I have seen enough name-calling and attempts to belittle individuals for their views here to agree that sometimes it can be hostile on this forum. But that doesn't make the forum a complete place of hostility. A lot of caring also goes on in here, a lot of sympathizing, a lot of understanding and even friendships. I'm willing to put up with disagreement. But, I must admit that when people resort to insults, I give it right back. If they can dish it out, they should be able to take it. What I do afterwards is think about those negative people and try to picture them in their daily life and think about what type of individuals they are. That makes them more human and makes me think that they may not be so negative just because they say negative things. Others can be complete assholes and attack people instead of ideas. That's just how some people are. Still, I have seen many apologize for something they said that was insensitive. I'm not sure I would use one description to categorize this place. I would say it's all of the above and anything else you find it means to you.
Posts by Etude
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64Is JWN an unforgiving place
by usualusername inover many years i have looked at jwn.
in fact barely a day goes by without my fix.. .
it is a site of contradictions.. .
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97
I like you more if you are literratte
by usualusername inas a daily visitor of this site i am shocked by how judgemental i am.. .
if someone makes a valid point but does not spell well it colours my judgement.. .
if someone who is a clown has excellent grammar i give them leeway.. as an aside i am a gramaphobe.. .
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Etude
I can illustrate my problem this way. In my post above (414) started to write: "I'm suddenly reminded of a joke regarding a grammatical Nazi..." I changed the sentence to say "I'm suddenly remembering a joke regarding a grammatical Nazi..." What happened is that is that I changed "reminded" to "remembering" and left the "of" in place. So the sentence looks really awkward. I think the site gives you like 10 seconds to edit or the post commits. And so my bad grammar will linger in perpetuity.
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85
Dawkins Chapter 2 - Dogs, Cows and Cabbages
by KateWild ini have to say, i am afraid i found this chapter labourious to read in most places.
imo i felt he just wasn't getting to the point.
i don't get why dawkins felt the need to teach me all about platoism, essentialism and rabbits.
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Etude
tec:
The reason I commented about you and that other interminable thread was that I identified you views here on this post. I’m also basing my comments and a return to that old thread based on what Qcmbr said in his post 3205 and 3207. It’s just like something I said to you about a year ago. snare&racket (Post 1932) reiterated the issue here that I presented to you then. My ultimate conclusion was that your certainty about God (or something that speaks to you) is purely contained in your head and cannot be substantiated by any means possible to others. Even if others express the same thing to you that you feel, that other person’s feelings cannot be confirmed outside of his or her mind. You would have to simply trust him or her. My main point is that this is indistinguishable from illusion.
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97
I like you more if you are literratte
by usualusername inas a daily visitor of this site i am shocked by how judgemental i am.. .
if someone makes a valid point but does not spell well it colours my judgement.. .
if someone who is a clown has excellent grammar i give them leeway.. as an aside i am a gramaphobe.. .
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Etude
Thanks. In the last few days, I've been enjoying a bit of Scotch a friend brought from a trip to Paris. It should have been Cognac, but I'm not going to quarrel with that. So, without implying I'm a lush, my errors grow proportionately to the number of drinks. I do find them, the errors. I wish I could go back and correct them. I learned to speak French many years ago and I realized I had it when I started dreaming in French. I still cross words between all three languages, Spanish, English and French, even though I've forgotten a lot of French. My handle Étude is not simply a reflection of a French word but because, as jgnat points out, it's a musical form and I play some on the piano.
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54
Religion vs. Spirituality
by Oubliette inreligion is for people who are scared to go to hell.
spirituality is for people who have already been there.
- bonnie raitt .
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Etude
Whatever it is, it seems to serve a purpose, in at least the fact that the reduced stress and longevity observed in some individuals may be the result of prolonged and regular spiritual experiences. In one case, they tested a nun. She was close to 90 years old and had achieved a way, via a lot of rote and practice, to enter a contemplative state. Another case used a Buddhist monk. Buddhists are not necessarily religious and achieve a similar (often deep) state of contemplation via meditation techniques. The findings are significant enough that it’s taking some re-education to cause Drs to consider it in their diagnosis. Here’s an abstract of such findings.
No. It is profound contemplation as opposed to mild or casual contemplation. You know, like your attention span, like when you temporarily space out.I posted about this topic 8 years ago and had a picture of that helmet. It’s really not that new. The link is broken now but it was the same crude helmet. The studies I mentioned had nothing to do with that helmet, so I take it the reference about the flaws in methodology involving the helmet are not an issue since the experiments I’ve seen were done in medical facilities by researchers either from academia or independently sponsored.
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194
Bethel Rules
by brotherdan inthis was brought up just in passing on another thread.
but i wanted to see if there are any bethelites or ex bethelites that remember some of the crazy rules we had to follow when we were there..
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Etude
Yeah, this thread really deserves a bump. I read it all and I'm reminded of how much I've forgotten. I'm still so cloudy about my 2 1/2 years (mid 70s) that I'm going to need a hypnotist to retrieve my suppressed painful memories. I do remember the following:
- No bulletin boards (at least when I was there)
- No bear bottles to decorate anything
- No pressed blue jeans (at least at the farm, but you could in Brooklyn)
- No extra furniture in your room (unless it was authorized, which was seldom)
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97
I like you more if you are literratte
by usualusername inas a daily visitor of this site i am shocked by how judgemental i am.. .
if someone makes a valid point but does not spell well it colours my judgement.. .
if someone who is a clown has excellent grammar i give them leeway.. as an aside i am a gramaphobe.. .
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Etude
I'm suddenly remembering of a joke regarding a grammatical Nazi: A man walks up to another on the street and asks, “Can you tell where the library is at?” The other person says: “You should never end a sentence with a preposition.” “OK”, says the first man. “Can you tell me where the library is at, asshole?”
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97
I like you more if you are literratte
by usualusername inas a daily visitor of this site i am shocked by how judgemental i am.. .
if someone makes a valid point but does not spell well it colours my judgement.. .
if someone who is a clown has excellent grammar i give them leeway.. as an aside i am a gramaphobe.. .
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Etude
I have a multiple problem. It is misspelling as well as having omissions and sometimes extra words in my writing. I have a pretty good vocabulary and have learned the nuances of using a particular word that conveys a better meaning than some other synonym. But the real problem I have is the language pattern left over from my first language, Spanish. So often, I'll start a sentence, backspace to restructure it and leave an article or conjunction behind. That looks really strange when you see it. I have to re-read the sentence several times to figure out how it should be.
English is an infuriating language to learn compared to Romance languages. It seems it has more exceptions than rules. However, its dominance in the world can't be denied. When writing here (since the browser spell checker doesn't work when composing), I have to write in Word and then copy and paste. That will correct most misspellings but won't fix a correct word that was left over or omitted because my brain happened to be in another mode or because I'm having a scotch (or two) while on the forum. So, I don't come down on people for having bad spelling, unless they misspell something while trying to be insulting. I figure that if they want the insult to be effective, they should at least spell it correctly.
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189
Dawkins-The Greatest Show on Earth
by KateWild inas many may be aware.
i don't like the man.
but i have chosen to review the first chapter of his book.. chapter 1... only a theory?.
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Etude
I really don’t need to speak to anybody. The fact that Susan Blackmore and Daniel Dennett have promoted it doesn’t change anything. You can put feathers on a dog but that doesn’t make it a chicken. I don’t even understand why I would have to defer to them. Here’s why: “…it [meme] was coined by the British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene (1976)” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme) That’s all I need. I also read a reference from Dawkins in “The God Delusion” about how he came up with the name. So quit making it like it’s not his bastard child. Your persistence in not addressing the issue is why I use the word “worship”. It seems that to you he can do no wrong and you’re wrong about that.
No. Fallibility is not unique in anyone or anything. But from the noise I’m getting here just for pointing a few issues out, it seems that nobody wants to consider let alone admit that perhaps Dawkins doesn’t have the answers in at least the area I mentioned. If, like you said “some [of his] evolutionary matters are likely going to be proven wrong”, why are we even arguing? That’s all I’ve been trying to say all along! I have indication of that because of the controversy other scientists have raised. If Dawkins ever corrects the situation and comes up with a better explanation or some demonstration, he will effectively silence critics like Wilson who by-the-way is an Evolutionary Biologist.
Maybe “worship” is a bit much. But just a bit. I used it in the sense of unshakable reverence for someone in spite of some kinks in the armor. That’s what I’m sensing from some here. So, I didn’t say it out of immaturity but out of understanding. So, that’s not going to shame me at all no matter how strongly you point that ignominious finger at me. I’m not challenging the foundations of science, Evolution or Natural Selection. I, because of other experts, have come to understand that some of what Dawkins concludes is not sustainable. So, unless you can find some specifics where I’ve done otherwise, I’m not sure what it is you’re arguing about.
Don’t be silly. C’mon man, you know what I mean. Do you really need to remind anyone on levitation and whether that is possible or not? Nobody needs that just like nobody needs to be reminded that “kissing up” to or “worshiping” someone does not necessarily involve any part of the anatomy or any sort of religious hocus pocus.
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54
Religion vs. Spirituality
by Oubliette inreligion is for people who are scared to go to hell.
spirituality is for people who have already been there.
- bonnie raitt .
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Etude
I have settled on the word “spirituality” as a real event. Before, I didn’t care what you called it, it being that sensation of connectedness with the universe and the awe experienced when watching a marvelous event or thinking deeply about something.
What convinced me was the work of Vilayanur S. Ramachandran, a behavioral neurologist who made several important discoveries while at U.C. San Diego. But that was just the start. Since that encounter, I have seen several experiments conducted which demonstrate specific areas of the brain are stimulated when someone is in a state of meditation or deep prayer or in a state of profound contemplation. They do this in several ways: one way is by placing electrodes and “mapping” the chatter of specific areas of the brain, for which there is also a control map. Another way is to do this while at the same time under an MRI detector. The results are pretty consistent.
The experience has a soothing and calming result that seems to bring inner peace. At first, they had discovered a predominant area in the right temporal side of the brain (just above and behind the ear), which was quickly labeled as the “G” spot. Now, they are noting that there are other concurrent areas of the brain which also help coordinate that experience. The experience can be reproducible via electrode stimulation of the brain. So, it’s not an aberration or pseudo science. It’s a real effect. What does it mean? Who knows? But something in our makeup is directly responsible for what we call “spirituality”. The difference is that Big Bad Voodoo Daddy in the sky does not have to be involved.