Posts by briansmall

You're so long winded yet you haven't proved anything...

You wish for proof of a thing that happened almost 2000 years ago?

You wish for my explanation of beliefs that fly in the face of billions of believers and bazillions of words of supporting belief to be written more tersely? A few paragraphs is too much for you?

Believe what you want.

You can see logic, faith, God, the Devil, Man, Science .. anything you want to look at, any way you want to.

I have only my logic and observational powers to guide me. Short of a visit from God, I'll stick with what I have, you can do the same, with my blessing.

I like religion, generally, (for others.) It keeps some of them more or less in line. That's a good thing. Unfortunately, it does perhaps as much harm as good.

Any of you ever tested the Bible before? A fair-sized portion of it is historical data, and to the best of my knowledge, while much of that data has been verified by the discipline of archaeology, none of it has ever been disproven in like manner. If you're going to claim it's a massive lie, then would you please point out where it is, in fact, testably inaccurate?

Ah, innocent until proven guilty? This is not a supportable request. No one can go back and witness the "writing" of the bible. Any evidence as to the intent of the authors is pure conjecture. Short of God appearing to us in an unquestionable manner, it will never be proven one way or the other. Archeology is mud and rocks, place and time. Of course it fits. But the tales of the people.. that's all anecdotal, there is no evidence at all.

Knowing the mind of man, it's simply my best guess as to the what and why of it all. I have no proof to offer.

What evidence?

The evidence that is all around us. It is in what we observe in those around us, in our history. It is what know about human nature through that observation.

We can understand history by virtue of knowing how man reacts to various circumstances. How he reacts today, how he reacted in history. What motivates him. What effect that motivation has on others.

Particularly, some men are interested in the control of his fellow man, primarily for profit. The question is, what is the Bible to those men? It is a lock into a structured belief system that yields enormous profit for those that know how to use it.

The "lock" of religion (belief = eternal reward / disbelief = eternal damnation) is, well, the ultimate psychological tool. It doesn't take a genius to see it. And people were smart enough to see it back then as well as now. Regardless of what we purport to "know" about the Council of Nicea and Constantine, the fact is, it was a group of people who wanted control of the populace that created the bible. Men, cloistered, with an agenda.

I simply think it unlikely in the extreme that the power that was concentrated upon the project (those who determined the necessity to bring everyone under the umbrella of one religious belief system) did not indulge in fabrication in order to secure the lock.

I think long hard hours were spent refinining it, mixing truth …

I would wager the biggest lie every perpetuated in history.

In fact, I believe that to actually be the case.

The evidence points that way.

Imagine, and all you did is move the letter n.

Judging from all the misery on earth, Satan is much more omnipresent than God.

Back to topic:
Are our religious leaders very honest? They are not in the poll.

Now there is a question with some meat on it. Often, we can see lies. Often we cannot, we will never know they existed.

So, for example, if the Bible were to be a contrivance, put together from fantasy rather than fact (to whatever degree) how big a lie would that be?

But part of the lie is that if you are bad you will receive coal, which is vengeful, even though no one does receive coal becasue it is a lie.

Yes, well there are degrees of lying, aren't there?

I cannot stand dogs. (well most dogs)

I wonder how many people can say that?

Frankly I feel for them, we humans have done to them what we do to everything. There's a lot of great dogs out there. And some downright nasty ones. Kind of like people in that respect. (I feel for them as well.)

They are both sneaky and a lie. They also both have slaves, the elves, and demons and they are both vengeful, don't be good and you get coal. Also they are both tools parents use to teach kids manners, and consequences. I have nothing against the Santa lie and I do not believe in Satan (or gods), I just find the connections interesting.

Interesting indeed. But don't you think that most children see through the vengeful part of Santa? After all, they get presents or they don't, and I'd bet that it's pretty clear to most that it has nothing to do with the Naughty or Nice aspect of their behavior.

So the Santa lie centers much more on "where" the presents come from rather than their morality or behavior.

As for Satan, well, that's several orders of magnitude greater in its imagery... But it's not really about Satan, after all, he is (only) the head warden Hell, the place God tosses you if you disappoint him.

Santa is a childhood fantasy, Satan is forever.

That would be my best guess, (where God is concerned.)

But our relationship to dogs is quite palpable, and it occurs in nature.

Man is common to both God and dog.

Maybe, as dog is man's best friend, so is man God's best friend?

I find that an interesting notion. Santa and Satan both wear red, I can see no other meaningful connection or contrast.

I have always enjoyed how Santa is spelled almost the same way as Satan.

Do you particularly have something against Santa? Do you see Santa as a form of Satan? Where exactly does your ejoyment of the similarity lie? In what way does it tickle your fancy? What connections does it cause for you?

The Santa lie teaches children that it's alright to lie?

Probably not. I think that the ones who end up lying were going to anyway.

There is not an adult capable of running fo politial office who does not understand the difference between the Santa lie and the "bigger" ones.

The child benefits from the Santa lie as it is perpetrated on him. He loses something when he finds out the truth. But when his sibling or classmate takes his toy and lies about it, he loses something. He gains it back when the truth comes to light. No child capable of rudimentary reasoning can't see the difference.

The fundamental difference between the liars and the truthful, is that the truthful "feel" the pain of lies and wish not to perpetrate that pain upon others, while liars put their wishes first.

Kids learn to lie LONG before they know about Santa one way or the other.

Okay, treating someone as subhuman might be like treating them as if they were dogs. But that's not a definition of a person to whom we would apply the lable sub-human. What would be the definition of a sub-human homosapien?

I find this in wikipedia: "The Under-Man -- the man who measures under the standards of capacity and adaptability imposed by the social order in which he lives.

Sub-Human (more or less) seems to have been the lable applied to the non-aryan races by the Nazis?

So the label "sub human" is a statement as to the value of others, based on a lack of traits that others do not share with the labeler. .. In other words, it's a purely ego-based attitude?

Does that about sum it up?

In general, (as we are using the term here) a lie is that which, in the telling, benefits someone at someone elses expense. Most of us want to know that what we are hearing is the truth, and are dismayed to find we were lied to, because we suffered or are suffering a palpable loss due to it.

You would equate the Santa lie with the WMD lie? With lies that lead to the ravaging of people and the planet? With lies that lead to, perhaps, the destruction of all life as we know it? You would put the Santa Clause lie on a level with that?

Anyone care to define sub-human?

Mind explaining that logical jump, please? I'll agree with your second statement, but I don't see business as the logical result of greed, and I'm wondering how you're getting to that point.

Fair enough.

I don't mean that all business is run by greedy people, I mean that business is a natural path for a greedy person to take, the path of least resistance to furthering his ends.

What other choices does he have? In order to accumulate, you need a mechanism. Business, in any form, can be that mechanism. A more direct path would be theft, but that is clearly what it is, and is not generally tolerated.

On the other hand, in business, you can run rampant over others and call it "just business" or capitalism, and the like.

Certainly there may well be a greater number of honest corporate leaders than there are dishonest, I don't know. I simply believe that the bigger a company gets, the more likely that greed is the underlying motive and dishonest, or at least unethical behavior is occuring somewhere in upper management.

I'm just saying that business is the tool of choice for the greedy. Certainly it's not a matter of business being the tool of the greedy, but of the greedy using the tool to their ends.

I would have voted a virtual tie between corporate and polititians, but it wasn't in the choices.

Polititians lie for the very same reasons as corporate leaders, for profit. Most often they are business driven, though sometimes it's a matter of their personal agenda / obsession.

The very notion of the business corporation is to abrogate responsibility for the actions taken by the corporate leaders. Of course they lie, they can get (generally) away with it.

Business is a logical result of Greed. And Greed all too often does not ascribe to ethics.

Hilarious

The devices I see listed on Ebay or CNET or Etc. - that cost under $100 have lousy reviews.

I want to send VGA and audio about 10 feet (from my laptop on my lap to the TV which has VGA input) but I'm using 2.4ghz wireless internet as well and most of the reviews I saw said that fouls the signal of the Audo Video unit being reviewed.

I don't want to shell out $100 for junk, so I'm looking for input from someone who has something that works very well. Both video and audio quality need to be quite good.

All of our measurements are self-referential, they depend upon the consistent behavior of one another for them to be meaninful. Thus, they are all, not only relative, but to a degree, inconsistent. We have an approximate measurement of anything you can think of. (Even the atomic resonance upon which we base our measurment of time is subject to fluctuation. We just can't see it.)

Measurement of the dimensions is a means to our ends, where our ability to make finer increments yields the means greater manipulation. But measurement does not show us the greater picture.

Doc,

We measure the 3 dimensions of space from within the space thus created by them, using them to measure them. We measure time, how? By noticing changes within space? Yes, but also, by noticing thought (or cognition).

Time, in and of itself has no measurable substance. We only know of it by virtue of our intuitive grasp - logic - perception that it "must" "exist" in order for changes to apply. Thus, Time is but a description (an explanation of, or a name given to) of an attribute that we cannot actually see (touch and tactilely feel), and which we can only measure relative to processes which we can get a handle on / measure. Time only shows us a contrast between states. If all were absolutely static, (including our thoughts) Time would have no meaning.

Likewise, Thought / Cognition is a relative issue. It cannot be measured any more (or less) than can time. Further, it cannot be measured in the same way (through the observation of external processes), yet, we know of it for exactly the same reason that we know of time... It (cognition) is a description of; a name given to a process that is observable by contrast. Sensory deprevation leaves us with our thoughts (and a distorted sense of time.)

Your black hole theory may not be far from the truth. I mean that in the scientific sense, not as a statement as to your character.

I suspect there …

Ghosts and angels are not a certainty for all of us. Therefore I must discount them as the topic under discussion. But conciousness (cognition) is something we all have we can agree on that, and it is a distinctly separate attribute. (Ghosts and angels would have it as well.) Thus, part of them would be defined by this ... what I am calling the fifth dimension, cognition (consciousness) (of which thinking is an aspect).

I think, therefore I am has more meaning than is generally assigned to the statement.

Time-space-thought .. That's the universe I see. There may be more, perhaps "layers" or coincident dimensions. After all, Time space and thought all "fit" in to each other.

We can sense them, that's what gives us knowledge of their existence, what gives them dimension. For us, dimension is just that... that which we can sense. In fact, we cannot sense something unless it has dimension.

I find it astounding that thought / cognition has been left out of the equation for all this time.

Will or intention might comprise a sixth dimension, but I will have to think about that for a while before I'm willing to state it outright.

You are right, there isn't it, it is called space-time.

Okay, now, include thought / and cognition into it. Without it, you have an incomplete picture.

I nominate cognition as the fifth dimension.

In previous post, it was demonstrated that the 3 dimensions, line, plane, volume are attributes of 1 thing, space. Time was presented as, almost, a separate dimension. I say it is not, that it is but a 4th attribute of the one totality.

Can space "exist" without time? Can time "exist" without space? (Can that which is contained exist without its container?)

Can either "exist" without thought? The same questions apply. Can thought exist separate of time/space? Can Time/Space exist without thought (which perceives them?)

One has to wonder if there is indeed a separation between time and space and thought any more than there can be a separation between time and space, which there cannot.

Or so it seems to me.

I would bet that people who score higher on IQ tests are also the ones that think it means something important.

Well, GJ, (and all) it's been fun. I'm gone for the weekend.

Well there are beliefs, then there is reasoning. We can agree that certain behaviors occur, but not necessarily as to what they mean.

I don't think it's a matter having the final say (or being right) but of encountering new thoughts and perspectives in order to flush out wrong thinking within ourselves. Without this, what are we?

I never mean to be snide and condescending. I'm blunt by nature, what's the point otherwise? Say it, or shut up about it, that's me. But I don't wish to alienate or offend.

On the other hand, I live surrounded by insanity and have to wonder if it's them or me. After all, I am the one, reasoned or not, who seems a poor fit to the process going on around me, while others don't seem to notice, or, more precisely, don't often see or discuss it in my terms.

It's hard to know where to start when there really isn't a lot of common ground between my thinking and that of the group I encounter.

Human nature being what it is, (without needing to think about it,) people know myriad tricks to sabatoge you when they don't want to hear what you're saying. I am not exempt from this learned behavior, it is part of our survival mechanism. It (at least) helps us to focus on Our personal path rather than get off course for each new thought that comes along.

While we are young and feel a need to defend ourselves without knowing why, this process serves its purpose, particularly in a cut throat world where it's every man for himself.

But it does not ultimately work in our favor. As we grow older and more reasoned, this ingrained behavior works against further developement.

When ones ideas go against the common grain, …

If you need me to point out "just one thought that .. (I) ... have put in to any of ... (my) posts) then you simply have not read them with an eye to seeing, rather, you didn't like what i said and nothing came through.

I won't play that game. If you don't want to read what is written, then you're not going to see anything here either.

You've asked, but I believe you've written me to bury me rather than to hear me out. I will make an attempt to clarify, but wonder if you really want to hear it.

People tend to adhere to the "two factions" process. Life goes merrily along with people rarely considering that there is a third way of seeing things, or a fourth, and so on, and that each of them is at least as valid as any other, except the one that is right and true.

Granted, life is not "black and white" for most people, there is an incredible mixing of beliefs and ideas, but generally they fall into an either this or that mindset.

As an example of religion, Christian God-purveyors present a burning-bush, Jesus - as the immaculatly conceived son of a caring god who made the world and all within it in 6 days. They then want the rest of us to live according to a set of moral, values and principles that were supposedly written by those who had association with, …

Well, you had not even bothered to introduce any content to the discussion at all. You didn't even refute any specific claim. You just jumped in and told everyone they didn't know what they were talking about. Even with that longer previous post, you have said very little to support or explain any thoughts you have on the matter. If your only contribution is "ur all dum", you can't really expect anyone to place much value on your comment.

My only contribution was "ur all dum"? That's not what went on.

I can't put a lifetime of thought into a post. But I put a thought or two into each of them.

But because my thought is that Science and Religion are both looking at the picture in the wrong manner (much like Republicans and Democrats) ... and stopping their thought in that narrow channel of discussion, well, my thoughts don't fit in that narrow channel.

I would expect someone to say "Huh?" or, "What are you talking about?" or some such.

There's plenty in what I've written, but it seems you don't agree, so you don't want to respond or investigate.

Human nature is very quick to dismiss the edifice of thought it has precariously built its sanity upon. We live in insane times largely because of this.

Apparently you insult what you can't understand.

Kill a thread? No, just add a little grist. There are those who don't like when there are others who disagree with both sides of the argument.

I've been dismissed by those who don't want to hear what they don't know how to argue. They know their two sides (God vs Science) very well, but God forbid (to use a phrase) that someone should not believe in either. They just don't know how to deal with that. So, rather than listen and question (and perhaps expand their thinking) they simply dismiss the "intruder" using the same old techniques they've used before and will use again.

I was "there" a long time ago, with others prodding at my staunch beliefs. I resisted as well. But some of it sunk in, and over time I learned how much I didn't know or even suspect, and how narrow my point of view had been.

Now that I recognize this in myself, I can see it in others. I've grown some by the good grace of others who took the time with me, and I'm just returning the favor. Some of you will learn something new in spite of yourselves. Age is not a factor. I' know genius children and imbecile adults. Most of us are a combination of the 4 no matter our age, and I've yet to meet someone who knew as much as they appeared to think they did. If they know that, great. If not, they are …

Yes, it was written by men (perhaps women), but the content of their writing was dictated to them by some higher object, like a burning bush in the desert.

and your proof of that is .... oh, yes, the book itself.

they did a great job on you.

> ps the sure way to kill a thread is to insult the folk participating in it
I agree completely. A few blunt comments here and there with a bit of mud slinging will be instrumental in putting this thread to sleep.

PS: We have done this before... ;-)

Calling it mud slinging is only a way to ignore what's being said.

Religious types (scientists too, science is just a different religion) all NEED their beliefs, which is why they fight anyone who contradicts them. This fighting to hold on is what keeps them from looking deeper and actually learning to think for themselves.

Yes, it was written by men (perhaps women), but the content of their writing was dictated to them by some higher object, like a burning bush in the desert.

all self referrential / circular bs with one purpose only. to keep you in the fold.

Okay, I see I'm guilty of a breach of etiquitte. I don't mean to insult, but to put things in perspective. I keep hoping to find intelligence out there. I get tired of seeing the focus on these commonplace issues that pass for intellectual debate.

Science. Bah. Religion. Bah. God. Ha ha ha.

Where'd it all come from? Go take a look at ALL of it, then you'll know. Until you can do that, your discussion is trivial, when you can do that, you won't be having this discussion.

Creationism. Nice word. Not mutually exclusive of Evolution, after all, the initial "stuff" had to "come from" somewhere ... and thus, had to be created. The problem is that humans, scientifc or religious, are too simple minded to grasp the maginitude of all of "this" .. so they look for simple answers and then stand by their chosen "answer" come hell or high water.

Let me be clear on this. NONE OF YOU ARE "RIGHT"..

The bible was "written" by MEN. Men who were as flawed as you or I.

And science, well, it really doesn't "get it" at all if it believes that science will eventually explain the very beginning.

The mind of man is capable of som much more than the two petty trains of thought that comprise most of this argument. Truly smart people don't bother to engage in it, you guys are so far off base on both sides of the arguement.