physeter

[physeter]

The Catholic hand wringing over all the HERESY and APOSTACY in that bro-Jesus TV show was hilarious. I just don’t see how people take themselves so seriously–especially in an Era where they no longer can kill us for laughing at them.

[physeter]

Unseen wrote:

If you’d rather do that, click on the “Text” tag above the bar where you found the ” symbol.

I did 😋

• This reply was modified 2 years, 5 months ago by physeter.

[physeter]

Unseen wrote:

@ Unapologetic Okay, so you quote someone and your reply end up IN the quote the way you’re doing it. The way you get out of their quote is (a) hit the return key (which you did) but then (b) you click on the ” button, which takes you out of the their quote. In other words…

Back in my day we didn’t have these fancy visual editor windows, we just had to learn to use the html tags the old manual way.

And we <b>liked</b> it &nbsp

• This reply was modified 2 years, 5 months ago by physeter.

[physeter]

Honestly, if you want to find some interesting, eye-opening facts, go study Muslim prophecies and see how much of that has already been fulfilled… Allah is coming back soon!

[physeter]

Michael: I’ve been at this for 40 years, trust me I’ve done lots of research!

Michael 10 min later: There’s a 3-story computer in Brussels called “the beast!”

Reg – shows with simple google search that the “Beast” computer in Brussels was a fictional thing in Christian novel.

Oops…

This is what cracks me up the most about Biblical “prophecy” debates. People who insist they are internet experts but then show they don’t have even the most cursory critical reading or critical thinking skills.

No, history does not attest to the “accuracy” of the “prophecies” of Revelation.

• This reply was modified 6 years, 3 months ago by physeter.

[physeter]

I’m totally with Reg on this, I think he’s going in the right direction. I also share Libby Anne’s frustration, though.

Josh Harris Is No Longer a Christian, but I’m Still Angry

I feel like he’s using me as his marketing stepping stool. Those books me says he’s reached millions with? He’s talking about I Kissed Dating Goodbye and its accompanying books, Boy Meets Girl and Sex Isn’t the Problem, Lust Is (originally titled Not Even a Hint). His documentary filmmaker experience? We discussed that above. TEDx speaker? That talk was also launched off his I wrote a best selling relationship advice book and then changed my mind drumbeat.

….
So pardon me if I’m somewhat taken aback that less than a year after this documentary came out Harris is suddenly no longer a Christian. Pardon me if I’m a bit taken aback that, less than a year after releasing a documentary where he once again affirms that sex before marriage is bad because it’s sin, Harris announces he’s no longer a Christian.

Maybe it’s just me, but it seems like he could have held the documentary up for a bit while he straightened all this out in his own mind. It’s not like this is an important topic that has profoundly damaged people’s lives or anything.

But then, I’m still angry about spending my teenage years racked with guilt over having crushes on boys. Because let me tell you, that sucked. And guess what? I ultimately did have sex with my husband before we got married and it did not in any way harm our relationship. It’s almost like I spent the most impressionable decade of my life terrified that one little slip could ruin my future for no damn reason. So yeah, I might still be a just a little bit upset about that.

[physeter]

I believed in Jesus for about 23 years. I thought he was my best friend. Other people talked about the Holy Spirit leading them in this or that, and about God speaking to them through this or that, but I felt like it never happened to me. I was supposed to have a “Personal Relationship with Jesus,” but it was like no other relationship I’d ever had—a relationship where one party never communicates with the other, and lives more like an imaginary friend.

Finally it became clear to me that if there were a real god in the world, he would leave evidence of some kind. The fact that I didn’t see evidence didn’t mean there was something wrong with me; it simply meant God was not there. I wrote a lot more about that here: https://thephyseter.wordpress.com/2014/02/28/my-journey-into-atheism-part-1/

[physeter]

Jordan Peterson invents this term called “post-modern neo-Marxism” as a boogeyman for what is plaguing “the west.” As it turns out, all of those words mean something individually… but as Contrapoints notes in detail, they don’t really mean anything at all when you put them all together like this. The post-modernists aren’t really anything like what Jordan Peterson is criticizing. He’s throwing together a bunch of scary words all at once in order to trigger his audience and give them something to get angry about.

[physeter]

Oh god… The article from Africa about how atheists are ignorant, the article that displays a massive ignorance of science and devotion to superstition…it’s on the page right next to an article about trying to “Ignite the power of science in Ghana.” They have no idea their devotion to myths is holding them back. Those poor people.

[physeter]

Ow my brain! That Turek anti-reason one. He wrote a whole book about CS Lewis’s example of the spilled milk that makes a map??? Ug. How do you stand it?

[physeter]

From that New York Times article:

Mr. Peterson illustrates his arguments with copious references to ancient myths — bringing up stories of witches, biblical allegories and ancient traditions. I ask why these old stories should guide us today.

“It makes sense that a witch lives in a swamp. Yeah,” he says. “Why?”

It’s a hard one.

“Right. That’s right. You don’t know. It’s because those things hang together at a very deep level. Right. Yeah. And it makes sense that an old king lives in a desiccated tower.”

But witches don’t exist, and they don’t live in swamps, I say.

“Yeah, they do. They do exist. They just don’t exist the way you think they exist. They certainly exist. You may say well dragons don’t exist. It’s, like, yes they do — the category predator and the category dragon are the same category. It absolutely exists. It’s a superordinate category. It exists absolutely more than anything else. In fact, it really exists. What exists is not obvious. You say, ‘Well, there’s no such thing as witches.’ Yeah, I know what you mean, but that isn’t what you think when you go see a movie about them. You can’t help but fall into these categories. There’s no escape from them.”

If he believes Dragons “exist” in some way, and witches also “exist” in some way, is he also saying that God “exists” in the same way? He seems to use the word “exist” differently than you and me. He seems to think that things which don’t literally exist still “exist” as an archetype in a way that’s more “real” than literal things. Is that what he believes about God as well?

It’s hard to have discussion with someone about abstract things like God when we don’t agree on what “exist” means.

[physeter]

I meant to come back to this thread and respond. Apologies for my lateness. But I would like to point out that this second point you made is completely different from the first thing you said.

Before, you made a specific claim: the left was full of idiots, as evidenced by the way Bernie supporters didn’t vote. Now, after you’ve learned that most Bernie supporters did vote, you change your claim to the more generic and harder to argue “Liberals gave it away.”

When Christians do this sort of thing we call it “moving the goalposts.”

[physeter]

PopeBeanie wrote:

I can buy your reasoning, there

It’s not true though. They’ve analyzed the results. In the general, 80% of Bernie supporters voted for Clinton. Only about 5% sat out the general election. Of the rest of them, about 12% of former Bernie supporters ended up voting for Trump–which should tell you they aren’t liberals; they had other reasons for liking Bernie. In fact, the article goes on to say that of those Bernie supporters who voted Trump, more than half were either Republican or lean Republican.

Unseen wrote:

The radical left, just like the radical right, is only interested in statistics that confirm their view, even if it takes misconstruing them or ignoring flaws as they do so.

Isn’t that kind of ironic to say on a post that simply makes things up about Bernie supporters and ignores the statistics?

[physeter]

Unseen wrote:

What is the “similar theme” you think my posts revolve around?

I noticed the theme also, and I think you know exactly what she’s referring to. You’ve posted against rape statistics, against equal pay…the theme is in questioning women’s rights, or women’s experiences. I’m not saying your posts are anti-woman, you are raising some interesting discussions, but I can see why what you’re doing could easily be perceived as anti-woman.

[physeter]

_Robert_ wrote:

No, it’s the left’s fault for being idiots. For example, many of the Bernie Sanders idealist devotees didn’t vote at all in the general election and then were so shocked and talking the end-of-the-world when Trump won.

I’m guessing you just made that up, rather than looking at any statistics. According to this analysis in Newsweek, published last August, nearly 80% of the Sanders supporters went on to vote for Hillary Clinton in the general. 80% counts as “many” don’t you think?

Less than 5% of the Sanders voters did not vote at all in the general election. Do you think 5% is “many”? Because I think words have objective meaning…

It also says 12% of Sanders’ supporters voted for Trump. I think we can say with 100% confidence that those voters (1) Were not part of “the left”, (2) Liked Sanders because he was an “outsider” or “different,” not because he was a liberal, and (3) Couldn’t have been that shocked when Trump won.

_Robert_ wrote:

Another thing that bothers me is that so many liberals don’t seem to know that “Islamophobia” is bullshit and Islam is a bullshit doctrine that is as far from my beloved liberal values as one can get.

“Islamophobia” is a poorly chosen term. It’s of course a good idea to be opposed to a bad philosophy like Islam, and liberals should not be afraid to criticize Islam. But “Islamaophobia” usually refers to anti-Muslim sentiment, which is quite different. Just like most modern U.S. Christians don’t take the Bible literally at all, most modern Muslims don’t want to be in conflict with the rest of the world, and just want to practice their religion in peace. But they aren’t allowed to live in peace.

What does this anti-Muslim sentiment look like? It looks like attacks on mosques. It looks like hate crimes. It looks like people attacking Sikhs wearing turbans because they think the brown skin and turban means they’re a Muslim. This is not a principled disagreement with the philosophy of Islam. This is good old-fashioned bigotry and hate against a group of people based on stereotypes. It is something all humanists should oppose, and it’s certainly not something “the right gets right.”

• This reply was modified 8 years ago by physeter.
• This reply was modified 8 years ago by physeter.
• This reply was modified 8 years ago by physeter.
• This reply was modified 8 years ago by physeter.

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