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Visionary Tools



Registered: 06/23/07
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This thing I read here a while ago
#15832583 - 02/19/12 02:40 PM (12 years, 13 days ago) |
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Was a rather well constructed argument of why fires are bad, it listed all the negative aspects on health and the environment.
It's point was to compare that argument which is not popular, to religion, which to some is popular, to others is not. Religion in this case being things people go to church for and talk about how it improves their life. I could make a point that nearly everyone I know is part of the religion of authority, this false belief that someone has power (authority) over you or someone else. And religion is to bind, religament, or relegare, if you'll excuse my flimsy grasp of latin. And you can see in that case that religion certainly binds people into a way of thinking but this is not in the scope of the point I want to make.
Here it is: Fire, and religion. Both have arguments against them. Both of these arguments are plausible and convincing. Both are wrong, because they conflict with my personal experience. And if life and science has taught me anything, it's that experiments I conduct myself, events which I witness for myself, rather than hear from someone else, this is the best source of information and the most truthful.
What does my experience of religion and fire teach me? With the latter, it's that it smells good, feels good, makes people sociable, and boy does food cooked on it taste better. The best meals of my life have been cooked over a fire, and I'm including those meals I have consumed in Michelin starred restaurants, they're nice but lacking the touch of a wood or coal smoking fire.
With the former, religion, my experience I'll list three examples: My nan, who is the most pious person I know, is not that happy for it. She's very good on the ritual, but not at all good with the curiosity and wonder one should have about the world around us and beyond. I used to put it down to the language barrier, but I speak French well enough to know that it's not that.
With the second, a church I frequent, I was sitting by myself and praying. This one time I met a chap, a simpleton by anyone's standards, but he was spiritual. He had been blessed with a faith that touched my very heart and gave me hope in humanity and strengthened my faith.
The final example is all the people I met in jail. There are those that went to chapel, and of those, they were the reasonable people. People I wouldn't mind (and ended up) sharing a pad with. There were those that went to chapel to do cross wing deals, fair enough. But most went there because they were looking for salvation and redemption in one fashion or another. There were some good sorts who didn't go to church, and I spoke to them. One of them taught me guitar, another, confused and tormented as he was, helped me out a lot, and connected me to the one that let me borrow his guitar so I could learn.
Now, I contrast this with my historical knowledge of religion and fire. Wars have been fought in it's name over countless places and times, and fire has been used for the most terrible of weapons. And yet, my personal experiences tell me there's something that's not compatible with this his-story.
Do any of the famous religious leaders of the world strike you as good spiritual beings? Do you think that pope, ordering a genocide of the French, when told "but your holyness, some of those French are Catholic." "Burn them all, let god sort his own." does this strike you as someone that is full of the holy spirit, trying to live as Jesus taught us to?
I don't know what my conclusion is on this. I had to write this down before I fell asleep. That arguement about fire got under my skin. I really like fire, and I really like the power of prayer.
Ok, I got my conclusion: I want you to think. I want you to think when someone presents a convincing argument, I want you to remember what you have experienced, and to compare it to what's being said. Too many just react these days, or worse, provoke and antagonise. Better to just think.
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Diploid
Cuban



Registered: 01/09/03
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Loc: Rabbit Hole
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And if life and science has taught me anything, it's that experiments I conduct myself, events which I witness for myself, rather than hear from someone else, this is the best source of information and the most truthful.
I don't buy this for one second.
It's a well-established fact that humans make terrible eye witnesses. We delude ourselves, sometimes with the best of intentions. A common theme in any courtroom is an honest eye witness giving what he considers 100% solid testimony only to be wholesale contradicted when video recorded evidence turns up later in the trial. The witness is often taken aback at how completely wrong their testimony turned out to be despite their complete certainty until they saw the video evidence for themselves.
Given that, how can you lend so much weight to what only you have experienced that no one outside your head can confirm? It's the height of arrogance to think that what you experience is more substantive than what can be experienced by a different unrelated people attempting to observe the same thing (what science does).
A big problem with faith, as I see it, is exactly what you seem to have experienced. It creates two people who both intend to do good, one of which humbly cares for the less fortunate and another who orders mass executions. Both in the name of good (god).
It's completely arbitrary because personal experience is eye-witness testimony and therefore hopelessly flawed. By recognizing this failing of human psychology and switching to an evidence-based reproducible observational model (read science) someone trying to do good would never do bad in spite of his best intentions. Everyone would be working off the same set of KNOWLEDGE that can be objectively observed rather than a scattershot of arbitrary BELIEFS that lead to everything from caring for the less fortunate to inflicting war on them, both with good intentions.
-------------------- Republican Values: 1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you. 2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child. 3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer. 4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.
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Sacklome

Registered: 12/07/10
Posts: 138
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Religions are sets of beliefs that have definite answers, they are either wrong or right, a fire cannot be 'wrong'. I know you meant ethically but I do think it's related, because the same thing applies to morality. Religions contain moral guidelines and therefore can be wrong. With the fire you have to jump to the peoples use of the fire to call wrong.
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crkhd
☾☼☽

Registered: 12/28/08
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Loc: A human sphere enfolding ...
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Re: This thing I read here a while ago [Re: Sacklome]
#15833409 - 02/19/12 05:45 PM (12 years, 13 days ago) |
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Ironically, even if you set up an experiment and you reproduce a set of results, the only actual evidence you *still* have is personal experience aka "eyewitness testimony". Sure, it's more consistent than people's self-deceptions but don't act as if science is somehow untouchable, it's just as prone to human error - in that both a person's eyewitness may be in error or that a person's understanding of the experimental data can be in error even as it appears to be obvious fact and widely accepted as truth.
Personal experience is reproducible too. The human body is a piece of measuring apparatus in itself, even if it is not as precise & consistent as lab equipment.
While beliefs will never shine a light to verifiable truth, there is just as much dogma in scientific circles nowadays. The scientific method is perfectly reliable and trustworthy as long as it ACTUALLY is the scientific method - when vested interests and lobbyists get involved, it drops to the same level of horseshit as religion.
-------------------- "Everything there is, and all that there is, is a Pattern of unspeakable proportion. The Pattern contains everything that is, completely fixed in succession, all the minimal particles interconnected in every way that is. Every way that is is not every conceivable way, because not everything that can be conceived is manifest in the pattern." "THE Human, you, is a miniscule but essential part of that pattern. In it lies complete fulfillment. It will never become something it is not, but it will never need to be anything else." - Wiccan_Seeker "If boring drudgery was the way of the universe, everything would have killed itself long ago." - Spacerific
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Diploid
Cuban



Registered: 01/09/03
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Re: This thing I read here a while ago [Re: crkhd]
#15833493 - 02/19/12 06:03 PM (12 years, 13 days ago) |
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if you set up an experiment and you reproduce a set of results, the only actual evidence you *still* have is personal experience aka "eyewitness testimony".
Not exactly. You have eyewitness testimony that is the same among ALL of us. That's the difference. Faith gives 10 different people 10 different contradicting perceptions. Reproducible experiments gives 10 different people THE SAME consistent perception.
Once again, this is why we have people doing god's will by blowing themselves up in crowds of children and other people doing god's will by feeding and caring for hungry children. It's why we have religious wars where each side is convinced that god is on their side. It's why we live in such a fucked up world.
-------------------- Republican Values: 1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you. 2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child. 3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer. 4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.
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Visionary Tools



Registered: 06/23/07
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Re: This thing I read here a while ago [Re: Diploid]
#15838129 - 02/20/12 03:08 PM (12 years, 12 days ago) |
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It is arrogance is it? I've always felt it's more self belief. I believe in myself and what I have experienced more than second and third hand sources.
If I don't believe in myself, then what should I believe in? Experts on telly? No, I'll keep believing myself.
As for faith. I'm not so sure. I have faith in myself. I have faith in a creator that is within and without. I have faith in others, some. I feel pity for the rest (somedays I feel contempt, but then I let that reaction pass as I don't want to be a bastard my entire life).
But what force drives those to mass murder, calling for "kill them all, god will sort them out?" These people are psychopaths, unable to feel any empathy for any other living being. These psychopaths realise that in order to function in society they must become good actors, they study others to see how to respond. Can these people have faith? I don't know. After some very difficult soul searching I can say I'm not psychopathic. I have a friend who is. I'm glad I know him because despite his flaw, he's not an evil man, although certainly is capable of doing immoral acts without remorse.
I don't really have a point to this. I don't know nor do I want to know the inner workings of a psychopathic mind, beyond knowing how to spot one. The arguement "faith makes people kill" is total fucking bollocks. I know this. Anyone, excluding psychopaths and the mentally deranged know that there are three natural laws.
Don't kill (taking a life which is not yours) Don't steal (taking that which is not yours) Don't trespass (both someone's private space, or the violation of rape)
And yet, good people kill all the time, in countless wars. We know murder is wrong, and most of the time it is treated as a serious crime. Some go so far as to say kill those that have killed, but two wrongs don't make a right. All it does is make people that havent killed killers. Same with war. Kids go in, get broken down, get trained to kill without hesitation (because last thing you want is a solider who goes "hey, that man I am aiming at is a man just like me, why am I doing this?", hesitates, then gets shot whilst hesitating). Murder is wrong, and yet, somehow, it's overlooked when it comes to war.
It's always bothered me. So it's ok to kill when psychopathic warlords sayso, but it's not ok to kill any other time? No. I know in my heart that murder is wrong every single time. I know if someone is tresspassing in my house that murdering them is wrong (but in self defense, I'd still do it. Hey, id they didn't want to die then they should of thought of that before trespassing). It's never right. Even in self defense, as the attacker is in the wrong, and is doubly wrong for making the defender fight back, and in some cases killing the attacker.
It just bothers me when people say things like
Quote:
A big problem with faith, as I see it, is exactly what you seem to have experienced. It creates two people who both intend to do good, one of which humbly cares for the less fortunate and another who orders mass executions. Both in the name of good (god).
No. In one case you have a normal human being, who has faith in humanity and themselves and a god, or creator, or no god or creator. These are people that even if they do something bad that causes harm, will seek to avoid doing that in the future. Not always, but those sort of people end up destroying themselves. Veterans of past wars come to mind.
Then you have total psychopaths. They want to better themselves, to be king at any cost, even if all they end up with is a kingdom of ashes and a throne of skulls. That's why you have warlords in africa with shitty houses and crappy pickup trucks, but they are king because everyone else still alive is living in mud huts and shacks and can't even afford shoes. Their only belief is in themself, their drug of choice power.
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Diploid
Cuban



Registered: 01/09/03
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Loc: Rabbit Hole
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It is arrogance is it? I've always felt it's more self belief.
Yeah, that's what I call it when someone thinks their eye-witness account is better than everyone else's despite the fact that eye-witness accounts are almost always substantially wrong and often completely wrong.
Double that when multiple eye-witnesses (faithful people) differ so profoundly in their accounts of the same thing that entire populations go to war over the differences.
Arrogance, yeah.
don't know nor do I want to know the inner workings of a psychopathic mind
More arrogance right there, yeah. Those who you call psychopathic call themselves faithful fulfilling god's wishes. They also call YOU the psychopath. From where I sit, you both sound EXACTLY alike.
-------------------- Republican Values: 1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you. 2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child. 3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer. 4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.
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Icelander
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Re: This thing I read here a while ago [Re: Diploid]
#15838740 - 02/20/12 05:24 PM (12 years, 12 days ago) |
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you so funny guy what, point out such silly post.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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Jwlst
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Re: This thing I read here a while ago [Re: Icelander]
#15839274 - 02/20/12 06:57 PM (12 years, 12 days ago) |
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I used to own a massive tank, of which I spawn ant colonies and deliberalty started wars between them by inducing famines, floods, fires etc. After that I kind of understand why if there was a god, wars would still exist.
Afterall, apparently I am made in his image and planet earth is just his ant tank, each country simply another colony of ants.

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