ReplyDelete
Saint Brian the GodlessAugust 20, 2013 at 11:41 PM
I just realized that atheists are platitude-limited. We don't have "I'll pray for you" or "I'll pray for him" as an option. It's not out of lack of desire for one, I assure you. ReplyDelete
pboyfloydAugust 21, 2013 at 12:46 PM
GAKK, over 200 comments. ReplyDelete
Saint Brian the GodlessAugust 21, 2013 at 1:20 PM
Yes, and the 'LOAD MORE' button is practically invisible. I'll put up a new post later on. ReplyDelete
HarveyAugust 21, 2013 at 3:47 PM
JUDE: It is often difficult to be a young woman. It is always difficult to be an old man. We are told that every man, if he lives long enough, will have prostate cancer. For most of us, nowadays, this diagnosis is not about life and death, but certainly may require considerable unpleasantness to deal with it. Best wishes to your husband. ReplyDelete
Pboy, back to our argument, maybe you're right, I don't know. It's hard to accept something about yourself that you used to make fun of in others. Sorry. I have pride issues left to deal with. The alchemy thing as well... I was not an alchemist in those days, and my readings on them are likely biased.
As to me being spiritual. I preferred to think of it as the future of both science and spirituality, in the sense that they might someday converge. I don't believe in any god, so I thought that sufficed for me to not qualify as spiritual, but if this reality is all consciousness, thought-based, then you can call it consciousness or thought, you can call it data, or yes, you can certainly call it spirit. I will take solace in the idea that at least this is not the conventional way to think of "spirituality."
Also I guess I made a 'values' judgement. I figured that a belief system that includes science and some idea of spirituality, even if its not acknowledged to be that, would have a lot more value to our sad world than what is out there now. I'm just so tired of all the division and hatred in our world. We are so ignorant as a species. I guess I'd like to hope that there's more to it than just that. I'm still on the fence, but I can't tell you that you're wrong about that anymore, about me being spiritual and then saying that I'm not.
By that I mean that if science someday acknowledged that consciousness has a role in the very manifestation of our reality, then such a thing would have a very positive effect on all societies. It's not a Deus, not a personality, but still it's a lot more pleasing than a cold, dead, billiard-ball universe. And it would even say to established religions, "Hey, so okay, you weren't exactly right, but neither were we, and what we have found is an actual middle ground."
Who am I kidding though, huh? Most of them would scoff and balk and treat it like they do global climate change.
Thank you everybody for the kind words and good wishes. It turned out not "so" bad....the road ahead will be what they call active surveillence, scans, labs, ultrasounds, etc., to monitor at every 3-4 month intervals, but no surgery at this point. It seems against logic to call it a harmless cancer, but somehow it is. So we leave it alone for now, and watch for any change. I thought that type of limbo would be very hard for Den (the hubs) to live with, but he seems really ok with it, even relieved. So I am, too. So what else do we atheists tell each other? Hmmm...yes, we send best wishes, say we're thinking all good thoughts. May the force be with you? Or I think you're going to need a bigger boat? Have they already been used? :-)
Brian, Pliny and I were talking earlier about the venn diagrams, where he was telling me about mysticism overlapping with god, but you don't have to believe in god to have some belief in other areas. Maybe I have a bit of the same reluctance you do...we have rejected a god outright, and considering stuff on the fringes of "belief" feels weird. I fight myself not to put stock in eerie stuff, saying it's just as illogical as believing in god. But also admit it catches me off guard, I do wonder, and since so much can't be explained, how logical is it to deny outright? There are some people who appear truly psychic, everyone has experienced deja vu, whole crazy boatloads of stuff that are deemed "paranormal." Is 6th sense real? Are premonitions real? What IS deja vu...do we all time travel? Fascinating to consider.....
Thank you Jude, and I'm very happy to hear that it's a 'best case scenario' for your husband.
I don't know. I didn't ask for the synchronistic coincidences that caused me to ask myself some of those very questions and sincerely wonder about them for the first time.
I don't know the truth. Nobody does. And many theists are easily dismissed as the crackpots that they are; however I wonder sometimes if that very fact causes many atheists to actually come to "believe" that there is no possibility for some role for consciousness. Heck, I can't POSITIVELY say that Yahweh isn't real! I can't really positively say anything. I think that those who KNOW that there is no god, are just the other end of the number line from those who KNOW that there is one. Not that I THINK that there is a God. I just can't say that I KNOW that there isn't. To me that's as presumptuous and even proud, as anybody else that claims to know the answers. It becomes a belief, which is nothing less than pure Purina Ego Chow.
Well, neverminding something so crass as right and wrong, I think that was a good 'debate' or 'argument' if that's what it was, to me it's something I'd like to reread because I feel we did come to some kind of 'clarification' on both our positions.
I'd be one of those guys who'd say, "I'd rather believe that two Yankees lied than that rocks could fall from the sky!", no doubt, and that's likely a flaw, maybe it's just a question of perspective or how well(not how simplified, that's for sure) it's explained.
I think you came to a realization that your BB theory is spiritual, in a broad sense, and there's no reason to deny it. Why deny it, if it's 'there' it's 'there', right?
I tend to lump all forms of mysticism together. Whether an individual's tendency for mystical explanations is called religion or something else is more a function of imprinting than any innate difference in thinking, in my opinion. The same cognitive biases and neuroplastic imprinting works for any of its forms.
...and what amazingly crappy crap it is! I mean, adults nowadays listen to Sonic the Hedgehog soundtracks. Or Transformers Movie soundtracks. Disgusting.
I know! I love that commercial, which is to say that I hate it. "I thought it was me, but it's only a number!" Yes, it's YOUR FREAKING NUMBER, you impotent sot!
I hate being sold to... hate sales and salespeople. So therefore I hate most commercials. They serve to remind me how very fucking stupid we are as a people, because if they didn't work, they wouldn't make them that way.
I'd be like "Here's our product. Here are the testimonials for it. Here is the test data by an independent lab proving it's what we say it is. It improves peoples lives. Please consider purchasing it." Done.
So who do you all think fired off the chemical weapons -- Assad or the rebels? The consensus seems to be the rebels fired them off so that they could get sympathy from the West. But if that were true, why wouldn't Assad let the weapons inspectors view the damage? This might be another Gulf of Tonkin episode in the making.
I did check out Pliny's site, and forgot to put it in favorites! Can you put the link up again for me? Thanks in advance. :-) Music...I've never left the 60's and 70's, never saw much need. Once in a while got dragged into the '90's and 00's by my kids, constant repetition made me grow fond of a few, but not many. Green Day was fun, and I really liked Jacob Dylan. Now even they are old! Commercials....arrghhh...especially selling drugs directly to people. "Ask your doctor..you'll feel great" except for the lung cancer, suicidal tendencies, rash on your genitals,anemia, kidney failure, bone aches,and abnormal hair growth on your wife and your children my hit puberty at 8 if they come in contact. Nice. I think it's Assad, means..motive..opportunity all fall more in his court. But what do I know? It seems impossible to think the rebels would kill that many of their own innocents, (or have the chemicals in the first place) but we are a savage species that tend to cross any line for an ideal, so sometimes nothing surprises me.
I'll go with Jude. I think it's Assad. He really just doesn't give a fuck. He's the Middle Eastern Honey Badger. Also I don't think the rebels would kill off that many of their own children like that.
I heard last year that Bob Dylan admitted that he had no interest in folk music or being a voice for his generation, he just played music that he thought would sell; he just wanted to be rich and famous. Seems hard to believe with all the great lyrics though. Disappointing.
Thanks for the link....pliny, I really do love your work. The cartoons are fantastic. Do you remember which post was the one you did on the creation museum? (I gag just saying creation museum), but at least glad to know that you will never run out of material for your cartoons. Yes, Brian, even God hates creation museums LOL! And Jesus statue in flames. That's gotta be a sign..... It always seems so desperate to me when the hyper-religious try to go "mainstream" ...trying to make their special brand of whacko look like just what everyone does. Creation museum, Jesus fun parks, Jesus camp for kids, Jesus weight watchers, and the like. Yeah, Bob Dylan...never much of a fan of his, don't know why. Maybe because good lyrics but lousy voice cancelled each other out. He did sell out, or maybe just was who he was all along... did a Christian album, and did tours to the highest bidders. Now his son Jacob Dylan I did like, a lot! He only did what, 2 albums as Wallflowers? Both great, much better singer than his dad, very poignant lyrics..some made ya just want to cry. Me anyway. :-) Hey...maybe he was talking about his dad... "The only difference that I see, is you are exactly the same as you used to be... "
One of my synchronicities had to do with them. I was driving down the street and got stopped by a cop because I had a headlight out. So I get my five-day tag to get it fixed, and as I drive off the song "One Headlight" comes on the radio. A minor one, but a goodie. Yeah, now I remember, it was Dylan's son. You're right, he was a lot better than his dad. Wonder whatever happened to him?
I remember that old story well Pliny. Now THAT was ironic. I remember when I read that they were going to rebuild it, I thought "Why the fuck would you ever do that?" because hey, if this isn't obvious, what do you need? Do you really need Metatron visiting you to believe it? Does Jesus really have to come back and do a bunch of miracles for you to believe it?
And really, to be serious, if Jesus Christ came back and decided for some reason to side with humanists and democrats and even talk about how socialism isn't necessarily a bad thing, that that was what he meant when he said "the least of our brothers," it wouldn't matter what miracles he did, they'd decide it was all SATANIC somehow and crucify the poor fuck all over again.
Exactly, Brian. There's no way that Jesus, in the stories, could trust, try to convert, make 'see the light', whatever you want to call it, the Pharisees, so, apparently he cursed them to sacrifice HIM for all mankind. Or at least that was the way the wind was blowing when they were writing the Gospels some 60 plus years after HE supposedly walked the Earth. Can we not imagine the Jewish/Christian writers, knowing the politics of the day, how the Romans were irate at the Jews, wanting to make a new Moses or at least a new midrash of Moses, adding details of Platonism, Mithraism, whatever they learned from the Persians, Zoroastrianism(?), basically trying to combine them to be 'THE UNIVERSAL RELIGION'? Makes more sense than Jesus, Son of God, farted around showing a few people HIS AWESOME POWER, never bothering to write anything to us for posterity. Yahweh was never shy about writing shit down and where is the Sign in the Heavens to commemorate His coming and going, like the sign of the Rainbow for the Flood? Surely his stay on Earth and his ministry would necessitate some Heavenly Sign?
I'm sure they would have written that in like, "And that's why the Sun rises every day!", if they thought they could have gotten away with it.
As a student of human nature I can see the incredible amount of deceit and deception and selfishness and greed and pride and delusional thinking that is our human heritage. In our technological age, people are not trustworthy or reliable or accurate in relating details of events, and inject self-interest into everything, so I can only imagine what it was like in the days when the Bible was written. This is why I honestly think, if I were to give odds, that the chances of an actual Jesus Christ or Jeheshua Ben Joseph, of ever having walked the earth, as slim. Maybe 25% tops.
If sacrificing an animal is a way to commune with or connect with your god, how much 'better' a human sacrifice? But there is something horrifying about that idea, so why not have a human sacrificed, not by you but by some now hated group, but, at the same time, 'for' you? Without the sacrifice the story of Jesus is just another in a long line of stories of miracle workers.
Believe in his miracles or no, Benny Hinn will be forgotten soon after he dies, unless they were to crucify him, right?
It may well be hardly surprising that the priesthood would not accept that they'd sacrificed Jesus according to God's plan much like they wouldn't see stoning any other blasphemer, which brings up the method. Jesus wasn't sacrificed, he was put to death as an ultimate punishment, of course 'according to the story', since there were procedures specifically for sacrifice.
The varnished truth:- For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.
The unvarnished truth(for most people):- You can't handle the truth!
John 3:16, pretty much saying "I didn't mean all that stuff I did/said in the old testament, sorry for the flood and the baby killing and torture/banishment and pretty much every other terror tactic I used on you. You mentioned Benny Hinn, I remember seeing him on TV the first time, utterly convinced it was a spoof of some kind, saying come on, this can't be real, they really don't believe this do they? Crazy stuff. Double think is an absolute requirement for belief, the answers to most questions begin with Yes, but... then comes the part where the facts don't apply in this case. Pliny, love the creation museum! I googled it, wow talk about living in different dimensions. RationalWiki reported on the intimidating guards in the exhibits, enforcing the form you sign before going in, stating you will not scientifically analyze the exhibits for factual discussion, no one can hear you do that. The guards hover and listen and will throw you out if you do. They listed other "parks" around the country, the Ark, Holy Land USA and others, all somehow not doing well or already closed. Seems the folks who believe in this stuff think it's stupid too. Brian, one headlight :-) great song. I don't know what happened to him. Speaking of music, has anyone seen Searching for Sugarman? Unbelievable documentary about the singer Rodgriguez, whom I had never heard of, and am now crazy about. If you haven't seen it, it is worth 90 min. of time to watch. This guy is fantastic, and this story will catch you off guard. I don't usually recommend movies, everyone's taste is so different, but I was glad someone told me about this so I'm passing it on.
Then of course, there's Jesus Camp. Remember that one?
I remember in the documentary they show a lady teacher there telling the young kiddies that the muslims will DIE for their faith, so they need to CATCH UP to that attitude.
I find this even more disgusting than the Creation Museum.
Hey, apparently there's this MegaChurch somewhere in the wasteland that is middle America, and they shun vaccines. Now here's the funny part: They're having a measles outbreak!
(Maybe there is a God!)(And He wants us to use our fucking brains!)
I haven't heard from any libertarians since I explained how it is that they're just against any authoritarian government telling them what to do because they want to be the authority telling as many people as they can, what to do. These people just want you to be as 'freedom loving' as themselves, which means that if they're Christian libertarians, they want you to be only as restricted as their version of 'GOD'S WILL', their interpretation of the Bible! If they're 'free market' libertarians, they want to be 'free' to control the market to their benefit. What a mash-up government would be if some were GOD'S WILL libertarians, some were 'free market(when it suits them) libertarians, some were 'do what you want with your own body' libertarians, and so on. They'd all be telling each other what 'freedom' is, and even if they're absolutely opposed to the others idea of that, they'd all agree that this disaster is better than the alternative, the dreaded socialism. But for them, socialism means government stopping them from disenfranchising who they don't care about(want to disempower), stopping them from creating booms and busts for profit, stopping them from indiscrimately raping the planet as if there's another planet to go to when they're done, and so on. Want to be free to have goods made with slave labor in some other country and dump them on the market? You're a libertarian! Want to be free to hack up the ground and pollute the rivers, the water table, the air and the land? You're a libertarian! Do you think none of this matters as long as everyone is being forced to live by your doctrines? Well, you're a libertarian too, right up until you get your way, then you're an authoritarian
My son just walked by with his IPad with his apps and music on it, along with Internet Radio stations... guess what song he had found on the radio that he liked and was listening to of all the songs out there?
So my wife just told me that she doesn't have that song on his playlist, so he either managed to get a preview of it or found it on some Internet radio channel... I think the latter, because it looked like it was streaming because there was a crawl on the top of the screen identifying the song and artist.
Not a huge synchronicity, but then factor in the fact that that song was the subject of a previous one years ago and I was just talking about it here yesterday, and it becomes more salient to me.
Hey Brian - you asked me to get in touch with you - I think you can see my email address, but if not, feel free to use the contact form at Living Unbound dot Net (just click on the My Web Page link, on my profile). Looking forward to discussing consciousness-related things with you.
There were a couple of FaceBook entries from the Rachael Maddow page about that twat Rand Paul and the stupidities he imagines are deepities. This gave me a reason to use the above libertarian rant on a libertarian shadow warrior. Most of those fuckers know exactly what it would mean if everyone started imagining that libertarianism was the only way to go in politics, and as soon as they are faced with the truth they crawl back to whatever cyber-rock they came from. The one, presumably libertarian, commenter didn't even bother trying to deny that he was one.
Indescrimate definition...LMAO! And how can you say the One Headlight theme running through your life isn't a big synchronicity? Whadda ya want, Jacob Dylan on your front porch saying hi, do you have a bulb I can borrow? :-) I agree with you pboy, (should I call you Ian? I didn't know that was your real name before) Libertarians are every bit as screwed up as teabaggers. They are TRULY only libertarian on one or two issues, no one could ever embrace everything it actually means. Rand Paul is quite willing to throw out your liberty over choice of having a baby, but if you want to keep black people out of your diner? Well, that's ok, that's liberty. Bill Maher calls himself libertarian for the freedom to smoke pot, but I can't think of another single thing he agrees on with them. Did you read the latest Pat Robertson "insight"? Jeeez, that psychotic gas bag needs someone to pull him off the air. Gay people in SF (according to him) want to GET people, they have secret gay rings, that when you shake their hand, they cut you and give you aids. I think atheists should get a hold of their own secret rings, and when you shake hands with a Christian they get brain cells that actually think rational thoughts.
And how can you say the One Headlight theme running through your life isn't a big synchronicity? Whadda ya want, Jacob Dylan on your front porch saying hi, do you have a bulb I can borrow? :-) ------------------------------- You missed years of this stuff Jude. I get huge coincidences all the time, which is why I started to think that reality *must* have some basis in consciousness. This one I'd rate a five out of ten. Maybe a six.
I'm standing in front of the television. It's on. MSNBC is playing. Politics. I wasn't paying attention to it because I was not facing it, and I was telling my wife about my friend Jared who is a magician. (Same Jared whose mom died)
I'm telling my wife and her son (mine too now, adult adoption) about Jared and this is what I was saying: "Jared has a huge parrot, a blue and gold macaw... it's name is Niles... it's a huge, very beautiful bird.... " and so on.... when my wife's son points to the television and asks me "Is it like that one?"
Now some chief so-and-so was giving a speech on I think the Whihte House lawn with a bunch of his cronies and lackeys standing in a row to his side, and one of them had just walked up to the man, the man at the podium giving a political speech on a political network, and had put a live blue-and-gold macaw on his shoulder. Apparently it was some kind of an inside joke to them, the parrot. So at the very moment that I was describing the bird, one just like it was placed on a guy's shoulder behind me.
See, if the television had been on Animal Planet, I'd have dismissed it as a 1 or 2 at the most. Nothing to even bother noticing. But on MSNBC, it's very hard to see a parrot of any kind, especially in the middle of a political event broadcast. Maybe in a commercial, but on the White House lawn? Pretty unlikely.
Yea, there weren't people around to eat, but if you hold that picture in your head, of T.Rex eating people, then what he says next doesn't make as much nonsense as it should.
Yeah, he says they ate people, but that was after the 'fall' so before the fall they only ate plants, but then God changed their natures and their teeth, so then and only then they started to eat people.
There's ignorance, and then there's ignorance^2. Amazing, really. This man needs to compete internationally in the Moron Olympics, because he brings a new level of idiocy to the game.
Hey, how about that Pat Robertson and his gay AIDS rings?
See apparently gay people wear certain sharp rings so that when they shake your hand it breaks the skin and gives you AIDS.
No mention of how the ring also breaks the skin of the gay person as well at the same time to provide the infected blood, but why quibble over details? It's scary, so just fucking BELIEVE IT already!
From what I'm seeing, basically people like loony old Pat there read these things on the Infallible Internet and then buy into them whole-cloth and just parrot them ever after as 'gospel.'
Problem is, some of those people are in our congress and even the senate.
There's an old saying: "He wouldn't know his ass from a hole in the ground."
I used to think that was hyperbolic, until I started to follow politics and saw the antics of the Religious Right.
The 'right.' Like everything else about them, the truth is diametrically opposed to the labels they apply to themselves, because they couldn't be more 'wrong.'
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Hey, just saw it, but came here first to say to Ian, no not on facebook, and Brian....ok if you're getting parrots on MSNBC I can see how the other pales in comparison. :-) OK, off to read the next posting!
I tried the 'load more comments', seems it doesn't work, at least for me.
ReplyDeleteOh. I did not know that.
ReplyDeleteHere are the missing posts:
pboyfloydAugust 20, 2013 at 11:19 PM
Sorry to hear about your bad news Jude.
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Saint Brian the GodlessAugust 20, 2013 at 11:41 PM
I just realized that atheists are platitude-limited. We don't have "I'll pray for you" or "I'll pray for him" as an option. It's not out of lack of desire for one, I assure you.
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pboyfloydAugust 21, 2013 at 12:46 PM
GAKK, over 200 comments.
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Saint Brian the GodlessAugust 21, 2013 at 1:20 PM
Yes, and the 'LOAD MORE' button is practically invisible.
I'll put up a new post later on.
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HarveyAugust 21, 2013 at 3:47 PM
JUDE:
It is often difficult to be a young woman. It is always difficult to be an old man.
We are told that every man, if he lives long enough, will have prostate cancer. For most of us, nowadays, this diagnosis is not about life and death, but certainly may require considerable unpleasantness to deal with it. Best wishes to your husband.
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Saint Brian the GodlessAugust 21, 2013 at 5:18 PM
NEW POST!
Just more room for comments.
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I'll make sure in the future not to let the comments go over 200 then.
ReplyDeletePboy, back to our argument, maybe you're right, I don't know. It's hard to accept something about yourself that you used to make fun of in others. Sorry. I have pride issues left to deal with. The alchemy thing as well... I was not an alchemist in those days, and my readings on them are likely biased.
ReplyDeleteAs to me being spiritual. I preferred to think of it as the future of both science and spirituality, in the sense that they might someday converge. I don't believe in any god, so I thought that sufficed for me to not qualify as spiritual, but if this reality is all consciousness, thought-based, then you can call it consciousness or thought, you can call it data, or yes, you can certainly call it spirit. I will take solace in the idea that at least this is not the conventional way to think of "spirituality."
Also I guess I made a 'values' judgement. I figured that a belief system that includes science and some idea of spirituality, even if its not acknowledged to be that, would have a lot more value to our sad world than what is out there now. I'm just so tired of all the division and hatred in our world. We are so ignorant as a species. I guess I'd like to hope that there's more to it than just that. I'm still on the fence, but I can't tell you that you're wrong about that anymore, about me being spiritual and then saying that I'm not.
ReplyDeleteBy that I mean that if science someday acknowledged that consciousness has a role in the very manifestation of our reality, then such a thing would have a very positive effect on all societies. It's not a Deus, not a personality, but still it's a lot more pleasing than a cold, dead, billiard-ball universe. And it would even say to established religions, "Hey, so okay, you weren't exactly right, but neither were we, and what we have found is an actual middle ground."
ReplyDeleteWho am I kidding though, huh? Most of them would scoff and balk and treat it like they do global climate change.
Thank you everybody for the kind words and good wishes. It turned out not "so" bad....the road ahead will be what they call active surveillence, scans, labs, ultrasounds, etc., to monitor at every 3-4 month intervals, but no surgery at this point. It seems against logic to call it a harmless cancer, but somehow it is. So we leave it alone for now, and watch for any change. I thought that type of limbo would be very hard for Den (the hubs) to live with, but he seems really ok with it, even relieved. So I am, too.
ReplyDeleteSo what else do we atheists tell each other? Hmmm...yes, we send best wishes, say we're thinking all good thoughts. May the force be with you? Or I think you're going to need a bigger boat? Have they already been used? :-)
Brian, Pliny and I were talking earlier about the venn diagrams, where he was telling me about mysticism overlapping with god, but you don't have to believe in god to have some belief in other areas. Maybe I have a bit of the same reluctance you do...we have rejected a god outright, and considering stuff on the fringes of "belief" feels weird. I fight myself not to put stock in eerie stuff, saying it's just as illogical as believing in god. But also admit it catches me off guard, I do wonder, and since so much can't be explained, how logical is it to deny outright? There are some people who appear truly psychic, everyone has experienced deja vu, whole crazy boatloads of stuff that are deemed "paranormal." Is 6th sense real? Are premonitions real? What IS deja vu...do we all time travel? Fascinating to consider.....
ReplyDeleteIncidentally, have you checked out his blog? And his cartoons? I mean, the man is brilliant.
DeleteThank you Jude, and I'm very happy to hear that it's a 'best case scenario' for your husband.
ReplyDeleteI don't know. I didn't ask for the synchronistic coincidences that caused me to ask myself some of those very questions and sincerely wonder about them for the first time.
I don't know the truth. Nobody does. And many theists are easily dismissed as the crackpots that they are; however I wonder sometimes if that very fact causes many atheists to actually come to "believe" that there is no possibility for some role for consciousness. Heck, I can't POSITIVELY say that Yahweh isn't real! I can't really positively say anything. I think that those who KNOW that there is no god, are just the other end of the number line from those who KNOW that there is one. Not that I THINK that there is a God. I just can't say that I KNOW that there isn't. To me that's as presumptuous and even proud, as anybody else that claims to know the answers. It becomes a belief, which is nothing less than pure Purina Ego Chow.
Well, neverminding something so crass as right and wrong, I think that was a good 'debate' or 'argument' if that's what it was, to me it's something I'd like to reread because I feel we did come to some kind of 'clarification' on both our positions.
ReplyDeleteI'd be one of those guys who'd say, "I'd rather believe that two Yankees lied than that rocks could fall from the sky!", no doubt, and that's likely a flaw, maybe it's just a question of perspective or how well(not how simplified, that's for sure) it's explained.
I think you came to a realization that your BB theory is spiritual, in a broad sense, and there's no reason to deny it. Why deny it, if it's 'there' it's 'there', right?
Peace. :)
Hey, Brian, bet you knew that you were the same age as your President.
ReplyDeleteYes, but I've accomplished more.
ReplyDeleteI tend to lump all forms of mysticism together. Whether an individual's tendency for mystical explanations is called religion or something else is more a function of imprinting than any innate difference in thinking, in my opinion. The same cognitive biases and neuroplastic imprinting works for any of its forms.
ReplyDeleteWell that was dry and clinical. I feel like the guy in the Low-Testosterone commercial: "I thought it was me, but it's just a number!"
ReplyDeleteHere's something for you then! Did you know that playing Frank Zappa for a twenty-year-old kid today has an emetic effect similar to ipecac?
ReplyDeleteThat's because most 20 y old kids are used to listening to crap.
ReplyDelete...and what amazingly crappy crap it is! I mean, adults nowadays listen to Sonic the Hedgehog soundtracks. Or Transformers Movie soundtracks. Disgusting.
DeleteIt can be both you and your number btw ;)
ReplyDeleteI know! I love that commercial, which is to say that I hate it. "I thought it was me, but it's only a number!" Yes, it's YOUR FREAKING NUMBER, you impotent sot!
ReplyDeleteI hate being sold to... hate sales and salespeople. So therefore I hate most commercials. They serve to remind me how very fucking stupid we are as a people, because if they didn't work, they wouldn't make them that way.
I'd be like "Here's our product. Here are the testimonials for it. Here is the test data by an independent lab proving it's what we say it is. It improves peoples lives. Please consider purchasing it." Done.
ReplyDeleteWay the F off topic --
ReplyDeleteSo who do you all think fired off the chemical weapons -- Assad or the rebels? The consensus seems to be the rebels fired them off so that they could get sympathy from the West. But if that were true, why wouldn't Assad let the weapons inspectors view the damage? This might be another Gulf of Tonkin episode in the making.
I did check out Pliny's site, and forgot to put it in favorites! Can you put the link up again for me? Thanks in advance. :-)
ReplyDeleteMusic...I've never left the 60's and 70's, never saw much need. Once in a while got dragged into the '90's and 00's by my kids, constant repetition made me grow fond of a few, but not many. Green Day was fun, and I really liked Jacob Dylan. Now even they are old!
Commercials....arrghhh...especially selling drugs directly to people. "Ask your doctor..you'll feel great" except for the lung cancer, suicidal tendencies, rash on your genitals,anemia, kidney failure, bone aches,and abnormal hair growth on your wife and your children my hit puberty at 8 if they come in contact. Nice.
I think it's Assad, means..motive..opportunity all fall more in his court. But what do I know? It seems impossible to think the rebels would kill that many of their own innocents, (or have the chemicals in the first place) but we are a savage species that tend to cross any line for an ideal, so sometimes nothing surprises me.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/22/lightning-creation-museum_n_3795010.html?utm_hp_ref=weird-news
ReplyDeleteSo apparently lightning struck the Creation Museum. Does this prove that God is real, but not a moron?
I'll go with Jude. I think it's Assad. He really just doesn't give a fuck. He's the Middle Eastern Honey Badger. Also I don't think the rebels would kill off that many of their own children like that.
ReplyDeleteI heard last year that Bob Dylan admitted that he had no interest in folk music or being a voice for his generation, he just played music that he thought would sell; he just wanted to be rich and famous. Seems hard to believe with all the great lyrics though. Disappointing.
ReplyDeleteJude, here's Pliny's blog:
ReplyDeletehttp://waywardskeptics.blogspot.com/
I did a cartoon rip on the creation museum a while back. The levels of stupid represented by that facility is mind boggling.
ReplyDeleteIn other news about lightening strike irony, is this old story:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/jun/16/touchdown-jesus-statue-burns-down
Thanks for the link....pliny, I really do love your work. The cartoons are fantastic. Do you remember which post was the one you did on the creation museum? (I gag just saying creation museum), but at least glad to know that you will never run out of material for your cartoons. Yes, Brian, even God hates creation museums LOL!
ReplyDeleteAnd Jesus statue in flames. That's gotta be a sign..... It always seems so desperate to me when the hyper-religious try to go "mainstream" ...trying to make their special brand of whacko look like just what everyone does. Creation museum, Jesus fun parks,
Jesus camp for kids, Jesus weight watchers, and the like.
Yeah, Bob Dylan...never much of a fan of his, don't know why. Maybe because good lyrics but lousy voice cancelled each other out. He did sell out, or maybe just was who he was all along... did a Christian album, and did tours to the highest bidders. Now his son Jacob Dylan I did like, a lot! He only did what, 2 albums as Wallflowers? Both great, much better singer than his dad, very poignant lyrics..some made ya just want to cry. Me anyway. :-) Hey...maybe he was talking about his dad... "The only difference that I see, is you are exactly the same as you used to be... "
Oh yeah! The wallflowers!
ReplyDeleteOne of my synchronicities had to do with them. I was driving down the street and got stopped by a cop because I had a headlight out. So I get my five-day tag to get it fixed, and as I drive off the song "One Headlight" comes on the radio. A minor one, but a goodie.
Yeah, now I remember, it was Dylan's son. You're right, he was a lot better than his dad. Wonder whatever happened to him?
I remember that old story well Pliny. Now THAT was ironic. I remember when I read that they were going to rebuild it, I thought "Why the fuck would you ever do that?" because hey, if this isn't obvious, what do you need? Do you really need Metatron visiting you to believe it? Does Jesus really have to come back and do a bunch of miracles for you to believe it?
ReplyDeleteAnd really, to be serious, if Jesus Christ came back and decided for some reason to side with humanists and democrats and even talk about how socialism isn't necessarily a bad thing, that that was what he meant when he said "the least of our brothers," it wouldn't matter what miracles he did, they'd decide it was all SATANIC somehow and crucify the poor fuck all over again.
Exactly, Brian.
ReplyDeleteThere's no way that Jesus, in the stories, could trust, try to convert, make 'see the light', whatever you want to call it, the Pharisees, so, apparently he cursed them to sacrifice HIM for all mankind.
Or at least that was the way the wind was blowing when they were writing the Gospels some 60 plus years after HE supposedly walked the Earth.
Can we not imagine the Jewish/Christian writers, knowing the politics of the day, how the Romans were irate at the Jews, wanting to make a new Moses or at least a new midrash of Moses, adding details of Platonism, Mithraism, whatever they learned from the Persians, Zoroastrianism(?), basically trying to combine them to be 'THE UNIVERSAL RELIGION'?
Makes more sense than Jesus, Son of God, farted around showing a few people HIS AWESOME POWER, never bothering to write anything to us for posterity. Yahweh was never shy about writing shit down and where is the Sign in the Heavens to commemorate His coming and going, like the sign of the Rainbow for the Flood? Surely his stay on Earth and his ministry would necessitate some Heavenly Sign?
I'm sure they would have written that in like, "And that's why the Sun rises every day!", if they thought they could have gotten away with it.
As a student of human nature I can see the incredible amount of deceit and deception and selfishness and greed and pride and delusional thinking that is our human heritage. In our technological age, people are not trustworthy or reliable or accurate in relating details of events, and inject self-interest into everything, so I can only imagine what it was like in the days when the Bible was written. This is why I honestly think, if I were to give odds, that the chances of an actual Jesus Christ or Jeheshua Ben Joseph, of ever having walked the earth, as slim. Maybe 25% tops.
ReplyDeleteIf sacrificing an animal is a way to commune with or connect with your god, how much 'better' a human sacrifice? But there is something horrifying about that idea, so why not have a human sacrificed, not by you but by some now hated group, but, at the same time, 'for' you?
ReplyDeleteWithout the sacrifice the story of Jesus is just another in a long line of stories of miracle workers.
Believe in his miracles or no, Benny Hinn will be forgotten soon after he dies, unless they were to crucify him, right?
It may well be hardly surprising that the priesthood would not accept that they'd sacrificed Jesus according to God's plan much like they wouldn't see stoning any other blasphemer, which brings up the method. Jesus wasn't sacrificed, he was put to death as an ultimate punishment, of course 'according to the story', since there were procedures specifically for sacrifice.
This is more double-think or confusion technique.
http://pictoraltheology.blogspot.com/2013/06/blog-post.html
ReplyDeleteis the one on creation museum
The varnished truth:-
ReplyDeleteFor God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.
The unvarnished truth(for most people):-
You can't handle the truth!
John 3:16, pretty much saying "I didn't mean all that stuff I did/said in the old testament, sorry for the flood and the baby killing and torture/banishment and pretty much every other terror tactic I used on you. You mentioned Benny Hinn, I remember seeing him on TV the first time, utterly convinced it was a spoof of some kind, saying come on, this can't be real, they really don't believe this do they? Crazy stuff. Double think is an absolute requirement for belief, the answers to most questions begin with Yes, but... then comes the part where the facts don't apply in this case.
ReplyDeletePliny, love the creation museum! I googled it, wow talk about living in different dimensions. RationalWiki reported on the intimidating guards in the exhibits, enforcing the form you sign before going in, stating you will not scientifically analyze the exhibits for factual discussion, no one can hear you do that. The guards hover and listen and will throw you out if you do. They listed other "parks" around the country, the Ark, Holy Land USA and others, all somehow not doing well or already closed. Seems the folks who believe in this stuff think it's stupid too.
Brian, one headlight :-) great song. I don't know what happened to him. Speaking of music, has anyone seen Searching for Sugarman? Unbelievable documentary about the singer Rodgriguez, whom I had never heard of, and am now crazy about. If you haven't seen it, it is worth 90 min. of time to watch. This guy is fantastic, and this story will catch you off guard. I don't usually recommend movies, everyone's taste is so different, but I was glad someone told me about this so I'm passing it on.
We need to remember that the creation museum is designed for people who think that 'The Flintstones' is a documentary.
ReplyDeleteI heard they have exhibits of people riding on dinosaurs. Sick.
ReplyDeleteNo kidding? The guards stop any talk of science while you're in there? Thought police, really? Now that's beyond sick, that is disgusting.
https://www.google.com/search?q=jesus+camp+documentary&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
ReplyDeleteThen of course, there's Jesus Camp. Remember that one?
I remember in the documentary they show a lady teacher there telling the young kiddies that the muslims will DIE for their faith, so they need to CATCH UP to that attitude.
I find this even more disgusting than the Creation Museum.
Jesus Camp. Those two words are synonymous with a smug lady showing off how she can speak mumbo jumbo fluently to a bunch of kids.
ReplyDeleteHey, apparently there's this MegaChurch somewhere in the wasteland that is middle America, and they shun vaccines. Now here's the funny part: They're having a measles outbreak!
ReplyDelete(Maybe there is a God!)(And He wants us to use our fucking brains!)
I haven't heard from any libertarians since I explained how it is that they're just against any authoritarian government telling them what to do because they want to be the authority telling as many people as they can, what to do.
ReplyDeleteThese people just want you to be as 'freedom loving' as themselves, which means that if they're Christian libertarians, they want you to be only as restricted as their version of 'GOD'S WILL', their interpretation of the Bible!
If they're 'free market' libertarians, they want to be 'free' to control the market to their benefit.
What a mash-up government would be if some were GOD'S WILL libertarians, some were 'free market(when it suits them) libertarians, some were 'do what you want with your own body' libertarians, and so on.
They'd all be telling each other what 'freedom' is, and even if they're absolutely opposed to the others idea of that, they'd all agree that this disaster is better than the alternative, the dreaded socialism.
But for them, socialism means government stopping them from disenfranchising who they don't care about(want to disempower), stopping them from creating booms and busts for profit, stopping them from indiscrimately raping the planet as if there's another planet to go to when they're done, and so on.
Want to be free to have goods made with slave labor in some other country and dump them on the market? You're a libertarian!
Want to be free to hack up the ground and pollute the rivers, the water table, the air and the land? You're a libertarian!
Do you think none of this matters as long as everyone is being forced to live by your doctrines? Well, you're a libertarian too, right up until you get your way, then you're an authoritarian
Nicely said there, Ian.
ReplyDelete"indiscrimately"
ReplyDeleteMade up a new, more economical word there!
My son just walked by with his IPad with his apps and music on it, along with Internet Radio stations... guess what song he had found on the radio that he liked and was listening to of all the songs out there?
ReplyDelete"One Headlight."
So my wife just told me that she doesn't have that song on his playlist, so he either managed to get a preview of it or found it on some Internet radio channel... I think the latter, because it looked like it was streaming because there was a crawl on the top of the screen identifying the song and artist.
ReplyDeleteNot a huge synchronicity, but then factor in the fact that that song was the subject of a previous one years ago and I was just talking about it here yesterday, and it becomes more salient to me.
Indescrimate: A monkey that doesn't care what he fucks.
ReplyDeleteHey Brian - you asked me to get in touch with you - I think you can see my email address, but if not, feel free to use the contact form at Living Unbound dot Net (just click on the My Web Page link, on my profile). Looking forward to discussing consciousness-related things with you.
ReplyDeleteThanks- Doug
Thanks Doug, I'll be in touch.
ReplyDeleteThere were a couple of FaceBook entries from the Rachael Maddow page about that twat Rand Paul and the stupidities he imagines are deepities.
ReplyDeleteThis gave me a reason to use the above libertarian rant on a libertarian shadow warrior.
Most of those fuckers know exactly what it would mean if everyone started imagining that libertarianism was the only way to go in politics, and as soon as they are faced with the truth they crawl back to whatever cyber-rock they came from.
The one, presumably libertarian, commenter didn't even bother trying to deny that he was one.
Indescrimate definition...LMAO! And how can you say the One Headlight theme running through your life isn't a big synchronicity? Whadda ya want, Jacob Dylan on your front porch saying hi, do you have a bulb I can borrow? :-)
ReplyDeleteI agree with you pboy, (should I call you Ian? I didn't know that was your real name before) Libertarians are every bit as screwed up as teabaggers. They are TRULY only libertarian on one or two issues, no one could ever embrace everything it actually means. Rand Paul is quite willing to throw out your liberty over choice of having a baby, but if you want to keep black people out of your diner? Well, that's ok, that's liberty. Bill Maher calls himself libertarian for the freedom to smoke pot, but I can't think of another single thing he agrees on with them.
Did you read the latest Pat Robertson "insight"? Jeeez, that psychotic gas bag needs someone to pull him off the air. Gay people in SF (according to him) want to GET people, they have secret gay rings, that when you shake their hand, they cut you and give you aids. I think atheists should get a hold of their own secret rings, and when you shake hands with a Christian they get brain cells that actually think rational thoughts.
Yea, well, since you've discovered my secret real name, you should go ahead and use it, why not?
ReplyDeleteAre you on facebook?
And how can you say the One Headlight theme running through your life isn't a big synchronicity? Whadda ya want, Jacob Dylan on your front porch saying hi, do you have a bulb I can borrow? :-)
ReplyDelete-------------------------------
You missed years of this stuff Jude. I get huge coincidences all the time, which is why I started to think that reality *must* have some basis in consciousness. This one I'd rate a five out of ten. Maybe a six.
Pat Robertson is old-school stupid. Stupid in ways that are hard to achieve for younger people. And yet, they do try.
ReplyDeleteJude, Imagine this one:
ReplyDeleteI'm standing in front of the television. It's on. MSNBC is playing. Politics. I wasn't paying attention to it because I was not facing it, and I was telling my wife about my friend Jared who is a magician. (Same Jared whose mom died)
I'm telling my wife and her son (mine too now, adult adoption) about Jared and this is what I was saying:
"Jared has a huge parrot, a blue and gold macaw... it's name is Niles... it's a huge, very beautiful bird.... " and so on.... when my wife's son points to the television and asks me "Is it like that one?"
Now some chief so-and-so was giving a speech on I think the Whihte House lawn with a bunch of his cronies and lackeys standing in a row to his side, and one of them had just walked up to the man, the man at the podium giving a political speech on a political network, and had put a live blue-and-gold macaw on his shoulder. Apparently it was some kind of an inside joke to them, the parrot. So at the very moment that I was describing the bird, one just like it was placed on a guy's shoulder behind me.
That's more of a seven or eight, won't you say?
I get them all the time, still.
See, if the television had been on Animal Planet, I'd have dismissed it as a 1 or 2 at the most. Nothing to even bother noticing. But on MSNBC, it's very hard to see a parrot of any kind, especially in the middle of a political event broadcast. Maybe in a commercial, but on the White House lawn? Pretty unlikely.
ReplyDeleteAnd here's some new school stupid:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/08/20/creationist-tyrannosaurus-rex-was-created-to-eat-plants/
Yea, there weren't people around to eat, but if you hold that picture in your head, of T.Rex eating people, then what he says next doesn't make as much nonsense as it should.
ReplyDeleteYeah, he says they ate people, but that was after the 'fall' so before the fall they only ate plants, but then God changed their natures and their teeth, so then and only then they started to eat people.
ReplyDeleteThere's ignorance, and then there's ignorance^2. Amazing, really. This man needs to compete internationally in the Moron Olympics, because he brings a new level of idiocy to the game.
Hey, how about that Pat Robertson and his gay AIDS rings?
ReplyDeleteSee apparently gay people wear certain sharp rings so that when they shake your hand it breaks the skin and gives you AIDS.
No mention of how the ring also breaks the skin of the gay person as well at the same time to provide the infected blood, but why quibble over details? It's scary, so just fucking BELIEVE IT already!
From what I'm seeing, basically people like loony old Pat there read these things on the Infallible Internet and then buy into them whole-cloth and just parrot them ever after as 'gospel.'
ReplyDeleteProblem is, some of those people are in our congress and even the senate.
There's an old saying: "He wouldn't know his ass from a hole in the ground."
ReplyDeleteI used to think that was hyperbolic, until I started to follow politics and saw the antics of the Religious Right.
The 'right.' Like everything else about them, the truth is diametrically opposed to the labels they apply to themselves, because they couldn't be more 'wrong.'
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ReplyDeleteWell, it's up already. What's taking you so long?
Hey, just saw it, but came here first to say to Ian, no not on facebook, and Brian....ok if you're getting parrots on MSNBC I can see how the other pales in comparison. :-) OK, off to read the next posting!
ReplyDelete