Christianity

[tillingborn]

I thought I grant myself a license with words, but seeing as you've put "reasoning abilities" on your license I've come to realise I am far too modest.

Which again shows the strength of your reasoning abilities.

Thank you.

Sadly, you are in no position to recognize them. Metaphorically speaking it would be like colorblind people recognizing colors...

You and your remarkable intellect:

...trust me. My IQ is above 170.

That is as real as your wife.

[Skepdick]

Which again shows the strength of your reasoning abilities.

Thank you.

Sadly, you are in no position to recognize them. Metaphorically speaking it would be like colorblind people recognizing colors...

You and your remarkable intellect:

...trust me. My IQ is above 170.

That is as real as your wife.

Shame. You cherry-picked all the wrong quotes, didn't you?

Where the "..." goes is where the context (and the joke was). Let me explain it to you: IQ is junk science. It's a meaningless number - a statistically unrigorous metric. But if you reject those preimises, and you accept the science then... you should totally bow down to my IQ. Which is actually above 170.

I mean, I know it doesn't measure intelligence, but if you think it does - that's good enough to appeal to its authority, right?

[tillingborn]

...IQ is junk science. It's a meaningless number - a statistically unrigorous metric. But if you reject those preimises, and you accept the science then... you should totally bow down to my IQ. Which is actually above 170.

Meaningless number or not, your IQ is not 170. Whatever you think of the metrics, you would not score much above 110.

[Skepdick]

...IQ is junk science. It's a meaningless number - a statistically unrigorous metric. But if you reject those preimises, and you accept the science then... you should totally bow down to my IQ. Which is actually above 170.

Meaningless number or not, your IQ is not 170. Whatever you think of the metrics, you would not score much above 110.

Shame. You are calling it a metric

Open Google. Type "test-retest correlation". When you understand what that is try to figure out why the test-retest variance on IQ is around 20 points.

Imagine a weight scale varied by 20kg on successful measurements. I wouldn't call that a "metric"...

[tillingborn]

Open Google. Type "test-retest correlation". When you understand what that is try to figure out why the test-retest variance on IQ is up to 20 points.

So that's a range of 90 to 130. Where do get the other 40 from?

[Skepdick]

Open Google. Type "test-retest correlation". When you understand what that is try to figure out why the test-retest variance on IQ is up to 20 points.

So that's a range of 90 to 130. Where do get the other 40 from?

Shame, is that what you scored on the meaningless test?

Don't worry - it doesn't mean you are stupid. I mean you aren't very smart, but it's not because your IQ is low.

[tillingborn]

I mean you aren't very smart, but it's not because your IQ is low.

You are reasonably bright. An IQ of 170 is an absurd claim. Like I said, about 110. You just need to get your rocks off.

[Skepdick]

I mean you aren't very smart, but it's not because your IQ is low.

You are reasonably bright. An IQ of 170 is an absurd claim. Like I said, about 110. You just need to get your rocks off.

Shame. You seem way more concerned about my IQ than I am.

Just pull a number out of a hat! Or I'll meet you half way if you want. How's 140?

[popeye1945]

A PISSING COMPETITION!!! lol!!

[iambiguous]

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/02/05 ... earthquake

Almost 3,000 buildings collapsed across Turkey alone after the initial quake, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said. At least 1,650 people died and 5,000 people were injured. “We do not know where the number of dead and injured can go,” he said.

In Syria, rescue workers used headlamps and flood lights to work throughout the night. More than 1,250 people were dead and thousands more injured across the country. Turkey also hosts 3.6 million Syrian refugees, the most in the world from that conflict, according to the U.N. refugee agency, which runs one of its largest operations from Gaziantep.

Another "act of God". The Sunni Muslim God by and large in Turkey.

Though it is also the Christian God.

[iambiguous]

When do I get the point-by-point, thoughtful analysis — with extended commentary in normal sized text — of what I wrote to you?!

When you come down out of the clouds.

Words to worlds, to quote you.

You’ve invented and attached a definition which dominates and determines your perception. You are stuck there (and dkip like a broken record).

The needed work is yours here. Change the ‘word’ and see differently.

Makes sense, yes?

Absolutely shameless!!

You know, "theoretically".

[Lacewing]

Uh oh... I'm feeling compelled to respond to you again. It will be fun, but I hope I don't regret it.

The thing is -- I think this is true for everyone but some are less conscious of it -- is that we seek opposition, we even seek impassable conflict, and seem to relish it when it is found. I've wondered why this is.

I don't think that is true for everyone. There are many vastly different personality types and ways of being. Does it make you feel more justified to apply your own inclination to everyone? Or is this just more of your need to define and say you know?

Sometimes I've thought that *conflict keeps us alive*. If people, if we, did not have something to adamantly oppose we'd not be able to define ourselves, and what is more like death than not having a self-definition?

Isn't it true that all kinds of things keep us alive and engaged, and 'self-identification' is more important for some people than others.

What is your need/reason for making such sweeping statements? Are you afraid of diversity? Are you afraid of limitless potential?

Personally, my ideal is not so much 'discussion' because, let's be honest, no one can agree with any other one. Isn't that peculiar?

What's peculiar is that you think that. The fact that people might not agree with you is not because people cannot agree.

Immanuel needs to oppose us (the majority of those who oppose him) in a proportional degree as we need him to mount our oppositions! There is a curious symbiosis.

To me it looks like the natural process of evolving: questioning and challenging the controlling beliefs/claims which don't make sense. It is interesting and entertaining to engage in at times.

But then What sort of god can be said to 'exist' since the Christian god is absurd through and through?

Well, ANY can be said to exist... but what's the point? Isn't it acceptable to allow there to be 'none' that could matter in any way to us?

I think it's more compelling to consider the possibility of our own 'agreement' to be here. Even as challenging as it might be -- on some level, it might be serving us or something in a useful way, so perhaps we might as well make the best of it, instead of fighting against it.

But nevertheless none of this actually gets to the heart of the issue: How can existence exist?

What difference does it make for how we live each moment? We exist... done! Now what? Do we need to claim to know the unknowable? That framework that we want to know is limited to our human/physical understanding. Doesn't it make more sense that our framework is not even the same language or vibration of that which we want to claim to know? Do we seek to claim such knowing as a way to ignore/neglect the capability we have for designing our own lives? In other words, we can't be bothered with the responsibility for what we create of ourselves because we're busy thinking about bigger and more important things. Hobnobbing with gods, we can imagine we have their approval.

In the conversation [sic] between Tillingborn and IC -- in my own view of course -- both totally miss the mark. Nothing even remotely *productive* (intellectually) came from it nor was any productivity ever intended! The conversation was doomed even before it began. Now isn't that a wee bit curious?

It's a dance. Probably no need to try to figure it out.

Once one moves over 'established frontiers' (idea limits) one heads into territory that has been established as 'extremely fraught' and which immediately places you in trouble. And what I have found is that in those places and zones where such discussion and conversations do go on, that they also become 'pathological'. So it seems to me that it is pathology that must become the topic.

That is the adventure you are enthralled with.

If I were to make a general statement that seems true...

You generally do...

Curiously, and in a related sense (and here I refer to these pages, these conversations [sic], each opinionator is presenting his or her own version of therapy.

It's not curious at all... you were bound to interject it so you could oppose it.

Take Lacewing. If only man's ego was not so present we could all realize our 'cosmic' potential, and woe to anyone whose 'ego' is manifest.

So, this is your way of avoiding inconvenient points: distort and minimalize. Surely you are aware of the destructive results of 'other' men with bloated egos who only see and push their own beliefs. The fact that I am accusing you of it, somehow causes you to discard its validity all together. Now that's curious!

Underneath it there is a definite therapeutic recommendation. It is the 'moral force' of her condemnations that invoke my interest. These attitudes are very common today, in one form or another.

You, yourself, project plenty of that! I suppose we're all trying to offer 'corrections' to the massive ship of humankind moving through waters of fathomless depths. Some might take that more seriously than others. I think it's fine that we're all doing what we're doing on that fathomless scale. This forum is a down-to-Earth place to challenge ideas and claims and attitudes on the movie screen of this moment. I think it helps us evolve our mastery within life... moment by moment. I'm not aiming for some definitive ideal/structure. For me, it's a dance... in motion. And we all have many sides we can bring forth on this stage.

So in this sense 'certain ideas' show up when people indicate what has them in their grip.

Can you see how that applies to you?

My view at this point is that one can only step back and watch as the ship wrecks; as the train-wreck unfolds -- because we can actually watch it in slow-motion as it all takes place. I mean on the larger economic-political stage but then on the microcosmic stage of personal melt-down. To 'get involved' draws one into the realm of social pathology and then 'objectivity' is quickly lost. . .

Well, I agree that we can't control the ship or the train. Further, perhaps it is not our job to. Who are we to understand what purpose it all serves: if we apply our limited physical logic to it, we're just making up beliefs to try and comfort ourselves or feel like we know something (which we then hold over other people). However, we have all of this capability (for a limited time) in our sensory human packages to act out on this stage, create art, make love and music, dance, and explore this Earth garden... it's fantastic!

Surely our love, delight, hate, gloom... all add energy to the mix. I'm more interested in the energy that is generated and contributed because I think the energy is driving the creation/manifestation. Structures are a frame for the essence to dance within. We human beings seem to worship structures and forget the greater power of our energy/essence.

[Alexis Jacobi]

…

None of this matters now!

[Dubious]

I didn't ask to be thrown into the dumpster of a world he created for what reason no one can understand. I've endured his shit fest. He wants my worship and appreciation, he'll need to earn it. Sorry.

He's welcome to end my life at any time he so chooses. Just let me die in my sleep. It'll be an improvement over this world. I don't want to see him in "heaven" either.

God didn't create this dumpster of a world. It's humans who have made this world into a dump. It was the planet and only that which literally created ALL life through billions of years and look what we're doing to it! Look at the oceans and how we created whole islands of plastic in it. What kind of filthy species does that kind of crap?

Did god, existing or not, create these conditions? Did god force so many millions of people starting from birth into lifelong misery if they didn't already die in childhood through disease and starvation? NO! We and only we are the fuckers who are solely responsible for the condition we're in. God is only that which some, like you, would like to impeach for something it never caused and could never have been the cause of.

That you cast the blame away from what is actually responsible is nauseating! Though nature too can appear more often like a mean witch rather than some kindly mother, there is nothing of the inherent malice in it you continuously impugn to god as if it were the ultimate of personal insults. Most of what you despise was engineered by humans.

Keep your childish tantrums and contempt where contempt is due. I figure you're old enough!

If you want to blame humans for the messed up world we live in, then be sure to keep 4 of those fingers pointed at yourself. We've tried to make it better. But it won't get better. We're trying alternative fuel sources but they're not working. Plastic is here because once upon a time it was thought it would make a better life for everyone. It hasn't. Like everything else we try, it has done more harm than good. That's not the fault of humans. That's the fault of the way the world is. The only thing that will make the world a better place is for people to stop having so many babies. But even that would backfire because it would basically hand the world over to those who are willing to produce more babies to have bigger armies.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

So whatever we do is predetermined to fail because that's the way the world is and how god from the beginning predetermined it to be. I can now understand why you hate the old ogre so much. He sabotaged us from the very start, while we poor bastards are left to do the best we can. Our existence here is indeed an exercise in futility and all we are really left with is a comedy of errors called philosophy which questions everything and accomplishes nothing. Maybe god ordered it that way for entertainment purposes!

Sounds reasonable!

BTW it's not 'bigger armies' that are going to win wars in the future but the more advanced technologies. Producing more babies is a specialty of the 3rd world which will only create more refugees forcing themselves into Europe and North America. None of them will want to go to Russia or China and the Japanese won't let them in, alas!

[Gary Childress]

God didn't create this dumpster of a world. It's humans who have made this world into a dump. It was the planet and only that which literally created ALL life through billions of years and look what we're doing to it! Look at the oceans and how we created whole islands of plastic in it. What kind of filthy species does that kind of crap?

Did god, existing or not, create these conditions? Did god force so many millions of people starting from birth into lifelong misery if they didn't already die in childhood through disease and starvation? NO! We and only we are the fuckers who are solely responsible for the condition we're in. God is only that which some, like you, would like to impeach for something it never caused and could never have been the cause of.

That you cast the blame away from what is actually responsible is nauseating! Though nature too can appear more often like a mean witch rather than some kindly mother, there is nothing of the inherent malice in it you continuously impugn to god as if it were the ultimate of personal insults. Most of what you despise was engineered by humans.

Keep your childish tantrums and contempt where contempt is due. I figure you're old enough!

If you want to blame humans for the messed up world we live in, then be sure to keep 4 of those fingers pointed at yourself. We've tried to make it better. But it won't get better. We're trying alternative fuel sources but they're not working. Plastic is here because once upon a time it was thought it would make a better life for everyone. It hasn't. Like everything else we try, it has done more harm than good. That's not the fault of humans. That's the fault of the way the world is. The only thing that will make the world a better place is for people to stop having so many babies. But even that would backfire because it would basically hand the world over to those who are willing to produce more babies to have bigger armies.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

So whatever we do is predetermined to fail because that's the way the world is and how god from the beginning predetermined it to be. I can now understand why you hate the old ogre so much. He sabotaged us from the very start, while we poor bastards are left to do the best we can. Our existence here is indeed an exercise in futility and all we are really left with is a comedy of errors called philosophy which questions everything and accomplishes nothing. Maybe god ordered it that way for entertainment purposes!

Sounds like you understand my point of view now.

BTW it's not 'bigger armies' that are going to win wars in the future but the more advanced technologies. Producing more babies is a specialty of the 3rd world which will only create more refugees forcing themselves into Europe and North America. None of them will want to go to Russia or China and the Japanese won't let them in, alas!

China has a large army. I believe it used its plentiful manpower to its advantage to bring about stalemate in the Korean war against a then very powerful US military, fresh out of WW2 with a lot of 1st rate weaponry. India has a lot of bodies to mobilize too. Unless the US were to resort to the wholesale murder of human beings once again (as we did in WW2 and Vietnam), we would probably lose against such large armies. Also there's the issue of replenishing population so that it can support ever growing, older generations. There are no easy solutions to anything. We try socialism to empower workers and it leads to many abuses of power on the part of leadership.

Have you ever given a homeless person a dollar hoping to help them out only to have them blow it on street drugs? Have you noticed that the drugs on the street are more desirable than most of the ones doctors prescribe to the severely depressed? There are no answers. Just more problems.