Sunday School

[Reg the Fronkey Farmer]

Southern Baptist membership hits another 50-year low as Americans keep walking away.

What new Pew data reveals about faith and who we marry.

MAGA Religious Right reject efforts to shape a more humane Immigration Policy.

A chronic US blind spot: Iran’s religious motivations for war.

Americans think that these two shouldn’t talk about god.

World of Woo: Acupuncture is essentially astrology.

Environment: Chance of ‘Super’ El Niño approaches 100%

My friends in Ukraine enjoyed this article.

Universities have become dominated by the research model rather than the traditional liberal teaching-and-formation model.

Neil deGrasse Tyson: Give us the Aliens. How empty are the depths of space?

The thing about Facilitated Communication is that science doesn’t back it up.

‘Think outside the bots’: How to stop AI from turning your brain to mush.

Richard Dawkins spent decades arguing that humans over-detect agency and intentionality in nature seems to have confused intelligence and linguistic fluency with consciousness. Maybe though, he is throwing down a legitimate philosophical challenge by asking if a non-conscious system can perform behaviors we thought required consciousness, then what exactly is consciousness for?

Attempts to repackage theological claims as scientific revolutions is not an intelligently designed plan.

Theists often do what their imaginary gods didn’t do.

Sunday Book Club:  Why Do We Exist? (See also 2^nd video below).

Some photographs taken last week.

While you are waiting for the kettle to boil……

Coffee Break Videos: How do we know there are 2 TRILLION galaxies in the Universe? Why Do We Exist? Hakeem Oluseyi. America’s Top 5 Christian Nationalist PESTS. What Iceland can teach America about Religion.

 

[Reg the Fronkey Farmer]

Have a great week!

[TheEncogitationer]

Reg:

World of Woo: Acupuncture is essentially astrology.

I recently searched YouTube with the words “Acupuncture” and “Pseudoscience” and found a whole deluge of videos from Ivy League Universities, medical sites like WebMD, and supposedly legitimate M.D.s touting Acupuncture! And you could count on one hand the number of videos calling Acupunture as pseudoscience!

Of course, it doesn’t take a Doctor to see the absurdity of Acupuncture. If Acupuncture was true, it wouldn’t be necessary, because every acupoint on the body is stimulated at every moment be something such as wind, water, heat, sitting down, standing up, laying down, bumping a knee, stubbing a toe, etc.

And Acupuncture is performed with everything from unsterile needles to toothpicks to electric probes to bee stingers. Practitioners must think that the Germ Theory of Disease, hemophilia, and fatal anaphalactic insect allergies are all illusions.

Also, no one has provided a method of detecting T’Chi energy or “Meridians” in the body, any more than Alchemists could provide proof of “Humours.”

Moreover, if Acupuncture were all that, whole organs and systems would be untreatable if someone had an amputation of a digit, a hand, a foot, an arm, a leg. Are there “phantom” Acupoints found where missing body parts are supposed to be? And, of course, where are the body parts grown back by Acupuncture?

Worse of all, this barbaric practice was revived from the past by a man who murdered between 33 and 61 million human beings between 1948 and 1976 (not counting acupuncture deaths) in a land big and populated enough to hide mistakes. And it was brought to our land by Nixon and New Left Hippies opening us up to it. Some bedside manner, huh?:

And Mao said, let there be acupuncture
By Eileen Simpson
Jan. 30, 1972
https://www.nytimes.com/1972/01/30/archives/the-chinese-art-of-healing-by-stephan-palos-translated-by.html

[Reg the Fronkey Farmer]

Yes, alternative medicine is an alternative to medicine. However acupuncture is just as effective when used in conjunction with aromatherapy !!  I know someone who spent almost 3K on a course of it for sciatica and was no better off after the final session. I eventually persuaded him to try the “dead hang” on the calisthenics bars in the local park. After 3 x 30 seconds over 20 minutes, he was nearly in tears with the relief he got from it. After 4 days (over 8 days), the pain was gone. He does 3 x 60 seconds twice a week now and the pain has never returned. If fact we are both training for the pistol squat…:-)

[Strega]

Thanks, Reg!

(Holy shit, I’m a mod again!)

• This reply was modified 4 weeks ago by Strega.

[Reg the Fronkey Farmer]

Great Strega…I’ll take Europe and you moderate America…Ok 🙂

[Strega]

Reg?  No

[TheEncogitationer]

Reg:

Of course, your friend would need his Physician to verify that he has no other conditions that also produce symptoms of Sciatica e.g. Rhabdomyolytis for leg weakness, Neuropathy for numbness, Phantom Disk Syndrome for nerve pinching, etc. Then, once Sciatica has been established, the Doctors would need to verify what larger conditions could be producing it, including pelvic tumors. Then if they approve, the monkey bars could help.

Accupuncturists both couldn’t and wouldn’t tell your friend this, which further shows it’s failure.

It also shows that the health care providers and WHO who recommend and sacralize Acupuncture (or versions like Acupressure, Auriculorherapy, Baunscheitism, Colortheroapy, Reflexology, Moxilobustion, Pharmacopuncture) are not living up to their Hippocratic Oath to “first do no harm.”.

Here, the call of Misinformation/Disinformation/Malinformation (MDM *GROWL!*🦁) is coming from inside the house!

[jakelafort]

The article concerning religious motivation for war is ok until the last syllable of recorded time. No, wait, that is too far back.

“The U.S. needs to fight fiery religious beliefs, not with more bombs, but with bullets of information that weaken those beliefs.”

Brilliant! That ought to stop the IRGC and its terrorists proxies in their tracks. Bullets of information is punny but silly. Do i need to expand, to explain? I thought not.

[TheEncogitationer]

Jake:

Maybe someone could made judicious use of Hollywood special FX and an AI holographic image of The Twelveth Imam coming out of his hidey hole and seeing his shadow at The Cave of Hira.

The wielder of the AI holograph could then convince a whole bunch of Shia pilgrims at The Cave of Hira to rise against the remaining Mullah Regime and the IRGC as betrayers of Allah, Muhammad, the Imams, Ibrihim, Musa, and Issa.

And the AI holographic Twelveth Imam would of course direct the pilgrims to a conveniently-parachuted nearby arms cache. 🔫💣🪖

Live-stream it on a jammed Iranian FarsNews channel (Is their slogan “We Report! You Obey!”?) and parachute in more arms caches and millions of Persians could join in the fun!

The Persian people could then become the “boots on the ground” in their own liberation. Americans and Israelis could continue the air and sea support. With proper communication and coordination, there would be minimal loss on the good side and maximum loss to the Mullahs and their Minions.

Maybe talking chips could be planted in rocks and trees that would say: “There’s a Jew coming to hide behind me. Be a mench and leave him some Kosher bacon and a pomegranate and pistashios! And stay away from the IRGC’s brown acid!”😱😵‍💫🫨

Who says Counter-Jihad can’t be fun?

• This reply was modified 3 weeks, 6 days ago by TheEncogitationer. Reason: Adding emojis

[TheEncogitationer]

Jake:

Who knows? Maybe one day sooner than later, this will be what politics will look like in Iran and the rest of the Middle East, where they won’t even be able to get the name of their scapegoat right.
😁🧙🏻‍♂️🧔🏼‍♀️🎅🏻

[jakelafort]

Words of wisdom, Enco.

I lack direct knowledge but i’d be willing to wager that the pager incident on Hezbollah brought out the worst fears/superstitions about Jews. Pull off a few more of those and the capitulation queue is filling rapidly. Use the delusion against the deluded. Trying to reason with fully indoctrinated Jihadists/Islamists is just stupid. Bullets of knowledge rendered quantum nothingness.

I also am on board and at a loss how it is that neither Israel nor USA has armed/trained and supported a revolution. Free Palestine is so hollow. Its people broadly supportive of Hamas and the zeitgeist reflected by Hamas. Free em from what? Hamas? Themselves? Islamic Republic of Iran on other hand has a power structure that does not reflect the majority. Throwing out the power is the only way to free those people and to make the world safer. Islamism must be defeated militarily and intellectually.

[Strega]

Jake, why was the pager incident a turning point?  People in my various circles thought it was an ingenious way to target only the terrorists rather than scatterbombing.

[TheEncogitationer]

Jake:

Trump last month claimed to sending arms to Iranians via the Kurds, but then claimed the Kurds kept the arms instead of distributing them. So, Trump once again botched his moves in this war,

Trump Reveals U.S. Sent Weapons to Iranian Protesters via Kurdish Groups
https://www.thedefensenews.com/news-details/Trump-Reveals-US-Sent-Weapons-to-Iranian-Protesters-via-Kurdish-Groups/

The Kurds are also not the allies many in the West think just because they happen to be against Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkyie. The Kurds are themselves mostly Islamic and the big Kurdish group PKK is classified as a terrorist organization by the U.S.

This war requires brighter minds than TACO Trump and Pop-gun Pete Kegs-Breath. The “discernment” that Christians speak of has to be for all subjects, not just emergencies.

Weaponry has to reach people motivated to destroy the Mullah Regime and the IRGC. Perhaps as things get worse in Iran, the remnant of the regular military could be encouraged to mutiny.

[jakelafort]

Strega,

Factually i don’t think it was only the terrorists who were injured/killed. Primarily Hezbollah killed and injured though.

Psychological impact was predictably potent. Without any preconceived notions about the enemy that shit is frightening. Pagers? Boom! Walkie talkies? Boom! Now throw in the indoctrination and obsession with Jews as evil and associations with the devil and the imagination begins to work. Sure there were desertions and that was exacerbated by communications interruptions.

Middle eastern countries have one by one deserted their agenda to not of course give pawn Palestinians a state (Palestinians have proven to be bad citizens in other middle eastern countries) but to prevent Jews from having their ancestral state. It is just plain realpolitik. Keep attacking and having ass handed and realize there are better ways to proceed. Now of course when considering Islamists terror groups the math is more difficult. Death cults have death built into the model not only for citizens of Gaza but for themselves. On other hand there comes a time when an ism can only be seen through the prism of defeat.

Is that big daddy Alla in the sky really on our side? Are we doing the right thing? That is the thinking that led to the Muslim Brotherhood. But it is also the reality check that can defeat an ideological pig.

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