| Re: Predicting the future in five years as seen from 1983 [message #363773 is a reply to message #360036] |
Sat, 17 February 2018 13:48   |
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Originally posted by: J. Clarke
On Sat, 17 Feb 2018 12:30:25 -0600, Dave Garland
<dave.garland@wizinfo.com> wrote:
> On 2/17/2018 11:04 AM, JimP wrote:
>> On Sat, 17 Feb 2018 07:59:50 -0700, Peter Flass
>> <peter_flass@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>>> <mausg@mail.com> wrote:
>
>>>>
>>>> (I am still getting my head about some people having to have a
>>>> licence of have and use a competer. is everyone mad?")
>>>>
>>>
>>> ??
>>
>> Its not a license to use a computer. All legally purchased software,
>> including an operating system like Windows, has a license key. Without
>> it, the software, including Windows, was obtained illegally.
>>
> For certain values of "legal". It's probably not a violation of any
> law (in the US, dunno about Ireland), but rather an infringement of
> copyright. Likely a matter for civil rather than criminal courts.
In the US copyright infringement is a Federal crime which, depending
on the details of the offense, can lead to up to 10 years in prison.
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| Re: Predicting the future in five years as seen from 1983 [message #363774 is a reply to message #363763] |
Sat, 17 February 2018 13:50 |
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Originally posted by: J. Clarke
On Sat, 17 Feb 2018 10:47:49 -0700, Peter Flass
<peter_flass@yahoo.com> wrote:
> J. Clarke <jclarke.873638@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Sat, 17 Feb 2018 15:07:09 +0000, Gareth's Downstairs Computer
>> <headstone255.but.not.these.five.words@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>>> On 17/02/2018 14:51, J. Clarke wrote:
>>>> On Sat, 17 Feb 2018 13:26:19 +0000, Gareth's Downstairs Computer
>>>> <headstone255.but.not.these.five.words@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> > On 17/02/2018 13:01, J. Clarke wrote:
>>>> >>
>>>> >> Still evading. I predicted that your reaction to mention of Stalin
>>>> >> would be to foam at the mouth, stick your fingers in your ears, and go
>>>> >> La La La. Thank you for being so predictable.
>>>> >
>>>> > Once again the resort of the presumed religionist is emotional
>>>> > maladjustment.
>>>>
>>>> Still evading Stalin.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Grow up, sonny.
>>
>> Still evading. However you have in an earlier post asserted that you
>> have no beliefs, which marks you as either lying or deluded, so I'm
>> done with you.
>>
>
> Being agnostic would be "having no beliefs."
However he has clearly stated that certain things are true, ergo he
has beliefs.
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| Re: Predicting the future in five years as seen from 1983 [message #363777 is a reply to message #363763] |
Sat, 17 February 2018 13:56 |
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Originally posted by: JimP
On Sat, 17 Feb 2018 10:47:49 -0700, Peter Flass
<peter_flass@yahoo.com> wrote:
> J. Clarke <jclarke.873638@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Sat, 17 Feb 2018 15:07:09 +0000, Gareth's Downstairs Computer
>> <headstone255.but.not.these.five.words@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>>> On 17/02/2018 14:51, J. Clarke wrote:
>>>> On Sat, 17 Feb 2018 13:26:19 +0000, Gareth's Downstairs Computer
>>>> <headstone255.but.not.these.five.words@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> > On 17/02/2018 13:01, J. Clarke wrote:
>>>> >>
>>>> >> Still evading. I predicted that your reaction to mention of Stalin
>>>> >> would be to foam at the mouth, stick your fingers in your ears, and go
>>>> >> La La La. Thank you for being so predictable.
>>>> >
>>>> > Once again the resort of the presumed religionist is emotional
>>>> > maladjustment.
>>>>
>>>> Still evading Stalin.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Grow up, sonny.
>>
>> Still evading. However you have in an earlier post asserted that you
>> have no beliefs, which marks you as either lying or deluded, so I'm
>> done with you.
>>
>
> Being agnostic would be "having no beliefs."
Au contraire.
Atheist is not believing in a supreme being. Being agnostic is not
believing until evidence.
The scenarion I was told best describes it, to me, is this.
An agnostic and an atheist is sitting by the bank of the sea of reeds
when Moses and the Israelites walk by. Moses parts the water. The
atheist asks, 'where are the mirrors and wind machines ?'. An agnostic
says, 'I believe now Oh Lord ! I will follow them into the Promised
Land !'.
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| Re: Predicting the future in five years as seen from 1983 [message #363778 is a reply to message #363764] |
Sat, 17 February 2018 13:57 |
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Originally posted by: JimP
On Sat, 17 Feb 2018 10:47:50 -0700, Peter Flass
<peter_flass@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> wrote:
>> On Sat, 17 Feb 2018 07:45:11 -0500
>> Dan Espen <dan1espen@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> writes:
>>>
>>>> On Fri, 16 Feb 2018 14:04:53 -0500
>>>> Dan Espen <dan1espen@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> > Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> writes:
>>>> >
>>>> >> Science relies on a number of unprovable assumptions, not
>>>> >> least of which is that the universe is self consistent.
>>>> >
>>>> > Actually science includes the possibility that the universe is not self
>>>> > consistent.
>>>>
>>>> Erm no, science assumes that results are repeatable, without
>>>> self consistency that cannot be assumed.
>>>
>>> Yet scientists are aware that physical laws may not be consistent
>>> through space and time and look for indications that that may be the
>>> case.
>>
>> Erm no, science assumes that physical laws are the same everywhere
>> and at all times. Scientists look hard for things that don't seem to match
>> our current set of models, ie. indications that our models are wrong (we
>> know they're wrong because we have too many and they contradict each other
>> in places), in order to improve those models.
>>
>
> They're certainly finding a number of interesting anomalies lately.
> Quantum entanglement is old news, but apparently there's now some evidence
> suggesting a fourth spatial dimension.
Some research, no links sorry, show pixels are certain long off
distances and small areas.
And some 'event's look more like software hiccups, than some science
happning.
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| Re: Predicting the future in five years as seen from 1983 [message #363779 is a reply to message #363769] |
Sat, 17 February 2018 13:58 |
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Originally posted by: JimP
On 17 Feb 2018 18:30:12 GMT, mausg@mail.com wrote:
> On 2018-02-17, JimP <solosam90@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Sat, 17 Feb 2018 07:59:50 -0700, Peter Flass
>> <peter_flass@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>>> <mausg@mail.com> wrote:
>>>> On 2018-02-17, J Clarke <jclarke.873638@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> > On 17 Feb 2018 08:50:40 GMT, mausg@mail.com wrote:
>>>> >
>>>> >> On 2018-02-16, Dave Garland <dave.garland@wizinfo.com> wrote:
>>>> >>> On 2/16/2018 10:36 AM, maus wrote:
>>>> >>
>>>> >> Well, as they are all imaginary anyway, does it matter? As a man said
>>>> >> to me once, its all a little game in your head.
>>>> >
>>>> > So you know with certainty that they are all imaginary? How do you
>>>> > know that with certainty?
>>>>
>>>> I think that we can not know anything with real certainty, but
>>>> shouldbe sceptical about everything.
>>>>
>>>> All Cretans may not be liars.
>>>>
>>>> (I am still getting my head about some people having to have a
>>>> licence of have and use a competer. is everyone mad?")
>>>>
>>>
>>> ??
>>
>> Its not a license to use a computer. All legally purchased software,
>> including an operating system like Windows, has a license key. Without
>> it, the software, including Windows, was obtained illegally.
>
>
> Even Linux?
Note I did say Windows.
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| Re: Predicting the future in five years as seen from 1983 [message #363780 is a reply to message #363769] |
Sat, 17 February 2018 14:01 |
pechter
Messages: 452
Registered: July 2012
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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In article <slrnp8gt5k.1b7.mausg@smaus.org>, <mausg@mail.com> wrote:
> On 2018-02-17, JimP <solosam90@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Sat, 17 Feb 2018 07:59:50 -0700, Peter Flass
>> <peter_flass@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>>> <mausg@mail.com> wrote:
>>>> On 2018-02-17, J Clarke <jclarke.873638@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> > On 17 Feb 2018 08:50:40 GMT, mausg@mail.com wrote:
>>>> >
>>>> >> On 2018-02-16, Dave Garland
> <dave.garland@wizinfo.com> wrote:
>>>> >>> On 2/16/2018 10:36 AM, maus wrote:
>>>> >>
>>>> >> Well, as they are all imaginary anyway, does it
> matter? As a man said
>>>> >> to me once, its all a little game in your head.
>>>> >
>>>> > So you know with certainty that they are all
> imaginary? How do you
>>>> > know that with certainty?
>>>>
>>>> I think that we can not know anything with real
> certainty, but
>>>> shouldbe sceptical about everything.
>>>>
>>>> All Cretans may not be liars.
>>>>
>>>> (I am still getting my head about some people
> having to have a
>>>> licence of have and use a competer. is everyone mad?")
>>>>
>>>
>>> ??
>>
>> Its not a license to use a computer. All legally
> purchased software,
>> including an operating system like Windows, has a
> license key. Without
>> it, the software, including Windows, was obtained illegally.
>
>
> Even Linux?
>
> --
> greymaus.ireland.ie
> Just_Another_Grumpy_Old_Man
Yup... If it is a commercial product there's a license. RHEL
requires a license as does SUSE.
Sometimes the license requires a paid support contract.
Sometimes the license is GPL or BSD with special
redistribution requirements.
Only public domain stuff has NO restrictions by definition.
Bill
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| Re: Predicting the future in five years as seen from 1983 [message #363781 is a reply to message #363780] |
Sat, 17 February 2018 14:12 |
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Originally posted by: J. Clarke
On Sat, 17 Feb 2018 19:01:52 -0000 (UTC),
pechter@lakewoodmicro-fbsd-tor1-01.lakewoodmicro.com (William Pechter)
wrote:
> In article <slrnp8gt5k.1b7.mausg@smaus.org>, <mausg@mail.com> wrote:
>> On 2018-02-17, JimP <solosam90@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> On Sat, 17 Feb 2018 07:59:50 -0700, Peter Flass
>>> <peter_flass@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> <mausg@mail.com> wrote:
>>>> > On 2018-02-17, J Clarke <jclarke.873638@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> >> On 17 Feb 2018 08:50:40 GMT, mausg@mail.com wrote:
>>>> >>
>>>> >>> On 2018-02-16, Dave Garland
>> <dave.garland@wizinfo.com> wrote:
>>>> >>>> On 2/16/2018 10:36 AM, maus wrote:
>>>> >>>
>>>> >>> Well, as they are all imaginary anyway, does it
>> matter? As a man said
>>>> >>> to me once, its all a little game in your head.
>>>> >>
>>>> >> So you know with certainty that they are all
>> imaginary? How do you
>>>> >> know that with certainty?
>>>> >
>>>> > I think that we can not know anything with real
>> certainty, but
>>>> > shouldbe sceptical about everything.
>>>> >
>>>> > All Cretans may not be liars.
>>>> >
>>>> > (I am still getting my head about some people
>> having to have a
>>>> > licence of have and use a competer. is everyone mad?")
>>>> >
>>>>
>>>> ??
>>>
>>> Its not a license to use a computer. All legally
>> purchased software,
>>> including an operating system like Windows, has a
>> license key. Without
>>> it, the software, including Windows, was obtained illegally.
>>
>>
>> Even Linux?
>>
>> --
>> greymaus.ireland.ie
>> Just_Another_Grumpy_Old_Man
>
> Yup... If it is a commercial product there's a license. RHEL
> requires a license as does SUSE.
>
> Sometimes the license requires a paid support contract.
>
> Sometimes the license is GPL or BSD with special
> redistribution requirements.
So show us an example of a GPL license _key_.
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| Re: Predicting the future in five years as seen from 1983 [message #363783 is a reply to message #363782] |
Sat, 17 February 2018 15:29 |
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Originally posted by: JimP
On Sat, 17 Feb 2018 19:37:33 +0000, Gareth's Downstairs Computer
<headstone255.but.not.these.five.words@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On 17/02/2018 18:52, JimP wrote:
>> On Sat, 17 Feb 2018 17:44:01 +0000, Gareth's Downstairs Computer
>> <headstone255.but.not.these.five.words@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>>> On 17/02/2018 17:39, Peter Flass wrote:
>>>> NOT believing in God(s) is a belief,
>>>
>>> A bit of a contradiction in that statement
>>
>> Nope, sorry, no can do.
>>
>> Just like saying you wont make a decision on something. Its a decision
>> to not make a decision.
>>
>
> Absence of belief is not a belief. It is a neutral state.
Believe what you want, a lack of belief is still a belief that nothing
is out there as a Supreme Being.
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| Re: Predicting the future in five years as seen from 1983 [message #363790 is a reply to message #363781] |
Sat, 17 February 2018 15:43 |
pechter
Messages: 452
Registered: July 2012
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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In article <cjvg8dt6h33qnndhsu5ictm7iqponk8fm3@4ax.com>,
J. Clarke <jclarke.873638@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, 17 Feb 2018 19:01:52 -0000 (UTC),
> pechter@lakewoodmicro-fbsd-tor1-01.lakewoodmicro.com (William Pechter)
> wrote:
>
>> In article <slrnp8gt5k.1b7.mausg@smaus.org>, <mausg@mail.com> wrote:
>>> On 2018-02-17, JimP <solosam90@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> On Sat, 17 Feb 2018 07:59:50 -0700, Peter Flass
>>>> <peter_flass@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> ><mausg@mail.com> wrote:
>>>> >> On 2018-02-17, J Clarke <jclarke.873638@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> >>> On 17 Feb 2018 08:50:40 GMT, mausg@mail.com wrote:
>>>> >>>
>>>> >>>> On 2018-02-16, Dave Garland
>>> <dave.garland@wizinfo.com> wrote:
>>>> >>>>> On 2/16/2018 10:36 AM, maus wrote:
>>>> >>>>
>>>> >>>> Well, as they are all imaginary anyway, does it
>>> matter? As a man said
>>>> >>>> to me once, its all a little game in your head.
>>>> >>>
>>>> >>> So you know with certainty that they are all
>>> imaginary? How do you
>>>> >>> know that with certainty?
>>>> >>
>>>> >> I think that we can not know anything with real
>>> certainty, but
>>>> >> shouldbe sceptical about everything.
>>>> >>
>>>> >> All Cretans may not be liars.
>>>> >>
>>>> >> (I am still getting my head about some people
>>> having to have a
>>>> >> licence of have and use a competer. is everyone mad?")
>>>> >>
>>>> >
>>>> >??
>>>>
>>>> Its not a license to use a computer. All legally
>>> purchased software,
>>>> including an operating system like Windows, has a
>>> license key. Without
>>>> it, the software, including Windows, was obtained illegally.
>>>
>>>
>>> Even Linux?
>>>
>>> --
>>> greymaus.ireland.ie
>>> Just_Another_Grumpy_Old_Man
>>
>> Yup... If it is a commercial product there's a license. RHEL
>> requires a license as does SUSE.
>>
>> Sometimes the license requires a paid support contract.
>>
>> Sometimes the license is GPL or BSD with special
>> redistribution requirements.
>
> So show us an example of a GPL license _key_.
OK... no key... just a license...
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| Re: Predicting the future in five years as seen from 1983 [message #363791 is a reply to message #363783] |
Sat, 17 February 2018 15:47 |
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Originally posted by: Gareth's Downstairs Computer
On 17/02/2018 20:29, JimP wrote:
> On Sat, 17 Feb 2018 19:37:33 +0000, Gareth's Downstairs Computer
> <headstone255.but.not.these.five.words@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> On 17/02/2018 18:52, JimP wrote:
>>> On Sat, 17 Feb 2018 17:44:01 +0000, Gareth's Downstairs Computer
>>> <headstone255.but.not.these.five.words@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> On 17/02/2018 17:39, Peter Flass wrote:
>>>> > NOT believing in God(s) is a belief,
>>>>
>>>> A bit of a contradiction in that statement
>>>
>>> Nope, sorry, no can do.
>>>
>>> Just like saying you wont make a decision on something. Its a decision
>>> to not make a decision.
>>>
>>
>> Absence of belief is not a belief. It is a neutral state.
>
> Believe what you want, a lack of belief is still a belief that nothing
> is out there as a Supreme Being.
>
Not at all, for if someone cups up with palpable nonsense you
dismiss out of hand and get on with your life.
There seems to be equivocation by the religionists around here
on the use of the word belief.
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| Re: Predicting the future in five years as seen from 1983 [message #363793 is a reply to message #363733] |
Sat, 17 February 2018 16:07 |
Mike Spencer
Messages: 997
Registered: January 2012
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> writes:
> Gareth's Downstairs Computer wrote:
>
>> Certifiable loonies? Certianly, for if I were to go around claiming
>> that an invisible green parrot sits on my shoulders telling me what
>> to do, I'd very soon get hauled off by the men in white coats;
>> especially if I was also tramping the streets to persuade others of
>> its existence.
>
> Wow! Not resorting to personal insults, those are the craziest few
> sentences I've ever read.
Jeez, guys, it's almost enough to to make one say, "Why should I
resist the Borg? Watch TV 30 hours a week, join Facebook, use MS
Windows -- and become a card-carrying post-modernist": "All truth is
socially determined." [1]
Religion gets a Get Out of Jail Free card. No matter how loony your
notions, the current interpretation of the 1st Amendment means that if
you can get your looniness officially recognized as "religion", it is,
at least in the US, somehow not looniness. The religions existing
before Amendment 1 are grandfathered. While that doesn't precisely
constitute social determination of truth, doesn't establish any
religion as truth, but it certifies a loophole for truth being
anything you want it to be.
As for Stalin, it's a little hard to say in retrospect. I doubt that
Stalin, who is widely understood to have been crazy as a sack of
assholes, had any reason for attacking religion other than that the
established Church was a reservoir of power in Russia, power that
didn't belong to Stalin. And God -- any god or notion of a god -- was
the recipient of loyalty that should belong to Stalin. Maybe someone
more knowledgeable than I can show that metaphysics played a role in
Stalin's program but AFAICT it was only his own demented self that
mattered.
As for "atheist" vs. "agnostic", I'm happy to stick with the
etymology: atheist = without (a) God; agnostic = without knowledge
(by implication, about God). Arguments attempting partition all those
who fail to express a belief in a cosmic supreme being into one or the
other category and delineate precisely how the metaphysics of the two
classes differ are hopeless excavations in a bottomless semantic can
of worms.
[1]
I did not write this work merely with the aim of setting the
exegetical record straight. My larger target is those
contemporaries who -- in repeated acts of wish-fulfillment -- have
appropriated conclusions from the philosophy of science and put
them to work in aid of a variety of social cum political causes
for which those conclusions are ill adapted. Feminists, religious
apologists (including ``creation scientists''),
counterculturalists, neoconservatives, and a host of other curious
fellow-travelers have claimed to find crucial grist for their
mills in, for instance, the avowed incommensurability and
underdetermination of scientific theories. The displacement of the
idea that facts and evidence matter by the idea that everything
boils down to subjective interests and perspectives is -- second
only to American political campaigns -- the most prominent and
pernicious manifestation of anti-intellectualism in our time.
-- Larry Laudan, Science and Relativism
Quoted by Alan Sokal in:
http://physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/afterword_v1a/afterword _v1a.html
--
Mike Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada
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| Re: Predicting the future in five years as seen from 1983 [message #363794 is a reply to message #363791] |
Sat, 17 February 2018 16:08 |
Bill Findlay
Messages: 286
Registered: January 2012
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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On 17 Feb 2018, Gareth's Downstairs Computer wrote
(in article <p6a4du$8mu$4@dont-email.me>):
> On 17/02/2018 20:29, JimP wrote:
>> On Sat, 17 Feb 2018 19:37:33 +0000, Gareth's Downstairs Computer
>> <headstone255.but.not.these.five.words@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>>> On 17/02/2018 18:52, JimP wrote:
>>>> On Sat, 17 Feb 2018 17:44:01 +0000, Gareth's Downstairs Computer
>>>> <headstone255.but.not.these.five.words@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> > On 17/02/2018 17:39, Peter Flass wrote:
>>>> > > NOT believing in God(s) is a belief,
>>>> >
>>>> > A bit of a contradiction in that statement
>>>>
>>>> Nope, sorry, no can do.
>>>>
>>>> Just like saying you wont make a decision on something. Its a decision
>>>> to not make a decision.
Which is a decision about a completely different question.
If that is the limit of JimP's logic, it's no wonder he is confused about
atheism.
>>>
>>> Absence of belief is not a belief. It is a neutral state.
>>
>> Believe what you want, a lack of belief is still a belief that nothing
>> is out there as a Supreme Being.
>
> Not at all, for if someone cups up with palpable nonsense you
> dismiss out of hand and get on with your life.
>
> There seems to be equivocation by the religionists around here
> on the use of the word belief.
"Equivocation" is also known as "theology".
--
Bill Findlay
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| Re: Predicting the future in five years as seen from 1983 [message #363799 is a reply to message #363791] |
Sat, 17 February 2018 16:27 |
Ahem A Rivet's Shot
Messages: 4843
Registered: January 2012
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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On Sat, 17 Feb 2018 20:47:47 +0000
Gareth's Downstairs Computer
<headstone255.but.not.these.five.words@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On 17/02/2018 20:29, JimP wrote:
>> On Sat, 17 Feb 2018 19:37:33 +0000, Gareth's Downstairs Computer
>> <headstone255.but.not.these.five.words@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>>> On 17/02/2018 18:52, JimP wrote:
>>>> On Sat, 17 Feb 2018 17:44:01 +0000, Gareth's Downstairs Computer
>>>> <headstone255.but.not.these.five.words@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> > On 17/02/2018 17:39, Peter Flass wrote:
>>>> >> NOT believing in God(s) is a belief,
>>>> >
>>>> > A bit of a contradiction in that statement
>>>>
>>>> Nope, sorry, no can do.
>>>>
>>>> Just like saying you wont make a decision on something. Its a decision
>>>> to not make a decision.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Absence of belief is not a belief. It is a neutral state.
>>
>> Believe what you want, a lack of belief is still a belief that nothing
>> is out there as a Supreme Being.
>>
>
> Not at all, for if someone cups up with palpable nonsense you
> dismiss out of hand and get on with your life.
>
> There seems to be equivocation by the religionists around here
> on the use of the word belief.
OK first point I for one am not a religionist, I am one of those
who understands the difference between "I believe there is no god" (your
position) and "I have no beliefs regarding the existence of god(s)" (my
position FWIW).
--
Steve O'Hara-Smith | Directable Mirror Arrays
C:\>WIN | A better way to focus the sun
The computer obeys and wins. | licences available see
You lose and Bill collects. | http://www.sohara.org/
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| Re: Predicting the future in five years as seen from 1983 [message #363800 is a reply to message #363791] |
Sat, 17 February 2018 16:38 |
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Originally posted by: JimP
On Sat, 17 Feb 2018 20:47:47 +0000, Gareth's Downstairs Computer
<headstone255.but.not.these.five.words@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On 17/02/2018 20:29, JimP wrote:
>> On Sat, 17 Feb 2018 19:37:33 +0000, Gareth's Downstairs Computer
>> <headstone255.but.not.these.five.words@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>>> On 17/02/2018 18:52, JimP wrote:
>>>> On Sat, 17 Feb 2018 17:44:01 +0000, Gareth's Downstairs Computer
>>>> <headstone255.but.not.these.five.words@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> > On 17/02/2018 17:39, Peter Flass wrote:
>>>> >> NOT believing in God(s) is a belief,
>>>> >
>>>> > A bit of a contradiction in that statement
>>>>
>>>> Nope, sorry, no can do.
>>>>
>>>> Just like saying you wont make a decision on something. Its a decision
>>>> to not make a decision.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Absence of belief is not a belief. It is a neutral state.
>>
>> Believe what you want, a lack of belief is still a belief that nothing
>> is out there as a Supreme Being.
>>
>
> Not at all, for if someone cups up with palpable nonsense you
> dismiss out of hand and get on with your life.
>
> There seems to be equivocation by the religionists around here
> on the use of the word belief.
I'm not stating it from a religious point of view.
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| Re: Predicting the future in five years as seen from 1983 [message #363803 is a reply to message #360036] |
Sat, 17 February 2018 16:30 |
Ahem A Rivet's Shot
Messages: 4843
Registered: January 2012
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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On 17 Feb 2018 17:57:41 GMT
Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> wrote:
> You can sit next to the other guy in Logic 101. Come back when you
> pass, will you?
Consider the following two statements
"I believe there is no God"
"I have no beliefs regarding the existence or otherwise of God(s)"
The former is a statement of belief, the latter is a declaration of
the absence of belief. Believing something is not there is not the same as
not believing it is there.
Perhaps you should take Logic 101.
--
Steve O'Hara-Smith | Directable Mirror Arrays
C:\>WIN | A better way to focus the sun
The computer obeys and wins. | licences available see
You lose and Bill collects. | http://www.sohara.org/
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| Re: Predicting the future in five years as seen from 1983 [message #363804 is a reply to message #363753] |
Sat, 17 February 2018 16:35 |
Ahem A Rivet's Shot
Messages: 4843
Registered: January 2012
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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On Sat, 17 Feb 2018 11:04:39 -0600
JimP <solosam90@gmail.com> wrote:
> Its not a license to use a computer. All legally purchased software,
> including an operating system like Windows, has a license key.
That is certainly not true, I have had any number of legally
purchased pieces of software with no sign of a license key (Elite, MS-DOS,
PC-DOS, Smalltalk V/286 spring to mind). If we extend "legally purchased"
to "legally obtained" then we can add FreeBSD and several hundred odds and
ends from the ports (like Firefox, Sylpheed, Xorg ...) to the list of
software with no license key.
--
Steve O'Hara-Smith | Directable Mirror Arrays
C:\>WIN | A better way to focus the sun
The computer obeys and wins. | licences available see
You lose and Bill collects. | http://www.sohara.org/
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| Re: Predicting the future in five years as seen from 1983 [message #363810 is a reply to message #363803] |
Sat, 17 February 2018 17:50 |
Anne & Lynn Wheel
Messages: 3156
Registered: January 2012
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> writes:
> Consider the following two statements
>
> "I believe there is no God"
>
> "I have no beliefs regarding the existence or otherwise of God(s)"
agnostic can have no belief on the subject
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/agnostic
1 : a person who holds the view that any ultimate reality (such as God)
is unknown and probably unknowable; broadly : one who is not committed
to believing in either the existence or the nonexistence of God or a god
2 : a person who is unwilling to commit to an opinion about something
political agnostics
.... snip ...
there is also discussion of 2-value logic and what to do by nulls. I
had worked on the original sql/relational implementation, System/R ...
some past posts
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#systemr
then got dragged into helping with another kind of relational
implementation ... that had query language that implemented 3-value
logic ... to address some of the problems with SQL 2-value logic
old post on 2/3 value logic comparison
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003g.html#40 How to cope with missing values - NULLS?
SQL:
True
Unknown
False
and T U F or T U F not
----------------- ---------------- --------
T T U F T T T T T F
U U U F U T U U U U
F F F F F F U F F T
An alternative 3-value logic:
Logic:
Lo Falsity. The stated objective was not met
DontCare Don't Care The stated objective may have been met
Hi Truth The stated objective was met
and Hi DC Lo or Hi DC Lo not
------------------ ----------------- ---------
Hi Hi Hi* Lo Hi Hi Hi Hi Hi Lo
DC Hi* DC Lo DC Hi DC Lo* DC DC
Lo Lo Lo Lo Lo Hi Lo* Lo Lo Hi
* difference in logic operation results compared to SQL.
.... snip ...
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| Re: Predicting the future in five years as seen from 1983 [message #363812 is a reply to message #363793] |
Sat, 17 February 2018 17:52 |
Peter Flass
Messages: 8375
Registered: December 2011
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> wrote:
>
> Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> writes:
>
>> Gareth's Downstairs Computer wrote:
>>
>>> Certifiable loonies? Certianly, for if I were to go around claiming
>>> that an invisible green parrot sits on my shoulders telling me what
>>> to do, I'd very soon get hauled off by the men in white coats;
>>> especially if I was also tramping the streets to persuade others of
>>> its existence.
>>
>> Wow! Not resorting to personal insults, those are the craziest few
>> sentences I've ever read.
>
> Jeez, guys, it's almost enough to to make one say, "Why should I
> resist the Borg? Watch TV 30 hours a week, join Facebook, use MS
> Windows -- and become a card-carrying post-modernist": "All truth is
> socially determined." [1]
>
> Religion gets a Get Out of Jail Free card. No matter how loony your
> notions, the current interpretation of the 1st Amendment means that if
> you can get your looniness officially recognized as "religion", it is,
> at least in the US, somehow not looniness. The religions existing
> before Amendment 1 are grandfathered. While that doesn't precisely
> constitute social determination of truth, doesn't establish any
> religion as truth, but it certifies a loophole for truth being
> anything you want it to be.
>
> As for Stalin, it's a little hard to say in retrospect. I doubt that
> Stalin, who is widely understood to have been crazy as a sack of
> assholes, had any reason for attacking religion other than that the
> established Church was a reservoir of power in Russia, power that
> didn't belong to Stalin. And God -- any god or notion of a god -- was
> the recipient of loyalty that should belong to Stalin. Maybe someone
> more knowledgeable than I can show that metaphysics played a role in
> Stalin's program but AFAICT it was only his own demented self that
> mattered.
I'm nit sure how "Marxist" Uncle Joe actually was, but The Karl thought
that religion was a tool used by capitalists to keep the masses quiet, so
he thought it was an enemy of The Revolution.
--
Pete
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| Re: Predicting the future in five years as seen from 1983 [message #363813 is a reply to message #363778] |
Sat, 17 February 2018 17:52 |
Peter Flass
Messages: 8375
Registered: December 2011
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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JimP <solosam90@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, 17 Feb 2018 10:47:50 -0700, Peter Flass
> <peter_flass@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> wrote:
>>> On Sat, 17 Feb 2018 07:45:11 -0500
>>> Dan Espen <dan1espen@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> writes:
>>>>
>>>> > On Fri, 16 Feb 2018 14:04:53 -0500
>>>> > Dan Espen <dan1espen@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> >
>>>> >> Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> writes:
>>>> >>
>>>> >>> Science relies on a number of unprovable assumptions, not
>>>> >>> least of which is that the universe is self consistent.
>>>> >>
>>>> >> Actually science includes the possibility that the universe is not self
>>>> >> consistent.
>>>> >
>>>> > Erm no, science assumes that results are repeatable, without
>>>> > self consistency that cannot be assumed.
>>>>
>>>> Yet scientists are aware that physical laws may not be consistent
>>>> through space and time and look for indications that that may be the
>>>> case.
>>>
>>> Erm no, science assumes that physical laws are the same everywhere
>>> and at all times. Scientists look hard for things that don't seem to match
>>> our current set of models, ie. indications that our models are wrong (we
>>> know they're wrong because we have too many and they contradict each other
>>> in places), in order to improve those models.
>>>
>>
>> They're certainly finding a number of interesting anomalies lately.
>> Quantum entanglement is old news, but apparently there's now some evidence
>> suggesting a fourth spatial dimension.
>
> Some research, no links sorry, show pixels are certain long off
> distances and small areas.
>
> And some 'event's look more like software hiccups, than some science
> happning.
>
If true, though, it could have vast implications. A two-dimensional guy on
a piece of paper can get to the corresponding point on a the other side
only by walking over to one edge and then back. If he was able to move in
three dimensions he would only have to step thru. Now extrapolate to
three/four dimensions.
--
Pete
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| Re: Predicting the future in five years as seen from 1983 [message #363816 is a reply to message #363812] |
Sat, 17 February 2018 18:19 |
Mike Spencer
Messages: 997
Registered: January 2012
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> writes:
> I'm not sure how "Marxist" Uncle Joe actually was, but The Karl thought
> that religion was a tool used by capitalists to keep the masses quiet, so
> he thought it was an enemy of The Revolution.
Just so. Dedicated Marxists deprecate(d) religion because it was an
enemy of The Revolution. AFAIUI, Uncle Joe simply used that as his
doctrinaire justification for purging something that failed to glorify
Uncle Joe.
--
Mike Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada
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| Re: Predicting the future in five years as seen from 1983 [message #363819 is a reply to message #363812] |
Sat, 17 February 2018 20:26 |
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Originally posted by: J. Clarke
On Sat, 17 Feb 2018 15:52:56 -0700, Peter Flass
<peter_flass@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> wrote:
>>
>> Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> writes:
>>
>>> Gareth's Downstairs Computer wrote:
>>>
>>>> Certifiable loonies? Certianly, for if I were to go around claiming
>>>> that an invisible green parrot sits on my shoulders telling me what
>>>> to do, I'd very soon get hauled off by the men in white coats;
>>>> especially if I was also tramping the streets to persuade others of
>>>> its existence.
>>>
>>> Wow! Not resorting to personal insults, those are the craziest few
>>> sentences I've ever read.
>>
>> Jeez, guys, it's almost enough to to make one say, "Why should I
>> resist the Borg? Watch TV 30 hours a week, join Facebook, use MS
>> Windows -- and become a card-carrying post-modernist": "All truth is
>> socially determined." [1]
>>
>> Religion gets a Get Out of Jail Free card. No matter how loony your
>> notions, the current interpretation of the 1st Amendment means that if
>> you can get your looniness officially recognized as "religion", it is,
>> at least in the US, somehow not looniness. The religions existing
>> before Amendment 1 are grandfathered. While that doesn't precisely
>> constitute social determination of truth, doesn't establish any
>> religion as truth, but it certifies a loophole for truth being
>> anything you want it to be.
>>
>> As for Stalin, it's a little hard to say in retrospect. I doubt that
>> Stalin, who is widely understood to have been crazy as a sack of
>> assholes, had any reason for attacking religion other than that the
>> established Church was a reservoir of power in Russia, power that
>> didn't belong to Stalin. And God -- any god or notion of a god -- was
>> the recipient of loyalty that should belong to Stalin. Maybe someone
>> more knowledgeable than I can show that metaphysics played a role in
>> Stalin's program but AFAICT it was only his own demented self that
>> mattered.
>
> I'm nit sure how "Marxist" Uncle Joe actually was, but The Karl thought
> that religion was a tool used by capitalists to keep the masses quiet, so
> he thought it was an enemy of The Revolution.
In any case, it wasn't just Stalin. Execution of priests started
early, before Stalin came to power. Persecution of religion as a part
of the offiical party program was documented as early as 1919.
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| Re: Predicting the future in five years as seen from 1983 [message #363825 is a reply to message #363743] |
Sat, 17 February 2018 21:59 |
Quadibloc
Messages: 4399
Registered: June 2012
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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On Saturday, February 17, 2018 at 8:12:03 AM UTC-7, Gareth's Downstairs Computer wrote:
> On 17/02/2018 14:59, Peter Flass wrote:
>> Gareth's Downstairs Computer
>> <headstone255.but.not.these.five.words@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>> It is noticeable that you as a religionist are resorting to personal
>>> insults, whereas there is no malice involved in identifying religious
>>> people as certifiable loonies living in the world of make-believe,
>>> just as a psychiatrist bears no such malice in diagnosing his patients.
>>> ISTR that some children talk to an imaginary friemd and it is always
>>> staggering to find grown adults who still do.
>>> Certifiable loonies? Certianly, for if I were to go around claiming
>>> that an invisible green parrot sits on my shoulders telling me what
>>> to do, I'd very soon get hauled off by the men in white coats;
>>> especially if I was also tramping the streets to persuade others of
>>> its existence.
>> Wow! Not resorting to personal insults, those are the craziest few
>> sentences I've ever read.
> Except insofar as I refer to craziness, certifiable loonies, what do
> you find to be crazy?
I'm not going to claim that the quoted material I left untrimmed was _crazy_.
But I will claim that it is controversial, debatable, and flawed in at least
some points.
Obi-Wan Kenobi asked Han Solo: "Who is more foolish, the fool or the fool that
follows him?"... well, the world, in general, seems to have made up its mind on
an answer to that question.
A person who claims that there is an invisible green parrot sitting on his
shoulder... is not likely to be doing so because he was told by his parents as a
child that this parrot is there, this teaching being reinforced by attending
services each Thursday at The Church of the Invisible Green Parrot.
Instead, therefore, it is reasonable to suspect that he came to that conclusion
because he believes he has seen, heard, or otherwise directly experienced that
parrot himself. Now, having hallucinations and delusions is a relatively
uncommon condition, and it tends to interfere with a person's ability to
function in society, and so we do tend to deal with the few who have those
conditions.
Those who, on the other hand, follow one of the major traditional religions -
are not strange or unusual. They represent a pretty large majority of the human
race. So, even if their beliefs are highly dubious, they're not the product of
mental illness on their own part.
On their own part.
The ancient Greeks called epilepsy "the sacred malady", because they believed
that an epileptic seizure was the product of the Gods touching a person.
To use my characterization of your invisible green parrot example:
Muhammad claimed to have encountered an angel that read the Koran to him.
Abraham claimed to have seen the burning bush.
Louis Riel also claimed to have heard directly from an angel.
Ezekiel claimed to have a vision revealed to him.
But in the bygone day in which they lived, there weren't any padded cells to
haul them off to. Nor did people have the modern understanding of mental
illness.
When a child wakes up from a nightmare, parents are today advised to reassure
the child that dreams aren't real, so one doesn't have to be afraid of anything
that happens in them. In olden times, while people did manage to reconcile
themselves to live with bad dreams, they often thought of a dream as life in
another world, on another plane.
So the rigid demarcation between subjective reality inside people's heads and
objective reality in the material world is a recent understanding.
Someone comes along with a vision from God... caused by paranoid scizophrenia,
perhaps, or some similar cause... but he is sincere, he is high-functioning
enough not to be viewed with contempt as a drooling idiot, and, in fact, not
only does he have a dynamic personality, but, energized by his delusion, he is
even *charismatic*... among poor and discouraged and desperate people, not
educated or even literate, well, it's not straining credibility that he might
acquire a following.
Another way in which religion might become the belief of grown men is this...
Parents tell children stories about the world, how it came to be, and so on,
because children are full of questions, and long ago parents didn't know about
the Sun shining because of hydrogen fusion, or self-replicating molecules
forming in a soup of ammonia and methane, or evolution by natural selection.
Why, they didn't even know about Rayleigh scattering, so how could they answer a
child who asked why the sky was blue?
Normally, as children grow up, they would learn that the fairy-tales of their
tribe were just stories, but then tell them in turn to their own children.
But sometimes it happened that one tribe would make war on another, and perhaps
take its children as slaves.
And if these children were able to escape after growing up, they might be
fiercely loyal to the ways of the tribe that they came from and which was
destroyed and which they would make rise again. Including the children's stories
that they were never told were stories by the parents they trusted.
So with these sorts of things happening in antiquity, it's not surprising that
religions existed... in antiquity.
The people who followed them weren't delusional or psychotic. They just didn't
properly make the distinction between the sort of thing that is reasonable
enough that one _can_ just accept it as true if the people around you tell it to
you (as opposed to _one_ person, who might be lying even about things that are
completely plausible) and other things that are so unlikely that they need hard
evidence, not just a general agreement that... happened without, at any stage,
there being presented adequate evidence for what people had come to believe.
John Savard
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| Re: Predicting the future in five years as seen from 1983 [message #363826 is a reply to message #363759] |
Sat, 17 February 2018 22:10 |
Quadibloc
Messages: 4399
Registered: June 2012
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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On Saturday, February 17, 2018 at 10:39:54 AM UTC-7, Peter Flass wrote:
> NOT believing in God(s) is a belief, the same as believing in him/them,
> since there's no scientific evidence either way.
In a sense, that's certainly true.
Even agnosticism can be a belief, since some agnostics believe that it is
impossible to know if there is a God, because they believe that, if there is a
God, for some reason He cannot choose to reveal Himself.
However, a Christian and an atheist alike, if confronted by someone who claims
that not only is there one God, but Muhammad is His Prophet, and the truth is
all there in the Quran... will reject that claim out of hand. The atheist...
merely finds the claims of Christianity comparable.
I think that there is clearly some sort of difference between accepting a
lengthy system of belief for no very good reason - and not doing so in any of
the offered cases, whether Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and
so on.
Atheism may be a belief, but it seems to be a belief that demands considerably
less credulity - or, to be frank, gullibility - on the part of those with that
belief than is required on the part of followers of any of the religions we see
about us.
And, while it's certainly true that even Yuri Gagarin didn't manage to ascend
into Heaven (the heavens aren't Heaven) to find that God was absent from His
Throne, and so one can't prove that there absolutely is no God...
how about the following belief - call it atheism or agnosticism, neither word is
quite the right one -
the belief that not a one of the world's existing religions shows any evidence
of having resulted on the basis of a genuine encounter between God and Man, or
of being anything other than a colossal monument to human folly?
I would say that *this* belief isn't just a belief based on blind irrational
faith, but instead is a quite reasonable conclusion from a mountain of
observational evidence.
John Savard
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| Re: Predicting the future in five years as seen from 1983 [message #363829 is a reply to message #363826] |
Sun, 18 February 2018 02:59 |
Ahem A Rivet's Shot
Messages: 4843
Registered: January 2012
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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On Sat, 17 Feb 2018 19:10:51 -0800 (PST)
Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
> the belief that not a one of the world's existing religions shows any
> evidence of having resulted on the basis of a genuine encounter between
> God and Man, or of being anything other than a colossal monument to human
> folly?
>
> I would say that *this* belief isn't just a belief based on blind
> irrational faith, but instead is a quite reasonable conclusion from a
> mountain of observational evidence.
I'm inclined to agree with that.
--
Steve O'Hara-Smith | Directable Mirror Arrays
C:\>WIN | A better way to focus the sun
The computer obeys and wins. | licences available see
You lose and Bill collects. | http://www.sohara.org/
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| Re: Predicting the future in five years as seen from 1983 [message #363830 is a reply to message #360036] |
Sun, 18 February 2018 02:55 |
Ahem A Rivet's Shot
Messages: 4843
Registered: January 2012
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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On Sat, 17 Feb 2018 22:55:24 -0600
Dave Garland <dave.garland@wizinfo.com> wrote:
> On 2/17/2018 3:27 PM, Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:
>
>> OK first point I for one am not a religionist, I am one of those
>> who understands the difference between "I believe there is no god" (your
>> position) and "I have no beliefs regarding the existence of god(s)" (my
>> position FWIW).
>>
> How does "I have seen no convincing evidence that there are god(s)"
> fit in?
It fits right in as a reason for believing there are no gods or as
a reason for not believing in one, it is not proof that there are no gods.
> Occam's Razor may be helpful here.
Yes it indicates that it is likely that there are no gods since
that is the simplest explanation.
--
Steve O'Hara-Smith | Directable Mirror Arrays
C:\>WIN | A better way to focus the sun
The computer obeys and wins. | licences available see
You lose and Bill collects. | http://www.sohara.org/
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| Re: Predicting the future in five years as seen from 1983 [message #363837 is a reply to message #363803] |
Sun, 18 February 2018 06:50 |
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Originally posted by: Gareth's Downstairs Computer
On 17/02/2018 21:30, Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:
> On 17 Feb 2018 17:57:41 GMT
> Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> wrote:
>
>
>> You can sit next to the other guy in Logic 101. Come back when you
>> pass, will you?
>
> Consider the following two statements
>
> "I believe there is no God"
>
> "I have no beliefs regarding the existence or otherwise of God(s)"
>
> The former is a statement of belief, the latter is a declaration of
> the absence of belief. Believing something is not there is not the same as
> not believing it is there.
>
> Perhaps you should take Logic 101.
>
The latter is where I am; the neutral state
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| Re: Predicting the future in five years as seen from 1983 [message #363838 is a reply to message #363837] |
Sun, 18 February 2018 07:49 |
Ahem A Rivet's Shot
Messages: 4843
Registered: January 2012
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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On Sun, 18 Feb 2018 11:50:57 +0000
Gareth's Downstairs Computer
<headstone255.but.not.these.five.words@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On 17/02/2018 21:30, Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:
>> On 17 Feb 2018 17:57:41 GMT
>> Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> wrote:
>>
>>
>>> You can sit next to the other guy in Logic 101. Come back when you
>>> pass, will you?
>>
>> Consider the following two statements
>>
>> "I believe there is no God"
>>
>> "I have no beliefs regarding the existence or otherwise of God
>> (s)"
>>
>> The former is a statement of belief, the latter is a
>> declaration of the absence of belief. Believing something is not there
>> is not the same as not believing it is there.
>>
>> Perhaps you should take Logic 101.
>>
>
> The latter is where I am; the neutral state
Many of your earlier statements have led me to the impression that
the former was your position.
--
Steve O'Hara-Smith | Directable Mirror Arrays
C:\>WIN | A better way to focus the sun
The computer obeys and wins. | licences available see
You lose and Bill collects. | http://www.sohara.org/
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| Re: Predicting the future in five years as seen from 1983 [message #363839 is a reply to message #363825] |
Sun, 18 February 2018 08:19 |
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Originally posted by: JimP
On Sat, 17 Feb 2018 18:59:51 -0800 (PST), Quadibloc
<jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
> On Saturday, February 17, 2018 at 8:12:03 AM UTC-7, Gareth's Downstairs Computer wrote:
>> On 17/02/2018 14:59, Peter Flass wrote:
>>> Gareth's Downstairs Computer
>>> <headstone255.but.not.these.five.words@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>>>> It is noticeable that you as a religionist are resorting to personal
>>>> insults, whereas there is no malice involved in identifying religious
>>>> people as certifiable loonies living in the world of make-believe,
>>>> just as a psychiatrist bears no such malice in diagnosing his patients.
>
>>>> ISTR that some children talk to an imaginary friemd and it is always
>>>> staggering to find grown adults who still do.
>
>>>> Certifiable loonies? Certianly, for if I were to go around claiming
>>>> that an invisible green parrot sits on my shoulders telling me what
>>>> to do, I'd very soon get hauled off by the men in white coats;
>>>> especially if I was also tramping the streets to persuade others of
>>>> its existence.
>
>>> Wow! Not resorting to personal insults, those are the craziest few
>>> sentences I've ever read.
>
>> Except insofar as I refer to craziness, certifiable loonies, what do
>> you find to be crazy?
>
> I'm not going to claim that the quoted material I left untrimmed was _crazy_.
> But I will claim that it is controversial, debatable, and flawed in at least
> some points.
>
> Obi-Wan Kenobi asked Han Solo: "Who is more foolish, the fool or the fool that
> follows him?"... well, the world, in general, seems to have made up its mind on
> an answer to that question.
>
> A person who claims that there is an invisible green parrot sitting on his
> shoulder... is not likely to be doing so because he was told by his parents as a
> child that this parrot is there, this teaching being reinforced by attending
> services each Thursday at The Church of the Invisible Green Parrot.
>
> Instead, therefore, it is reasonable to suspect that he came to that conclusion
> because he believes he has seen, heard, or otherwise directly experienced that
> parrot himself. Now, having hallucinations and delusions is a relatively
> uncommon condition, and it tends to interfere with a person's ability to
> function in society, and so we do tend to deal with the few who have those
> conditions.
>
> Those who, on the other hand, follow one of the major traditional religions -
> are not strange or unusual. They represent a pretty large majority of the human
> race. So, even if their beliefs are highly dubious, they're not the product of
> mental illness on their own part.
>
> On their own part.
>
> The ancient Greeks called epilepsy "the sacred malady", because they believed
> that an epileptic seizure was the product of the Gods touching a person.
>
> To use my characterization of your invisible green parrot example:
>
> Muhammad claimed to have encountered an angel that read the Koran to him.
>
> Abraham claimed to have seen the burning bush.
>
> Louis Riel also claimed to have heard directly from an angel.
>
> Ezekiel claimed to have a vision revealed to him.
>
> But in the bygone day in which they lived, there weren't any padded cells to
> haul them off to. Nor did people have the modern understanding of mental
> illness.
>
> When a child wakes up from a nightmare, parents are today advised to reassure
> the child that dreams aren't real, so one doesn't have to be afraid of anything
> that happens in them. In olden times, while people did manage to reconcile
> themselves to live with bad dreams, they often thought of a dream as life in
> another world, on another plane.
>
> So the rigid demarcation between subjective reality inside people's heads and
> objective reality in the material world is a recent understanding.
>
> Someone comes along with a vision from God... caused by paranoid scizophrenia,
> perhaps, or some similar cause... but he is sincere, he is high-functioning
> enough not to be viewed with contempt as a drooling idiot, and, in fact, not
> only does he have a dynamic personality, but, energized by his delusion, he is
> even *charismatic*... among poor and discouraged and desperate people, not
> educated or even literate, well, it's not straining credibility that he might
> acquire a following.
>
> Another way in which religion might become the belief of grown men is this...
>
> Parents tell children stories about the world, how it came to be, and so on,
> because children are full of questions, and long ago parents didn't know about
> the Sun shining because of hydrogen fusion, or self-replicating molecules
> forming in a soup of ammonia and methane, or evolution by natural selection.
> Why, they didn't even know about Rayleigh scattering, so how could they answer a
> child who asked why the sky was blue?
>
> Normally, as children grow up, they would learn that the fairy-tales of their
> tribe were just stories, but then tell them in turn to their own children.
>
> But sometimes it happened that one tribe would make war on another, and perhaps
> take its children as slaves.
>
> And if these children were able to escape after growing up, they might be
> fiercely loyal to the ways of the tribe that they came from and which was
> destroyed and which they would make rise again. Including the children's stories
> that they were never told were stories by the parents they trusted.
>
> So with these sorts of things happening in antiquity, it's not surprising that
> religions existed... in antiquity.
>
> The people who followed them weren't delusional or psychotic. They just didn't
> properly make the distinction between the sort of thing that is reasonable
> enough that one _can_ just accept it as true if the people around you tell it to
> you (as opposed to _one_ person, who might be lying even about things that are
> completely plausible) and other things that are so unlikely that they need hard
> evidence, not just a general agreement that... happened without, at any stage,
> there being presented adequate evidence for what people had come to believe.
>
> John Savard
Both your posts express it far better than I can.
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| Re: Predicting the future in five years as seen from 1983 [message #363847 is a reply to message #363645] |
Sun, 18 February 2018 11:39 |
Charles Richmond
Messages: 2754
Registered: December 2011
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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On 2/16/2018 10:36 AM, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
> On 2018-02-16, Charles Richmond <numerist@aquaporin4.com> wrote:
>
>> On 2/15/2018 10:53 AM, Quadibloc wrote:
>>
>>> A familiar and common emotion which religious worship resembles
>>> is the love of a child for his parents.
>>
>> The Bible says that all people are God's children...
>
> That's fine - the problem is those perverted uncles in the family...
>
Do you mean to say that you believe... that God has brothers???
--
numerist at aquaporin4 dot com
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| Re: Predicting the future in five years as seen from 1983 [message #363848 is a reply to message #363847] |
Sun, 18 February 2018 11:57 |
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Originally posted by: Gareth's Downstairs Computer
On 18/02/2018 16:39, Charles Richmond wrote:
> On 2/16/2018 10:36 AM, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
>> On 2018-02-16, Charles Richmond <numerist@aquaporin4.com> wrote:
>>
>>> On 2/15/2018 10:53 AM, Quadibloc wrote:
>>>
>>>> A familiar and common emotion which religious worship resembles
>>>> is the love of a child for his parents.
>>>
>>> The Bible says that all people are God's children...
>>
>> That's fine - the problem is those perverted uncles in the family...
>>
>
> Do you mean to say that you believe... that God has brothers???
>
God being a He implies a willy and hence a female with whom to copulate.
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| Re: Predicting the future in five years as seen from 1983 [message #363853 is a reply to message #363785] |
Sun, 18 February 2018 17:27 |
Charles Richmond
Messages: 2754
Registered: December 2011
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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On 2/17/2018 2:24 PM, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
> On 2018-02-17, Gareth's Downstairs Computer
> <headstone255.but.not.these.five.words@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> ISTR that some children talk to an imaginary friemd and it is always
>> staggering to find grown adults who still do.
>
> "I should have known Louie had problems when his imaginary friend
> wouldn't play with him." -- Steel Magnolias
>
Wen I was a kid, I had *two* imaginary friends... one was superior to
the other. A cousin of mine had an imaginary friend that was a dog.
That was kind of sad... we had *real* dogs.
--
numerist at aquaporin4 dot com
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| Re: Predicting the future in five years as seen from 1983 [message #363861 is a reply to message #363847] |
Sun, 18 February 2018 19:40 |
Richard Thiebaud
Messages: 222
Registered: May 2013
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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On 02/18/2018 11:39 AM, Charles Richmond wrote:
> On 2/16/2018 10:36 AM, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
>> On 2018-02-16, Charles Richmond <numerist@aquaporin4.com> wrote:
>>
>>> On 2/15/2018 10:53 AM, Quadibloc wrote:
>>>
>>>> A familiar and common emotion which religious worship resembles
>>>> is the love of a child for his parents.
>>>
>>> The Bible says that all people are God's children...
>>
>> That's fine - the problem is those perverted uncles in the family...
>>
>
> Do you mean to say that you believe... that God has brothers???
> Are computers ever discussed in this news group anymore?
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| Re: Predicting the future in five years as seen from 1983 [message #363867 is a reply to message #363567] |
Mon, 19 February 2018 02:43 |
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Originally posted by: AndyW
On 16/02/2018 00:38, JimP wrote:
> On Thu, 15 Feb 2018 15:22:36 -0800 (PST), Quadibloc
> <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>
>> Not all people who believe in God are that kind of "Bible thumper", of course. They're just the ones that are the most noticeable.
>
> I fully agree. Me forinstance. I don't thump the Bible, its a silly
> thing to do. Nor force my Christian beliefs on to others, I consider
> it rude and sinful.
>
> Yes, I have seen people thump their Bible while claiming their point,
> typicaly misquoted or taken out of context, should make me convert to
> their distortion of said religion. It never works.
I find that when it comes to people trying to convert me to their
religion I take the line "don't tell me how to live, show me".
The minister who performed my marriage droned on about god, the
sacrament, honesty, fidelity etc.
He had been moved from his previous church for sleeping around with the
married women in the church, he did the same at the church I was married
in and was moved on. I believe he did the same in the next church too.
Yup, there was an example for all.
I find that the ones who shout the most are the worst example, the
people who quietly get on with life helping others without a fuss are
the best.
Andy
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