Re: OT: If I were Pope.
thomas malloy wrote: Kyle Mcallister wrote: Vortexians, OK, this is getting a little crazy-go-nuts. 1. Margaret Sanger was responsible for some good, yes. and Ed Storms responded The problem is that some people would be very willing to leave you and people with your belief system alone. However, there seems to be an unwillingness of certain religious belief systems to leave the rest of us alone. Have you considered that G-d might want to affect the course of history, Ed? An interesting idea. So you believe that God gives us free will then tries to get us to behave in a proper way. Occasionally, God sends a messenger who tries to get people to exercise their free will in the correct way. Of course, because of the free will, these messages are interpreted in different ways so that the message is distorted causing wars because each group thinks their interpretation is correct. This seems like a very odd system for a God to create. Lets start over at the beginning. There are these two super human entities who both want to be G-d, Unfortunately there's only room for one, One's going to toss the other into a black hole, him and all his followers with him. Now this all results from the angels and humans having free will. There have been a series of prophets who have recorded G-d's message. Then there is the matter of the Islamists, who want to rule the world. This is no more true than to say that Christianity wants to rule the world. But our G-d has a right to rule his world. Both religions are trying to spread their beliefs and both belief systems have groups under whose rule I and you would not want to live. Speak for yourself, I live in a theocracy, I answer to Rabbi Stan, we both answer to G-d. On the other hand, in a few countries now and especially in the past, Islam provided a very good religious base for civilized development. If you don't mind living in the Middle Ages, and don't care if you worship the true G-d, in spirit and truth. If it weren't for that, I'd make a good Islamist. If you think that you'd have problems with a Christian theocracy, you'll really hate them, they make us look like liberals. 2. I am not pro-abortion for a few reasons. A: It does nothing to encourage people to stop the numerous meet and f**k flings. Lack of abortion does not stop f**kings, which all the statistics and personal experience shows. But the ability to kill people who are inconvenient does cheapen life War is the most outrageous ability to kill inconvenient people yet it does not get the same criticism as does abortion. I expect you will say that the fetus is innocent so it should be protected while soldiers and people who start wars are not innocent. Nevertheless, innocent people are killed in war. To be consistent, any Christian who objects to abortion should object to war just as strongly. Abortion isn't a real hot button issue, but it is with most of my friends, particularly my Christian sisters, I am well aware of the human suffering caused by war. I believe that there are some humans who are profoundly evil, and that when one of them gets his hands on the levers of state power, the only way to stop his activities, force. There are just and unjust wars. B: I wouldn't know if I was destroying someone who might be something very important one day. Or someone who was a mass murder. Of course, if God wanted a person available to do something considered important, why would it matter if that body were destroyed? Many more bodies would be available. Also, if God is all powerful and all knowing, why would a body that might be aborted be chosen? Have you ever heard of free will, Ed? Well you have the right to exercise it. We believe that free will, combined with our sinful nature is the reason that the world is in such a mess today. Some of us are opposed to murder, not to be confused with justified killing. So if I understand correctly, killing in war and as a penalty is ok because the person deserves death, but taking a potential life is murder, which is wrong. Presumably in your belief system, if a bomb or bullet kills an innocent person during war this is not murder, but an accident, hence ok. Frankly, I do not know of a time when the world was not a mess somewhere. Even in the past when the Catholic Church ruled, things were done by the Church that, by all standards, were wrong, were a sin, and must have been based on a distortion of God's will. Where do you draw the line between what is God's will and what the Church has believed and done during various times in history? Why do you think your particular variation on Christianity is completely correct? The only people deserving of death are criminals like Sudam Husein. As for the collateral damage of war, it's an imperfect world. The Roman Church has it's good points, but it is also imperfect. As for my church, we do the best that we can to base our beliefs on the Bible.
Re: OT: If I were Pope.
thomas malloy wrote: thomas malloy wrote: snip Lets start over at the beginning. There are these two super human entities who both want to be G-d, Unfortunately there's only room for one, One's going to toss the other into a black hole, him and all his followers with him. Now this all results from the angels and humans having free will. There have been a series of prophets who have recorded G-d's message. Lets start at the real beginning. According to your belief system, one God created the universe some ? billion years ago. During that time many civilizations have come and gone on other planets and civilizations have come and gone on this planet. Recently, relatively speaking, humans have develop sufficiently to write down their conversations with God. From these documents we learn that at some time in the past, another God came into being who wants to kick out the original God and all humans who follow this God. How about the many advanced civilizations that exist on other planets? Are all the followers of the original God on these planets going to be destroyed as well or do you think we are the only beings your God has created? And why now after so long a time? Frankly this story seem too childish. Even humans who have acquired some wisdom do not act this self-serving and ruthless. I would expect Gods to have a higher standard. But then this is your God, not mine. To make this difference more clear and using your concepts, we both believe in a God but we attribute different characteristic to that God. You are willing to fight over the different characteristics because one of the characteristics you attribute to your God is his wish for you to wage such a fight. The characteristics I attribute to my God are more forgiving and compassionate, more wise rather than ruthless. Then there is the matter of the Islamists, who want to rule the world. This is no more true than to say that Christianity wants to rule the world. But our G-d has a right to rule his world. So, in your belief system, Christians-Jews have the right to war against people who do not share their understanding of God because your God is the only true and real God, hence has the right to rule all people. In other words, believe or die. This sounds rather old fashion, like the attitude toward witches which we have now outgrown. Both religions are trying to spread their beliefs and both belief systems have groups under whose rule I and you would not want to live. Speak for yourself, I live in a theocracy, I answer to Rabbi Stan, we both answer to G-d. On the other hand, in a few countries now and especially in the past, Islam provided a very good religious base for civilized development. If you don't mind living in the Middle Ages, and don't care if you worship the true G-d, in spirit and truth. If it weren't for that, I'd make a good Islamist. Turkey is not in the Middle Ages, yet it is Moslem. When you say worship the true God you are missing a very critical concept. You are not worshiping a God, but you are worshiping your concept of a God. You believe this concept is the only true and correct one. Therefore, everyone should share this understanding. This is like someone saying that they worship Physics and insist on making everyone believe that the earth is the center of the universe. Our understanding of Physics as well as of God has evolved. Your understanding has apparently remained locked in the past. If you think that you'd have problems with a Christian theocracy, you'll really hate them, they make us look like liberals. 2. I am not pro-abortion for a few reasons. A: It does nothing to encourage people to stop the numerous meet and f**k flings. Lack of abortion does not stop f**kings, which all the statistics and personal experience shows. But the ability to kill people who are inconvenient does cheapen life War is the most outrageous ability to kill inconvenient people yet it does not get the same criticism as does abortion. I expect you will say that the fetus is innocent so it should be protected while soldiers and people who start wars are not innocent. Nevertheless, innocent people are killed in war. To be consistent, any Christian who objects to abortion should object to war just as strongly. Abortion isn't a real hot button issue, but it is with most of my friends, particularly my Christian sisters, I am well aware of the human suffering caused by war. I believe that there are some humans who are profoundly evil, and that when one of them gets his hands on the levers of state power, the only way to stop his activities, force. There are just and unjust wars. I agree. However, the definition is difficult to apply. Hitler and the German people thought their war was just, Bush and the American people think the present war is just, and hundreds of small wars are ongoing at any one time with each side thinking their fight is just. Of
Re: OT: If I were Pope.
On Sunday 10 April 2005 18:52, Edmund Storms wrote: thomas malloy wrote: thomas malloy wrote: snip Lets start over at the beginning. There are these two super human entities who both want to be G-d, Unfortunately there's only room for one, One's going to toss the other into a black hole, him and all his followers with him. Now this all results from the angels and humans having free will. There have been a series of prophets who have recorded G-d's message. Lets start at the real beginning. According to your belief system, one God created the universe some ? billion years ago. During that time many civilizations have come and gone on other planets and civilizations have come and gone on this planet. Recently, relatively speaking, humans have develop sufficiently to write down their conversations with God. From these documents we learn that at some time in the past, another God came into being who wants to kick out the original God and all humans who follow this God. How about the many advanced civilizations that exist on other planets? Are all the followers of the original God on these planets going to be destroyed as well or do you think we are the only beings your God has created? And why now after so long a time? Frankly this story seem too childish. Even humans who have acquired some wisdom do not act this self-serving and ruthless. I would expect Gods to have a higher standard. But then this is your God, not mine. To make this difference more clear and using your concepts, we both believe in a God but we attribute different characteristic to that God. You are willing to fight over the different characteristics because one of the characteristics you attribute to your God is his wish for you to wage such a fight. The characteristics I attribute to my God are more forgiving and compassionate, more wise rather than ruthless. Then there is the matter of the Islamists, who want to rule the world. This is no more true than to say that Christianity wants to rule the world. But our G-d has a right to rule his world. So, in your belief system, Christians-Jews have the right to war against people who do not share their understanding of God because your God is the only true and real God, hence has the right to rule all people. In other words, believe or die. This sounds rather old fashion, like the attitude toward witches which we have now outgrown. Both religions are trying to spread their beliefs and both belief systems have groups under whose rule I and you would not want to live. Speak for yourself, I live in a theocracy, I answer to Rabbi Stan, we both answer to G-d. On the other hand, in a few countries now and especially in the past, Islam provided a very good religious base for civilized development. If you don't mind living in the Middle Ages, and don't care if you worship the true G-d, in spirit and truth. If it weren't for that, I'd make a good Islamist. Turkey is not in the Middle Ages, yet it is Moslem. When you say worship the true God you are missing a very critical concept. You are not worshiping a God, but you are worshiping your concept of a God. You believe this concept is the only true and correct one. Therefore, everyone should share this understanding. This is like someone saying that they worship Physics and insist on making everyone believe that the earth is the center of the universe. Our understanding of Physics as well as of God has evolved. Your understanding has apparently remained locked in the past. If you think that you'd have problems with a Christian theocracy, you'll really hate them, they make us look like liberals. 2. I am not pro-abortion for a few reasons. A: It does nothing to encourage people to stop the numerous meet and f**k flings. Lack of abortion does not stop f**kings, which all the statistics and personal experience shows. But the ability to kill people who are inconvenient does cheapen life War is the most outrageous ability to kill inconvenient people yet it does not get the same criticism as does abortion. I expect you will say that the fetus is innocent so it should be protected while soldiers and people who start wars are not innocent. Nevertheless, innocent people are killed in war. To be consistent, any Christian who objects to abortion should object to war just as strongly. Abortion isn't a real hot button issue, but it is with most of my friends, particularly my Christian sisters, I am well aware of the human suffering caused by war. I believe that there are some humans who are profoundly evil, and that when one of them gets his hands on the levers of state power, the only way to stop his activities, force. There are just and unjust wars. I agree. However, the definition is difficult to apply. Hitler and the German people thought their war was just, Bush and the American people
Re: OT: If I were Pope.
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Forget about the strange looking floating creature hovering next to the cliff that seems to be defying the laws of gravity, the one you can't catch nor eat. Focus on that hungry looking Saber-tooth tiger crouched on top of the cliff. Yeah, THAT ONE! The one that seems to be considering you for lunch. Of course. Do not see the fnord. If you see the fnord, the fnord will eat you. You must not see the fnord. Makes you wonder -- are there fnords in the information we find on the Internet, too, or are they restricted to physical media? I can't see them so I'm not sure.
RE: OT: If I were Pope.
Hey Stephen, Uh oh, time for a Hymn, Onward Christian soldiers, Onward Buddhist priests, Onwards, fruits of Islam, Fight 'till you're deceased. Fight your little battles, Join in thickest fray, for the greater glory, of Dis-cord-ia, Fnord. -Original Message- From: Stephen A. Lawrence [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, April 07, 2005 1:14 PM To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Subject: Re: OT: If I were Pope. [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Forget about the strange looking floating creature hovering next to the cliff that seems to be defying the laws of gravity, the one you can't catch nor eat. Focus on that hungry looking Saber-tooth tiger crouched on top of the cliff. Yeah, THAT ONE! The one that seems to be considering you for lunch. Of course. Do not see the fnord. If you see the fnord, the fnord will eat you. You must not see the fnord. Makes you wonder -- are there fnords in the information we find on the Internet, too, or are they restricted to physical media? I can't see them so I'm not sure.
RE: OT: If I were Pope.
Praise Bob and pass the slack!Keith Nagel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hey Stephen,Uh oh, time for a Hymn,Onward Christian soldiers,Onward Buddhist priests,Onwards, fruits of Islam,Fight 'till you're deceased.Fight your little battles,Join in thickest fray,for the greater glory,of Dis-cord-ia,Fnord. Yahoo! Messenger Show us what our next emoticon should look like. Join the fun.
OT: If I were Pope.
From: Stephen A. Lawrence ... Of course. Do not see the fnord. If you see the fnord, the fnord will eat you. You must not see the fnord. Makes you wonder -- are there fnords in the information we find on the Internet, too, or are they restricted to physical media? I can't see them so I'm not sure. Makes me wonder too. Just yesterday after work, as I was driving across town to partake in a small Quaker Meeting (I occasionally like to sit quietly amongst these gentle folks) when I came to 4-way intersection with four stop signs. It's a part of the road that I've crossed a zillion times before. As I approached my stop sign I made a very conscious decision to check both ways for cars as well as for oncoming traffic. THIS IS IMPORTANT NOTE! I MADE AN UNUSUALLY CONSCIOUS DECISION TO CHECK FOR CARS! Yup! I noted the car on the left had come to a stop. Yup! I noted the car on the right had come to a complete stop. Yup! I even noted the car on the opposite side of my road had as well. Feeling secure that all cars had stopped I knew it was legally my turn to drive my car across the busy intersection. I lurched my car forward. That's when I noticed the Bus coming at me. I was so intent on watching for all those pesky cars that I literally missed seeing the bus that, visually speaking, is ten times the size of any car. I had visually and in the most literal sense one can imagine blinded myself to the fact that bus had also come to a stop and had started making moving across the intersection. I screeched to a stop, as did the bus driver. He honked his horn in absolute indignation at me, and I can't say that I blame him. Later, as I tried sitting quietly in Quaker Meditation it goes without saying that I had a lot on my mind. I made the following observation: Bog, indeed, has a sense of humor, especially if the action can be performed at my own expense. I think Bog was also getting even with me for all the times when as a small child (that is, when I was more ethically challenged) I dumped armies of black and red ants into the same ant farm just to watch the carnage. I hope I've paid my dues. Regards, Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com
Re: OT: If I were Pope.
At 7:56 PM 4/5/5, Harvey Norris wrote: [snip] Find ANY magic cube; if you think it exists. [snip] Hopefully you have seen the article by Eric W Weisstein, Semiperfect Magic Cube, from Mathworld, A Wolfram Resource, http://mathworld.wolfram.com/semiperfectmagiccube.html Regards, Horace Heffner
Re: OT: If I were Pope.
Ah! The answer really *is* 42! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Answer_to_Life,_the_Universe,_and_EverythingHorace Heffner [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hopefully you have seen the article by Eric W Weisstein, "Semiperfect MagicCube," from Mathworld, A Wolfram Resource,__Do You Yahoo!?Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
Re: OT: If I were Pope.
You've put up a fabulous series of posts on several topics in the last week or two, Jed. Thanks. Jed Rothwell wrote: Regarding the central tenet of religion, the existence of God, I have not studied this in any depth, but as far as I can tell, arguments for the existence of God are logical fallacies. They are also irrelevant. Nobody, as far as I know, believes in God as a result of a logical argument. Actually, this is a fascinating question. The belief in God is tenacious, but where does it come from? Jed has said it's because we're all pack animals at heart and and God is just the leader of the pack. But IMO there's something else going on here. Most people believe in God, as far as I can tell, because someone they trust told them God exists. The rest believe in God as a result of a direct experience. And it's this latter group which makes it impossible to eliminate a belief in God from people as a whole. This actually has been studied, but I can't give the reference off hand. In every generation some number of people experience theophanies; IIRC the number amounts to a few percent of the population. Whether you, personally, accept such experiences as being really from God or feel there's some mundane cause, such experiences can be very convincing to the people to whom they happen. Some of those who are so touched then tell others about what they perceived as a _direct_ demonstration of God's existence; such witnessing is likely to be quite convincing, since it's first-person. And so we have a ripple effect, and each such experience may convince several people that there is a God. A rational person tries to integrate the aggregate of their experiences into a coherent whole, and they accept the picture which results as being reality. Someone who has experienced a theophany must integrate that into their picture of reality, too; such people may be led -- quite rationally -- to have an absolute faith in the existence of a supernatural power. (Then, of course, we have Phil Dick, trying to integrate a supernatural slide show into his picture of reality. Just because you remember it, doesn't mean it happened.)
Re: OT: If I were Pope.
Stephen A. Lawrence wrote: This actually has been studied, but I can't give the reference off hand. In every generation some number of people experience theophanies; IIRC the number amounts to a few percent of the population. Whether you, personally, accept such experiences as being really from God or feel there's some mundane cause, such experiences can be very convincing to the people to whom they happen. Some of those who are so touched then tell others about what they perceived as a _direct_ demonstration of God's existence; such witnessing is likely to be quite convincing, since it's first-person. And so we have a ripple effect, and each such experience may convince several people that there is a God. These events are very common, especially in response to stress. In some primitive societies, young men are cast into the wilderness without food or water and told they will not be allowed back into the tribe until they experience a revelation. They always do, and I expect it is genuine in most cases. Modern people seldom experience such extreme stress except in war, hence the expression: there are no atheists in foxholes. That is generally true although I have known a few WWII vets who were atheists even in battle, especially when their side lost. (However, it is not a true of populations in cities who are bombed. In Europe and Japan the civilian populations largely abandoned religion as a result of World War II.) I had an interesting discussion about this with my mother just before she died, when she was still somewhat lucid. I wrote a letter about it to a professor. He wrote: Note that I am not demanding that God interact in a scientifically verifiable, physical way. I might potentially receive some revelation, some direct experience of God. An experience like that would be incommunicable, and not subject to scientific verification -- but it would nevertheless be as compelling as any evidence can be. My comments: I think your example is out of date, or technically inaccurate. When a person receives some revelation, he is experiencing a physical event in his brain. The fact that X caused your brain to feel a holy revelation does not mean X is actually God -- even if you think it must be. The revelation might have a mundane cause. It might even be a symptom of disease. For example, people who have suffered severe syphilis sometimes decades later develop feelings of rapture or intense sexual desire. Since the brain is often subject to delusions and malfunction, the only proof of God's existence that I personally would trust would be something external and independently reproducible. I do not think I would trust my own brain, as unlikely as that might sound. You might think a person must, willy-nilly, believe such experiences, but that is not so. Toward the end of her life, my mother suffered from delusions and hallucinations induced by drugs and Parkinson's disease. These were intensely realistic while they occurred. For example, she would become convinced that long dead relative was in the next room or upstairs, although she lived in a one-floor house. She would take a nap, wake an hour later and remember these thoughts, and instantly dismiss them as delusions. She knew a lot about medicine and had a lifetime of scientific training, and she was not about to turn her back on it because of a few intense hallucinations. A person with a fundamentalist bent might have concluded that angels from heaven were hanging around, or talking to her from heaven (upstairs). My mother was religious but strictly in a rational, Unitarian sense -- not the sort of sect that countenances the voices of angels. A rational person tries to integrate the aggregate of their experiences into a coherent whole, and they accept the picture which results as being reality. Someone who has experienced a theophany must integrate that into their picture of reality, too; such people may be led -- quite rationally -- to have an absolute faith in the existence of a supernatural power. It is quite rational, but the conclusion you reach depends upon your preconceptions, background, training and expectations. In my mother's case she integrated it into her pre-existing picture of reality and concluded it must be a clinical problem rather than a supernatural revelation. Actually, even if she had experienced a genuine supernatural revelation (assuming such a thing as possible), I expect she would have dismissed it as a clinical problem. I sure would! As I said, I cannot transcend my own culture, even though I have a great deal of experience living in other people's cultures. - Jed
RE: OT: If I were Pope.
Michael Palin writes: There are Jews in the world, there are Buddists, There are Hindus and Mormons and then There are those that follow Mohammad, but I've never been one of them. I'm a Roman Catholic, And have been since before I was born, And the one thing they say about Catholics is They'll take you as soon as you're warm. You don't have to be a six footer, You don't have to have a great brain, You don't have to have any clothes on, You're a Catholic the moment Dad came, because Every sperm is sacred, Every sperm is great, If a sperm is wasted, God gets quite irate. Every sperm is sacred, Every sperm is great, If a sperm is wasted, God gets quite irate. Let the heathen spill theirs, On the dusty ground, God shall make them pay for Each sperm that can't be found. Every sperm is wanted, Every sperm is good, Every sperm is needed, In your neighborhood. Hindu, Taoist, Morman, Spill theirs just anywhere, But God loves those who treat their Semen with more care. Every sperm is sacred, Every sperm is great, If a sperm is wasted, God gets quite irate. Every sperm is sacred, Every sperm is good, Every sperm is needed, In your neighborhood. Every sperm is useful, Every sperm is fine, God needs everybody's, Mine, and mine, and mine. Let the pagans spill theirs, O'er mountain, hill and plain. God shall strike them down for Each sperm that's spilt in vain. Every sperm is sacred, Every sperm is good, Every sperm is needed, In your neighborhood. Every sperm is sacred, Every sperm is great, If a sperm is wasted, God gets quite irate.
Re: OT: If I were Pope.
From: Jed Rothwell ... It is quite rational, but the conclusion you reach depends upon your preconceptions, background, training and expectations. In my mother's case she integrated it into her pre-existing picture of reality and concluded it must be a clinical problem rather than a supernatural revelation. Actually, even if she had experienced a genuine supernatural revelation (assuming such a thing as possible), I expect she would have dismissed it as a clinical problem. I sure would! As I said, I cannot transcend my own culture, even though I have a great deal of experience living in other people's cultures. - Jed I watched my own mother experience hallucinations on-and off for close to a year before she finally died. She was quite the rational person during her lifetime. But when she started seeing the other people and creatures floating effortlessly in the air that the rest of us couldn't see, it never once entered her mind that they didn't exist. She knew better! My father was terrified of the fact that no amount of deductive reasoning on his part (and, boy, did he try!) could convince his wife that she was simply hallucinating. He desperately tried to get her to pay no attention to the apparitions, but to no avail. It did put a strain on their relationship. As for me I had many fascinating conversations with my mother during this experiential time in her life when I came over to visit. Hi mom. What did you see today? It was fortunate that she could still communicate fairly well. I made it clear to my mother that I couldn't see what she was seeing. Never the less I also made it clear to her that I was curious and wanted to know what she was seeing. We got along pretty well, and in some ways even better than before she started hallucinating. I have no idea if what my mother was seeing really existed or not. Doesn't really matter. However, the fact that western influenced scientific rationale would simply proclaim that my mother was experiencing nothing more than a hallucination is, in my view, a cop out. It's a convenient way to dismiss experiences for which it has no idea how to classify and/or interact with. How convenient to simply state that the brain is malfunctioning in some yet-to-be-understood scientific way. Jed, I thought some of your recent post contained many astute observations. OTOH, you claim you cannot transcend [your] own culture. Personally, I would disagree with that assumption. I tend to suspect we all eventually transcend the boundaries of the culture we were born into, some more obnoxiously than others. Regards, Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com
Re: OT: If I were Pope.
Well, if my cat is any indication, they're real. She chases things I can't see frequently![EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I have no idea if what my mother was seeing really existed or not. Do you Yahoo!? Better first dates. More second dates. Yahoo! Personals
Re: OT: If I were Pope.
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I have no idea if what my mother was seeing really existed or not. Doesn't really matter. However, the fact that western influenced scientific rationale would simply proclaim that my mother was experiencing nothing more than a hallucination is, in my view, a cop out. That is an odd statement. If you, your father and other people could not see them then of course they were hallucinations. What other hypothesis fits? The only other hypothesis I can imagine would be that these things really did exist, your mother developed some extraordinary new ability to see them because of the disease, and there might be some sort of special camera or other instrument which could detect them. Sort of like the movie Phenomenon. Also we have to postulate that people and creatures can mysteriously float in air. All of that strikes me as exceedingly unlikely. I am sure that if I experienced this myself, and I had any marbles left at all, I would instantly dismiss that hypothesis, just as my mother did in similar circumstances. Of course the disease might also affect my judgement and objectivity, like being drunk. In that case I *would* believe in floating people, UFOs in the room, or what have you. It did that to my mother, but only momentarily. If you are a good scientist, you spent a lifetime training yourself *not* to believe your own impressions, and not to take anything for granted. You demand objective proof for everything. People who do that are not likely to change in the last months of life, or to relax their standards even under extreme duress. I have seen many people die and I have never seen an atheist undergo a deathbed conversion, or suddenly start believing in things that he formerly would have dismissed. I suppose it happens about as often as religious people lose their faith in the last months. By the way, your response to these events was exactly right. Based on what the nurses told me, I would definitely recommend against telling the patient that is a hallucination, or getting upset about it. At best you will only confuse the patient or embarrass her. I knew another patient who was completely aware that she was seeing hallucinations. She enjoyed them. She said they were the most interesting thing she saw all day. - Jed
Re: OT: If I were Pope.
Like in science, the conclusion one reaches depends on the assumptions made at the beginning. The beliefs of each religion and the rules supposed to be God-given suffer from this same limitation. In this article the author makes the argument that the rules of the Catholic Church, i.e. no abortion, no condoms, and no gay marriage, would not advance mankind because their change would separate the sex act from its primary intention, thereby causing injury to mankind. The fact not considered is that all three prohibitions would lead to a smaller population. The assumption not considered is that this fact might be a good thing. Providing a growing Catholic population has always been the self-serving policy of the church. For centuries, this policy gave an advantage to the human race. However, this advantage is rapidly decaying away as population grows at a compounding rate. How many more people must suck the resources out of the earth before the Church changes its policy? I suggest that even science can not mediate the damage if population grows at a sufficiently rapid rate. Ed Grimer wrote: I thought this was a rather intelligent article which some Vorts might appreciate, i.e. those that believe that objective truth is not merely confined to science.;-) Why progressive Westerners never understood John Paul II By Mark Steyn (Filed: 05/04/2005) If I were Pope - and no, don't worry, I'm not planning a mid-life career change - but, if I were, I'd be a little irked at the secular media's inability to discuss religion except through the prism of their moral relativism. That's why last weekend's grand old man - James Callaghan - got a more sympathetic send-off than this weekend's. The Guardian's headline writer billed Sunny Jim as a man whose consensus politics were washed away in the late 1970s. Is it possible to have any meaningful consensus between, on the one hand, closed-shop council manual workers demanding a 40 per cent pay rise and, on the other, rational human beings? What would the middle ground between the real world and Planet Zongo look like? A 30 per cent pay rise, rising to 40 per cent over 18 months or the next strike, whichever comes sooner? By contrast, the Guardian thought Karol Wojtyla was a doctrinaire, authoritarian pontiff. That doctrinaire at least suggests the inflexible authoritarian derived his inflexibility from some ancient operating manual - he was dogmatic about his dogma - unlike the New York Times and the Washington Post, which came close to implying that John Paul II had taken against abortion and gay marriage off the top of his head, principally to irk liberal Catholics. The assumption is always that there's some middle ground that a less doctrinaire pope might have staked out: he might have supported abortion in the first trimester, say, or reciprocal partner benefits for gays in committed relationships. The root of the Pope's thinking - that there are eternal truths no one can change even if one wanted to - is completely incomprehensible to the progressivist mindset. There are no absolute truths, everything's in play, and by consensus all we're really arguing is the rate of concession to the inevitable: abortion's here to stay, gay marriage will be here any day now, in a year or two it'll be something else - it's all gonna happen anyway, man, so why be the last squaresville daddy-o on the block? We live in a present-tense culture where novelty is its own virtue: the Guardian, for example, has already been touting the Nigerian Francis Arinze as candidate for first black pope. This would be news to Pope St Victor, an African and pontiff from 189 to 199. Among his legacies: the celebration of Easter on a Sunday. That's not what the Guardian had in mind, of course: it meant the first black pope since the death of Elvis - or however far back our societal memory now goes. But, if you hold an office first held by St Peter, you can say been there, done that about pretty much everything the Guardian throws your way. John Paul's papacy was founded on what he called - in the title of his encyclical - Veritatis Splendor, and when you seek to find consensus between truth and lies you tarnish that splendour. Der Spiegel this week published a selection from the creepy suck-up letters Gerhard Schröder wrote to the East German totalitarian leaders when he was a West German pol on the make in the 1980s. As he wrote to Honecker's deputy, Egon Krenz: I will certainly need the endurance you have wished me in this busy election year. But you will certainly also need great strength and good health for your People's Chamber election. The only difference being that, on one side of the border, the election result was not in doubt. When a free man enjoying the blessings of a free society promotes an equivalence between real democracy and a sham, he's colluding in the great lie being perpetrated by the prison state. Too many Western politicians of a
Re: OT: If I were Pope.
Grimer wrote: But the most effective weapon against the disease has not been the Aids lobby's 20-year promotion of condom culture in Africa, but Uganda's campaign to change behaviour and to emphasise abstinence and fidelity - i.e., the Pope's position. I know nothing about religion, but I know plenty about AIDS, population, effective disease prevention strategies and so on, and this is incorrect. I agree that education and promoting responsible sexual behavior have an important role to play, but policies that do not make effective use of condoms will condemn millions of people to gruesome death for no reason, and leave millions of orphans who will starve. Most of the women with AIDS in Africa are faithful to their husbands, but husbands in Africa have *never* in faithful to wives. They never have been in recorded history, and they will not start now. Whatever good the Pope may have done, it was outweighed by his opposition to contraception and the use of condoms. Overpopulation is the worst crisis of the 21st century. Because the world is overpopulated (or to put it another way, because our food-production technology is so destructive and inefficient), the world's resources and land are being ravaged and two billion people live on the edge of starvation, in unthinkable misery. *THAT* is a morality problem. What people do with their sex organs is mostly their own business. (The only sexual behavior that bothers me is pedophilia, and the only major organization guilty of countenancing it on a large scale is the Catholic Church, as it happens. The Pope looked the other way for a long time.) If cold fusion can be perfected and agriculture eliminated then the world will support a higher human population without damage to the ecosystem. In that case, contraception will be a little less important for a few decades. But in the long term it is essential. We cannot sustain exponential growth. Population will never come under control until effective contraception, education for women, child care and old-age pensions are put in place. Mumbo-jumbo about changing behavior will accomplish nothing. People never behaved differently than they do now. I have never heard of a society in which most teenagers were abstinent. In the US teenage pregnancy rates have been unchanged since colonial times. The only reason pregnancy is declining now is because of the increased availability of contraception. I do not go along with this idea that Grimer and Pope endorse, that we should go around lecturing Africans about their sex lives. People can decide for themselves how they should behave, and what they consider moral. They need no help from us. They do not want lessons in morality from us. If they feel like engaging in depersonalized sexual games, the way ancient Romans, Japanese and Chinese people did, that is entirely their call, and their business. As mayor La Guardia said of the Pope: you no play-a the game, you no make-a the rules. I know nothing about religion. It seems synonymous with superstition, as far as I can make out. The Pope claimed that the assassination attempt against him was prevented by a dead person, St. Mary, who deflected the gun. I expect he believed that a virgin conceived and bore a child. People who believe in ghosts, biological impossibilities and similar weird notions live in a different world than I do. They are as distant from me as the primitive tribes in South Pacific islands or pre-modern Japanese peasants. I have studied the Islanders and the Japanese. I know a lot about them. I sympathize with them. I admire them, and their culture, arts, and languages. I like their sexual morality, which the Pope would not approve of. But despite my wholehearted admiration and knowledge of them, there is an unbridgeable 400-year gap between us, starting with Francis Bacon and Isaac Newton. The Pope stands on the other side of that gap, mired in pre-modern, pre-scientific darkness. Despite all the pleasant rhetoric and high-minded people who claim there is no conflict between science and religion, it seems clear to me that there is. It is no coincidence that most scientists are atheists (according to the Scientific American and other sources). T. H. Huxley was the first scientist to openly champion science against religion. Everything he said seems correct and up-to-date to me. Religion offers certainty without proof, just the opposite of science. It asks people to believe in fabulous nonsense such as a virgin birth, Noah's Ark, bringing people back from the dead, curing diseases by hocus-pocus and faith-healing (which is to say, blaming the patient for the disease), or changing primate sexual behavior such as homosexuality. I cannot imagine how a sane, educated, modern person could believe such things, but some people do, including many of my friends. Perhaps I lack imagination. I am glad I do! Frankly, I cannot see why anyone would even *want* to believe in these things. They are nightmares, even as myths.
Re: OT: If I were Pope.
Edmund Storms wrote: How many more people must suck the resources out of the earth before the Church changes its policy? I suggest that even science can not mediate the damage if population grows at a sufficiently rapid rate. Some of the ecological damage from overpopulation is permanent. However, results from many different societies have shown that science together with enlightened social policy can reduce or even reverse population growth. This can happen remarkably swiftly, sometimes in a single generation. It is much cheaper it used to be. In the 1960s some experts worried that we would not have enough money to distribute contraception. Others worried that traditional societies would resist the changes, or that village health care providers and women would not be skilled enough to use it. Of course money is a problem, now mainly because the present US administration refuses to provide it and wants to lecture people about abortion and morality instead. There is resistance in some societies, especially those mired in war such as Afghanistan. But there is less resistance than many people expected. And it turns out Third World women can take care of themselves as well as First World women can. (A no-brainer.) Contraception is essential, obviously, but not sufficient. As I said before, three other reforms are needed: education and freedom for women; improved health care for everyone, especially children; and old age pensions. The latter two are essential because in many societies children are the only security parents have in their old age. People who have no children starve. Where there is no healthcare parents must have 7 or 8 children to ensure that one or two will survive. As for education, it turns that women everywhere want education, money empowerment and freedom. (Another no-brainer!) Low-cost Internet connections in remote Indian villages and elsewhere are bringing it to them in ways that would have been unimaginable 30 years ago. The remaining problems are political, not scientific. The biggest roadblocks, as far as I can see, are the Catholic and Muslim religions. If they disappeared overnight I think it would be a big improvement. In Europe, especially Italy, people ignore the sex morality of the Catholic church. Let us hope they soon learn to ignore it in Peru and Brazil as well. I am confident that they can and they will. People are much smarter than we give them credit for. Improvements in contraception were among the most important scientific discoveries of the 20th century -- or indeed, of any century. They are right up there with electricity, vaccination, anesthetics, and flight. Most of the hard work was done in America, and we should take great pride in this. I wish this history was taught in schools, but I suppose students nowadays hardly learn about Pasteur or Edison. Much of the research was conducted under the guidance and inspiration of Margaret Sanger, with funds she scrounged together. Sanger was one of America's greatest scientific heroes. I am inordinately proud of the fact that my grandmother pitched in to help her financially and in other ways. It was only a bit role in history, but look at the result! If cold fusion succeeds I will have played a similar small but essential role. Sanger, needless to say, fought a pitched battle with religion, just as Huxley did. Humanitarians such as Sanger have brought a million times more happiness, well-being, and solid, reality-based self-knowledge to people than the Pope and all those other mystical mumblers tied together. Nowadays many liberal religious people honor Sanger but they were no help back then when she needed them. She had to fight them every step of the way, just as CF researchers have to fight the DoE. - Jed
Re: OT: If I were Pope.
Vortexians, OK, this is getting a little crazy-go-nuts. 1. Margaret Sanger was responsible for some good, yes. She was also crazy. Not the kind of person I would want to spend much time with. Very pro-eugenics. If you support that, then congratulations, go build yourself a private Gattaca. Leave me the hell out of it. 2. I am not pro-abortion for a few reasons. A: It does nothing to encourage people to stop the numerous meet and f**k flings. B: I wouldn't know if I was destroying someone who might be something very important one day. C: I do not have to be pro-abortion just because you say so. So many people have tried to force me to be pro-abortion that I am now totally against it mainly in defiance of those who would control my thinking. 3. A religious person really really must have made you mad once, Jed? It is fine by me if you are anti-religion, do what you want to. But if you want to try and say you and the anti-religionists are better than anyone who has a religion, or worse force your views on them via legislature, well, kindly knock the hell off. You know, if we are supposed to be so pro-women-liberation in other countries, so pro-freedom, so pro-lets-all-get-along-as-equals, so pro-insert theme of day here then why the HELL is it ok and dandy to hate religion? If you think I am overreacting, then re-read your posts. They were pretty damned irritating to me at least, and I am sure others. Not for your opinion, that is fine. Do what you want. But do not ever try to force it on anyone else. By legislation or otherwise. This statement (the last part anyways) is not directly aimed at anyone. 4. Contraception? Sure, why not. I have no problem with this. But please, if anyone out there wants to force the use of them on people who do NOT want to use them, kindly take a hike. This statement is not directly aimed at anyone. 5. Are you guys actually reading this? I don't get many replies 6. You know, the Pope just died. He meant alot to many people. (I am not catholic, by the way, but I damn sure respect them and am not going to say they are 400 years behind!) If this form of lack of respect for the dearly departed is implicit in your atheistic-utopia vision, then count me completely out. 7. If this continued anti-religious bias is to be embraced and accepted, then do not EVER ask me to show compassion towards some special interest group of to feel sorry for Muslims who might have been discriminated against in the days to follow September 11th. Why should one group be discriminated against and not another? 8. DISCLAIMER!!! This is aimed at no one in particular! (so don't take it as being aimed at you, Jed). If there is someone who feels that the need for population control is so severe that we need to force people to go against their religious and/or moral views and be forced to employ contraceptives or abortion, then here is an alternative. If there is someone who really wants to force that kind of control on other people, then kindly do the following: get yourself a gun, and shoot yourself now. You will have accomplished what you set out to do: you have reduced the worlds population by 1, and I guarantee you that the cost of some contraceptives or an abortion is much more than the cost of the gunpowder it took you to blow yourself to hell. There are more, but for the moment I am too pissed off to handle them clearly. I am sorry if the tone is extremely abrasive, I am very angry. And before you judge me personally, keep this in mind. You don't know me in real life, you don't know what I have been through, you don't know who I really am. And just so people know, I am not exactly what you would call a religious man. You could call me a Christian, I do believe in God, but I have my own views on things, and lets leave it at that...if you judged me based on seeing that word then you are not worth my time. But I am also standing up in defense of the Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, whoever. Jed, you believe science and religion cannot coexist. This isn't a belief, you are stating something as fact. You are wrong in one case, at least. They coexist just fine in the reality of my mind, if they cannot work together for you in your reality, then that is fine. Don't presume that just because you can't make it work, no one else can. Sorry if this offended anyone. But maybe it is time those people who quietly keep getting offended themselves say something. Regards, --Kyle __ Yahoo! Messenger Show us what our next emoticon should look like. Join the fun. http://www.advision.webevents.yahoo.com/emoticontest
Re: OT: If I were Pope.
Kyle Mcallister wrote: Vortexians, OK, this is getting a little crazy-go-nuts. 1. Margaret Sanger was responsible for some good, yes. She was also crazy. Not the kind of person I would want to spend much time with. Very pro-eugenics. If you support that, then congratulations, go build yourself a private Gattaca. Leave me the hell out of it. The problem is that some people would be very willing to leave you and people with your belief system alone. However, there seems to be an unwillingness of certain religious belief systems to leave the rest of us alone. 2. I am not pro-abortion for a few reasons. A: It does nothing to encourage people to stop the numerous meet and f**k flings. Lack of abortion does not stop f**kings, which all the statistics and personal experience shows. B: I wouldn't know if I was destroying someone who might be something very important one day. Or someone who was a mass murder. Of course, if God wanted a person available to do something considered important, why would it matter if that body were destroyed? Many more bodies would be available. Also, if God is all powerful and all knowing, why would a body that might be aborted be chosen? C: I do not have to be pro-abortion just because you say so. So many people have tried to force me to be pro-abortion that I am now totally against it mainly in defiance of those who would control my thinking. Why do you think you are being forced to be proabortion and how is this done? Of course, many people are being forced to be antiabortion just because the doctors are being driven out of business. 3. A religious person really really must have made you mad once, Jed? It is fine by me if you are anti-religion, do what you want to. But if you want to try and say you and the anti-religionists are better than anyone who has a religion, or worse force your views on them via legislature, well, kindly knock the hell off. I know of no proposed legislation that is antireligious. However, I know that the religious right is trying to make gay marriage illegal. You know, if we are supposed to be so pro-women-liberation in other countries, so pro-freedom, so pro-lets-all-get-along-as-equals, so pro-insert theme of day here then why the HELL is it ok and dandy to hate religion? I did not get the impression that Jed hates religion, nor do I. However, I do hate the attitude of certain religions in their belief that their God is better than the other God. If you think I am overreacting, then re-read your posts. They were pretty damned irritating to me at least, and I am sure others. Not for your opinion, that is fine. Do what you want. But do not ever try to force it on anyone else. By legislation or otherwise. This statement (the last part anyways) is not directly aimed at anyone. I would also like religious people not to force their beliefs using legislation, which is the common approach. 4. Contraception? Sure, why not. I have no problem with this. But please, if anyone out there wants to force the use of them on people who do NOT want to use them, kindly take a hike. This statement is not directly aimed at anyone. As far I know, no one is forced to use contraception. However, for awhile in this country and even now in some other countries, condoms were not easily available because the Catholic Church was opposed. 5. Are you guys actually reading this? I don't get many replies Does this quantify? 6. You know, the Pope just died. He meant alot to many people. (I am not catholic, by the way, but I damn sure respect them and am not going to say they are 400 years behind!) If this form of lack of respect for the dearly departed is implicit in your atheistic-utopia vision, then count me completely out. I think you miss the difference between respect and agreement with opinion and policy. I respect the pope, but I think, for what its worth, his policy is harmful to humanity. I respect you but I do not share your beliefs. 7. If this continued anti-religious bias is to be embraced and accepted, then do not EVER ask me to show compassion towards some special interest group of to feel sorry for Muslims who might have been discriminated against in the days to follow September 11th. Why should one group be discriminated against and not another? Why indeed? I agree, we should be equal opportunity discriminators. :-) 8. DISCLAIMER!!! This is aimed at no one in particular! (so don't take it as being aimed at you, Jed). If there is someone who feels that the need for population control is so severe that we need to force people to go against their religious and/or moral views and be forced to employ contraceptives or abortion, then here is an alternative. If there is someone who really wants to force that kind of control on other people, then kindly do the following: get yourself a gun, and shoot yourself now. You will have accomplished what you set out to do: you have reduced the worlds population by 1, and I guarantee you that the
Re: OT: If I were Pope.
--- Kyle Mcallister [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Vortexians, 5. Are you guys actually reading this? I don't get many replies GOD comes from the inside out; not the outside in. Exoteric politics resides with the misidentification of the spirit with the body. We are not the body. If you are in the spirit of God, he gives you a sign. This sign is the passing of a body. It is a symbolism for us to follow as an example. In this specific example I recieved my own dream, and three days afterward the dream came to life. I am working with that dream after the meaning was shown to me. Knowledge is a free gift, you have only to be receptive to recieve it. Perhaps it may come from your guardian angel. Where-ever it comes from is irrevalent. What is relevant is to say your inspiration from the event. In my case I could not understand what the dream meant, but after the third day I began to see it. But because I have no solid proof, I prefer to wait. Perhaps the knowledge was only meant for me. Perhaps others will not understand what the dream means. But I will say it anyways... I sought after some knowledge, and it was given in a dream. It was up to me to interpret the dream according to my pursuit of knowledge. For me the dream was revealed in mathematics, according to my own understanding, but it took three days for the realization to set in. Now the next problem is how to visualize what the mathematics mean for its analogy of meaning when placed into reality. Thats the tough one. Something that was formerly considered impossible was revealed, but without the dream, I would have never considered the possibility. An obstacle may be viewed as a mirage that limits us by our own belief in it. Let me just say and state a problem, and anyone else is welcome to try. Perhaps you may think a computer is necessary to solve this problem, but it should be solved with just a paper and pencil. The dream indicates to me how it should be solved in that matter, and that is what the dream told me to do. Perhaps if you had the powerful computer, it might solve it for you, so I will make it harder, so that you cannot use the computer to cheat. The dream did not tell me where to start, but from the dream I determined where the starting point begins at. This is just a simple mathematical problem then, and from my understanding it does have a starting point, which is the lowest point where it becomes possible, or what is generically called the lowest common denominator. If I gave that clue of the starting point the computer experts might be able to solve it, but perhaps this is not so great a mystery after all, and maybe I am just stupid for giving the problem to begin with: which for this reason I make the problem harder, because it was given to me in a dream. Create a magic cube. Say the numbers and spell them out. Surely this is already known in the world of mathematics. And surely I am making an ass out of myself about saying about hidden knowledge; when everything must have already been deciphered. But the dream tells me how to decipher it, but IT hasnt yet been deciphered by this author, but I see the possibilities of how it should be deciphered. The dream gave me a special unique understanding about how the problem is solved. For me this is a miracle because I had formerly analysed the problem and found it to have no solution. It would take several days to supply the solution with my pen and pencil: but somehow; someway I glimpsed its possible solution: all from the dream; And I COULD be wrong. That is what faith involves; knowing that the answer exists. So everyone else can take up this same challenge if they choose, and supply that solution. For now I only say I believe the solution exists because of faith in the dream that was given. So if you want an analogy for religion there it is. The answer exists according to my intellectual understanding, given by only a dream, and now you can deal with the same problem; without the benefit of the dream that shows the solution. A magic cube is a magic square extended into three dimensions. Take an ordered array of numbers in sequential order, place them on a grid in three dimensions so that the square becomes a cube: and make every ordering appear to the outside observer to be unity. The smallest magic square in two dimensions has nine numbers. The random odds of finding the one unique solution on the flat plane is about 4500/1. If that were made into a magic cube it would have 27 numbers, or 3*3*3 elements, in three dimensional space and then the square would appear in its 3-d analogy as a cube. Find ANY magic cube; if you think it exists. For many years I thought a magic cube could not exist. But then I had a dream; right after the pope died and later by sustained concentration from the dream I found that it probably does exist. For me that was a miracle that erased any doubt. And for all the Thomas the doubter skeptics out there the answer when made is
