Longest Thread Ever
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Nah it was good. I enjoyed your latest responses, it made me think and reflect on things quite a bit. I just hadn't responded cos I haven't been able to come up with a response.
I guess my comment was more to do with other discussions where sometimes when talking about other subjects you tend to bring your faith or political stance into the discussion a bit too much? I know that's who you are and you have to do that, but sometimes it makes the discussion become a bit too serious and less fun.
OK, I found my dad's joke online:
One day they decide to set out and seek their fortune. They come across a plot of land and decide on farming. "We are going to need fertilizer" says the turtle. They decide the raBbit is to go and find some manure to fertilize their garden. The Rabbit sets off and comes back 4 months later to find a HUGE mansion with gardens and fountains everywhere. He knocks on the door and a snooty butler answers. "Ummm...is the lizard here?" The butler replies "Mr. Li-ZARD IS OUT IN THE YARD. "Well, is the turtle here?" "Mr Tur-TELL IS OUT BY THE WELL. "OK, fine....tell them MISTER RA-BITT IS HERE WITH THE ****!"
https://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=105x3024825
One day they decide to set out and seek their fortune. They come across a plot of land and decide on farming. "We are going to need fertilizer" says the turtle. They decide the raBbit is to go and find some manure to fertilize their garden. The Rabbit sets off and comes back 4 months later to find a HUGE mansion with gardens and fountains everywhere. He knocks on the door and a snooty butler answers. "Ummm...is the lizard here?" The butler replies "Mr. Li-ZARD IS OUT IN THE YARD. "Well, is the turtle here?" "Mr Tur-TELL IS OUT BY THE WELL. "OK, fine....tell them MISTER RA-BITT IS HERE WITH THE ****!"
https://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=105x3024825
Interesting thing here.
Now, a few years after Rodman's diplomacy, Rocket Man is ready to play ball.
IMO, Rocket Man is something of a genius, like my own brother. If you want to play ball, you have to play it his way. So Rodman could do that, and now Trump.
Well, some say something went terribly wrong on a recent underground test with a hydrogen bomb that produced orders of magnitude more energy than expect, and collapsed the entire test site. Nowadays, I don't believe the news at all. I could just wonder how the seal team got in there with the extra hydrogen tanks.....
Another item. Russia and China have now handed Trump a real trump card, in the interest of economic prosperity. I hear Trump is going to wheel and deal until he gets America on the Silk Road.
Pretty much, the Silk Road idea is what any maritime trading power would block if it meant starting a world war to do it. Overland MagLev shipping faster and cheaper than ships sailing all around the world.
Would explain why some top Brit players would want to dump Trump.
At any rate, I think both Russia and China have told Rocket Man to give Trump this hand. He doesn't lose his little country or his big title, and he gets investment. China is ready to build. We should be too.
From the Flat Earth discussion. Of course it is iron-clad doctrine that there can be no possible God, so far as totalitarian governance cheerleaders are concerned. Oh, yah. I try hard to find substitute terminology to replace all the old trite poisoned ones.
Believing in Good Government is as intoxicating as any religion claiming some fundamental connection to universal truth, and besides all that, if you've got some little angle of being part of the Big Solution, or earning a lottabucks doing something to help roll the good work along, so that you can figure it won't crush you somehow, the Power of Government is concrete and demonstrable.
People who drink deep of all that just lose their moral bearings, and before they realize it, they're cheering for filthy slut "comedians" who can't crack a joke without forty bleep words no self-respecting human would really want to use.
Some strategists for the Statist Cause du jour, really do believe that the ends justify the means, and teach their trainees to lie reflexively to push the big rock up that hill.
The problem is, even if the Great Good Government achieves absolute power.... and even if the State experts are actually right on science or art, say.... meaning we've learned enough, know it all, and never will need to ask a question again. the human condition just is not compatible with that kind of perfection. With all opposition eliminated, the same principles will require the invention of new opposition, or if none such can be gotten up, it will begin fighting itself.
Comey is the perfect example of this insufficient perfection. He started out pretending to be a real conservative and a big Bush supporter.... until he turned on Bush. Then he pretended to be the big Obama man of the hour. All he ever cared about was the Big Man, or so he said. But icons crumble. And human plans fall apart when humans wobble off the right path....or the path they're believing, or pretending to believe, is the right one. And when Big Ships sink, it's always gonna be Every Man For Himself.
famines, wars, intrigues....... Good Government/Great Government is the impossible dream, the great delusion. We do a lot better keeping more people in the private sector taking care of the beans and tomatos.
Believing in Good Government is as intoxicating as any religion claiming some fundamental connection to universal truth, and besides all that, if you've got some little angle of being part of the Big Solution, or earning a lottabucks doing something to help roll the good work along, so that you can figure it won't crush you somehow, the Power of Government is concrete and demonstrable.
People who drink deep of all that just lose their moral bearings, and before they realize it, they're cheering for filthy slut "comedians" who can't crack a joke without forty bleep words no self-respecting human would really want to use.
Some strategists for the Statist Cause du jour, really do believe that the ends justify the means, and teach their trainees to lie reflexively to push the big rock up that hill.
The problem is, even if the Great Good Government achieves absolute power.... and even if the State experts are actually right on science or art, say.... meaning we've learned enough, know it all, and never will need to ask a question again. the human condition just is not compatible with that kind of perfection. With all opposition eliminated, the same principles will require the invention of new opposition, or if none such can be gotten up, it will begin fighting itself.
Comey is the perfect example of this insufficient perfection. He started out pretending to be a real conservative and a big Bush supporter.... until he turned on Bush. Then he pretended to be the big Obama man of the hour. All he ever cared about was the Big Man, or so he said. But icons crumble. And human plans fall apart when humans wobble off the right path....or the path they're believing, or pretending to believe, is the right one. And when Big Ships sink, it's always gonna be Every Man For Himself.
famines, wars, intrigues....... Good Government/Great Government is the impossible dream, the great delusion. We do a lot better keeping more people in the private sector taking care of the beans and tomatos.
Well, all I can say about God is that whether we have ever understood anything coming from the heart of the Universe, in terms of science or in terms of faith, it is better to believe in an abstract concept of perfection even if it is an imagined one, that to disbelieve in the possibility.
If we deny the reality of "Truth" of some form, or of any possible form, in that instant we transform within our minds from the humble seeker of the unattainable Truth, into the arrogant bastard who is willing to seize the crown of Power and do whatever is in our own minds, justifying it as "Truth".
If we believe Power or Government is self-sufficient "Truth", or if we believe any set of "experts" however qualified, however numerous, however specialized in each item of the belief set, we believe in a ghost. Concrete, immediate Power is a ghost, a delusion inside our minds. We are, and never can be, anything more than "dust in the wind". We are intrinsically transient, fundamentally impaired, eternally incompetent. Whatever we build, whatever we create, will one day, tomorrow or a few hundred years, become rubble enough to be interesting to the Archaeologists.....
At any rate, Science was initially founded on the premise that the Universe contains self-existing principles, truths, that could be demonstrated and logged into a knowledge base humans could build upon. Religion was founded on the premise that there is some fundamental reality, some Great Cause, some Mover, some underlying great Truth beyond our knowing, perhaps deserving our reverence.
But Good Government is founded on the assertion that people with power will do good with that power.
I think "Good Government" is the worst bet you could make.
If we deny the reality of "Truth" of some form, or of any possible form, in that instant we transform within our minds from the humble seeker of the unattainable Truth, into the arrogant bastard who is willing to seize the crown of Power and do whatever is in our own minds, justifying it as "Truth".
If we believe Power or Government is self-sufficient "Truth", or if we believe any set of "experts" however qualified, however numerous, however specialized in each item of the belief set, we believe in a ghost. Concrete, immediate Power is a ghost, a delusion inside our minds. We are, and never can be, anything more than "dust in the wind". We are intrinsically transient, fundamentally impaired, eternally incompetent. Whatever we build, whatever we create, will one day, tomorrow or a few hundred years, become rubble enough to be interesting to the Archaeologists.....
At any rate, Science was initially founded on the premise that the Universe contains self-existing principles, truths, that could be demonstrated and logged into a knowledge base humans could build upon. Religion was founded on the premise that there is some fundamental reality, some Great Cause, some Mover, some underlying great Truth beyond our knowing, perhaps deserving our reverence.
But Good Government is founded on the assertion that people with power will do good with that power.
I think "Good Government" is the worst bet you could make.
Believing in an independent, sovereign, and virtuous "God" is the reason we humans can have hope, or love. It is the inspiration of human virtue generally, though I admit we can imagine, and try to do good, without actually believing in a specific "God". But accepting that there is in fact a real God is the first philosophical step in seeking to conform ourselves to that standard. Until we take that step, philosophically, we are still believing we are in need of no such effort.
There is no correlation between being religious and having hope or having love. I have both of those things and have no belief in God. My hope is in this world and making it a better place and helping those around me enjoy it, not some future made up heaven. Religious people look past here and to a mythical after life which hurts this life. I love my wife and appreciate her now. I dont worry about afterlife with her. I want to be treated nicely so I treat other nicely.
I personally find people who do not believe in God to have just as high or higher morals. Religious people tend to follow their morals to get something, such as in to heaven. Non religious people do good things to just be a decent human and be respectful others. Religion leads to pressure to follow something for selfish reasons.
Studies have backed this fact up as well. People who grow up in non religious households in the USA are taught the golden rule are much more likely to follow the moral values of society(overwhelmingly christian society) than those that grow up religious.
Atheists are much less likely to go to jail in America as well than religious people. .1% of our prisons are atheist despite atheists making up 7% to 22% of the population. 7% are atheists the higher number is are just not religious. So that is the debate with the number. I believe you are Mormon so ill post those as well they are .8% of the prison population and make up 1.6% of the population.
I firmly believe that if more people stopped being religious the world would be a much better place. Or at least religious people need to learn to stop looking down at others and judging them and their life decisions. This idea you have posted is very harmful to society as a whole and quite common.
We can all believe what we wish, I suppose. I call all beliefs outside of scientific principles based on demonstrable, objective measurements or observations "religious", including those religions that deny an outside, objective power or entity of nature that deserves human respect. Generally, I don't argue if our "God" is somehow something we imagine. It is the concept of something higher than our own selves.
Some can very well develop consistent principles of some moral character using elements of human philosophy or values.
I think "religions" require humans to serve some standard that is either a creed or that is supposed to be of fundamental importance.
Believing in "government" or following "social" values or the values of those around us in a community is not, imo, a fundamental principle. It would always be changing with the times, the people.....
Well, I thank you for sharing a well-thought out view.
Some can very well develop consistent principles of some moral character using elements of human philosophy or values.
I think "religions" require humans to serve some standard that is either a creed or that is supposed to be of fundamental importance.
Believing in "government" or following "social" values or the values of those around us in a community is not, imo, a fundamental principle. It would always be changing with the times, the people.....
Well, I thank you for sharing a well-thought out view.
I think that might be your misunderstanding of noo religious people. They are not basing their morals on the government or society. They are self establishing morals based off of life and happiness for themselves and their fellow man.
Religious people are blindly following a set of rules on the belief it will lead them to happiness in the next life.
Non religious people don't have a set of rules that they need to follow and think everyone else should follow. This leads to being kinder to your fellow man in general and kinder for a reason beyond following rules. Obviously there are a large amount of variables within every individual.