1051. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #161511 by MaxD on April 15, 2008 at 11:02 am

Strength
Sorry you dislike the freedom of speech thing we have going on here. It is a common beef the religious have. Tipping over sacred cows and all that.

1052. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #161507 by MaxD on April 15, 2008 at 10:58 am

I'm not sure the weak heart, filthy mouth thing really follows.
You will have to define heart I think.

1053. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #161503 by MaxD on April 15, 2008 at 10:57 am

Al-rawandi said...well I just can't repeat it.
It was so.....
just....
ouch.

1054. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #161498 by MaxD on April 15, 2008 at 10:53 am

Strength I will be at the Hoosier Open in June.
Look me up.

How exactly did God sustain you through all those pogroms? The holocaust?
Just curious.

1055. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #161478 by MaxD on April 15, 2008 at 10:36 am

Navyjake,
How is Epeeist's heart weak?

1056. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #161475 by MaxD on April 15, 2008 at 10:31 am

Karda said:

I have observed that many atheists think that every conversation about the supernatural should involve a proffer of evidence.

1057. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #161454 by MaxD on April 15, 2008 at 10:03 am

Phillip1978,
If you think Strength is angry,
see this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXakslVYAh0&feature=related
This guy is off the fucking chains!

1058. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #161440 by MaxD on April 15, 2008 at 9:50 am

Kardashovel,
The reincarnation thing has not really played out successfully the last time I looked at it a few years ago. For a few years I dabbled in the New Agey business, mostly during high school, and for a about a year afterwards. So I had an interest.

I think Sam Harris has backed off the idea he posed in End of Faith somewhat. I can only suppose his experience of people like Michael Shermer, and others helped him find more info on the topic of reincarnation. I'm not saying it is a played out hyposthesis (like say creationism) but it has all its work still ahead of it as Hitch likes to say.

1059. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #161433 by MaxD on April 15, 2008 at 9:40 am

Of Strength's strengths, logic cannot be counted high among them.
No, no.
Hold on I am getting rained on by G-d droppings. Whatever they are.

1060. Richard Dawkins' secular army must be stopped. God is behind some of our greatest art

Comment #161430 by MaxD on April 15, 2008 at 9:37 am

I skipped the second Clearmind post and conserved IQ, and HP points. I think that gave my like a gazillion EXP. Whew. I thought I was going to have to make a new me character.

1061. Richard Dawkins' secular army must be stopped. God is behind some of our greatest art

Comment #161063 by MaxD on April 14, 2008 at 5:52 pm

Wow,
Clearmind. I think I just lost IQ points after reading your posts. I'm going to read something educational to rectify the situation you have put me in.

1062. For sale: 13-year-old virgin

Comment #161055 by MaxD on April 14, 2008 at 5:44 pm

Cartomancer!
Goddamnit!
Did I miss animated lesbian porn hour?

1063. For sale: 13-year-old virgin

Comment #161053 by MaxD on April 14, 2008 at 5:41 pm

Steve Zara,

Indeed. Sounds a bit group-selectionist to me.

1064. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #161047 by MaxD on April 14, 2008 at 5:29 pm

Epeeist,
Listening, well reading actually, your post about the long problem of US fencing reminded me of US soccer and US Judo (At least for mens divisions. Womens divisions in both sports have a prouder history). A sad state of affairs on both counts!

I think part of the reason for this is that two sports dominate here in the states and they occupy all the major talent. Anyway, a comment unrelated to this thread but related to the minor sports chatter.

Also did David Robertson or Artful ever offer a satisfactory answer to the metaphor questions?

1065. For sale: 13-year-old virgin

Comment #161034 by MaxD on April 14, 2008 at 5:17 pm

Henri Bergson,
But of course it will be. How terribly too too clever of you.

1066. For sale: 13-year-old virgin

Comment #161030 by MaxD on April 14, 2008 at 5:15 pm

Also, Henri you may have said something more controversial than you know.

'Preservation of the species' may be an instinct;

1067. For sale: 13-year-old virgin

Comment #161027 by MaxD on April 14, 2008 at 5:12 pm

Henri Said:

TCT,
"equality, freedom, concern and sympathy for others" all derive from Christianity in the west (see Matthew 5-7: sermon on the mount).

1068. For sale: 13-year-old virgin

Comment #161024 by MaxD on April 14, 2008 at 5:08 pm

So how many times do we have to answer this nihilistic non-point?

If there is no God then why bother to be moral? I have tried to answer this a number of times. We all have a shared human nature, we all know what it like to hurt and to suffer. Most of us are capable of performing the simple thought experiement where by we are born and placed at random some where in the world. Laying out that simple picture is it really so hard to set up ethical systems that would want to equalize things as much as possible given such first principles.

We have an evolve sense of empathy, and solidarity that served us very well as tribes. It seems to work nearly no matter how large the tribe is. ALl you need to get the ball rolling is a common identitity.

God isn't necessary to morality, and in fact such concepts can short-circuit genuine solidarity by confusing matters.
That is a more muddled presentation than I usually give on this topic but I am growing entirely weary of this stupid assumption.

1069. For sale: 13-year-old virgin

Comment #160741 by MaxD on April 14, 2008 at 10:47 am

A couple of friends of mine who were stationed in Afghanistan actually were part of a hunt for a gang of men who raped young women so they could get a better price for them later. Virgin's were more expensive.
This was causing a bit of unrest in the community. So they asked the US to do something about it. I doubt that unrest was primarily a result of the pain fathers felt for their daughters or anything having much to do with empathy. I'd like to think I was wrong though.
Enlightened eh?

1070. Richard Dawkins' secular army must be stopped. God is behind some of our greatest art

Comment #160735 by MaxD on April 14, 2008 at 10:33 am

What baffles me is the notion that Dawkin's Army (A different DA I guess) has any such desire to silence people's religious expression or destroy their venues. It seems that all the intelligent atheist, and agnostic and believer for that matter would like to see, is a firm separation between church and state. No tax dollars, no establishment. That is all.
But by all means be inspired, worship. Have faith if that is what you dig.

1071. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #160714 by MaxD on April 14, 2008 at 10:08 am

Kardashovel,
You will have to define serious I think.

1072. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #160710 by MaxD on April 14, 2008 at 10:03 am

Laprospoideal (however you spell it)
Said:

This isn't surprising since you all have already dismissed, a-priori, the potential existence of well over half of the total realm of creation (there is so little we puny humans actually DO know, married as so many obviously are to the "god" of the 3 pounds of greyish mush in their skulls)...

Lack of, or not believing in faith is every bit as much a demonstration of "faith" as faith itself.

BTW: just saying by way of EXAMPLE: I've noticed similar behavior on the part of 8-10 year old children - that wonderful age where they are approaching the "so called age of reason", but not yet fully integrating all aspects of emotional and intellectual health and maturity necessary to not suddenly give way to emotional and/or irrational outburts and/or mental fugues...


Perhaps if you all wanted to truly be treated with the respect you all so obviously and desperately crave, you should at least try using NICE WORDS! Such constant sourness is most unappealing to the vast majority of civilized and polite people.

1073. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #160280 by MaxD on April 13, 2008 at 9:58 pm

Jimmy Swaggart ministered to the prostitutes and the poor and the tax collectors.

Jim Baker too.

Ted Haggard.

Benny Hinn.

I think you get my point.

Who was the guy who said, if God gave him the battle he woul sacrifice the first person he saw? And it turned out to be his daughter.
Neat ole god. I don't believe a hand was staid.

I think you could count Moses rampages as sacrifice for God to keep him appeased as it were.

And what about the strange morality involved in that unpleasant walk that Abraham and Isaac took. I've never understood why the theist finds that story very comforting. I must point out it wasn't an issue of faith.
If we were to take the book literally. He and God were chums and God had already done right by him by making him wealthy. God had proven his fidelity to Abraham's cause. So when his sugar daddy said murder Isaac there really wasn't much calculus to do for the selfish Abraham. More rewards and glory, Hell yeah! bye bye son. Maybe God thought holy shit I better stop this greedy fuck because he is really going to do it. I should watch what I say around these psychos.

Jesus told his followers to abandon the things of this world, gathered them unto him if memeory serves. Told them if they loved their families and friends more than he that would have more trouble getting into his happy after death party I think. Its been a while since I've read it. Anyway that seems a might culty to me.

1074. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #160269 by MaxD on April 13, 2008 at 9:31 pm

Oh and how can you know God wasn't talkig to Jim Jones when he told every one to drink the Kool-aide?
God did tell Abraham to kill Isaac.
And many other human sacrifices occur in the book to placate God or protect his servants.

I know you don't think that the bible is a work of literal truth, you do think it is a worthy way to apply God's plan.

1075. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #160268 by MaxD on April 13, 2008 at 9:29 pm

Jesus didn't seem very interested in engaging in the world did he?
"Don't cast your pearls before swine."

And then there was all that business about not loving people more than he.

I don't know...engagement means something a bit different to me.
And wasn't Jesus being self-serving in the same way. Looking at the modern prophets it isn't hard to take a cynical interpretation of Jesus's story. In fact it is alarmingly easy.

Jim Jones actually began his life with Jesus on much more friendly footing. He was a powerful voice for Civil Rights. People forget that in the whole kool-aid unhapping ending part. And by most accounts demonstrated a common decline into ever worse mental illness.

The same, in many ways seems true of David Koresh. He was well liked but also exihibited a strange decline in faculties and message.

The fact is these people were very likely always suffereing some mental illness, it just peaked.

I suspected you had entertained the notion that it was in your head. I just had to ask.

1076. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #160263 by MaxD on April 13, 2008 at 9:16 pm

Karda,
You don't really think anyone implied this:

but if you intend to silence me from stating my beliefs because it might intrude on your personal space, then all I can do is ask why are you talking to me?

1077. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #160261 by MaxD on April 13, 2008 at 9:12 pm

Goldy,
I actually read about this god in Dan Simmon's Hyperion Cantos! Funny you should say what you said.

Karda,
I am glad to hear you won't be taking it personally Kardashovel. that wasn't how it was intended.

1078. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #160257 by MaxD on April 13, 2008 at 9:09 pm

I am surprised you can't really entertain that notion Kardashovel.
Maybe it is all in your head? I mean, not to make to coarse a comparrison, but David Koresh seemed a sincere sort of fellow to me. The very model of a guy who honestly believed he was talking to God. We might ask the same of Jim Jones too. Do you think God was talking to them? It seems to me you almost have to think so since you are so enamored of the subjective experience of others. I don't want to speak for you of course, but I am just extrapolating from what you have said of the process of God chat.

And if you think God wasn't indeed talking to them as it appears they did then how can you make that judgement given that you have hinted that the experience of God Chatter is different for each person?

Why not is not simpler to say wow, too bad they didn't get help for their neuroses? I mean religious visions are pretty tightly correlated with mental illness aren't they? How many schizophrenics do you read about or know of that are hyper religious? I know more than may fair share of such stories. So why reject the all in your head hypothesis?

1079. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #160250 by MaxD on April 13, 2008 at 8:58 pm

I know that he thinks God spoke to him. I knew a guy who was convinced he was kidnapped by aliens. I also knew a guy who thought he was in constant battle with demons.

I've even hung out on the nights these great events are supposed to take place. I will leave to your good offices fellow RD.netters to decide what happened on the nights I tagged along.

The point is such claims are not worth very much scientifically, or worth very much for minds that highlight more than the mysterian language. Or consistancy.

But your hunger analogy isn't even terribly apt. We can explain hunger, thus someone's subjective experience of it scientifically. I don't yet know if we can do the same for religious tendencies. Clearly we might. There is some evidence that such tendencies may infact be genetic.

You will just have to forgive me if me I find your talk of subjectivity a bit uncompelling.

1080. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #160236 by MaxD on April 13, 2008 at 8:43 pm

Kardashovel.
How do you know so much about the mind of God and what he wants us to do?

1081. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #160234 by MaxD on April 13, 2008 at 8:42 pm

Yeah, I just reviewed that line and now feel silly for it. Maybe vaguely tractable theism is what I was looking for. Anyway you are vague even when you are trying to be concrete.

1082. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #160224 by MaxD on April 13, 2008 at 8:31 pm

Having read your posts that close with with a question to me allow my response.

I think the problem arises because I just don't find what you have to say very compelling. I suspect that what appears to be a vague, vague deism is all that is left for a thoughtful believer to have. That seems to be, sorta, the position you have staked out.

But you pull that weird habit of so many such people and drift into theism as suits you, as your whim decrees it. Anyway it all seems very mysterious and you seem to enjoy the mysterian language. This is fine I suppose but it doesn't get us very far does it? Mysterian language never does.

When I was in high school I used to find it kind of compelling. Certainly useful for getting into the pants of people of a certain mind. But after that river has been crossed what then.

If I ask you to describe what an inner voice is like, what that might sound like, you will go all Yoda on me, and tell me something like, "Different for each man it is. Hmmmm?" I just don't think that we can proceed. I am like Hitchens and perhaps Dawkins and certainly George Carlin. To quote Hitch, "I'm the guy pascal was talking too. I am one so made as they cannot believe."

I can certainly not believe without some independently verifiable evidence. The subjective experience of people just isn't terribly dependable. Psychology teaches us how fallible our perceptions of the real world and our introspections can be.

So for me your arguments just don't hold anything.

1083. A New Flea

Comment #160182 by MaxD on April 13, 2008 at 7:27 pm

Thruston,
Gore Vidal is quite a fascinating character. I had not thought much of him one way or the other before, but your clip did make me sit up and take notice.

The similarities between he and Hitch are somewhat unmistakable.

1084. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #160177 by MaxD on April 13, 2008 at 7:15 pm

Geoff
Absolutely.

ONe of the most troubling aspects of most ID/creation "scientists" in a strong field of troubling things, is that many such persons who work at the primary think tanks have to agree to creeds and swear that they believe various biblical and appropriately goddish positions. This is in no way science.
Swearing that you beleive that the Bible is fundementally inerrent, and is in fact an accurate scientific text make no sense. You get lots of that silly , Truth cannot contradict truth b.s.

1085. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #160044 by MaxD on April 13, 2008 at 2:55 pm

I think Bonzai may be on to something here. But we will see after some one has a refueling of chi post sushi.

1086. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #160031 by MaxD on April 13, 2008 at 2:33 pm

Geoff, I am reading the Creationist/ID taxonomy theories and I beginning to see why they are having so much trouble making it work!

You said:

They have something they call "baraminology", but they still can't work out how to make it seem plausible

1087. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #160021 by MaxD on April 13, 2008 at 2:26 pm

Kardashovel said:

That is an example of knowing that God exists independently of me, and you.

1088. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #160017 by MaxD on April 13, 2008 at 2:22 pm

Kardashovel,
As to your suggestion about going out of my way to discuss these issues with theists on one of their own sites I have to say I am not terribly interested in doing this. There was a time when I thought something meaningful could come out of these discussions. I am growing less inclined to think this is the case.

If you are talking to a fundementalist then there is clearly not many circumstances in which they will find what I have to say terribly compelling.

If they are a liberal theologian they will hide in the gaps in our knowledge, grant me all the evidence in the world and still talk about the unknowable known. The unimaginable ground of being or some other such fluff. This kind of theologist and I just speak utterly different languages. (For an example of this Watch the McGrath/Hitchens debate, or the Dawkins/Hitchens interview).

One theology seems to be god of the gaps,though more subtle and more mysterian, and the other claims to be evidentiary, though they just like to ignore the evidence.

Besides as a biologist interested in evolutionary processes the debate has been more or less a constant one for the past 10 years or so.
I don't mind having it in person because typically it is over a bottom less cup of coffee at the place I do most of my reading (for some reason the prosylytizer just has no problem chatting up strangers!).

1089. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #160010 by MaxD on April 13, 2008 at 2:13 pm

Epeeist,
On the metaphor issue.
I think that about covers the issue. I will be interested to hear what David thinks, and more importanly how he thinks what he thinks is justified.

1090. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #160006 by MaxD on April 13, 2008 at 2:07 pm

Kardashovel,
I realized when I was talking about the pile on effect that I might have accidently implied that you were in the group that "knew it all." Anyway that was not what I was saying if you thought it was. I was just agreeing with your post about the pile on.

1091. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #159977 by MaxD on April 13, 2008 at 1:42 pm

Phil Rimmer,
I've just read your post about the great design flaw of the ID research programme. That problem being that it has no idea how to procede.

I think in some ways this has been the thing that has kept alive. Do IDers have any taxonomy for instance? Any real way to conduct biological research that might falsify at least a few aspects the ID hypothesis? I can think of a few ways in which they might test the idea, but you know the answer to this already. It is no. They have no clues how to procede and I suspect many of them have no desire to do so. If they came up with some definitions then everyone could procede doing the research with or without the ID enthusiasts.

Their method, it seems to me, has always been to point at something they think is no yet explained and then declare what we, the ID/creationist, think is the only avaible alternative. Oh, no explanation for the "propeller" in a bacterium? Obviously irreducibly complex.
Uh..oh you say it is explained....uh...

But they try to pick these isolated bits and hold them up as if they pointed toward a trend.

I think the fact they have no idea how to procede is reason enough to ignore them until they do and publish their results in a proper, peer reviewed journal.

1092. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #159963 by MaxD on April 13, 2008 at 1:28 pm

David Robertson,
I think stryer was looking for a more cogen answer than the simplistic and easy one you gave him.

Of course Jesus didn't mean he was a door-at least I hope he didn't-in the literal wood, knobs, hinges, keyhole way. That is simple.

But a constant back door is the larger metaphor of bibilical texts. Nearly half the people in my country find the account of Genesis to be a factual text. That is they believe Adam, Eve, talking snake, pleasant gardens, and trees of knowledger all reallyexisted. (They seem to believe this despite the fact that Genesis contains what, to my mind, are two conflicting accounts of Creation) My rather more enlightened religious friends think that is bollicks! The evidence doesn't support that view. What does all that Genesis business mean then becomes the obvious question.
"Oh that is all metaphor."

Surely David you see a problem arising. I mean is anything in the biblical narrative that is found to contradict the known facts going to fall into this metaphor catagory? This seems a more thorny issue than your glib response to Stryer would indicate. Where does it end for instance? What issues are you prepared to let be consigned to metaphor, and what do you think must be true, literally for Christianity to matter more than say my copy of Lord of the Rings.
-Max

1093. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #159945 by MaxD on April 13, 2008 at 1:03 pm

There aren't alot of theists that come here so when they do, especially when they come acting like they have the answer and do their scattershot attacks the pile on effects are nearly unavoidable. I suppose the same thing would occure if I went to a Christian website and tried discussion.

The pile on is probably unavoidable.

1094. Richard Dawkins and Bill Maher

Comment #159685 by MaxD on April 12, 2008 at 8:33 pm

Teratornis, do you have to do this all the time. Maybe you ought to write a book, or start a peak oil thread in the forums?

I mean science bless you for your pluckyness but do you have to write a book everytime you get up on your favorite soap box?

1095. Discussion between Richard Dawkins and Paula Kirby

Comment #159260 by MaxD on April 11, 2008 at 7:14 pm

I think what makes this format instructive, and beneficial was that there was an opportunity for Dawkins to discuss various issues sans hostility. Also, sometimes lay people want to ask a particular quesiton and they have a lot trouble formulating in a way that is clear. (I remember an instance where Christopher Hitchens got hit with two in a row at the Books and Ideas talk.) You can, after a few viewings, see where they were going.

1096. The List: The World's Worst Religious Leaders

Comment #159238 by MaxD on April 11, 2008 at 5:56 pm

I would at least like to see David Miscavige on the list as like a lesser villain.
Here is why I think that would be good.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIdef3TEE40&feature=related
and Go here
http://www.xenutv.com/index.html
and Watch the video Onward

Tom Cruise can join him on the list!
http://gawker.com/5002269/the-cruise-indoctrination-video-scientology-tried-to-suppress

1097. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #158990 by MaxD on April 11, 2008 at 9:58 am

I've always found Judas and Christian attitudes toward him to be really, really odd.

1098. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #158887 by MaxD on April 11, 2008 at 6:31 am

I don't know that DIOgenes is really all that amusing. Clearly he/she/it seems to be here to deliberately hurt feelings with all these attempts to kick over sacred cows. Sadly there are no sacred cows to kick over here. Its one of the reasons I think it may well be Richard Morgan. It is the kind of petty thing I link with his earlier behavior this week. Storming off, deleting almost all of his posts, lurking which he was definately doing. DIOgenes says things that seem positively designed to hurt feeling. This online entity isn't offerign much in the way of proof or argument. Just relentless drivel.

1099. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #158609 by MaxD on April 10, 2008 at 8:20 pm

Well, I have two miles to run and hundreds of hindu squats to do.
Back later.

1100. Lungless frog discovered in Borneo

Comment #158607 by MaxD on April 10, 2008 at 8:17 pm

Good point Sarah 95.
Things just evolve. .

Strictly speaking it is a moment of sloppy language. Though from the point of view of the apparatus in question, the lung, I can see why a writer might phrase it that way, even if on technical grounds it isn't correct to say it that way.

"I wonder what if feels like?"
I wonder why I never ask those kinds of questions. Though it made me imagine a tingling all over. I wonder if that it is it? Or is it like morymid fishes and completely out of my ability to envision.