Sunday School 27th March 2022

[Reg the Fronkey Farmer]

It’s Sunday so let us give praise and thanks for the good news while the happiest nations on Earth are strongly secular and The Netherlands is no longer a religious country.

Why is Russia’s church backing Putin’s war?

Can you believe the excuses from these liars for Jesus?

The religious value the Golden Rule too.

A Christian non-profit organization is to spend $100 million of its profits on works of charity. Oops! Sorry, I mean on a PR advertising campaign to promote their Mr. Fantastic while The Child Evangelism Fellowship are just vile scumbags.

American Atheists and Secular Woman release a report into the discrimination faced by non-religions women in America. There is a webinar you can sign up for on this Tuesday 29^th March. So are atheists fully human yet?

Will Finland side with religious freedom?

Humanists UK at UN calls for Iran to abolish the death penalty for blasphemy and apostasy.

World of Woo: Progressive thinking people are also susceptible to pseudoscience.

Environment:  No Justice for West Virginia. Coastal home buyers are ignoring rising flood risks.

Rubik’s cube presents the ultimate test of a robot’s manipulation skills.

Origins of Life From RNA?

How dependent is the ISS on Russia?

The Daylight Saving(s) debacle.

Long Reads: The state of faith in America.  Could you live in a city of vegans? The tall tales of psychic medium Robert Righi. A fable of ancient Greece: when the mythic universe became a rational machine. Inside the People’s Convoy’s Big-Rig Political Sideshow. A train journey though Iran.

Sunday Book Club: The Goodness Paradox – The strange relationship between virtue and violence in human evolution.

Some photographs taken last week. Photos from Ukraine.

While you are waiting for the kettle to boil……

Podcast: Nuclear fusion record broken – what will it take to start generating electricity?

Coffee Break Video: A seminar with Timothy Snyder – the lecture covers Russia’s war in Ukraine and the current situation in Europe.  Is Reality a Controlled Hallucination? – with Anil Seth. The Ex-Muslim movement with Maryam Namazie. The Terminator vs Jesus.

[Reg the Fronkey Farmer]

Have a great week everyone!

[Simon Paynton]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:

Sunday Book Club: The Goodness Paradox – The strange relationship between virtue and violence in human evolution.

This book looks pretty wacky from my point of view.  It follows all the wrong, implausible evolutionary hypotheses.

– the common ancestor of humans, chimps and bonobos may have had qualities of all three, since humans have qualities of both the affiliative, peace-loving bonobos and the aggressive, warlike chimps.  It’s possible that bonobos are more peaceful than chimps because their food is more plentiful.

– the self-domestication of the human race must have happened before we started cooperating.  We were hunting big game by around 500,000 years ago.  We must have been breeding cooperatively from around 2 million years ago.

– far from altruistic instincts having evolved by being enforced by anti-bullying coalitions of males, it makes more sense to say that they evolved through interdependence: we are good to people in the vicinity because we depend on them, and need them to remain in good shape.

The enforcement of egalitarian norms by coalitions of anti-dominants, must have begun after self-domestication, or else why do it?

 

[Strega]

Thanks Reg!!!

[Reg the Fronkey Farmer]

@Simon – the self-domestication of the human race must have happened before we started cooperating. We were hunting big game by around 500,000 years ago. We must have been breeding cooperatively from around 2 million years ago.

By “we” do you mean just Homo sapiens or are you including others like  Homo erectus where co-operative food sharing and breeding is first thought to have developed? Would it not be the case that we would have self domesticated into groups after we saw that our chances of survival were higher because we co-operated in first place?

[Reg the Fronkey Farmer]

Thanks Strega, you are welcome as always 🙂

[TheEncogitationer]

Reg,

The Woo on the Progressive Left goes far deeper than just blueberries…and at least blueberries do have vitamins and what the old folks called “roughage” (which should have been called “smoothage”) to keep you what they also called “regular.”

The Progressive Left imputes life, thought, volition, intent, malice afforethoght, and other anthropomorphic traits to inanimate, non-living, non-conscious, amoral objects such as SUVs, guns, and (increasingly in the UK and Continental Europe) kitchen, garden, and pocket knives.

The Progressive Left thinks mere words, taken by themselves, can create lifetime psychological and even psychosomatic trauma and that what amounts to configurations of 1s and 0s cand serve as an incantation so powerful as to affect the course of nations.

Fortunately,some people who study such matters are starting to question this:

Cognitive distortions linked to safetyism beliefs, support for trigger warnings, and the belief that words are harmful

Cognitive distortions linked to safetyism beliefs, support for trigger warnings, and the belief that words are harmful

The Progressive Left’s counterparts in the Soviet Union such as Trofim Lysenko thought that changing the environment without regard to genetic genotype and phenotype could make wheat growcin Siberia. And Progressive Leftists here such as Walter Duranty provided the Soviets cover and succor while millions starved to death.

And,of course, who could forget the whole Rev. Jim Jones “People’s Temple” horror in Jonestown, Guyana. His following and support came entirely from the Progressive Left.

To this day, CRTers and Wokesters follow Rev. Jones’ lead and condemn anyone who questions them as “racist,” “Klan,” and “CIA.”

And that’s just a sample. Many others abound.

[Davis]

The Progressive Left thinks mere words…

Blah blah blah. Meaningless stupid ridiculous overgeneralisations. Just stop Enco. Please. Seriously. WTF? I would react the same if someone said such vacuous nonsense about “the reactionary right”. Hyper overgeneralisations make us all less intelligent.

The Progressive Left thinks mere words

Just stop with the generalisations. If you are going to malign a huge chunk of people, narrow them down a little (which of the millions upon millions of diverse progressives?), throw in a bit of evidence/sources and strong examples (not just a few outrageous cases, stretching the meaning of the article sourced beyond what it actually covers and using good sources)

Personality and Individual Differences

You used a journal article in a journal that was cited THREE times last year. Are you trawling the internet for anything to support for gross overgeneralisations?

• This reply was modified 4 years, 1 month ago by Davis.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 1 month ago by Davis.

[PopeBeanie]

@TheEncongitationer

Do you see as many generalizations coming from the left here on AZ as you often like to present?

The first time I actually noted these kinds of popularized slights was about 15 or 20 years ago when a co-worker used the word “Libtards”. Took me more time to realize it was used fairly often on Fox News shows, and then increasingly in other conservative talk shows.

Then I perceived name-calling against the left two or three more times as often as left against the right. I concluded it was a money-making, click-bait kind of strategy growing in media, as a logical extension of memed name-calling between hard conservatives and bleeding heart liberals–another type of smear–who, by that  definition actually care more about individual human beings than those on the far right who see it as a weakness to be pounced on.

If I’m wrong, can you correct me in 200 words or less? I promise not to respond, at least not here.

[Simon Paynton]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:

By “we” do you mean just Homo sapiens or are you including others like Homo erectus where co-operative food sharing and breeding is first thought to have developed? Would it not be the case that we would have self domesticated into groups after we saw that our chances of survival were higher because we co-operated in first place?

The thing about cooperating is that it requires that the profits are shared equally (on some basis).  If there is a domination heirarchy, those at the top grab all the spoils, while those at the bottom get nothing, and crucially, are not motivated to cooperate again.  So cooperation falls apart.

You’re right, all the evidence points to Homo erectus, and similar species around at the time, 2 million years ago, as the first species to share food and breed cooperatively.  I think the story of the self-domestication of the human race is different from that set out in the book “The Goodness Paradox”, and is the result of three linked situations:

1) pair-bonding for the purpose of reproduction led to the existence of families.  Chimpanzees and bonobos live in dense forest populations and mating is multi-male, multi-female, with no reproductive pair-bonding, and the alpha male (chimp) trying to grab all the fertile females for himself, and not always succeeding.  When environmental conditions grow more harsh, the population is less dense and one male can then dominate a number of females, leading to polygynous pair-bonding.  At least in the primate world, males always want to do this, which is why we have patriarchy.

In the australopithicenes, the family preceding Homo, the males were a lot larger than the females, which suggests but does not prove that they were mating polygynously.  In Homo erectus, the sexes were nearly the same size.  One hypothesis states that a move from polygynous to monogamous mating happened because the males now had access to weapons (stone tools) that could level the playing field between males physically.  Even so, apparently, genetic analysis suggests that the reproductive skew between males and females was 1:3, meaning that only 1 in 3 males got to reproduce (after city states started, that became 1 in 16).

2) sharing around scavenged corpses required that humans band together to scare off animals of other species, and also, that they reject or discipline bullies and hogs who would try to grab everything for themselves.

3) also for species living in harsh conditions, such as early humans, cooperative breeding is a way for everyone to survive.  This also would have helped to pacify the human race.

Some knock-on effects of these situations would have been 1) male-female egalitarianism and 2) male-male egalitarianism.  This finally sets the stage for sophisticated cooperation where all participants can be motivated by fair shares of the proceeds.  Cooperation further strengthened egalitarianism because in a sense, people became less important than the role they played and following its demands.

As for the reactive and proactive violence mentioned in “The Goodness Paradox”, that’s an interesting point.  If it’s true, which it largely seems to be, that humans take part in proactive violence while other primates don’t, then it may be because unlike other primates, we have moral anger, the anger we feel when someone violates norms or sacred values.  Other primates just don’t have organised moral norms.

[TheEncogitationer]

Dacis,

Just stop with the generalisations. If you are going to malign a huge chunk of people, narrow them down a little (which of the millions upon millions of diverse progressives?), throw in a bit of evidence/sources and strong examples (not just a few outrageous cases, stretching the meaning of the article sourced beyond what it actually covers and using good sources)

As I recall, I did that with you earlier when I cited an entire journal filled with out and proud LGBTQ+ athletes as refutation of your broad assertion that there are no out Gay athletes in the entire Western World. And after I cited that source, rather then concede my point, you skulked away all mad.

You used a journal article in a journal that was cited THREE times last year. Are you trawling the internet for anything to support for gross overgeneralisations?

So rather than address the claim, you poo-poo the source on the grounds that it hasn’t been cited enough. So Argement From Ignorance meets Argument From 0opularity meets Wishful Thinking. Kan, you hit a Jackpot of Logicao Fallacies with that one.

And you wonder why I think Progressivism is as Woo-filled as the Religious Right?

[Davis]

your broad assertion that there are no out Gay athletes in the entire Western World

Enco…stop with the misrepresenting what people say. You failed to read what I said clearly (as you often did). I said out athletes in top tier European football leagues or in the North American leagues: NHL, NFL, NBA, MLB. Pay attention to what people say Enco. Yes, there are out Olympians and rugby players, gymnasts and figure skaters. I was referring to top tier league players of which there are none in Europe and one in North America. I didn’t reply because your reply was bogus. Read what people write Enco.

So rather than address the claim, you poo-poo the source on the grounds that it hasn’t been cited enough.

Enco, if you want to take us seriously, use serious sources. If you want us to value your intellectual integrity, don’t ignore the majority of sources out there contradicting your view and go fishing for dubious nonsense that backs it up. I’m not wasting my precious free time engaging in your cognitive bias.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 1 month ago by Davis.

[TheEncogitationer]

Davis,

And if you had read the entries of the Journal, you would see that the athletes were in every league from College to National to Olympic. Talk about cognitive bias.

Just go play.

[Davis]

College is not top tier Enco. Details matter. Pay attention and try not to misrepresent what people say or repackage them to suit your world view.

[Davis]

College is not top tier Enco (it isn’t even professional). Details matter. Pay attention and try not to misrepresent what people say or repackage them to suit your world view.

[Author]

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