Posts by Billyblobber

35

Prince on Saturday Night Live

by designs in

did you catch it.. http://theconcourse.deadspin.com/watch-princes-electric-prformance-from-tonights-saturd-1653735759.

.

Billyblobber

Prince is technically fantastic, from any musical standpoint.

His new album is really, really good, as well. His "dual" album with Third Eye Girl - not so much. The SNL Performance was around half and half and not the best showcase of either, although a great showcase of instrumentation.

He became a witness because he was distraught over a death, and Larry Graham showed up at exactly the right time with the right message. His songs went super-witness for a while, now he's normalizing back into his old style again with the latest albums, with only a couple of songs referencing Witness type stuff in the lyrics.

He was always eccentric, but most geniuses are, especially when they can get away with it (which he can).

40

JW attitudes to women

by Frazzled UBM in

i would be very interested to hear from you ladies on this one.

i know that the society keeps women in subjugation through the headship cr@p but didn't ahve any sense about hoew prehistoric the attitudes are until the other day when we were driving out of the supermarket car park and my wife spotted a woman dressed in tight shorts (it has been very hot here) and she commented 'they say that women who dress like that dserve to be raped'.

i did a wtf and overreacted 'how can you blame the victim like that - such attitudes give men a lciense to commit rape and make women feel they are to balme if they get raped which in turn means that rape doesn't get reported and it gopes on with impunity.

Billyblobber

i haven't seen FrazzledUBM condemn Christianity for how Jehovah's Witness women are treated, so why are you guys saying he's hypocritical? And why is every thread about this now?

11

Rapid evolution in action

by cantleave in

a nice example of how the introduction of a competeing species can result in behavioral and anatomical changes in an indigenous one.. http://www.the-scientist.com//?articles.view/articleno/41309/title/rapid-evolution-in-real-time/.

for most of its existence, the carolina anole (anolis carolinensis) was the only lizard in the southwestern u.s. it could perch where it wanted, eat what it liked.

but in the 1970s, aided by human pet trade, the brown anole (anolis sagrei)native to cuba and the bahamascame marching in.

Billyblobber

See, that's why we have so many varieties after the flood! All those animals in one place made them evolve ultra fast!

/jk

149

Evolution and spirits

by Chris Tann in

as of now iam making an unbiased examination of evolution.

however one thing keeps me hanging on to the belief of a supreme spirit being; the existence of spirits.

i have heard countless accounts of people who have experienced frightening encounters with evil forces.

Billyblobber

...then it's something that can't be explained yet, by the knowledge that you personally have at the time. It doesn't make it supernatural because there's a possibility that if someone else with enough knowledge was around at the time, they COULD explain it with naturalistic means.

149

Evolution and spirits

by Chris Tann in

as of now iam making an unbiased examination of evolution.

however one thing keeps me hanging on to the belief of a supreme spirit being; the existence of spirits.

i have heard countless accounts of people who have experienced frightening encounters with evil forces.

Billyblobber

I saw angels in my room holding a conference when I was a kid, clear as day. As I got older and thought less of angels and visions, I started seeing spiders crawling on me in my room instead (because that was my latent phobia). That's when I realized and read up on waking dreams. After doing so, I didn't just discount the spiders but keep holding the angels as real.

149

Evolution and spirits

by Chris Tann in

as of now iam making an unbiased examination of evolution.

however one thing keeps me hanging on to the belief of a supreme spirit being; the existence of spirits.

i have heard countless accounts of people who have experienced frightening encounters with evil forces.

Billyblobber

Or to put it bluntly, before people invented spirits, these same events were explained away in other ways. Is "spirits" correct, then, or is it the other thing that people invented before that? How would you know "spirit" would be the correct cause unless you were predisposed to beleive in them as any answer for weird things in the first place?

149

Evolution and spirits

by Chris Tann in

as of now iam making an unbiased examination of evolution.

however one thing keeps me hanging on to the belief of a supreme spirit being; the existence of spirits.

i have heard countless accounts of people who have experienced frightening encounters with evil forces.

Billyblobber

To continue and expand, if multiple people say "I saw a ghost," then that warrants investigation to see if that ghost was a ghost or not, because it's a new unseen occurence with nothing to relate to based on someone else's perception. You would go there and study the "ghost" to see what it is, what it is made of, and if other things cause it. However, oddly enough, this second stage has never happened where it has turned out to be anything supernatural, so until it does, they could have seen -anything- and perceived it as a ghost.

149

Evolution and spirits

by Chris Tann in

as of now iam making an unbiased examination of evolution.

however one thing keeps me hanging on to the belief of a supreme spirit being; the existence of spirits.

i have heard countless accounts of people who have experienced frightening encounters with evil forces.

Billyblobber

Multiple eyewitnesses are not enough info to take something as fact as a default, when what is in question is entirely based on perception. At best, they're supportive evidence. Those people are normally not privy to the possible related cause, so they are only seeing one part of the equation.

19

Has growing up as a JW affected my ability to forgive ?

by troubled mind in

jw
friends

i really don't understand the concept of forgiveness .

lately in my life several people have thrown that term around so easily ,and i am confused .

is it because we were taught to cut people off so easily as jws that i find it hard to forgive ?.

Billyblobber

Being a JW has actually made me MORE forgiving, oddly enough. One of the few good things the religion did for me.

Constantly reading scriptures about how forgiving Jesus was, or how David was forgiven even after murdering someone for his wife, etc. (and ignoring scriptures that made God out to be a vengeful, non forgiving dick) instilled in me to forgive anything anyone ever does to me as long as they don't continue the action. I literally do "forgive and forget," and it's selective Bible quoting that brought me up that way.

149

Evolution and spirits

by Chris Tann in

as of now iam making an unbiased examination of evolution.

however one thing keeps me hanging on to the belief of a supreme spirit being; the existence of spirits.

i have heard countless accounts of people who have experienced frightening encounters with evil forces.

Billyblobber

The problem with doubters in anything supernatural, is that they refuse to consider the possibility that something bigger than themselves might actually exist and they would rather say everyone else is wrong than consider the possibility that there are things that can't be explained away by sleepwalking and meds.

What? Why would you even come to that conclusion? You're making a ridiculously huge jump, and putting motives in people's heads for no apparent reason.

"Doubters" just use the same standards of evidence with the supernatural as they would with UFOs or new animals or new scientific breakthroughs or anything else. You SHOULD doubt by default. Default belief in things just because you want to believe in them are a problem area for humanity as a whole, and cause huge problems throughout human history.

Not even just that, but many "doubters" have experienced the same EXACT "supernatural experiences" as those who believe, believed at one time, and in retrospect or in comparison with other experiences, combined with reading up on how the mind works, etc. have come to the conclusion that it was more than likely -not- a supernatural experience. On the flip side, those that have supposedly experienced these things attribute anything questionable to the supernatural and don't have the same realization about ANY of their experiences, which points to the latter as having more ego-based beliefs (making themselves greater by having experienced something unique as opposed to mundane). It really goes the opposite of what you're saying.