You are...

You are...

You are the sum total of all the potential of humanity that has existed to this point. You are more than a name, a sexual orientation, your politics, your beliefs or lack thereof; you are more than a father, son, mother, daughter; you are more than any and all labels, and all without any need to add that you have some eternal spirit. Maybe you do, I don't know; I don't believe in such things.

But know this, we humans are so much more than the mere sum of our parts, and woe be to those that dare suggest we are reducible to the lowest thing, more so when they do so because religion drives them – in an effort to win the religious vs. non-religious debate. I've seen, "For the atheist, humans are mere animals, here by chance." Well... we are animals, and we are here in part because of chance, but also because we won. We beat the odds – somehow, we made it, so far. We won the game of life, at least for a moment. So no, we are not JUST anything.

You are so much more than I can even hope to begin to write about.

Of course, that's the good news.

The bad news is that we will not reach all the things – because even though we do have the potential to do it, that does not mean we WILL do it. Our bodies are limited, our minds are limited, and our desires restrain us.

Oh sure, I could work out every day starting tomorrow and get nice muscles for my effort – but I don't want to do that! I just do not want to! But maybe you have that desire in you! Great! Then you go get it! The worst thing we can do is not do the thing we CAN do – it's one thing to not be able to do (X), it's a whole other thing to not do it when you COULD do it, and more so if you want to. Nothing should stop you then – well... but reasonability – bills, chores, requirements, whatever... maybe.

But still, but still – you can maybe sort all that out and do the thing. That's what makes you great, that's what makes us great! We need to know that. You need to know that.

Well, maybe you did, but here is a reminder, that you are. 

The bible is super mega moral!

Psalms 137:9 Blessed the one who seizes your children and smashes them against the rock: the children represent the future generations, and so must be destroyed if the enemy is truly to be eradicated.

1 Samuel 15:3 

Hosea 13:1 

Isaiah 13:16 

Numbers 31:17 

Deuteronomy 21:18

Exodus 21:15 

Exodus 22:19 

Death! Kill!! War! Stuff!! Glad no one (by no one I mean lots of people) take this out of context!

So yeah, the bible says that killing people is fine under some conditions and also seems to be fine with genocide. That doesn't seem good to me. 

One example of a chrich doing things in or not in the bible that I can point to is the CoC:

The Chirch of Christ (click) thinks that you can't use mechanical intraments even though Psalm 33:2 says otherwise! (click)

One example of a church doing things in or not in the Bible that I can point to is the CoC:

The Church of Christ thinks that you can't use mechanical instruments, even though Psalm 33:2 says otherwise!

Maybe there are no modern churches (thank goodness!) that follow the laws of the Bible, but my point is, it doesn't say these things are bad; rather, it says they are good. That is bad. How can you make good ethics with bad morals? No idea!

Ah well, maybe someone will explain it to me one day in a logical way...

"Nark"

NARK!

Tonight we smelled smoke, and looked outside, the people across from us were buring something in the front yard, this is of course, against fire relguations and the managment's rules.

We looked at the fire it was pretty small, but still it could spread - the windows were dark, no porchlight on - was there anyone home over there? Should we check? Just as we were pondering all this, two people came out to attend to the fire - ah good, someone is watching it.

I overheard them bitterly complaining about how people should `mind there own busness" and said something about someone being fat (perhaps directed at me or my brother) and that `this is what's wrong with America' and of course, "Why do people got to Nark?"

Ah yes, the imature mentality of the anti-nark. Don't be a tattletale! The word "nark" is the `grownup' (ha!) version of this. A number of years ago, somone was shot in this area, and I recall one person talking to the news people, talking to whomever was out there "please come forward, your not a nark..."

Today we have the saying "see something, say something". Yet, this old mentality still exists. Don't "tell" on someone.

Well - why the bleep shouldn't you? If you see someone doing something illegal - shouldn't you report it?

Minding your own busness - well great but a FIRE isn't the time to do that - because fire spreads! FIRE BAD but if your doing something you shouldn't - well maybe someone is going to say something about that, and perhaps, they are doing so for protection of others.

See someone go in a house that you've never seen before? Ah well - its fine, don't NARK. Oh someone looks like they are breaking into a car? Not my problem.

Its never your problem and never your busness until it effects you and you wish someone would call for help on your behalf. 

But this - mentality that people shouldn't "nark" where did it come from? How do we get rid of it? 

Looking at the web - you can see some sad answers from people that dislike `snitching' or `narking' - these low brow, not well thought out ideas of that its betraying a trust or something of that sort, how about its doing what is right? If someone breaks a rule - a law, and so on - shouldn't you say something?

"Stand up for yourself" - oh well... that could lead to problems of all kinds. The whole point of cops and lawers and judges is to make us cival - right?

Yet, what I fear is perhaps that THEY think I am a Nark - they BELEVE that, and might seek to do me, my properity, or my friends/family harm. Because they FEEL that I did something - and that is the sort of mentality that I fear.

Is being a nark good/bad/depends? Shouldn't we try to do what is right, and in the end, if we see something - shouldn't we say something?

Labels: Bug or Feature?

Labels: bug or feature?

#LGB is trending on Twitter and other places.

And no, it's not about trains, so let's not derail this topic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGB_Alliance

Talks about a group that has made advanced to take the "T" out of the LGBT

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/why-it-s-time-to-take-the-t-out-of-lgbt-10493352.html

Says that the "T" needs to break off from the LGB

https://www.advocate.com/transgender/2015/11/06/lgbt-groups-respond-petition-asking-drop-t

Talks about how the "T" should not be removed at all.

Let's not even go down the rabbit hole that is "TERFs" - oh boy!  Trans-Exclusive Radical Feminists! Sounds like fun! I'm sure nothing could go wrong...

This https://www.transhub.org.au/101/trans-lgbt gives one people's view of why the T is in the LGBT.

However, my focus is not on the politics, sexuality, gender, or whatever that the LGBT stands for, but rather the label itself.

Labels are a bug in our software.

Our software, in this analogy that I'm using to make this whole presentation, is reality itself. Whoever or whatever made it left in plenty of bugs and no patch for us, so we are on our own.

Labels are - useful features - I'm a skeptic. Atheist. Agnostic, Igtheist, utilitarian, Logician, male, heterosexual, middle age, white, American, human, omnivore, VET, single. Ex-christian, infidel. Bipedal, insomniac! Also, a few other labels that I'd rather not disclose and a few that I reject, and others that I pretend not to have.

So it's a feature - you know something about me you did not know.

Yet, you can not know all there is to know about me with just those labels.

But, I am not just any of those. Basing my identity, my "self" on any of that would not be useful to me, as I'm more than any of that.

So it's a bug then - because it's not as functional as we would like, also it's bad because anyone can claim to have any label and there is no way to stop them from doing so! 

Yet, we have this separation of a label into smaller labels - because the LGBT is not "just" a label, it's also a movement, it's also a political ideology of sorts, its... what is it really? Who says what it is? Can anyone claim ownership of it?

Well, no. But people can and will claim it regardless, and other people will want their own label. They will move away from the current label to a new or old label, because people want to self identify.

That's fine, but it's making the system go buggy now. The feature that was useful in one place is now running rampant all over the place! Why?

Because.... humans are complex. We are social creatures; we yearn for a group, but we also like to be alone and our own self. We put on a group identity yet might lose the self identity. Such is the danger of the label.

So, how can we best use this feature, or how do we patch this bug?

That... is my question.

I do not know how to solve it! You do it! GO GO GO! ... and let me know when you have it figured out! :)

Celestal judgement?

I said in a post that Christianity has no true celestial judgment, and was asked how I would think actual judgment should be done in the afterlife. This was my response:

~~~~

If there is a celestial judgment at the end of it all, then I would expect that one would have to experience all the emotions they caused to other people (and perhaps other creatures as well). 

Perhaps you could pick to do (X) number of bad ones then (X) number of good, or maybe you would do one good, one bad and so on. After you were done experiencing all that you caused others to feel, then you have been both punished, and rewarded in full, you get to know what it was that you did, and you then get to rest awhile.

Perhaps then you can either keep existing or hit a button to end existing, I'm not sure what an existence would matter if you couldn't learn, grow, change, if you had nothing to challenge you, but maybe there would be stuff to do, who knows, regardless the justice part would be settled.

This is closer to how Zoroastrianism views it, but for them its more that if you are "better" then "bad" that you would get to get the good place, but if you were worse then good, you go to the bad place. 

That isn't quite as fair as the system that I thought of here. And that's also part of the problem, I can think of a better system. I - a mere mortal can come up with several better systems in fact. 

The reason I can - (and you could as well) come up with better systems is because humans in the past made up the ideas. Why? It's a perfect way to lure people into thinking that (X) is true. If you question (X) you go to the BAD PLACE ooo scary! The appeal to fear (a logical fallacy) could very well compel people to keep believing OR become believers (or both). If that doesn't work you also have the carrot, (appeal to bribe) believe it and get (z) reward. 

It's a way to keep people believing and scare them from giving up on the belief system. 

Of course, to enforce that more, you have the scare of that you might still not make it even if you do believe, making you work that much harder to really, really believe it. 

The good behavior is then simply tacked onto and on top of that, as clearly we humans can be good without DCT (see my video called that) - we can be good to each other and the world without the bible, in fact, its pretty hard to follow all 613 commandments these days - we have laws against stoning people to death - so you can't drag someone to the edge of town and kill them (by stoning!) when they have mixed fabrics or talk back to the elder or blasphemy. 

These ideas of the afterlife, plenty of religions and cults have them. Heaven's gate promised its followers that if they died they would go to the "good place" behind the comet.

There is no evidence for such a place though, yet people died to go there. They really, really beleved in it. 

Belief can be good, or bad, and it can make you do or not do good or bad things. But, if we can not or will not question it, well - that brings the problems. 

I wonder what the Gate person would have said about the afterlife - celestial judgment - what did they think happened to people who were not part of the group? Sadly, we can not know because they are gone. 

With them, the beliefs they held also die out. As do religions given enough time and/or pressure. 

As we humans keep moving forward, the bible will stay static. It's unable to answer plenty of questions about today's world, we can clearly see the morals and ethics of it are highly questionable if not outright offensive. Its only a matter of time before we as a species move on. Turn the page of the history books, your religion is just a chapter in the grand story of humanity.

I might have gone on a bit of a tangent there, but I do that sometimes.

As a skeptic, I can see the flaws in the belief system, but as a former believer I know just how powerful the hold of faith can be.

Maybe if its so full of problems, and you can not fix them, that it's time to find a new belief system, one where, perhaps you do not have as many issues.

I do hope that if you do that - that it will not be hard or painful as it was for me. Everyone has a different experience though when reconverting when they do so of course.

And... okay I'm super mega tangent now.

Learn logic, be skeptical. 🦞

Frustration at faith.

A nice man I know, who has helped me in the past has faith.

Faith however, messes with his reason.

I see that. Yet, I can not tell or explain it to him, because its so imprinted upon his mind that there would be no way to unwind it.

So, he said a number of things. He had been in trouble with the law, and in jail as a result, yet during that time his grandmother was praying for him, so things got better, he got out of jail and got a good job.

Well, it took "god" awhile to get him out of jail I suppose god couldn't rush the justice system along, but go grandma - pray his way out of jail... at the same amount of time that the system would get him out anyway! Hmm. Seems to me the prayer had nothing to do with his change of behavior. He behaved himself in jail. He reformed, was a model prisoner, got good behavior. That lowered his time. 

As far as getting a job - well, god must have hooked him up as soon as he got out right? Like just someone there at the door, waiting to give him a job right? No? Oh, well he had to look for work, make calls, apply, ask for work. Hmmm seems like god wasn't doing much there, but hey grandma is still praying away! So life is good.

Then grandma dies. Mortality sucks! Uh oh- now he has back problems! Well CLEARLY that is because no one is praying for him now. I mean it's not because he is older or got into a car accident or anything like that in fact the car accident must be because no more prayer .... hold on, isn't grandma up there WITH GOD NOW? Surely she would be asking god for help even now right? Or is it that prayer only works when you are alive? Hmmm seems to me he got a hurt back because of the accident and getting/being old.

Nah, must be the prayer!

Now he says that he was wise in the ways of the world - ah yes, don't be wise in the ways of the world, be stupid eh? No well what he means is that he thought he was smart by beating the system (doing illegal things) well no, that was not wise - if he had been wise in the ways of the world he would have known were doing illegal things would land him... but what he really means is that one thing was "the world" and to not be wise in that aspect of the world that is bad. Ah yes, a convoluted way to just say that doing some things are a bad idea, all because of what the BIBLE says about being "wise in the ways of the world" .... SIGH.

So, he has been cleaning up his area - that is good, we need to pray for the area! Why? Well.. that will somehow get people to clean up as well. Or well, maybe - and just an idea here, but perhaps others will see your actions and want to mimic it, or still others if you just say "hey clean up" they might do it, still others might have to be offered money to do it or be scared into doing it in fear of a fine - or both! Nah, pray! PRAY for things to change - yes all that work and effort are clearly not needed, "god" was cleaning up that area long before you started to do so... although... well no, because it wasn't clean. God wasn't doing a god-damn thing.

YOU WERE.

YOU ALWAYS WERE.

YOU ARE THE ANSWER.

NOT PRAYER!

If there is a god - it's not doing a god-damn thing to change anything.

But YOU are.

The faith you should have - is in yourself.

God doesn't deserve it.

Until God picks up some litter. Or gets you a job. Or fixes your back.

Until then, it's all you, and always has been.

Ah well, I can't tell him any of that.

Because his faith is stronger than facts.

He is a kind man.

But he is also a blind man when it comes to faith.

And - it frustrates me.

Because there isn't anything I can do about it.

..... so I'll just complain online!

Well... I wasn't going to not complain but that's a whole other thing.

Sigh.

"Cuts" learning the "art" of insult.

Back in the day, I was young. Ah yes. Good times. In a school I went to - it was not a normal school, if you were there it was because you had problems with law or problems of mental health issues, and had fallen though the cracks, so to speak, and a handful of schools existed trying to help out kids that were in that zone. Troubled kids who had major issues of all sorts, was it wise to blend such together? I do not know, but it somehow worked somewhat, I found out some years ago that funding got cut even more then it had and they now only help out kids that have trouble with the law, so all the mental health issue kids (46-42) are I guess, falling though the cracks.

My problem had been that I had stoped going to school for extended time because I hated school. Not because I wasn't good at the tasks - but because the tasks were pointless and I knew it. I pointed out that nothing we were learning or doing had any place in the real world, yet it was still done, as if it mattered. I was tired of getting up early, going out in the cold to wait on the bus to bring us to school. It sucked bane.

So I simply stoped going. Well - eventualy the school figured that out and made a fuss about it and I "had" to go - the law requries it - fun fact - your parent gets in trouble but you the kid does not, what are they going to do? Lock you up? Oh no no school! Its nonsenscal. Regardles they told me I could go to this school or to jail. Most likely it was an empty threat, but I figured I'd go to this school.

The kids were of all sorts but it was mostly boys, very very few girls, like maybe 4 or 5 - because well, I guess mostly boys have issues that are noticed by the "system" (sigh broken system is broken).

Anyway kids would insult you - this was known as "cuts" the ""game"" was to insult them back, because - well that was what was done. If you didn't insult back you were seen as a target. You would be picked on more. A lot of kids, I strongly suspect insulted because they wanted attention - and this got them attention, sure it was negative attention but it was something. They didn't know how to get postive attention.

I think that became clear to me this one time when I happened to be in class with a frined of mine who normaly would not be in my class and this other kid was insulting him. My frined, who was shorter then that boy (and myself) stood up ready to fight him - because that was how he responded to insults I suppose. I saw that as brave, but I also saw that the kid didn't want a fight - he would fight of course, but something clicked in my head I guess, and I said to the kid "Hey why are you insulting him I'm right here!" and then proceded to insult him back, he smiled and insulted me and we insulted each other a few times as the teacher tried to get us to be quiet and return to learning. But it had worked, he had gotten what he wanted and was now able to calm down.

So I learned to "cut" I learned to insult. I devolped one heck of a thick skin, and so online these days when I see people crying over words I just can't help but tell them to get over it, its like look - your going to be insulted - its going to happen, and crying about it isn't going to stop it, you need to fight back, you need to have a thick skin.

This nonsense of "safe spaces" and "triger words" that has been overused also waters down people and does not prepare them for the real world. My word, its rough out there, people are going to be harsh, its going to be a lot worse then mere words. How the bleep are you going to handle that if you can't handle some nitwit online insulting you? Grow the bleep up. That sort of jadedness is not recived well by some that are to fradgle to handle things "snowflakes" - oh man they would have been beat up in the school I went to - forget about insults they would be targets for beating up all the time. 

That isn't right, and that isn't how it should be. But it is a thing. People are not nice in the adult world, just as much as the kid world. People say and do nasty things. So toughen up!

Anyay, I guess what I'm saying is that you might need to learn the art of cuts, the insult - so that rather then a target or victom you are able to fend for yourself.

Else, you might just be cut down.

The problem with John

I had watched some of this video (click) and John has - many problems, but the main problem is, I think that there can not be a distinction between non-mind events and mind events.

I'll explain.

After AronRa gets quite upset at John for saying that Aron Ra is "making things up" John gets around to listing his "evidence" for God.

The first: fibonacci sequence.

He says, that we "never" have a pattern without a mind.

AronRa of course, rejects that in full, but for John its true.

The problem here is that John thinks that a mind (God) made EVERYTHING thus, when John says we have never had a pattern without a mind, John thinks that is the case - because God made all the patterns we see. 

So, for John, there is no way to ever point to anything at all in the universe and say that God is not responsible for that thing. There is nothing random. There can not be anything out of place, everything must have a reason and order to it, because God put it there, just so. Of course, if John believes in free will that would, I dare say conflict with this, although I'm sure 

John could come up with several hoops for us to jump though to get past that problem.

So for John, when you point at "nature" you are pointing at "God" - God drives the wind, even the sand dunes must be God letting us know its there, if we could only see the patterns.

There is nothing that could not be positive evidence for God for John.

If there is a single thing that God is not responsible for, then there is at least one thing that can be done without God - and that would ruin the whole thing for John because one example means that God might not be needed for anything else.

I would dare say that although we no longer (broadly speaking) say that lighting is due to God, that John would say no - lighting no matter how well we understand it, is in the end, due to God.

That is the problem with John, and for others in that mindset there is nothing to point to and say "not mind" vs "mind" - there can not be any comparison made. There are no "natural" objects - all objects are created.

That is a mighty big problem for John, but he doesn't understand that.

Now, maybe you who reads this might wonder why that is a problem - well if we have no way to point to something and say "mind did that" and point to something else and say "mind did not do that" then everything becomes proof of your idea of a mind doing it - and that locks you in.

For some, that would be fine, but not for me, as I want to be able to be wrong and find out what is correct, I need to have my ideas be ones that could be falsified.

John, and those like him I'd bet, do not want the idea to be falsified, because that would be the end of that version of God.

Perhaps that would be for the best.