08:10 – We’ve sold six kits so far this month, so things are definitely picking up. They should pick up even more later in the month as we approach the start of the autumn semester. For the rest of this month and well into September my time will be fully occupied with building and shipping kits.
I noticed this headline yesterday and was immediately struck with a Cunning Plan: North Carolina restaurant offers a 15 percent discount to pray in public The restaurant happens to be in Winston-Salem, so I suggested to Barbara that we have dinner there one night. She’d never heard of it, and said she had no interest in going there. I protested that we could get 15% off if we publicly prayed. They don’t specify that any specific cult is required, so I figured we could do an atheist prayer. As Barbara pointed out, there’s no such thing as an atheist prayer. Oh, well. I suppose we could do a satanist prayer or even a prayer to Thor or Ishtar.
“I beseach any god that is listening to smite all stupid, selfish humans who pray for any earthly benefit.”
Yah, that invites the notional god to smite you, too, but I figure it’s a safe bet.
I suspect the restaurant owners are yet another group who’ve only read or focused on one or two books of the Bible, and they evidently missed the injunction of Jesus about praying to the Father in secret and not being pious ass-hats.
George Carlin did a routine where he prayed that god smite the audience dead. Then he noted that did not work, so he prayed that god would smite him dead. That started to work, but he prayed to Joe Pesci to save him, and that worked. It is at the end of this:
http://www.rense.com/general69/obj.htm
As a professional writer, I’ve often thought that I should take the time to re-write the bible. When you think about it, there’s really nothing there that’s worth keeping, so I’d toss the whole thing out and start over. Actually, I could do the whole thing in just one sentence: He That Believeth In me Is Delusional; Thou Shalt Not Be Delusional.
I think my favorite self-referential Carlin bit is a description of his competition with Richard Pryor: Richard had a heart attack, so I had a heart attack. Then Richard had another heart attack, so I had another heart attack. Then Richard lit himself on fire and I said Fuck that, I’m gonna have another heart attack.
For some strange reason, this has very few views. It needs lots more:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hArtxz6PRsk
Some of the literal videos are very good, but my vote for the best ever goes to this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsgWUq0fdKk
I like Bonnie Tyler, but I have to admit that the folks who did this literal music video beat her original in lyrics, performance, and everything else.
“…Then Richard lit himself on fire…”
Pryor later had a bit where he made fun of himself; the joke was out there where you lit a match and waved it in the air and asked “What’s this?” And the answer was “Richard Pryor running down the street on fire.” I remember listening to his “Live on the Sunset Strip” record back in the late 70s and just about dying; it was a killer. I should listen again and see if it has the same effect, but I doubt it; stuff just doesn’t hit us the same way forty years later.
Carlin made a bundle incessantly running his pissed-off Irish ex-Catholic schtick which of course guaranteed that particular large audience in the Northeast here and on the Left Coast. It got old after a while; yeah, George, we get it.
Not many, if any, truly funny comics around anymore, and certainly no women comics that funny since Carol Burnett and Lucille Ball. A little of Phyllis Diller went a long way. This Sara Silverman character is a real p.o.s. self-hating bitch from what I’ve seen and heard.
And of course all the libtards think Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert are hilarious, but their routines get old pretty fast, too. Yeah we get it; you’re ultra-hip ironists and satirists and isn’t it sweet to have so many fish in a barrel to shoot at it. Now let’s see you take on the real powers and dominions and principalities.
Everyone will laugh at me, but my favorite comedian is still Bill Cosby.
Demetri Martin is funny. And as a 40 year-old, still looks like a teenager, which helps his routine. Kathleen Madigan is 80% funny. Jim Gaffigan is up there with Madigan.
But Carlin is second best of all-time. You’re just sore because he figured out the religion thing at 4 years-old. Took me a lot longer, but another ex-RC, Sean Carroll, helped. Carroll tells the story of his wife, raised in an evangelical family, who as a child, asked her mother what heaven was like. Her mother responded, “Well, it’s like going to church all-day, everyday.”
As Carroll puts it, “…and another atheist was born.”
Best comedian of all-time was Dave Allen — yet another ex-RC atheist.
I’m partial to yet another ex-RC atheist:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dara_%C3%93_Briain
” Her mother responded, “Well, it’s like going to church all-day, everyday.”
An incredibly stupid and ignorant response to a child or anyone, but if that is all it takes to turn someone into an atheist then that someone is cruelly deficient and narrow; just as when some Catholic or other runs across one bad priest or nun in their life and then decides that the whole baby must be tossed with the bath water; a priest pissed you off once? Wow, man! You better dump the whole Mother Church and the other billion Catholics immediately! And then make known forever after your enduring animus and hatred for the whole thing, every chance you get. Smacks a lot to me like they doth protest too much…
Isn’t this pretty much the same as a kid who grows up raised as an atheist or agnostic, goes off to STEM college and grad school and then runs into one particular engineering prof who pisses him off and immediately bails out and badmouths science and reason forever after and becomes an activist Christian or Jew? There are such people out here but of course they never get the sort of fawning media attention and adulation that the apostates get.
I would think that when our lefty media and academia badmouth religion and people of faith and ridicule them with the vitriol and calumny they’ve used for the past half-century, some of us might then question it a little more; maybe they also doth protest too much or have some other ax to grind…??? Among the first orders of business for the totalitarian communist regimes around the world has been to shut down all religion (except their own, of course) and destroy churches, and imprison and massacre clergy. And I note that the hadjis are very busy doing the same thing to Christians and Jews; why would this be, I wonder? Seems to me both communists and hadjis have been a lethal threat to humane civilization several orders of magnitude beyond Christianity, which in fact saved Western civilization during the so-called Dark Ages.
Heard of Steve Allen but not Dave Allen. And never heard of Gaffigan or Madigan. I gave up on comics and comedians a long time ago; tragedy is easy; comedy is wicked hard.
Not remotely. Can you point to one example? Oh, I’m sure there are a few religious people who have pretended to be atheist and then “seen the light”. Bullshit. An atheist is an atheist forever.
“Bullshit. An atheist is an atheist forever.”
C. S. Lewis might not agree with you.
These discussions, regarding religion and the deity, always bring to my mind the song “..I told the witch doctor I was in love with you….”
So, Obamanacion is our tribal chief and Rev. Wright is his witch doctor, not true?
Lewis was never an atheist, and his description of himself as such simply illustrates his intellectual dishonesty.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_converts_to_Christianity_from_nontheism
Among the countless legions throughout recorded history, these, including several scientists and doctors. And it’s an incomplete list anyway.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qygy14tC3I
Several? Golly gee. I think it’s safe to say that more people convert from theism to non-theism EVERY DAY than have in the entire history of the world gone in the opposite direction. I also think it’s safe to say that most of that tiny number who do convert from non-theism to theism are brain-damaged in some way. Converting from irrationality and superstition to rationality is an understandable change; I see it all the time as kids who were raised religious discover and understand science and reason. But once they do, they don’t go back.
I suppose you also count the forced “conversions” during the Inquisition? Geez, arguing that some tiny number of non-theists “convert” is simply pathetic.
“…I think it’s safe to say that more people convert from theism to non-theism EVERY DAY than have in the entire history of the world gone in the opposite direction. I also think it’s safe to say that most of that tiny number who do convert from non-theism to theism are brain-damaged in some way.”
I don’t see how you get those numbers. Right now, in this era alone, there are a billion hadjis and a billion Roman Catholics. Both religions are spreading like wildfire in the southern hemisphere to the tune of many tens of millions, DAILY. Just because we’ve grown up on a steady diet of media and academic disinformation here in the industrialized West, does not mean that religious people are fast disappearing. Geez, if a Martian landed this afternoon and watched a few hours of tee-vee and internet stuff, he’d conclude that half the U.S. is African-American, about three-quarters are gay, and almost everybody is a super-PC lefty. No one believes in God or any religion, and those who do, are apparently “…brain-damaged in some way.” Sure, that’s what the old Soviet Union got around to doing in its time; accusing political dissidents and religious of being insane and clearly requiring incarceration. Our own regime is testing the waters on that right now with returning veterans and firearms; clearly someone must be mentally unbalanced to go to work as a soldier for the regime and kill people; ergo, they’re too crazy to be owning a gun.
“…you also count the forced “conversions” during the Inquisition? Geez, arguing that some tiny number of non-theists “convert” is simply pathetic.”
Didn’t even enter my head. And the stats on the horrific depredations of the Inquisition have long been in dispute within historical scholarship. It ain’t anything like the comic-book tee-vee history we’ve been taught; ditto with the Crusades; ditto with the witchcraft hysteria. The media shit-storms of their day. Naturally the permanently angry grievance whores and pimps keep churning the waters in their media and academic tenure bailiwicks but to swallow all their nonsense in this day and age is truly pathetic.
If we’re just gonna toss off wild guesses, my current guess is that for every religious believer who suddenly “converts” to atheism, there are probaby thousands going the other way, DAILY. But it’s happening below the Equator, mostly, as regards Christians, so thus not a worthy or entertaining topic for our media overlords. North of the Equator it’s hadjis, by the tens of millions. And never more so than we side with the Israelis exclusively and bomb and strafe their countries; I despise them, but like a hornet’s nest, believe in generally giving it a good leaving-alone. If the hornets start buzzing around the kitchen, though, I go out there with a flamethrower and eradicate them all; I don’t negotiate with them or kiss their little hornet asses.
I also disagree that becoming an atheist is a one-way trip. We can quibble about sincerity of belief, sincerity of lack of belief, and such, but I’m not sure that would boot much.
However, OFD’s comparison fails on other grounds: religious belief is based almost entirely on faith, faith in the unseen, usually mixed with some ignorance, habit, and/or fear, or else it’s based on the charisma of someone else. There’s nothing demonstrable to support it. Science, on the other hand, has proven results. Anyone with an interest can perform “experiments” and confirm the results. (For basic stuff anyway; building an LHC and then using it effectively is out of reach of most.)
Falling away from science because of a bad person interaction doesn’t make sense because you have proof of its value and reality all around you. Falling away from religion because of a bad experience makes a lot more sense because there’s no proof that religion is a real description of the universe. For some people, their faith will carry them through difficult people or difficult times, but for some it won’t.
Religious belief is also based on family and historical and social traditions; it does not rest entirely on fear and superstition and ignorance.
Science experiments are great; and they can be performed with demonstrable results and that is then the current state of scientific knowledge for that hour, that day, year, decade or century. But sometimes something else happens or is discovered, and other experiments are performed and the state of knowledge changes and what was true before is no longer so. Anyway, the scientists, engineers and doctors who left off atheism and became Christians did not then dump their careers and livelihoods. But as has been said here before, they must have some way of reconciling totally opposing and irrational views in their heads to get through the day, amirite? There’s that word again, or others like unto it; “irrational.” Unbalanced. Mentally unhinged. Insane. Crazy. Just really no other explanation for it, several billion members of the human race are out to lunch. And have been for recorded history. Scary chit. They should all be locked up. The Soviets had the right idea.
But here’s a little fun thing on the wonderful wearin’ o’ the burkha: (warning: bad language and unseemly imagery and titillating trifles)
http://takimag.com/article/10_great_things_about_the_burqa_gavin_mcinnes/print#axzz39GN8gCAt
” Science, on the other hand, has proven results. Anyone with an interest can perform “experiments” and confirm the results.”
10-4!
Therefore, if the entire atmosphere over the entire earth were at 100% relative humidity at the start of the 40 days of rain and at 0% RH at the end, the mean sea level would have risen no more than 4 feet. How does that float Noah’s boat?
And religious faithers want to look for it 8,000 feet up on Mt. Ararat? (Whew, almost misspelled it as “Arafat.”)
OK, regarding science and the bible. Only two possibilities: science can resolve some bible anecdotes, but not all. Unfortunately for those of faith, the resolutions are totally in disfavor of the bible as is my example above. Science has not been able to verify any of the bible anecdotes in a positive manner (such as Jonah swallowing the whale).
The whale swallowed Jonah, actually. Even the Bible does not stretch metaphor that far the other way.
There is mean sea level data and hypotheses and suchlike but maybe, just maybe, the storytellers of the Bible were using literary devices sometimes. It is not a compilation of lab reports.
Metaphor, allegory, simile, fable, myth, history, social practices and traditions, etc., etc., all go into the books included in the Bible. And the writers had to describe events and people in such a way as to make them understandable to the folks of the day, and in large part, to people today as well. Tell Joe Science at the state college or wherever that Noah shoved a pair of each animal species into his ark and set sail and Joe will respond indignantly that it’s impossible! Maybe Joe needs to brush up on how stories are told; Lord knows he and his kids watch all kinds of impossible and implausible dreck on the tee-vee and internet every night.
Maybe Noah got word somehow of the coming deluge and decided to save as many animals as he could, and making the story say it was a pair of all of them is simply literary license and hyperbole. Quite possibly those poor deluded Christers in Turkey will never find his wrecked ark on Mt. Ararat; OTOH, who knows? Stranger events have occurred. It was only in recent years that an actual inscription mentioning Pontius Pilate was found over there. And they’re finding new stuff, or I should say, old stuff, all the time.
Well, yes. As I’ve said before, science and religion are epistemologically incompatible. Scientists who are also believers simply disconnect their brains while they are being religious. I know several first-rate scientists who are also devoutly religious, but any of them would tell you that faith plays no role in their labs. If it did, they wouldn’t be first-rate scientists. They wouldn’t be scientists at all.
Dave, when I say you’re irrational and delusional, I mean that literally but in the nicest possible way. (Look up those two words; can you seriously disagree that both apply literally to your belief system?) If the political/social situation gets as bad as you expect it to, I’d trust you to have my back, and I suspect (or hope, anyway) that you’d trust me to have yours. What I wouldn’t trust you to do is deal rationally with the world.
Sean Carroll has some interesting hour-long lectures online about the subject. The one to the Humanist Society is a good one. My son brought Carroll to my attention more than a decade ago.
Conversions in third world countries are pressured by missionaries, and always have been during my lifetime. And that includes my RC priest cousin from Belgium, who spent his entire life in Africa as a missionary. In retirement before his recent death, he claimed his whole life had been a complete waste, as the converts he brought into the church may have signed a piece of paper, but in their hearts, they were not converted. Most of his work was in tribal areas that had little or no access to education.
If you keep up with Pew research, latest shows the RC church in precipitous decline in the US, and the numbers of those abandoning a belief in a supreme being as cause, steadily increasing as the decades wear on — faster among the young than older folks. I also know quite a number of people who still have ties to some church or religion, but continue as a matter of social contact or because of family tradition, as they certainly have long ago dropped all trust in teachings of their particular sect.
And I have never personally known anyone who went from non-believer to believer; there are an increasing number going the other way as I get older, with last weekend’s college reunion confirming that. I met up with several who — like me — had been involved in their church’s campus activities back in the day, but who are now confirmed atheists. In this part of the country, many folks will not talk about their non-belief, unless they know they are in the company of other atheists, because, unfortunately, around here, believers are most often bigots toward unbelievers — especially among the fundamentalists, who are plentiful.
Therefore, if the entire atmosphere over the entire earth were at 100% relative humidity at the start of the 40 days of rain and at 0% RH at the end, the mean sea level would have risen no more than 4 feet. How does that float Noah’s boat?
It does not. Most of the rising water came from underground lakes and springs, not the atmosphere. From Genesis 7:
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+7
“11 In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, on the seventeenth day of the second month—on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. 12 And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights.”
Something really bad happened during the great flood. We have no clue what was the cause but we do know that a great flood happened in the last 10,000 years. Too many cultures have it in their lore. Although, some people are saying that was actually a mistelling of the flooding of the Black Sea which I doubt.
Tales in or even entire books of the bible may well be allegory, metaphor, or other literary devices. Problem is, a lot of American christians say their bible is the literal word of god. I’ve lost track of the number of times that people have attempted to cram nonsense down my throat on the basis that “the bible doesn’t lie”. Simple example: fasting for 40 days and 40 nights is proof — proof, I tell you — that god was supporting the faster and god is great because no one can go that long without eating and drinking.
I’m perfectly willing to concede that the literal-word-of-god types are not a majority of christians, not even in the US and certainly not worldwide. However, they’re certainly louder, more visible, and more annoying than their numbers would suggest. More fanatical, too: it’s their duty to show you the truth, even if you don’t want to hear it.
Just as there are calls for moderate, tolerant muslims to put a leash on the fanatical muslims before the rest of the world gets fed up and kills them all regardless of fanaticism, I call on moderate, tolerant christians to put a leash, and a muzzle, and fanatical christians.
Is this the one you mean: Purpose and the Universe?
And do you know of audio podcasts of his lectures? If you think they’re good I’m willing to give ’em a shot, but video doesn’t work well for me. In theory I can save the YouTube video and then extract the audio stream, but in practice I’ve not had conspicuous success with that.
Oh, sort of on that topic, someone a couple days ago mentioned never having gotten into podcasts. I did only in the past year and a half, to drown out ambient noise while I’m trying to work. Listening to a panel discussion of the roots of the English aristocracy is less distracting than listening to co”work”ers talk about TV shows, professional sports, amateur sports, or last night’s epic bowel movement. And listening to a more-or-less educational podcast is a more productive use of listening time than listening to a Brandenberg concerto for the hundredth time.
Oh, and continuing the digression, OFD, did you see the list of podcasts I put up a couple days ago? It was held for approval and I didn’t notice when RBT approved it.
“If the political/social situation gets as bad as you expect it to, I’d trust you to have my back, and I suspect (or hope, anyway) that you’d trust me to have yours. What I wouldn’t trust you to do is deal rationally with the world.”
If you wouldn’t trust me to “deal rationally with the world,” how is it, then, that you could trust me to have your back? Clearly I’d be dealing rationally with the real world in that sort of situation but also maintain my religious faith at the same time. To me there is no irrational disconnect. Nor was there with the Crusaders, for example. Or countless soldiers, cops, firefighters, etc. who are faithful believers.
“Problem is, a lot of American christians say their bible is the literal word of god.”
And a LOT of American Christians do not think it is the literal word of God and do not attempt to cram it down anyone’s throat, tens of millions of us, in fact. But within Christianity there are the believers in it literally; this is known as “inerrancy” among us cognoscenti. They’re usually pretty strict about it, too, and quick to condemn others who do not share this level of belief.
The Christian fanatic types are a distinct minority among American Christians in my experience and those on this board who happen to live and work in the southern and midwestern states clearly have had, and still have, a different experience. We occasionally get visits from Mormons or the Witnesses, but it’s about once a year, if that, and they don’t really push it, esp. when they note our Roman Catholicism; clearly we’re not gonna convert and we’re beyond saving, the view also of the hadjis, who’d kill us immediately in a new caliphate based on sharia. The rest they’d allow to become dhimmis.
“Oh, and continuing the digression, OFD, did you see the list of podcasts I put up a couple days ago? It was held for approval and I didn’t notice when RBT approved it.”
Nope. Haven’t seen it yet, but may well have missed it. Is it up now somewhere?
“Listening to a panel discussion of the roots of the English aristocracy is less distracting than listening to co”work”ers talk about TV shows, professional sports, amateur sports, or last night’s epic bowel movement. And listening to a more-or-less educational podcast is a more productive use of listening time than listening to a Brandenberg concerto for the hundredth time.”
Indeed. It will be my first foray into podcast territory; other than that, I was gonna go with audio books, such as James Earl Jones reading the entire Bible, haha.
http://www.ttgnet.com/journal/2014/07/31/thursday-31-july-2014/#comment-47213
I know several first-rate scientists who are also devoutly religious, but any of them would tell you that faith plays no role in their labs. If it did, they wouldn’t be first-rate scientists. They wouldn’t be scientists at all.
Wow, Mr. Bob, you must be getting soft
in the headin your old age. Your usual FUD approach would have disavowed that a scientist can have religion. Wouldn’t they be “irrational and delusional” and therefore not scientists? If they are still scientists, maybe Mr. OFD can “disconnect” his brain when interfacing with the world. However, extended stays in SEA, alcohol use and drug use may have made the the delusion permanent. 😉Tx for da link, Mr. SteveF, bookmarked, and tx to Dr. Bob for moderating thusly in the podcasts’ favuh.
“… extended stays in SEA, alcohol use and drug use may have made the the delusion permanent.”
Indeed. That must be the reason. OTOH, I’d drifted away from belief and the church by the time I got to boot camp and the rest and didn’t actually start going back until seven years after I’d gotten out, thanks to a severe back injury which immobilized me and gave me LOTS of time to think about stuff while living in a trailer home on twelve acres out in West Warren, Maffachufetts, and previously commuting to my cop job twenty-five miles east. Once on my feet, I had several illuminating conversations with the local Episcopal minister and experiences with local parish members as well. From there I was confirmed as an adult in the church I’d been baptized and raised in before. Converted to the Roman Catholic Church in ’96 when it became obvious where the ECUSA and Anglican Communion are heading, i.e. to irrelevance and perdition. Sadly.
It’s a good question, though; does a genuine believer in scientism forfeit his or her status as a scientist if he or she becomes a religious believer? It seems a violation of Occam’s Razor to posit some kind of disconnect or split in the brain, mind, soul? In order to continue as a scientist, that is…But it makes them irrational?
I’m not sure in my experience that religious believers are less able to deal in their area of experience and expertise. If we ever did face the loss of civil society, I would be first in line behind OFD, trusting his military and civilian law enforcement training implicitly. I know nothing about dealing with confrontational life and death situations, but I do not think his belief in some power that cannot be proved would at all negate his years of useful expertise in the area.
Yes to SteveF on that Carroll video. Although this link inserts his PowerPoint slides into the talk.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcqd3Q7X_1A
Some of the slides are useful.
Here’s another of his, given at Oxford.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ew_cNONhhKI
Note that the British, although some of the funniest people on Earth, do not laugh at all during the lecture, whereas the same comments to the American audience caused hearty laughs.
Use AVIdemux to split audio from video. Open the video, set “Audio” to PCM, then “Audio > Save”. AVIdemux requires you to add the proper .ext to the file; it will not do it for you automatically. There may be a way to go directly to MP3, but I only use LAME to encode and just do it as an extra step. AVIdemux will do basic video editing without converting some formats to edit, which saves quality. I use it for simple cuts editing, and throughout my entire TV career, I used cuts about 99.9%. Anything else is an unnatural transition and a special effect — when shifting our gaze, it is perceived as cuts. Fortunately I was always supported by Hollywood. When other people tried to do my job (everybody wants to be the producer or director, even when they are assigned another job), I rebuffed their insistence that I use some transition other than cuts by saying that I was still learning how to do cuts, and when I feel I have that down, I will try something else. I have this feeling that I will never really get cuts down pat before I depart the planet.
BTW the two women who survived that train incident down by my alma mater and caught on the engineer’s camera are being prosecuted for criminal trespass by the railroad line “to send a message to others.”
Thanks, Chuck. I’ll try that. I’ve been using ffmpeg for my audio conversion needs. Either it doesn’t work as documented for extracting audio from video, or there’s a bug relevant to the specific files I was processing, or (most likely) I was doing something wrong. I never needed to do it much and it was never pressing enough to take the time to make sure I learned to do it right.*
I agree with the railroad suing the dipshits. (Contingent on new evidence not coming to light, showing that the railroad was negligent.) The weepin’ and wailin’ has no doubt already started, wondering why those corporate bastards killed them poor, innocent folk. A lawsuit is unlikely to do any harm and will at least get their sworn testimony into public record.
* I recognize the irony of my typing a comment which says I’m too busy to take the time do learn something occassionaly useful. In my defense, I can check this site and type a comment while waiting for a two-minute process to finish. These free time chunks aren’t big enough to get into something requiring learning or deep thought.
I call on moderate, tolerant christians to put a leash, and a muzzle, and fanatical christians.
Not gonna happen by this back sliding back pew sitting Christian. I firmly believe that each church is free standing and has free will as given to them by their creator. Even if I think that they are bat-dung crazy in their beliefs and practices. Especially the snake handlers “shudder”.
I love living in the USA with freedom of religion. Including atheism. Go outside the USA and every time your king / monarch / dictator / forest elf in charge changes religion, so do you. Very few places on the planet earth have true freedom of religion such as the USA. And atheists have a tendency to get chased out of town in most places no matter what the government officials say. So do Christians and Jews in a lot of places too. Try being a Christian, atheist or Jew in Iraq today with the ISIS guys screaming “convert or die” in half of the cities.
Faith is faith. I believe that the Bible is 100% correct and God inspired. I also believe we, humans, do not understand at least half of the Bible. The allegories in the prophetical books such as Daniel and Revelation are downright scary as half of them have yet to occur. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the Bible is a user manual, not a history book. You have to make way too many assumptions in order to treat the Bible as a history book.
Shoot, most Christians, yours truly included, do not even understand Jesus’s sayings. First, love God with all your heart. Second, love your neighbor as yourself. Follow those two items and everything else is easy. I see Christians every day screaming about everyone else and not bothering to look inwards. Jesus had a saying about that also but I’ll leave it for another day.
John von Neumann surprised many of his associates by returning to Catholicism before his death. Was one of the greatest scientists of the C20 brain damaged?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann#Later_life
RBT:
“I also think it’s safe to say that most of that tiny number who do convert from non-theism to theism are brain-damaged in some way.”
“Lewis was never an atheist, and his description of himself as such simply illustrates his intellectual dishonesty.”
Lewis was intellectually dishonest? Most converts to Christianity are brain damaged? That just sounds like your ideology speaking.
“I also believe we, humans, do not understand at least half of the Bible.”
Agreed. Wholeheartedly. I’m working on it with a two-volume set based on heavy-duty scholarship and several thousand pages long; also with prayer. Although my Church hath paid lip-service to us studying the Bible, I haven’t seen them put it into regular general practice yet. And most parishioners don’t seem to want to get into it. The Anglican/Episcopal Church once posited the three-legged stool of Scripture, Reason and Tradition, and that is what I still try to go by.
“Lewis was intellectually dishonest? Most converts to Christianity are brain damaged?”
Sure. Whereas atheists adhere to a rigid intellectual honesty at all times and never suffer from irrationality or brain damage.
Hey, remember the Inquisition? The Crusades? And how those bastards treated Galileo?
Try to forget the depredations of a level several orders of magnitude greater by avowed atheists from 1789 to the present.
More on potential blackouts and EMP stuff and what to do:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/08/daisy-luther/im-learning-how-to-go-low-tech/
Hey, are battery powered LED lamps going to work after an EMP event?
http://www.amazon.com/Coleman-Rugged-Personal-Size-Lantern/dp/B0009PUQ6O/
Hey, this comic guy had an interesting experience in Saudi Arabia:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccnwzScp6bM
“We are not all religious police”.
If electrical fields go blank, we are screwed. I doubt that any preparation will be sufficient, and much of the population will go the way of the dinosaurs. But I judge that likelihood to be about as high as planetary collision.
I would like to reduce my consumption footprint, but more for financial conservation than for any ecological commitment. I believe humans have the same rights to use the planet as they will, as do ants, bees, rabbits, snakes, and toads. I will not be spending either time or money preparing for an EMP event, same as I spend zero time respecting any biblical demands. My own moral compass guides me, although that may have been somewhat influenced by years of misguided religious curiosity. Hopefully, I get to build the earth shelter house, which we based on this one in Maryland:
http://www.ourcoolhouse.com/
That should cut down on energy consumption dramatically. My central air in Tiny House has cost even less than in previous years during this cool summer around the Great Lakes. Normally, my winter heating bills are about 3 times/mo the summer cooling bills. Water rates where I hope to build are about 1/3 those of Tiny Town. Need that electric field though.
My central air in Tiny House has cost even less than in previous years during this cool summer around the Great Lakes.
No joke. We only hit 82 F today in the former sweatbox known as the Land of Sugar. The wife and I went swimming this afternoon and I fired up the hot tub heater to get warm after a couple of minutes.
Apparently we are going to hit 89 F tomorrow. Woohoo! Normally we bounce off 100 F every day in August and the leading edge of September.
You guys north of the Mason-Dixon line better be storing up some heating materials for this winter. Or else some of those zero degree sleeping bags mentioned in:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/08/daisy-luther/im-learning-how-to-go-low-tech/
75 here right now, and temps drop to the low 50s at night; scattered t-storms in the area, per usual.
We have two cords of firewood and a full oil tank currently, but will be adding two more cords and refilling the tank in October, most likely. Also have sleeping bags and plenty of blankets. This has been true in most New England and northern NY households since at least I was a kid. Along with the “hurricane lamps,” candles, etc.