Ben No.3 Posted September 30, 2017 Share Posted September 30, 2017 Because atheism is a religion *wink wink* I didn't think it was since they didn't believe in a higher power or the afterlife but after doing deeper research and conversing among aethiests themsleves, it seems to me that the absense of a god or afterlife is the very thing that ironically classifies it as a religeon, for if there is no judgment awaiting to condemn you then there is no need for a conscience, morality and surely sin does not exist, the concepts of good and evil are thrown out the window. Aetheism is so interesting and it's definitely unique but even in the absense of all things, it still defines itself by general religeous traits. It wasn't until I started learning about it out of sheer curiousity and the more that I saw how aetheists claimed that it wasn't, the more that evidence proved otherwise. I have quite a few friends who are aethiests so the topic of aetheism always fascinated me - though never shook my faith as a Christian. Thus, you may find this a good read: https://strangenotions.com/is-atheism-a-religion/ ^At which explains much better than I ever could on a thread or forum. I'll do my best to answer elaborately. You deserve it. Please also note that I can, of course, only speak for myself. My proposal is that God does not exist. This is part of a scientific world view, but I can't really prove anything but the absence of proof. Philosophically however, the core is a rejection of god, not a belief in his non existence. You see, even if God should exist, I would not alter my stance on wether to follow him. Essentially, I see a few important aspects of God that make me not want to follow him. 1. Following god does not allow for morality. 2. Following god makes you inherently unfree. Let's handle this one after the other. Firstly, we can not have morality if we follow god. Mortality is a societal product. It is essentially little more than the way we organise society. And of course, this changes over time, but the important part is that firstly, the final justification for morality is us ourselves and secondly, we might adapt it if we see fit to. We do not need a god to justify morality, because it doesn't change anything. Essentially, we need to belief in the notion of morality, and this is all morality needs to exist. If we, as a society, have constructed a certain fabric, we can pretend like it has some divine justification for existing; but really the reason it is a sustainable system is because we at least tolerate it. As a logical consequence: of morality depends on our toleration, we can always change whatever we perceive as morally right. Now, we can examine the way our morality functions further. At the core, we seem to be a big believer in what you might call "slave morality". That is, the notion that the exploitation of one human by another is inherently wrong; we tend to sympathise with the slaves, not the owners; but at least the slaves themselves side with themselves. Because the slaves firstly have the numbers and secondly the society they live in depends on them, their notions of what is right will, eventually, win over. Translate "slave" into whatever the lower class of a society is, and this pattern emerges further. "For Freedom's battle once begun, // Bequeathed by bleeding Sire to Son, // Though baffled oft is ever won" is a true statement. You might argue that the problem is that our owns understanding of morality is deeply shaped by the society we grow up in and that therefore, we aren't really free. This is true for an individual. On a societal level however, we are much less confined. What limits a society's ability to develop morality, i.e. a certain way of organising itself, is the conditions in which it exists and the technological progress it has archived. Within this room, a society is, more or less, free to develop in any given way. And so we are free as a whole to develop and live by a certain morality; even though only little of that freedom is carried down to the individual level. But we do, individually, have the ability to decide to follow a society's morality or to advocate for a different one. And because, to a lesser or greater degree, everyone does this, we have the ability to collectively produce morality, ideally as the harmonical sum of few people's understandings and ideals. If we assume that we would follow an existing God, this would no longer apply. Should this be true, we would not be developing our morality over time and in accordance with the circumstances, but we would submit entirely to a higher being and it's essentially random commands. Claiming that god gives morality is like saying giving a robber your money if he holds a gun at you is a free decision. You never had a real choice, and it is ridiculous to say that it was one. Saying that morality can only exist with god is simply the highest degree of submission; a dedicated refusal to make an effort to think freely. This of course does not apply to most cases. Indeed, rarely anyone actually follows their gods commands; they fend to follow primarily what they see fit to follow and then try to base it on god on what is ultimately just a rhetorical level. Aside from ordering you what to do, god tends to reward you with an afterlife, if you chose to follow him. The notion of an afterlife seems attractive to many, because it caters to the idea that life has a meaning. And more generally, the notion of a meaning of life is widely accepted. This notion has, to a lesser degree, the exact same problem as the belief in a god. If life has a meaning, all your actions suddenly become actually meaningful. And trust me, that is not something you would want. It would place an incredible burden on us, not directly forcing us but definitely causing us to act with extreme caution, and it would cause us to refuse any sort of experimentation within our lives, simply because it would be too risky. A meaning of life would confine us to a very large degree, we would be left with very little room, i.e. intellectual and practical room, to move in without the crushing fear of missing the meaning. Through this, it would also kill any notable form of individuality for the same reason. The idea of the meaning of life is a remainder of more religious times, but it is just as much a cage as religion is. Just my two cents. Everybody knows the deal is rotten Old Black Joe's still pickin' cotton For your ribbons and bows And everybody knows Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guard Dog Posted September 30, 2017 Share Posted September 30, 2017 Everyone please re-read post 690. That is a spot on anlaysis of Donald Trump and done in less than 300 words. "While it is true you learn with age, the down side is what you often learn is what a damn fool you were before" Thomas Sowell Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
injurai Posted September 30, 2017 Share Posted September 30, 2017 @Gromnir I agree with what you've said. I agree that what you describe is one of the many failings by which people approach Trump, perhaps the essential one. I certainly don't mean to do the same, so let me expand. You choose to speak of Trump holistically, I wanted to point out a factor of him and called it half. Trump is a confidence man and his brand is part of what he uses to sell people on him. The other half is that he is a creature of the swamp. By not stating the other half, I can see where one may see room left open to suggest he operates with Machiavellian clarity. The truth of the matter is the other half is the swamp, and the swamp is a Machiavellian engine unto itself. He need not hold any capabilities beyond that of your average college graduate. Here merely needs access to pulleys and leavers that most will never have access to, the Machiavellian machine. The amount of poor and brilliant mathematicians that have gone to automate the large wealth transferring machines of the banks sits under Trump as his foundation. I prefer to think of Trump in halves because it illuminates a reality to his presence at society. He wants the public to see him holistically, and he wants to govern what that whole is. For those to ignore what's behind the curtain. What's beneath the tip of the iceberg. Below the pompous brand and persona is a shrewd entitled megalomaniac. Many see it, but the game is to turn those people into liars at the scale of public opinion. It's the game of brands. To convince us that the half is the whole. We'd never buy a half rotten apple, but put yourself between people and you can convince one half that you are ripe. The way elections go, he didn't need to convince even half. As he spins and pivots more come to know his grotesque form, but fresh apples won't be in season for another 3 years. People forgot he was a brand, and the brand won. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IndiraLightfoot Posted September 30, 2017 Share Posted September 30, 2017 @Injurai: Yup! Screaming spoiled brat on top, and then a huge concealed monster underneath in murky depths. 1 *** "The words of someone who feels ever more the ent among saplings when playing CRPGs" *** Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Volourn Posted September 30, 2017 Share Posted September 30, 2017 (edited) The sad thing is despite all Trump's failings (and there is lots) he was still a superior candidate than Clinton. And, no, Kalifornians' opinion to the contrary don't count. Edited September 30, 2017 by Volourn 2 DWARVES IN PROJECT ETERNITY = VOLOURN HAS PLEDGED $250. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Malcador Posted September 30, 2017 Share Posted September 30, 2017 And now he's on a Puerto Rican mayor for some reason. Why has elegance found so little following? Elegance has the disadvantage that hard work is needed to achieve it and a good education to appreciate it. - Edsger Wybe Dijkstra Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ben No.3 Posted September 30, 2017 Share Posted September 30, 2017 So on a scale from Trump to Darwin, how true is this? Everybody knows the deal is rotten Old Black Joe's still pickin' cotton For your ribbons and bows And everybody knows Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chilloutman Posted October 1, 2017 Share Posted October 1, 2017 well kinda like this: I'm the enemy, 'cause I like to think, I like to read. I'm into freedom of speech, and freedom of choice. I'm the kinda guy that likes to sit in a greasy spoon and wonder, "Gee, should I have the T-bone steak or the jumbo rack of barbecue ribs with the side-order of gravy fries?" I want high cholesterol! I wanna eat bacon, and butter, and buckets of cheese, okay?! I wanna smoke a Cuban cigar the size of Cincinnati in the non-smoking section! I wanna run naked through the street, with green Jell-O all over my body, reading Playboy magazine. Why? Because I suddenly may feel the need to, okay, pal? I've SEEN the future. Do you know what it is? It's a 47-year-old virgin sitting around in his beige pajamas, drinking a banana-broccoli shake, singing "I'm an Oscar Meyer Wiene" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gromnir Posted October 1, 2017 Share Posted October 1, 2017 https://www.facebook.com/USAFA.Official/videos/10155254479673853/ video speaks for itself, though we suspect some folks will object to the message. HA! Good Fun! 7 "If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence."Justice Louis Brandeis, Concurring, Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357 (1927) "Im indifferent to almost any murder as long as it doesn't affect me or mine."--Gfted1 (September 30, 2019) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Namutree Posted October 1, 2017 Share Posted October 1, 2017 https://www.facebook.com/USAFA.Official/videos/10155254479673853/ video speaks for itself, though we suspect some folks will object to the message. HA! Good Fun! I hate that guy's voice. That said, his notion that the correct response to a bad idea is a better idea, is spot on. "Good thing I don't heal my characters or they'd be really hurt." Is not something I should ever be thinking. I use blue text when I'm being sarcastic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Orogun01 Posted October 1, 2017 Share Posted October 1, 2017 https://www.facebook.com/USAFA.Official/videos/10155254479673853/ video speaks for itself, though we suspect some folks will object to the message. HA! Good Fun! I don't object to the message I just think it childish to hold a rally because someone said ****. This is the military, I would expect they would have thicker skin. 1 I'd say the answer to that question is kind of like the answer to "who's the sucker in this poker game?"* *If you can't tell, it's you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HoonDing Posted October 1, 2017 Share Posted October 1, 2017 WOW, Spain is the new Turkey! The ending of the words is ALMSIVI. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
injurai Posted October 1, 2017 Share Posted October 1, 2017 It's was held because the military serves the people and being volunteer based their biggest selling point is moving people up economically and offering them a career out of serving the nation. They have a responsibility to uphold fair standards and be transparent. Given our current social times, now is not the time to send mixed messaging with non-transparent internal procedures. They want to make a strong clear statement and move on. I don't understand what is childish about anything there, one of the more sensible and adult stands I've seen taken for a while. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gfted1 Posted October 1, 2017 Share Posted October 1, 2017 Back when I was in the Navy, females were forbidden from serving aboard combat vessels. So ronely. "I'm your biggest fan, Ill follow you until you love me, Papa" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Malcador Posted October 1, 2017 Share Posted October 1, 2017 https://www.facebook.com/USAFA.Official/videos/10155254479673853/ video speaks for itself, though we suspect some folks will object to the message. HA! Good Fun! I don't object to the message I just think it childish to hold a rally because someone said ****. This is the military, I would expect they would have thicker skin. Is at an academy, so seems ok to have an assembly to yell at everyone. Good optics as well. Why has elegance found so little following? Elegance has the disadvantage that hard work is needed to achieve it and a good education to appreciate it. - Edsger Wybe Dijkstra Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Orogun01 Posted October 1, 2017 Share Posted October 1, 2017 https://www.facebook.com/USAFA.Official/videos/10155254479673853/ video speaks for itself, though we suspect some folks will object to the message. HA! Good Fun! I don't object to the message I just think it childish to hold a rally because someone said ****. This is the military, I would expect they would have thicker skin. Is at an academy, so seems ok to have an assembly to yell at everyone. Good optics as well. I just find it quaint that the people going to drop bombs on middle easterners to serve the Zionists oligarchs, care about political correctness. But then again societies tend to be very hypocritical about their values; bread and circuses and all that. I'd say the answer to that question is kind of like the answer to "who's the sucker in this poker game?"* *If you can't tell, it's you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
injurai Posted October 1, 2017 Share Posted October 1, 2017 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/catalonia-independence-referendum-vote-protests-barcelona-madrid-police-guardia-civil-a7976556.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BruceVC Posted October 1, 2017 Share Posted October 1, 2017 Back when I was in the Navy, females were forbidden from serving aboard combat vessels. So ronely. Its okay Gfted1, I can completely understand you finding comfort temporarily in the arms of other crewmen....Im sure everyone did it back then. No judgement from my side "Abashed the devil stood and felt how awful goodness is and saw Virtue in her shape how lovely: and pined his loss” John Milton "We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.” - George Bernard Shaw "What counts in life is not the mere fact that we have lived. It is what difference we have made to the lives of others that will determine the significance of the life we lead" - Nelson Mandela Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Volourn Posted October 1, 2017 Share Posted October 1, 2017 So.. Spain is becoming a Nazi state. DWARVES IN PROJECT ETERNITY = VOLOURN HAS PLEDGED $250. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zoraptor Posted October 1, 2017 Share Posted October 1, 2017 (edited) Fascist state, maybe. After all, the logo of the Guarda Civil has literal fasces, and (iirc) somewhat bizarrely it was changed to that after Generalissimo Fransisco Franco had died. Hard to think of a dumber response from Madrid, they managed to turn a referendum that would have had the double negative of a low turn out and (at best) tepid support for secession- and which could thus be easily ignored- into a matter of pride where a low turn out can be blamed on repression and voting against Madrid is a matter of pride and resistance. And it's an issue that will be repeatedly revisited now and has exposed the still festering wounds of the Civil War. Utterly moronic. It's not like a referendum would have put the issue fully to bed, but continually seeking to reiterate the issue after a vote has not been great electorally, per the SNP and the Bloc. Edited October 1, 2017 by Zoraptor Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HoonDing Posted October 1, 2017 Share Posted October 1, 2017 Mama Merkel will be ordering the bombing of Guernica Girona next week The ending of the words is ALMSIVI. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Agiel Posted October 1, 2017 Share Posted October 1, 2017 (edited) https://www.facebook.com/USAFA.Official/videos/10155254479673853/ video speaks for itself, though we suspect some folks will object to the message. HA! Good Fun! I don't object to the message I just think it childish to hold a rally because someone said ****. This is the military, I would expect they would have thicker skin. At the minimum you must not have spoken with any actual combat veterans, or read many soldiers' memoirs, or seen many war movies. Unlike other professions where trust in the person beside you and the ability to act cohesively and harmoniously are big pluses, in the military profession they become functional requirements for _survival_. Edited October 1, 2017 by Agiel Quote “Political philosophers have often pointed out that in wartime, the citizen, the male citizen at least, loses one of his most basic rights, his right to life; and this has been true ever since the French Revolution and the invention of conscription, now an almost universally accepted principle. But these same philosophers have rarely noted that the citizen in question simultaneously loses another right, one just as basic and perhaps even more vital for his conception of himself as a civilized human being: the right not to kill.” -Jonathan Littell <<Les Bienveillantes>> Quote "The chancellor, the late chancellor, was only partly correct. He was obsolete. But so is the State, the entity he worshipped. Any state, entity, or ideology becomes obsolete when it stockpiles the wrong weapons: when it captures territories, but not minds; when it enslaves millions, but convinces nobody. When it is naked, yet puts on armor and calls it faith, while in the Eyes of God it has no faith at all. Any state, any entity, any ideology that fails to recognize the worth, the dignity, the rights of Man...that state is obsolete." -Rod Serling Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Orogun01 Posted October 1, 2017 Share Posted October 1, 2017 https://www.facebook.com/USAFA.Official/videos/10155254479673853/ video speaks for itself, though we suspect some folks will object to the message. HA! Good Fun! I don't object to the message I just think it childish to hold a rally because someone said ****. This is the military, I would expect they would have thicker skin. At the minimum you must not have spoken with any actual combat veterans, or read many soldiers' memoirs, or seen many war movies. Unlike other professions where trust in the person beside you and the ability to act cohesively and harmoniously are big pluses, in the military profession they become functional requirements for _survival_. I also know that they don't become emotionally invested in someone that might not be alive next week. Psychopathy is a big thing among troops; part of the job even, you have to be able to clear a room and step over the corpses without lingering. Also, where the **** do you get off quoting war movies as a reliable source? I'd say the answer to that question is kind of like the answer to "who's the sucker in this poker game?"* *If you can't tell, it's you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Malcador Posted October 1, 2017 Share Posted October 1, 2017 https://www.facebook.com/USAFA.Official/videos/10155254479673853/ video speaks for itself, though we suspect some folks will object to the message. HA! Good Fun! I don't object to the message I just think it childish to hold a rally because someone said ****. This is the military, I would expect they would have thicker skin.Is at an academy, so seems ok to have an assembly to yell at everyone. Good optics as well. I just find it quaint that the people going to drop bombs on middle easterners to serve the Zionists oligarchs, care about political correctness. But then again societies tend to be very hypocritical about their values; bread and circuses and all that. Well it is funny of sorts but all organizations want to avoid overt discord. Why has elegance found so little following? Elegance has the disadvantage that hard work is needed to achieve it and a good education to appreciate it. - Edsger Wybe Dijkstra Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Orogun01 Posted October 1, 2017 Share Posted October 1, 2017 https://www.facebook.com/USAFA.Official/videos/10155254479673853/ video speaks for itself, though we suspect some folks will object to the message. HA! Good Fun! I don't object to the message I just think it childish to hold a rally because someone said ****. This is the military, I would expect they would have thicker skin.Is at an academy, so seems ok to have an assembly to yell at everyone. Good optics as well.I just find it quaint that the people going to drop bombs on middle easterners to serve the Zionists oligarchs, care about political correctness. But then again societies tend to be very hypocritical about their values; bread and circuses and all that. Well it is funny of sorts but all organizations want to avoid overt discord. I am aware of the why, is the how that bothers me. Rallies, no matter where they're held are indicative of the divide between workers and management. You'd think they wouldn't want to announce or make a big deal of it, this all reeks of preemptive apologizing. Which as any organization that has dealt with SJW culture will tell you, is pointless. I'd say the answer to that question is kind of like the answer to "who's the sucker in this poker game?"* *If you can't tell, it's you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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