2008-07-11 - Rider Down, NW11

I can't be arsed to read all this - can someone tell me who won?

Anger and passion

cracking me up this morning to think how few people will be arsed to read this.....

pajamarama,
I could be arsed to read it, have just spent the last forty five mins, reading it, all very informative, interesting and reinforcing my opinion that you don't talk about religion, politics, and jumping red lights.
But the forum's a big place and as good a place to have a long winded, good/bitchy natured discussion/argument/debate about religion, just shows me how little I actually know the bible even though I used to love reading revelations in church of a sunday morning.
Anyhoo, keep up the good work fellas, you're keeping the thread derailing spirit alive.
I salute you...

cracking me up this morning to think how few people will be arsed to read this.....

I've just read it. I hope the cyclist who went down in Golders Green is ok.

Good point

But I've been reading this and enjoying the banter. Thanks

I've just read it too and really fancied chipping in, but Tynan seems to have it all under control from the staunch atheist camp where I live.

Nice chats guys, all very informative if slightly depressing for me.

Oh and for the record: BMMF you are slightly scary but I love your posts nonetheless.

the electricity booard?

Gold dust !! :D

Actually, it all makes you wonder doesn't it?

The expression "Christ on a bike"

Was it fixed? What gear ratio? Did he go brakeless? Presume no helmet.

Now that is a very interesting question. If I could prove the existance of God I would be the most famous man alive so I won't bother to try that on for size.

When you refer to 'god' or 'gods' - what is it you are referring, by that I mean what might a god be (by that I don't mean to ask what a god does, or means, or represents, but what you think a god actually is ?

For example, is a god (or gods) a physical object, a philosophy, a gas, an emotion etc ?

I would have to say that from personal experience having lived part of my life with absolutely no connection to a supernatural being and part of my life with a connection to a supernatural being; that with is better than without. Does that mean that it is not all in my head, well no it doesn't. But it is a form of consciousness that I share with billions and billions of my fellow human beings so to believe in God is a very 'human' experience.

I agree, belief in magic/the supernatural is innate to us, the sheer volume of us following superstitious beliefs makes your point and I doubt we will ever be free from it simply due to how we are.

If changes me in anyway it probably makes me a little more humble, a great deal more grateful and sometimes even quite loved up. Is it mumbo jumbo? I don't really care, I was in a dark dark place I really didn't have any choice but to swallow my pride and get down on my knees and pray because when you are in a really dark place who else are you going to turn to?

Your fellow man, real people, actual reality, your friends and family, wife/girlfriend/boyfriend ?

What is the thing you turned to when you where in a dark place (I am guessing you are implying you were depressed?) - by that I mean where you turing to a god (whatever that might be) ?

You have a wife, a girlfriend, and a boyfriend? That's just greedy. It doesn't leave enough loved ones for other people, hence their decision to get down on their knees and talk to themselves.

But I still reckon that the teachings of Jesus are intellectually and spiritually rich and useful in the quest to be a good person (simplistic as those two words are they ride).

This is where we disagree, I think you innately have the values within you to be a good person, do the right thing and so on. I don' believe you use the teachings of Jesus (or Ganesh, or the Greek gods, or Allah, or the Peacock angel or any of the numerous deceased gods through history that man has claimed he takes his moral guidance from).

When Jesus tells us how hard to beat our slaves, not only do you disagree on the level of recommended punishment (beat them so hard that if they die they do not die immediately but survive at least 2 days), you (hopefully) fundamentally disagree on even the keeping of slaves. But when one of his drawn out platitudes pop up, you think to yourself - 'yep that's good, I will go with that one' - you are picking and choosing good from bad using your own values.

Avoid shellfish, kill homosexuals, never wear mixed cloth and keep Sunday for god ? I am pretty sure this is not what is meant here.
Be nice to people, less of the old killing if you would and don't go stealing your neighbors property ? Well that's obviously the right thing to do.

Of course 200 years ago when we had a different outlook, we used the Bible to justify slavery, now that we see slavery as a crime against humanity we look at the sanctioning of slavery in the Bible and tell ourselves that it is now just allegory, metaphor and parable.

It is us projecting our innate morality onto the Bible, not the other way around.

You have a wife, a girlfriend, and a boyfriend? That's just greedy. It doesn't leave enough loved ones for other people, hence their decision to get down on their knees and talk to themselves.

He started out as my boyfriend, but I was never happy with him, so I got him doctored, you know had the full chop job, then he was my girlfriend, when he tried, one day, to escape, I forced him into an arranged marrage, so now he is my wife.

May I also remind you of your own:

My clan is fairly typical of the EC1/Finsbury locale - the woman you met who's the mother of my child is also my sister, and my son is already my uncle twice removed. When he's old enough, he'll probably boost numbers by hooking up with his mum/my sister.

that survey was great. Very interesting, wonder what the comparison would be with UK people... (I'm british so easy to say - yeah but Americans...)

lovin the one "people say I am wise"........

There is some great stuff in there, I think the main drive was to find responses from both sides of the supernatural divide that where polar opposites, questions that most clearly separate the religious from the non-religious.

The survey was to design stimulus for experiments with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) looking at how the brains of the religious and non-religious fire.

didn't he die for you or something. Isn't that enough man?

No, he didn't die, it was a temporary arrangement, and god being omniscient knew this before it happened, Jesus would be nailed up to a tree in his underpants and a few days later would be out and about again doing his thing, hardly a sacrifice.

pajamarama,
I could be arsed to read it, have just spent the last forty five mins, reading it, all very informative. . .

Mr blackfoot, this thread will be out in paperback sometime in late August, can I put you down for a copy ?

"Even if all his life a fool associates with a wise man, he will not understand the Truth, even as the spoon (does not understand) the flavour of the soup"

(from the Dhammapada)

"Even if all his life a fool associates with a wise man, he will not understand the Truth, even as the spoon (does not understand) the flavour of the soup"

(from the Dhammapada)

"And whosoever shall say, Thou Fool, shall be in danger of hell fire" -- Matthew 5:22

So that's the Buddha fucked then, Yahweh always wins, he's just got the baddest moves.

I genuinely love this stuff: "even as the spoon (does not understand) the flavour of the soup" - if you say the most inane things - "The tree always (knows) where his leaves fall" with enough gravitas, tone and authority you can lend the obvious a profundity that makes you sound like you have just unravelled the deepest mysteries of the universe.

The rules are simple, pick something banal, the more banal the better, anything will do, the content is unimportnant it just needs to be imbued with some vagueness, some uncertainty as to what you are saying - "The cloud knows not where he is going, nor will he get there" - say it with complete authority, say it very very slowly, almost comically so, putting long pauses between odd couplings of words and place emphasis on where you would not expect emphasis:

The cloud . . .

Knows not W_h_e_r_e (really drag this word out). . .

he ? is going . . . (try and make 'he' sound like a question in it's own right)

Nor . . .

. . .

Will he get there. (always say the final word very very quietly, almost whisper it)

leave another long pause, scan around your audience looking them in eye, then finish the whole thing with a wry, knowing smile and then turn and walk away from your audience ignoring their questions.

I believe the children are our future, teach them well and they will show the way…

The Gospel according to Whitney, Chapter 3 verse 7

@Tynan

I think you're rather ignoring the fact that Chinese and Japanese are heavily metaphoric languages because of the way that they are constructed from symbols. A lot of things that sound a bit pretentious in English are plays on the difference in nuance between signifier and signified, which make a lot more sense in the original language. So I'm told by linguists who have studied them, at any rate: I don't claim to speak either.

As for the rest of your stuff on religion - erm, while I agree with you that the content of most religion is clearly irrational, the practice of using communally shared myths to maintain the cohesion of a group, enforce norms and provide a motivating force for collective action was, and still is, rational in a purely evolutionary sense - communities that work together effectively are more successful than those that don't. Admittedly we're still using mythologies created back when we were barely more than hunter-gatherers, but I guess that shows how effective they were.

Anyway, if you want people to stop believing in such superstitions you have to provide them with some other communal mythology to replace it, and as I'm sure you know some of our previous attempts (I'm thinking particularly about the period 1850-1950) were a little, well, bloody.

Regardless, simply pointing at religious doctrine and saying 'it doesn't make sense' isn't going to make any religious person give up their faith.

^^^ :D I can only presume all these sleepless nights are kicking tynan.. one thing Jesus did say that you might be seeing sense in is "suffer little children".........

I am staggered at the intellectual vehemence with which tynan has fought his corner on this one. It seems such a waste of all that knowledge when it is only produced in order to be dismissed - but so much more pleasurable to engage with than someone who is armed only with self-righteousness.

I'm hazarding this is probably making headway to being the heaviest thread of all time.

btw BMMF, last night I was entrenched in responding to tynan's stuff but as usual (it's really quite annoying) your various thread posts were clever and witty and funny and.... oh I don't know..erudite and succinct to boot...

@cliveo - I fully agree with you, sorry if you thought my comment was about the thread as a whole - true, what developed consitutes a hijacking of a thread about someone injured and I'm sorry if it seemed like I was being unfeeling, I hope the cyclist is okay. But what grew out of it has been interesting and hasn't been disrespectful - and my "can anyone be arsed?" quote was more about the way the thread was groaning with turgidity a page in than the inital stages of it.

Not at all. I was being flipant and reminding myself, after an entertaining and educational read, where it had all started.

I love pajamas.

pajamarama,
all very informative, interesting and reinforcing my opinion that you don't talk about religion, politics, and jumping red lights.
...

I think I might have to +1 you on that CB, even though I have now demonstrated an appetite for the exact opposite, at least on one of them.

I'd like to add one to your list - no surprises if you ever read a few choice threads - but gender differences is also a no no for my money. Ooooooohhhh.......

Oops....... forget I said that...

chid - when the use of 'child' is too formal but 'kid' seems a tad common