Posts by tetrapod.sapien

18

God can bring us the peace that America took away.

by Santisimo in

what truth am i talking about?

freedom?

if bin laden is killing americans because he 'hates freedom' (as bush and the yellow-media put it), then why aren't we allowed to see his videos full-length with english subtitles?

tetrapod.sapien

santismo,

it's interesting because i read your entire post. and actually, i agree with like 99% of everything you wrote until this:

I pray that G-d sends his Messiah soon, because this promised King is the only one who can bring peace to the world. I pray that G-d may spare us from the horrors that our 'leaders' decisions have brought on us. I pray that one day I wake up and see the image of G-d's annointed broadcast on every cell phone, computer and television set on earth. I pray that I may live to hear Him teach us how to make peace and how to bring the earth back to the paradise that G-d intended for us.

it's weird, because i was totally expecting you to say that the onus lies with us, us human beings to stand up for ourselves in relation to the cosmos and nature, and make positive changes for this earth with our own hands and minds. but instead you invoke the God and the solution that your percieved enemy, George W. Bush invokes himself.

why do you *really* (deep inside) think that he has let everything in the world go to sh!t? because he thinks that america will clean it all up? or because jesus is gonna come makey all better?

tetra

24

must we practice what we believe?

by tetrapod.sapien in

jw
friends

for example, i often hear atheists say that while they have a "lack of belief" in any gods (negative position), they are going to make the positive step in their lives and live them like there were no gods.

which is to say that they make their own morals and choices without fear of some god.

but what if an atheist decided one day that so and so religion, that worships so and so god, makes him feel good emotionally, and gives his ever vigilant left hemisphere a break on sundays.

tetrapod.sapien

for example, i often hear atheists say that while they have a "lack of belief" in any Gods (negative position), they are going to make the positive step in their lives and live them like there were no Gods. which is to say that they make their own morals and choices without fear of some God. but what if an atheist decided one day that so and so religion, that worships so and so god, makes him feel good emotionally, and gives his ever vigilant left hemisphere a break on sundays. (perhaps his pineal gland needs a massage after laborous hours reading peer reviewed papers;) he admits that this is a subjective thing, but does it anyway. praying. singing hymns. speaking in tongues. or whatever it is they do. smoke ganja and praise jah. whatever.

is it some how wrong, or immoral, or distasteful to believe one thing, but practice another in one's life?

i know that to religious people, the answer is yes, because then you are somehow not honest to the truth of your belief system as coming from a divine source. but i wonder about atheists? if your best friend was an atheist, and you were an atheist too, but one day she started praying to some god, how would you react when she explained that she knows that the god she prays to does not exist, and that it is for emotional comfort only? (or that she was watering her calcified pineal gland with a little soma pinoline after decades of letting it atrophy)

tetra

104

Further incite on Dawkin's The God Delusion

by Abandoned in

jw
friends

i started a thread after i finished the first chapter of this book entitled something like, i'm an atheist.

i finished chapter three and i have to backtrack a bit, but i also feel the need to explain why since i was so vocal.. first, let me say that i think everyon should read the first two chapters of the god delusion by richard dawkins.

he brings up some very important points about religion and about science's place in our world.

tetrapod.sapien

The Chinese theorist said it was like the scientist hundreds of years ago that ignored the fact the earth of revolving around the Sun. He then said long held ideas are hard to change scientist today can be as stubborn as those during and after Galileo time.

skyking,

not only are you refusing to address the issues brought up, but you seem to have mixed a very important fact up:

it was not scientists who did not want to change in galileo's time. it was the church. magical thinking folk. people who did not want to give up the favoured position of humans in the little cosmos, to a view of humans not being the center of a much larger cosmos.

and i believe the chinese looking guy might have been michio kaku, one of the founders of string theory. i have heard him use this analogy on bbc before. he uses it to remind people that they must follow facts, not politics. and actually, kaku and dawkins are quite similar in their roles: they are both spokesmen for areas of science that they believe have the power to change the world for the better. which is a philosophy in addition to the theories which they represent. a logical philosophical extension. don't confuse them for the theories themselves, as i believe you already have done.

Dawkins only believes what he chooses to believe.

there was a choice in it, yes. it was the choice to follow the facts wherever they led us rationally, regardless of whether it made him or anyone else feel small and insignificant. and that's what he chooses to believe. he might be grumpy about it, but he's been a voice out in the wilderness about all this for a while.

tetra

25

Who believes in reincarnation and enlightenment??

by Aphrodite in

what are your beliefs based on and how has this been affected by your time as a witness?

tetrapod.sapien

metatron,

genomes are not blueprints. they are computer programs. fundamental difference.

if genomes where blueprints, like the one used to build the computer you are working on, every human would be the same. which is to say, there would be no humans, because there would be no mutations, and no mutations means no evolution. and evolution is how we got here in the first place.

that's nature. if we are to inherit anything, like say, another previous human's consciousness, it would be through nurture.

some psychologists claim that they can take patients back through previous lives. their patients have all sorts of extravagant experiences as important people from ancient civilizations. i wonder though, why no one ever reports experiences of being ape men on the savannah 200 000 years ago? or as a tetrapod from the early carboniferous period?

tetra

61

Look what I got last night :)

by misanthropic in

jw
friends

he's 7 weeks old, he's a chocolate lab and i named him tony.

his eye isn't messed up it just looks that way because i was trying to get his face to look forward while i pushed the button all at once.

he kept me up all night last night crying, but hopefully just like with my beagle he will outgrow that.

tetrapod.sapien

Tony!! congrats MIS, he's the cutest lil thing!

6

Guess the Sexist, Misogynistic God?

by tetrapod.sapien in

jw
friends

3:16unto the woman he said, i will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.. 22:18thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.. 21:9and the daughter of any priest, if she profane herself by playing the whore, she profaneth her father: she shall be burnt with fire.. 22:23if a damsel that is a virgin be betrothed unto an husband, and a man find her in the city, and lie with her; 22:24then ye shall bring them both out unto the gate of that city, and ye shall stone them with stones that they die;the damsel, because she cried not, being in the city;.

2:14and adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.. tetra.

tetrapod.sapien

3:16 Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.

22:18 Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.

21:9 And the daughter of any priest, if she profane herself by playing the whore, she profaneth her father: she shall be burnt with fire.

22:23 If a damsel that is a virgin be betrothed unto an husband, and a man find her in the city, and lie with her; 22:24 Then ye shall bring them both out unto the gate of that city, and ye shall stone them with stones that they die; the damsel, because she cried not, being in the city;

2:14 And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.

tetra

12

Guess the Sexist

by Deputy Dog in

jw
friends

who wrote: it is generally admitted that with woman the powers of intuition, of rapid perception, and perhaps of imitation, are more strongly marked than in man; but some, at least, of these faculties are characteristic of the lower races, and therefore of a past and lower state of civilisation.

the chief distinction in the intellectual powers of the two sexes is shewn by man's attaining to a higher eminence, in whatever he takes up, than can woman- whether requiring deep thought, reason, or imagination, or merely the use of the senses and hands.

if two lists were made of the most eminent men and women in poetry, painting, sculpture, music (inclusive both of composition and performance), history, science, and philosophy, with half-a-dozen names under each subject, the two lists would not bear comparison.

tetrapod.sapien

sorry. that was charles darwin, in case anyone missed that.

12

Guess the Sexist

by Deputy Dog in

jw
friends

who wrote: it is generally admitted that with woman the powers of intuition, of rapid perception, and perhaps of imitation, are more strongly marked than in man; but some, at least, of these faculties are characteristic of the lower races, and therefore of a past and lower state of civilisation.

the chief distinction in the intellectual powers of the two sexes is shewn by man's attaining to a higher eminence, in whatever he takes up, than can woman- whether requiring deep thought, reason, or imagination, or merely the use of the senses and hands.

if two lists were made of the most eminent men and women in poetry, painting, sculpture, music (inclusive both of composition and performance), history, science, and philosophy, with half-a-dozen names under each subject, the two lists would not bear comparison.