jakelafort

Robert, i think it is virtually inarguable that totalitarianism survives through fear of punishment. Was not questioning that part of the equation. My query is how dictatorship sustains itself. Are the subjects of dictatorship to blame because they are cowards? Is that always the case?

I think mythology is central to dictatorship. Japanese…[Read more]

From Robert: Dictators depend on cowards. Of course, the MAGA crowd are cowards, afraid of everything. Masks, vaccines, immigrants, strong women, blacks, atheists, LGBTQ, vaccines, and education. That’s a dictator’s entire deal, fear. Dictators like Hitler, Putin, Pol Pot and Saddam are the biggest cowards of all. They know they have to keep ter…[Read more]

Enco,

“Jake,

In all fairness, Judaism was a syncretism of Assyrian, Babylonian, Egyptian and other worldviews and got Monotheism from Zoroastrianism in Persia.”

I did not comment. Ya know why you directed it to me? Cuz i am the Jew here. The good half of me at any rate. So to that is say Enco THAT IS RACIST!

I think you are omitting a major…[Read more]

“It will take a lot more war, earthquakes, floods and pestilence to trim those numbers. You are right that things will change drastically. The games have already begun!”

I think nuclear war is the greatest existential threat in our immediate future. Old patterns are continuing. Conventional war, even world war fought that way (good luck with…[Read more]

Yoga is dope but i don’t know what spiritual means. Hare Krishna? ANNOYING

I try yoga but suck at it. This guy i’m about to link is spiritual. Least wooish woo too. Anyways if you haven’t heard of him or his breathing technique i recommend it. Check the comments. If you do it regularly you will improve at holding breath. He has some mindfulness…[Read more]

Samurai got jiggy with it in rape of Nanking. Contests to see how many heads could be decapitated fastest. Great with American Pow’s in the Philippines too not to mention the Filippinos. Chop your nuts off and stay true to Bushido so what admire a bonsai tree and Japanese poetry? Some spiritual mighty might…

Spiritual. If you enter the forest…[Read more]

Simon, no way to know. Others might be of the opinion that transcendentalism, anything that is not mundane, or quotidian or nine thousand other things. Garbage in/garbage out.

“Were the Samurai spiritual? I think they were.

What do you mean by “spiritual”, in this case?”

See what i mean? Worthless word. If we can’t understand the speaker without asking their definition then we have come upon a word that ought to be obsolete and archaic. Sure a skilled writer can use a word in a way that obfuscates their meaning or is…[Read more]

“I’d like to see the day when Christianity goes the way of Zeus. Will it be a roll of the dice or is there some sense to the way things happen?”

You are not likely to encounter many antitheists with greater vituperation and contempt for religion.

Having said that make Christianity disappear and in its place some other horror. Some other m…[Read more]

I think what this thread is trying to determine is whether we can reap the benefits of spirituality (peace, love, happiness, social harmony, a sense of awe) without having to resort to religious delusion, supernaturalism, mysticism.

Reminds me of can we be good without god. How the theists have controlled the narrative and had so many atheists…[Read more]

James Webb telescope.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/22/world/webb-telescope-massive-early-galaxies-scn/index.html

There has been a bunch of shocking stuff and its use is in its infancy.

rhonjon that makes as much sense to me as interpreting the handbook from god as an allegory or metaphor or some other spin to rationalize what can not be abided

It is fairly evident from only a cursory examination of contemporary cosmology that the standard model is gonna be defenestrated.

The latest discoveries from James are pretty wild.

The notion that one chooses one’s religion is akin to the religious notion one chooses one’s sexuality. It is force fed to children. The psychological chickens especially of orthodoxy overcome all but the most rhonjon resistant subjects. Christianity has a long history of exploiting unformed brains. Shit ought to be illegal until age 13.

Oh and condolences on your locus, rhonjon. When i first drove through bible belt i was in shock. It is so infused at every turn with religiosity that i thought i might as well be in a different country. So sickening.

Yeah i have had my fill of authors espousing atheism. Read theologians and apologists too. Grew up without religion and struggled to understand how it was any more convincing than santa clause. It is so patently absurd and false that to me the more compelling aspect is the impact of religion. Am an antitheist from here to Timbuktu or Portland Oregon.

How Fauci and the team bent over for Trump was sickening. I wonder whether the politicization of the pandemic was fueled by Trump. Not simply in USA but throughout the voild. I remember reading how other nations followed dumb as can be US drug policy. None of the so called sacrifices are jack squat compared to the sacrifices made by 100s of…[Read more]

How our senses evolved to perceive is explained in Genesis. It is so cool that eyewitness testimony is famously unreliable. And what fun would it be if we were like machines and missed out on optical illusions. Our sensibilities yaw to the tune of alcohol and dope. Our moods shift to the beat of the internal and external influences.

The finite…[Read more]