My cholesterol is fine. With my arthritis and neuropathy, I’m no longer able to dig the holes to bury the bones.
1 Like
Superstition has always been human kinds creative way of making sense out of the world. It is our first science, our first physics, and our first psychology. It is not ‘transcendence’ that pulls you above this, but “REALITY.”
I want to share with you a very lucid dream I once had. Before that, if you read any sociology book, you will find that when men first saw other men on horses, they did not distinguish between the man and the horse. They saw it as one animal. It was said that when explorers came to the new worlds, the native peoples did not see the ships. They did not recognize boats until the men got into the small rowboats that brought them ashore.
So, I had a very lucid dream. In the dream, I was being chased through a jungle by a monster. Just imagine the most horrible monster you can, it was coming after me. Now, I have learned to turn and face my foes in my dreams, early teachings of ‘Don Juan,’ who you may not be familiar with. None the less. At one point, I turned to face my foe.
Suddenly in front of me, the monster tripped and fell to the ground. I instantly saw a man. And then I saw the back of a large shield. The man looked up at me and then scrambled to pick up his shield. When he picked up the shield, I clearly saw the face of the monster painted on the shield. (I want to make it very clear that this was the point when the monster ceased to be real. Before this, it was a snarling beast that was going to eat me. After this, I realized I had been duped. The monster was not real. It was just a shield.) The illusion was broken. The man and the shield ran off into the jungle and I was no longer afraid.
REALITY transcends myths and people. Rationality, cuts through the bullshit. Facts and evidence bare the world in front of your eyes.
Education is certainly the bane of religion and irrationality, at the same time, many very educated people have been religious. Do you think William Lane Craig knows he is a lying manipulative piece of shit with a fallacious argument? I can’t imagine a person as intelligent and well versed in the philosophical disciplines to not see the fallacious nature of his own bullshit. Still he persists? It leaves me in a quandary.
Bill and I do not live in the same world. He is wearing God glasses. It’s like having a pair of green tinted sunglasses stuck to your head. Everything he sees is green. He cannot remove the glasses. I have worn those same glasses. I have seen the world through those glasses and if you look at my posts, I can even put those glasses on again, mocking myself as much as religion, now and again. The glasses do not allow us to distinguish between the horse and the man, the boat and the sea, or the mask and the monster. The glasses are an internal psychological structure that keeps our world view in order for us. Transcendence is in the form of rationality, reason, experimentation, and education.
1 Like
Early primitive man knew very little about the world. For many things, they made up stories or ascribed their observations to something superstitious. But as mankind learned more, those myths began to fall away. My favorite example is Thor and thunder. We now know it is not the gods in the skies having a rave but static friction creating electrical potential, being released as lightning.
Science and understanding is what defeats ignorance and superstition. The problem is many people are very happy to live in their world with (as Cog so eloquently described) green glasses.
Damn, I guess I have learned all there is to know about being a Rationalist in an irrational world! All Theists are doomed to get the same lecture from me about how the science that allows Intel to make faster chips, allows Hawkins, Green and other to propose theories of the universe which do not require magic.
Another random thought brought to the surface by this: I read a book my freshman year “The Naked Ape”. For some reason this conversation has made its lessons click thru my mental cogs, in particular a description of monkeys throwing poop. Good news is chatting here is not a bad exchange of time as long as one does react to the flying feces.
Another:
I had a several month online conversation with someone who claimed to be a priest, in the end he called me 1/0, and I called him Tommaso. I have many of our discussions saved in word files if you want me to I would reload word and cut and past these “discussions” here, I’m sure you all would find them familiar.
Snarky attitude aside, I do enjoy your response to my impossible to answer question, and will be pleased too see the conversation continue, who knows the horse may learn to sing.
.
. .
What was the “Impossible to answer question?” Did I miss it?
Personally, I positively never do negative stuff. Unless, of course, the negative stuff I do has a positive purpose, in which case it becomes a Positive-Negative act. Mind you, that should not be confused with a Negative-Positive act, because it is typically frowned upon to do something positive for a negative purpose. However, should I ever have to do something negative for a negative purpose, then I’m fairly certain I would have a positive reason for doing so. That would obviously be considered a Positive-Double-Negative act.
I think it’s obvious that some people can just turn anything into a negative. Real “Cup is Half Empty” sorts of people. I wonder which is worse though. Hmm… new thread?
It is my humble opinion that as long as you are seeking peace and understanding in a given situation you will generally find it.
You don’t have to buy girl scout cookies or donate to charity organizations to prove you are a good person. That will reflect in who you are and what you do on a daily basis.
The fact that you are seeking more positive ways to communicate who you are and what you believe with others, especially those with a different opinion than your own is a good indicator that you are on the right track.
That’s the most fucked up thing I have ever read.
1 Like
Hear Hear. Well said.
I think what I am trying to do, however clumsily, is see if there are some new ideas out there. I have low expectations as I have been reading and thinking about this subject for decades, developing my own belief system. One of my favorite wool gathering activities.
I have deliberately avoided this kind of forum because the same thing that makes a good engineer, makes me vulnerable to misinterpreting what a responder wants to communicate.
It’s all good.
1 Like
@Mark most of the people on this forum are pretty decent people with insightful contributions. I don’t have to agree with them on everything and they don’t have to agree with me for a good conversation to be had where I feel like I’ve learned something. Comic relief usually keeps things from getting too heavy.
Nice to meet you!
Hmmm… 
… Yeah… About that… Ummmm… Look, for those who might need to know, uh, “Comic Relief” does NOT involve going up on stage at the Improv and pissing on the comedian’s leg. Sure, the crowd roared with laughter, and it did make me lighter. But that just made it easier for security to throw me further out the club door. Please, learn from my mistakes.
1 Like
Hey, don’t laugh. This shit ain’t funny. Took me three trips to the body shop to get all the dents and scratches fixed.
2 Likes
It is Mark. One the front page of this very forum there is a sentence … “Our forum is also a great place to chat, make new friends and even share ideas with the Atheist Republic team.”
Yes, we debate theists on many issues. But we also do what is described in that sentence, chat about anything and everything, develop personal relationships, and share ideas.
For myself, all of that applies. In my time here I have done all that, and most importantly learn and develop. My goal is to become a “better person”, with a better understanding of my own personal morality, and learn a heck of a lot.
Personally, I know I have made mistakes. I recognize my own frailties. But learning to recognize my weaknesses, I can continue to improve myself.
It’s all good.
2 Likes
This is a remarkable insight. The same thing holds true in most professions. When I took my licensing exams, I had to dummy down all my replys to “averages,” or what the average person without any experience might think. In some cases I knew my answers were actually wrong because I had read the challenges to the theories, still, it was a test prepared by a teacher who believed the shit they were spewing; and to pass the test I had to be smart enough to put the correct answer on the page.
The problem with critical thinking and learning to make inquiries, or even simply having a curious mind, is that one can overthink any question when all the ‘asker,’ wanted was the standard social mindless reply.
You are 100% correct and a much better person for recognizing this.
Stay employed and stay in the box. Function normally and live a happy life. Don’t rock the boat. Just answer the questions correctly.
This is a really big issue for me when I am filling out insurance claims. Insurance companies pay for X-number of sessions. They want a clearly defined goal and clearly defined steps to get to that goal. A ‘behavioral’ model is often best for describing therapeutic outcomes; regardless of the techniques used in any given session." Behavior models can be operationalized but they offer, nor do they value, any insights. The motivation for change is not important when you operate on a simple stimulus/response paradigm. So, you do what the billing agency requires, at least on paper.