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July 16, 2015 8:00am by Kokila Patel

General Debate 16 July 2015

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SGA

Dennis Horne at 7:17 pm

I am a firm believer in nothing, not even myself. And especially not SGA if he thinks he has something smart to add.

I must say that being “especially not being believed in” gives nothing but a sense of relief 🙂
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July 16, 2015 7:49pm
Shunda barunda

Shunda barunda. What we want is rationality and not to be told what to do by gods we don’t believe exist.

Rationality appears to be a target few people cant actually hit, I have seen no evidence that people that aren’t religious are any more rational than those that are (and I have met some NUTTY religious people in my time).

I watched a Richard Dawkins ‘rally’ recently, and could not believe how much like church it seemed.
Some of the best people I have met are Christians, as are some of the worst, but I see no reason to scorn the faithful’s lack of “rationality” any more than that of the non faithful.
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July 16, 2015 7:54pm
Reid

I lack the arrogance of a Godwhack who believes that it’s his way or the highway.

Which is ignorant and arrogant at the same time nasska.

People who understand nothing about religion appear to hallucinate that the whole thing is about personal choice, that if you believe then it’s a choice and therefore whatever you believe is the same thing.

To a truly religious person: i.e. all charletons aside, it’s not that, at all.

It’s an interpretation of what God would want us to do in this circumstance.

In other words, it’s got nothing to do with what the person thinks and everything to do with what God wants.

And interpreting a truly religious person’s interpretation as if it was a mere opinion of a mere mortal, is therefore a trite examination of the issue.

This isn’t to say person X’s opinion has to be taken as read. Of course not. Duh.

But if it appears genuinely to be said in that light then it should, on first blush, be analysed prima facie as such.
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July 16, 2015 7:56pm
Griff

it turns out that atheism, rationalism and an attempt at science based world view is just as efficient (if not more so) at breeding tyranny as anything else.

non sequitur
Communism is a political ideology that also embraced atheism as it rightly viewed religion as the Opium of the masses.
This doesn’t mean that atheism is implicitly communist or that atheism was responsible for the horrors of Communism.

You are either rational or else you are deluded.
You are deluded if you devote your life to a bronze age superstition.
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July 16, 2015 7:59pm
UglyTruth

Atheism is not an ideology it is the lack of a belief in gods and involves nothing more than not believing.

What Griff is doing is misrepresenting atheism as the default position.
If what he said was true then all newborn babies would be atheists.
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July 16, 2015 8:00pm
nasska

Reid

Since I don’t believe in higher beings then obviously I’m going to credit your utterances to you.

The logic of your comment only works when addressed to another of your sect.
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July 16, 2015 8:03pm
Maggy Wassilieff

@UglyTruth 8:00pm

Well then, what do newborn babies believe?
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July 16, 2015 8:03pm
Dennis Horne

SGA. I must say that being “especially not being believed in” gives nothing but a sense of relief

Don’t overdo it. 😉
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July 16, 2015 8:04pm
Griff

If what he said was true then all newborn babies would be atheists.

The particular gods you believe in is influenced by the beliefs of your place of birth.
Therefor you god view is based on the influences of the society you are born into not on any innate god within you.
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July 16, 2015 8:07pm
Reid

Well then, what do newborn babies believe?

That’s not the right question Maggie.

The right question is: what are newborn babies, as a natural outcome?

What is their moral state?

What was your moral state then?

And what is your moral state now, many years later?

And why isn’t it the same as it was then?

And whose responsible for it being like it is now?

And what might you have been, if you’d kept it now, as it was, the moment you were born?

etc.
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July 16, 2015 8:08pm
Griff

Reid as a christian you believe that a new born child is already fallen from grace due to the sin committed by Adam and Eve in eating from the tree of knowledge .
This is called the doctrine of original sin.
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July 16, 2015 8:12pm
Reid

The particular gods you believe in is influenced by the beliefs of your place of birth.
Therefor you god view is based on the influences of the society you are born into not on any innate god within you.

Perhaps but not always. You assume God is a powerless figment of human imagination. Your whole perspective is predicated on that fallacy. Consider for a moment, He’s not.

Then other possibilities open up.

But if you never make that assumption, then you’re trapped in the powerless God hampster wheel.

BTW, if God isn’t real, then how come we keep talking about him, and have done, since man lived in caves?

Are you really so profoundly arrogant that you hallucinate that even though humans have always worshipped Gods throughout history, that Griff knows better, and the entire course of human evolution bows to Griff’s superior understanding?

Reid as a christian you believe that a new born child is already fallen from grace due to the sin committed by Adam and Eve in eating from the tree of knowledge. This is called the doctrine of original sin.

Griff how bout you tell us what you think rather than what you think I think, because you’re just clouding the issue.
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July 16, 2015 8:17pm
nasska

….”And what might you have been, if you’d kept it now, as it was, the moment you were born?”…..

That is, what would be your state had you not been subject to the insidious beliefs of your parents & community? The most successful sects work on the basis of getting the kids young & instilling their crap into the unformed minds of their unfortunate targets. Once the hocus pocus & guilt has been installed little matters as the kids will return to that reference point in their lives.

The Catholics & Muslims are masters of the craft.

In other words, it is not your fault that you think the way you do & I make allowance for that fact. You were brainwashed by the exponents of the greatest ponzi scheme in the history of mankind & now believe you have soul to take care of.
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July 16, 2015 8:19pm
Shawn Herles

Boy Scouts of America fail to learn the lessons the Catholic Church did.

“Boy Scouts of America executive committee OKs ending ban on gay leaders”

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/07/13/boy-scouts-america-executive-committee-oks-ending-ban-on-gay-leaders/
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July 16, 2015 8:22pm
Dennis Horne

Humans born into an environment where there are no supernatural beliefs and adults insist on rational explanations would not believe in gods.

Belief in gods originated as an explanation for the world.
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July 16, 2015 8:22pm
Shawn Herles

Planned Parenthood facing investigations over ‘abhorrent’ video on body part shipments.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/07/15/planned-parenthood-facing-investigations-over-abhorrent-video-on-body-part/

Not Just Another Culture War Story

“The recent exposure of the trafficking in body parts removed from aborted fetal children has opened many eyes to the inhuman practices of Planned Parenthood. It shows the callousness of the abortion industry and the heart-rending nature in which many women are subject not only to a difficult pregnancy, which they have tragically decided to end violently, but furthermore asked to—by Planned Parenthood’s own admission—give consent to donate their recently-killed child’s healthy body parts to be sold for commercial research. Dr. Nucatola reveals the emptiness of the rhetoric that abortion is a woman’s decision between her and her doctor. The woman’s decision is subject to the pressure of a large corporate entity, which seeks to gain from the healthy organs of a child that they have just killed.

The recent exposure of Planned Parenthood’s inhumane practices is not just another volley in the culture wars, and it’s not simply a political issue: It reveals the dehumanizing effect the practice of abortion has on unborn children and abortion providers alike.”

http://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2015/07/media-reactions-to-planned-parenthood-and-the-way-forward
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July 16, 2015 8:23pm
nasska

Any unfortunates who had their minds laundered as children may find this site helpful. At least it may point you in the direction of regaining some control over your lives:

http://dwilliam.hubpages.com/hub/Deprogramming-Can-we-do-this-by-ourselves
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July 16, 2015 8:24pm
Maggy Wassilieff

@Reid

Jeeezus, if there is one thing that is going to make me impolite, its other folks telling me that I’m not asking “right” questions.

Of course its the right question…. because it exposes the fact that G(g)ods are made-up and as Griff writes…. babies have to learn about them as they grow.

Anyway, about my moral state as a new-born (of an atheist father and Pressbutton mother)…….
I can do no other but quote Psalms 51:5

“Behold, I in iniquity
was formed the womb within;
My mother also me conceived
in guiltiness and sin.

My moral state now? I have no morals.
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July 16, 2015 8:27pm
Griff

Griff how bout you tell us what you think rather than what you think I think.

I just repeated one of the bases of your religion Reid.

There is no proof for the existence of god /gods/ invisible pink unicorns .
Throughout our history man has believed in thousands of gods all mutually exclusive
Either they are all real and are having a comic joke at our expense.
or they are all nonsense.

Gods are nothing but a figment of the imagination of a primitive ape frightened and bewilder living in a dank cave cowering from the terrors outside .

‘I dont live in a dank cave and have a far better understanding of the world .

I dont need a god to get though life..Or to tell right from wrong……
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July 16, 2015 8:28pm
BananaLama

“My moral state now? I have no morals.” Care to explain in more detail?
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July 16, 2015 8:31pm
Reid

Humans born into an environment where there are no supernatural beliefs and adults insist on rational explanations would not believe in gods.

Dennis I know many scientists including a winner of this, who firmly and unequivocally believe in God.

Only ignorant fools conflate irrationalism with faith.

Faith and science are completely compatible and always have been.

In the last say, 5 or so decades, a meme has been created to pretend they’re not.

If you believe the meme, either you’ve done insufficient thinking on the proposition, or you’re a complete moron.

Pick one.
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July 16, 2015 8:32pm
Shawn Herles

“Humans born into an environment where there are no supernatural beliefs and adults insist on rational explanations would not believe in gods.”

‘Why we are born to believe in God: It’s wired into the brain, says psychologist’

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1211511/Why-born-believe-God-Its-wired-brain-says-psychologist.html

‘Humans ‘predisposed’ to believe in gods and the afterlife’

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/07/110714103828.htm

‘Science Explains Why Our Brains May Be ‘Hardwired’ for God’

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2012/06/05/science-explains-why-our-brains-may-be-hardwired-for-god/
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July 16, 2015 8:33pm
Maggy Wassilieff

@BananaLama

Care to explain in more detail?

show me your bank balance and all will be revealed
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July 16, 2015 8:36pm
Griff

‘Humans ‘predisposed’ to believe in gods and the afterlife’

This only explains the evolutionary process that leads to our minds playing such tricks .
it does not prove that gods are real.
In fact it merely tells of the fears of the primitive ape in a dank cave .
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July 16, 2015 8:37pm
Reid

This only explains the evolutionary process that leads to our minds playing such tricks .

But but but,

how could such a phenomena possibly be of evolutionary advantage?

Hmmmmmmmmmmmm?

Go ahead, Prof Griff.

The floor is yours.
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July 16, 2015 8:41pm
Shawn Herles

“This only explains the evolutionary process that leads to our minds playing such tricks.”

That’s one possible interpretation of the evidence Griff, but not to me a convincing one.

Anyway, I just wanted to post a contrary view of Dennis’s claim. I don’t want to clog up GD with a back and forth argument between theists and atheists that will piss other people off.

You have been quiet lately, everything ok?
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July 16, 2015 8:43pm
Manolo

The mullahs mock the incompetent O: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3163029/Iran-s-supreme-leader-mocks-America-letter-Obama-warning-countries-signed-nuke-deal-not-trustworthy.html
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July 16, 2015 8:43pm
nasska

“Take from the church the miraculous, the supernatural, the incomprehensible, the unreasonable, the impossible, the unknowable, the absurd, and nothing but a vacuum remains.”

Robert G. Ingersoll
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July 16, 2015 8:43pm
BananaLama

show me your bank balance and all will be revealed

Not what i was meaning but that explanation is good enough for me.
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July 16, 2015 8:44pm
Manolo

Once some level of danger is reached, Israel will get Iran: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/benjamin-netanyahu-mighty-military-israel-lobby-congress-iran-nuclear/

The Israeli leader said Iran is “the enemy of peace” and the deal – despite the restrictions it places on Tehran’s nuclear program – was “legitimizing their path to a future bomb” within a few years.
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July 16, 2015 8:48pm
Maggy Wassilieff

Don”t divert from my moral state, Reid.

Explain to me why my beautiful babies were tainted with sin prior to their birth?

Tell me why I was guilty and sinful for making babies with my lawfully wedded husband?

or on second thoughts, don’t bother….. I’ve heard all the crap reasons.
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July 16, 2015 8:51pm
AgentBallSack

Wish there was a reply button. but there’s not so:

Wellygirl don’t feed the trolls!

&

Fletch whatever the fuck the coalition forces got for invading Iraq they deserved. Killing Hussein started all the shit we have today. Thanks Bushes and the war on Weapons of Mass Destruction. Thanks a fucking lot. That destabilized the whole middle east for 20 years and counting.
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July 16, 2015 8:52pm
Shawn Herles

“Men cannot improve a society by setting fire to it: they must seek out its old virtues, and bring them back into the light.”
― Russell Kirk

“If you want to have order in the commonwealth, you first have to have order in the individual soul.”
― Russell Kirk

“I did not love cold harmony and perfect regularity of organization; what I sought was variety, mystery, tradition, the venerable, the awful. I despised sophisters and calculators; I was groping for faith, honor, and prescriptive loyalties. I would have given any number of neo-classical pediments for one poor battered gargoyle.”
― Russell Kirk
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July 16, 2015 8:52pm
cha

He thought he had them by the short and curlies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrtuBas3Ipw
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July 16, 2015 8:54pm
EAD

Massive crisis in September?

http://surviveshemitah.com/
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July 16, 2015 8:54pm
Griff

Heirloom “Professor Griff” is my boxer dogs pedigree name Reid.
I asked him if he would reply and he said no.

As we became more intelligent we looked for answers to our fears.
Religion gave us answers.
We also looked for a more cohesive society structure to unable us to transition from small bands of hunter gathers to farmers.
Religion gave us answers and a society structure that enabled us to progress from dank caves somewhere in Africa to landing on the moon.
That dont make it real.
We also had an epiphany along the way called the enlightenment that gave us a new way of structuring society minus the god wallops cowing to authority and corruption that entitles. Its based on rationality and it has given us our present life expediency and the advances in society we all take for granted .
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July 16, 2015 8:55pm
Shawn Herles

“Explain to me why my beautiful babies were tainted with sin prior to their birth?”

Hi Maggy. I would not be inclined to rely on Reid to answer you, either with good theology, or with civility.

“Tell me why I was guilty and sinful for making babies with my lawfully wedded husband?”

Anyone who claims you were is an idiot.
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July 16, 2015 8:56pm
Reid

Don”t divert from my moral state Reid.

I wasn’t. You’ve mistaken my point Maggie plus you’ve taken what other people have said about the issue and assumed they’re right without questioning it. Let’s start again.

Explain to me why my beautiful babies were tainted with sin prior to their birth?

I will after you answer my questions:

The right question is: what are newborn babies, as a natural outcome?

What is their moral state?

What was your moral state then?

And what is your moral state now, many years later?

And why isn’t it the same as it was then?

And whose responsible for it being like it is now?

And what might you have been, if you’d kept it now, as it was, the moment you were born?

I wasn’t asking that Maggie of you as a mother, I was asking that of you as a baby.

So answer as that if you care to hear the answer…

——-

“Tell me why I was guilty and sinful for making babies with my lawfully wedded husband?”

Anyone who claims you were is an idiot.

Given Captain Bananas has been in on the conversation, he knows no-one has been. But then trust Captain Bananas to herle the lies. Trust Captain Bananas… (Thrum thrum thrum. Sure Can!)
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July 16, 2015 8:58pm
Dennis Horne

Tell me why I was guilty and sinful for making babies …

Well, did you enjoy it? Did the Earth move … okay it did, it’s Wellington. 🙂 🙂 🙂
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July 16, 2015 8:59pm
AgentBallSack

Restaurant at the End of the Universe:

Zaphod and Trillian meet the Ruler of the Universe.

The door opened.
“Hello?” said the man.
“Ah, excuse me,” said Zarniwoop, “I have reason to believe …”
“Do you rule the Universe?” said Zaphod.
The man smiled at him.
“I try not to,” he said, “Are you wet?”
Zaphod looked at him in astonishment.
“Wet?” he cried, “Doesn’t it look as if we’re wet?”
“That’s how it looks to me,” said the man, “but how you feel about it
might be an altogether different matter. If you feel warmth makes you dry,
you’d better come in.”
They went in.
They looked around the tiny shack, Zarniwoop with slight distaste,
Trillian with interest, Zaphod with delight.
“Hey, er …” said Zaphod, “what’s your name?”
The man looked at them doubtfully.
“I don’t know. Why, do you think I should have one? It seems very odd to
give a bundle of vague sensory perceptions a name.”
He invited Trillian to sit in the chair. He sat on the edge of the chair,
Zarniwoop leaned stiffly against the table and Zaphod lay on the mattress.
“Wowee!” said Zaphod, “the seat of power!” He tickled the cat.
“Listen,” said Zarniwoop, “I must ask you some questions.”
“Alright,” said the man kindly, “you can sing to my cat if you like.”
“Would he like that?” asked Zaphod.
“You’d better ask him,” said the man.
“Does he talk?” said Zaphod.
“I have no memory of him talking,” said the man, “but I am very
unreliable.”
Zarniwoop pulled some notes out of a pocket.
“Now,” he said, “you do rule the Universe, do you?”
“How can I tell?” said the man.
Zarniwoop ticked off a note on the paper.
“How long have you been doing this?”
“Ah,” said the man, “this is a question about the past is it?”
Zarniwoop looked at him in puzzlement. This wasn’t exactly what he had
been expecting.
“Yes,” he said.
“How can I tell,” said the man, “that the past isn’t a fiction designed to
account for the discrepancy between my immediate physical sensations and my
state of mind?”
Zarniwoop stared at him. The steam began to rise from his sodden clothes.
“So you answer all questions like this?” he said.
The man answered quickly.
“I say what it occurs to me to say when I think I hear people say things.
More I cannot say.”
Zaphod laughed happily.
“I’ll drink to that,” he said and pulled out the bottle of Janx spirit. He
leaped up and handed the bottle to the ruler of the Universe, who took it with
pleasure.
“Good on you, great ruler,” he said, “tell it like it is.”
“No, listen to me,” said Zarniwoop, “people come to you do they? In ships
…”
“I think so,” said the man. He handed the bottle to Trillian.
“And they ask you,” said Zarniwoop, “to take decisions for them? About
people’s lives, about worlds, about economies, about wars, about everything
going on out there in the Universe?”
“Out there?” said the man, “out where?”
“Out there!” said Zarniwoop pointing at the door.
“How can you tell there’s anything out there,” said the man politely, “the
door’s closed.”
The rain continued to pound the roof. Inside the shack it was warm.
“But you know there’s a whole Universe out there!” cried Zarniwoop. “You
can’t dodge your responsibilities by saying they don’t exist!”
The ruler of the Universe thought for a long while whilst Zarniwoop
quivered with anger.
“You’re very sure of your facts,” he said at last, “I couldn’t trust the
thinking of a man who takes the Universe – if there is one – for granted.”
Zarniwoop still quivered, but was silent.
“I only decide about my Universe,” continued the man quietly. “My Universe
is my eyes and my ears. Anything else is hearsay.”
“But don’t you believe in anything?”
The man shrugged and picked up his cat.
“I don’t understand what you mean,” he said.
“You don’t understand that what you decide in this shack of yours affects
the lives and fates of millions of people? This is all monstrously wrong!”
“I don’t know. I’ve never met all these people you speak of. And neither,
I suspect, have you. They only exist in words we hear. It is folly to say you
know what is happening to other people. Only they know, if they exist. They
have their own Universes of their own eyes and ears.”
Trillian said:
“I think I’m just popping outside for a moment.”
She left and walked into the rain.
“Do you believe other people exist?” insisted Zarniwoop.
“I have no opinion. How can I say?”
“I’d better see what’s up with Trillian,” said Zaphod and slipped out.
Outside, he said to her:
“I think the Universe is in pretty good hands, yeah?”
“Very good,” said Trillian. They walked off into the rain.
Inside, Zarniwoop continued.
“But don’t you understand that people live or die on your word?”
The ruler of the Universe waited for as long as he could. When he heard
the faint sound of the ship’s engines starting he spoke to cover it.
“It’s nothing to do with me,” he said, “I am not involved with people. The
Lord knows I am not a cruel man.”
“Ah!” barked Zarniwoop, “you say `The Lord’. You believe in something!”
“My cat,” said the man benignly, picking it up and stroking it, “I call
him The Lord. I am kind to him.”
“Alright,” said Zarniwoop, pressing home his point, “How do you know he
exists? How do you know he knows you to be kind, or enjoys what he thinks of
as your kindness?”
“I don’t,” said the man with a smile, “I have no idea. It merely pleases
me to behave in a certain way to what appears to be a cat. Do you behave any
differently? Please, I think I am tired.”
Zarniwoop heaved a thoroughly dissatisfied sigh and looked about.
“Where are the other two?” he said suddenly.
“What other two?” said the ruler of the Universe, settling back into his
chair and refilling his whisky glass.
“Beeblebrox and the girl! The two who were here!”
“I remember no one. The past is a fiction to account for …”
“Stuff it,” snapped Zarniwoop and ran out into the rain. There was no
ship. The rain continued to churn the mud. There was no sign to show where the
ship had been. He hollered into the rain. He turned and ran back to the shack
and found it locked.
The ruler of the Universe dozed lightly in his chair. After a while he
played with the pencil and the paper again and was delighted when he
discovered how to make a mark with the one on the other. Various noises
continued outside, but he didn’t know whether they were real or not. He then
talked to his table for a week to see how it would react.

And that sums up all theological arguments forever here on Kiwiblog.
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July 16, 2015 9:02pm
Maggy Wassilieff

@Reid

I answered that one about my moral state as a baby…..
the Bible defines it….
I was a wicked sinner in utero…. and that’s the state I must have had as I entered the world…. because I had all that mumbo-jumbo of Christening etc. some time later.
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July 16, 2015 9:02pm
nasska

You enjoyed it.
Enjoyment is sin.

Ergo you sinned.

In the bin Maggy…..no sitting on a cloud strumming a harp for you girl! 🙂
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July 16, 2015 9:05pm
Reid

So why do you think you had that state Maggy?

Enjoyment is sin.

No it’s not.

Perhaps you shouldn’t try to play nasska. You’re adding about as much value as I’d add were you and I the only ones in the shearing shed with 1000 ewes to get through before quitting time.
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July 16, 2015 9:06pm
Maggy Wassilieff

@DH 8:59

Well, did you enjoy it?

Alzheimer’s is a bugger, isn’t it?
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July 16, 2015 9:07pm
SGA

Reid at 8:41 pm

“This only explains the evolutionary process that leads to our minds playing such tricks .”
how could such a phenomena possibly be of evolutionary advantage?
Hmmmmmmmmmmmm?

Possibly by looking for causality – a lot of the time it is actually there, and identifying that causality is advantageous. It also makes it likely to attribute causality spuriously when none is actually there. People with paranoid delusions, for example, are an extreme case – they see causality and make attributions in circumstances that others normally wouldn’t.
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July 16, 2015 9:07pm
nasska

….”He then talked to his table for a week to see how it would react.”….

Brutal ABS….brutal! 🙂
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July 16, 2015 9:09pm
Shawn Herles

“You enjoyed it.
Enjoyment is sin.”

Enjoying sex within marriage is never a sin.
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July 16, 2015 9:10pm
Griff

People with paranoid delusions
rofl
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July 16, 2015 9:10pm
BananaLama

You all give Reid to much shit. I suspect it is a lack of people to argue with now Red and Phillu took off for other pastures.
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July 16, 2015 9:13pm
nasska

…..”Perhaps you shouldn’t try to play nasska.”…..

Sorry Reid. I just can’t take it all too seriously.

I’m only here for the fun. 🙂
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July 16, 2015 9:14pm
mikenmild

humans have always worshipped Gods throughout history

Too true.
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Christian_gods_vs._atheist_gods
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July 16, 2015 9:16pm
Reid

So am I nasska. Trouble is, some aren’t. And also, sometimes it matters. Mostly it doesn’t but sometimes it does.
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July 16, 2015 9:16pm
Shawn Herles

PhilU found his natural home over at the Standard,

where….
he….
is…..
still….
writing…..
like….
this…….
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July 16, 2015 9:19pm
Dennis Horne

At the end of the day it’s a matter of personal preference. No reason whatsoever to believe in gods. But do you feel something missing? Need a soul?

It looks like the universe bursts into life then collapses and resets with another big bang.

Could all be happening in the mind of a god.

Whatever. Makes no difference to us.
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July 16, 2015 9:23pm
Maggy Wassilieff

Sorry Reid. I just can’t take it all too seriously.

I’m only here for the fun.

Yeah, so am I…..
but honestly, little babies and their moral state?????
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July 16, 2015 9:23pm
BananaLama

but honestly, little babies and their moral state?????

I thought it he was making a reference to Buddhism 2bh children are suppose to be the most pure of thought without the baggage adulthood brings
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July 16, 2015 9:31pm
Shawn Herles

Maggy,

let me try a better explanation.

Babies are actually innocent, because in order to do wrong, you have to know right from wrong, and thus be morally culpable, and for obvious reasons babies are not morally culpable.

What the doctrine of original sin says is not that babies are evil at all, but that they inherit human nature which is generally prone to do bad rather than good, but this does not make them morally culpable, or evil, as the nature they inherit is hardly their fault.

This can be understood in purely secular terms. Human beings and human nature are not perfect, have certain natural limitations, and of course we all know that human beings can do bad things. This nature is what babies inherit, but on it’s own it does not make them morally bad.
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July 16, 2015 9:32pm
Shawn Herles

I am fairly sure that Reid got his theology from a comic book, and it was not a comic book about Christianity, but about Gnosticism. If you Google ‘Gnosticism’ you will see what I mean.
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July 16, 2015 9:38pm
mikenmild

Something for the public servants among us to be proud of:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/70304890/new-zealand-worlds-sixth-most-efficient-government–report
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July 16, 2015 9:39pm
Reid

honestly, little babies and their moral state?

I just joined in Maggie, what was the precursor to that?

Short answer is, this world is the thing which is sinful. Free will is the thing which makes us liable for sin. Babies and children don’t exercise free will until they reach a state where they can and do and that’s not a defined age it’s a defined state of cognition. That’s when they and you and I become responsible. But God is loving and kind and will make allowances for aberrations that the child’s caregivers committed on the child which cause sin even passed that point.

The whole reason we are placed in this world is to learn how to resist sin. God cannot and will not tolerate it. You cannot enter Heaven if you have sin in you because Heaven exposes you to God and God will not and cannot tolerate sin in His presence.

So all of us are given the opportunity to learn how to defeat sin. And sin means everything, actions, thoughts, everything. No more naughty thoughts. That’s right. But what are those anyway? The mature person fades those away as they grow and they begin other, higher thought processes. (I’m just giving an example.)

But the life goal is perfection.

Note that none of this is harsh. If anyone is harsh about it, it’s the human shouting in your ear that you need to get your sinful shit together, shape the fuck up and get with the program. Note that God is not talking like that. It’s God’s so-called self-proclaimed representative that’s talking like that. Note the diff.

You understand Maggie?

I’ve talked about the stick, I haven’t talked at all about the carrot. One amazing, unspeakably wonderful thing about God is when you set your mind on the above path, with all your heart and mind, doing the right thing and eschewing your former ways becomes effortless, easy and simply the best. Not to say it’s all roses, sin and temptation will always sweep in to divert.
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July 16, 2015 9:40pm
nasska

A civil servant goes to see the department head.

“Why do you want a transfer now?” asks the department head. “You’ve been in the same job in the same office for 39 years!”

“I’m not sure,” says the civil servant, “I think it’s that wild and restless gypsy blood in me.”
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July 16, 2015 9:47pm
Shawn Herles

“Something for the public servants among us to be proud of:”

Something for National to be proud of for it’s public service reforms.
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July 16, 2015 9:50pm
Dennis Horne

Reid. Were you always religious or are you so-called “born again”?
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July 16, 2015 9:52pm
Shawn Herles

“The whole reason we are placed in this world is to learn how to resist sin.”

Yup, that is Gnosticism, not Christianity.
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July 16, 2015 9:52pm
mikenmild

Which specific reforms did you have in mind, Shawn?
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July 16, 2015 9:54pm
Shawn Herles

In general mike, the emphasis on improving actual outcomes, instead of Labours spend and hope approach.
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July 16, 2015 9:57pm
Maggy Wassilieff

@ Shawn…..
no need to give me explanations…. anyway none of that Anglican stuff for me…..

I gave you the solid stuff that the “Wee Frees” still chant. Psalm 51….
That’s the religion of my ancestors…

@Reid…. too late to convert me… the Quakers got to me first….. fortunately the ones who pay no heed to sin, evil and the Devil, very liberating. However, I’ve moved on and I and am happy to live with no spiritual input whatsoever….
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July 16, 2015 9:58pm
Shawn Herles

In general mike, the emphasis on improving actual outcomes, instead of Labours spend and hope approach.

You can read about the details here: http://www.nbr.co.nz/article/labour-party-says-no-174449
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July 16, 2015 9:58pm
mikenmild

So, no actual reforms then.
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July 16, 2015 9:59pm
UrbanNeocolonialist

Evolution of religion:

Humans, like all animals, have been at war for the resources they need to procreate throughout their whole history. As part of that evolution we developed intelligence, tool use and communications skills that allowed us to behave in a coordinated way in large social groups.

Larger and larger social groups (tribes, towns, states etc) could bring to bear greater concentrations of martial force combined with specialisation of individuals and technology, to fuck over competing groups and so take their resources for their own.

But war carries a high degree of risk for the individual soldier, even as it brings benefits to the society. How do the genes of competing societies evolve to induce the life-and-death risk taking by a soldier that it needs to win or hold onto resources?

This, I would posit, is where religion comes in. It is a biologically programmed tendency to hold irrational beliefs that allow indoctrinated soldiers to disregard the rational fear of death, and so create more powerful and effective fighting forces not held back by a fear of mortality like rational atheists are. Soldiers might not personally benefit, but the societal genepool they sprung from would and so the pressures of evolution are satisfied. Religion is at heart, a mechanism for enabling more effective violence in a pre-atomic world where war was a man-on-man affair.
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July 16, 2015 9:59pm
BananaLama

No one here looks at shits working in corporates like Beca MnM. Much easier to blame civil servants for being inefficient whether it is true or not.
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July 16, 2015 10:01pm
Shawn Herles

Maggy, two or three times a year I go to a Quaker service. I love their emphasis on silencing and listening to the still small voice within.
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July 16, 2015 10:02pm
Shawn Herles

“So, no actual reforms then.”

The reforms are detailed in the article I posted mike, assuming you bothered to read it. They are a radical departure from Labour’s nine years of failure to do anything except spend, spend, and spend some more, regardless of the outcomes.

You really have developed quite well the Labour party habit of sticking your fingers in your ears and going “no, no, no, no, no, I will not hear anything positive about National….” 🙂

Anyway, I’m going to go and watch some telly with my wife. By folks.
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July 16, 2015 10:05pm
Maggy Wassilieff

@Reid

But the life goal is perfection.

This sounds very 1980s new-age crud.

I don’t have a life”goal”…… and even if I did, perfection wouldn’t be on the scene.

I think I’m happy enough just puttering along day by day.
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July 16, 2015 10:10pm
mikenmild

Um, there was nothing in that article, written by a National List MP.
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July 16, 2015 10:10pm
Reid

This sounds very 1980s new-age crud.

It’s a turn of phrase Maggy, not a label for a new age fad.

Why would you conflate religion, timeless and immortal, with such a temporary and temporal thing as “new age?”

Are you sure you read what I was saying above?

This life is a school.

We are here, specifically and exclusively, to learn one thing.

To love.

Love ourselves, first.

Love others, second.

Trick is, we can’t get the first, until we have the second, and vice versa.

Get it? That’s a very very very deep issue and I suggest you treat it like that. It should take anyone decades to analyse that. And if they come up with the answer in five minutes, it means they haven’t even scratched the surface.

That’s it, Maggy.

That’s religion in a nutshell.

That’s the entire 940,000+ words in the Bible.

What about that, don’t you understand?
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July 16, 2015 10:17pm
Maggy Wassilieff

What about that, don’t you understand?

If that’s ALL religion was, I’d have no problem… I understand that completely.

That’s religion in a nutshell.

That’s the entire 940,000+ words in the Bible.

Well, I’ve read them all… more than once… and a few other Holy Books…. and I’m afraid to say, that there’s a few other things there, apart from loving your enemies; and for 2000 years, at least, organised religion has been a very effective force in preventing millions of people from achieving their life goals.

As for individual religion, I usually have no problem. I have no wish to change your thinking. Its just that I and many others (i gather) have no wish to have religious dogma intruding into our daily lives.
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July 16, 2015 10:47pm
UglyTruth

Well then, what do newborn babies believe?

Perhaps they don’t believe anything until they learn what language is and can describe their experience to themselves.

As they become children and are able to communicate they learn the religious beliefs of their family.

Of course they may also question these beliefs and develop their own ones.

The point is that atheism is a religion – atheists are the apostles of ignorance.
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July 17, 2015 3:50am
Manolo

A true RINO speaks: http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/john-mccain-has-a-few-things-to-say-about-donald-trump?intcid=mod-latest
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July 17, 2015 5:36am
Manolo

Another act of love from the followers of the religion of peace:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/17/world/africa/isis-affiliate-sinai-province-claims-ship-attack.html?_r=0
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July 17, 2015 6:06am
EAD

The American public need to fight back against these bastards:

http://www.veteranstoday.com/2015/05/03/is-american-scheduled-to-become-the-rothschild-khazarian-mafias-next-hellstorm/
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July 17, 2015 7:55am
Manolo

Who is he? http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2015/07/15/the-black-president-some-worried-about-has-arrived/
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July 17, 2015 7:57am
Griff

Yip they should really do something about the loony sites you frequent EAD

These Evil RKM Bloodlines go way back to ancient Babylonia and Babylonian Talmudism, Black-Magic and Baal Worship and child and mass-human sacrifice to (Baal aka Satan).

Realty and such crap is mutually exclusive.
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July 17, 2015 7:58am

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