Bitcoin Forum
May 14, 2024, 12:50:16 PM *
News: Latest Bitcoin Core release: 27.0 [Torrent]
 
  Home Help Search Login Register More  
  Show Posts
Pages: « 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 [9] 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 ... 230 »
161  Other / Politics & Society / Re: Why do Atheists hate Religion ? on: August 18, 2015, 07:20:14 PM


Which seems more probable to you, a Satanic Rape-Dolphin, or an indifferent universe?

John Wheeler:

Quote
Stronger than the Anthropic Principle is what I might call the Participatory Principle. According to it, we could not even imagine a universe that did not somewhere and for some stretch of time contain observers, because the very building materials of the universe are these acts of observer- participancy. ... This participatory principle takes for its foundation the absolutely central point of the quantum: no elementary phenomenon is a phenomenon until it is an observed (or registered) phenomenon.

How indifferent can a Universe be when it depends on observer-participancy to be a Universe in the first place?
162  Other / Off-topic / Re: Scientific proof that God exists? on: August 10, 2015, 01:44:46 AM
Anyone tell me, who was the first - the chicken or the egg?

http://www.megafoundation.org/CTMU/Articles/Which.html

I like this answer.
163  Other / Politics & Society / Re: What's your opinion of gun control? on: August 09, 2015, 07:11:25 PM

And are those teenage science projects responsible for most of the social problems like murder and other gun-related deaths? Gimme a break. I dunno why I'm even bothering when you don't even have enough respect to reply to the points I've made.

Quote
3d printers enable anyone to make stuff, the nature of what is to be made follows from the device doing the making.  If it's plastic, then the apparatus is designed for that material - if it is sintered metal, then the design is for sintered metal.  Additive manufacturing is not going to be tool steel.
Not viable. I've debunked it above, so if you don't have anything new to add, I'll take it that I've won that point hands down.
.....

NO, you have "debunked" nothing whatsoever.  I have extensive experience with CNC and 3d printers, and I will assure you that production of certain firearms by amateurs is plausible, is happening, and is impossible to stop.

Now I'm just repeating myself...
It doesn't matter if it can be done, the market price will be dictated by the main suppliers, who will comply with tax regulations in order to stay legal.
Therefore your price would either be undercutting the market, which would be stupid, or it would get bumped up, giving you extra profit per unit. However, extra profit per unit means extra risk, as I already mentioned.

For example:
a black market producer makes $50k worth guns or gun parts per month, for their ring or their paying customers or whatever. Meanwhile, a new tax is applied on the legal market, significantly affecting the price. The black market producer now has a serious problem:
The same quantity is now worth $1M.
It's a completely different "tax bracket", making them a much more appealing target in the eyes of both law enforcement who would do more chasing, and the courts, which would now impose bigger penalties.
Therefore, to reduce their risk exposure, the obvious thing to do would be either produce less to get back to the original $50k plan, or invest in more expensive security/tactics/bookkeeping, and hope that they don't get caught while they're out of their league.

The problem applies whether it's one guy in his garage doing cash jobs on the side, or an extensive crime syndicate.

Quote
   Therefore you have a sort of "retro" gun control argument, not one that is oriented toward the world we are moving into.
Why retro? You provided zero evidence that it was practical or competitive. It's like you're telling me that I can make colour printouts from my B&W laser printer, just by purchasing 3 different toner cartridges, swapping them out and manually turning the paper upside down and placing it on the in-tray. "It can be done!"



In Colorado, legal marijuana has significantly increased the volume of black market marijuana transactions within the state, and people still buy from Steve down the street because he's far cheaper and more convenient than buying it at a shop.  Why do you suppose it would be any different with firearms if, for example, Steve owns a sintered metal 3d printer?
164  Other / Politics & Society / Re: The road to the End of Religion: How sex will kill God on: August 09, 2015, 06:40:06 PM
Burn the society built on corrupted moral righteousness and make a new one based on sexual pleasure.
Make love not war.

It seems to me that you are confusing pleasure and love.
Is it love when you give your "partner-in-love" a fatal disease?

I am only asking you because Beliathon refuses to answer this!

1. I am not confusing pleasure and love.Love is relative for each person and it is not impossible in a society based around sexual pleasure.
2. Love can be in many forms including pain play so yes if getting infected by a sexually spread disease is a person's cup of tea that's also love.

Yet people who enjoy things like "pain play" generally do so because they either 1) were affected negatively in some way in the past wherein they learned to associate pain with pleasure, or 2) have low self-concept and subconsciously believe that is how they deserve to be treated.
165  Other / Politics & Society / Re: Why do Atheists hate Religion ? on: August 08, 2015, 08:59:27 PM
Superstition is the belief in the supernatural. Things are listed as "supernatural" by scientists because they can't explain them.
Nope, not even close. I can very clearly articulately for you why there is no such thing as talking snakes, winged sky humans, and invisible sky fathers.

It's all basic physics and biology, really. For example winged humans wouldn't be able to fly as our lift-to-mass ratio would never be high enough. Bones too dense.

But I guess Google must be in on the evil "religion = superstition" conspiracy, eh? Or maybe a company founded by engineers has the sense to respect evidence.



From Christopher Langan:

Quote
...

In fact, if we regard the scientific method as a theory about the nature and acquisition of scientific knowledge (and we can), it is not a theory of knowledge in general.  It is only a theory of things accessible to the senses.  Worse yet, it is a theory only of sensible things that have two further attributes: they are non-universal and can therefore be distinguished from the rest of sensory reality, and they can be seen by multiple observers who are able to “replicate” each other’s observations under like conditions.  Needless to say, there is no reason to assume that these attributes are necessary even in the sensory realm.  The first describes nothing general enough to coincide with reality as a whole – for example, the homogeneous medium of which reality consists, or an abstract mathematical principle that is everywhere true - and the second describes nothing that is either subjective, like human consciousness, or objective but rare and unpredictable…e.g. ghosts, UFOs and yetis, of which jokes are made but which may, given the number of individual witnesses reporting them, correspond to real phenomena.

The fact that the scientific method does not permit the investigation of abstract mathematical principles is especially embarrassing in light of one of its more crucial steps: “invent a theory to fit the observations.”  A theory happens to be a logical and/or mathematical construct whose basic elements of description are mathematical units and relationships.  If the scientific method were interpreted as a blanket description of reality, which is all too often the case, the result would go something like this: “Reality consists of all and only that to which we can apply a protocol which cannot be applied to its own (mathematical) ingredients and is therefore unreal.”  Mandating the use of “unreality” to describe “reality” is rather questionable in anyone’s protocol.

...
166  Other / Politics & Society / Re: What's your opinion of gun control? on: August 08, 2015, 04:46:34 PM
Guns should be used only by the army and SWAT. I think that such restriction would make life much easier for all.

In america it's seen as a hobby. You can see videos of people testing out guns and shoting out watermelons outdoors in some places that sometimes look like their backyard. It's pretty insane to anyone not living on there. I mean you can walk in on that area without knowing someone is shoting shit up and get shoot... pretty crazy.

Most terrorist have this "hobby" too. Americans will have to let that go. For most cases a pepper spray is just enough.

Again, I propose the challenge: Name one good reason why armymen or SWAT team members should automatically be granted more trust with a gun than your neighbors.

Challenge accepted. Regardless of intellect, reasoning, or political/religious beliefs, their life experience will provide them with one simple fact that Pavlov could have tested on his dogs:

Where there are guns, there is more potential for pain.

Anyone with an IQ of 70 can make that epiphany. Or even if they don't 'think' it, they still have the correct biological reaction with a bit of adrenaline or fear to help them prepare for violence upon having a weapon come into view. Neighbours are far more likely to be foolish, naive, or stupid and irresponsible, compared to any professional who has actually seen or experienced suffering in conjunction with guns.

Don't tell me you're another paranoid type who has fallen for that partisan nonsense about the population versus the government? Blue team versus Red team? Freedom lovers versus bureaucrats? Come on, I thought you were smarter than that. Wait for the late harvest, more CBD, less paranoia, or so they say.

1a)  I agree, where there are guns, there is more potential for pain regardless of who has them.

1b)  Where there are restrictions on freedom, there is more potential for rebellion.

2)  Believing that a professional will necessarily act professionally is just as absurd as thinking that a non-professional will necessarily act unprofessionally.

3a)  Why do soldiers take 2nd and 3rd tours when their experience includes the suffering of war?  Why do police use guns to combat not only gun violence, but violence from knives, bats, cars, fists, etc.?  Why do professionals in governments around the world continue to commence wars despite the countless millions who have died in past ones?  

3b)  Violence and wars stem from a self vs. other paradigm.  People identify with that with which they are familiar, and have fear/uncertainty/doubt about that with which they are not familiar.  The minute you start splitting people up into groups like "professionals" vs. "non-professionals" or "cops" vs. "citizens" or "government" vs. "populous" and give one side more rights than others, you're going to get problems.  Bottom line, people are people, and there is absolutely zero concrete basis upon which to conclude that a so-called "professional" has any more or less ethical aptitude in applying use of their freedoms.  Maybe it's the use of the word "professional" that prohibits one from recognizing this, because it leads one to falsely assume that the person necessarily matches the description.

3c)  The bell curve is present everywhere.  You will always have a few crazy people, both in the general population and in the "professional" population, who will do some pretty horrible things.  But in general, most people professional-or-not will be just fine if they have a gun.

4)  There is a general set of personality characteristics applicable to those who become police or soldiers.  These people are more likely to want to be in charge, to want to apply authority over others, and to apply it forcefully if necessary.   In other words, there is a greater likelihood that this group of people granted with unequal power will perpetuate and make it known this inequality.  If you deduce this is a good thing because you axiomatically believe anyone called a professional will act professionally, therein lies the problem.  In the USA, it's estimated over 1,000 civilians (whether criminals or not) are killed by law enforcement annually.  If there were as many law enforcement officers as there are US civilians and we extrapolate the kill rate linearly, there would be over 300,000 kills committed annually by law enforcement, far surpassing the number committed by the general population.  Sure, you can explain this disproportionate number by pointing to the fact that a large number of those killed provoked it in some way.  Or, maybe it's also a symptom of a larger problem in which many criminals become criminals as a result of living in a society in which some groups have disproportionate rights and authority, the byproducts of which trickle down into virtually all aspects of societal interaction.
167  Other / Off-topic / Re: How many members are you in your family? on: August 07, 2015, 11:00:58 PM
We are 5 in the family. How about you guys?

Interesting post history you have here, girl.  Cool

More interesting is the OP of the thread is yummy"ransom"
168  Other / Politics & Society / Re: What's your opinion of gun control? on: August 07, 2015, 10:06:17 PM
Let me see if I understand this.

Blahblablah argues for restricting availability of guns by increasing their prices.

Meanwhile 3d printers can make them on demand.

Something does not compute there.

 Roll Eyes
Another American idiot...
First, answer the actual points I made, then post a link for 3d printer technology that makes fucking TOOL STEEL.

And then explain -- for posterity -- why you're so opposed to actually making your country safer.
It's always fucking "we can't do this, we can't do that". Well, fuck you and your selfish, oppositional attitude.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zJyf1IrHtcE

Any remotely significant criminal enterprise could afford one of these.
169  Other / Politics & Society / Re: The road to the End of Religion: How sex will kill God on: August 07, 2015, 09:39:18 PM
For the hundredth time, just because it is in a book doesn't make it science.
I recommend the works cited section at the end of Sex At Dawn.

Pick ONE SOURCE STUDY, and provide the premise which you believe it supports. Anything else is just bullshit.

It doesn't matter.  He already tried that once and all it did was contradict previous statements he had made, and fail to support everything else.  He claims to see the world "very very" accurately and can't even accurately understand the implications of his references, whether direct and indirect.  He just makes up crap as he goes and then uses appeal to ridicule when he's shown to be wrong.

It DOES matter. You know why? Because as you said he continually just dances around the issues. As long as he is dancing around the issues and not making a claim to something substantive that he claims supports his argument, he can never be proven wrong, because he is never even really declaring his position. If he declares his position he has to defend it, and can be proven wrong with science pointing in the other direction. Anything else is just bullshit bickering that is a waste of time and has nothing to do with facts.

I'm sorry, maybe I wasn't clear enough in what I meant to say.  I meant that it it doesn't matter if he posts a peer-reviewed study in the sense that he's just going to believe whatever he wants to believe, anyway; he's already posted a couple peer-reviewed links and it's clear he doesn't understand what he's posting.  And then you can try to explain to him that he doesn't understand it or that it doesn't support what he's saying in any way, and he's just going to either 1) ignore you and keep going anyway, or 2) meme you to death.

Basically, it doesn't matter what he posts because he just always thinks he's right no matter how wrong he is.  He's like BADecker's equal-and-opposite alter ego.
170  Other / Off-topic / Re: There was no Big Bang, Truth shall set you free!!!! on: August 07, 2015, 05:33:23 PM
We are in a black hole inside out ! What holds the space from collapsing in from gravity is dark matter expanding "space" dark energy is the gravity against it. there will be 3 things that can occur in the end !
#1 The universe keeps expanding and stars and galaxies drift further apart until all the stars burn out and there is total darkness and cold.
#2 Dark matter "space" will sling shot back at some point and we will die in a crack or splat
#3 The universe will keep expanding and growing in velocity until the fabric of space will be ripped and in a blink we will all die in an explosion of energy like the beginning of this universe began  , Thank You  for reading.

Consider a black hole as being the portal between two universes.  On the one side it is sucking matter in (death of an old universe) and on the other it is spewing it out (big bang, start of new one). 

When a universe is created it expands like a balloon (as matter from elsewhere is pumped into it) until enough black holes have formed and it starts draining energy and shrivelling up. 

I think of it as a multi dimensional lava lamp.  Are there any obvious faults with my idea?

The Universe is expanding from everywhere, not from a single point in space (which is an extrapolation from tricks of perception based upon our frame of reference). So, you would need to reconcile this somehow with our current knowledge of black holes.
171  Other / Politics & Society / Re: The road to the End of Religion: How sex will kill God on: August 07, 2015, 05:09:32 PM
For the hundredth time, just because it is in a book doesn't make it science.
I recommend the works cited section at the end of Sex At Dawn.

Pick ONE SOURCE STUDY, and provide the premise which you believe it supports. Anything else is just bullshit.

It doesn't matter.  He already tried that once and all it did was contradict previous statements he had made, and fail to support everything else.  He claims to see the world "very very" accurately and can't even accurately understand the implications of his references, whether direct and indirect.  He just makes up crap as he goes and then uses appeal to ridicule when he's shown to be wrong.
172  Other / Politics & Society / Re: Why do Atheists hate Religion ? on: August 06, 2015, 03:59:00 AM

It is Buddhism that allows a sense of humour, whether or not the followers have a sense of humour or not.  So are you saying if a Buddhist encounters Christianity that they would lose their sense of humour? Smiley

Are you a Buddhist? If you are, the answer to your question is no on this side, 'cause this Christian is LOL at the thing that you posted.

 Cheesy

I'm not Buddhist, but as someone who isn't religious, I do like the philosophy especially for how old it is.

Ok so as a Christian, do you go to church?  And if you do, is it a serious environment or does it allow for humour?

What I find particularly interesting about Buddhism is that its philosophy, formed in the absence of a modern scientific approach to learning, has resulted in some very intuitive assumptions about the physical world that closely mimic the kinds of things we have only recently learned through the pursuit of scientific knowledge.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhist_atomism
173  Other / Politics & Society / Re: The road to the End of Religion: How sex will kill God on: August 06, 2015, 12:04:59 AM

 When you see your loving mother, is "fucking" all you can think about, too?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum

It does sound absurd -- which is why I chose it to catch your attention -- but it isn't.  Rather, it highlights an absurdity in your own argument.  Just because you can link to a logical fallacy doesn't mean it is one.

Explanation:  From what I understand, here are your points of argument:  Pleasure is good, and the more pleasure people have, the better.  Sex is extremely pleasurable (and has some other healthy benefits), so it's good for people.  Marriages are more frequently ending in divorce, and because pleasure derived from feelings of love can be psychologically and biochemically related to pleasure derived from sex, we might as well just skip the whole marriage thing, skip the potential consequences of a failed marriage (e.g. "cravings"), and just fuck as many people as we can to enjoy ourselves and each other.  Sound about right?

Presumably, the feelings of love described in the study are those of self report.  That is, someone says, "Hey, I'm having feelings of love right now," and an MRI shows a biochemical pleasure response mapped similarly to that associated with sexual arousal.

By asking you the question I did, I'm highlighting an important consideration that either you neglected, or that wasn't accounted for in your study.

Let's say you love your mother (I hope you do!) and you say, "Okay, I'm having feelings of love for my mother."  Then, we perform an MRI.  Let's suppose two possible outcomes: 1) The MRI reveals a similar biochemical activation, or 2) The MRI reveals an entirely different biochemical activation.

If #1 is the result, then you might want to consider ditching your mom and getting a whole bunch of moms.  After all, you wouldn't want to be plagued by the possibility that your mom tragically dies or something and you get motherly love cravings (non-sexual or sexual, it doesn't matter since the biochemical response is similar).  You might also get that much more pleasure out of having a few moms per week.   But, I hope you would think this solution is ridiculous -- you love your mom because, well...she's your mom, and there's a ton of value to be gained through continuing that relationship...monogamously.

If #2 is the result, then now you have a design flaw in that we have identified a separate kind of love not accounted for in the study.  First of all, it doesn't really do much good to have two mutually exclusive definitions of the same word; that creates a lot of confusion which will have trickle down effects in both social and scientific contexts, likely resulting in blurry interpretations.  So, perhaps instead you make a distinction between "maternal love" (or brotherly, sisterly, paternal, etc.) and "sexual love."  If this is the case, then a correlation between "sexual love" and "sexual arousal" isn't really telling us much of anything except the obvious.
174  Other / Politics & Society / Re: The road to the End of Religion: How sex will kill God on: August 05, 2015, 05:39:18 PM
Getting slutty on the first date can lead to marriage?  You don't say?  As if one would have thought it was impossible.  That analysis says [nothing]
I know a number of liberal feminists who wouldn't dream of having sex on the first date (or even the second or third) because of the message it would send.
As though sex somehow devalues you as a person. It taints the entirety of the date that came before. It makes a long-term relationship impossible. It's the puritanical false notion that lust can never become love.

So how does all of this really work?

In order to map out the location of sexual desire and love, researchers reviewed 20 studies that used fMRI technology. First, they looked at the regions of the brain that lit up when sparked by love. They then compared the findings of all the papers to see what regions were activated when someone felt aroused or amorous.  

What they discovered was a bit surprising -- love and sexual desire both activate the striatum, showing a continuum from sexual desire to love. Each feeling impacts a different area of the striatum.

"Sexual desire activates the ventral striatum, the brain’s reward system. When someone enjoys a great dessert or an orgasm, it’s the ventral striatum that flickers with life. Love sparks activity in the dorsal striatum, which is associated with drug addiction.

“You don’t make a connection that love is a drug; it acts just like drug addiction," says Pfaus. "Anyone who has had someone break up with them feels like a drug addict in withdrawal. You end up getting cravings.”

But it doesn't stop there. The researchers also saw an overlap between sexual desire and love in the insula. The brain's insular cortex (or insula) and the striatum play a role in both sexual desire and love. The insula is nestled deep within the cerebral cortex and influences emotions.
While the striatum resides in the forebrain and receives messages from the cortex. “[The insula] translates emotional feelings into meaning,” explains Pfaus. “You take the internal state and give it external meaning.”

The areas of overlap indicate that sexual desire transitions into love in many cases, and the feelings aren’t separate.

“Even love at first sight, can it happen? Of course it can happen," says Pfaus.

And when it does happen, do you want to play Scrabble with each other? No, when it happens, all you want to do is fuck.  


Study here http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22353205

INTRODUCTION: One of the most difficult dilemmas in relationship science and couple therapy concerns the interaction between sexual desire and love. As two mental states of intense longing for union with others, sexual desire and love are, in fact, often difficult to disentangle from one another.

AIM: The present review aims to help understand the differences and similarities between these two mental states using a comprehensive statistical meta-analyses of all functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies on sexual desire and love.

METHODS: Systematic retrospective review of pertinent neuroimaging literature.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Review of published literature on fMRI studies illustrating brain regions associated with love and sexual desire to date.

RESULTS: Sexual desire and love not only show differences but also recruit a striking common set of brain areas that mediate somatosensory integration, reward expectation, and social cognition. More precisely, a significant posterior-to-anterior insular pattern appears to track sexual desire and love progressively.

CONCLUSIONS: This specific pattern of activation suggests that love builds upon a neural circuit for emotions and pleasure, adding regions associated with reward expectancy, habit formation, and feature detection. In particular, the shared activation within the insula, with a posterior-to-anterior pattern, from desire to love, suggests that love grows out of and is a more abstract representation of the pleasant sensorimotor experiences that characterize desire. From these results, one may consider desire and love on a spectrum that evolves from integrative representations of affective visceral sensations to an ultimate representation of feelings incorporating mechanisms of reward expectancy and habit learning.

Two things:

1) So, I see you've now conceded to my original point that people biochemically and psychologically react similarly to both sexual arousal and drug use.  

2) You still haven't provided anything close to a solid argument for your contention that people are meant to have a multitude of sex partners as opposed to getting married, or that's it's more advantageous, or anything similar.

Edit: I have a third, more important point, which I'll present as a question:  When you see your loving mother, is "fucking" all you can think about, too?
175  Other / Politics & Society / Re: The road to the End of Religion: How sex will kill God on: August 04, 2015, 03:13:57 PM
Modern western culture seems entirely obsessed with sex, which makes it hard to save yourself for marriage.
Have some science: http://jezebel.com/5923855/turns-out-getting-slutty-on-the-first-date-can-lead-to-marriage






This theist ( http://thomrainer.com/2014/04/sex-millennials-church-five-implications ) sums up the situation nicely

Quote from: ThomRainer
Most Millennials, including Christian Millennials, see nothing wrong with unmarried persons living together. Many of them will come to our churches and be surprised to hear their behavior is sinful. How churches handle this reality will determine the success of efforts to reach the generation.

While the trend toward approval of homosexual marriage is growing in society at large, the positive view is pervasive among Millennials. Churches that choose to ignore this issue have little hope of impacting culture positively.

Millennials will exit quickly from churches whose members are shrill and unloving toward those with non-biblical views on sexuality. Unfortunately, many Millennials stereotype all Bible-believing churches as filled with members who carry Westboro-like placards that scream “God hates fags.” While this is not the case in most churches, there are still some Christians who do a good job of reinforcing that stereotype.

Ironically, Millennials will not stick with churches that have no convictions.  Liberal churches with compromising views on biblical sexuality will not attract and retain Millennials. Though Millennials are indeed increasingly liberal in their views and actions on sexuality, they view churches as places that should be convictional and even counter-cultural.

The greater opportunity lies with those churches that are able to speak truth in love, and to demonstrate that love. The preceding sentence sounds a bit cliché, but it is increasingly a reality. Many of our church members are very uncomfortable engaging, for example, a homosexual in a way that demonstrates the love of Christ. But that is the world and the culture where our churches and Christians reside. We can choose to either engage or withdraw.

There are nearly 79 million Millennials. Most of them are not Christians. Indeed, we estimate in our research that only about 15 percent of those in this generation are believers in Christ. So that means that this generation is a mission field of over 67 million men and women who do not know Christ.

We can bemoan the state of culture. We can withdraw from culture. Or we can choose to love these sinners as Christ loved us sinners.
emphasis mine

Getting slutty on the first date can lead to marriage?  You don't say?  As if one would have thought it was impossible.  That analysis says about as much as the statement, "As it turns out, smoking crack can lead to a pretty good week 2-3 years down the road."

Uh, "science" does not turn correlation into causation, not does it 'ever' provide moral commentary.

The study and article (except the title) don't even have anything to do with marriage.  It links sexual arousal with feelings of "love," and in a way that is most ironic to your previous arguments, wherein you declare that sex isn't anything like a drug.  Your article certainly correlates that the response is similar. 

Here's an equally BS title for you: "How drugs will kill God."
176  Other / Politics & Society / Re: The road to the End of Religion: How sex will kill God on: August 03, 2015, 09:26:30 PM
Throw rock into pond.
Rock create ripples.
Rock gone, but ripples spread.

Live brain in pond of life.
Brain create mind ripples.
Brain die and is gone, but mind ripples still go on.
This is actually not a terrible analogy, however you made one important error. The "ripples" our brains create in life do not represent our mind, but our thoughts, expressed through spoken language and written word.

Those thoughts we commit to the net will live on long after we're dead. Unlike our minds, which reside wholly in our rotting and dead brains.

Live mind in pond of life.
Mind creates thought ripples.
Brain dies and mind is gone,
but thought ripples carry on
through those whose lives we have touched.

Then why can I [subject] perceive my brain [object]?  That is, if the mind is wholly inside the brain, how is it capable of wholly perceiving the brain?  Furthermore, why can it not perceive itself?
177  Other / Politics & Society / Re: Why do Atheists hate Religion ? on: July 31, 2015, 11:58:14 PM
Quote from: MakingMoneyHoney
And yet, you wrote it to me, not The Joint.
Forgive me. Please understand it can be difficult for a whale to discern one small goldfish from another.

I'm sorry. Are we supposed to take you seriously? You've been shown to be a hypocrite over and over and in an attempt to show your intellect being higher than others
I wasn't aware that it was merely an attempt.

It seems that one of us is suffering from a bad case of the Dunning-Kruger effect. I'll leave it to the readers to deduce which of us that is.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_personality_disorder

Quote
Narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) is a personality disorder in which a person is excessively preoccupied with personal adequacy, power, prestige and vanity, mentally unable to see the destructive damage they are causing to themselves and others.

Okay, "teacher."

Quote
Symptoms of this disorder, as defined by the DSM-5, include:[6]
A. Significant impairments in personality functioning manifested by:
1. Impairments in self functioning (a or b):
a. Identity: Excessive reference to others for self-definition and self-esteem regulation; exaggerated self-appraisal may be inflated or deflated, or vacillate between extremes; emotional regulation mirrors fluctuations in self-esteem.

"Whale" vs. "goldfish"; "teacher vs. student"; "father vs. child"

Quote
b. Self-direction: Goal-setting is based on gaining approval from others; personal standards are unreasonably high in order to see oneself as exceptional, or too low based on a sense of entitlement; often unaware of own motivations.

Talking to others in the 3rd-person.

Quote
AND
2. Impairments in interpersonal functioning (a or b):
 a. Empathy: Impaired ability to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others; excessively attuned to reactions of others, but only if perceived as relevant to self; over- or underestimate of own effect on others.
b. Intimacy: Relationships largely superficial and exist to serve self-esteem regulation; mutuality constrained by little genuine interest in others' experiences and predominance of a need for personal gain

B. Pathological personality traits in the following domain:
Antagonism, characterized by:
a. Grandiosity: Feelings of entitlement, either overt or covert; self-centeredness; firmly holding to the belief that one is better than others; condescending toward others.
b. Attention seeking: Excessive attempts to attract and be the focus of the attention of others; admiration seeking.
C. The impairments in personality functioning and the individual's personality trait expression are relatively stable across time and consistent across situations.
D. The impairments in personality functioning and the individual's personality trait expression are not better understood as normative for the individual's developmental stage or socio-cultural environment.
E. The impairments in personality functioning and the individual's personality trait expression are not solely due to the direct physiological effects of a substance (e.g., a drug of abuse, medication) or a general medical condition (e.g., severe head trauma).
178  Alternate cryptocurrencies / Altcoin Discussion / Re: Why Litecoin is the new Bitcoin on: July 31, 2015, 06:18:47 PM
Technicals are somewhat important, but not that important, and likely hardly important at all outside of having a secure network. A recent survey of 1000 people (sorry, no link due to iPhone) found that Bitcoin is generally the most inconvenient form of payment -- even more than checks -- while cash and credit cards were considered most convenient.  The results can generally be considered to extend to all cryptocurrencies.  To be honest, virtually any cryptocurrency can do the job just fine.  What really matters is ease of acquisition (BTC currently wins) and marketing by volume (BTC currently wins). 

Transaction times, wallet features, mining algorithm, etc. are essentially non-factors in determining a coin's success.  DOGE showed us the power of marketing as an influence on usage, but BTC already had a huge head-start in terms of ease of acquisition.  If any coin can outpace BTC in terms of both successful marketing and in terms of ease of rapid distribution, it could overtake BTC.  At the moment, this is unlikely.
179  Other / Politics & Society / Re: Why do Atheists hate Religion ? on: July 31, 2015, 05:24:47 PM
Christians aren't supposed to believe in reincarnation. I don't.
My child, I'm afraid you haven't been paying attention to Teacher. Once again:

Belief is not a choice. It's a compulsion beyond the realm of choice, based on observation/evidence; in science argument and consensus.

Desirability is not a requisite of the truth. I do not choose what I believe because I perceive it as the more attraction option. I'm compelled to believe what I think is true, whether I like it or not!


The truth does not require your approval. It simply is.

I don't know of any religions that states that suicide is a good thing. It's murder (of oneself), and so it's a sin for Christians.
Religion is how the power elite controlled the peasants for many generations before the Nation State took over that role. Fear is a prison for your mind. This tragic fear of divine retribution would likely prevent you from committing the self-mercy of suicide even if you were enduring days or week of torture.

Not months, though, and certainly not years. Pain is an inexhaustible resource, just like pleasure. Under those circumstances, sooner or later your superstition would break, unable to bear the weight of such suffering. Eventually you'd come to your senses and end it. Deep down you know this to be true.

"My child?" Wow, how pretentious can you get?  You said you're a "psych major."  What are you?  Late teens?  Early 20's?  Bold, bold statements for a student to say...

Equally as pretentious as the man in the church referred to as "father" who is not your father?

I can't speak on Beliathon's behalf, but it looks to me like a joke, that has been taken very seriously Smiley

Another point for Buddhism, the only religion that has a sense of humour Smiley

It isn't Buddhism that has the sense of humor. It's the Buddhists, 'cause they realize what a joke religion is. That's because they haven't encountered the pure sense that Christianity makes.

Smiley

Do you have any idea how close Christianity is to Buddhism in practice?  Jesus essentially taught Buddhism!  Most Buddhists revere Jesus's teachings.  "Christ"inanity is about Jesus and his teachings, and those teachings nearly mimic Buddhist precepts.
180  Other / Politics & Society / Re: Why do Atheists hate Religion ? on: July 31, 2015, 05:19:21 PM
Christians aren't supposed to believe in reincarnation. I don't.
My child, I'm afraid you haven't been paying attention to Teacher. Once again:

Belief is not a choice. It's a compulsion beyond the realm of choice, based on observation/evidence; in science argument and consensus.

Desirability is not a requisite of the truth. I do not choose what I believe because I perceive it as the more attraction option. I'm compelled to believe what I think is true, whether I like it or not!


The truth does not require your approval. It simply is.

I don't know of any religions that states that suicide is a good thing. It's murder (of oneself), and so it's a sin for Christians.
Religion is how the power elite controlled the peasants for many generations before the Nation State took over that role. Fear is a prison for your mind. This tragic fear of divine retribution would likely prevent you from committing the self-mercy of suicide even if you were enduring days or week of torture.

Not months, though, and certainly not years. Pain is an inexhaustible resource, just like pleasure. Under those circumstances, sooner or later your superstition would break, unable to bear the weight of such suffering. Eventually you'd come to your senses and end it. Deep down you know this to be true.

"My child?" Wow, how pretentious can you get?  You said you're a "psych major."  What are you?  Late teens?  Early 20's?  Bold, bold statements for a student to say...

Equally as pretentious as the man in the church referred to as "father" who is not your father?

I can't speak on Beliathon's behalf, but it looks to me like a joke, that has been taken very seriously Smiley

Another point for Buddhism, the only religion that has a sense of humour Smiley

1) Exclusive from all else, it was exceedingly pretentious.  Have you read the dude's posts?  It wasn't a joke.

2) What man in the church?  Neither the pope (the supposed vicar of Christ) nor Jesus claimed to be the Father.  Do you mean God?  This is just nitpicking.  "Father" in such a context just refers to the thing we came from.  Logical reductionism soundly leads to the necessity of a single "source" of everything.  Given monistic reductionism, do you really take issue with such a metaphorical issue aside from the trivial fact that the "source" doesn't look like your dad or have a penis?
Pages: « 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 [9] 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 ... 230 »
Powered by MySQL Powered by PHP Powered by SMF 1.1.19 | SMF © 2006-2009, Simple Machines Valid XHTML 1.0! Valid CSS!