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tarav  Stupendously Brilliant BookTalk.org Moderator Silver Contributor


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Posted: Sun Jul 13, 2008 5:39 pm Post subject:
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| I am sorry that you feel that way, Penelope. I am not and do not need to try to gain Chris' favor by kissing butt. First of all, I know I am already in his favor! LOL My comments on his post were simply my feelings put into words. Tidying up is not necessary, thanks. |
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Chris OConnor  Rhodes Scholar BookTalk.org Owner

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Posted: Mon Jul 14, 2008 1:18 am Post subject:
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Penelope said:
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| OK - My Mum was a Spiritualist Medium and talked to Ghosts |
No, she certainly did not. You can't talk to something that doesn't exist. If your mother really believed she was talking to ghosts she was delusional.
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| my Dad was a drunk and talked to Lamposts |
I consider your father's problem far easier to treat than your mother's.
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| If it only takes exceptional intelligence and education to sort out the human race......the rest of us....who are of only average intelligence and don't have the privilidge of a well-rounded education....(.in fact some people don't get a 'formal' education at all).......we, the rest of us, are going to get pushed around...... |
This doesn't make sense.
1. We're a species not a race.
2. I never made the argument that it takes exceptional intelligence and education to sort out the human race.
3. Sorting out the human race, if one existed, is vague and meaningless. What does it mean to sort out a race or even a species?
4. "the rest of us....who are of only average intelligence"
Actually, this too doesn't make sense to me. The rest cannot and are not of average intelligence. Only those at a specific point on the intelligence distribution curve can be said to be of average intelligence. About 50% of the general population is below average intelligence and 50% above average intelligence.
I think it has been shown repeatedly that religious people are more clustered on the lower end of the intelligence curve. That is my whole point. The more intelligent you are the higher the probability that you will not believe in a God or gods. If you are of extremely low intelligence you are almost certainly going to believe in some sort of hocus pocus. Ignorance and faith go hand in hand. Belief in a God or gods is inversely proportional to intelligence and education.
Yes, there are extremely bright and educated people that believe in a God or gods, but were not talking about individuals. This is about overall statistics. I can find you a Rhodes Scholar that believes in Bigfoot, but this is a statistical outlier. Most Bigfoot believers are not very bright.
5. "we, the rest of us, are going to get pushed around..."
This is not true. Atheists tend to be intelligent and well-educated, yet we are pushed around by the ignorant masses. Atheists have to live in a world where grown adults kneel and worship imaginary gods. When we speak up about the mass delusions around us we are attacked verbally, politically and even physically. Atheists are controlled and pushed around by dangerously ignorant, oppressive and abusive people. We are the minority struggling for equality.
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| I don't like being pushed around physically |
Neither do I. Unfortunately, atheists have to keep their mouths shut or they will be pushed, struck, hit, stabbed and murdered by religious fools.
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| ....but no one, no one is going to push me around mentally |
Do you consider introducing sound arguments or counter-arguments to be pushing you around mentally? I think you need this sort of pushing around. So do I. Rip my arguments apart. Please.
Yet I'd LOVE for that argument to come along. I'd LOVE to join the flock of believers because it sounds so damn beautiful and sweet and wonderful. But I refuse to disengage my brain and believe nonsense just because the process of believing makes me feel all gooey inside. The only way I can see me accepting religious claims would be if I suffered severe brain damage and could no longer think critically. Id have to lose my ability to differentiate between fact and fantasy to accept the idea that a loving God created cancer, tsunamis, and rapists.
We all need to be pushed around mentally. BookTalk.org was SPECIFICALLY created to push people around mentally. I challenge anyone to push me around mentally. Make me think. Back me up against the wall and slap my silly arguments into submission. This is how we maintain intellectual integrity. This is what being a freethinker is all about. |
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Penelope  Stupendously Brilliant Silver Contributor


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Posted: Mon Jul 14, 2008 5:23 am Post subject:
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| Do you consider introducing sound arguments or counter-arguments to be pushing you around mentally? I think you need this sort of pushing around. So do I. Rip my arguments apart. Please. |
I don't think you need to be ultra intelligent to be an atheist and I don't think you have to be dim to be a believer. I think there are dim and intelligent people in both camps. And probably in equal numbers.
I must have been feeling a bit vulnerable when I was talking about being pushed around. After all, I swallowed the religious guff, hook line and sinker from an early age. That has made me angry at times, although now I'm not angry about it anymore. But I am careful about what I 'take on board'. Kicking and screaming all the way......so to speak.
My mum didn't think she was talking to ghosts....but she did think she was contacting spirits in other realms......I don't know what she was contacting.
It is different in Britain....it is 'cool' to be an atheist......and extremely 'uncool' to be a Christian. A Buddhist is just about acceptable, if one 'must' label oneself.
I get prickly, because if there is ever a play or soap on TV with a religious character involved. That character always turns out to be either a complete lunatic or an evil entity. They never show a religious person as a normal, kind and functioning human being. They do lots of comedies about CofE Vicars and Roman Catholic Clergy.....the clergy are always shown as being ridiculous. Well, Chris, you would agree with that.....but it makes me wonder what subliminal message they are trying to feed us.
This will make you laugh......do you remember when Hugh Grant got caught with that prostitute lady whilst he was in the US? Well, when I saw the headlines....'Hugh Grant caught with Hooker!' I hadn't heard of Hugh Grant and I was so relieved when I found out he was an actor and not a member of the clergy!!!
Well, as you know, I don't like our Churches or our Clergy, or our religious system, but I am afraid of them being replaced by something much worse.
To have no interest, or worse to believe that we have no spiritual side, makes life seem particularly meaningless to me. I think the spiritual development is all important....especially with tragedies like cancer, the tsunami etc. You see, that is the difference between us, you see those as a reason to reject 'God' or spirituality outright - but I see them as making spirituality necessary. In the sense of inner strength.
I am not able to rip your arguments to pieces. You might be right, but I just can't 'do' atheist or I lose my momentum. Zest for living. |
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Penelope  Stupendously Brilliant Silver Contributor


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Posted: Mon Jul 14, 2008 5:29 am Post subject:
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Tarav - I have apologised to you on another thread.......
and admitted that I am the one who should do the tidying up.  |
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Penelope  Stupendously Brilliant Silver Contributor


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Posted: Mon Jul 14, 2008 10:43 am Post subject:
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Chris said:-
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| I think you need this sort of pushing around. So do I. Rip my arguments apart. Please. |
I can hear your plea....we are part of the same species, not race.
The only way I can begin to explain it Chris...is that...you can't see radio waves.....the only way you know they are there is because the radio recieves them and makes sense of them.
Well....spiritual waves are there....the only way I know they are there is because I can receive them......and so can you...because, honestly, I know there is nothing special about me....but if I tell you what convinces me, you will say that I am just delusional....
Just as if a person with sight lived among a species of blind people.....he would never be able to convince them......it is there....and you can tune in.
But it is nothing to do with Christianity, Islam.....it is just about nature...it is natural....like radio waves are just a natural phenomenon.
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Chris OConnor  Rhodes Scholar BookTalk.org Owner

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Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2008 2:13 am Post subject:
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| The only way I can begin to explain it Chris...is that...you can't see radio waves.....the only way you know they are there is because the radio recieves them and makes sense of them. |
First of all you're wrong about how we know what we know about radio waves. But I'm not going to spend time explaining to you what radio waves are and how we create, detect and measure them. Google it if you're interested.
But let's pretend what you say is correct. Let's pretend that the only way we know radio waves are there is because our radios receive them and make sense of them. Are you honestly saying that listening to classical music on the radio deserves to be compared to the spiritual waves you think you receive?
If 100 people were in a room together and all had portable radios tuned to the same channel/frequency wouldn't they hear the same thing? Isn't this some sort of evidence that radio waves are a real phenomenon and clearly there is something objectively verifiable and testable about their nature?
What can you tell me about these spiritual waves you think you can receive? Can anyone else receive the same exact wave at the same exact time? If so you ought to contact James Randi and try to win the $1,000,000 he has been offering for years and years. No, not a single other human being will receive those same spiritual waves. Why not? Because they only exist in your head and imagination. Radio waves may be invisible to the human eye, but they are an element of objective reality. Your spiritual waves are not measurable or detectable. |
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Thomas Hood  Senior Book Discussion Leader

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Chris OConnor  Rhodes Scholar BookTalk.org Owner

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Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2008 12:34 pm Post subject:
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Thomas, thats for the link. I've always found Ouji boards intriguing, but have long understood how they work. It is still fascinating that the average person sitting in front of one thinks something magical is happening. An interesting experiment with Ouji boards is to blind fold the users, flip the board 180 degrees, and then watch the spirits somehow not know the board was flipped. The users will move their hands to the same letter places as if the board were in the standard position. The end result is nothing was spelled correctly.
Did that make sense? I am typing fast!
With that said I am not sure how you are relating Penelope's statement about spiritual waves to this effect. Are you saying that people that experience spiritual waves are really experiencing the power of the human brain to create imaginary things? |
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Thomas Hood  Senior Book Discussion Leader

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Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2008 7:11 pm Post subject:
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| Chris OConnor wrote: |
| With that said I am not sure how you are relating Penelope's statement about spiritual waves to this effect. Are you saying that people that experience spiritual waves are really experiencing the power of the human brain to create imaginary things? |
Chris, the ideomotor effect is a real psychological effect from suggestion. Dr. Hyman says:
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| Under a variety of circumstances, our muscles will behave unconsciously in accordance with an implanted expectation. What makes this simple fact so important is that we are not aware that we ourselves are the source of the resulting action. This lack of any sense of volition is common in many everyday actions. . . . |
Objective but unconsciously perceived signs influence the mind. The signs are real and the effects are real, so it isn't "all in the mind," although explanation may be fanciful. I didn't understand how the Ouija board worked until I read Hyman's article last year.
Tom
http://www.quackwatch.com/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/ideomotor.html
How People Are Fooled by Ideomotor Action
Ray Hyman, Ph.D. |
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Penelope  Stupendously Brilliant Silver Contributor


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Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2008 10:51 am Post subject:
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Dear Chris and Tom - and you are dear to me, I am not just being formal.
I think it was very naughty of you Chris to talk to that 'very young' person on another thread about 'God having a penis and etc....' because you know that is not what we mean. You are deliberately misconstruing and making us look ridiculous......We don't do that to you. That is not about respect!!!! |
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Chris OConnor  Rhodes Scholar BookTalk.org Owner

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Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2008 11:19 am Post subject:
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Penelope, there is nothing wrong with talking to young people about whether or not their God has a penis. It is a damn good question and one meant to get them thinking. Of course I could have asked about their spleen or toenails, but that person mentioned that the God they believe in is between a male and a female. So I naturally am curious whether they see their God as having male or female sex organs.
You may think of this as disrespectful or silly, but you ought to ask yourself the same questions. If you think of God as a male do you think he has all the characteristics of a male? Does he have a penis? If so what is it used for? What use is a penis for a God?
There is too much "sacred" stuff with regards to gods and faith. Start asking those silly questions and you will see just how silly the god myth is. A large percentage of people believe humans were created in God's image. If this is the case we can assume that God has sex organs and burps and gets acne and sometimes stubs his toes.
Where does God sleep? In a bed? Where does he buy his sheets? Is there gravity in heaven to keep him in bed? If so where is heaven located and why is there a gravitational force pulling God down? Silly questions? No, actually they are VERY good questions. They show just how ridiculous people can be with their beliefs.
Is God a spirit with no tangible body? If so how does he cause things to happen physically? Does he have a small patch of skin on his otherwise intangible body that he uses to push footballs over the goal posts and to save drowning children? Again, crazy disrespectful questions? No, these are the types of questions intelligent people should have been asking themselves around 5 years old. Adults that find these questions to be strange are the strange ones to me.
When something doesn't mesh with the reality in which you live you ought to question it deeply. Extraordinary claims should require extraordinary evidence. So there is an afterworld? Ok, where is it? On a planet? Which one? How do you know? Is it floating up in the sky? Where precisely? Have our jets or spacecraft ever accidently pierced through Main St. Heaven (TM)? Weird questions? Not even a little bit. These are excellent questions and if you can't answer them then you ought to think really hard about why not. Why do you believe in an afterworld or afterlife yet you cannot describe, define or locate it in any way?
So heaven is in another dimension? Ok, fine. How do you know? Or are you simply trying to avoid having to explain yourself by saying, "Heaven exists beyond our senses." Oh really? Then how in the hell do you know it exists? You don't "sense" it, but you "know" it exists? Or is it that you just "believe" it exists? Why?
The reality is theists believe in their myths because they were brainwashed into believing when their brains were young, sponge-like and completely naive and impressionable. Those adults that converted later in life never grew up and still have young, sponge-like and completely naive and impressionable brains. |
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Penelope  Stupendously Brilliant Silver Contributor


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Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2008 12:44 pm Post subject:
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Chris:
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| If so where is heaven located and why is there a gravitational force pulling God down? |
Heaven - doesn't need a location.....spirit does not have mass...so it does not need a place to 'be'.
Nothing is pulling God down......there is no 'down'. Up and Down are about our bodies.
I don't think of God as Male or Female. I think of God as plural, but only in that I have been indoctrinated with the images from the Bible of the Shekina Cloud and the Eloachim....who said....let 'us' make man in 'our' image.
Oh yes, I do know that we take our images from what we are taught...and I have taken on a lot of Jewish imagery....but I have at least also accepted...that people did not go to the trouble of providing these images for no reason.
The God myth is not silly Chris.....the God myth is necessary, for some of us. Please do not label us as stupid just because we cannot demonstrate and explain. I, personally, may be a jelly brain.....but there are far more intelligent and intellectual/academic people than me....throughout history and in all cultures....who have felt it so vitally important that they have died, or suffered for their convictions.
I have listened to them and read their writings.....if only for that reason...
[b] |
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Penelope  Stupendously Brilliant Silver Contributor


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Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2008 1:12 pm Post subject:
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PS - I have also attempted to read Einstein's Theory of Relativity -
E=MC squared. Seems to prove that time and space do not exist as we understand them.
ie You could set out in a spaceship, travelling at the speed of light and look back and watch yourself setting off on your journey!!!
Now, scientists are proving that Einstein was wrong.....but that does not mean that we should not have the greatest respect for what he discovered.
I think it should be the same in the realms of spiritual teachings....but it patently isn't....is it? |
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Penelope  Stupendously Brilliant Silver Contributor


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Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2008 1:15 pm Post subject:
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