Time seems to be getting away. I start looking at people my parents age and realize I will be there much sooner than I think. Who I am, what I have, can be lost so easily. I wonder if I have really lived yet, or am I just waiting to die sooner or later.
Dave
PrimateDave
JoinedPosts by PrimateDave
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33
Turning 40... A male perspective needed pls
by yknot inmy hubby is turning 40 next year.
this apparently is nagging at him pretty bad.
(not too sure why, i mean he looks the exact same as he did the day i met him!.....
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PrimateDave
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105
Atheism as a psychological phenomenon.
by BurnTheShips intheism in its various forms has been since the beginning subjected to psychological analysis and treated as a phenomenon of the human mind.
perhaps it is time to turn the lens and examine the psychological reasons for atheism as well.
this approach should be especially inoffensive to many atheists/materialists since in their worldview, all phenomena are reducible to natural causes.
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PrimateDave
I suppose that George Lucas knows the reason why people become atheists. ;)
Luke Skywalker vs Darth Vader
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23
Are we entering a new era?
by BurnTheShips in19 december 2008situation report: global economy, december 2008filed under: post-wwii era, end of tags: financial crisis, napoleon, peak oil, transition, treaty of paris, wwi, wwii fabius maximus @ 5:00 am this is a situation report on the global economy.
speculation, attempting to find order from the confusing and rapidly-changing datastream.. the roots of this crisis lie in the cumulative decisions of us all collectively over the past 3 decades.the problem grew to become major problem as a result of regulatory decisions made over the past decade or so.we passed the last exit during the 2001 recession, with the governments decision to supercharge credit expansion instead of allowing a natural recession to rebalance the economy (as volker did in 1980-82).the financial crisis ignited in december 2006 with the collapse of the mortgage brokers.it became a conflagration as a result of the governments ad hoc response, incremental steps taken into the void without a plan.the financial crisis hit the real world in fall 2008, a cardiac arrest of global economic activity.so far main street has experienced only the fore-quakes, the tremors before the main event.i suspect it will hit during the next few months.the defining characteristic of this downturn is the unexpected breaking of links in the economic machinery.
home prices crash far beyond anything seen since the 1903s.
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PrimateDave
I have to smile when people claim that the Chinese are communists. Do a search on "China billionaires." What the Chinese really are is Command Capitalists.
It is very hard to trust the "official" US government figures on GDP, inflation, and unemployment. Some claim that GDP is overstated while inflation and unemployment are grossly understated. We may have been in a recession for longer than just the past year.
The problem with the economy is that there is too much debt. How can it resume "normal" growth if the debt built up from the previous growth has yet to be paid back? How can the North American consumer take on additional debt? When will transparency be restored to the markets?
These are uncharted waters.
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105
Atheism as a psychological phenomenon.
by BurnTheShips intheism in its various forms has been since the beginning subjected to psychological analysis and treated as a phenomenon of the human mind.
perhaps it is time to turn the lens and examine the psychological reasons for atheism as well.
this approach should be especially inoffensive to many atheists/materialists since in their worldview, all phenomena are reducible to natural causes.
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PrimateDave
Fair enough, but I have always had a good father despite his attachment to a high control group. Unlike many of my peers, my parents are still married. I had a good childhood.
I did come to the conclusion that just because my parents believed something to be true, however, that didn't mean that they were automatically right. I am able to see myself as their equal in anything except for age. We have looked at the world with our own eyes and come to different conclusions.
As for fear of death, well, I don't really want to die. Wishful thinking, however, won't prevent that fact. I know my parents believe that they will live forever. I won't spoil the comfort they receive from that belief by forcing my beliefs down their throat.
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JESUS NEVER EXISTED
by whereami inis this info here legit?
what's your take oh great wise ones.. http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/.
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PrimateDave
Burn, I'm just repeating what the article said. You know those liberal editors at Nat Geo are atheists. ;)
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105
Atheism as a psychological phenomenon.
by BurnTheShips intheism in its various forms has been since the beginning subjected to psychological analysis and treated as a phenomenon of the human mind.
perhaps it is time to turn the lens and examine the psychological reasons for atheism as well.
this approach should be especially inoffensive to many atheists/materialists since in their worldview, all phenomena are reducible to natural causes.
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PrimateDave
Gosh, Burn. Couldn't ya just give a few highlights? I got 'tenshun deficit disorder. ;)
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Grrr...Gas went Up!
by sammielee24 inoil has been dropping..and dropping..and dropping.... two days ago, the price of gas was down to $1.67 a gallon...today, oil dropped even more but guess what?
a gallon of gas today went up to $1.85.....hmmmm.
sammieswife.
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PrimateDave
39 cents per liter here. I'm not complaining.
Energy BulletinThe markets’ reaction to [OPEC's] decision suggests that production [should that read demand ?] continues to fall faster than is generally thought and that skepticism about whether the cuts will be made continues. The US crude inventory continues to increase and the international oil companies recently booked 25 supertankers capable of storing 50 million barrels of oil as floating storage. US demand for petroleum products continues to run about 1.2 million b/d lower than last year. Chinese demand in November was down about 3.5 percent over last year, the first drop in consumption in nearly 3 years. While it will be several months before we can judge the effectiveness of the new cut, suggestions that it will take cuts totaling 6 or 7 million b/d to rebalance the oil market may not be far off the mark.
Will lower oil prices by themselves improve the economy? Remember that during the Great Depression a barrel of oil (42 US Gallons) sold for well under a dollar.
London BankerI’m now coming down on the side of deflation for a very simple reason: there is no longer any incentive to save or invest, and so debt and investment cannot increase much beyond current bloated levels....
the yield on government debt has dropped to negative territory....
Anyone sitting on a pile of cash now is unlikely to want to either (a) place it in a bank, or (b) invest it in the stock market. As a result, the implosion of the financial and real economy must continue no matter how big the central bank’s aspirations for its balance sheet or the treasury’s aspirations for its deficit....
The result of discouraging domestic and foreign creditors and investors must be inevitable deflation as debt levels become increasingly hard to finance and ultimately contract. Irresponsible central banks and governments can try to bail out the failed banks, businesses and municipalities at the centre of every popped bubble, but the bubble economies are ever more certain to deflate with each bailout. Each bailout further undermines the market discipline which is bedrock to a saver or investor’s decision to part with hard-earned cash by trusting it to the intermediation of the management of a bank or business....
It is now clear to me that policy makers in the West are determined to apply every available resource to underpinning failure, misallocation and executive excess.
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9
JESUS NEVER EXISTED
by whereami inis this info here legit?
what's your take oh great wise ones.. http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/.
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PrimateDave
I just read the latest National Geographic magazine's feature article on Herod. Apparently, Jewish historian Josephus wrote extensively on the life of Herod, but failed to mention anything about the mass murder of infants that supposedly occurred after Jesus was born. Herod was despised, to be sure, but this event in the Bible (the account of "Matthew" is the only place it is recorded anywhere) was most likely made up. I recommend reading the article. It makes one wonder what else was made up in the life of Jesus.
Dave
Edited to add that it appears that at least some of the information in the provided link seems to be accurate. I would suspect any information that is presented in a less than professional and scholarly manner. Coming across as though one has an ax to grind makes one's arguments less credible. I know I have been guilty of that common human failing myself. -
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RIP Dansk (aka Ian), 18.12.1953- 20.12.2008
by faundy inhave posted this on the other thread but just making this one as well:
i need to let you know that dad passed away this morning at 8am.
he fought so hard but in the end they could not get his blood pressure to rise and he died of heart failure.
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PrimateDave
So sorry to hear of this. What a sudden and tragic loss. My heartfelt sympathies to you and your family.
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"NO EVIDENCE" for God, and creation? Maybe there is . .
by hooberus inatheists (however one defines the term) frequently use the term "no evidence" in relation to the existence of god, any type of creation, (especially genesis creation and flood), or most any other theistic claim.
they almost always however claim that their beliefs are "backed by evidence" ; "overwhelming evidence" etc, etc, etc, etc, repeat, etc, repeat, etc.. (their beliefs generally tend to include whatever is necessary to believe in to intellectually "explain" the world without needing god).
is there really "no evidence" for god, and creation?
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PrimateDave
So, this thread has been resurrected. Okay, I'll play along just for kicks.
I was recently reading the book Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler. It is a dystopian sci-fi novel set near L.A., California, in 2025-2027.
What makes this book relevant to the discussion at hand is the concept of god presented by the author. Allow me to indulge in a little cut and paste: ;)A lot of people seem to believe in a big-daddy-God
or a big-cop-God or a big-king-God. They believe in
a kind of super-person. A few believe God is another
word for nature. And nature turns out to mean just
about anything they happen not to understand or
feel in control of.
Some say God is a spirit, a force, an ultimate reality.
Ask seven people what all of that means and you'll
get seven different answers. So what is God? Just
another name for whatever makes you feel special
and protected? ...
Is there a God? If there is, does he (she? it?) care
about us? Deists like Benjamin Franklin and Thomas
Jefferson believed God was something that made
us, then left us on our own. ...
In the book of Job, God says he made everything
and he knows everything so no one has any right to
question what he does with any of it. Okay. That
works. That Old Testament God doesn't violate the
way things are now. But that God sounds a lot like
Zeus-- a super-powerful man, playing with his toys
the way my youngest brothers play with toy soldiers.
Bang, bang! Seven toys fall dead. If they're yours,
you make the rules. Who cares what the toys think.
Wipe out a toy's family, then give it a brand new
family. Toy children, like Job's children, are
interchangeable.
Maybe God is a kind of big kid, playing with his toys.
But what if all that is wrong? What if God is
something else altogether? ...
We do not worship God.
We perceive and attend God.
We learn from God.
With forethought and work,
We shape God.
In the end, we yield to God.
We adapt and endure,
For we are Earthseed,
And God is Change.
God is Power--
Infinite,
Irresistible,
Inexorable,
Indifferent.
And yet, God is Pliable--
Trickster,
Teacher,
Chaos,
Clay.
God exists to be shaped.
God is Change.
This is the literal truth.
God can't be resisted or stopped, but can be shaped
and focused. This means God is not to be prayed to.
Prayers only help the person doing the praying, and
then, only if they strengthen and focus that person's
resolve. If they're used that way, they can help us in
our only real relationship with God. They help us to
shape God and to accept and work with the shapes
that God imposes on us. God is power, and in the
end, God prevails.
But we can rig the game in our own favor if we
understand that God exists to be shaped, and will be
shaped, with or without our forethought, with or
without our intent.
That's what I know. That's some of it anyway. I'm not
like Mrs. Sims. I'm not some kind of potential Job,
long suffering, stiff necked, then, at last, either
humble before an all-knowing almighty, or
destroyed. My God doesn't love me or hate me or
watch over me or know me at all, and I feel no love
for or loyalty to my God. My God just is.
Not saying I'm a believer, but the concept presented by the author is thought provoking, nonetheless.
Dave