Qcmbr

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Posts by Qcmbr

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  57

  MIT Survey on science, religion and origins

  by Pterist in

  1. social
  2. current

  interesting read and graph:.

  *****i'd been warned.

  a friend cautioned me that if we went ahead and posted our mit survey on science, religion and origins, i'd get inundated with hate-mail from religious fundamentalists who believe our universe to be less than 10,000 years old.

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  Qcmbr

  Faith requires primacy over all other forms of knowledge. When formed it normally reflects the current scientific knowledge ( tec this is why you can delude yourself that you are in agreement with current science, you simply lifted current knowledge, mixed it with current morality and then added in the magic) but faith has no logical route to update itself without makong its former self look foolish. We have Catholics who were once at the forefront of science now having to recant young earth thinking in favour of current factual knowledge. The modern day mystic is on love with higgs bosuns and quantum effects and are scrabbling to say that of course thats what was true all along. Faith filled believers are darwinian to the core throwing untold millions of former beliefs under the cart wheel while boldly claiming that this time theyve got it right. Lock the faithful in a room with their god and their real knowledge ceases.

  Roll on the day when faith is recognised as the intellectual millstone it is.
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  153

  If there is a God why didn't he sign our DNA

  by scotoma in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  todays scientists can and do insert their trademark into dna.. why couldn't jehovah anticipate scientists learning this technique and stumbling across a strand that says "human by yhwh"?.

  that would have answered a lot of questions.. he could have even included a model number human2.0.

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  Qcmbr

  AG if it helps your understanding replace the name Joseph Smith in my above comments.

  Returning to the OP I think we could reasonably suspect that any advanced being who could have influenced mankind , Im thinking alien rather than god, could have left a calling card to he discovered when we reached a certain level of technological advance. DNA would be the perfect place to do it as well.
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  153

  If there is a God why didn't he sign our DNA

  by scotoma in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  todays scientists can and do insert their trademark into dna.. why couldn't jehovah anticipate scientists learning this technique and stumbling across a strand that says "human by yhwh"?.

  that would have answered a lot of questions.. he could have even included a model number human2.0.

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  Qcmbr

  Oddly enough he does dance to your tune though AG. All gods always have a knack of rising to meet the needs of their spokespeople but no more, speak with the intellect of their prophets but no greater and reveal knowledge somehow limited by the imagination of the mystic. These gods speak as grandiosely as the personal egos of the mediums dare and all fall utterly silent once the 'servant' passes on. No one will talk of your dragons and leprous Christs when you leave and your particular brand of divinity oddly stops existing at the moment you do. Thus it has been with every god no matter how many temples, pyramids or slaves groaned under the whip to build monuments to them there were. Your god would not be recognised by any Christian group save the one you gather now and mercifully none of them are yet seeing dragons.

  Tec - this is the pride I talk about. Faith allows a person to demand an absolute stonewall. My way or the highway. Any doubt or admission of making a faith mistake is a disaster to the ego that supports the delusion. Admitting a theological failing is the thread that unravels the whole so it cannot be allowed. Just as a flaw in a mathematical theory will break it so does any failure in a reported divine world. This is where pride comes in and one reason why these conversations are tense, no ground can be admitted by the faithful. In the battle if ideas the faith position, found devoid of material evidence, will twist and turn avoiding fatal blows with, 'that's not my god' or 'you just don't understand' and will retreat with the never fulfilled threat that one day the non faithful will 'see' to their fear and trembling. Mormons do it, JWs do it and all brands of Abrahamic religions do it. The battle was unwinable the moment some human imagined a magical being in the heavens and worshipped fire or a tree and yet the hordes of the faithful are still arguing for ghosts and ghouls but this time it's winged gargoyles and blood sacrificing super humans, the sophistication grows but the underlying reality is the same.
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  153

  If there is a God why didn't he sign our DNA

  by scotoma in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  todays scientists can and do insert their trademark into dna.. why couldn't jehovah anticipate scientists learning this technique and stumbling across a strand that says "human by yhwh"?.

  that would have answered a lot of questions.. he could have even included a model number human2.0.

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  Qcmbr

  Well, you can't really speak to someone who will not hear or see or exercise faith in you, can you?

  Tec - do you seriously own this?

  When I talk of enslavement I of course mean of the mind. Since there are no biblical gods of course. I have yet to see a believer who is not enslaved by their faith, my former self included. Faith, by it's nature demands primacy over logic, facts, reason, doubt or reality. Everything , up to and including human life, is demanded by faith, the belief in a magic world just out of sight and reach of the real world. Believing scientists are hamstrung by the need to present information that upholds their faith and to try to downplay other information that is not. Apologists are forced to trawl documentation looking for scraps that prove a point while often deviously ignoring context and other plainer readings. Above all these brief examples however, one rises most forceably to the surface, pride. Faith gives the believer unearned surety, untested certainty, unlearned knowledge and with these faux perceptions they seek to entrance and captivate all who will listen to their web of myths and magic. Credulous people will follow preachers and will give them honour. Slavery is the drumbeat of faith.

  A real god wouldn't play these games.
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  153

  If there is a God why didn't he sign our DNA

  by scotoma in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  todays scientists can and do insert their trademark into dna.. why couldn't jehovah anticipate scientists learning this technique and stumbling across a strand that says "human by yhwh"?.

  that would have answered a lot of questions.. he could have even included a model number human2.0.

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  Qcmbr

  What's interesting is how we chose to communicate with possible alien species. We engraved cosmological information, scientific knowledge about atoms, anatomy and shared cultural items like music. At no stage did we demand worship, give a set of commandments, pretend to be the source of emotions or thoughts , we didn't threaten, call names, tell spooky stories or anything else.

  Intelligent life talks science it doesn't talk faith.
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  153

  If there is a God why didn't he sign our DNA

  by scotoma in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  todays scientists can and do insert their trademark into dna.. why couldn't jehovah anticipate scientists learning this technique and stumbling across a strand that says "human by yhwh"?.

  that would have answered a lot of questions.. he could have even included a model number human2.0.

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  Qcmbr

  As AG shows above its a power game. Visions and revelations are all about creating a pretend teacher / student relationship with them as knowledge giver. The formula is simple. Point out how some nebulous concept is understood only be the chosen few ( lets say 'love') and then point out how everyone else is in some way deficient and in need of the product being sold. As a side task frame the whole story as a them v us scenario where dark forces influence the thinking of anyone refusing to accept the false power game. Great object lesson.
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  153

  If there is a God why didn't he sign our DNA

  by scotoma in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  todays scientists can and do insert their trademark into dna.. why couldn't jehovah anticipate scientists learning this technique and stumbling across a strand that says "human by yhwh"?.

  that would have answered a lot of questions.. he could have even included a model number human2.0.

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  Qcmbr

  All the gods who have ever owned the hearts and enslaved the minds of billions have asked for that which they do not need , revealed nothing beyond the science of the day, made their most important message identical to the stories of children, chosen an elect voice hearing, vision seeing, faith feeling elite to lead and have faded with the culture that created them.

  History , in this regard, teaches nothing to the dupes who fall for it time and again. A real god who was interested in humans would act differently to all human imagined gods, it would - as all rational beings do - teach the futility and danger of faith. No all powerful god wishing to communicate with another race would send fragmented babblings in dreams and telepathic Chinese whispers allowing that message to be further sophisticated by the prophets and mystics who play power games with everyone else. A real god's existence would not be in doubt and certainly wouldn't need to be proven or testified of on Internet forums or street corner soap boxes.
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  1

  Double Binds

  by Qcmbr in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  interesting discussion re use of double binds to control people behind the mormon curtain: http://forum.newordermormon.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=29936.

  in short it is giving someone two options which are in some way mutually exclusive such that success in one guarantees failure in the other and then attaching guilt.

  this way members continually chase their tails failing to meet all demands, feel guilt and hand over control to the person, concept or organisation.. mormon examples:.

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  Qcmbr

  Interesting discussion re use of double binds to control people behind the Mormon curtain: http://forum.newordermormon.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=29936

  In short it is giving someone two options which are in some way mutually exclusive such that success in one guarantees failure in the other and then attaching guilt. This way members continually chase their tails failing to meet all demands, feel guilt and hand over control to the person, concept or organisation.

  Mormon examples:

  • "No success will compensate for failure in the home" / Wear yourself out in service to your fellow man / Never say no to a calling.
  • If you don't have a testimony it will come by bearing it / Do not lie or give false witness.
  • Free will - moral agency / Be obedient without question
  • Prophet will "never lead you astray " / Sometimes the prophet "speaks as a man"
  • The "glory of God is intelligence" / Only study church approved material
  • Have unshakeable faith / Avoid information that may weaken your testimony
  • Do not get into debt / Pay 10% of income before all other obligations
  • Do not gossip / Discuss the needs and problems of your assigned families to various committees
  • Atonement is free for all people / confess sins to Priesthood leadership who will decide if atonement has worked and you are forgiven

  There are lots more, have any JW examples?
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  16

  Why didn't God design humans so they pay a price with their health and bodies suffer for committing evil?

  by yadda yadda 2 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  the laws of health dictates that if we abuse our body and neglect our diet and health, we pay a price in our bodies.

  our health deterioriates and we get sick and diseased.

  its like the law of gravity.

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  Qcmbr

  While I don't think god designed anything I think evolutionary processes do feedback a natural morality and justice when resources are easily found. So in a place with plenty of food then behaviour that is less moral is generally less effective. This effect scales into importance the more complex the social group. Humans are the most complex but you can still see animal societies where protection of kin ( the selfish gene) is moral and more effective than every man for themselves strategies which tend to predominate in resource scare environments.

  In human society, just as 1 in every 10 smokers may well be able to smoke without suffering severe health problems, it is possible for in individual to escape social or physical consequences of immoral choices but overall there is a feedback, drink drivers suffer more injuries and deaths, thieves tend to have lower quality economic lives, gregarious people live longer, family orientated people tend to be happier on most measures and so on. Remember though that morality is relative. It is entirely moral , from an evolutionary standpoint, that in times of resource scarcity or immediate danger to act differently. During war, famine , personal attack we quickly discover that pious meekness and turn the other cheek are fairly useless traits in self or group preservation.
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  21

  If you have a Guardian Angle, would you be embarrassed?

  by jam in

  1. social
  2. current

  if you found out after you die, you had a guardian angel.

  watching over you, your entire life.. there are moments in my life i don,t care to think about.lol.

  your guardian angel, ok folks this is jam one nite after consuming.

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  Qcmbr

  The only embarrassment I'd feel is the missed opportunties. My life is way too boring and mediocre.