Project Reason is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit foundation devoted to spreading scientific knowledge and secular values in society. The foundation draws on the talents of prominent and creative thinkers in a wide range of disciplines to encourage critical thinking and erode the influence of dogmatism, superstition, and bigotry in our world.
Answerer, I get what you and John are saying. But if the likes of Nick and Mario become bannable, is that the default position to take whenever some apologist becomes tedious? Doesn’t it drive you nuts that no atheist can openly speak on pro-theist forums? Don’t we become like them if we adopt a policy of banning annoying religionists and spiritualists?
I tend to take a more optimistic approach, and see Mario as comic relief. And Nick has become less annoying, it seems to me. Yes, I’m one of those optimists cited earlier by Avogadro’s Number. The alternative to making lemonade with lemons is to curse out the offender and suffer indigestion or blood-pressure spikes.
I really don’t think that Mario will persuade readers of anything, no matter how long he posts here. If we ban him, doesn’t that translate to us fearing him on some level? The religious forums fear us. We don’t fear them, do we?
It is not me who you want out of your lives. It is anyone who dares to question your opinions. I just happen to be good at it.
No it’s you. I think Burt spews misguided trash from time to time. The same thing with ecurb. Saralynn and I don’t agree a lot of the time. But you, tony, nick, and username are the worst of the worst; Irrational, opinionated, and manipulative. I don’t dislike disagreement or even retort, but it’s your obvious preachy agenda absent logic in a place that attempts to maintain cordial dialogue is what bothers me. Why the fuck are you here?
And don’t get me wrong, I’m no peach either. I’ve personally attacked more people on this site than I’d like to mention. But I still like coming here in order to clarify and expand my thoughts by way of dialogue with people who I share a common cognitive framework. Why the fuck are you here? Can’t you fill whatever void you gain here somewhere else; maybe another theist site. Or have they discarded you there too?
Thank you jobyrne and Sciguy for your expressions. Good people like yourselves is one reason I’m here. I am signing off of this thread though. I just think there shouldn’t be any place on this forum for such a despicable sick human being. I’ll just leave it at that.
TheBrotherMario - 10 June 2012 08:13 AM
Now, gays certainly have made great contributions to fashion and such, and are, after all, human beings.
Answerer, I get what you and John are saying. But if the likes of Nick and Mario become bannable, is that the default position to take whenever some apologist becomes tedious? Doesn’t it drive you nuts that no atheist can openly speak on pro-theist forums? Don’t we become like them if we adopt a policy of banning annoying religionists and spiritualists?
I tend to take a more optimistic approach, and see Mario as comic relief. And Nick has become less annoying, it seems to me. Yes, I’m one of those optimists cited earlier by Avogadro’s Number. The alternative to making lemonade with lemons is to curse out the offender and suffer indigestion or blood-pressure spikes.
I really don’t think that Mario will persuade readers of anything, no matter how long he posts here. If we ban him, doesn’t that translate to us fearing him on some level? The religious forums fear us. We don’t fear them, do we?
Agreed. Such is the nature of religious disagreement when balanced with the implications of freedom (or lack thereof). Still, those guys suck fat horse genitals. And while I agree with you that BM and nick won’t pursued anyone of substance, some days I log on and it’s just sad that my little respite nook can become infested with such ignorant, emotionally disturbed dolts.
Ugh, I must need a coffee and a good roll in the hay to clean up my dejected day.
Thank you jobyrne and Sciguy for your expressions. Good people like yourselves is one reason I’m here. I am signing off of this thread though. I just think there shouldn’t be any place on this forum for such a despicable sick human being. I’ll just leave it at that.
TheBrotherMario - 10 June 2012 08:13 AM
Now, gays certainly have made great contributions to fashion and such, and are, after all, human beings.
Keep your head up, handsome man. And don’t leave on a negative note, here’s a joke:
Q: What do a gynecologist and pizza delivery boy have in common?
A: They can both smell it, but they can’t eat it.
One day, if you’re lucky, the world centered around your dick will all fall apart.
So that’s the impetus that got you to where you are now - caught up in a subjective and delusional “reality” which you share with god? So you lost your connection to your dick, Mario ... what’s really funny is that you replaced that with “the living god.” Now I know what they mean when they say that having an orgasm is like having a religious experience!
Now that Nick seems to have fallen off the face of the screen, let’s get down to some fun.
Problem is, this (and any future ones) is TheTwistedSister’s thread, which I have vowed off of. Since the topic has taken a turn, care to move this stuff to a new thread so I can participate?
Now that Nick seems to have fallen off the face of the screen, let’s get down to some fun. Relatively early in his career, Gurdjieff wrote a play called “Battle of the Magicians.” How do magicians fight? Is it with balls of fire and floods of water, whirlwinds of air and avalanches of earth? Not really. They cast spells. That is, they produce memeplexes—complex narratives that, from inside, seem to be true. Self-reinforcing narratives. Stories that can ensnare a person, leading them to view reality in only a particular way. The magician works not through direct control of material elements, but by controlling the way that other people see the world.
“The human mind is capable of views of reality and systems of explanation completely satisfactory and satisfying to one’s common sense and emotions even though they are utterly wrong. The brain automatically smooths over the logical or perceptual rough spots. Given an apparently reasonable explanation, small and large inconsistencies pale before the vividness and apparent harmony of the accepted view. Then there is no incentive for a reasonable person to question, to look beyond. In many cases it would even be emotionally or socially threatening to tamper with personal or social perceptions.” (Philip J. Regal, The Anatomy of Judgment, 1990, p.9)
“There is no incentive to agnosticism. All their beliefs hang together, and were a Zande to give up faith in witch-doctorhood he would have to surrender equally his faith in witchcraft and oracles…. In this web of belief, every strand depends upon every other strand, and a Zande cannot get out if its meshes because it is the only world he knows. The web is not an external structure in which he is enclosed. It is the texture of his thought and he cannot think that his thought is wrong.”E.E. Evans-Prichard (1937) Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic Among the Azande Oxford, Clarendon Press, p.194
There are lots of old and new memplexes of varying strength and scope floating about in the Cloud, contradicting each other, just sitting there waiting for young minds to infest. And people get caught up in them all the time and assume that whatever thought system they’ve taken on is universally valid. At present, science doesn’t have methods for dealing with this sort of idea. In part, this is teleological, particular ways of looking at the world are better for achieving specific goals and science doesn’t yet have methods to deal with teleology or with values. I had an interesting conversation about this a few days ago with my brother. He mentioned a tv program he’d seen recently where a Rabbi, a Priest, and a (supposed) Sufi had been on a panel. “I wanted to strangle him every time he started talking” my brother said, referring to the guy posing as a Sufi, “he never said anything but warmed over trivia, and he’d start off with ‘Well, the Sufis say….’ and then spout some platitude that was totally irrelevant. You can’t make generalizations like that. The only way to be accurate is to say something like: In this particular context, speaking to these particular people at a particular time, this person said…. Everything depends on time, place, and people and what is necessary given the circumstances. Otherwise all you’re doing is reinforcing fixed beliefs.”
So what seems worth talking about, rather than cave walls, vertical directions, and our wretched condition down here wallowing in a cave is what sort of educational methods are available, or can be developed to help people learn to avoid falling into fixed belief systems of any sort, without developing automatic mechanisms of rejection since a memeplex that is irrelevant at one time may become a necessary point of view at another time, under different conditions. Perhaps a useful place to start would be to look at the various tricks used by advertisers and opinion manipulators (modern magicians) to get people to buy their products. And, also at the aspects of a persons psychological makeup that leave us vulnerable to that sort of manipulation.
So what seems worth talking about, rather than cave walls, vertical directions, and our wretched condition down here wallowing in a cave is what sort of educational methods are available, or can be developed to help people learn to avoid falling into fixed belief systems of any sort, without developing automatic mechanisms of rejection since a memeplex that is irrelevant at one time may become a necessary point of view at another time, under different conditions. Perhaps a useful place to start would be to look at the various tricks used by advertisers and opinion manipulators (modern magicians) to get people to buy their products. And, also at the aspects of a persons psychological makeup that leave us vulnerable to that sort of manipulation
Even though it has been brought up countless times you just refuse the obvious. You’re probably best off just leaving it alone.
Now that Nick seems to have fallen off the face of the screen, let’s get down to some fun.
Problem is, this (and any future ones) is TheTwistedSister’s thread, which I have vowed off of. Since the topic has taken a turn, care to move this stuff to a new thread so I can participate?
You remind me of one of those religious fundamentalists who assert they are too pure to be in regular company yet when no one is looking: heh heh heh.
Now that Nick seems to have fallen off the face of the screen, let’s get down to some fun.
Problem is, this (and any future ones) is TheTwistedSister’s thread, which I have vowed off of. Since the topic has taken a turn, care to move this stuff to a new thread so I can participate?
And so you shall…
If The A’s or the O’s or the BM step in it, they will be suspended.
Now that Nick seems to have fallen off the face of the screen, let’s get down to some fun.
Problem is, this (and any future ones) is TheTwistedSister’s thread, which I have vowed off of. Since the topic has taken a turn, care to move this stuff to a new thread so I can participate?
You remind me of one of those religious fundamentalists who assert they are too pure to be in regular company yet when no one is looking: heh heh heh.
Why don’t you start a new thread also? I’ll be more than happy to engage you, though you’re not regular company.
Now that Nick seems to have fallen off the face of the screen, let’s get down to some fun.
Problem is, this (and any future ones) is TheTwistedSister’s thread, which I have vowed off of. Since the topic has taken a turn, care to move this stuff to a new thread so I can participate?
And so you shall…
If The A’s or the O’s or the BM step in it, they will be suspended.
Is that crystal clear?
And you my friend can shove it as they say “where the sun don’t shine. ” Bigotry and narrowmindedness in whatever form is equally offensive. I’ve learned what was necessary to learn here. The ugliness of dominant narrowmindedness doesn’t have to be vivified.
And you my friend can shove as they say “where the sun don’t shine. ” Bigotry and narrowmindedness in whatever form is equally offensive. I’ve learned what was necessary to learn here. The ugliness of dominant narrowmindedness doesn’t have to be vivified.
