Lived in Vancouver and Victoria and different times in my life - grew up in the Okanagan.
Wonderful place to grow up.
I have no idea where that is, havenât even heard of it-----says he coming from Adelaide, centre of the known world. 
Sadly, itâs unlikely I will visit Canada again. Partly because my knees are cactus and I canât walk more than about 200 metres. The real reason is that I do not enjoy travelling alone. Also hate being in a strange city or country by myself. Did that in 2000 in KL, Cambridge, London, Ireland and Scotland.
In the original film Hawkeye and his sidekick, played by Donald Sutherland and Elliot Gould, had few redeeming features beyond being good surgeons. The series softened the characters a lot, made them more likeable and allowed for some heavy moralising from the writers. Which makes sense, as the film characters were boorish and abrasive male cheavanists, whoâs antics would have grated if they were viewed week in week out for years.
The series needed characters we could empathise with week after week, but of course even then their antics are bound to have a finite appeal.
Still a very good series and film though, for all that. Like so many very successful television series they are anachronistic in the ideas and views they portray, but not entirely or theyâd pretty soon lose all appeal. All long running series have to have a thread of the timeless running through them, and portraying the horrors of war in a mobile surgical unit gives a lot of opportunities for moral introspection, though it hardly screams comedy initially, so I suppose t showed among other things, that some of the best comedy is to be found in relief against tense emotionally traumatic backdrops.
Cleverly written obviously, a wealth of characters, but the comedy, like the moralising was always going to be slightly heavy handed, given the subject matter it had to cut through.
Dark and irreverent humour, happen to be my favourite. As a few of you may have noticed, ahemâŚ
No weasel word here, Nyar. Ordered as per marked by order and rule as evidenced in the laws of the universe/physics
However, lest we dive into another unending loop, my question actually is do you think there is anything you could learn from Mr. Flew? Heâs a smart guy you know, justifying the brain he was given, what do you think, Nyar?
Is this the appeal to authority?
Just because one is very smart and adept in one discipline, that does not mean they can do everything fantastically.
Sir Isaac Newton, whom I consider the greatest mind ever, was so absent-minded, one day while walking home, leading a horse, it slipped itâs reins and he walked home without even realizing the horse wasnât there.
Just because one may utter 99 truths, that does not guarantee that number 100 is true.
2 Likes
Could I learn anything from a dead apologist and their book that wasnât even written by him because he was suffering from dementia? Iâm guessing no.
That isnât particularly helpful at answering my question:
Is order/ordered a binary property?
I donât see how the answer can be anything other than:
- Yes
- No
- I donât know.
Maybe you could try again.
Also, it is probably a mistake to use the word order, to describe order as you did above if you want anyone else to understand you.
Thatâs a tautological fallacy. Nyarl asked what youâre comparing the ONE EXAMPLE UNIVERSE we have to, in order to justify your assertion it is ordered? All you did is repeat your unevidenced assertion.
I give up, what are you implying we can learn here, SINCE ITâS YOUR ASSERTION HEâS SMART, AND WE CAN LEARN SOMETHING FROM HIM?
Letâs see some fucking evidence from you just for once, for one of your claims.
No, I donât know any such thing, and despite multiple requests, youâve characteristically offered fuck all to support your bare assertion.
I canât speak for Nyar, but Iâm left, STILL, wondering why you keep claiming this guy is smart?
2 Likes
Why if it isnât a vintage criminal atheist, breaking their âlogicâ rules again. What do you call this again? Isnât it ad-hominem. This time try looking into the validity of his points rather than the character. Or well, just donât worry, I feel like I already know how this will end. Maybe youâre not ready yet so Iâll just keep hoping the best for you and try my luck some other time.
This word is in common use in math and the sciences generally. When we use it, we mean something is marked by a defining principle, rule or law. Try Merriam-Webster here.
Ordered
If you understand it my way, the question, if Iâm comparing it to anything else will be invalid as this characteristic is intrinsic. The right question is: can we recognise any rule or law defining the working of the universe?, which the identified laws of physics have already answered.
No, since dementia would have a bearing on the ability one has to produce cogent rational arguments.
Youâve not produced anything, just a bare assertion about his ability. Despite being asked to do so, several times.
Why would we worry? Itâs your belief our atheism contains an inherrent risk, obviously we donât believe that, so worrying wouldnât make sense would it?
You cannot demonstrate any objective evidence for any deity, readiness is just another excuse to pretend you have possession of some hidden esoteric proof, but itâs clear by now that you do not.
You donât seem to understand Nyarlâs question. Letâs try this, how many universes were in your test group to determine this universe is âorderedâ?
Or is it your subjective opinion based on just one example? How do you know any other type of universe is even possible? How does an ordered universe evidence a deity?
Youâre simply starting with your belief, then fitting what you observe around that belief. If you only ever look to confirm a belief, then that confirmation is what such closed minded bias will always find.
Those scientific explanations are human creations, created to understand the workings of the universe. Again how are you claiming they represent evidence for your deity? Donât forget your own superstition is based on a creation myth that is at odds with much of what science has discovered about the formation of our universe and solar system, and the diversity of life on this planet. So you claiming those scientific discoveries evidence that deity is hilarious. Also you deny known scientific facts like species evolution, when they contradict your beliefs, so again the irony is palpable.
Hahahaha - I stayed quiet 
BUT @Sorrentino YOU still havenât addressed the 10 commandments
You know, I had a Muslim guy give it a shot⌠he seems at least honest (if not a little caught up in his deity).
YOU are just an avoider⌠avoid this - the FUCKING 10 Commandments that god wrote with his finger carried around in his special ark!
Yet you were the one to appeal to authority by invoking his name.
2 Likes
Then you shouldnât have any trouble telling me if it is binary or not. You said youâve been using it; clearly you must know.
1 Like
Exactly; except I was more concerned with the person being dead. 
1 Like
Since when did theists stop making spurious claims about what dead people think?
1 Like
Ah, the stuff you say reminds me of myself about 5-6 years ago. How long has it taken you to form the opinions you have, ready to skip a few years.
Iâm a thinker not a writer, sorry if this is hard to read. I tend to jump all over the place but I always bring it all together in the end because I write like I talk.
- If you think agnosticism is real, then you are an agnostic. This is the hardest part for atheist, truly letting go of the way we have thought, itâs deeper than you think, but at the same time; very very simple. We are so use to looking for the deep stuff, we start to ignore the simple stuff.
Atheist can not disprove if we were created or anything like that, no body truly knows, the atheist argument really is (should be) the pursuit to disprove the idea/concept of god, and that is it. There literally is nothing wrong with thinking we were helped or created by some other being(s), but when you start to think they are gods, thatâs the problem.
Bees are real, I can touch them and they make honey; is that a belief, no thatâs a fact. I will never wake up and one day and say, âI donât believe bees make honeyâ because it is not a belief, it is a fact. This is the problem with agnosticism, you can not one day believe god is possible and then one day think god is not possible. If religion is, âour creator is a godâ and atheism is, " âif we have a creatorâ it is not a god but a higher evolved being" that would mean that agnosticism is, "sometimes we believe that being is a supreme being and sometimes we believe that being is a superior being. I donât sometimes believe bees make honey, it is fact, you canât sometimes believe that being is supreme and then sometimes superior, it is one or the other.
So I ask you, right now, a being comes down from the clouds and floats there. He clears the weather, makes it sunny and magically puts a glass of water in everyoneâs hand. Looks at one person and makes them vanish and turned into birds. Makes the ground raise to right under him so he can sit on it and address us. Right there is that moment, is, can or will that being ever be a god to you? If you for one sec think it could be a god, then you are a believer who doesnât know how to think. This being may not end up being your god, but if you think the concept of a god can be real, then you are not an agnostic person, you are a believer who understands something but will not think about it enough.
Agnosticism is normally yea, I donât believe it is a god but I believe we have a creator, they just donât understand the difference. We are raised to think a creator means god and god means creator, therefore; when some people donât believe in god, they call themselves agnostic because they believe if they believe in a creator, then they believe in a god, but they are 2 different things. Because of this same thought, atheism tends to be the dismissal of a creator and a god because we were raised to think they are the same thing.
Atheism is (should be) all about disproving the idea/concept of a god; a man-made concept, it has nothing to do with a creator and this is why agnosticism exist, because atheism says if they donât reject both, then they must believe.
1.5 Because of this next part, I feel itâs best to say that I have been single for 13 years and celibate for 11 of the 13. For the first 8 years, I wrote, just like this, and 6 of those years were spent writing about religion. I love doing this stuff and love to be challenged so I can write more, this is how I learn. I do not learn from what others say, I hope that someone says something that just triggers me and I go nuts, like right now.
Have you ever sat down and wrote for 7 hours straight? Have you ever sat down and made your thoughts the most important thing in your life for 7 hours straight, ever? Right, most people donât and that is why you should believe me when I say that, after doing this for 4-5 years, something happened in my head, physically. I canât explain it, I just feel it and it is beautiful. There were times were I would be 5 hours in and someone would call, it would feel like Iâm being pulled out of a mushroom trip. Like I was connected to myself in a way that canât function in normal society, so I will just feel the world hit my shoulder when when that phones rings, deprivation tank type stuff, but with writing. Warning, every upside has a downside, anyways, this is actually a perfect segue.
- The fun part, to explain to you how god is real, just not in the sense that you are use to looking at it.
They say we only use 10 percent of our brain, but what does that actually mean. Me, Shawn, the consciousness inside the body that is made up of all the experiences Iâve had, only takes 10% of our brains power to run. No matter how old I get, how many experiences and how much knowledge I have, my brain will never need to use more than 10% of itâs power; thatâs how powerful the brain is. Think about everything that is you, then think about your grandpa and think about the person you will be then, it will never be more that 10%.
The reply I get to that is normally something like, That is false, or I think we us more than 10% of our brain and that would be correct, we use 100% of our brain, if we didnât we would evolve without it; so what is the other 90% doing, well, that is what controls everything that is not the consciousness that is you, like your arms, legs, toes, eyelids, hair and nail growth, healing, the sense of feeling, smell, taste, hearing, which muscles flex when you step and witch muscles relax so you can step, the sphincter that controls your bladder or intestines, and when I want to type the word Beetlejuice, my brain told my fingers what to do, all I have to do is think it; it starts to get weird when you write about writing like that, I started to loose control of my fingers, or was I thinking about it so much that my brain did not feel like it needed to do it itself and left it to me, and because I wasnât ready, it looked like I lost control when I was really more in control than I ever have been because I was thinking about it so much; I love me.
We the consciousness uses 10% and the body uses 90%. As we all know, people only live to be around 70-90 years old and then the body dies, which means 90% of the brain is not being used, but was connected to the body so it died with it. What if we didnât have bodies and we were born just a floating brain? This would mean that as long as we donât die, we, the consciousness inside could become the whole 100%; think about that for a good minute. You, everything that is the amazing and complex personality that makes you, is only 10%. If you know math well, take everything that is you and divide it by 10, which will leave you with 10 pretty big pieces, now ad one more piece and make it 11%. If you truly understand that, that is a massive increase. To increase the person that you are by 1% is equal to 10% of the person that you are now, that is a massive increase to an already complex individual.
So every 1% is 10% increase into the person that you are. So we have 90% available and every 1% is equal to 10% growth, so that means I have the potential to become 900% the person I am now, that is godly. We have that potential and is the reason we were even able to come up with the concept of a god, we are the gods we pray to, but are limited by death. This is why I know that no one alive today could eve occupy more than 10% of their brain, because we all still die around the same time. When we start to die later, we will be able to grow the person we are more. Donât really know where to go, ask then I will know where to go.
If you know enough about religions the you should know about one that is not really like the others. Even though we see them all as religions, atheism and Buddhism are not religions. Atheism was made a religion by the church so we could be put into the same crazy category as them and canât disprove them. Itâs why they took all the books, knowledge was bad for them and the best way to beat something is join them, so they made us.
Anyways, everything I said in 2. that I came up with, and did, is almost just like Buddhism. Buddha WAS not a god, but a man like me, who figured it out. He found out that we can be something more and that is when he shared it with people and then they created Buddhism around him and create statues of him, not to worship him, but to thank him for seeing it and sharing it. He explained that because we have all these worldly things, love, sex, drugs and rock and roll, that we keep ourselves occupied with these things which hinders our ability to think. The more we think, the more we find ourselves, and it works, FROM EXPERIANCE, itâs fucking works, I did it. Not only could we become more than 10%, we donât even use the whole 10% that we have. a big part of that 10% use to used for survival, but now that we donât survive we thrive, we took all that extra thought, and wondered about what our neighbor thinks. Then slowly over time we became a society that developed ourselves off of what others think, and now we are just a big singular personality.
Buddha knew that death, the end, was the answer. The only thing that stops us from becoming something more is death, and this is where Buddhism starts. Thereâs a system where you do good in life and in your next life you will be better. Part of that is not doing good by others but doing good enough to yourself, that one day you will truly be able to see what Buddha was talking about. So you become a monk, separate yourself from everything in a temple and you think and hope that you are somewhere on your lifeâs path that you are able to see it, feel it and understand it like you never would have with sex and worrying about others. After so much of this, you will be able to retain knowledge from your past life (this is how buddha thought he figured all this out, he was retaining knowledge and was better enough to be able to see this)
The answer is thinking, we do so little of it that when we understand something amazing, we think itâs because of a god or that we are worthy enough to see the things that would allow us to be a god. Thinking is the answer, but then death comes and screws it all up, and that is why people are the way they are.
We are lost. If I am correct, we are 8 billion chances at understanding what it would be like to be something that is equal to what people call a god, but then death, so what do you do, do you focus on death and try and fix it? Like the concept of god, we created the concept of the fountain of youth. the fact that we choose to think up gods and fountains is the reason I think that is the right choice, because if we focused on death and tried to fix it, we would not grow, play, have fun and learn from each other, which is the better way to go, itâs why we went that way, trust mother nature/evolution. It will take longer but we will get there.
Iâm burnt out and Iâm not going back to tighty-up, soooooo sorry. Seriously, I love when people challenge my ideas and make me think, so please. If I hade the time, Ohhhh itâs always about more time, I could go up and hit enter twice after every paragraph and expand, but time, I only have 70 years of it, lol.
uhh, that sounds like numerology.
Welcome to Atheist Republic NWOrphan
The problem with the position of stating there is no god is an assertion, then the burden of proof falls on the claimant. Hypothetically, if you stated âthere is no godâ, I would ask âplease prove itâ, and since it is unfalsifiable, you cannot prove your assertion. You lose the argument.
My position, and many other atheists is âI am not convinced a god existsâ, thus putting the full burden of proof on the theist.
But this is just a myth, according to an interview with neurologist Barry Gordon in Scientific American . He explained that the majority of the brain is almost always active.
1 Like
Welcome to AR from South Australia
An atheist position is simply a disbelief in gods. Nothing else is implied or may be inferred. There are no âshouldsâ in atheism. It is it is what it is.
Agnosticism is about knowledge not belief. From the Greek: a= not/without gnosis = knowledge
I presume you are using the royal âweâ rather than intentionally being a patronising twat.
This atheist makes no claims so has no burden of proof. IE I need prove exactly nothing
Of course not.âas long as you can back up such belief with credible evidence. If you cannot, it becomes a matter of faith.IE superstition.
Wrong yet again. I repeat; Agnosticism is about knowledge, it has nothing to do with belief
EG I call myself an agnostic atheist. That means I do not believe but do not claim to know.
You have described yourself as a thinker. I look forward of seeing a demonstration of that claim.
2 Likes
NWOrphanAtheist
What it is is a DEEPITY: A random bit of complete nonsense. I hope your post gets better than this.
WTF??? Is English your first language? Do you know that when you write a sentence, it is best to express just one idea.
Have you lost your fucking mind? Why in the fuck would anyone waste their time attempting to disprove an unfalsifiable claim. Why in the fuck would anyone waste their time attempting to disprove the 30,000 different interpretations of the Christian God? Why would anyone waste their time trying to disprove the MILLIONS of other imaginary God things believers have asserted exist? The âBURDEN OF PROOF IS ON THE PERSON MAKING THE CLAIMâ That is how science works. That is how logic works. There is no reason to believe your claim until you can offer evidence for that claim. I donât need to DISPROVE a fucking thing. Why in the fuck would I waste my time?
Nothing wrong? Do you have any evidence for your claim? If not, it is EXACTLY THE SAME as the GOD claim. You do not get to make unsupported claims and then pretend there is nothing wrong with them. Are you a fucking idiot?? Using your logic, there is nothing wrong with me asserting that the universe was created by Blue universe creating bunny rabbits. Nothing wrong with the assertion at all. You are just demonstrably WRONG!
[quote=âNWOrphan, post:75, topic:614â]
âI donât believe bees make honeyâ because it is not a belief, it is a fact. [/quote]
You do not understand the relationship between facts and beliefs. Facts are a subcategory of belief. Is it possible to ânot believeâ bees make honey? YES! Is it possible to not believe bees make honey even when confronted with facts. âYESâ. Crazy people think this way all the time. Show them the facts and they merely ignore them. FACTS, are what we call, justified true beliefs. They are facts because all the evidence we have supports the truth of them.
I am presenting you with a jar of honey and I am telling you for a fact that it was not made by a bee. Do you believe me? If you say âNo!â You are a fucking idiot. This honey was produced by honey ants and harvested by humans. I have another jar of concentrated honeydew that looks and tastes like honey, that has been collected from aphids. FACT - other animals make honey! You are wrong!
No. âI donât believe in gods.â I can not yet explain it and that is about all.
WRONG, WRONG, AND WRONG AGAIN.
A = without Gnosis = knowledge Having no knowledge. Knowledge is not belief! An agnostic Christian believes in a god even though he has no knowledge of that god. âI canât give you any evidence or proof of Godâs existence, I just have faith.â This is the very core of Pascalâs Wager. This is the Essence of the Passage in the Bible regarding Doubting Thomas: " Jesus said to him, âThomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.â
John 20:29
YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN KNOWLEDGE AND BELIEF.
An agnostic is a person who has no knowledge of god or gods. This says nothing at all about âbelief.â Agnostics can both believe and disbelieve in god or gods. YOU ARE DEMONSTRABLY WRONG AGAIN.
AGNOSTICISM says nothing at all about BELIEF. NOTHING!!!
ATHEISM: does not dismiss anything. Atheism asks for evidence. To the atheist the theist has not met their burden of proof. If a theistic claim is dismissed it is only dismissed as a result of not carrying the burden of proof. Were a theistic claim able to be convincing and evidence sound an atheist will have no problem at all believing in that god, worshiping it might be another issue. Atheism is a LACK OF BELIEF IN GOD OR GODS.
[quote=âNWOrphan, post:75, topic:614â]
Atheism is (should be) all about disproving the idea/concept of a god[/quote]
This idiotic statement was previously dealt with. YOU ARE WRONG!
I do it regularly.
Not without the assistance of drugs. Upon gaining sobriety I can generally observe my thoughts with a degree of rationality and understand that they are 1. not that fucking remarkable. 2. not just mine. 3. not wholly original. 4. probably not worth repeating without first reviewing them a bit.
And then you would come up with the bullshit that you put in this post without any critical analysis or review of facts and sound like a fucking idiot. Do you know what independent verification is? Do you know why we do it before we go running off spouting absolute nonsense?? You know what is really unfortunate? You spent 8 fucking years not living your life so you could finely make it here and post this shit. You could have done this 8 years ago and got the exact same feedback. What in the fuck have you been doing??? You delusional motherfucker!
2 HOW GOD IS REAL - OH FUCK - MORE BULLSHIT FROM THE CHILDLIKE MIND OF AN UNLIVED LIFE.
No one says we use 10% of our brain. We use our entire brain. " The 10 percent of the brain myth is a widely perpetuated myth that most or all humans only use 10 percent (or some other small percentage) of their brains. It has been misattributed to many celebrated people, notably Albert Einstein." FUCK YOU ARE STUPID!!!
awwwwwwwww fuck! THIS IS JUST TEDIOUS! THIS POST WINS THE AWARD FOR THE MOST IDIOTIC POST OF THE YEAR⌠HANDS DOWN.
4 Likes
There is a lot wrong with that ideology. You are ascribing the origin of this known universe to an agent, with zero proof to substantiate it. Many atheists, including myself, begin with the evidence and follow it, and draw conclusions from that. It is not rational to begin with an assumption and pick and choose data to support your position.
For example, for the origin of this known universe, evidence, science, and intelligent inferences indicate the big bang theory. At no step in this learning and exploration process was an agent required to explain the origin of this universe.
If one encounters a puzzle they have not solved, it is more honest to state âI do not knowâ than invent some fictitious agent.
There are many examples on why I consider ascribing an agent as a bad thing. The terrorists who flew the aircraft into the twin towers also believed in a creator. The many horrors religion has inflicted on people is in the same category, horrors rationalized and justified by a belief in a creator.