Jesus said I am the way.

@spendius,

spendius wrote:

Quote:
There been a number of fairly large double blind studies about how well prayers work or does not work in a health care setting and the results was zero.

Do you think that's an adequate response to my post? I was exposing your sophistry. And your blinkered selection of reading.

You jibed at religion for making society easier to control, which it does, and when I asked you if you are in favour of making society difficult to control you failed to reply. I presume you didn't like to say yes, which would have been logical, and nor did you like to say what sort of control you would bring in to fill the gap left by religion being taken away.

I offer the philosophy that we shoud make INDIVIDUAL CITIZENS difficult to control, for lack of jurisdiction.

David

1 Reply

@OmSigDAVID,

i'm with david on this.

1 Reply

@dyslexia,

You and Dave obviously haven't studied Hobbes. Which explains your romantic sentimentalities.

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@spendius,

You jibed at religion for making society easier to control, which it does, and when I asked you if you are in favour of making society difficult to control you failed to reply. I presume you didn't like to say yes, which would have been logical, and nor did you like to say what sort of control you would bring in to fill the gap left by religion being taken away.
----------------------------------------------------
Now why would you wish the mass of people to be easy to be talk into/contol into courses of actions that will harm them for the benefit of a small ruling class?

Take health care as a current example of the ruling class who benefit from our poor and ill working system and is doing it very best to talk the rest of us not to change it or if we do change it, we will do so in a way that still keep them fat and happy.

Sorry but no I do not wish that the society be easy for a small self serving ruling class to control.

1 Reply

@spendius,

You're treating us as if we are stupid.
-------------------------------------------------

Let see true believers claim to believe with a straight face that a man/god was born and walk the earth of a virgin woman and was able to bring long dead men back to life with a wave of his hands.

Now that is in itself on it face is a stupid thing to belief in is it not?

Similar disconnect for the real universe that is not given the cover of religion would get you lock up as insane would it not?

If Foxfyre had said she had a small army of little people living under her bed you would not tell me that she is sane and I should respect her believes now would you?

Yet the claims of the Christian faith is every bit as nuts if not more so then having an army of little people living under you bed.

1 Reply

@BillRM,

If Foxfyre reported a small army of beings under beds or anywhere else, then yes, it would be rational to discount that matter of factly as too improbable to be plausible.

However, if the next dozen people you meet reported encounters with groups of small beings, would you think it rational or irrational to discountat that matter of factly without further investigation?

And, if more than a billion people report an experience with a being that is entirely real to them, would it be rational or irrational to discount that matter of factly without further investigation?

2 Replies

@spendius,

spendius wrote:

You and Dave obviously haven't studied Hobbes.
Which explains your romantic sentimentalities.

No, I did, but its been so LONG ago,
back when I was in college, that I remember very little of that.

What is your point, more specificly * ?

David

* Note that I did not spell it: specifically,
because there is no such word as SPECIFICAL.

1 Reply

We shoud all unite in seeing the collective as the ENEMY to be conquered.

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@Foxfyre,

Foxfyre wrote:

If Foxfyre reported a small army of beings
under beds or anywhere else, then yes,
it would be rational to discount that matter of factly as too improbable to be plausible.

However, if the next dozen people you meet reported encounters
with groups of small beings, would you think it rational
or irrational to discountat that matter of factly without further investigation?

And, if more than a billion people report an experience with
a being that is entirely real to them, would it be rational
or irrational to discount that matter of factly without further investigation?

Yes.
This also includes lots of folks who have returned from death in hospitals;
= no heartbeat, no EEG, no respiration for varying lengths of time.

www.IANDS.org

David

0 Replies

@OmSigDAVID,

Quote:

What is your point, more specificly * ?

That civilisation's benefits can only come at the price of a certain amount of loss of personal freedom. That military and economic weakness result from the balance tipping too far in the direction you seem to favour. As also seems to be the case if the balance tips too far to the other direction although that hasn't been proven yet.

Quote:

back when I was in college, that I remember very little of that.

Which suggests that the resources expended on your education were of "very little" use. Although I daresay you learned to be a useful member of the collective and that's the main point. The movie Pat Garret and Billy the Kid deals with the problem.

Your kicking against it is a romantic and sentimental indulgence. The more that embrace it the weaker we get.

We have elections to try to get the balance right. In the US, it seems, you can fire your guns in authorised ways.

What is your point Dave?

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@Foxfyre,

Now we do not have in fact a billion people claiming to had seen the little people but a story of little people from two thousand years ago that a few billions claim to believe in.

Believes with no facts or logic behind them mean that it does not matter how great the number of people believing it is number, that does not change the likelihood of the story being true or not one little bit.

Even more so in light of the fact that for most of those two thousands years anyone who did not proclaim the truth of the little people existing was kill by stoning or fire and you can totally disregard the number of people who are little people believers as far as giving any weight to the story.

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@spendius,

I don't see it necessarily so much as loss of personal freedom but rather mutually voluntary restrictions in return for shared benefits or accomplishment of goals through shared effort. This to me is the heart of the concept of social contract. I will agree to conduct myself in a way that does not disturb the peace or well being of my neighbor in return for a guarantee that my own peace and well being will be guaranteed. Those who do not appreciate such social contract are uninhibited from seeking something more to their liking elsewhere.

There were exceptions, especially when we were still incorporating the principles of our Constitution into our collective psyche, that Christian communities did restrict personal freedoms against the will of those restricted and there were severe injustices done. But I think we have evolved from those early struggles for self identity and finally caught on to the better way. And I think those countries that have been designed or established more or less as Christian nations have mostly accomplished more peaceful societies with more guarantees of individual rights and freedoms than most other nations can claim.

3 Replies

@Foxfyre,

And I think those countries that have been designed or established more or less as Christian nations have mostly accomplished more peaceful societies with more guarantees of individual rights and freedoms than most other nations can claim.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
As the most of the major founding fathers of the US such as Jefferson was to say the least not Christian and the history of the Christian nations in Europe your claim that Christian nations are more incline to honor rights of people is not base on facts in any way or in any manner.

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@spendius,

Quote:

What is your point, more specificly * ?

Quote:

That civilisation's benefits can only come at the price of a certain amount of loss of personal freedom.
That military and economic weakness result from the balance
tipping too far in the direction you seem to favour.
As also seems to be the case if the balance tips too far to the
other direction although that hasn't been proven yet.

Both candor and logic compel me inexorably,
to concede your points, to a limited extent,
except as to your last sentence: the point has been made that
Hitler facilitated the Allied Invasion by his unwieldy control of his defensive forces.

Quote:

back when I was in college, that I remember very little of that.

spendius wrote:

Quote:

Which suggests that the resources expended on your education were of "very little" use.

WHEN ?

Quote:

Although I daresay you learned to be a useful member of the collective and that's the main point.

I practiced law as an individual.

spendius wrote:

Quote:

The movie Pat Garret and Billy the Kid deals with the problem.

I 've seen too many of those movies; what was your point ??

spendius wrote:

Quote:

Your kicking against it is a romantic and sentimental indulgence.
The more that embrace it the weaker we get.
We have elections to try to get the balance right.
In the US, it seems, you can fire your guns in authorised ways.

It is the historical fact that government has been deprived of any
jurisdiction to authorize anything qua civilian use of guns,
except not to use them in violation of anyone else 's rights.

spendius wrote:

Quote:

What is your point Dave?

It is that we Americans stand in the shoes of our forefathers,
the Founders of this Republic. AS INDIVIDUALS, we chose
to create society, the collective, by associating among ourselves;
i.e., society is the little child of its fathers: INDIVIDUALS.
It behooves us, to keep our baby on a short leash
and to make it worship at our feet, remembering who created it,
looking up to INDIVIDUALS as gods.

As Individuals, we owe it to ourselves,
to be very, very stingy
in granting any jurisdiction to the henchman of our child (society).
That lowlife henchman is "government."

Let us keep him weak, and starved and an inoffensive mendicant.
(Great glory be unto Robert Heinlein.) That was the Original Theory, anyway.
It has since been forgotten (by many) and perverted.

However, I have already conceded your point as to military necessity
for reducing personal freedom, on a temporary basis. We have had
to do that thru three world wars and a few others.

David

1 Reply

@fresco,

Quote:

If the age of the earth were the length of a toilet roll, Man has been here for the last millimetre. The interesting question is, why did God need all that toilet roll?

this reminded me of Samuel Clemens who said:

Quote:

Man has been here 32,000 years. That it took a hundred million years to prepare the world for him is proof that that is what it was done for. I suppose it is. I dunno. If the Eiffel tower were now representing the world's age, the skin of paint on the pinnacle-knob at its summit would represent man's share of that age; & anybody would perceive that that skin was what the tower was built for. I reckon they would. I dunno.

1 Reply

@BillRM,

Quote:

Now why would you wish the mass of people to be easy to be talk into/contol into courses of actions that will harm them for the benefit of a small ruling class?

Ah ah !!! Smoked out into the open. The cry of the envious, disenchanted non-competitor the world over. The bosses is screwing us faces into the dust.

Are you kidding? You've never had it so good. You have ten choices what topping to put on your ******* ice-cream. And in-car entertainment gives a passable imitation of the infinite. You can even like Elton John if you want.

The role of the ruling class is to try everything out while it is new and expensive to see if it is any good. If they give the thumbs up on it we mass produce it at bargain prices.

Mr Obama grovelled before the multitude. He abased himself. He begged, Mr McCain didn't. Well--not much.

1 Reply

And health care like we have is unheard of in the whole history of the human race.

1 Reply

@Foxfyre,

Quote:

And I think those countries that have been designed or established more or less as Christian nations have mostly accomplished more peaceful societies with more guarantees of individual rights and freedoms than most other nations can claim.

And they are more powerful Foxy. Don't forget that.

1 Reply

@spendius,

spendius wrote:

And health care like we have is unheard of in the whole history of the human race.

ergo, it's wrong. the only good change is no change at all. floridated water is communistic.

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@panzade,

And such observations have caused me to pause and think about how arrogant we humans are to think we are the only creatures in the universe of interest to God. But then again, the ancients likened a thousand years as but a day to the Lord meaning that time in God time is something quite different than what we understand as time.

I do believe with certainty that there is life beyond the earthly existence that we know. And I accept that I go into the next life with nothing taken from this one, except I have asked one small indulgence. I hope the Lord will allow me to take along a growing list of questions to be answered.

And again, I suspect I am going to be really surprised at how wrong my notions have been about many things. Smile

2 Replies

Jesus said I am the way.

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