ysumlin
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TheEncogitationer replied to the topic Sunday School January 25th 2026 in the forum
Sunday School 5 months agoJake:
Don’t forgot Trump also abandoned the Kurds. And i think it was Trump who got US out of Afghanistan which enabled the Taliban to be purely Islamic and the consequent suffering and misery to follow.
Afghanistan was the end result of four Administrations dithering about it starting with Bush, going through Obama and Trump 1.0, and ending w…[Read more]
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TheEncogitationer replied to the topic Sunday School January 25th 2026 in the forum
Sunday School 5 months agoJake:
There’s some of that fake sympathy for the Iranian people already, even without blaming the Jews. Starting with Trump. Not only did he posture and hem and haw while Iranians were being slaughtered, but now he’s feeding more in to the meat-grinder:
Trump Is Deporting Iranians to a Country That Will Kill…[Read more]
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TheEncogitationer replied to the topic Sunday School January 25th 2026 in the forum
Sunday School 5 months agoJake:
Just some heart-warming news to be aware or not…
More like blood-curdling than heart-warming. The Islamic Republic is a human slaughterhouse.
Never mind Panpsychism. Is there UN-psychism, Woke-psychism, Peacenik-psychism, MAGA-psychism, Trump-psychism, Media-psychism, Academia-psychism…
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TheEncogitationer replied to the topic Sunday School January 25th 2026 in the forum
Sunday School 5 months agoReg:
Another thing about food recommendations:
The committee saw a number of papers in Hispanic, Black, and Asian communities where dairy wasn’t a prevalent part of the diet, whether due to lactose intolerance or cultural food preferences. DGAC suggested changing the language to make dairy an optional, not integral, part of a good dietary…
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TheEncogitationer replied to the topic Sunday School January 25th 2026 in the forum
Sunday School 5 months agoReg:
Panpsychism is an attempt to avoid “consciousness from nothing” by baking mind-like properties into the foundations of physics. That is almost like an argument for Creationism. For me, consciousness is an emergent property, not a fundamental physical property. It is not present in parts that can be assembled. In the same way that water mol…
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Unseen replied to the topic You don't need determinism… in the forum Small Talk 5 months ago
Question for block universe supporters. If moving forward through time is an illusion, why can’t we have the illusion of moving backward through time? It should make no difference, right?
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TheEncogitationer replied to the topic Sunday School January 25th 2026 in the forum
Sunday School 5 months agoReg:
RFK Jr. on the Food Pyramid and Tylenol.
Will everybody stop with the talk about Ultra-Processed Foods!
Nobody has yet given a coherent, sensible definition of what Ultra-Processed Food is, and as is the case with our favorite Omnific Being, if you can’t say what it is, you can’t say that it is.
And where in the U.S. Constitution is…[Read more]
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TheEncogitationer replied to the topic Sunday School January 25th 2026 in the forum
Sunday School 5 months agoReg:
Is Panpsychism just Snake Oil?
The article didn’t fully define what Panpsychism was, (fundamental property of what?) so already there is at least one entity in the Natural Universe that isn’t fully conscious, and certainly not Omniscient.
Wikipedia as usual is more specific, precise, and…[Read more]
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Simon Paynton replied to the topic Sunday School January 11th 2026 in the forum
Sunday School 5 months agojakelafort wrote:
I thought as mass approaches speed of light it becomes infinite?I think that mass becomes infinite as it approaches the speed of light through space, not time.
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Simon Paynton replied to the topic Sunday School January 11th 2026 in the forum
Sunday School 5 months agojakelafort wrote:
And if big bang is a beginning at what point does blocking become the nature of the thing as a whole?It’s a shape. I can’t visualise something in 4D, but I presume we have length, breadth, height, and time. Eventually, if there’s heat death, then events stop happening and time runs out.
Inside the shape, local events exist a…[Read more]
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Simon Paynton replied to the topic Sunday School January 11th 2026 in the forum
Sunday School 5 months agojakelafort wrote:
Does it follow that the universe is eternal?You’re talking about a finite 4-dimensional block. It must have edges. At one edge is the Big Bang. At the other end is heat death, or whatever its terminating fate is. In between, is the history of the universe and all its internal events.
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Simon Paynton replied to the topic You don't need determinism… in the forum Small Talk 5 months ago
Unseen wrote:
The block universe gives an unbelievable account of experience. If you take it seriously, nothing actually happens, however experience consists of a cluttered stream of experiences.Yet, we travel through spacetime at the speed of light. So, the block universe could exist. But I am still unable to connect the “self” with “now”.
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Unseen replied to the topic You don't need determinism… in the forum Small Talk 5 months ago
The block universe gives an unbelievable account of experience. If you take it seriously, nothing actually happens, however experience consists of a cluttered stream of experiences.
That the account of experience it gives is counterintuitive and implausible can be explained in terms of the unreliability of experience.Nevertheless, the entire…[Read more]
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TheEncogitationer replied to the topic Sunday School January 11th 2026 in the forum
Sunday School 5 months agoJake:
One would hope there is more going with apes than that, and with us. Otherwise, neither will be going concerns.
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TheEncogitationer replied to the topic You don't need determinism… in the forum Small Talk 5 months ago
Reg and Unseen:
As the Host and Robot Friends of Mystery Science Theater 3000 sometimes ask at The End of the film:
“…Or Is It???”
If all this is just a “seems,” why not the thoughts and pronouncements about it as well? 🤔🤨
Meanwhile, Atheist Zone will be back in: Newhart, Dallas, Altered States, and Everything, Everywhere, and All At…
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Unseen replied to the topic You don't need determinism… in the forum Small Talk 5 months ago
The senses are a poor source of evidence. Our senses tell us that the world is colorful. In fact, color is in the brain, not the external world. We experience gravity as a force. We know it’s not. We experience deja vu which is a well known trick of the mind that seems real.
Some years after my mother died, I was standing on a street corner…[Read more]
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Unseen replied to the topic You don't need determinism… in the forum Small Talk 5 months ago
TheEncogitationer wrote:
Fellow Unbelievers: Trump tells Iranian protesters against Islamist tyranny that “Help is on the way” two weeks after the uprising starts and after anywhere from 12,000 to 20,000 Iranian citizens are dead. I’d say time and agency are pretty damn real. Can you relate?The problem of agency regarding free will isn’t about…[Read more]
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TheEncogitationer replied to the topic Sunday School January 11th 2026 in the forum
Sunday School 5 months agoJake:
I meant to ask: Where is the Apes’ study of Jane Goodall. I’ll accept an recorded oral report if they haven’t yet mastered the written word. 🦍🎙️😁
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TheEncogitationer replied to the topic Sunday School January 11th 2026 in the forum
Sunday School 5 months agoJake:
Now, now sacred cow!
Degrade what we’ve made what we’ve taken for granite. Feldspar. On a lark. On your mark. Ready, set go!
Time can certainly include different things in different places, as evidenced by where you posted this and where everyone else is posting about the subject of time.😁
Time study. Time dilation. Time in a cra…
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TheEncogitationer replied to the topic You don't need determinism… in the forum Small Talk 5 months ago
Reg:
“Now” is already gone the moment you say it. The instant you think now, neural processing time in your brain has already elapsed so the concept of “now” is reconstructed after the fact. “Now” immediately becomes a memory, not an event. The Andromeda Paradox destroys the idea of a universal cosmic present. Even two people standing a meter apa…
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