Project Reason

Theology and Academia

2013-05-22T07:35:50-08:00

Why is Theology taught at the University level?

Is Theology an academic endeavor at all? Isn’t it just the study of ...opinion basically, or interpretation?

I suppose there is a humanitarian side to religious teaching, but the premise is based on supernaturalism no?

What has Theology actually ever accomplished in human history, especially in comparison to scientific inquiry?

Leave your Amygdala out of it!

2013-05-22T09:29:57-08:00

http://tinyurl.com/lwx2cys

(Tiny URL used because the native url, below, was black listed. Likely due to containing the words conspiracy theory.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/26/magazine/why-rational-people-buy -into -conspiracy -theories .html

Economic recessions, terrorist attacks and natural disasters are massive, looming threats, but we have little power over when they occur or how or what happens afterward. In these moments of powerlessness and uncertainty, a part of the brain called the amygdala kicks into action. Paul Whalen, a scientist at Dartmouth College who studies the amygdala, says it doesn’t exactly do anything on its own. Instead, the amygdala jump-starts the rest of the brain into analytical overdrive — prompting repeated reassessments of information in an attempt to create a coherent and understandable narrative, to understand what just happened, what threats still exist and what should be done now. This may be a useful way to understand how, writ large, the brain’s capacity for generating new narratives after shocking events can contribute to so much paranoia in this country.

I thought this line was kind of punchy:

“The best predictor of belief in a conspiracy theory is belief in other conspiracy theories,” says Viren Swami, a psychology professor who studies conspiracy belief at the University of Westminster in England.

A little ditty

2013-05-14T12:05:15-08:00

Read, pick apart, provide feedback, call me an asshole, whatever:

Affect, behavior, cognition, and stimuli from ourselves, others, and our environment condition us over time throughout our development. Beliefs are formed during and within conditioning. Beliefs form our (superficial?) understandings, fluid or otherwise, of certain aspects about ourselves, others, and the world and vice verse in major part by influencing and often permanently altering our reasoning capacity. Reasoning, however accurate or skewed, is how we read facts, analyze, and apply them to life issues (at least in its apparent practical sense). At the base (?) of all this is our perception pursuant to our biopsychosocial conditioning, which in a sense encapsulates or envelopes the entire process by remaining a constant and controlled variable throughout development.

A thought becomes mandatory and domain specific to our perceptual system only when it has the veracity to merge with it by penetrating its walls which, more often than not, harden and become hardwired over course of ones life. Query whether perception is cognitively impenetrable? And if perceptual learning can change in the wiring of the perceptual systems, shouldn’t that mean perception is penetrable? What about the computational nature of perception, which suggests otherwise?

The Fall of America

2013-05-09T06:51:17-08:00

The bizarre news stories continuously flowing from the United States are indicative of the decay of a once-great society that is politically, intellectually, socially and morally in freefall. America is down the rabbit hole. And since no one is doing anything to stop or even slow this maddening descent, it is now completely obvious, the US is over.

A political false dichotomy, Right-versus-Left, has the Americans in a state of political gridlock from which they have no escape. That’s because each side has based its position on beliefs, and no beliefs are true. While it is readily apparent that the perceived Right is considerably more subject to irrationality than is the perceived Left, both are wrong in that both are repeating the same fallacies and then expecting different results.

Belief has had a profoundly debilitating effect on the ability of Americans to think, and they are, as a result, not actually thinking. Their movements and actions are robotic. Their opinions are preprogrammed by belief system administrators. And they can, as a result, be made to support political initiatives which are completely contrary to their economic interests.

Social interests too are easily turned, and belief can completely promote in the minds of believers social policies that are contrary to the benefit of constituents. In this mindlessness, mediocrity lays waste to serious issues. Hype replaces reason. Facts are irrelevant. Science is irrelevant. History is irrelevant. And sadly, victims are irrelevant.

In the current US, tribalism is constantly a pre-dictum for who’s right and who’s wrong. “Our side is right.” “The other side is wrong.” “The other country is wrong.” “The other party is wrong.” “The other candidate, the other kid, the other cop is wrong.” “The other religion is wrong.” “The other team is wrong.” “The other driver is wrong.” “The other preacher is wrong.” “The other network is wrong.” “The other business is wrong.” “The other book is wrong.” “The other lawyer is wrong.” “The other race is wrong.” “The other student, the other school, the other neighbor, the other passenger, the other person, the other guy, the guy that shot me before I shot him, and three or four other people, are all wrong”—always.

So with this absence of intellect comes a subsequent absence of morality. The NRA has managed to convince millions of people in the US that only by murdering someone can one avoid being murdered. Hip-hop culture has managed to convince many millions of young African Americans that common social norms that are perceived to be products of white America are to be rejected immediately and thwarted at every opportunity—with absurd violence and threats of violence being completely acceptable in order to make that point. Religions have been successful in postulating the idea that science is somehow the enemy, and that law is not the US Constitution, but is instead the Ten Commandments, or Sharia, the Muslim equivalent. Every day and night, TV political pundits manage to convince lots and lots of people that the most ridiculous thing imaginable simply must be true, and that evidence need not be demanded, ever. And it almost never is. Nor is science at all understood by most Americans— nor is logic. Americans have long ago forgotten just what it means to be rational.

The result of all of this, which is utter madness, is that the most powerful country in the world is now populated almost completely by stupid people, irrational people, illiterate people, uninformed people, hyper-reactionary, hyper-violent, hyper-tribal, highly delusional people that can be, and are daily, whipped into a frenzy over issues that pale in importance as compared to some very bad things that are actually happening and that deserve the world’s attention far more than it being true that some hot girl killed her Mormon boyfriend.

There is no God. Therefore God is not coming down from Heaven to save us from what will actually destroy us. It is too late for the stupid Americans. But many other countries could still survive the impending cataclysm that the Americans have brought about. That bad thing, that is now mostly invisible because of all the mediocrity being generated by American media, is inflation and the subsequent devaluation of money brought upon by global fractional reserve banking. Your dollar, your won, your yen, your euro, simply will not buy in the future what it might buy today. And the day is inevitable and fast-upon-us when a loaf of bread in New York will cost two hundred dollars.

This one issue is seven billion times more important than is the retirement of Manchester United’s football coach. Yet it is receiving almost no media attention whatsoever.

End The Fed. Ban fractional reserve banking. Support strict price controls on food, medicine, and housing. And ban corporate ownership of real property. For, if we do not do these things, the whole world will be following the stupid Americans down the rabbit hole—that leads to absolute absurdity.

Take 2 abstract ideas or phrases that don’t belong together and put them together.

2013-05-12T21:46:38-08:00

So I guess I should start this off

Reality Television + Manifest Destiny =

A world where it will be a crime to not receive a tan every single day. Drugs and alcohol will not only be legal but manditory.. Your every day interactions must begin simple, peak to nail-biting drama, then descend into agreement.

The American Myth

2013-05-07T09:07:40-08:00

...That if you work hard, you {can} gain prosperity. Or as I recall a professor saying, “all you need is the ability to work hard, then you apply yourself, then you will have 2 kids, a good job, and a nice home with a white picket fence in front of it.”

How, if at all, have you guys noticed this “myth” diminish? Has 2008 shifted us away from it? Has diversity? Have lesser developed countries caught on and to what extent? Or do you still feel the AM is as powerful as ever?

Jesus and Mo

2013-05-09T09:17:07-08:00

I love Jesus and Mo.

Morality is older than Religion

2013-05-07T05:29:59-08:00

Article from CNN this AM-

http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/07/health/lifes-work-de-waal/index.html?hpt=hp_t5

Is Discussion And Tolerance A Waste Of Time?

2013-04-20T10:03:20-08:00

Since all religion is delusion, is there any reason in the world why sensible people should be tolerant and waste time on the subject?

Every discussion on the subject of religion must necessarily begin with, “Prove the basis of your belief first; then we can have some sort of discussion.” Otherwise everything the proponent of religion says is a house of cards with no foundation.

Every discussion on the subject of religion and faith must invariably come back to the subject of proof. If something has no basis, then it’s not worth talking about.

My own take on faith is that it has gotten a free ride for far too long. In my mind the only purpose of discussion is to teach Godders the error of their ways.

The Devil’s advocate hath spoken. What say you?

Ranking Crackpottery

2013-05-01T08:27:53-08:00

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/crackpot.html