News:

if there were no need for 'engineers from the quantum plenum' then we should not have any unanswered scientific questions.

Main Menu

Recent posts

#31
Religion / Re: Christian Nonduality
Last post by Me_Be - March 22, 2024, 10:02:12 AM
Quote from: zorkan on March 21, 2024, 10:47:31 AM
Quote from: Me_Be on March 19, 2024, 02:51:08 PMOf course it's a belief. It's a stories based on a character named Jesus who claims to be the son of God.

If I say David Icke is the son of god, would that be a belief, or would it be bullshit?

https://news.sky.com/story/who-is-david-icke-the-conspiracy-theorist-who-claims-he-is-the-son-of-god-11982406

The point I'm making is that there are some people in the world who believe the story that is written in the Bible to be God's word. And that Jesus was the son of God.
That's all I'm trying to say here. The Belief is always prior to any valid or invalidation of it.

People have their beliefs whether they are seen by others as BS or not, the belief is held regardless.

Children have beliefs about Father Christmas, they really love the idea. Their belief about (Santa) was planted in them from birth by their parents and family. Adult human beings who know better, that the belief is a LIE continue to perpetuate the lie by wanting to keep it alive as and through their offspring.

And the reason why I think this happens is because none of us can really know our creator in the same context a machine can never know it's creator. And so we make-believe our beliefs because the alternative is just too unbelievable, we seem to be naturally wired to want to know things, there is an aching longing in the human heart for knowledge, as if we do not like to Never Not-know.

Another example of (belief) is the belief we all die. Our death is a belief too, and yet none of us have ever experienced the experience of death, it's simply a belief, but have no absolute idea about what it means to die.

It's all very mysterious because it certainly feels like I am alive, and yet there was a time when I did not exist, and so I can say to myself, ''who am I right now''  knowing right now that there was a time where I did not exist. And knowing I once did not exist seems like death to me now, so death is a strange concept then, insofar as how could I have been dead if I know that I am alive right here and now? That question is unanswerable, in my opinion.



 
#32
Life As An Atheist / Re: Does atheism have anything...
Last post by Asmodean - March 22, 2024, 07:11:58 AM
Quote from: Skeptik on March 22, 2024, 03:31:31 AMI was speaking of having a better life after this one.  We don't look forward to that.
Indeed. I like to think that "this being it" makes this more precious, even when it hurts.
#33
Life As An Atheist / Re: Does atheism have anything...
Last post by billy rubin - March 22, 2024, 03:58:09 AM
yes.
#34
Life As An Atheist / Re: Does atheism have anything...
Last post by Skeptik - March 22, 2024, 03:31:31 AM
Quote from: Asmodean on March 13, 2024, 08:35:11 AMNothing wrong with a speck of constructive necromancy.

I must disagree with you that "we" have nothing to die for - we absolutely may have causes to both live, die and kill for, just like everyone else. Not having one's priorities codified by scripture does not remove the priorities themselves.

For example, many a parent would die for their child if the circumstances so dictated - atheist or no. If the upside of [the action that leads to] you no longer existing is greater than the downside... Therein lies the mental calculus.


I think I worded my thought wrong.
There are certainly priorities that many place higher than their own lives, our children being one of those.
I was speaking of having a better life after this one.  We don't look forward to that.

Quote from: billy rubin on March 13, 2024, 12:01:06 PMwhy cant atheists believe in an afterlife?

I suppose they can.  I certainly don't speak for us all.  Even atheists can have outlandish ideas.
I'm sure there's an atheist somewhere who thinks pineapple belongs on a pizza.  SMH
#35
Politics / Re: Dominionists in the United...
Last post by Dark Lightning - March 22, 2024, 02:11:58 AM
^ Those people have issues, and I hope that they don't prevail.
#36
Politics / Re: Dominionists in the United...
Last post by Recusant - March 22, 2024, 12:16:02 AM
Correlation and perhaps some causation.  ;)






First, get their Cyrus back into office, then on to the Seven Mountains . . .

For reference: Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise (PDF) | Heritage Foundation

"Decoding Project 2025's Christian Nationalist language" | Salon

QuoteIn George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, characters engage in doublespeak, a way of distorting language to obscure its true meaning. Christian Nationalists have mastered their own doublespeak. Nowhere is this more apparent than when reading Project 2025, the conservative Heritage Foundation's manifesto for transforming our government into a Christo-fascist regime.

Christian Nationalists are taught to be "in the world but not of it." This means they are called to live alongside the world's non-Christians, but they are called to remain separate and apart from secular behavior and influence. One way they attempt to remain apart is with language. They speak in a language I call Evangelicalese. I grew up in the world of Christian Nationalism. Evangelicalese was my second language.

By studying Project 2025 and the specific language Christian Nationalist politicians use, we can translate the words they say into what those words really mean to them. A Christian Nationalist's use of a word or phrase may mean something very different to someone outside their community. It is vital to grasp what Christian Nationalists mean when they say things. because they deploy Evangelicalese to hide extreme positions in plain sight.

Nowhere is this more apparent than when reading Project 2025.

On pornography

QuotePornography should be outlawed. The people who produce and distribute it should be imprisoned. Educators and public librarians who purvey it should be classed as registered sex offenders. And telecommunications and technology firms that facilitate its spread should be shuttered.
- Project 2025, [page 5 of PDF]

To many media outlets, this was a throwaway paragraph. Why would anyone make more of it? The average American understands pornography generally includes mediums like adult websites, adult films, fetish sites and similar.

To a Christian Nationalist, pornography means those things, but it also means a lot more.

House Speaker Mike Johnson has called homosexuality pornography. Oklahoma state representative Tom Woods has deemed transgenderism to be filth, a stand-in word for pornography. A Florida school pulled images of Michelangelo's David because parents considered it to be pornographic.

Is an artist who paints a nude artwork a pornographer? What about a romance author who writes racy love scenes? Or a columnist like Dan Savage who pens sex advice? A Christian Nationalist's definition of pornography goes far beyond what the rest of the country considers to be porn. This difference matters because they intend to imprison creators and consumers of anything they consider to be pornography.

[. . .]

Orwell understood that the manipulation of language is an insidious tool of autocracies. Christian Nationalists have been working for decades to pollute the discourse as a means to power and control. The future of American democracy depends upon understanding what Christian Nationalists mean when they say things. It is vital to drill down into their doublespeak, or we may find ourselves living in a dystopian reality created in the image of their Christian Nationalist faith.

[Link to full article.]
#37
Introductions / Re: Hello
Last post by Tank - March 21, 2024, 06:46:36 PM
Hello Adey67

Welcome to HAF it's good to have you here.

Regards
Chris
#38
Science / Re: End the Phone-Based Childh...
Last post by billy rubin - March 21, 2024, 05:40:31 PM
my kids were raised without access to television programming. we didnt own a television set

still dont

so the only times tbey were exposed to one was while we were travelling.

i think a harmful social influence is bad for adults, not just kids. i havent had a television set for over tbirty years, and these days i am not capable of processing the informaion on them. its too fast and disjointed. i once counted how many scene cuts occurred within a 60 second automobile commercial. there were 102. clearly the advertizing was not aimed at my thinking brain.

if i am watching a tele ision program somewhere, i turn it off as soon as i see someone killed. usually less than five minutes or so.

but other people find value in them. to each his own.
#39
Science / Re: End the Phone-Based Childh...
Last post by Recusant - March 21, 2024, 04:29:41 PM
The basic idea of sheltering young children from the corrosive aspects of online life is not in itself bad, I think. Completely unrealistic, however. If an attempt were made to implement it, all that would be accomplished would be to create a "forbidden fruit."

The paradigms by which the author judges current society (and the ways of people who've grown up online) as dysfunctional are already in the rear view mirror. Either humans will adapt and grow as a species in this environment or things will fall apart, but the genie will not be forced back into the bottle. At some point a new equilibrium will arise. I don't know that it will be one that I find salutary, but I don't object to being along for the ride.
#40
Introductions / Re: Hello
Last post by Adey67 - March 21, 2024, 04:05:57 PM
Quote from: hermes2015 on March 21, 2024, 12:29:22 PMWelcome, Adey67. You will find this a pleasant and supportive community.
Thanks mate that's much appreciated.