This makes 3 zombie threads retired, and just in time for Easter weekend!
You all know what to do if you see rotting corpses lurching out of caves on Sunday: aim for the head, and double-tap.
TZT
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
{Clenched tentacle salute} Yes, Sir!
For those who missed it on the last one (final~ish comment old TZT thread?), check out this :
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/
Aussie TV showdwn betwixt Dawkins & homophobic tosspot preist Cardinal Pell.
@1. A.R : {Clenched tentacle salute} Yes, Sir!
Delivers same clenched tentacle salute as well.
Raises beer, drinks to that.
When asking questions of Pell this :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Pell#Accusation_of_sexual_abuse
& the rest of his wikipedia page may be of use, perhaps?
Call it a cracker and eat it.
Glen Davidson
Video on Youtube here :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZppvpepYMMs
Which has more & could be worth looking at & helping with too.
Hope this hasn’t already been posted 100 times before here by others but just in case not – apologies if so.
Here’s an example of what is going on (for the lurkers, DH can’t learn).
DH trying to convince the Agency he made a new reference stadard: “I testament that it is the right material and of 105% purity.” *asked about documentation* “You have to take my word for it” *the Agency reaches for the lock and chain to shut the place down*
Nerd trying to convince the Agency he made a new reference standard: “I recorded that it was made by this method on pages WXY of notebook CDE, giving this yield. The material was then recrystallized twice to purify it further. Then it was analyzed by HPLC, OVI, KF, NMR (H1 and C13), MS, and other methods appropriate for its intended use, all of which back up the claimed structure. Using our SOP, it was declared to be 99.85% purity based on that data. All this has been reviewed by both the scientific management and Quality Assurance, and is detailed in this signed and reviewed report.” *Agency thumbs through report, and then checks off list and goes to next item*
You see DH, that report is the equivalent of a scientific paper. It is more than opinion. It is backed up with evidence that withstands real scrutiny. Which is why science is fact, and you are mere opinion.
Sorry that I have to drag the PZ-bashing godbots into TZT:
Danny is of the mind that opinions are the same thing as evidence. His ignorance is as good to him as anyone else’s knowledge.
It’s an all too common attitude I find.
Louis
P.S. Nerd, where is your elemental analysis and crystallographic data? For shame Nerd, for shame. A burn and a photo is all you need! ;-) (I am perhaps jesting here)
G.Rodrigues #17 (This comment was not allowed on your boss’s blog. I do not know why.)
Not at all. Hell was invented to scare people, particularly children, into the fold. No accident. If you do not think that hell is important to your religion, stop believing in it. (What good could it ever bring? And what evidence is there for it anyway?) The catholic church gave up on the entire concept of purgatory (another hurtful, unproven concept). Why don’t you just drop the whole
Hadeshell fable?Aaah, Judgement House ™ now. (Interested lurkers can google “hell, Judgement House” for rather silly videos.)
Well thanks for telling me now. I renounced the holy ghost in my youth and so am going to hell no matter how much I repent. (Oh, wait… I am starting to buy into your imaginary hell cult.)
That is rather droll.
I cannot speak for either, but for myself: I do not hate your religion any more than any of the other thousands of made up religions out there. Yours is not special nor particularly convincing either. Bear in mind that none of the atheists we are discussing wish any pain on any person. We only wish to rid humanity of the delusions brought about by religion. Hell (hehe!), I would even settle for merely improving access to education and wait for the inevitable result.
Of course a deep seated aversion to ALL religions goes without saying. What we must clarify (at least in PZ and my case) is that we are very much humanists. I, personally, do not consider atheism as particularly important and do not wish harm on (living breathing… not corporations or ghosts) people. People deserve and have a right to a personal relationship with reality. If religion gets in the way, it must go.
Hades? Why do you not believe in the River Styx etc etc yadda, yadda?
(I guess you realise Hades does not exist. Perhaps because – as is the case for hell – there is no evidence for either)
DH666:
Bwaaaa-ha-ha-ha!
You really don’t have any clue how the scientific method works, do you?
If someone presents a paper that is illogical or flies in the face of evidence (such as the papers in the links you presented), it is only proper to trash them. If the person presenting those papers did so willingly, in an ideologically-driven attempt to undermine accepted theory (such as the authors of the papers in the links you presented), it is only proper to trash those authors.
The rules are pretty simple, really. An author must present models that explain not only currently-known data, processes, and events, but are also able to predict currently unknown data, processes, or events. The papers you linked attempt to undermine radiocarbon dating, but do so in a way that attempts to obfuscate through the spread of fear, uncertainty, and doubt. They don’t present a better model, nor do they illuminate actual flaws in the techniques of RC dating.
Those papers are designed to provide people like you (that is, gullible nitwits with no concept of how science works) with talking points, items to which you can smugly point and say, “See? Papers!” Then you can blissfully ignore other people who point you to papers demonstrating the flaws in the papers you cite.
Ignore reality all you want, danielhaven. I have no real interest in your personal beliefs. Just don’t come onto a science-oriented forum and pretend that you know how science is supposed to work, and we don’t. Don’t jump into a crowd of people largely trained and educated to be scientists and declare you know better which science is valid, and which is not.
I don’t walk into a manufacturing shop and declare I am an expert on welding, and they’re all doing it wrong. I don’t traipse into an operating theater and insist the surgeon is not qualified to operate on a brain aneurysm.
I am not that arrogant.
Yet here you are, with no obvious training in the scientific method, nor even the basest education of the sciences you critique, attempting to lecture those who actually understand science. You do so not in a way that illuminates flaws in science, but only showcases your own ignorance. It’s not as if you have a valid (or even coherent) point. If you did, you might elicit a reasoned response. Instead, you string words together in ways that make no sense, that present no reasoned argument, just a jumble of half-assed bad ideas. Yet you think you are in some way better equipped to handle scientific discussions!
You’ve been given plenty of opportunity to educate yourself, both on radiocarbon dating, and on the scientific method in general. You have squandered those opportunities, and have chosen to continue spewing gibberish and nonsense. While amusing at first, you’ve grown tiresome and predictable.
You are not just ignorant, but now you are boring.
Now is your opportunity to storm away and pretend you conquered us with your greater scientific knowledge. You can tell your friends that science is not threatened by Christianity, all while demonstrating your religiously-derived willful ignorance.
I have no more interest in you.
So I turn on the local “news” today and the first three stories:
People on Hwy 7 and Louisiana Blvd. reenacting the crucifixion in pampered American style (fake blood).
People in the Philippines reenacting the crucifixion (real nails, real blood)
And a story on ancient Egypt.
Just shoot me.
You are right, we would probably run an elemental analysis, and a DSC. We don’t need to worry about the crystal structure for a reference standard, as long as it completely dissolves in the HPLC diluant.
Oh Nerd,
I wasn’t trying to be right! It was a bit of a joke.
EA is the daddy though.
Louis
I know, but you were right. I had to admit that, scientific integrity and all.
Scientific inte…?
This is an alien concept. We need this explained to Daniel. Possibly with some sort of stick. ;-)
Louis
theo, your chewtoys are a bit sweet and spongy for my tastes. I suspect you’ll just meet pleasantly-expressed self-delusion, and no-one is going to their mind changed.
(Shorter me: I wouldn’t bother.)
Yes…force myself to wake up and get cracking on Sunday morning breakfast, because I’ve obviously overslept. Because such vivid dreams I usually only experience when I’ve slept too much.
Hm . .. Corpses coming out of caves. sounds like a D&D adventure I ran once. In which case, my sorcerer will knock them down with one spell and then finish them off with acid orbs.
I cannot help but laugh at the irony that posts to notify the killing of zombie threads become such threads themselves. Will this one share the same fate? Time will tell!
Hmm, I wonder if I should power down the LOLstars’ weapons arrays in observance of dead magical jew on a stick day. Nah.
Noooooooo !
Don’t be a fool.
Sunday will be dead magical jew zombie day, that’s where we’ll need all the power of the LOLstar.
I just nailed the back on a reassembled freecycled Ikea wardrobe.
At 11:30pm. And now, to make dinner.
*sigh*
I asked the clerks at gamestop if they had zombie games on sale for easter and got a hearty chuckle from both. I also got entirely too excited when one of them complimented me on my Team Darwin hoodie. Yeah, I’m an atheist noob.
When I saw the zombie Jesus picture at the top, I immediately thought of the dead stingray on a previous thread. This one didn’t have a penis nose like the other one. Will the real Jesus please lurch forward.
I have the perfect movie title for a Jesus-themed zombie movie….. get ready for it….
DAWN OF THE CHRIST
FADE IN
Jesus gets out of the tomb on Sunday morning and he bites the Roman soldiers. Then all hell breaks loose…
Pilate now has a major zombie uprising on his hands…what will he do? What CAN he do?
Zombies massacred… the city burns… the written teachings of jesus lost… only fragments survive, and a tale of resurrection surfaces in greek texts decades later….
2 THOUSAND YEARS LATER
… a nosy tourist visiting the Vatican finds a relic, a fragment of the cross… and accidentally cuts himself on an iron nail embedded in it… first the headache, then the fever… then vomiting and seizures… then respiratory failure…
ZOOM IN ON EYES
White sclera eyes suddenly open… a loud growl resonates.
ROLL CREDITS
(c) copyright 2012 by The Gun-Toting Atheist
Er, PZ, you know that since this is WordPress, it is trivially easy to have the system automatically close comments:
a) After a certain time since the post was published,
b) After a certain number of comments have been added, or
c) After a certain length of time that there have been no comments.
If you wanted to get all slap-happy, it wouldn’t be that much more of a stretch to have the system automatically generate and publish a new post for the never-ending comments, just to keep the ball rolling in the event that you’re busy, out of town or…dead. You know, so we can keep coming back here until the power goes out.
PZ (or anyone else):
Any idea where that Zombie Jesus artwork came from? It reminds me of Ralph Steadman’s work, I’d love to see more from the artist.
gun-totingatheist:
Now the tardigrades have completed their successful run of Hello, Dolly, they have expressed interest in your script. Do you think it could be easily turned into a musical theatrical production? Also, could it be moved to, say, 1900-era New York? We already have all these costumes, see.
Also, for practical reasons, can it take place as a water ballet?
Zombie Jesus was of course just the first of the zombie plague that afflicted Palestine at that time:
KG, “just”, should be “not even”. Verse 50 establishes the chronology. ;)
Apparently I can’t read. (At least not the Bibble; is it over-familiarity?)
Death, drama, zombies [pause for Sabbath], resurrection, zombie plague.
As you were!
Hmm, does this mean that the Babble is really… THE OLDEST HORROR NOVEL OF ALL TIME!!!
“And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and
appeared untoate the brains of many.”There FTFY.
NigelTheBold:
I love your idea. A musical water ballet set in 1900 in the NYC sewer system would be an awesome adaptation.
Can’t wait to direct it.
Well, keep in mind that lots of it was stolen from the Enkidu mythos, so, I dunno, does a reboot count?
cm’s changeable moniker@31,
I see you’re right – the other zombies rose from the dead first, but they then apparently lurked in their graves until Zombie Jesus was ready to lead them in their ghoulish invasion of Jerusalem!
Oh.My.Goo’ness.
What have y’all been up to?
Check TET. I may be doomed.
I’m, kinda trying to catch up with TET but meat-space intrudes.
It’s my birthday tomorrow (tomorrow being relative) and I plan to spend the day in full-on avoidance mode.
The Library is closed so I’m not sure where I’m going to go.
@ chigau
I have exactly that problem. Luckily we have a comfy thread here that does not run away from us.
And Conga Rat Elations on completing a full orbiting of our closest star. {sends USB hugs and dark chocolate} A *star* whirling about a star – such fun!
theophontes
Thanks.
(posted from my s0ny ebook)
(not worth it)
@ cm’s
You are right there, but I am rather intrigued by genuine ‘Merkin goddists. I don’t get to meet such in real life. I shall poke at them for a little while with a stick…
@ nigelTheBold
A zombie play would need a shopping mall. I don’t think they had them back in the day. The water ballet idea is great – that is what tardigrades do best.
@ A.R
A couple of hundred years too late for that. If you want real gore and corpses , check out Homer.
@ Gun-Toting Atheist
Eeeuw. We’ll have to boil all the blackwater first. What about Evian with cocoa powder to get the same effect.
Just for fun:
Today’s “Cyanide and Happiness” seems to be appropriate for this thread:
http://www.explosm.net/comics/2760/
theophontes & Ogg: Good points, perhaps the Babble is more of a slasher reboot? (Happens to hold a record for most kills by the primary killer, at about 25 million)
@ A.R
Wow! I am impressed. That must be an all-time record. (I am just worried that they might have fiddled with the numbers in an effort to gain more status for their god. Do they have any independent evidence for their claims?)
…
If anyone is looking for a softchew xtian site still accusing PZ of being a (threats of physical violence) bully, wing past here: Linky. I am about to get banned, but have managed to work off some of my compulsive SIWOTI.
Protest the Unfair and Unjust Persecution of the Undead!
Down with Headshots!
Undead, YES!
Unperson, NO!
Just say NO to Double-taps!
Liches Are People Too!
Zom-bie-yah, My Lord, Zom-bie-yah!
What Do We Want? UnDead Rights!
What Are We? UnDead Wights!
Grrh Arrgh?
Grrh! Arrgh!
Sometimes my admiration for Sir Terry turns to adoration.
theophontes: Yeah, the calculations may be found somewhere on the SAB site. Ad as for independent verification, do the xtains ever have that?
I have really been neglecting Teh World’s Favourite Thread ™ .
I have spent hours jabbing at the previously linked xtian site, with a stick, trying to work out what make it tick. Tom Gilson and his ilk are claiming they can make a Science ™ out of a fairytale. Yet they remain dyed in the wool presuppositionalists and draw fundamentally on biblical sources. They actually believe hell exists and are not embarrassed by the claim.
All that is OK I guess. If people are delusional, who am I to rob them of their life’s lies? But what is sad is that they are also apologists for all manner of bigotry. Linking to examples of rape and murder (just a fraction of the 25 million) I learn that these are all fine because I fail to see things in the bigger context. But this is my whole point to begin with. It is the bible itself that creates the context in which it is not just OK to rape and murder, but holds such things in highest regard. This obviously whistles way over their heads. Not surprisingly, as I learned after, the book that Tom Gilson cobbled together includes the efforts of one William Lane Craig. They are all arguing under the handicap of having their heads stuck up their proverbials.
{theophontes looks up from keyboard, startled by the sounds of the commentariat}
…huh … what? “Shut up all ready with your SIWOTI”; you say?
Ok, Ok, … I’ll change the subject…
Oh, goody. No reanimated corpses yesterday. Now I just have to fight through three more weeks of boring until my for month student sabbaticalish thingy
should read four month
Me, last weekend:
Step one completed! /prouddespitebeingrubbishatdiy
yec123 has been invited to TZT.
@ cm’s
Much as I love spawnphontes, I am also incredibly happy that she is an adult. The worst years were definitely the ‘tweens (“between little girl and teenager”), which was a complete nightmare. This passed very quickly though and she has ever since been far more mature and responsible than theaphontes and especially theophontes.
@ A.R
We definitely need to do something to raise ourselves in the thread stakes. At one stage TZT was top blog on all of FTB. We need to rise again!!!
(Sadly none of the trolls seem to be going for the bait. Perhaps we need to be more accomodating to them. Honorary passports can be dealt out – such has been allowed for DH666. Perhaps we could also market ourselves as a sort of Purgatory of the Perfidious ™ rather than having trolls sent to the dungeon? I shall offer up a snow white turtle-dove to the Lipstick-wielding Pitbull and offer up another hecatomb to Teh Ebil Oberlawd. In the interumn, I suggest we all close our eyes in prayer (but keep on commenting!)
kjhsdfxubuxap9873-4oixnkhnlkuxgfygyg….
…er … strike that last idea. If you are commenting, you can open one eye just a smidgen (but don’t make it to obvious, we still want to look very pious to Teh Ebil One … and whatever other Pharyngulites that may chance upon us.)
You can tell them I’ll be much more lenient on commenters here — jerkishness that would get a ban elsewhere I’ll tolerate a little more. Not infinitely more, but I’ll cut some slack on assholes here.
@ PZ
Thank you Oh Tentacled One!
This could be an interesting experiment if we could somehow get the godbots sluiced into here. It would be a bit like robot wars, I hope. We just need to wind up the godbot with a point of contention and then release it on a different godbot on the other side of the religious deep rifts. Or a gladitorial match between Pharyngulites and godbots/MenZ/trolls.
The dream scenario: Fence off TZT * and dump the contents of the dungeon in here. Imagine a death-match between trolls such as Philgiordano or Frank Hoggle vs a free ranging godbot like danielhaven. We could all be rooting for our favourites, passing the ammo and grog and running up huge debts on the gambling.
(* I understand the problem with trying to ringfence within one blog. What I would suggest is a single-thread blog that masquerades as a normal thread on Pharyngula. I am sure FTB will allow a little experimentation. This will also allow facilities such as voting favorites up or down and gambling (losers must post articles/recipes/poems/limericks to Pharynguwiki) or artwork of our favourite denizens.)
A no-holds-barred cagefight within the Pharyngula fishtank….
{theophontes waves paws in air for dramatic effect.}
I am deeply CONCERNED and WORRIED that if we manage to gather a sufficient number of morons in one thread we might get a critical mass of idiots (or is that an Uncritical Mass?).
Such a things could lead to dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria, the end of the universe and possible even Unrest.
Won’t someone PLEASE think of the children? You are messing with forces that man was not meant to touch!!!*
Louis
* I’ve always wanted someone to rush into my lab and scream something along those lines. I don’t want much, a small mob waving pitchforks. A mobette.
@ Louis
But Louis, that is our firm intention!
{theophontes tries to baptise Louis with the lobster phone and a small jar of honey}
Now go forth and seed the other threads with references to TZT. The Time of Harvest is nigh!
{thinks: Hold still, DAMNIT!}
IT TICKLES!
Louis
Kkekekekekeke …. ;D
CEO:
Evil overlord is evil, truly evil!
@ John Morales
Aha!!! I see what you tried there, but I shall not fall for your evil ploy. Linking to tvtropes is a really low blow. Think of all the
childrenlurkers who will get sucked into its fractal vortices and spend their lives swirling deeper and deeper into its deaths.You, sir, are Truly Ebil ™ !
fixed: “deaths” should read “depths”
{reads again}
No wait… “deaths” is pretty cool.
{worries about error}
… no, make that … no, fuckit… I need a glass of wine …
Y’know, I’ve always wanted that, too. True, my lab mostly consists of very fast server machines w/ custom and experimental hardware, and it’s a bit of a stretch to argue that high performance cryptographic stacks are ‘forces mankind was not meant to touch’, sure…
Still. It’s what I’ve always wanted. Maybe we could do an exchange? You roust up a mob or mobette for me, I do the same for you*
(/Granted, I should probably clear this with our security, too. I’m not sure quite how the fire suppression systems would work with the traditional mob torches, either. But these are all details to handle, way I see it. Obstacles are just those dreadful things we see when we take our minds off our goal.)
A J Milne,
All right, a very small mob with glow sticks and chip forks? A week on Thursday good for you?
Louis
I mess around with fruit fly genomes by trying to stick viral protein genes in their third chromosomes. Does that count?
It’ll have to do. I’m hereby pencilling you in.
A.R.
Hmmmmm. Do you challenge the very foundations of all that is holy and noble? Do you pervert the sanctity of human kind and try to tame Forces Not Meant For Man to your will? Does anything in your lab come alive when struck by lightning?
If you answered “yes” to any of the above questions that we at Rent-A-Mob could be the people you need to call.
Louis
Rent-A-Mob
How many of these little side businesses do you have, Louis?
Chigau,
With the advent of globalisation I have one business.
And several completely unrelated businesses for tax purposes.
HTH HAND (from the Cayman Islands)
Louis
Geez. It occurs to me I have to ante up a mob, here, too, in payment…
… sorry I haven’t been able to be more specific as yet. Funds are tight, so I may have to hack a server somewhere, see if I can redirect someone else’s flash mob your way…
(Riffles through browser windows, making notes…)
Umm… Do you suppose you’d have space in your lab for like 300+ people singing ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ to protest PIPA?
Dear Zombie Thread
I have devised a way that we can get TZT up to the top of the rankings again. At the same time we can solve the problem of aquiring hundreds of unthinking villagers with cudgels and pitchforks.
We can offer to take over disruptive trolls and godbotherers from our sister-sites. We will be doing everyone a favour and stacking up goodwill by the shovel-full. If we take over the contents of everyones dungeons and victims of their banhammers we will have us a mighty mob. All we need is a couple of checkered shirts and a truckload of farm implements. This is really a win-win-win situation.
Signed:
Teh Self-appointed Benevolent Dictator for Life.
theophontes
Oh Benevolent One.
What, pray, are We going to do with this Mob once We have aquired It?
Signed:
2IC
Send it to ERV!
@ chigau 2IC
Why, it is simply spiffing to own a mob. No experience ever comes quite close to the rush of a large mob approaching the gates with cudgels and pitchforks, the smell of burning tar, the moonlight glancing off their fevered brows as they storm the moat …. Your friends will be soooo jealous.
Oh, you mean practical uses? Er … er ….
We could send it to ERV!
For maximum irony (and deadliness), use a mobette waving rock hammers.
It is at this point in the thread that I say:
Oh you hideous beast, you’ve come all over my umbrella.
Louis
David,
Padded rock hammers. Mobsters must also wear appropriate PPE and be aware of all lab safety requirements.
Louis
and mob caps
google image link
At this point, I am contractually obligated to say the following:
At least it want a blue whale!
Louis: “chip forks”.
Genius! Least threatening angry mob ever.
fuck technology
I’m gonna read a book
nigel stumbles in, briefly observes the exceptionally polite angry mob, looks up at the LOLStar still hanging overhead. He shakes his head in an obvious but futile attempt to dislodge a coherent or interesting thought.
He shuffles on again into the featureless night.
Trayvon Martin – this is what BBC is saying about possible charges. Put up at 19.45 BST
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-17684422
ouch.
I think a coherent thought just hit me in the head.
chigau: Sorry about that, the LOLstar normally eradicates those from TZT, but the sensors are jammed. All of the bullshit yec123 is spewing over the other threads is interfering with the logic detector subroutines.
The lonesome howl of a tardigrade intrudes on the hushed darkness like an undead Lou Reed. In some other place, the scent of ozone and bergamot presages a coming storm, but not here.
Here, there is only the fading call of the tardigrade, the shuffling and soft murmurings of the angry mob, and the incessant begging of a feline who only wants to haz a cheezeburger.
These are the sounds of all hell about to break loose.
nigel: Now that you mention in, I am detecting some residual ozone on the Tennessee thread. Probably from the shitstorm that yec123 set off.
it, not in. Hail Tpyos.
Ah, but you see, you need to filter the signal that gets into those. I’d recommend a bandpass filter.
(What ? I need to sleep, been up all night debugging the control loop on a prototype)
kemist: I’ll try that. Also, I’ve got a spare LOLstar orbiting the thread, and, as a Dark Lord of the Sith, you are entitled to the possession of at least one superweapon. Want the keys?
I propose instead of a mob, a large wooden badger. . .
narwhal
But it would have to be a perfectly spherical badger. Otherwise the equations get weird.
We wouldn’t want it to get wyrd.
Has anytroll actually come here?
chigau: Only DH666. The others refuse to leave their threads.
An extremely odoriferous badger? I understand that those are considered universally superfluous.
A. R
DH666 was bornded here.
*thunder crash*
HE CANNOT LEAVE
*lightening flash*
No one else?
What more can we do?
I`m reading
Maybe someone could pretend to be a troll for a little while?
Alethea: I’ll try:
BUT WHAT ABOUT TEH MENZZZZ! FGM IS’NT WORSE THAN MGM!!!!!!!!
@ David M.
Padded pitchforks and or rockhammers?
We gotta get mean to get seen. No more Mr-Nice-Thread! Time to sexxxy up the angry mob. (And no, that does not mean wooden badgers…)
@ nigel
The tardigrade got caught in a snowstorm in Haerbin in Northern China (I kid you not.) It’s voice sounds more like gollum at this stage, but this might improve with a warm bath. Until further notice the howl will be limited to a rasping cough.
@ A.R
I was hoping they would get banned to TZT. Unfortunately they would need to misbehave rather a lot. Perhaps you could poke a few with a sharp stick.
@ chigau
LUDDITE!
@ Alethea
{thinks: Oh wait, that is a pirate}
{thinks: holy crud, this is harder than it looks}
Well, you could say a “Mr Nice Guy” reference is a little menZy. No takers?
*sigh*
…
Haerbin is a city that was started by the Russians as a trading port and as such is full of heavy old architecture. The Russian restaurant we went to was clad in freizes of the ancient Greeks. There was a very well endowed Leto trying to start a boobquake, while an overgrown swan tried humping her leg. Zeus was in the panel next door, pubic hair in profusion flowing out above a skimpy loincloth. He was sitting on Ganymede who was buckling under the strain and had his nose up the swans bum.
To head off head asplossions I warn people not to try and make head or tail of this tale. (And no, I have not been drinking. That you could think that: Fie!)
theophontes: Sharp sticks? Pffffft!!!! We haz a LOLstar.
No sharp sticks?
What about poo sticks with real poo?
chigau: E. coli are not (in this case) your friends.
Over on Sb/Pharyngula, Egor trolled so as to “review” this blog for his blog, which he also wants to whore.
I pondered inviting him to TZT, but I suspect he would not accept the invitation. Probably not even with PZ’s explicit statement of leniency for this thread.
hot-jiggedy.
I love me some doomsday devices. I collect them.
kemist: You’ll need these then. You wear them like this. Since you’re getting the older model, you’ll only have the LOLcat projector, but you can use it to do most of the functions of the newer model (logic, and fact projectors etc.) by installing adapters. You can probably install most of the other stuff like the radiation beam projector at a later time.
Alethea H. Claw:
Oh! Me! Me! Pick me.
theophontes:
Wow! Interesting story, at least.
Many condolences. I hope the tardigrade is at full lusty volume soon.
I thought I’d leave these here:
Malvina Reynolds
Little Boxes
Pete Seeger
What Did You Learn in School Today?
ESCAPEE!
chigau:
I don’t have access here, but one of my favourites has always been Tom Paxton’s Draft Dodger’s Rag.
Borther Og
I ♥ that song!
(Phil Ochs wrote it.)
Borther?
REFUGEE!
Wait, what now? There was a serious point?
—ALERT—
Known Godbot troll DH666 has broken containment on TZT and has been spotted on multiple threads. Please take appropriate action.
\\
A. R
@ chigau
Tom Paxton: Buy a gun for your son. Its a parody folks. A parody! (Oops, too late. Them ‘Merkins took it seriously.) To restore the the cosmic balance: Hello kitty gun.
@ A.R
{All-Seeing theophontes sees All!}
*waves*
Hai All!
This is where we need a horde. A devious ploy is called for to expand our teaming masses to that critical point. perhaps a press gang is called for. {raises far-lookers to evaluate candidates milling about the saloon on the TET dockside. thinks: “we’ll wait ’til nightfall, then slip ashore in the longboats”}
@ DH666
We missed you. Feel free to expound eloquently on whatever strikes your fancy. C15 anyone?
theophontes
C15 is a pretty broad subject.
google link
Which C15 do you mean?
Me, two weeks ago.
The curtains are back up! /proudeveniftardy
I’m catching up on the Alquist thread. DH666 is on fire!
Engaging Caine and Janine seems unwise, though …
A cheery image.
Does anyone have marshmallows?
Read through the whole zombie thread last night. WOW, this one is all gorram kinds of entertainin’, ain’t ‘e?
Damnit! And I knew that.
I even prefer his version of Paxton’s cover.
I think I dislocated a bone in my foot.
Is that even possible?
Yes.
My sister did that when she was twelve. Dislocated one of the bones in the instep jumping out of a Ponderosa pine. Two years later it was corrected surgically. She broke the cast and my mom repaired the cast with tongue depressors and plaster. Which really surprised the orthopaedic surgeon when he was cutting it off. He didn’t expect splinters.
My right leg is bad. Hip and ankle are rubbish.
Today, something in the middle of the tarsals started hurting during a very mild work-out.
There is some swelling.
It’s painful in certain positions and weight-bearing but since I’m conducting the anaylsis while drinking, there is no science.
—-
Brother Og
Would having smells in the real world help with the dream smells?
a big bowl of kimchee by your pillow?
No idea. I don’t have a great sense of smell, so whatever it is would have to be rather strong.
I do know that smell can set me off when awake. Any two out of the three smells (scorched metal, burned plastic, decomp) will set off a mild to severe panic attack (elevated heart rate, sweating, headache, muscle spasms, dizzyness). And that’s for the real smells.
When the nightmares hit, there are three different ones.
One has no visuals — just the smell. Strong, permeating everything, and horrible.
The second one (which is rare) has no visuals or smell, just panic. Sudden and complete panic from a deep sleep. I go from sleep to wide awake in a moment and have no idea why.
The third one, which is the one that absolutely terrifies me, is down at the pile. The workers are swarming over the smoking pile, searching. They are small, the pile is huge. The workers start to squabble, then a fight breaks out. The fight spreads. Soon it looks like an anthill in a panic. Then the smoke solidifies and I see a giant human made of smoke. The face is everyone’s face. Nothing looks remarkable. The kind of face that is eminently forgettable. Not Caucasian or African or Semitic or Asian or Nordic or anything. It is like it is all of us. And then it starts moving towards me and the face breaks into a smile. And that smile is terrifying. It looks so damned happy.
The dreams and the panic attack triggers do not seem to be related. If I get triggered during the day that does not mean I have a nightmare that night so I don’t know if ‘aromatherapy’ would work or not.
Sorry. That was more than the question required but sometimes writing about this shit helps. A little.
Oggie
I got nothing.
Have a *rumhug*.
Write as much as you want.
—-
Did your sister break the cast by jumping out of the same tree?
It’s weird. I feel like I’m damaged goods but I still look normal, sound normal, everyone thinks I’m normal but I know. Does that make sense?
No. She fell off of a stage. Broke her clarinet mouthpiece at the same time. Which worked as her teacher gave her a really nice crystal mouthpiece.
It makes sense.
My uneventful life still has me with a public-face and a personal-face.
I think everyone does.
As long as you don’t actually bite the
loopiestourists …As this is the Zombie Thread after all, I thought I’d share this shirt (linky).
@ Falyne
Welcome on board. This is where dead threads come to die. Finally. And then recover. And then get shot in the head (double tap). And die. And recover … ad infinitum… (You are also aware that half the thread is written in code?
@ chigau
There are a lot of ligaments in your feet as well. Stretching of the ligaments through injury can cause the bones to feel dislocated.(Much like you mention in #131)
I had the experience of thinking I had broken something a few weeks ago. Then I thought it was gout. The foot swelled up and I could not walk for two days. It turned out it was a (lateral) ligament in the foot that had stretched causing the foot to splay. Applied anti-inflammatory and taped up the foot for near instantaneous recovery. What a relief. /(sample size n=1)
@ Teh Oggie
No rum here. Would you settle for *$4 per liter red wine hug* instead ?
I think tetrapak booze at the grocery store may be the pinnacle of human civilization.
@ chigau
Carbon 15 has a half life of about 2,5 seconds. It is the type of isotope DH666 would need to “prove” Kent Hovind’s hogwash. (I am amazed he has not brought it up yet.)
@ chigau
The hangover I got from drinking a beer after the wine. /wishful-thinking
“Wijn na bier geeft plezier,
bier na wijn geeft venijn…”
(Wine after beer is pleasure, beer after wine gives [feeling of being] poison[ed].)
theophontes
DH666 is off cluttering other threads.
I worry about him.
@ chigau
I am also worried about him. We have been so accommodating and eve tried hard to house-train him. All a bit disappointing. I have tried to get him a little playmate. Surely a friendly yec and DH666 can get on and keep each other company. At least they share the same notions of YHWH ™ .
I hope we have not created a monster.
My foot healed itself over night.
It’s a miracle!
—
theophontes
I don’t think we can take credit for “creating” a monster, perhaps for unleashing it.
@ chigau
Well, we did kind of train it up here. We got it all the way from carbon 12 to 13 to 14. Then it bolted and is now running amok out there {waves paw to indicate the enormity of teh interbebz} and we cannot stop it. We are sort of like the owners of the bot as it were… Isn’t this like when your dog jumps over the fence and starts killing sheep?
Not a miracle at all. I prayed for you!
theophontes
Back on the farm, that meant shotgun and shovel.
I don’t think we can do that here.
—-
Has anyone discovered a method to channel all the bannables to TZT?
Where’s sgbmॐ?
theophontes: The LOLstar sensors have recently received an upgrade courtesy of Ing that allows me to spot your hidden messages with ease… The “prying eyes” are everywhere! {Maniacal laughter}
For theophontes:
http://www.economist.com/blogs/johnson/2012/04/gender?fsrc=gn_ep
I have no idea what this means but it sounds impressive.
theophontes
Can you get back on the praying and reduce the swelling and discolouration?
Thanks.
@ chigau
I don’t know what has happened to the lipstick wielding pitbull. He sometimes goes on walkabout. (Does he not realise the awesome responsibilities of state we have placed upon those broad shoulders?)
{theophontes switches on the ॐ signal, sets fire to box of emergency flairs}
@ A.R
Too late. We are now coding in plain site. Our words do not necessarily mean what you think they do… /jedi-mind-trick
@ cm
The problem resolves itself in the xtian context because They are Triune. (I think the real problems lie with the goddists themselves.)
@ chigau
I am thawing out a fresh hecatomb as we speak. Only the most unblemished heffers of course. Minions are currently pressing the gold leaf to their foreheads, shaving forelocks and sprinkling the Holy Wheatflour as I type.
…
{lights brandon}
{lights CL20 soaked pyre}
*****BBAANNGG!!****
{enter theophontes dressed in torn sackcloth, covered in dirt and ash. pours libation of wine onto lingam placed center stage}
Oh, woa is I! TZT is a wasteland. What boons have been withheld us by the gods…
*wails*
… and one pitbull short of lasting redemption …
*moans*
{tosses more ash over head}
I graduate from Boonsboro High School. Does that help?
theophontes 777: Firstly, Dark Lords of the Sith are immune to mind tricks. Secondly, what the fuck made you think that CL20 was a good idea? And where the hell did you get it? I’m going to have to recalibrate the LOLstar’s sensors to warn me about any future explosions.
@ Brogg
{types word into babelfish.com }
Aaah… Boonsborough!
@ A.R
Your promotion has not gone through yet… you are still on probation.
Tardigrades stockpile 2,4,6,8,10,12-Hexanitro-2,4,6,8,10,12-hexaazaisowurtzitane like 2nd Amendment crazies hoard assault rifles. CL20 is most efficacious in getting one’s hecatombs up to speed in an emergency.
theophontes: But I hz a superweapon!
No, no, no. No ‘ugh’.
@ A.R
Tardigrades are completely without a sense of humour. LOLweapons are as effective as sugar pills at a skeptic’s rally.
@ Brogg
I Phftted Boonsboro and learned that “Skip” has been mayor since 1988.
How many vampires have you heard of named “Skip”?
theophontes: But said superweapon also has radiation projectors, superlasers, mass drivers, and gigantic star ship hangers!
If a vampire killer can be named “Buffy” then a vampire can be “Skip”.
Keep in mind that Boonsboro is tiny. Back when I was in high school, I don’t think they had even one full-time employee. Even the two cops were part time.
@ AR
But dare you use them. {points paw at all the other nyms gracing teh thread.} Mwahahahaha….
Abandoned question mark seeks loving, caring home. Contact RSPCA @ #161.
theophontes: I’ve been working with Ing to develop very precise targeting systems for some of the nastier weapons. Granted, he thinks it’s for playing Whack-A-Troll.
A, R
Are you quite sure that Ing is really on YourSide™?
chigau: Nope, but we do share an equal detestation of trolls.
—
By the way, does anyone have any idea why we keep going on like this when we all want the same thing (TZT to conquer teh interwebz)?
A. R
Because this is our very own thread.
It’s our home base.
Baby steps.
We mustn’t mus’n’t musnt let anyone find us.
(Howinhell does one abbreviate “must not”?)
AR
There are only ten basic issues to be covered in this regard: Comments, comments, comments, … the rest are unimportant.
Setting up a trollhaven (heh) here is a means to an end. More trolls/godbots/menZ = more comments. (ie: comments = teh BRAINZZZZ)
^ I see what you did there.
—
Yes, more trolls, more comments. But how to get them here?
Let’s see if we can tempt rajkumar.
Or has that invitation already been extended?
chigau: Attempted multiple times on the Dawkins/Pell thread.
A. R
No one ever accepts those invitations!
Maybe we need for someone else to issue them.
Perhaps –>PZ<– ?
I was thinking more like one of their own.
Perhaps.
Could be.
(I really must go to bed.)
Maybe.
@ AR
We may need some more technical input as to how to achieve a ringfenced dumping ground for all the detritus of FTB. A one-thread blog under FTB would be ideal. Instead of banhammering, everyone gets dumped in here to fight it out (perhaps as prize the right to escape for a few hours … a kind of troll saturnalia?). I am sure someone with pitbull-like skills could work out the details.
*** NEW ***
Hot off the press: Proposal for TZT banner.
theophontes:
Nice.
One suggestion? Move the text completely above the horizon line. It is hard to see against the hardpan.
theophontes: Impressive. I wasn’t aware that tardigrades were artistically talented.
Like the banner very much. Especially the version with sky.
@ All
Thanks. Just a mock-up. I didn’t spend enough time to get good source images and proper text.
theophontes
Is there any way to add some hidden messages?
@ chigau
I don’t think so...
theophontes: Alt text?
OK YEC, time to prove your imaginary deity exists and your babble isn’t a book of mythlogy fiction with solid and conclusive physical evidence. Evidence that will convince scientists, magicians, and professional debunkers, as being of divine, and not natural (scientifically explained), origin. Or you should shut the fuck up. Otherwise, you are exposed as a sociopathyic liar and bullshitter….
Rajkumar and yec123 are currently under quarantine and are confined to this thread. Please report any violations — they will be banned if they break quarantine.
Herrvohl, mein commandant.
PZ,
☺
@Nerd
He’s a troll, he’s just trying to disrupt.
OK. Thanks for being so understanding and not banning me. I won’t break the ‘quarantine’ I promise. Denial, see what you have done to me???? You got me ‘quarantine’ here??? That’s one more question that you should ask: ‘How exactly can I be ‘quarantined’ when I am perfectly free? It’s a paradox.
You can’t define quarantine
Its been forty years…
It’s PZ’s blog rajkumar. He makes the rules. You follow or…splat…
Also the rules aren’t defined. You just have to follow them. You can’t define rules.
Btw I missed it before, do you deny numberwang?
191: You are not perfectly free. If you comment outside the confines of this thread, you will be banned. It’s a fairly trivial limitation, but it is one.
What’s so hard to understand about that? Are you just stupid? (Don’t bother replying, I know the answer.)
But PZ, a man is free a slave obeys!
@rajkummer
Would you kindly, answer the questions?
@pz
yec123 threw one last comment in that thread after you warned him.
No, not really that stupid. But some blog owners actually limit a person’s ability to comment outside a particular thread during such ‘quarantines’. You didn’t do so, this is why I asked the question. Technically, it is not really a ‘quarantine’ when I can comment wherever I like, is it?
OK. I know. I shouldn’t be asking you these questions, lest ….
Though I must say, Professor, you allow a lot more room for such discussions that do not favour the blog owner’s point of view. In the end, I guess we all have limits. But if I was at richarddawkins.net, I am sure I would have faced the ban, and not a ‘quarantine’, 3 days ago, and without any notice or warning. This is just a small step toward a giant leap of freedom of speech and tolerance we are all going to take very soon ….
@Rajkumar
So you’re just actively testing people’s patience/boundaries?
Not particularly, but it can happen in the process. I am not running a website or a blog, and asking people to become more tolerant of other people’s opinions. But if I were, it would be good for people to know just how much tolerance can I display when it comes to facing opinions that I do not like. In the end, I guess some people are more tolerant than others.
Rajkumar, PZ has limited your action publically. PZ is polite, and usually gives warning before using the banhammer. This is your warning. You post here, or the banhammer will fall. That is reality. You can post places other than here, but that will be your last post at this blog. Do you comprehend?
Still no evidence for your fuckwitted ideas preacher. Start showing some humility, with the concept you are wrong always before you…
Wrong about what? About God?
About everything, raj. Assume we think you’re wrong about everything and provide support for all of it. But since you have no concept of how evidence-based thinking works (hint: you don’t start with the conclusions), you don’t know how to provide support for things, so… really this is a waste of time.
theophontes & chigau: I’m activating the backup reason generators on the LOLstar.
And Nerd, I haven’t seen you presenting any ‘conclusive physical evidence’ so far, though you talk about it a lot.
Raj, again, you have no idea how these things work. You’re the one making a claim. Nerd does not have to provide evidence that your claim isn’t true, you have to provide evidence that it is.
Still no evidence from rajkumar. I have presented the evidence. But like all fuckwits, you think if you ignore it, it goes away. It doesn’t. Your deity doesn’t exist. I’ve evidenced the the null hypothesis by showing lack of conclusive physical evidence to date, and you never refuted that. Now you show otherwise with solid and conclusive physical evidence, or the null hypothesis of non-existence is correct. You can do it. Er, no you can’t, because you know that evidence doesn’t exist, and you have just been trolling us…
No, not for my claims. But for the claims he makes. He never argues back, he only fights and shouts back. Apparently, he is not familiar with the concept of countering arguments with reason and logic, and yet, he is the one who is most vocal about following logic, reason, and scientific principles. Surprisingly, not surprisingly actually, you all give him your full support, as you are now.
PZ: Thank you squidly overlawd! TZT will now prosper!
Be more specific. What claims do you think he needs to provide evidence for?
Is that a joke? Tell me again, please, what is this ‘null hypothesis’, and give an example if you can.
I don’t engage in mental masturbation, as that is for losers like you. I just demand and expect you to evidence your claims. Either do so, or shut the fuck up. Losers can put and can’t shut up. Are you a loser???
Ok. I’ll be more specific. For starters, the claims that ‘others are doing nothing but fuckwittery, mental wanking, jerking off’, and all that. Then the claim about me that I am trying to prove my ‘deity exists’, when I have done no such thing.
Let me explain. It doesn’t matter what you’re running or not running. You’re posting here, and here there is a Dungeon for the banned. As a kindness, however, to the dungeon-bound, in the last few weeks a holding cell has been demarcated: this thread.
If you want to argue, argue on this thread.
If you argue elsewhere, the dungeon beckons.
It’s not about what you say, it’s about where you say it.
Capiche?
Seriously, Raj?
Seriously?
But I did discuss this point many times. You cannot use null hypothesis for something that you believe does not exist in the universe. How are you even going to take a start? You need a starting point. God doesn’t exist for you, because you are an atheist, so you need evidence for it. But what is God? How are you going to define God when you believe it has no existence in the universe? Then, no one can give you evidence for something that you believe does not exist.
It’s just amazing…little Stonercake can’t manage to comprehend one thing anyone writes, can’t click a link and read, can’t do anything except regurgitate the same old shit, until PZ ambles by and threatens to swing the banhammer. Then, little Stonercake decides to have a functioning brain and comprehend something. Now it’s back to stoned out stupidity.
Rajkumar, do you believe in unicorns?
No, I don’t.
You understand those are colorful ways of saying that someone is wrong, reasoning badly, and behaving pointlessly, right?
Why not?
Mental masturbation, and a thoroughly irrelevant question for us. The null hypothesis is non-existence. You must change that by providing us with the conclusive physical evidence to back up any and all claims that you make. Or, if you are a person of honesty and integrity, you shut the fuck about your mental masturbations until you have said evidence.
Because I have never seen one, except in fairy tales. I haven’t met anyone who’d seen one either.
Err, sure you can. That’s often exactly how it works.
That part is up to you. You’re making a claim, and formulating the alternative hypothesis. So you get to tell us what it is that you claim exists, and how we might test for its existence.
rajkumar #219 wrote:
This doesn’t seem right. People work from the definitions given b by others. If you don’t believe in the Loch Ness Monster, for example, it’s because there’s a description out there which would entail some predictions which you don’t see evidence for — and what evidence you’re given has better explanations. But you know what would change your mind — and could.
I’m late to this thread: are you making some sort of assertion about God, or supernaturalism, or what?
That’s numberwang!
You see rajkumar, simply because you mentally masturbate, doesn’t mean we have to in response to you, or even respond to your unevidenced fuckwittery with anything other than cries for real and conclusive evidence. Which you must provide, or acknowledge tacitly you are nothing but a liar, bullshitter, and general troll.
Both theists and atheists believe in the natural universe. That’s the common ground, the null hypothesis. If there is an additional element, then burden of proof is on the claim. But naturalism is the accepted starting point because that’s where we are both together.
It’s sort of friendly, when viewed like that.
TLDR version: God can’t be defined and you can’t refute something that can’t be defined so you have to first believe it to refute it and blah blah blah blah blah jizz in his pants
Not exactly true. Technically both Hindus and Christian Scientists do not believe in the natural unvierse
What about invisible unicorns?
Ing #232 wrote:
Really? Well, the definition needn’t be a technical blueprint, but if God can’t be defined at all then I don’t see how you can believe it exists, either. Believe what exists?
Hmm. Don’t know about that. They may or may not exist, pending ‘conclusive physical evidence’. But if you go by Nerd’s null hypothesis, then they do not exist until we have some evidence that they do.
Ing #233 wrote:
Yes they do: they think it is an illusion, however. Ditto for idealistic monists.
And they think there is evidence and experience which points to this, and away from materialist atheism. They see what we see, but claim greater insight into its true nature.
rajkumar wrote:
Wrong. I don’t believe pegasi (wingéd horses) exist – but if you could provide evidence – e.g. gave me a feather that was shown to contain entirely horse DNA – I’d start considering the possibility.
Oh, and I’d definitely buy a hat.
rajkumar #236 wrote:
I don’t think Nerd would put it this way: whether things exist or not doesn’t depend on our knowing about them. But whether we’re justified in believing they exist will depend on the existence of evidence which makes more sense on the assumption that they do.
FTFY. Alternatively, what Sastra said.
Actually, this is the way science works. Take the Higgs boson. Almost all physicists thinks it exists, because the theoretical framework of quantum chromodynamics is so accurate. But, there isn’t the conclusive physical evidence to date for said particle, only good hints. Not conclusive enough to call it found (five sigma confidence required, they are only at 3.5 sigma). So until they hit 5.0 sigma with the next LHC run, it doesn’t officially exist.
Your bullshit rates 0 sigma confidence, meaning there is no likelyhood your bullshit is real. You need evidence to transform your bullshit to reality. You need to think where that physical evidence to back up your bullshit comes from. It doesn’t come from your mental masturbation, which is OPINION.
That’s because you know what pegasi look like, but highly unlikely that you know what God looks like?? When someone gives you evidence that can be used to prove the existence of pegasi, you are most likely going to match the evidence with the mental pictures of pegasi in your mind? But when someone gives you evidence that has the potential to prove the existence of God … Do you have a mental picture of God???? How are you going to validate that evidence? Against what?….
I know Nerd. More Mental Wanking. But as you know, the **null hypothesis** you talk so much about is just another form of the same mental wanking that you so much despise. But remember, only mental wanking alone can be used to counter mental wanking….
rajkumar #242 wrote:
I don’t have a mental ‘picture’ of God, but I think my mental concepts and images of various versions of god are as good as those of the theists. If they have a clear enough idea of what they’re talking about to provide evidence for it, then I probably have a clear enough idea of what they’re talking about to consider their evidence.
How do you know I don’t?
OOOH! OOOH! OOOH! Does this mean that Raj is about to give scientifically testable evidence for god? Or is it just more mental sausage squeezing?
No, its a tool used effectively by scientists and skeptics. It is part of the reason science and skepticism advance the knowledge of mankind, because it helps set what is required get where you want/need to go with evidence. Mental wanking, or just doing unevidenced sophistry, (good philosophy is always grounded in reality, or evidence, so it isn’t a real problem) does nothing much for the amount of effort, if at all, to advance the knowledge of mankind, as it is formless, undisciplined, and meanders all over the place, and has difficulty showing it is correct with evidence. Which is your problem here. We keep trying to get you to define and sharpen your bullshit. You are afraid to do that, as you might be proven wrong.
How can the null hypothesis be “wanking” if the null hypothesis always has to be the common ground of what’s already agreed upon?
Ing, I believe this is Wangernum?
Yeah you are right about that. But by doing this, I guess you’d just be asking for evidence for a God who appears in very specific forms only i.e., in this case, God as defined by some theists. You still have to talk to those people who claimed to have had experiences of God subjectively. They all say God can only be experienced, and cannot be defined or conceptualized in any way. In fact, according to some traditions, such as Zen, anything that can be conceptualized as God is simply not God. Which means, Zen monks, as a rule of thumb, would be just as atheist as you are, or Richard Dawkins is, when it comes to beliefs and religions such as Islam, Christianity, Judaism, etc.
In short, any mental picture of God is NOT god.
Rajkumar, one thing the null hypothesis does, is to define where the burden of evidence lies. In our case here, the null hypothesis for all deities is non-existence. What that means, is the whoever makes the positive claim for the deity, has to supply the evidence to back up the claim. Same for bigfoot or pixies which also have non-existence as their null hyplotheses. In this case YOU are making the claim for a deity. YOU are the one who must supply the physical evidence for it, to get it out of the null hypothesis. Which is why I keep on your case about said evidence.
How is this for mental wanking, Nerd????? 10 out of 10?
So, Raj. Tell me, do you believe in flibbertigibbets?
What’s that? You’d like to know what a flibbertigibbet is before you decide if it’s plausible they exist?
Sorry, but the only characteristic of flibbertigibbets is that they are undescribable. You aren’t capable of understanding what flibbertigibbets look like or what they do.
According to your own reasoning, then, you must conclude that flibbertigibbets exist. Since you don’t have a mental picture of them, you can’t validate any evidence for them. Most reasonable people would conclude from that that it’s unlikely that flibbertigibbets are a thing, but you, for whatever reason, are making the case that we should conclude that it’s likely that flibbertigibbets do exist.
Well, I don’t know if it quite makes a 10, but it’s certainly a sterling effort.
Raj: You seem to be advocating a deist position now. How interesting.
OK. I agree. I am making that claim. But I am also telling you why evidence cannot be provided. You are just not listening. You are like that CD player that gets stuck on a bad CD. You can’t move forward, and you can’t move backwards, but you can only play the same set words and notes over and over again.
All hail the great flibbertigibbets! May we all experience them.
[meta]
Sastra, rajkumar so far has argued intelligence (like comes from like) and identity (via perception, where it can transcend) ad nausaeam in two threads.
(Right up your alley, actually)
No, that’s a different situation, because we have no people who are claiming to have had subjective experiences of “flibbertigibbets “. Unless, of course, you just had one. In which case, I am open to further discussion on “flibbertigibbets”.
rajkumar wrote:
How would they know if they were genuinely mistaken?
How did you come by this knowledge of what a god is or isn’t, exactly? And how would you know if you were wrong?
[OT]
Wowbagger, “The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Taol
The name that can be named is not the eternal name” and all that.
(Purportedly allusive metaphorical obscurantism)
I claim to have had a subjective experience of a flibbertigibbet. Now let’s discuss that, you shitstain of a sophist.
Nope, you are telling us why you lie and bullshit. If you can’t supply the evidence, and continue your claim, you lie and bullshit. So, either give up your claim, or show the evidence. Since you admit you don’t have any evidence, that means you shut the fuck up about your claim. Welcome to science, not mental wanking.
You see there is also another tool in use. Parsimony. Unneeded and unevidenced shit, like your unevidenced deity, is discarded. A deist god can’t be shown to be any different from a non-existent god.
If you are really trying to do real philosophy now, why didn’t you do the same thing days ago before you lost all credibility?
rajkumar #238 wrote:
If that was all they said, I might be more inclined to believe them. But such mystics generally go on — and on and on — to say more about God — so much more, in fact, that it becomes pretty clear that they DO have some concept of what they’re talking about, and thus eventually *I* have some concept of what they’re talking about. If they didn’t, they couldn’t say so much, could they?
From what I can tell, the God of the mystics is usually either reached by a mental state — or IS a mental state (cosmic mental state) — where self and other is blurred, all things are connected, and distinctions and thoughts and images melt away into a sense of wholeness or one-ness with ALL. Now this can, of course, be explained quite naturally as what happens when the brain no longer works as it usually works, and the sense of “I” becomes fragmented or distorted. It can be a very impressive and meaningful experience, no doubt. Neurologists describe it, study it, measure it, and can even induce it.
The problem is that the theistic mystics assume that they are not learning about how the human brain works, but about how the universe is put together. But they now need more evidence for that, such as being able to know, perform, or predict things which would be impossible under this assumption. Otherwise, the less extraordinary explanation does the trick just fine.
So I think the ‘definition’ is good enough to admit both evidence, and explanation. It’s just not the easy explanation these mystical theists leaped at. You have to look deeper, and go behind what the experience feels like.
That evidence would begin as a series of observations that do not fit within any current theory–and would, presumably, appear to falsify some or all of the currently accepted theories. It would be checked and re-checked for accuracy.
Then some hypotheses would be advanced to explain the evidence. These would be scientific hypotheses–there would be implications, predictions made, that could be tested. A scientific hypothesis is potentially falsifiable–it contains within itself the means to prove it false. A hypothesis that repeatedly fails to be disproved in this manner would gain the status of a theory.
The problem with god as an explanation is that the idea offers no testable predictions–and, by every attempt at a definition I’ve ever heard of, is not falsifiable. No matter what experiments and testing show, you can either make an excuse for god or even claim that the results support the idea of god. If god is magical, or exists outside of space and time, or isn’t material, or is pure thought or whatnot, he is not falsifiable even in principle.
Your insistence that god is not definable makes the situation even worse–you don’t even need to make an excuse for god failing a test, just continually insist that what we tested wasn’t god. Just move the goalposts, so to speak. When you refuse to define the idea you’re pushing, you end up with something that can’t be tested, and you can neither dismiss the idea or go with it and advance knowledge that way.
This is why the god hypothesis is useless. With no testable predictions, you can neither tell if it’s wrong nor use the “theory” to gain further knowledge.
So basically, all you’ve got is wanking material.
I don’t have a “mental image” of a photon, but I have to believe that it exists.
I cannot have an “image” of something that cannot be seen – because optics cannot work on things that are smaller than their wavelenght. In fact, I would have a very hard time describing exactly what a photon is.
However these things have an effect on the world. The very concept of photon was imagined to deal with those observed effects. We know that this model does have some accuracy because it has predictive power.
There you have it : null hypothesis -> light is a wave through the ether. Ether is falsified by observation. We then have unexplained objective observation, transmission of light through the vacuum of space. Something else emerges, the photon, that not only we did not believe existed, but that we had not even imagined yet.
You have an advantage on the photon with your god, you can already imagine it. Choosing non-existence as null hypothesis poses no problem whatsoever.
If your god exists in a meaningful way, it has an effect on the real world. If it has an effect on the real world, there has to be objective evidence of some kind.
If your god has no effect on the real world, then its existence is meaningless since it is no different from non-existence, and is of no consequence. Therefore, it is pointless to search for it.
Ok. Fine. Discard it. What’s the big deal about it?? Have I asked you that you MUST accept my ideas?? In fact, you are the one who is trying to shove your ideas down my throat, forcefully, and then accusing me of doing this with you. You know what??? You are not even a preacher. You are just a loud and noisy cricket — harmless, but very noisy.
feralboy #12 wrote:
Actually, I think the idea does offer testable predictions, and therefore it is falsifiable. The problem isn’t that the concept of God is unfalsifiable in theory. It’s that it’s usually surrounded by the many immunizing strategies of faith: special pleading, goalpost shifting, subjective validation, and so forth and so on.
@ rajkumar
The problem with having a God which can’t ever be wrong is that doing this makes you infallible. It means YOU can’t ever be wrong: you can’t find it out, you can’t change your mind, you can’t correct an error. You’re in an eternal loop of belief — not belief in God, but belief in the subjective certainty of yourself.
God may or may not exist, may or may not be knowable; but we can both be sure you’re not infallible, and both understand it’s not wise to proceed on the assumption you are.
I meant feralboy 12 #263, of course. It’s late. I’m tired.
Of course I’ve had subjective experiences of flibbertigibbets. It was really groovy. Totally changed my life, too. But, like I said, they’re indescribable.
So, do you believe in them or not?
As I recall, you were the one lecturing atheists because you thought it was unreasonable to discard the god hypothesis. Are the drugs messing with your memory now too?
After that point, after “evidence cannot be provided,” nothing you say is relevant or useful to us. Arguments for a thing’s existence, unsupported by evidence, are not convincing. Thus the endless cycle of you trying to make claims, Nerd and others asking for evidence, and you continuing to make claims.
Agreed. But mind you, you are all in the same position. You CANNOT be wrong about your atheism, too. Don’t just blame me. Just in case you missed, I have said it many times that I could be totally wrong. But if you want me to kneel before you and declare you hold a superior position, fine … let’s do it.
Raj, if you’re here and talking, the claims you put forth are going to be critiqued. If you don’t care to be convincing or to make good arguments, then “mental wanking” is a perfect description of what you’re doing. Why are you talking? What is it you want to communicate?
Oh, never mind. I figured it out.
I am now open to the possibility… because I assume you are not lying. When we will have at least a hundred more people, we may then start some serious discussion on “flibbertigibbets”. Start the process of matching the experiences, see what similarities they have…
You can discard and keep anything you like, as far as I am concerned. You beliefs are your own, as mine are my own. I am not asking you, or any other atheist here, to change anything for me. I am just discussing some concepts with you people to see what sort of reactions I get.
Raj: You know what else I can’t provide evidence for? A copper bathtub in orbit around the star Betelgeuse with a very unusual Englishman in it taking a bath. Again, no evidence or ability to provide it = no existence.
Raj, do you think that there is such a thing as a fact? Do you think it is possible for someone to be mistaken about something?
So… no pictures?
*sobs*
rajkumar wrote:
What about the possibility that xe was genuinely mistaken? Why do you not seem to consider that possibility, in regards to both “flibbertigibbets” and nebulous gods?
CC: Ask Louis, it’s his bathtub.
I mentioned one of the reasons it’s a big deal on the prideful buffoons thread. You have a distorted idea of how we can have knowledge, what intelligence is, and so on. While you may accept some are true in some way, you reject naturalistic explanations as completely adequate, for no good reason. You irrationally demand something more, that we be open to all sorts of nonsense.
Science produces tangible results that are good for individuals and society as a whole. Medicine is the example I gave there, and psychology and neuroscience in particular relate to much of your bullshit. One example I gave specifically to you on the sacking thread, to which you never responded, was phantom limb syndrome. People can be in a lot of pain when that happens. To treat that, you have to understand how the brain works, not rely on mystical garbage. We need to the study the brain (and the rest of the world) every way we can, just to know, because we can’t predict ahead of time what all the benefits of any particular bit of research may be. We can want things to be true, but that doesn’t mean we know they are true — to actually get the things we want, we can only do it by using the best means possible of knowing what there is, which is science.
Do you want us to have the best possible explanations of the world, and to use them to treat their ailments, solve their problems, and build better technology to make life easier so there will be fewer problems to solve? Do you want show that you don’t support any of that more than you do wanking off about meaningless bullshit? Get your head out of your ass and put yourself into the bigger picture. Why would you want to defend bullshit that doesn’t work, and which if everyone supported, would cause a lot of harm?
Utterly false. If a deities really exist, and interact with the physical world, then eventually evidence for this interaction will come to light.
Yes, well, the reaction you’re getting is a lot of intelligent people pointing out the giant gaping holes in the reasoning underlying your beliefs. If you cared whether the beliefs you hold are true and reasonable, you’d be considering changing them. Conclusion: you don’t care about being reasonable or whether your beliefs are true or not. Is this an accurate conclusion?
Such deities do not exist except in places like Churches, books and people’s imaginations, because these deities are all mythological characters and symbols. Have my word on this. I have already told this many times. By the way, talking about mythology and symbols, can I recommend Jung’s “Man and His Symbols” to you? He wrote this for lay people just before he died. And thank ‘flibbertigibbets’ that he took into consideration the fact that even lay people need to understand his concepts, otherwise, I can tell you, not too many people can understand him. And for good reasons…
Yes, but these intelligent people do not take constructive criticism very well. They accuse me of acting ‘infallible’, while completely ignoring the fact this is exactly how they present themselves to the world. We can’t be wrong. Do you remember the famous video clip where a woman asked Richard Dawkins “What if you are wrong?”
What beliefs would you like me to change? That a lot of people have claimed to have experienced God subjectively? That a lot of people go through NDEs, and describe these experiences as indescribable, but something that changed their lives completely and forever? These are not beliefs, these are all facts. I am just pointing your attention toward these facts. What you make out of these facts, is entirely up to. What I make out of these facts, I say, there is a lot here we do not understand. We have lot of learn, which seems like a huge insult to you ‘intelligent’ people.
Insult away, asshole. Are you so stupid that you think anyone has claimed people haven’t had those experiences, or are you so dishonest that the only thing you have left is misrepresenting us?
@rajkumar
It’s not that they don’t take constructive criticism very well. What they don’t take well is your mental masturbation.
Plus, the fact that those experiences can be replicated experimentally suggest that they have naturalistic explanation. No need for some God of the gaps.
dude, you’re free to fucking leave. I mean which one of us tracked you down and confronted you? You came here
You’re a very silly person. We take the evidence, try to draw conclusions from it, and you’re complaining because we dare to think that’s a fairly reliable way of gathering information. How arrogant of us, to think that we’re right, when no available evidence contradicts us.
I mean seriously, sweetie. You can go. Honestly no one would care. Hell, in a week no one would really remember you.
This is true. Even yec is more memorable. Star Trek! *wipes tear* good times.
rajkumar: Feel free to leave. You’re not that entertaining anymore.
That’s funny! It’s like going to the cinema, and asking the movie to leave because the movie is not entertaining any more.
hhmmmm.
This Thread is getting very interesting.
rajkumar
You are giving yourself wwaaaayyy too much credit.
We got along without you before we met you, we can get along without you now.
Bad analogy. More like a really bad comedian came to our club and we’re asking them to leave.
—
chigau: I know.
In a way that it’s totally not like that. It’s more like someone carrying on about how the movie and the theater sucks and how it’s horrible that he’s being forced to watch it in such a shit hole…and refusing to walk out because he enjoys being a moaning asshole.
Er, no, that would be if we asked PZ to leave. This isn’t your blog. Didn’t you notice?
No it’s not. We’re just informing him that he can actually leave.
If he was a movie he would be Failure To Launch
Ing: True, it does seem like he thinks that he is incapable of leaving.
@rajkumar
No, it would be more like asking an obnoxious loudmouth to leave the movie theaters.
As a matter of fact, I DO remember that particular clip. I just watched it again, and at no point does he even intimate that he can’t be wrong. His answer is a very simple “What if YOU’RE wrong about all those gods that YOU don’t believe in?” We could all be wrong, as Richard quite clearly says in the clip, but the religious have never managed to supply any evidence that they’re right, while science -has- offered scads of evidence that has withstood decades of religious blowback. Notice that we no longer think that the gods are throwing lightning between one another, or that disease is caused by demons or sin. Religion used to lay claim to those explanations too. This is nothing but Pascal’s Wager!
So.. Just exactly what were you trying to say with this example of Richard Dawkins? He certainly doesn’t make any claims to infallibility, and you are being manifestly dishonest to claim that he did. Actually, I challenge you to present your evidence of ANY well-known atheist claiming that they can’t be wrong. Richard certainly didn’t. Got any other examples to present, or was that one (Where he explicitly says precisely the opposite) the very best you can manage?
Why am I not surprised to catch you in an obvious falsehood on the very first claim I investigate? Hmmmmmmm.. Coincidence? I think not!
@AR
I am starting to feel the approximate equivalent to your primitive human emotion of compassion for him as I begin to suspect we are the closest thing he has to friends
Goodness, the intellectual dishonesty just reeks off this one once you prod it long enough.
The rajji has already been told about Dawkins’ discussion in the FIRST CHAPTER of ‘The God Delusion’, wherein he discusses the possibility he could be wrong about the existence of a creator god.
That the rajji still harps on this ‘Dawkins (and by implication all other atheists because we must all be sheep following our great prophet Richard) can’t be wrong’ schtick is intellectual dishonesty to the nth degree.
Truly pathetic.
Ing: It would seem that way. (You saw my compassion? Crap, I need more upper lip stiffener. I wonder if Louis has some extra.)
rajkumar wrote:
What if they were genuinely mistaken? How would they go about determining that?
1. The belief that it’s okay to arbitrarily and unilaterally alter the meaning of commonly-used words whenever you find it convenient to do so.
2. The belief that NDEs, meditation, drug trips, or other similar phenomena of the human mind are novel data which atheists cannot account for.
3. The belief that subjective experience, without corroborating physical evidence, is sufficient to reject the null hypothesis.
I’m just getting started.
Pointing our attention toward them? We’ve been discussing them for days now. You can’t honestly claim that we’re unaware of these phenomena. Pretending that we’re unaware of them or reluctant to deal with them is a straight-up lie.
You are correct, there is a lot for us to learn about the human brain. But that does not by itself constitute sufficient evidence to reject the null hypothesis, which is that there is no cosmic mind that we are tapping into when we’re in altered stated of consciousness.
The things you don’t understand are apparently quite different from the things we don’t understand. You are the one who is refusing to deal with data, not us. You are looking at the subjective experiences only. We are looking at the subjective experiences AND the empirical data which show how the human brain generates those experiences and under what conditions.
What’s insulting is your continued insistence that if we don’t agree with the conclusion you have drawn, it must be because we just don’t get it, or have failed to consider all the relevant data. No. We have considered everything you have brought up, and more. It’s just that we think your conclusion is wrong. And if you try to claim that you haven’t drawn any conclusions, that would be an insult to our intelligence; obviously you have drawn the conclusion that these subjective experiences are evidence of some sort of supernatural cosmic deist entity of some sort. Sure, you’ve been extremely vague about it, but it’s really fucking obvious that that’s what you think.
I, for one, love constructive criticism. But you haven’t offered any.
As Sally and others have pointed out, we already knew about them. They don’t lead to the conclusions you’re trying to draw.
*raises hand*
Have had NDE or NDE like experience. Wasn’t religious in nature.
Which I actually think I mentioned before and asked if you wanted to hear that new tidbit. If I recall you didn’t. Cause you’re SUUUUUUUUUUUCH a truth seeker.
@ PZ
{theophontes lights slow fuse to giant hecatomb (this time using pink elephants to bulk it up)}
Hallelujah Oh Great Ebil Oberlawd!
{pours libations from a giant golden cup, takes large swig}
Our prayers have been answered.
{throws 12 squealing godbots onto the pyre.}
Praise be the Wielder of Teh Banhammer!
{tears out heartplug of a troll, waves it at the heavens}
@ rajkumar
Actually we have a very good idea of what God looks like. He is a tall and well built Caucasian of Nordic descent. His beard and hair are black. He goes by many aliases, such as “the cloud gatherer” and “distant thunderer”, but is known to mere mortals as The Almighty Zeus. He can change his shape at will, so that to say one can form a mental picture of what he looks like is quite beside the point. People of yore dealt with the Gods of old on a one-to-one basis. (Are you calling these interactions “subjective experiences”? That would make you an atheist.) We have a vast library of books stretching far back into antiquity that confirm all of this.
Further: I am fascinated as to whether you have ever heard of fractals (link here to Mobius-dragon fractal)? We cannot form a notion of them in our heads. We can try to make representations of them with computer graphics, but the essence of it is just not something you can comprehend within your mind. Yet fractals exist. And can be proven to exist. Why is GAWD not as forthcoming?
@ John Morales
Which is, nevertheless, purportedly highly efficacious at switching down one’s rational faculties.
I don’t understand this argument. Let’s just say that it is indeed the brain that ‘generates’ those experiences and nothing else is involved, then what? We are not concerned about the physical causes of these experiences. We are concerned about the actual experiences … the characteristics of these experiences. If God was a reality, do you think God was going to communicate somehow by excluding the brain? God created that brain….
A common characteristic of NDEs is how time changes its characteristics. Time usually stops, but not in any manner that we can comprehend. People experience events all at the same time. Like, they experience their whole lives before them as a single event, all at once. Dimensions change, everything changes. It’s like we have a few more dimensions added to our 3 dimensional world. This certainly can’t be called the brain ‘malfunctioning’, because the brain has effectively gained superior capabilities. Something WE DO NOT UNDERSTAND at our ordinary consciouness.
The null hypothesis is different. I have already explained my position on why I think it can’t be used here. I think you people have just hijacked something from science and are using it for your atheism. Consider the possibility that atheism are science are two different, and completely unrelated … fields.
We don’t need to say it since we can show it
Heads I win, tails you loose!
Actually that’s nothing like an NDE. But to address
a) we know that people do experience sensations of time dilation and hightened spacial awareness. People actually report this in crisis situations as well as pharamcutically induced states.
b) We know that a sense of dimension is controlled by teh brain and can be altered. There is an actual part of your brain that sorts out the difference between your sense of self and your surroundings. It can be damaged. For a specific fun trick there’s one drug that is said to make you feel like yourself is siphoned down and to the left of your body
c) The brain doesn’t “gain” super powers anymore than one does in a dream. The memory is flawed. NDE appear to be caused by the imperfect way the brain processes memory. The stress combined with our flawed memory produces a false memory that we retroactively accept.
Yes and you’re an idiot. The null hypothesis is that “something happened”…what is it? We don’t add “Tinkerbell did it until proven otherwise” This is simple basic thought, which is pathetically beyond your grasp. Atheism isn’t a feild you mental midget. For a lot of people here atheism is ONE specific null hypothesis that remains due to lack of evidence. What is so hard for you to get. To the question of gods, atheism is the SCIENTIFIC null hypothesis.
This is actually incredibly simple yet you don’t get it; is English your first language? Is that what the disconnect is?
Again from the…person who doesn’t care about convincing us! My god is your life really that meaningless that you have nothing better to do?
@rajkumar
god or we will never be able to explain it.
That’s not the brain gaining superior capability. It is the brain screwing up the way we perceive the world. It is nothing we can’t understand. Also, we can’t understand
Oh btw, want to know my NDE? Tunnel experience bright light, wake up in pure white recovery room in a hospital bed and being cared for by a friendly nurse…said nurse I later learn does not actually exist, nor did the recovery room I was in. Brain was in right state for a possible NDE and stressed and despite back then having a theistic belief, the more calming image my mind generated was one of consistent human company and compassionate medical care.
Clearly humanism is true!
Hey Rajji, did you know you can travel in time via booze!?
Drink as much as you can and you’ll be teleported hours into the future!
It’s not time dilation, Einstein. It is something else. More like time becomes the 4th dimension. This, we cannot imagine, so stop trying, and aim for the actual experience.
And I am going now. It’s not nice seeing what you people have done to Jesus. At least, he was a handsome-looking guy. Never mind his status as the sole son of God.
Bye
Take care
I’m sorry, which one of us has HAD a NDE?
Obvious troll is obvious.
Also time IS the 4th dimensions…sort of was Einstein’s point
None of us I would say, but at least, one of us bothered to read about them. By the way, it’s not just NDEs. NDE is just one example. When I said aim for the **experience**, I meant all sorts of experiences which fall in this category. There is a whole assortment here for you to choose from…
Bye
rajkumar
Have you ever had a psychedelic experience?
@ rajkumar
Actually scientists have had the “religious” experiences that you describe. You will really enjoy watching this: Jill Bolte Taylor’s stroke of insight
She is a brain scientist who underwent a debilitating stroke that switched off her rational capabilities. This induced an (goddists claim it to be “religious”) experience of connectedness with the Universe. Rather than suffering a stroke, you could also drop a lot of drugs or try for a zen state. Whatever the cause, you are most unjustified in claiming:
@ chigau / AR
Our prayers have been answered! All those iterations of TZT that we wandered in the (cyber) wilderness were not in vain...
@rajkumar
Please, stop trying to talk about relativity because it is obvious you don’t know what the hell you are talking about. Time is the fourth dimension in special relativity’s framework.
Oh, now you are shifting goalpost I see. When Ing told you what NDE is like, now you have to experience ALL the other subjective phenomenom, huh?
Raj WAS going to get a 7.5 for the flounce, but then he came back.
He gets a 4 for the flounce.
theophontes and A. R
I am beginning to suspect that once ALL the trolls are here, Teh Overlard will do something … awful.
FTFY :D
Yup, you came in asking if any of us have ever experienced various types of altered consciousness.
Turns out the answer is yes.
Yes to drug trips, of many different drugs
Yes to meditation
Yes to NDEs
And yet we remain atheists.
While SOME people think that these experiences are evidence for god, OTHER people have the same experiences and DON’T see god in it.
The reasonable conclusion is that these types of experiences are NOT evidence for god. If they were, don’t you think that every person who ever had one would come away saying, “Yup, that was definitely god there”?
Can you explain why some people don’t get religion from these experiences? Which people are right? Which of them are wrong? How can you tell?
You’re pathetic.
How does Raj know what Jesus looked like, anyway? Did Jesus appear to you in a vision, Raj? It’s not like there are paintings or photographs of him. If he existed.
The null hypothesis is different. I have already explained my position on why I think it can’t be used here.
this is completely inane.
there is ALWAYS a null hypothesis.
what in the fuck would you be rejecting otherwise in an experiment?
Overlard was a typo.
NDE is just one example.
*pictures heavy forklift about to be engaged to move goalposts*
@ Ing
NDE
Cool! Have you written more on this? (I can’t open the link on your nym … from China.)
@ rajkumar
XDDDD
Imaginary jesus… It is just a fable. Get over yourself already.
He was depicted as a good looking guy by the iconophiles in early xtianity. They had two basic models for jesus:
1. Young jesus – this they modelled on a young, attractive Arab boy with dark curly locks. What the hedonists of the time might call a “caravan wife”.
2. Adult jesus – tall, thin and blond with a thin beard and long blond or light brown hair. This depiction was modeled on a north European, castrated slave. (The function of such people was often as sex toys.) The epitome of seductive (to the religious at least) masculine beauty.
I cannot make such stuff up. But the goddists certainly did. They where pretty cruel and fucked up in all their hypocrisies.
Oh, you are talking about Dionysus, Son of God (ie: Zeus). Accept no substitutes!
rajkumar wrote:
If it can’t be imagined, how can you be describing it?
Also time IS the 4th dimensions
…and this is the Fifth Dimensions.
Part of the Buddha’s enlightenment was realizing that a starving, malfunctioning brain cannot be trusted. A healthy, happy well-fed brain is most likely to provide coherent thought.
C’mon, rajkumar, half the people in this world are doing SOMETHING to alter their consciousness, whether alcohol, tobacco or the good stuff. Damaging your brain in certain ways feels good, sadly, but that doesn’t make it God, or mean it is working better.
You, rajkumar, are a good example. You can’t read for shit, you write poorly, and your train of thought seems to have hit an iceberg. But you, for some damned reason, think you are making sense and are the smartest person here.
Your brain is malfunctioning, and you LIKE it.
It’s not nice seeing what you people have done to Jesus.
now I’m picturing that scene from Exorcist where possessed Regan has that crucifix in bed…
So you are calling Ing a liar. Not cool.
Like Ing, I too have had an NDE. Like Ing, it was not religious or mystical in nature at all. No lights involved except the sun seemed especially clear and bright and warm. Out of body, watching myself from behind to the right. Caused by a severe reaction to a small-pox vaccine.
@ chigau
… awful.
@ chigau
Nice weather today.
Ichthyic #335
I didn’t think of that scene until you mentioned it, even though it is permanently seared into my subconscious.
Thanks.
I didn’t think of that scene until you mentioned it, even though it is permanently seared into my subconscious.
Yeah, “Up, Up, and Away” is one of the most disturbing songs ever written, and the 5th Dimensions version is the one that always bounces around in my head too.
*shudder*
theophontes #337
Not that bad.
—
theophontes #338
We have more snow in the forecast.
Ichthyic
“Up, Up, and Away”
DAMNYOUDAMNYOUDAMNYOU
take this!!!
@ chigau
Pouring with rain here, dark at midday.
take this!!!
oh, let’s not go there again.
theophontes
Almost snowing here.
Garbage day tomorrow, gotta get it out to the ally.
Please, Ichthyic, it’s the only sekrt wepon I got.
At least cringe a bit.
@ chigau
I gotta clean out the catlitter.
Post 405, Sacking the City of God, Rajkumar wrote:
Post 409, Sacking the City of God, Rajkumar wrote:
Post 449, Sacking the City of God, Rajkumar wrote:
Posr 467, Sacking the City of God, Rajkumar wrote:
Post 509, Sacking the City of God, Rajkumar wrote:
Post 598, Sacking the City of God, Rajkumar wrote:
Post 615, Sacking the City of God, Rajkumar wrote:
Post 707, Sacking the City of God, Rajkumar wrote:
Post 734, Sacking the City of God, Rajkumar wrote:
Post 740 (and 742), Sacking the City of God, Rajkumar wrote:
Post 743, Sacking the City of God, Rajkumar wrote:
Post 786, Sacking the City of God, Rajkumar wrote:
Post 316, TZT 3, Rajkumar wrote:
Post 319, TZT 3, Rajkumar wrote:
Rajkumar: Worst Flouncer Ever?
kittylitter!
used kittylitter!
The Ultimate Weapon.
OK.
my other sekrt wepon was Paul Anka’s “Havin’ My Baby”.
but the top youtube contained an ad for Game of Thrones.
I don’t even … I can’t …
I take it you are either not a George Martin fan, or else are the complete opposite and had to run off to see the latest episode of the HBO series?
Rajkumar: Worst Flouncer Ever?
if at once you can’t stick the flounce, try try again?
nice list, btw. It’s educational to see it all in one spot like that.
for our resident failed flouncer, might I recommend looking at a flounce from a REAL professional?
Heddle’s flounce from here was a thing of beauty. Perfect score all the way round:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/02/episode_clxxvii_the_blockbuste.php#comment-3383673
and some general advice:
Don’t Let Flouncing Make Your Ass Look Big!
Ichthyic #351
you talkin’ ta me?
After some googling, I find I have not read anything of Martin since about 1982.
I’ve never seen HBO, anything.
I don’t think we can even have this conversation.
—-
How ’bout Paul Anka, eh?
…and my favorite response to Heddle’s flounce was of course, by Brownian (who else?)
perfect
I don’t think we can even have this conversation.
oh, well, you mentioned “Game of Thrones” as if it had some strange impact on you…
Ichthyic
I just found the movie trailer juxtaposed(sp) with Paul Anka to be … strange.
Paul Anka always had a … strange … impact on me.
That’s not so, Sally. Let me quote Alan Watts here. He said, when you have such an experience of God, you feel absolutely no need to convince others afterwards, like you feel no need to convince others that 2+2=4. You know damn well you have experienced God, just like you know damn well 2+2=4. It’s a knowing, not a belief. Just like the knowing that you dream at night while you are asleep, although you remain quite unconscious when you dream.
I don’t understand your question.
He said, when you have such an experience of God, you feel absolutely no need to convince others afterwards,
that doesn’t address what Sally said.
What Sally said was:
The experience should have at least convinced YOURSELF.
You know damn well you have experienced God, just like you know damn well 2+2=4.
you know damn well the sky is chartreuse with pink candy stars, like you know damn well 2+2=4, and monkeys fly out of my butt.
you really haven’t the slightest clue how to even construct an argument, do you?
do you actually understand just how pathetic you are? If not, let us rub it in some more:
YOU HAVE NO CLUE WHAT YOU’RE SAYING WHEN YOU SAY IT.
yes, that’s how bad you are. You are a complete nin-com-poop.
I don’t understand your question.
It’s very simple, and very straightforward.
It’s not that you don’t understand it, it’s that you don’t want to answer it, because that would force some self examination.
your unconscious defense mechanisms are kicking in.
You must be really fucked up.
Well, I will wait for Sally to response, assuming she is not going to parrot you.
RESPOND not RESPONSE
You don’t understand much rajkumar.
In fact seeing people talk to you reminds me of this exchange:
Red Dwarf, The End
Many people ‘know’ things that are completely and utterly wrong. Just because you think you know something doesn’t mean you are right. It just means you are convinced. And probably a Dunning-Kruger sufferer. That is why scientists require evidence of people’s assertions.
Also it’s a pity that you can’t follow Alan Watts’ example and stop trying to convince people with nothing more than opinion and mental masturbation.
This whole “evidence for God” thing is mental masturbation. It looks like you guys wanted to give atheism a ‘scientific touch’, so you just imported this scientific concept into it. By the way, how do you propose people should have arguments with you on your mental masturbation? More mental masturbation, wouldn’t you say? Why do you guys object?
Oh I don’t mind mental masturbation. I often fantasize when I masturbate, it makes it much better. But I don’t include any supernatural entities in it. Or at least I acknowledge them as fictional.
It’s not just god you see. If anyone makes an assertion about anything then a scientist asks to see the evidence for it. If there is no evidence, then we ask if there is a way to obtain evidence, is there a way to test the assertion? If there isn’t then we dismiss it as useless. Because if there is no evidence, and there is no way to test the assertion then it’s pretty much just a waste of time.
RESPOND not RESPONSE
using the wrong words is a sure sign of an underlying mental strain.
cognitive dissonance getting too much for you?
try alcohol maybe?
It looks like you guys wanted to give atheism a ‘scientific touch’
projection: google it.
Why do you guys object?
because you aren’t entertaining, you’re just defective.
Scientific explanation for NDE. There are no imaginary deities involved. Try reading science Rajkumar. You are one stupid and stubborn idjit.
Still no evidence for your idiocy rajkumar. Notice the blue link in the first sentence in this post. That links to EVIDENCE. You know, the stuff necessary to change our minds, and you don’t possess, because it requires real reading and partaking of knowledge, not mental masturbation.
[meta]
PZ, I note that it didn’t take yec123 very long to breach parole.
Whoa, whoa, back the truck up.
God can only be encountered as a subjective experience and doesn’t interact with the physical realm in any way nor leave any physical evidence of his existence… but you also think he fathered a real flesh-and-blood son, who himself supposedly went on to demonstrate several superpowers of his own? However, you don’t believe all that nonsense the mainstream religions go on about?
You’re aware of there’s a bit of contradiction here, right?
So someone who knows with absolute conviction they have experienced God, therefore has experienced God.
Is the same also true of someone who knows with absolute conviction that God really wanted him to kill all those people?
Can we therefore be certain that those murders were God’s will?
Or is it possible that the second person was merely delusional?
How do you tell the difference?
“You know it’s god talking to you when it’s god talking to you.”
Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper.
I always wanted to know just how people know. How do we know the god of the Yorkshire Ripper is not real, and the god of Rajkumar is real? Or if both are not real and the god of Osama bin Laden is real? Or that one’s false too and the god of Mother Theresa is real? How about the god of Guru Gobind Singh?
Louis
Ignoring what Ing and Icthyic are saying is just more defense mechanisms, Raj. They make good points. It is a simple question, the one you claim not to understand. Of course, you’re so far above wanting to give a scientific “veneer” for your beliefs, right? So I deduce that my earlier conclusion, that you don’t care whether your beliefs are true or reasonable, is true.
Let me break it down for you, just in case. Scientific-like.
You have a class of experiences, subjective experience with altered state of consciousness.
Some people have the experience and say, “I just KNOW that I was experiencing god.”
Other people have the experience and say, “Wow! My neurons were firing in some very interesting patterns!”
Which people are drawing the correct conclusion? How would you tell? In other words, what predictions can you make based on the “god is communicating to your brain when you’re stoned/meditating/almost dying” hypothesis?
These are the sorts of things a scientist would ask.
Not asking them, and not caring about the answers, is the mark of a person who does not care about the truth.
I asked earlier if that describes you. You never quite answered. Do you care whether your beliefs are true?
If rajkumar has to talk about, it is OPINION, not evidence. His experiences are OPINION, just as is his thinking that experiences show show his diety. Nope, nothing but OPINION all the way down. Evidence he can point to, like a journal article.
That’s a good point…
Why does god only deign to talk to us when our brains are malfunctioning or failing? Shouldn’t it be the other way around?
Absolutely. Good point. Why do imaginary deities come from a malfunctioning brain? Inquiring minds want to know.
Both conclusions could be correct, and are correct. Didn’t I already answer that question ???? If there is any specific neural activity in the brain during these experiences, and the brain IS solely responsible for generating these experiences, that proves exactly what???? Absolutely nothing. If anything, it even creates more confusions, because we have no clue on how and why our brain can achieve such marvelous states — states that we cannot even comprehend in our ordinary waking states. Have you ever wondered about dreams??? Have you ever noticed how dreams quite often have no time and space????
I can’t answer that question. Not because I don’t want to, but because I simply can’t. And believe me, neither can you answer a similar question about you.
It doesn’t ‘prove’ anything but it does provide evidence that god is a hallucination.
How the fuck would you know that?
Oh I care that the knowledge I have about the world is true, I don’t want to have false concepts of the world mucking up my brain. If what I think is wrong and there is evidence that the thing I thought was a certain way isn’t that way. Then I want to know about it. Some people might be happy living in a false reality, but I don’t.
So see, can answer that.
But in a way you have answered, you care so much for your delusions that you cannot abandon them. True or not they are your beliefs and you cannot give them up. That is why you can’t stick the flounce.
Rajkumar, please stick to one question mark at the end of a question. You’re coming across as an obnoxious ass.
Well, it is just a guess, based on the replies she’s given so far — very superficial. By the way, that goes for all of you. Not just her.
Just look at this:
“Oh I care that the knowledge I have about the world is true, I don’t want to have false concepts of the world mucking up my brain. If what I think is wrong and there is evidence that the thing I thought was a certain way isn’t that way. Then I want to know about it. Some people might be happy living in a false reality, but I don’t.”
Then why talk about it? It is a worthless idea if you can’t answer questions honestly and with integrity. But then, honesty seems an alien concept to you.
In what way did I not answer whether I cared if my beliefs were true?
If you don’t have enough self knowledge to know if you care about the truth or not that’s your problem.
I care about important things. Just not your trivial self-delusions that don’t actually make any difference in the world except when people with similar delusions start trying to change the laws to make everybody subjec to their delusions.
Because chances are that you are not quite fully aware of your own beliefs, especially those from your childhood days.
rajkumar @383: I think belief is a conscious function, thus awareness is mandatory. And what, exactly, does my childhood Anglicanism have to do with my present day atheism exactly?
Actually I am.
But even if I was not aware of all my beliefs and the axioms I hold in my subconscious, which I will allow to be a possibility, in what way does that counter my statement that I wish to know if my worldview is incorrect? If there is evidence that contradicts part of my worldview then I will examine said evidence, and if it is good evidence, then well, I shall adjust my worldview.
You on the other hand will do almost any amount of mental gymnastics to avoid having to change your beliefs. So here is a simple question for you, which I predict you will sidestep, dodge, or otherwise fail to answer.
Would you change any of your beliefs if you were given incontrovertible evidence that disproved it?
If not, then there is nothing more to say to you, since there is no point in talking to someone who cannot or will not change their mind even if they are shown that they are incorrect.
You think right, but not fully right. This is because one belief alone can have many causes, many reasons, many sub-beliefs feeding it, and much more. And as I have said many times before, most of it happens in the unconscious part of the mind, so we are basically not even aware of these things.
I would say your childhood Anglicanism has everything to do with your present day atheism, because your atheism can be called a denial of your childhood Anglicanism. In other words, you are denying what you were taught in your childhood. But this is just a crude guess, you know. I can’t really comment on what’s in your mind, and on your past. In short, the point is, our childhood beliefs and childhood memories do shape our present day reality, and our present personality in a **significant** manner.
It’s late here in Melbourne, and this city falls asleep rather early.
Goodnight
Yep. Thought raj wouldn’t answer.
Bored now.
So it’s armchair pseudo-psychoanalysis now.
The last refuge of one who has no argument left : question the motivation instead of the argument.
It’s not like we haven’t we this idiotic “angry at god” shtick before, you know.
You know what ? I know atheists who were xians, others who were muslim, buddhists or hindus and some who were raised by atheist parents and were never religious. Are they denying their childhoods too ?
For one who has “no need to convince others of god” you sure are getting desperate.
And as I have said before, how do you know that?
Seriously. Where is this knowledge coming from? Are you reading psychology papers? Making logical deductions? Receiving divine revelation? Interrogating your pineal gland? Transcribing dreams? Casting runes? Wild mass guessing?
And importantly – if you were wrong about the nature of the unconscious, how would you know?
I distinctly recall another Australian poster making exactly the same idiotic claim that Raj is making: we don’t actually know our own beliefs because they are subconscious and based on long-forgotten childhood experiences.
Funny how that sort of silliness is so often paired with claims od some deistic newage god that is glimpsed only by stoners, shamans, and Zen monks during periods of altered awareness.
Well, Raj, whatever your subconscious is doing, it’s plain as day that your conscious self doesn’t give a flying fuck about truth.
And that makes you a worthless and immoral person.
If anyone is looking for a quick and easy overview of the Greek Gods, click here.
There are quite a few other resources there. For example I am currently watching Jesus Camp (linky – follow viewing directions as shown).
Raj, I suggest you watch at least this one to get an idea how truly fucked up the cult of jeebus is amongst the ‘Merkins. These goddists are a literally a threat to the planet.
So, in a group of self-selected people who are, for the most part, atheists and view science as the only valid method found to date for discovering how reality works you think that none of us would be able to answer a question about beliefs? I believe Wife loves me. I accept evolution by natural selection as the best model we currently have to describe the world. I also accept the naturalistic explanation for the world, including our biochemistry and brain function, which has been, and is being, explored by scientists. Of course I care if my understanding of the world is correct or not. I learn new things every day which change my understanding of the world. And your fantasies have no place in the natural world (which is the only world there is!).
So, you can take your guess, wrap it around a porcupine, and shove it up your arse.
Yeah, well, my belief in gods, my belief in the Easter Bunny, my belief in the Tooth Fairy, and my belief in Santa Claus were the beliefs of my youth. I know better now. What’s your excuse?
It could also be considered a shedding of childish beliefs and an acceptance of reality.
Oh, yes, and that other Australian solipsist also had troubles with the English language. In fact, he said that English wasn’t his first language, but then refused to reveal what his first language really was.
I suppose it’s possible that there are two such people posting from Australia, but…
Hehe, this stuff is like smokin’ crack! XDDDDDDDD
You fucking condescending asshole.
18+ years as Christian, 15 or so of them as a rabid spiritualist and consumer of newage and unsolved mystery literature. Believe me I’ve read it. And even after all that for me the religious vision did not come up. I don’t know why, but while a believer I did not get a religious vision for a NDE.
And you know what? at the time it didn’t fucking matter to me or my religious beliefs. It literally had zero impact on me changing my mind.
Not only have I read more about it than you (I can guarantee that as I’ve probably read more period than you…by virtue that I can read), I had an experience. I had a LOT of experiences. But I can just eat shit apparently because you don’t believe anything you don’t want. Christ, what an asshole.
Ok you’re doing this with other people too? Ok I’ll play, let me tell you why I think YOU believe.
I think you believe because basically you’re a giant grown infant still crying for mommy an daddy. I think you’re an emotionally stunted coward who still hasn’t come to terms with the idea that you are going to die and there’s nothing you can do about it. I think in response to that essential horror you cling to your childhood religion because of the paternalistic protection it gives. After all Mommy and Daddy wouldn’t lie to you right? And Sky Daddy is going to protect you right? You’re nothing more than a simpering mewing pants pissing child desperately clinging to emotional apron strings because you can’t handle real life. And I bet the second you get stress in your life you regress right back into that infant state because you can’;t handle it on your own, not like real grown ups who have to deal with their lives you just roll up into an emotional fetus ball and pray until you stop feeling. You’re inability to just leave a conversation and let anyone have the last word is evident of this. No one here is keeping you from leaving, but you just can’t because you can’t accept the fact that the world is the way it is. You’re so dependent on this fairy tale you can’t stand the idea of other people living healthy and well without it; because you are scared.
Grow up.
How would I know that? Two great minds in psychology namely Jung and Freud … stop here. Don’t go any further. It is as if the whole discipline of psychology follows these two people, literally. They wrote miles and miles of text on dreams alone. Dreams are so important, but some genius here tried to explain them as ‘a side effect of evolution by natural selection’ some time ago, because natural selection can’t explain them. Why do you ask me how do I know? Why don’t you ask yourself, why don’t you know?
I remember that idiot too. He and you got into some kind of argument back then, right? I read it all, and I was on your side back then. He sounded and acted like a big moron.
But it is quite possible there are two such people posting from Australia, given Australia has about 20 million people. It is also possible that a computer is shared by 5 people, so these 5 people are using more or less the same language. Yet, it is also possible these two people are twins, or they are triplets, or quadruplets, this is why they all sound the same. But, it is also possible, that it is one person coming back under different names.
But the question is, how would you know anything about it “evidence lovers”, without any ‘conclusive physical evidence’?? Right, Nerd?
And that’s why you are so upset? I didn’t get one too. But I still had reasons to believe they were authentic and demanded serious attention. Let me ask you a question if you are so much into this stuff: Did you ever try some practice on regular basis, such as yoga or tantric sex with a man or a woman? I know Sam Harris has tried meditation and drugs. Have you? Be honest.
My, that was SOME rant. You reminded from of Inspector Grim from The Thin Blue Line. Obviously, a rant is what it is, and you are absolutely wrong.
Technically, Mommy and Daddy did LIE to me, but I wouldn’t consider it a lie, because they themselves didn’t know, still don’t know, they were not telling me the truth. So, you are wrong about Mammy and Daddy to begin with, which should collapse your whole rant, even if it had any foundations.
You want to have the last word? Write something for me with a footnote that says you want to have the last word, so don’t reply back. I won’t answer it. And all that time, I thought you were trying to get answers from me, this is why I answer. Why blame me?
Sorry…
You reminded from of Inspector Grim from
Should read
You reminded me of Inspector Grim from
What makes this line of questioning dishonest is that if Ing answers ‘no’ then it’ll be the Aha! moment. “So that’s why it didn’t work out: you didn’t meditate/pray hard enough, or do enough drugs.” So what if Ing answers yes?
So I will: yes, I’ve practiced meditation, qiqong, and have done shy of a fuckload of drugs. I’ve had a number of experiences, including one of slowed time (while straight). None hint at any objective spirituality, though I would have claimed so at the time.
So, what does that say? What was your question meant to elicit?
hello ...
First, what is this ‘objective spirituality’? I have already said many times that a person needs to ‘raise his/her consciousness’ to have these experiences, which means these experiences are **strictly** subjective.
Second, I assume you already know how ‘set and setting’ are so important when using these ‘psychedelics’ drugs for whatever purposes? These psychedelic drugs are not a gateway to heaven, or some startgate style portal. They guarantee nothing, and you never know what sort of an experience you are going to have, As a rule of thumb, they only show you, usually in vivid colour and in 100X+ amplification, what’s active in your mind. For example, seeing what Nerd does here, if he takes such a drug in this state, chances are he is going to have a vivid experience of collecting tons of ‘conclusive physical evidence’, and every article that has ever been written on his **null hypothesis**, and then shoving them all in all the believers backsides.
In short, if you are going to use drugs, you are still going to have to train your mind first. Otherwise, you can go in the wrong direction. Meditation and Yoga are much more subtle, but it is basically the same principle.
Well, you might have missed the part about the meditation and the qigong, but it’s as I predicted: your question was entirely dishonest. If Ing had replied no, you would have used that as an excuse to dismiss Ing’s experiences. When I claimed that I had done these things and not reached the conclusion you and others drew, you then moved the goalposts further, making mention of ‘training your mind’ first.
If your retort to both yes and no is “then you must not have done it right”, then why ask the question at all?
But you know why, don’t you? Are you willing to admit to what we all know?
I have already said many times that a person needs to ‘raise his/her consciousness’ to have these experiences, which means these experiences are **strictly** subjective.
If they are strictly subjective, and even whateverthefuck “raised consciousness” means is also subjective, then…
HOW CAN YOU BE FORMING RELIABLE CONCLUSIONS?
fuckwit.
In short, if you are going to use drugs, you are still going to have to train your mind first.
what does THAT mean, exactly?
program your brain to empower your presuppositions before any actual experience takes place?
Right. Next very important step:
How do you know they were correct?
Oh, and the above is self-contradictory. If drugs show you, “usually in vivid colour and in 100X+ amplification” what’s active in your mind, then you should be able to predict your experiences.
And they’re both not true. As I said, I’ve done a lot of drugs. I’ve also talked to a lot of dolts like you who try to make up heavy shit like the above, and I’m not snowed by your claims any more than I was theirs.
Did you ever try some practice on regular basis, such as yoga or tantric sex with a man or a woman? I know Sam Harris has tried meditation and drugs. Have you? Be honest.
Have you ever tried auto-erotic asphyxiation while wearing two wetsuits and having a dildo shoved up your bum?
Have you?
Be honest.
obviously, if you haven’t tried that yet, you can’t know what you’re talking about.
and if you think I’m making that up, you’d be wrong.
How do you know they were correct?
they aren’t.
both had wild ideas that were inherently untestable in this area.
Especially Jung.
Our resident troll obviously is invested in the woo side of things. I’m betting he even read Carlos Castenada?
LOL
Hello all, first time pharyngulator.
My two bits:
Several experiments to induce altered perceptions via non-invasive, transcranial magnetic stimulation have been conducted, and have been shown to fairly reliably induce convincing perceptions of nonexistent external stimuli. Smells, colours, and the presence of someone else in the room, for example.
These sort of false sensations are also associated with some natural neurological problems, such as epilepsy and stroke.
This, to me, raises the question of how one is supposed to distinguish a hypothetical mystical experience from a mere brain malfunction.
Further, if they cannot be distinguished, on what basis can it definitively be claimed that some such sensations are in fact mystical experiences?
I’ve also slowed down time by my thoughts alone, rajkumar, through my studies of gongfu and qigong, allowing me to move swiftly and smoothly to defend against attacks I would not normally have been able to defend against. This was apparent to witnesses beyond me. No drugs required.
Have you done that? Can you match my experience? Can you now dismiss my practice, just because it suits you to do so?
Why blame me?
because you’re being an idiot?
you won’t let us blame your parents for that, so who’s left?
Who hasn’t?
I mean, derp, I only know science. What is this Castaneda you speak of? Is it part of this Bible I’ve only heard of? These things are all Zen, right? I don’t know. I’ve only ever looked at test tubes.
Also I fail at hyperlinking.
http://journals.lww.com/jonmd/Abstract/2002/08000/Experimental_Facilitation_of_the_Sensed_Presence_.6.aspx
Jung and Freud? Seriously? The field of psychology has LONG moved way past these two. Frankly, the only modern field those two guys retain any relevance in at all is literature (as in fiction) analysis.
They are about as relevant to psychology as Aristotle is to biology – historical early thinkers primarily renowned for getting EVERYTHING wrong.
Yes, but acknowledging that would require rajkumar to abandon the appeals to authority, and who hasn’t had dreams? We’re in experience territory here, and if your experience doesn’t fit the conclusion rajkumar wants, you must not know at all.
Really, has s/he said anything here that isn’t “Prayer works. If you don’t think so, then you haven’t prayed the right way/to the right god/hard enough.”
Who hasn’t?
you’d perhaps be surprised to find that outside of the US, most I’ve run into have never heard of the guy, and even in the US, you have to be within a certain age range to find a high percentage of people who’ve read the books.
What won’t surprise, since I’m pretty sure you already knew, was that he made up the whole thing. His advisory committee didn’t figure it out until AFTER he published his dissertation as his first book and got his PhD as a result.
They changed the rules thereafter within the UC system, so that any grad student getting their thesis published in book form in a major press no longer automatically also gets their PhD.
If you didn’t know, no kidding. The thing Castenada is most famous for in academia itself is having been responsible for a major rule change within the UC system.
A buddy of mine was a student of the prof that was on Castenada’s advisory committee, and related the whole fascinating story to me one day while at the beach in Dana Point.
I don’t really know what you are up to. If you have taken loads of such drugs, or even bothered to do some reading, then you should know their effects.
50 micrograms of LSD, 250 micrograms of LSD, 500 micrograms of LSD, they are all going to give you VERY different kinds of experiences — never mind your state of mind for the time being. People have tried to fly on LSD, and you are saying we should be able to ‘predict’ these experiences? Maybe you can, but only if have confidence, and you know your mind is stable enough, and you have some supervision. Alan Watts used to have LSD under medical supervision, and he, as it is apparent, knew how to direct his mind during these experiences. Most people can’t.
I haven’t done these drugs. Maybe once. But I took an E pill once, that also had some LSD in it. I didn’t know about that. But Wow! What an experience it was….
Jung and Freud? *Picard & Riker double facepalm* Pseudoscientists, both of them. Freud drew halfway logical conclusions from his patients – upperclass ladies whose sexuality was incredibly suppressed by all of society – and didn’t bother to test those conclusions even though they were sweeping generalizations about all of humanity; Jung engaged in elaborate mental masturbation.
For instance, Freud missed the existence of incest aversion because he, he personally, grew up with a nanny. FFS!
what
That was automatic?
In a university system that includes fucking Berkeley!?!
I’m out of words.
Well, why don’t you meditate on it?
Right. You bet I do. Do you?
If you’ll read carefully, what I did was point out that you were self-contradictory and wrong when you wrote, “As a rule of thumb, they only show you, usually in vivid colour and in 100X+ amplification, what’s active in your mind.”
That’s what I thought.
But all that isn’t very interesting on its own.
What is interesting is that you set up this bogus question about drugs only to make the same retort no matter what the answer was. You’re fundamentally dishonest.
It’s only even funnier that you yourself have little to no personal experience with these things, even though that’s been your go-to argument all along. “Have you had experience X with non-Abrahamic spirituality? Then how can you know?”
Dishonest and hypocritical.
There is no rule I guess. Maybe we can use Time. If a person starts experiencing time and events in a completely different way … such as seeing all the events as one single event, seeing everything happening all at once.
Castenada? Oy, who could possibly give a fuck about that old fraud?
When I read this, I was enlightened.
I’ve had experiences such as that. I take it you haven’t.
Why are you reaching for conclusions based on things about which you know nothing?
Raj, if you thought that other Australian dude was a moron, then why are you making the same arguments he did?
Can’t you grasp that that makes you sound like a moron?
What do you mean? This is what these drugs do. But how they do it on different levels of dosages … it is very different. And since all these drugs are illegal now, how on earth can you use them for any meaningful purposes wilfully? When you get a drug on the street, you have no idea about its purity, about its dosage, and about nothing. How on earth can control or predict you LSD experience when you have absolutely no idea of how pure it is, and how much of it you are taking it?
Still waiting for conclusive physical evidence from the mental wanker rajkumar. Lack of evidence is what prevents delusional sophist egotistical fuckwits from speaking cogently on…anything.
Raj, you have no idea what you’re talking about. You’ve devolved into complete incoherence.
How do we distinguish the experience of “all events as a single event” from the fact of “all events as a single event”?
I mean, I’ve experienced people talking to me when I was by myself in the house*, but that doesn’t mean anyone was actually there. How do you know if an experience corresponds to something real?
Also, quite importantly: if someone tells you they saw “all events as a single event”, how do you know they’re telling the truth?
@rajkumar
Unfortunately distorted time perception is one of the most common errors in perception. It is frequently reported in migraine
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/63/4/517.short
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1526-4610.1987.hed2705261.x/abstract
while under anesthesia
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/322/5903/876.short
Or even when paying attention to something closely
http://www.springerlink.com/content/4161652gl3834360/
So it isn’t a good candidate for a determining criteria either.
Okay, I’ll confess.
I took LSD at least 20 times from 1978-1983. While the experiences were not exactly predictable (external circumstances & events mattered a lot), the effects were fairly consistent. Brighter colors, loss of boundaries between me and the world around me, intricate patterns showing movement, and a tendency for me & my friends to speak in sentence fragments, which alarmed a few people at the 7-11.
And yeah, a certain feeling that I was seeing behind the illusion of the material world to a deeper, more meaningful reality beyond.
For roughly 10-12 hours.
Looking back, the experiences were entirely consistent with a much more prosaic explanation: the drug affected the part of my brain that takes the sampling of data from my sensory apparatus and re-constructs it into the model of the external world that I perceive.
When you fuck with that particular hardware, you get an altered model, one that will feel as real as anything else you experience. It’s not magic, it’s not higher consciousness, it’s just your brain circuitry firing in new and (for a while) novel ways.
And dreams, likely, are that same circuitry getting excited by stray signals from another part of your brain while you sleep–probably when it is processing memories of the day and moving them from short-term to long-term storage. They often make little sense because they aren’t actually the normal signals from your senses. In effect, they’re the wrong file format to be opened with that program. They’re not complete nonsense because your brain has some ability to interpret, filter and create, and will often pull something out of long-term memory to fill gaps.
There–the bones of a theory that essentially covers both psychoactive drugs and dreams, and has the advantage of requiring only a brain and processes and activities that we know happen, and do not require any unseen, extra-dimensional World Of The Invisible Scary Skeletons or shit that you’re magically connecting with. Just byproducts of the way the brain works.
Your ball, rajkumar.
As the moment, only experience is available. But I guess, we do have the ability to evolve? So, maybe in a thousand years, no hundred years, from now, it will become a fact.
Maybe you were hallucinating, or maybe someone **was** there for real. Who knows?
Sorry…
As the moment
should read…
At the moment
You really don’t get Occam’s razor, do you?
@feralboy
Ooh, I like how you wrote that.
I write for a neurology/psychiatry news magazine so I end up reading a lot of interesting literature about brains and nervous systems operating off the norm.
The ways neurology can go wrong are wildly diverse, often heartbreaking, and sometimes horribly, blackly funny.
I strongly recommend a book titled “The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat”. It is a series of cases presented with great wonder, compassion and even poetry. The author, who is a doctor who consulted on the cases, writes of each individual with all human dignity. It was both very moving and quite a revelation about how fragile and tenuous, yet often resilient, our perception of the world is.
The case the book takes its title from was of a man who had lost the ability to perceive meaning visually. Let me explain. You could show him a glove, and he could effortlessly tell you the size, colour, material and construction of the object. But he had no idea what it WAS.
He still had the concept of ‘glove’ in his mind. He could hold a conversation about gloves just fine. But he couldn’t pull meaning from anything in his visual field. It was just so much shape and colour, signifying nothing.
We learn more about the brain every day, often through tragic cases where we observe what happens when specific bits of it fail. We learn, and we learn to protect and to mend.
I find beauty in that.
Nope, it doesn’t get it at all. Nor the null hypothesis, need for evidence, and rationality.
No. Not at the moment. But you are always welcome to explain it to me. This is the beauty of these discussions. You learn so much.
In fact, I’ve read that. My daughter loaned it to me several years ago. Fascinating; I seem to recall the one guy tried to pull his wife’s head off when he went to get his hat.
I didn’t learn any deep spiritual secrets from my LSD experiences; what I did get, though, was how a brain can take sensory data from an objective, external reality, and model it into a subjective experience of that reality. And how it can be messed with, and produce experiences indistinguishable from the more mundane reality. I mean, it’s coming from the same part of your brain that does the normal sensory processing. Of course it seems real.
Throw in some heightened emotional stuff, feelings of being connected to something larger than yourself, and you’ve got…Eugene, Oregon.
I had some “outside of time” experiences, too, especially on my first trip. I would be sitting there and become desirous of something–the pipe going around, usually. I would have to wait. Then I would find myself holding the pipe, with the sensation that no time had passed since I desired it. I suspect faulty memory formation was responsible–I simply had a gap there and formed a memory that the events were essentially simultaneous, when in reality they were minutes apart and I simply failed to form a memory of the intervening time.
Oh yeah.
I have the rather frequent un-pleasure of these.
And yes in particularly severe cases, I have a sort of half-sleep while conscious where hours seem to go by in minutes. It’s not a heightened awareness. It’s rather painful, and I would definitely not seek the experience voluntarily.
When I was younger I would also get olfactory hallucination a bit before and during the migraine (it smelled like pepper).
@rajkumar
Occam’s razor essentially says that when presented with two or more hypotheses, the one that requires fewer starting assumptions is to be preferred, as it tends to result in the simplest resulting explanation.
It has been described: “We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances. Therefore, to the same natural effects we must, so far as possible, assign the same causes.” – Issac Newton
As an example, if your vacuum cleaner works when plugged into different outlets in your house, a hypothesis for how the machine works that requires separate explanations for the function of the machine in each case is not as desirable as a hypothesis that explains the function of the machine in the general case. Unless the first hypothesis has more explanatory power – that is if it explains some behavior of your vacuum cleaner that the simpler hypothesis does not.
In this thread what the other posters are suggesting is that a hypothesis for the cause of unusual subjective perceptions using a purely material cause is preferred to one that also requires an undetectable, indefinable, immaterial presence. This supernatural addition doesn’t add anything. It doesn’t explain anything that the simpler hypothesis doesn’t. It isn’t, to be brief, useful.
I am an agnostic and believe all religions are man made which means I believe that Jesus was merely a man and not a god. Still, Jesus was a moral man who simply wanted his people freed from The Romans. Funny, atheists want to have some sort of acceptance, but you are still only around 15% of the population. To post something as disgusting as this which would have to, obviously, be offensive to Christians simply is not the way to do it. So good luck with that.
Ahhh, Eugene, Oregon. Good times.
@scifi 442
I’m not following your argument. When one minority wishes to not have its rights trammeled by a state religion and discriminatory laws, that is moral.
But when another minority wishes to not have its rights trammeled by a group which wishes to put in place a state religion, and implement discriminatory laws, that’s bad?
I do not imagine that any minority that fell on the wrong side of the Romans never said things that Romans would have found offensive, and I think it is dishonest or hypocritical for you to imply otherwise.
Also, you are allowed to be offended, and you are allowed to offend. We have the same rights.
theophontes: Looks like we’re getting a new thread soon.
Also, the book Oliver Saks wrote about the neurology of music was really interesting too. “Musicophilia” I believe it’s called.
@ Scifi
I don’t just want acceptance, I want to destroy the idea that faith is a virtue.
Of course, in the well-intended pursuit of truth, we should never exclude the possibility that he was an extraordinarily sociable zombie.
So on what exactly are you basing your judgment of his fine moral character? The wonderful things he said in the New Testament? I seem to recall Jesus himself is reported in that same source, which is pretty much all there is to by, to have made some claims as to his true nature. You’re not quote mining the poor guy to prop up your preferred beliefs, are you?
A man or a fictional hero, espousing a morality progressive compared to contemporaries like the Romans (not all that difficult) but subsequently thoroughly superceded?
Kemist:
I’ve had classic migraines from the time I was seven and I always have an olfactory hallucination in the prodomal stage. It’s always burning paper.
Actually, atheists would just like to have the rights outlines in the US Constitution applied to them equally. I know that’s a radical idea, and possibly one that you don’t think is worth bothering with for only 15% of the population.
Just so I’ll know when I can begin being a full citizen, what percentage of the populace would atheists have to be to make you think their rights are worth protecting? Round numbers are fine.
As has been said by many wiser than me – ok, go on, fix it!
If your way for securing a place in society for those that don’t care to kiss the imaginary feet of an invisible sky-daddy is so vastly much better than what we’re doing, get to it!
Put your money where your mouth is and go change the world for the better – presumably, it will be a heck of a lot easier than what we’re doing, right? It will work faster and result in less trouble, right?
If only there was some way of determining if lying around being passively polite was an effective strategy for securing the rights of a minority…
If only there had even been any sort of written records of what other minorities had to do to get even a sliver of the majority pie…
If only any civil rights leaders had, at any time in the past, addressed these very issues…
If only…
If only…
Fortunately for all of us, psychology has gone a lot further.
The real progress in psychology as a science has come only after the abandoning of all the horseshit that those two frauds and their groupies fabricated.
Imagine where psychology would be today if not for a century or so of the fetid albatross of the Trinity (don’t forget Adler) hanging off its neck.
God’s teeth! Freud and Jung. My first university psych course (37 years ago) put them in the dustbin.
Seriously, Freud? The guy that made stuff up about psychology, and was obsessed with connecting everything humans did with sex?
@rajkumar
Also, stop talking like you know what drug trips are like because based on what others here have experienced, it looks like you don’t know what you are talking about.
Purely material causes are fine, and I have already said that many times in this thread, and the other thread. This is because these ‘purely material causes’ do absolutely nothing to this argument. In other words, if a so-called mystical experience is indeed generated by the brain only, then that’s fine. It’s fine because IF god was a reality who created the entire universe, is the entire universe, then the brain and the human body are pretty much a part of the universe too, or a part of the God. Why is there a general consensus here that God must be ‘supernatural’ only, or something ‘immaterial’? Can’t God be both?
rajkumar
Which god?
Yes. This is where he was wrong. This is where him and Jung started having problems. But that doesn’t mean his whole research was wrong.
scifi #442
You’re an idiot, too.
rajkumar
Have you stopped fucking dogs?
How do you know he was wrong? What method do you use to distinguish where Freud was correct, and where Freud was wrong?
Yes. Since they made it illegal here. Why? You have some dogs that badly need some fucking?
Jung. Jung sounds more accurate.
rajkumar:
Everyone knows that. Nobody said it was all wrong.
Geeze Louise, you keep trotting out stupid little observations as if you are here to teach us.
Freud was wrong enough to be disregarded except as a bad example. The bits of his work that were good have been confirmed–that’s how we know they are good.
Seriously, rajkumar, you keep sniping at us in an effort to make yourself feel better. You only succeed in making yourself look stupid.
And I think you are one jealous person because you are not someone like Freud? No, he was a genius. Geniuses usually attract many jealous people. Freud has attracted you, even when he is dead, and such was/is his charm and power.
rajkumar
Got it, now.
You are Pure Troll.
You don’t “believe” anything you’ve been saying.
How would you know? You haven’t even answered my question.
So in this model of god as “the entire (purely material) universe”, is god still a sentient, thinking entity? Because if it is, then all of its parts must be interacting together through some material mechanism. If god’s mind works at the speed of (say) gravitational waves, it wouldn’t be capable of operating on the same timescales as human brains and communication with it would be impossible.
If god is a product of the collective intelligence of (say) all human brains, then the activity all those separate brains must be interconnected in some material way.
And if god can communicate with people by reaching down into those brains and influencing the way they operate — again, in a purely material way — then there must be some material mechanism by which that is happening.
Which means we could detect that material connection between brains, and the mechanism by which they are altered.
Which means we could therefore detect direct evidence of god.
Which you deny is even theoretically possible.
rajkumar
The one about the dogs “needing” fucking?
@rajkumar
You are right, Freud wasn’t all wrong. He was just mostly wrong.
Also, why would Menyambal be jealous of a guy who was mostly wrong? If Freud was a genius, then he was a genius at being a snake oil salesman of psychology. Go back and find me real geniuses of psychology who do their work who support your ideas. Come on, I dare you.
Oh scifi, there are many more atheists/non-believers/non-religious (approx. 16% of population) than there are Jews (approx 0.22% of population). (source in this instance, just because it happens to be the first result from googling “percentage world religions”: http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html – of course there are plenty of other sources available, also giving similar approximate figures).
Does that mean Jews should have fewer rights than non-religious people? If so, why?
As Anri said, how many people do you think have to belong to any given minority in order for that minority to have the same rights as everyone else?
How did you come to that conclusion? What method did you follow?
OK.
I’m out.
Good-bye.
Bye.
This is my last post.
See ya.
Bye.
Leave a note at the bottom.
Bye.
Really, I’m outie.
Same way he came to the conclusion that “god” is a good stand-in for “X”: he decided it felt good.
@ Strewth
To make linkies: [a href=”www.yourlink.com] Cliquez moi [/a]
(Just replace the [-sign with < , etc to make it work.)
If you are on firefox (you should be) you can add the Text Formatting Toolbar.
@ Raj
Are you not, at least a little, concerned that by way of learning, your current positions on these matters will gradually become less and less tenable? At some stage you will have to admit that you are wrong and amend your thinking.
Raj, it is clear to most here that you are wallowing in some very old and misguided ideas about our shared reality. I hope you get out of this. And know that everyone here (as far as I am aware) will hold a simple statement from you: “I was wrong.”, in the very highest regard.
@scifi
What, he actually existed? Citation fucking needed!
You do realise that the price of apostasy was death (as it still is in islam) until fairly recently.
The pagans noticed a small but tenacious group of (early) christians trying to rock the religious status quo. They called them atheoi because they did not believe in the Gods. Look what happened since.
Also what Strewth said.
@ A.R
Easy: you already indicated that you think it’s impossible to even tell whether you care if your beliefs are true or not.
Someone who sincerely believes in what he’s saying would not have any problem answering that question.
You offered a tendentious psychological excuse for why you think it’s not possible to say what you care about.
Turns out your understanding of psychology is, shall we say, lacking.
Therefore we can deduce that your excuse was just that: a pile of bullshit intended to distract from your basic dishonesty.
Yup.
oops
No, he was a genius.
so was Darwin.
he was still wrong about the mechanism of inheritance though (he simply knew nothing about genes), even if he was right about selection as a primary mechanism of evolution.
but then, you didn’t really have a point did you?
Jung sounds more accurate.
and there you have it. conclusion by pure intuition.
not.
reason.
Is there any point in continuing to argue with this dolt, using reason, when he so obviously eschews using it himself?
I say no.
to the dungeon with him.
I said something more than that. I said it is not possible to answer that question **because we are not fully aware of our own beliefs**. Do you know what beliefs you held as a child about yourself, about your parents, about your friends? Those ancient beliefs from your childhood still affect you now, they affect me too. This is why your question cannot be answered, and any answer would be just a superficial answer. You would know a lot about giving superficial answers, wouldn’t you….?
And what ‘reason’ you employed to make your hasty conclusion about my conclusion?
Yes, he was. I never said Darwin was not a genius.
rajkumar wrote:
If these are questions that cannot be answered, how is it you have gained an understanding of them? How would you know if you were wrong?
Still no evidence from rajkumar. Just mental masturbation, full of sound, fury, and quantum wrongness, meaning nothing and concluding nothing cogent, but he is an idjit who doesn’t understand logic, reason, and evidence.
Presumably the bit where you said it “sounds” right.
Not that his experimental methods were unimpeachable.
Not that his logic is unassailable.
Not that his data was exhaustive.
Not that the statistical analysis indicated a p-value of 0.001.
Now, you may have _meant_ one of those reasonable justifications, but what you said was that it “sounded right”.
That’s not a functional epistemology. It “sounds right” that the world is flat and has an edge. It “sounds right” that electrons are little spheres that have a fixed position in space. It “sounds right” that the moon glows with its own light. It “sounds right” that maggots spontaneously form in rotting meat. It “sounds right” that substances contain phlogiston, which is why they burn. People believed all of these things, and none of them are true.
Just because something “sounds right” doesn’t make it true, and you have at no point shown that you have any method of discerning the truth aside from things “sounding right”.
That’s why we’re skeptical of your claims – because you’re making naked assertions without actually justifying them. _Any_ of them.
Yup. You did say that.
And you are wrong. It does not logically follow from “we are not fully aware of our own beliefs” that “I, Rajkumar, am incapable of giving a straight answer as to whether I give a flying fuck about truth.”
And as far as superficiality goes? Like I said a couple of days ago:
Projection. It’s a motherfucker.
I have already told you how I have gained an understanding of them. Do you want me to become like, Nerd and start playing the same piece of recording over and over again?
How would I know if I were wrong? I don’t know. Haven’t thought about that… but I am fully open to the possibility.
That’s exactly what you are doing. Repeating the same drivel over and over, and unable to support any of it with evidence. Just “this is what makes me feel good”, and we don’t care about that. Intuition is for losers if it isn’t supported by evidence.
No you aren’t. You’ve been shown you are wrong time and time again. Your ego prevents that from engaging you brain. Otherwise, you would have acknowledged you were wrong a hundred posts ago…
Straight answer? Yes, I do give a flying fuck about truth. Mind you, it is not me who said ‘science doesn’t need a god’, it was you people. What I said was this: Science is not concerned about what we ‘need’ or what we don’t ‘need’. It is concerned about finding truth. Which means, if God is a truth, then what we (we as in atheists) ‘need’ or do not ‘need’ has no value in science. Your atheism has absolutely no value in science. Science has to find this truth, or at least try.
OK. Sorry. It is a motherfucker. So, no more projection on Sally. By the way, when I called you ‘dear’, that was a projection too. But you liked it then, didn’t you? If projection is a mother fucker, then why wasn’t it a motherfucker then?
Yawn, still waiting for you to demonstrate you are right rajkumar. But you need to shut the fuck up and point to your evidence, and let it speak for itself.
Actually, you have.
You’ve revealed that your standard for something being true is that is “sounds right”. Clearly, you’d think something is false if it “sounded wrong”.
Which is, as I just pointed out, an epistemology which fails utterly.
You are wrong rajkumar.
It’s not that. Maybe I just like to give short answers. When I asked, I can happily expand on them. Try it, if you haven’t done that already. And I know you have pointed out a lot things here. But what does that mean? Nerd has pointed out a lot of things as well.
Delete the “I” in When I asked
If [the existence of] God was a scientific truth, we wouldn’t be atheists.
Atheism is a conclusion based on the evidence, not a presupposition.
rajkumar wrote:
Then you need to stop blathering on and think about what that actually means – mostly that you are being intellectually dishonest by refusing to contemplate the possibility that you are wrong.
Rajkumar, why you are wrong:
You are wrong Rajkumar.
I have asked you “how do you know that?” roughly seven times now.
The closest thing you have given to an answer is “it sounds right”.
You’ve had your opportunity to answer the questions. At this stage, you’re either intellectually dishonest or extremely obtuse.
Like you know everything science has to say on this? Of course, you don’t. I think you are atheist, because you wanted to be atheists. Science is just your advertising billboard.