Brian Iverson

Reminds me very much of George Carlin…who could not have put it more brilliantly:

But He loves you. He loves you, and He needs money! He always needs money! He’s all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise, somehow just can’t handle money!”

My favorite answer to this is this joke which I don’t think should be taken as a joke:

A guy w…

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Pure laziness Jake.

At this point I’m completely beyond bothering with those whose response is: “I can’t see how…” If you don’t get the analogy…you just don’t get it. If you are content to draw such absolute conclusions in a sea of ignorance so be it. Beyond analogies you’ll have to do your fucking homework and pick up books and start reading theories of mind and…[Read more]

@Robert

A worker ant may not have what we consider free will, but it still carries out the will of the colony, unlike a pile of pebbles.

You’re sort of touching on what I think is the best approach to the answer. You should note how Reg framed the question:

Just how free are our choices

In other words the answer is not necessarily one of: yes we…[Read more]

You don’t need to rely on a series of improbable events to avoid making any absolutist argument. The laws of physics can have an aberration, pause, change, go out the window. If we are a simulation a glitch can happen or the programmer can tweak whatever it wants. Some insane 4 dimensional intervention can happen. Or some inexplicable phenomena.…[Read more]

Reg gave an extremely good explanation about considering predictions of “obvious” cause and effect as fact. I’m just nitpicking here but “psychological justification” is probably not the term you’re looking for. It confuses the matter a little. “Justification through human nature extending the extremely likely into certainty”. I know it’s wordy…[Read more]

God’s brain and Satan’s penis

Jody. Why-ever would you believe that Satan has a penis. That simply lacks creativity. Satan has an appendage that is obviously far more incredible and magical than we can possibly imagine.

Why would anyone assume that God had a physical brain?

So God doesn’t have a brain?

Simon you had announced that Dr. Bob had passed away. What was that all about?

Rationalwiki is a wonderful and  hilarious source for all the numerous problems with the bible. There are numerous articles (some very well documented and written). My three favourites are:

Prophecies

Historical accuracy

Scientific errors

Having watched this video Unseen I have to seriously disagree with the way you’ve characterized this guys ideas. I don’t see anything controversial with what he says. His ultimate argument is that socialism, in it’s many guises has not been realized under the standards in which it was invented. Also…not in the least controversial. But under the…[Read more]

Some thoughts, as I’ve been through this discussion many times before and, while I cannot be sure it really sounds JUST like what I’m about to say: European countries aren’t capitalist systems that are highly regulated. They are MIXED systems. They are both capitalist and socialist at the same time. You can call it regulated-capitalism or you can…[Read more]

Sorry man but a 30 minute video is a little long to watch until I know a few things before committing to watching it. What is he referring to by socialism? Modern European socialist states? Or a subset of communist states? Or pseudo socialist states like Venezuela?

The idea that socialism always fails is so preposterous. I would invite this guy…[Read more]

Again Simon…conflating the “hard left” with a minority of university students who are woke activists isn’t particularly helpful. While it is true the blockade of university speakers in a few rather liberal universities and a few university professors (almost only in Literary studies, politics, history etc) have to deal with overly active…[Read more]

Sorry Pope but this is full of a whole lot of generalizations. I think my ultimate, and only necessary criticism is that it is a huge mistake to try and make any conclusions based on “left vs. right” other than voting trends or the particular make-up of a current parliament/chamber. Too many generalizations are made, massive differences between…[Read more]