Sunday School

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

GOP increasingly the party of ‘white Christians’ as Democrats quickly become less religious.

Are there people who never show up to church, but still feel religious?

Maine is very sane.

Another liar for Jesus spreads false Christian Nationalist history.

The Left’s deafening silence on Iran.

Real pastors are upset that AI Deepfake pastors might be better grifters that they are.

World of Woo: Structured water.

Environment: Why Greenland is indispensable to global climate science.

The big plan behind Kennedy’s overhaul of childhood vaccines.

Will Narrative defeat Reason?

Inside the sub-zero lair of the world’s most powerful quantum computer.

A speeding clock could solve Darwin’s mystery of gaps in animal fossil records.

Secularism is not a worldview. It’s a civic arrangement so keep your metaphysics, theology, and coercive beliefs out of shared public power.

Long Reads:

Thomas Paine and his pamphlet on Common Sense.

The real Da Vinci code.

Quantum mechanics works, but it doesn’t describe reality.

Will you be immortal by 2039?

Tribalism: How “Us vs. Them” takes hold.

When Narrative outpaces Evidence: The Minnesota ICE shooting.

The baby that grew up understanding irony.

Sunday Book Club: The Shortest History of AI.

Some photographs taken last week.

While you are waiting for the kettle to boil……

Coffee Break Videos:  Physicist vs Creationist on the Big Bang. Russia just lost the entire ocean. Why advanced societies fall for mass delusion.

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

Have a great week!!

“I must respect your beliefs?? Some chance of me doing that when I don’t even respect my own. I don’t believe things to feel safe. You don’t want your beliefs respected. You want them immunized for criticism. Once they are protected from scrutiny, beliefs will metastasize into ideology and when ideology remains unchallenged it always demands power. For me Doubt is mandatory and Confidence is provisional. I call it intellectual adulthood. Anything else is intellectual protectionism. Yes, you have Rights, but your beliefs do not”.

Me, in conversation with a evangelical street preacher in Dublin last week.

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

“Most of my friends are so well educated they can scarcely believe God exists.”

Theologian Lelio Sozzini in a letter to John Calvin on 14 May 1549 from Switzerland, commenting on the unusually high level of skepticism about God’s existence among educated men in Italy. It was an early encounter with what later historians see as the rise of secular thought among educated Europeans during the Reformation era.

Calvin rebuked him for indulging in what he called an “itching after investigation” — essentially a restless curiosity that Calvin feared would lead him and others away from scriptural truth. Calvin accused such speculative thinkers of being overly confident in their own reasoning and detached from the grounding authority of Scripture.

[StregaModerator]

Thanks Reg!!

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:

Me, in conversation with a evangelical street preacher in Dublin last week.

What did they say back?  Anything?  Very well put.

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Reg:

World of Woo: Structured water.

Funny, I didn’t think the meltoff from Igloos had health benefits. 😁

Thank you, I’ll be here all week! Try the veal!

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Reg:

Funny thing. The promoters of high-Alkaline “Kangen” water call their concoction “Restructured” water. So basically an old wine in a new bottle.

One of the promoters of “Kangen” Water approached me about it, saying that it’s anti-acidic properties might help my diabetic foot wounds. I don’t think it got though to her when I reminded her that the stomach naturally has hydrochloric acid and that all living things are made of amino acids and have Deoxyribonucleic Acid. She was equally speechless when I reminded her that the store where I worked wasn’t confident enough to sell it.

• This reply was modified 1 month ago by  TheEncogitationer. Reason: Spelling

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Reg:

Tribalism: How “Us vs. Them” takes hold.

“Race riot.”. Very clever. I see what they did there.

If there has to be any preferences in Universities, it should be for Sri Lankans, Rwandans, Balkans, and Singaporans to teach all the DEI Woke Eggheads and Free Palestine-ers that their way lies madness.

[jakelafortParticipant]

Reg’s take is on the make. Particularly taken with the part about ideology demanding power. How ideologies form and become so damn dogmatic and intransigent with the dummies infecting other dummies is an interesting topic. Free Palestine bitches. Fuck the Iranians. Globalize the intifada. Make America Great Again like it was when those people knew their place.

Thus i may arrogate his quote without attribution if my filch does not violate the constitution. And if it does so what?

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

Simon…about the reply from the evangelical street hawker – He was confused  as to why I treated what he said as a subjective claim rather than an objective truth.  These people are very well versed in controlling the conversation. They can dodge the question or reply with a question and most people don’t realize this.

EG, if I say I don’t believe their god is real, they will ask “So how do you explain our existence” or something similar. But I don’t go down that road. I keep the conversation firmly on the topic they started. I still follow the Heather Spoonheim rule (Ton conseil est toujours valable) about not teaching Science to Evangelicals.

I keep them focused on “Explain to me why I should believe that your god is real”. This way we stay debating belief, not Science. This approach rattles even the best of them. They go to their Sunday School to learn the apologetic approach to countering “atheist arguments” rather than “explaining god arguments”.

“Hey, you stopped me to tell me the “Good News”. I agreed, but am still waiting to hear any”. At this stage their eyes take on that deluded stare and they start trotting out the usual arguments and dropping big words like ‘ontology’ or ‘hermeneutics’. This time he used the latter.

I immediately replied…..”I think that religious and ideological arguments frequently smuggle hermeneutics into ontology”. Blank stare….. Then I continued “Anyone who tries to shield ontological claims behind “interpretation,” “lived experience,” or “my truth” is dodging the burden of proof.

Then I climbed down a few steps and asked;

“So what you are telling me is that you believe that you are in telepathic communication with the Creator of the Universe and you believe that you are to become an immortal, just like him….Really this is what you are stopping random people for?”

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:

I must respect your beliefs?? Some chance of me doing that when I don’t even respect my own. I don’t believe things to feel safe. You don’t want your beliefs respected. You want them immunized for criticism.

Someone said that people with intellectual humility are more successful, they didn’t specify in what way.  I’m sure it’s true, as it’s a failing to think that one is perfect.  No more curiosity?  No more asking questions?  You might as well give up.

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Fellow Unbelievers:

Not a good day for Iran’s struggle for Enlightenment and Freedom. And the toll of protesters could be as high as 20,000:

Over 12,000 feared dead after Iran protests, as video shows bodies lined up at morgue
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/iran-protest-death-toll-over-12000-feared-higher-video-bodies-at-morgue/

[jakelafortParticipant]

Ideologies demand power and drain brain cells. Not only in terms of cogitation but in terms of empathy and compassion.

If the victims are in a villified group then the ideologues will be anyhwhere from indifferent to jubilant. If the victims are not in a protected or romanticized group it is indifference and even positive emotions if those victims are opposed to the ideology or reveal a truth that undermines the ideology. This is consistent with ideologies demanding power. Furthermore it is consistent with the way ideologies discourage their adherents from spouting anything but the “truths” that come down by fiat. It is same shit different day for discreet cults, Islam, orthodox any religion, Islam, lefties, commies…

And then i have to wonder whether there is genuine compassion for lets say Palestinians in Gaza. If they don’t care about the Palestinians in other middle eastern countries who are subject to apartheid then do they really care? Does being a victim of the zionist entity cause real empathy and sympathy? Or is it a celebration of the vindication of the ideology in being able to condemn the despised Jew bastards based on putative evidence of their evil?

I do think successful revolution in Iran can change a lot of shit for the better.

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Jake:

To give just one example of how the dogma of Anti-Zionism/Antisemitism has just brain-rotted people, I give you this video from the The Young Turks:

On one hand, the Israeli Mossad is supposed to be infiltrating the Iranian masses and inciting the uprising against the Mullahs and Ayatollahs and the Revolutionary Guard.

Yet they also claim that the Israelis wouldn’t want the Iranian masses to prevail over their oppressors, because the masses are allegedly more Antisemitic than their oppressors.

Janky Cenk and Airhead Anna see no contradiction in what they allege.

I do think successful revolution in Iran can change a lot of shit for the better.

They’re sure needing help from the outside with both armaments and communication from the outside world. But Donald Trump is the last one who is competent to deliver, especially since he spared the Islamic regime after only partially knocking out their nuclear capabilities during the 12-day Israel-Iran War. The results of that hesitance are in the streets and mortuaries of Iran.

Must wait and see, though it’s a hard one to endure.

• This reply was modified 1 month ago by  TheEncogitationer. Reason: Spelling

[jakelafortParticipant]

Enco,

I have heard enough of her and that guy with the Young Jerks. I don’t even want to listen. Zero integrity. And i just do not believe they are as stupid as one might be led to believe.

Ya know from what i gather the Iranians are the least Jew hating in all of North Africa and Middle East. And that in spite of the quotidian indoctrination in hatred.

Sure hope Trump aint gonna sell the Iranians down the river. My fear is he is making assurances and promises to use as leverage in negotiations. Now or never. Get this shit done.

[Author]

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