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ferguson 1951
"First study the Christian religion deeply, then practice it and then tell me about it."
When you say "Study"....Are you implying that it requires intelligence to enter heaven? Not everyone has the requirements or mental capacity to study, let alone understand what they are studying.
"Prayers are not answered? I doubt prayers from an atheist can be answered: you have to live the New Testament and become a disciple of Jesus and you will know different."
Are you claiming to know your God's mind and intentions? Is it not your God who can choose to harden a mans heart? How can this man choose to change? All the studying in the world will not change that man. How can you know whose heart has been hardened and whose heart has not been hardened by your God to fulfill His intentions and not your intentions or my intentions?
If your God can so easily harden a mans heart, then he can easily soften it as well. What are His intentions?
Oh look. Another smug, self-satisfied, presumptuous supernaturalist purports to be in a position to come here and lecture people who paid attention in class. oh this is going to be so good. I'm already enjoying the prospect of firing up the ordnance.
Let's take a look at the latest amateur apologetic drivel to find its way here, shall we?
Big deal. You want some sort of prize for this announcement?
Er, no. Because this is your first elementary error. Namely, the failure to distinguish between the remit of proof, and the remit of evidential support.
Quite simply, proof is only applicable to formal axiomatic systems, such as those covered in pure mathematics. In order to be able to establish a proof, you need:
[1] A properly constituted formal system, with appropriate abstract entities and interactions therein defined;
[2] A set of axioms for that formal system;
[3] A mechanism of inference within that formal system.
In the realm of concrete entities, such as those dealt with in the physical sciences, what applies instead is evidential support, namely, a demonstration that a given hypothesis is in accord with observational data.
Since your magic man is asserted to be a concrete entity, what we require is evidential support for the assertion that said entity exists. Only we've seen so many failed attempts to try and conjure your magic man into existence via rhetorical spells and apologetic fabrications, all of which involve rampant abuse of the proper rules of discourse, not to mention erection of known logical fallacies, that the whole business of trying to conjure your magic man into existence via farcical syllogisms and the like, long ago fell into disrepute among those of us who actually paid attention in the requisite classes. Not least because the purpose of propositional logic is to validate conclusions, not premises. All too often, supernaturalists (with William Lane Craig being a particularly egregious offender here) operate the process ass-backwards. That's before we come to such fun and games as abuse of the material conditional, quantifier abuse (Willard Van Ormand Quine had much to say on this subject in his seminal textbook Methods of Logic) and the failure to understand singular inference (again, Quine has much to say on this subject).
So, having dealt with your first elementary error, it's time to move on ...
And here, we need to educate you about an essential central rule of discourse, namely, blind assertions do not equal fact. Which is all you have here.
If you tried this level of apologetics in the physics department, even freshmen students would point and laugh at your risible efforts.
And for this, we turn to Europe in 1348. Which was struck by the Black Death.
Now, at that time, supernaturalism enjoyed an unparalleled level of hegemony among the population, not least because of the ruthlessness of enforcers of conformity to doctrine, who through the Inquisition, has pretty much exterminated any opposition to doctrine. As a corollary, supernaturalism had no effective competition as a world view at that time, and pretty much everyone in Europe was a supernaturalist, and an adherent of your favourite mythology. Though how you could have escaped learning about this before my posting here, given your declared status as an Italian citizen, is an interesting question in its own right. But I digress.
For three years, while the Black Death raged across Europe, people were turning to religion in droves. They were engaging in all manner of rococo rituals, purportedly intended to ask your magic man to deliver them from the disease that was sweeping across continental Europe as a slate wiper. What happened?
NONE of their attempts at intercession worked. Fully fifty million Europeans, all of them religious adherents of varying degrees of devoutness, ended up as mushroom compost. Fully twenty five percent of the entire population of Europe was erased from the land in that three years. And in all that time, we have NO evidence whatsoever, that your magic man ever once stepped up to the plate, and intervened to bring this to an end.
The Black Death, better known as Yersinia pestis or the bubonic plague, was eventually brought to a halt, not by your magic man, but by diligent human labour in the sciences. Humans devised such entities as systems of public hygiene, water treatment, and eventually, antibiotics, so that now, we live in the happy circumstance of not being in danger from the bubonic plague in numerous developed nations. Indeed, the hilariously named Thomas Crapper, by devising a prototype flush toilet, did more to save people from the bubonic plague, than your magic man.
The observational data pointing to your magic man being irrelevant, is now voluminous.
We wouldn't waste our time with this exercise in navel gazing. See above.
Tell that to the 50 million who died in the Black Death. Who were unaware that an alternative to your religion even existed while they were alive.
Bollocks.
Apparently you need schooling on yet more elementary concepts. One being that atheism, in its rigorous formulation, is nothing more than suspicion of unsupported supernaturalist or mythological assertions. That is it. Since faith as practised by supernaturalists, is observably nothing more than uncritical acceptance of unsupported mythological assertions, and the treatment thereof uncritically as true, regardless of any observational data pointing to the falsity of many of those assertions, atheism as rigorously constructed above is the very antithesis of "faith".
Oh, and as for the multiverse hypothesis, you will find, if you bother to read the actual output of tenured researchers in cosmological physics, that they have good reasons for proposing that hypothesis. Namely, that for numerous hypotheses on the origin of the observable universe we inhabit, arising from their research, the existence thereof is a technical necessity.
And once again, you need to be schooled on the elementary concepts at work here. The central one being that assertions, when presented, have the status "truth value unknown". That epistemological deficit is remedied ONLY by the conduct of proper TESTS of the assertions in question. If your assertions are untestable, either by accident or by design, then they remain forever in that epistemological limbo, and as a corollary, may be safely discarded. Oh, and by "proper test", I don't mean regurgitate more mythological assertions, and I also don't mean fabricate rhetorical spells involving abuse of the propositional calculus.
Now, do you have any substance to bring here, or is the above vacuous drivel all you have to offer?
@ Calli
Thanks mate...I stole your first paragraph about logic...love it...and trust me I WILL use it!
Best shut down I have read in a long time. I love your style old son!
@Calli and OMSC
Fully agree with old man shouts clouds, another great post from you Calli.
You have a mastery over words and concepts I wish I had. I wouldn't be surprised if you get rebuttals all the time that indicate the opposing debater actually was not able to keep up in understanding and had no idea what you were talking about.
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▮Please include @LogicFTW for responses to me
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I don't mean to pile on, but I have to echo these comments... Cali, that was exceptional!
Bravo!
@Cali
...*standing ovation*... Bravo! Bravo! Ya know, it's a shame that the intended recipient of your rebuttle is likely to barely understand a fraction of what you wrote. However, as for most of the rest of us here, we love it. Keep up the great work!
It seems to me you want to uselessly subject God to the presumed superiority (intellectual arrogance) of your university degrees.
God could not care less about degrees.
There is not to be (excuse my English) a PROOF of God: God demands FAITH, and faith is God-given (or you can get it by praying for it because that is the sort of prayer God might answer, not the one about shaking curtains).
Science can be useful for natural phenomena but it is useless when it comes to religion.
Scientists refuse to examine miracles: they say they are not concerned with miracles. But then when a miracle happens they claim they can prove it is just some natural phenomenon.
They are biased, they are stubbornly determined to erase any concept of "mistery", of supernatural.
It hits me how you use impolite language to offend me when all I wanted to do was discuss amicably.
As a man who does not ignore the supernatural realm, in 1998 I happened to be in London. I was buying The Times. In the front page one day there was news that in a Hindu temple in London a marble bull was drinking milk.
I rushed there, there was a long queue on the pavement. When my turn came, a Hindu woman sitting on the floor gave me a spoon, put some milk in it. I brought the spoon near the bull's mouth and the milk disappeared. The same phenomenon was happening in Hindu temples in India and USA. The Indian Parliament stopped its work to allow MPs to go out and witness.
To my knowledge, no scientist carried out extensive research on the subject.
They are biased, they know they will fail to explain, so they better stay at home.
Although, as I said,university students (and their intellectual arrogance) usually end up in the grave of spiritual research, honest scientists still exist. Einstein, for one, believed in God.
Seems like that ship has sailed:
-------------------------------------------------------------
Ah yes; the conspiracy explanation.
@ ferguson1951
No, you are lying, That was never on the front page of the Times (of London). I subscribe to the archives and cannot find it, it did make the "Crawley News" a weekly advertising tabloid in a suburb, so maybe you read it there. The story you refer to started in 1995 in Utter Pradesh, it died a death then resurfaced. I
n 1998 Ganesh was reported to be drinking milk in several Hindu temples worldwide also the obscure bull statue in a suburb of London was reported to be drinking milk...as was the cobra...Unaccountably statues NOT in temples (like the famous one in the V&A in London did not imbibe, or any museum statues I can find anywhere, only in temples was this phenomenon reported.
The original claim (1995) outside of Delhi was investigated and found to be explainable, in fact colored milk was used to demonstrate the explanation. The London claims were not examined as access to the Temples by the investigators was denied on religious grounds. By the time full investigation teams were allowed the phenomenon had ended. The whole "ganesh drinking Milk" scam has been debunked. You can just search Youtube for the link. Simples.
So we only have unqualified hysterical reports of Ganesh, Nadi, the Cobra Gid, Vishnu and others all 'drinking' milk. Certainly in 1998 Indian parliament was NOT suspended due to these reports, you are confused, that was in 1995.
As for your last sentence about Einstein? Risible nonsense...I hear this from evangelists all the time who fail to quote (as I am sure someone will) Einsteins actual thoughts on the subject.
It seems, like most theists Ferguson, you are fraudulently mixing up news reports, and worse ascribing beliefs to the deceased genius that he never had.
Hang your head in shame.
Oh dear, more canards in need of the ordnance ...
Having exerted diligent effort to acquire substantive knowledge, then applying that knowledge to important questions, isn't "intellectual arrogance". Only a deluded supernaturalist could entertain this risible notion.
And I've already explained why faith is fucking useless. Because it consists of nothing more than treating unsupported mythological assertions uncritically as fact, no matter how much observational data flushes many of those assertions down the toilet.
Once again, blind assertions do not equal fact, no matter how much you want to pretend the contrary in the television inside your head.
No it isn't, it's the product of stupid people not bothering to use their fucking neurons properly. Quite simply, the idea that the mythology you love so much was the product of a fantastically gifted magic entity, purportedly responsible for instantiating an entire universe, is farcical drivel. Not least because that mythology contains assertions that are not merely wrong in the light of modern scientific knowledge, but fatuous and absurd in that light. The piss-stained Bronze Age incels who scribbled your sad little mythology, were too stupid to count correctly the number of legs that an insect possesses, and thought genetics could be altered wholesale by coloured sticks. Any genuine fantastically gifted magic entity of the sort asserted to exist in that mythology, simply would not allow demonstrable errors of this risible nature to be attributed thereto. Furthermore, said entity would almost certainly choose a means other than mythology to communicate any message it wished to impart, and would also do so using something other than obscurantist prose purportedly requiring "interpretation". I've already dealt with this and related issues at length in other threads here, and if you exercise some diligence in the matter, you'll learn exactly how much effort I've exerted in this direction.
Bollocks. Why would an entity capable of instantiating an entire universe from nothing, as asserted to be the case in mythology, require us to beg for said entity to provide evidence of its existence? This is asinine drivel of the most suppruatingly bubotic order.
Well science deals with the observable, which means that you're effectively asserting with this statement, that your magic man is not an observable entity. Which is in direct contradiction to your assertion about "prayer" above, because according to that assertion, your magic man is purportedly observable.
Why do supernaturalists never bother with such matters as logical consistency or consilience when posting their drivel?
Oh wait, I've examined at length the assertions about that nonsense that was supposed to have taken place at Fatima in Portugal, and found it risible for numerous reasons. For those unfamiliar with this particular piece of supernaturalist hilarity, the Sun was asserted to have been seen by 70,000 people at that location, performing all manner of high-speed breakdancing around the sky.
But even if we leave aside the fact that those 70,000 people were all supernaturalists, primed in advance to expect something bizarre to happen, and as a corollary to regard any infrequent natural phenomenon occurring around them as some sort of "sign" from their imaginary magic man, there's several problems with the assertion that the Sun performed an aerobatic display before this audience. The first being that this was asserted to have taken place in 1917, and even then, the world not only had a large population residing elsewhere that would have seen this happen, if it had occurred for real, but also had a resident population of astronomers equipped with the requisite observing equipment. Also, photographic cameras were in existence at this time. Funny how none of these people or these instruments detected any signs of this alleged celestial weirdness.
But it gets better than this. You see, in order for the Sun to be observed moving about the sky in this manner, then either it, or the Earth, would have had to have moved through space at speeds far in excess of the speed of light. A certain Mr A. Einstein would like a word with you on that matter. Furthermore, if the Sun had been moving at such speeds, the visual effects arising from that motion would have been so bizarre and instantly noticeable around the world, that I wouldn't be writing here taking the piss out of this farce, because instead, the observational data would have been so compelling, it would have formed part of my studies in physics.
On the other hand, if the Earth had suddenly leapt out of its orbit, reproducing the same effects courtesy of its motion, then I wouldn't be here writing about anything, because life on this planet would have been exterminated by the colossal accelerative forces involved. Those residing on the forward side of the planet as it launched into such motion, would have been turned into exquisitely flattened ravioli by several trillion g's worth of acceleration, whilst those on the rearward side of the planet would have suddenly found themselves left in the vacuum of space, watching the planet rocket away from them as they spent their last two minutes alive. The feeble force of gravity exerted by the planet would be dozens of orders of magnitude too small to compensate for the effects of such a violent acceleration to warp speed. In addition, such a violent motion would almost certainly result in the planet leaving most of its atmosphere behind it in space, with the part of the atmosphere in the bow shock being pummelled into the surface with such force that nuclear fusion reactions would ignite on that forward side. So in addition to being turned into ravioli, the unfortunate occupants of that part of the planet would also be incinerated at tens of millions of Kelvins, as the energy from those fusion reactions wound up as heat.
Even if we assume that for the purpose of such pyrotechnics, an Alcubierre warp bubble formed, protecting the interior from those tidal forces, once again, the visual effects of such motion would have been instantly and compellingly obvious right across the planet. The world's astronomers and physicists would be queueing up to try and explain what happened. The event would have been headline news globally, and newspaper archives would still to this day contain millions of column inches of footage devoted to that event. It would still be a topic of conversation right around the planet through to the present day. That none of this has happened, means we can safely toss assertions about a "miracle" of this nature happening into the bin.
The above isn't "intellectual arrogance", it's the result of paying attention in class, and learning how the observable universe actually behaves, instead of wasting time with sad mythological fantasies written by semi-literate desert nomads.
Moving on ...
Oh, this was the same Einstein who wrote a famous letter, dismissing religion as "childish superstition"? More about which can be read here? Indeed, you can also go here, and not only see a scan of the letter in full, but read the transcribed text in full as well. I note with interest the following:
Ah, facts. They're so so much better than mythological bollocks.
@ferguson1951
Fully agree there. "God" could care less about out anyones degrees. But since we are talking fictional concepts made up by people, this "god" idea could care less about well.. anything. Same thing applies to praying to "god,"or going to church dedicated to a god, following human instructions on "god" and so on.
Hah! We agree again! I fully agree, science is useless when talking about entirely made up human concepts that has no bearing on our reality.
Ah darn, don't agree with you here, we had a nice streak going. Scientist LOVE examining so called "miracles" I am not a scientist (but I do consider myself an atheist,) and I love examining miracles. I read up on shroud of turin and other religious artifacts and claims at miracles. I find the stuff fascinating. If anything as a study of human mind's ability to bias even if there is zero real world evidence to back the bias.
I am confident if the various scientist were given a chance to investigate this phenomenon they would have. If I was in the area when this was happening I would of gone and investigated and videoed the encounter myself. I would of loved to have been part of that investigation and I would of forwarded my video to other scientist.
Not anywhere near CLOSE to the god 95+ percent of what people consider "god" to be. Do your research before making that claim. Einstein also stated he never took much time to investigate god or put a lot of thought into it, he had far more important work to do with his time.
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▮Please include @LogicFTW for responses to me
▮Tips on forum use. ▮ A.R. Member since 2016.
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@ferguson1951
RE: God demands FAITH, and faith is God-given (or you can get it by praying for it because that is the sort of prayer God might answer, not the one about shaking curtains).
Is there any position at all that I can not hold based on faith? If I believe white people are more intelligent than black people based on faith. am I right or wrong? If I believe homosexuals should be killed based on faith am I right or wrong. If I believe in Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Shinto, Mormonism, Feng shui, Patanjali, or Chinese Folk Religion, based on faith is my faith correct?
THERE IS NO POSITION AT ALL A PERSON CAN NOT TAKE BASED ON FAITH. Faith is not, nor has it ever been, a path to knowledge or understanding of any kind. All religions use it, INCLUDING YOURS.
RE: Science can be useful for natural phenomena but it is useless when it comes to religion.
How is religion not a natural phenomena? You are not making any sense here. Were religion not a natural phenomena how in the hell would be be able to distinguish one from another. I can naturally tell you who is a Catholic and who is a Muslim and I can do that based on 'NATURAL PHENOMENA."
Scientists refuse to examine miracles: Please cite a miracle that scientists have not examined. You are confusing "no evidence" for miracles with "no examination." I am betting you can not find a single miracle that I can not find a paper on debunking it scientifically.
RE: They are biased, they are stubbornly determined to erase any concept of "mistery", of supernatural.
There is no reason to erase anything called "mystery." The very definition of the word means "We don't know." "Supernatural" has no useful definition either. You may as well say the definition is "we don't know." I have never heard a definition of supernatural that did not refer to itself or higher abstractions of Woo Woo.
HINDU MILK DRINKING STATUES - DEBUNKED
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FG7GpW9Yjlw
RUBBER PIG DRINKING MILK
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDgBW9oJofw
STOP BEING SO GULLIBLE..
You can feed milk to a statue in your home, RIGHT NOW, and get the same result.
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/magazine-38301718/the-milk-miracle-that-brou...
I never needed a degree. I actually left my office job (I was deputy chief) in 1986 in order to do only what I wanted to do, not what society demanded. I toured half of the world. One day I was in Italy with nothing to do and eventually rang a former friend of mine who was living in France. I said: "Look, I've got nothing to do. Can I come and spend three days with you just so that we get up-to-date on each other?" . "Sure", said he. I drove to France and I remained there for 10 years.
I can live very happily without all the muddle-thinking universities dish out. I am an artisan at heart: i love working with my hands. I have no professional certificate but just tell me how something is done once and I do it, whatever it is: electricity, masonry, gardening, cooking, repairing computers, anything. I can paint a good painting: I was invited to exhibitions twice but I did not go. I love Nature, spending time in rugged countryside and I am planning to move to Ireland next winter.
What I have seen is that the world is run by graduates but there are lots of problems they cannot solve, like pollution for one. I stay away from graduates. Let them do what they like, except mess up my life. I can fluently speak 4 languages and I am studying German. I like being a self-taught man. My only problem is that I can also milk a cow if need be, but once I learn something I get bored and want to move to something else: I like little challenges. In 1988 I went to India without having organized anything. I only had my tourist visa and 13 crates of personal belongings that I had shipped by sea. I flew to Delhi and settled in West Bengal. The main reason why I wanted to go there was that I wanted to personally meet Mother Teresa of Calcutta. Using my systems, I managed that during Christmas 1990. I saw her act, solve a problem, I was translating for her because she could not speak French. I did not like her but then, I go where I want to go without preconceived ideas: I just want to see the place, the people and their lives and make up my own mind. I can discuss Nietzsche too if you like: I am widely read but I only read what interests me. In my neighbourhood I am a character: they call me the boss but I never did anything special: I just acted naturally. Within what the law permits, I say whatever I like. Even that Italy is a country going down the drain (which people do not like). In so doing, I make some enemies but who cares? I am one of a kind and I want to stay that way.
Great; another anti-intellectual Christian. It's almost as if there is a factory somewhere, spitting them out.
There are, they're called churches, synagogues, mosques, temples, and chapels. They're indefatigable in dumbing down the intellect.
Also, "people is dumb," as you are aware.
@Ferguson Re: "I am one of a kind and I want to stay that way."
...*deeeeep sigh of relief*.... Phew! Thank GOD for that! Hallelujah! I'll sleep a bit easier tonight knowing that... *wiping forehead with back of hand*...
@ferguson1951:
RE: I never needed a degree. (Ahemmm...... Only someone without a degree would place such importance on not having one.) HAHAHAHAHA. NO ONE 'NEEDS' A DEGREE! People get degrees because they have plans for their lives that require them. Here is a fun article for you, made simple so even a person without a university degree can understand it..
"If the global population of the world were 100 people, only 7 would have a university degree." Let's give you 10% (It's actually about 6.7% but we will stick with 10)
https://www.100people.org/statistics_100stats.php?section=statistics
So all you are really saying is that you want to be like everyone else. Good for you, have a good life. You do not need a university degree for that. We all agree.
RE: "I toured half of the world." Great fun traveling! Isn't it. I am running on 22 years in Asia and plan to retire in the Philippines. Let's see, I had a poker game last night. There was a Canadian, a New Zealander, an Irishman, Two Americans, a Chinese lady, and a Korean at the table. All of us with university degrees. Lots of people with degrees like to travel and teach abroad. It's a great way to live.
RE: "not what society demanded." Um... What do you think the word "demand" means. Obviously you are completely free to do as you like. You are at least every bit as free as the 90% of people who opted not to seek university degrees. You are also, every bit as free at the 10% of us who chose to seen higher education. Wearing commonality as a badge of honor seems a bit silly. It's a bit like saying, "I didn't give into the demand of not wearing shoes." We are all happy for you, but do you actually understand what you are saying?
RE: I can live very happily without all the muddle-thinking universities dish out.
You would have to cite which "muddled thinking" you are referencing to have any kind of meaningful discussion. Yes, we have already agreed, you can have a meaningful life without a university degree just like the other 90% of the world's population. (There is that badge of commonality again. Wear it proudly.) It's a bit like saying, "I can live happy without eating breakfast." Yes, of course you can. But seriously! It does not make you special?
RE: THE LIST - electricity, masonry, gardening, cooking, repairing computers, anything. Well, I have rewired my home, I built a brick wall in the back and a stone grill, I have a garden but only grow watermelons, potatoes, tomatoes, mango, and corn. I think most people who own computers can repair them today. The components are modular and spyware programs common. I built my own computer at home. Isn't this normal? I know a lot of people who have done it, but remember, most of my friends just happen to have university degrees so we are not a representative of the "common culture." We have been set aside into that "muddled thinking" 10%, you know, the doctors, lawyers, educators, and professionals of the world.
RE: "What I have seen is that the world is run by graduates." LOL - the graduates know exactly what to do to solve the pollution problem. Jim Jefferies says it so much better than I could ever hope to.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4zU6jQ9UsQ
RE: "Milking cows" and other claims. Milking a cow is simply a result of being on a farm. I am not sure what an accomplishment that is. Like you, I have a whole lot of life experience. I can milk a cow, drive a tractor, birth a horse, bail hay, and clean a septic tank. Ahemmmm... I also have two university degrees. I think it is great that you are a polyglot. My German, Korean and Spanish are relegated to survival levels. I have found that no matter where I go in the world, people speak English. Especially the people I hang out with.... You know, the people with university degrees. The "muddled thinkers." Still, I love hanging out in open markets, wondering the streets, and using the language that I do know. It's fun, isn't it. Was there a point to any of this?
RE: " In 1988 I went to India without having organized anything." I just did that in Cambodia. No plans at all, except for the fact that I did plan on making it to Ankor Watt. No hotels, no tours, nothing.... Of course, being a world traveler like myself, you know all you need is a small backpack, some good walking shoes, and a bit of cash to survive in any country. If I want to take a tour, any hotel will offer day tours. If I don't check into a tourist hotel I can generally find a perfectly fine less expensive one right around the corner. I just booked my trip to the Philippines. I had to book a hotel next to the US Embassy, Manila, for 4 days. $24 per night. I know about the hotel only because I have been there before and have the hotel's card. I booked 4 nights so I can handle business. I have no idea at all what I will do after that. I will be there for 30 days. All you have done is stat a travel modality preference. Some travelers, like you and I, like to leave things open and just let them happen. Others like to have things planned out. Like you, regardless of my university degrees, I have never traveled with anything but the most sketchy of plans.
RE: (Nietxsche) or did you mean (Nietzsche) - How about Kierkegaard, Sartre, Marcel, Camus, et al. Did you miss the part about "Existence precedes essence." Seems you might have. "Nietzsche spoke of "the death of God," and foresaw the dissolution of traditional religion and metaphysics."
So what do you think? Did Nietzsche (A. embrace nihilism, reject philosophical reasoning, and promote a literary exploration of the human condition, while not being concerned with gaining truth and knowledge in the traditional sense of those terms?) or (B. attempt to counteract the predicted rise of nihilism and engaged in a positive program to reaffirm life, by calling for a radical, naturalistic rethinking of the nature of human existence, knowledge, and morality? ) I have a hunch you are more of an 'A' thinker while the general atheists on the site align themselves more with the ideals of 'B."
Well, thanks for the entertainment. I am certainly happy that you are happy with your life. I am not sure why you would opt to wear commonality as a badge of honor. It seems a bit "Bart Simpson - ish" to me. Still, it it works for you and you are happy, well, Good for You. Why would you attempt to demean the educated though? If I have demonstrated anything at all, I have demonstrated that I am no different from you at all. We both travel. We can both milk a cow. We can both probably build a house from the ground up. I did not study milking cows, traveling, or house building at university. These are skills I picked up. I did study Spanish and German but not Korean. So I also picked up a language outside of university. Why is it that the one disdainful issue you have with the world and people like me and Nietzsche are University Degrees. People simply take different paths in their lives. You happen to "be and artisan and enjoy painting pictures." I enjoy "writing books" and "teaching." I wanted a degree so that I could do the things I wanted to do. You didn't want a degree. And that is a difference worth condemning in your eyes? Really? Well, thanks a whole bunch for sharing your opinion. I will certainly rethink my life based on it.
(Ha ha ha ,,,, EDIT) If you missed it, shame on you.
@Ferguson Re: "I am an artisan at heart: i love working with my hands. I have no professional certificate but just tell me how something is done once and I do it, whatever it is: electricity, masonry, gardening, cooking, repairing computers, anything. I can paint a good painting: I was invited to exhibitions twice but I did not go...."
I can tie my own shoes without help.... *big proud smile*...
@ Tin Man
I can tie my own shoes without help.... *big proud smile*...
Oh no you fucking can't...you have velcro fasteners...you and Ferguson have the same problem with accurately recounting events it seems *wink*
@Old Man Re: "Oh no you fucking can't...you have velcro fasteners..."
Hey, I never said I tie them PROPERLY. And I have velcro fasteners only on my good dress shoes, because the wifey finally got tired of cutting all the knots out of the laces.
@Ferguson1951: I stay away from graduates.
Does that include doctors and dentists? Better eat an apple a day and floss after every meal.
Do you ever go inside buildings? Were they designed by architects? If you travel by plane, train or automobile, you'd better hope that the engineers who designed them were graduates.
@ferguson1951
What are you running from?
I can't speak for anyone else, but you sound typically like all the other self important theists on here to me, you have their typical ease with making unevidenced and ill informed assertions, that's for sure.
Have you ever heard of the Dunning Kruger effect? You might want to look it up, you never know, it might check some of your unjustified hubris, though I'm not very optimistic.
@Nyarlathotep: I think they stop by here on their way home from the Village Idiot convention. VIC https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5ObycvN3DA
I think it's becoming clear that this one has on the winner's rosette. He seems characteristically proud of it as well. The Dunning Kruger effect springs to mind.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect
Appeal to authority (but I quote this because it is also my view, only better expressed):
" Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly in the long run"
I cannot value your comments as high as you would like because you do not have a good sense of humour.
I use artifacts designed by graduates. I use science. I do not let science use me.
If you are going to quote someone, you should include their name if you know it. It seems that quote is from Mark Twain.
At 68 my blood tests are perfect. This is because I am wary of doctors and the like.
Having travelled around half of the world during 32 years (and I have not finished yet) I had to eat more or less what was dished out. I simply tried to avoid the worst stuff.
As a kid, my father was a naturalist and I learnt something from him. In those days, I was much confined at home, which was good because I did not get infected by world mentality in the formativa years.
My parents would not look after me, which was good because I later learnt to fend for myself.
I used to play ball but everytime I would get a soar throat. Eventually I decided to fast for 3 days and never again had soar throat.
At age 30 more or less my doctor told me I would have to have my appendix removed, but I said no. I kept my appendix for further 30 years. Appendix is important for eliminating toxines.
My mother never wanted to see a doctor: she said that they come home, stay 10 minutes, get 100-150 euros and the advice they give you is junk. She lived until 101 and died of old age.
Of course she had to see a doctor from time to time, because the law makes it so that only graduates can do certain things, which is a crime against people’s rights. But she would only take very few drugs, no matter what the doctor said. She was the one who decided in the end.
This is another thing I learnt.
Unfortunately, due to graduates, we eat such a load of garbage. Vegetables and fruit have very few vitamins because soil is exhausted. Cows are forcefully fed with junk food and so on. Plus pesticides and chemical fertilizers. No wonder so many people die from cancer (which doctors cannot cure). You get cancer, you go to hospital, after a while they say you are well again and send you home. Two years later the cancer comes back again.
So, only in order to try and live another 10 years in good health, I practice 8-day fasting every 5 years, so that I get rid of all the junk graduates make me eat. And without medical control. I do not need doctors messing about with my health.
Graduates can go on trying to harness life within their schemes. Fortunately, the unexpected will always happen.
Your intellectual arrogance blinds you to the fact that a different type of life is possible (and should I say much more desirable)
Graduates know a lot of wrong things about one subject only (architecture, medicine, etc) but they live under the illusion that they know it all.
Luckily, I will not live long enough to see th end-result of this graduate-run world. I am having enough right now.
You're off your tits sorry. What a load of half baked nonsense. Sweeping claims, selection bias, self fulfilling garbage.
And what the fuck is a soar throat, hilarious irony given your ignorant half baked attack on other people's education.
Doctors and graduates save countless lives every day, the fact a few individuals are stupid enough to ignore their advice, but paradoxically live a relatively long life means nothing. That really is one of the most ill informed rants I've ever read.
Then again it's to be expected from anyone too stupid or lazy to learn the dictionary definition of atheism and faith, and then make asinine claims that contradict what the words mean.
It seems an in vogue piece of religious apologetics to label anyone who doesn't share their belief in bronze age superstitions as arrogant, but quite clearly the arrogance here is coming from you. You're barely literate, woefully ill informed, make the most asinine and erroneous claims, deny scientific facts established beyond any reasonable doubt, yet are making arrogant and absurdly generic derogations of people who've successful completed a higher education.
Go back to school would be my advice. Or at the very least try and grasp the breathtaking level of ignorance on display in your posts, as you're embarrassing yourself, yet seem to be blissfully unaware of the fact. Arrogantly revelling in ignorance and stupidity is neither impressive, or unusual, especially from theists on here.
Dear oh dear....
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