I think this all comes to two basic ideas which are both articles of faith which we each think of in different manners.
1. Biblical authority. --You make the argument, if I am hearing you correctly, that it doesn't matter what happens to be written in the bible, it's having heavenly guidance in reading it and interpreting those words which counts. --This sounds like a direct form of bibliomancy; using words and passages selected at seeming random in books or dictionaries but allowing a spirit to channel and thus direct your selection and interpretation of those words to form a communication. If you read the bible allowing (hopefully) Christ to direct your eyes and understanding, then the bible becomes a sort of code book for distributing messages direct from God.
I've never heard that idea before, and I think there could be a lot of validity in it.
However, I definitely think that the core information of the bible is still highly suspect and broken. --And text, taken straight, is certainly designed by its authors to be interpreted according to the author's intent, and as such, offers a corrupt message, from which many of the ideas you present are prime examples.
I find that many of the commonly accepted stories in the bible are worth questioning. For instance, I am not convinced that Christ was even crucified; there are claims made which describe the crucifiction as a holographic insert perpetrated by alien forces to alter human history in very specific ways. While this is a far-out story, there are a multitude of corroborating bits of evidence which suggest that such beings and technology are indeed in existence, (everything from crop circles and UFO's to high level physics which suggest that at higher levels of reality, time and matter are not obstacles to such interference.) I can definitely see how the crucifiction has taught humankind behavioral patterns which allow easy subjugation to psychopathic business and political leaders, ("turn the other cheek", "forgive and forget", "love thy enemy") --All worthy ideas from one point of view which the crucifiction brutally twisted in the minds of everybody so as to allow a wide-spread version of Stockholme Syndrome to afflict every corner of society. As a very basic for instance, would Bush have gotten away with so much villainy if the national psyche was not set up to continually forgive him his lies and murderous actions?
So what do I trust? An ancient book which it would be insane to believe was not fiddled with, quoting sources I have no reason to believe were really angels or divine voice and not self-serving alien intelligences who know how to electromagnetically trigger feelings of divine ecstasy so as to give commandments and advice which anybody can clearly in the big picture has had the opposite effect upon human society than it claims to intend? --Or do I trust the evidence I collect with my own senses, which I am able to test and logically reduce through examination and cross analysis, and which comes from our current times where it is much easier to see and account for the many corrupting forces?
The more I learn and research, the more convinced I am that the Christian view is a dead-end bugaboo. And here's an interesting observation: the Christian perspective is rationally inbred; that is, it relies heavily upon constant reviewing and re-thinking of very old, very questionable data, using endless circular logic which is incapable of cutting out any false messages since it is all sacred. It is a closed system with very little new data to inform it, the bulk of its energy being spent to explain outside occurrences according to its limited rule-set. By contrast, the approach I take requires the constant seeking and absorption of new data, is not opposed to entire logic structures being canceled out end discarded when new information comes along which shows errors or gaps in thinking. As such, it is always growing more powerful. Since knowledge i
Good, since you know enough about religious thinking, I can doff my unwieldy -2 cursed clubs of restraint on using theological history and use the more powerful +25 cannons.
I hope you don't use the word "hubris" after saying that. . .;~)
In the sense that you imply that them saying "we promise to believe" means, it would be totally out of line with any form of any non-heretical Christian teaching. The view implied might be found in a Pelagian outlook, which is predicated on the belief that man's ability to good is unaffected by the Fall, but that was soundly deemed heresy by the Church and was directly repudiated by Augustine in the 400s because it directly implies that someone can be saved by one's own merits apart from Jesus Christ's atoning work. Any orthodox Christian theology which uses such terms would have an implicit recognition that God's grace is already present sustaining their faith and therefore it is not something which can be viewed as a promise to create faith by one's own powers.
The facts of the history of Christianity eat up your criticism because it flatly denies what you are saying that they could possibly have meant by saying what they did. The only way any Christian group might have this sort of error in thinking is if they totally threw away both the Church Fathers and Scripture, since both of these concur on this point. Since you said priest and described a confirmation, I can only presume this was a Roman Catholic ceremony. Of all the theological traditions, Roman Catholic theology has a very strong recognition that God's grace is a seed that enables one to live faithfully and to cooperate with His Will. That terminology if it really was in that form, would therefore necessarily have the underlying presupposition that God's grace is present and evidenced in their hearts. To say anything less is to call the church you visited heretical. Considering that the Catholic Church is the one that Augustine called home, I would think it rather strange for them to suddenly become true Pelagians. Thomas Aquinas, after all, built his scholastic theology of the Summa Theologica on Augustine in large part.
Heretical? Well, there was clearly no desire to be heretical; these were all good, well-intentioned people. --My assumption was that if the minister were forced to review what he'd said, he'd either attempt to justify it through the kind of philosophical argument you just provided, or if he had the guts, he'd simply admit that he made a verbal gaff and take it back. --And I'd give it back, too, though I'd probably first say some infuriating thing about Freud. --Because really in this case, and despite all that fast dancing, it's the person making the promise who is most affected by it. I doubt the half-dozen people being confirmed at that ceremony were all philosophically and academically agile enough to create such a squirrelly logical escape hatch to, "I promise to believe". I mean, come on!
Yes, I did misunderstand your objections quite greatly. I apologize for that.
No worries. The internet is given to the making of assumptions we all later regret, text being the great limiter of communication that it is. I spent the last day regretting the angry tone in my previous post. Sorry about that.
It is good that you believe in God. It may behoove you to read James 2:19, however. (Note, I'm suggesting this even though it runs the risk of complicating the discussion into what the distinction is between faith and fruits of faith)
Why is it good? Are you implying that somebody is judging me? Here's a quick but important note: The people whose opinions I value most do not judge others. Judging people ALWAYS results from and resolves to Fear.
As for James 2:19, and every other book and verse. . . The bible is a wholly unreliable document, filled primarily with metaphor and having passed through the hands and influence of numerous agencies which well understood the power of religion
the story would have been believable had you not thrown in the crap about a teenage girl fearing you for not having secrets
with that and the "live my life" crap you just come off as sanctimonious
Sanctimonious? Well, that's subjective. All I can say is that I do my best to be the best version of myself. I don't always get it right, but it's hardly fair to say that anybody's efforts are false.
And calling me a liar? Come on. --You can't actually do that within the bounds of logic. The best you can honestly say is that you have trouble believing me. --And seriously; my little anecdote is really not that far out, but if your experience of the world has been limited to predictable excursions, then I can see why you might be inclined to think otherwise. Six billion people offer a lot of different possibilities. Get out and try meeting some of the more interesting ones and then you'll see. But you won't get very far if you pre-judge everybody and call them names. --You'll just find yourself sitting grumpily at a little table in the corner, scowling at the world for not existing according to the instruction manual while there is dancing and music in the streets.
Actually, I almost said the moral was, "Don't be Stupid!", thinking that this was the ubiquitous moral of all stories, but then figured it was way too pejorative. Even smart people make mistakes when they don't know any better.
The Lady falls in love with a Snake, and she invites him into her home. The Snake bites her, and hurt and horrified, she cries, "I will surely die! Why? Why did you bite me?" "But my dear," the Snake replied, "I am a Snake, and you should have known better."
Moral of the story? Same as every other. . . "Ignorance Endangers."
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.???
Speaking of tags. . .
Holding knowledge of another's dark secrets is one of the foremost ways the game of politics is played.
I remember knowing the daughter of a political figure who had taught her well; he took her out drinking often when she was only a young teen so that she could build up a high tolerance to alcohol. He taught her how to dig up secrets in her opponents, and he taught her how to corrupt her fellows so that they would have secrets to fear losing control of. He was grooming he for political life; in short, he taught her the ways of Fear.
Early on when I met her, I told her that my way of living was to remain open about everything; there was no secret I would be too frightened to share, and in this way, there was no way I could be bound or controlled. I saw fear in her eyes when she looked at me then, and I didn't understand why until I got to know her better.
I have seen more harm arise from secrets kept than I ever would have imagined possible. And I have seen the most ludicrous acts which would normally be sorely condemned by society, not only easily forgiven but benefited from by entire communities simply because the participants were never afraid to share their thoughts and actions openly.
In this way, knowledge shared is power gained, and that is the only kind of power one really needs, because Good Guys don't play chess.
You say "thousands of deaths every year due to violence"? really? Where are your statistics for the "thousands" figure? I've been in the US for a decade now and keep up with the news and stuff, and out-and-out homicidal crimes are very rare compared to Muslim countries. Lots of robberies and rapes and stuff, but very few actual murders. Show me some reliable facts and figures about violent deaths, individual or en-masse, in the US.
The worst cases of ethnic violence in the US in the past 2 decades have been the Crown Heights riot (Blacks against Jews)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_Heights_Riot some 2-3 actually died, LA riots (Blacks against Asians mostly) with some 60 people dead, and this business with Jena Six (one dead). Add the Columbine incident and the Virginia Tech incident and lesser incidents and you have maybe a few hundred actual deaths from ethnic violence in the US in the last 20 years. Even despite this the US enjoys 100% religious freedom. So much so that even $cientologists are allowed to practice. Compare that with Pakistan. Millions of Bengali Hindus and moderate Muslims murdered in 1971, 17,000 Baluch murdered in 1974 alone.
We've been over this. You're trying to compare only recognizable behavioral sets without looking at the bottom line. Why does only ethnic or religious violence count? Why does only violence perpetrated within home borders count? I have already pointed out that the U.S. has been at war with one country or another almost since its inception; the resulting body count is in the millions. The U.S. actions in Vietnam alone was responsible for between one two million deaths of non-Americans, and over three hundred thousand American casualties, (we must not forget that a nations' own troops must be counted among the victims of an oppressive state.) --It should also be mentioned that several of these wars were used to create the infamous banana republics, and various other slave nations all now living and acting in service to the U.S. economy.
I have been trying to figure out why you are putting up so much resistance. --It's certainly not as though I am trying to say that the U.S. is "Worse than Pakistan", although you seem to keep assuming that this is in fact my message. --I don't really know why, as I have several times now made it plain that I feel such comparisons were altogether unhelpful and that there are larger issues at stake. Since I am obviously not getting this message across, I will repeat myself one more time: my intent is to illustrate why it is wrong to point to a country like Pakistan and, by way of that comparison, tell people in effect to stop complaining and be happy with the state of the U.S. Toward this end, I have made efforts to direct attention to following qualities of the United States. ..
1. Violent and oppressive tendencies internally; (see the crime figures posted above, and previous links to current prison population data, (in fact, here's a new item on it which just hit the news), and the hundreds of yet-to-be-filled prison camps built in preparation for some projected eventuality.) 2. Violent and oppressive tendencies externally; (through endless wars on other nations, also linked previously.)
Do you really not understand this? Do you really think I am spending all this energy because I am seeking to somehow diminish Pakistan's tragedies?
Perhaps I should revise it, in that case, to say to say that you failed to comprehend what was actually being meant.
You may certainly revise it, but you would still be incorrect. I was there, I heard what was said, and I have a full enough background in religious thinking to understand what was meant. And "I promise to believe in Jesus Christ and accept him as my lord."?? There's simply no wiggle room there.
As for my alleged "logical nonsense," what I said was perfectly reasonable although I am clearly not limiting myself to a naturalistic or materialistic perspective, as I noted. To attempt a deconstruction, what I am saying is that, that some people actually have faith in God, despite your incredulity of this fact. It is also true, then, that those who believe God do not view the study of God as a "false puzzle." If they did, they wouldn't be pursuing it.
No, you're mis-understanding me. I have no problem with faith. Heck, I believe in God, too. But my definition of God would appear alien to most and certainly has nothing to do with a bearded sociopath who lives in the sky. The false puzzle I am talking about is not based on faith. --I was referring directly to your convoluted wording in such lines as. ..
"Instead, faith is a creation of God, by His unmerited grace. Without the grace of God, there is no such thing as faith. God's grace is manifest through the Word and through the lives of the faithful and in many ways in nature, despite its imperfections. One cannot choose merely create that which is not there and were God's grace absent then faith would never exist."
"Faith is a creation of God, by His unmerited grace."? --When I break this down into its component parts, I read something which is heavily influenced by a deep lack of self-worth. Unmerited grace? How can it possibly be that some of God's creation is more worthy than another, or is it implied here that none of it is worthy? In either case. . Ugh. --And again what exactly is 'Grace' supposed to be? If we're just talking about the dictionary definition here, then why bring it up at all? --And why can I not have faith in something without it a) belonging to God, and b) being prettied up first by an emotionally charged adjective like 'Grace'? Double Ugh!
It is evident to me that we are all fragments of the infinite and mysterious universe; and as such, we are all pieces of God which contains it all. In as much as this is true, then my faith and your faith would not exist if we, that is if God, did not exist. It's nothing but a simple truism. Why waste breath on it other than to take power away from the individual and put it outside of ourselves? And why is it important to attach the word, 'Grace' to it other than to illicit an emotional response which again, in every case of religious dogma, is unerringly used to manipulate its audience?
"God's grace is manifest through the Word and through the lives of the faithful and in many ways in nature, despite its imperfections."
This kind of sentence makes my stomach turn. It is patterned after the same kind of half-lidded head-shaven Moonie mumbling which makes up cult thinking.
"God's grace is manifest"? First of all, what's wrong with just saying, "God is manifest"? I'm serious. --Why is it so important to play at embellishment with the word, "Grace" along with that other verbal fluff? If I may. ..
"God is manifest in everything. If it exists, it is part of God." Period. We're stating a truth here, we're not trying to win a Hallmark poetry contest.
But of course, I know why this is not acceptable. --Because the god of all these religions is in fact exclusionary and vindictive and generally expressing of anything BUT unconditional Love. --And in order to perpetuate this, such religions feel the need to specify that God's so-called 'grace' is manifest through the lives of the faithful, (implying that the unfaithful are somehow not part of God.), --and lucky Nature, (despi
I think that you greatly misobserved the situation.
No, I remember quite clearly both the event and the words spoken, thank-you. --I have discussed this elsewhere with another person in this thread with a similar question and we got into some depth with regard to it.
The Christian faith is specifically predicated on the fact that we are saved by grace through faith, not by our own works. If we "force ourselves" to believe something, it is a "work" and not faith. Such a false faith is termed a mere "intellectual acceptance" or a "plain belief."
Instead, faith is a creation of God, by His unmerited grace. Without the grace of God, there is no such thing as faith. God's grace is manifest through the Word and through the lives of the faithful and in many ways in nature, despite its imperfections. One cannot choose merely create that which is not there and were God's grace absent then faith would never exist.
Because we cannot "create faith" by our powers, however, it also cannot be a rationalistic construction. Human beings are fallible and if we placed our trust in only things we can reason, we would miss out on the facts that our reason cannot even begin to comprehend. Rather, the faith is the evidence of the unseen God's grace.
Okay, I don't want you to feel slighted by this, but Man! That was the most obfuscated bit of logical nonsense I've read in a long while. It reminds me of advice from a coffee mug or a Calvin & Hobbes strip I read someplace which, (unlike my little church experience), I will now horribly mis-quote: "If you don't have anything good to say, then say something baffling; that way people will think you're smart and nod quietly." --A practice employed by phony art critics and high-brow university hacks everywhere.
It has been my experience that explanations which hinge heavily on the definitions of such words as "Grace", which in turn have deliberately squishy and hard-to-pin down meanings, are generally attempts to pull the wool over people eyes and keep them spinning.
Things in the spiritual realm are both far more simple and far more complex than allowed by that kind of goofy sophistry. I can talk at great length on the subject of spirituality and non-orthodox realities, and I can do so in a manner which makes sense of very complicated subjects. --But I didn't get to that point by giving my brain over to a bunch of ancient religious scams. If you really want to understand how the universe works, you would do well to quit mucking around with this murky nonsense. There are certainly things which our brains are not capable of wrapping themselves around, and they will challenge you well enough, so there's no need to go seeking such false puzzles.
Afterward I realized you said confirmation, so I went all over the Wikipedia article on the subject. The only promises I saw mentioned were "baptismal vows," and I looked those up and they had to do with renouncing Satan.
I did some more digging as well to see what the precise ceremony entailed. Oddly enough, the various more 'official' treatises on the ceremony of confirmation included very little by way of specific words spoken by the subject, mostly focusing instead on anointing with oils and small things the minister says and does with his hands, etc. However, in actual practice, I witnessed words being spoken in the form of, "Repeat after me". --And I found that example of somebody else going through the same treatment, so I know it wasn't specific to this particular congregation. The impression I have now is that there is room for flexibility among ministers in how they perform this ceremony; that's how the general approach has been described to me at any rate by the catholics I know.
But as I said, I have no confidence here that I'm not just seeing your memory being a bit rusty since you probably understood it even less than I would have.
Unless I was struck with an instantaneous case of short-term brain damage, then I have no reason to think that what I am reporting is inaccurate. --The wording jumped out at me loud and clear and hit me like a brick; it wasn't a matter of seeing the logical fallacy after the fact. I saw it immediately and thought, "WOW! I can't believe he just said that! I'm going to have to remember that!" And so I did.
Could they have possibly said "I promise to have faith in Jesus" or something like that, and you translated "faith" to "belief"? Because the technical religious definition of "faith" is more akin to "trust" than what people call "blind faith."
Of course it's possible. --But so is winning the lottery. I am only allowing the possibility for the sake of mathematics. What's more likely is that the minister simply managed to word things in a somewhat clumsy and/or thoughtless manner; it's easy to goof during a public speaking engagement. Though nobody but me seemed to care or take note, which fits well with the notion that this religion does indeed have a required and accepted belief component, but that goes without saying. --Essentially, I got the impression that only geeks like me sweat the small print and that the general community just casually wants to follow along, the specifics being far less important than the overall feeling of ceremony and group dynamic.
I should mention, to shift gears somewhat, that I don't actually have anything against the idea of faith, although my understanding and use of the term is applied somewhat differently than I think might be commonly recognized. --As surprising as it might appear at this point, I am actually quite fascinated and involved with the concept of spiritual development. I simply don't bother with pre-packaged religions and churches, cults, leaders, movements, memes or any of the host of available 'isms'. Rather I approach the whole subject the same way I've approached any other force or person in the world; knowledge collection through direct experience and research, and then refined through basic cross analysis. I have no doubt whatsoever that there are powerful unseen forces moving in the world, --but I find the ancient, broken-telephoned and in all likelihood, deliberately corrupted messages broadcast by the major religions use to explain these forces to be a waste of time, and indeed, if taken at face value, misleading and destructive.
Exactly which Catholic ceremony was this? Can you provide a link to it in Wikipedia to prove it exists?
Well I didn't actually specify that it was a Catholic church. --But I did say that it was my friend's confirmation, which suggests to me that you already know exactly which ceremony I'm talking about. I don't think I need to 'prove' that it exists.
Maybe you have no idea what was being said or what was going on. Maybe what you saw was not "promising to believe," but "declaring that they had concluded the evidence warranted this belief," which would make just about everything you say afterward a strawman.
I hunted around and found this description of how one fellow's confirmation went which was very similar to the ceremony I saw my friend go through. ..
Mass will begin with a procession with candles. You'll be handed a candle and light yours off the person next to you. It's quite beautiful and moving. Then Mass will go on.
You'll be told when to proceed to the front of the church when the time comes, as a whole group with your sponsor standing right behind you. You'll affirm your beliefs as a group, and your sponsors will have their responses, too. Don't worry! The priest will tell you what to say, and you might even be given a paper to read from. Then the bishop (or a priest) will come to each of you and bless your forehead by making a small cross with the chrism, or holy oil. Everyone will applaud, then you go back to your seat and fit in with the crowd. No worries!
I cannot remember the exact grammar, but the line in question went very much, if not exactly like this: "And I promise to believe in Jesus Christ and accept him as my lord."
This is the line which made my jaw drop furthest, though the entire proceeding was littered with similar examples. So, no it wasn't a strawman, though it remains easy enough to knock down. --And for the record, even if this was a verbal gaff on the part of the minister, the basic tenet still holds for this religion; You have to believe in a certain set of basic 'truths' otherwise you don't belong.
Please recognize that I am not attacking you or any follower of this religion, and I would encourage that people do as they feel they must do. That's the only way to learn. --But I make no apology for criticizing religion itself; this is the result of my own learning process.
Yes, because unlike the US, Pakistan has no realistic system of checks and balances to address their problems. There are far more tribalized than any culture in the US, and tribal violence and massacres are embedded in savage ritualism (Google for the term "Pukhtunwali" and ignore the Pakistani Fundamentalist hate sites you get and see for yourself), and is completely out of control (given that large sections of the Pakistani Army and their Secret Police subscribe to such chauvinistic views).
I see. I rather suspect, however, that such an interventionist attitude would be very poorly received by the actual population, and that this would in effect nullify whatever high-minded attempts to establish order in the region according to the ideals of the invading forces might be tried. In any case, this is a very touchy issue. Is it okay for one nation to impose its cultural values upon another? I would be very careful before venturing into those waters, as it must be assumed that one culture is superior to another, an assumption which will be met with high criticism. We must remember that these are nations filled with proud adults, not with children.
Whatever the case, I question if the U.S. system really does have realistic checks and balances to address their own problems. A great deal of energy is expended to make it appear that way, but I'm not sure I believe it to be true, especially given recent examples of corruption in the court systems and voting systems with regard to recent elections. The appearance of civility definitely stands in stark contrast to the kind of tribal violence you describe in Pakistan, but the reality of corruption doesn't diminish, and by extension, the ability to create real and lasting change remains illusory.
Which is very politically correct, but factually bogus. There are much more reliable sources you can find about the complete lawlessness of the NWFP regions in Pakistan. Honor killings and such are quite rampant in the country, and the homicide rates are exponential. It's just that their government tries to suppress what really goes on in their country
"Politically correct"? I'll have to take your word for that. --Though, yes, I agree that Pakistan, based on what I have read and heard directly from people I have known who came from the country, is rife with difficulties which are not going to be covered by comparative charts detailing violent crimes even if they were compiled by the U.N.. --I recognize this, and figured you'd probably jump on that. Fair enough. But that wasn't really my point, and I would hope that you recognize that as well.
To be clear, my point was this; U.S. culture foments public violence and misery and lots of it. --There are many thousands of killings, rapes and other violent crimes committed every year in the United States. Violence for Violence; we are talking about real blood shed in both the U.S. and in Pakistan. Despite the reasons for this violence being extremely different culturally, the end result is still violence, and these things can be stacked in the same pile and looked at with the same eyes. I don't think this reeks of sophistry at all. --I think it illustrates just how easily the people of one culture can myopically believe that their violence is somehow "acceptable" whereas the violence of another culture is worth launching a war of invasion to prevent. --A woman stoned to death for not being submissive enough certainly inflames emotions in the West. But gang violence in LA resulting from deliberate economic warfare waged against Black and Hispanic Americans is no less vile. Indeed, given the track record of White America when it comes to any people who are not white, I wonder just how much better off the Pakistani people would be under American 'adult supervision'.
Pakistan is not in the Middle East. Learn some geography. Middle Eastern countries are generally paradise compared to Pakistan, which is why millions of Pakistanis are swarmin
Part of me wants to respond with, "Fucking 'A'!" and another part, the older and more mature part says, "You're right, but it's important to remember that even self-destructive choices which make us crazy to watch unfold are nonetheless valid choices. The best you can do is keep speaking truth, and do it in a way which isn't vengeful.
I've watched friends become church-goers; kneel before a priest and promise to believe in biblical claims. How can anybody "promise" to believe anything? Isn't belief the final product after a process observational and logical cross analysis has taken place? All you can realistically promise to believe is what your mind tells you is true. And since we are constantly learning, then we cannot promise, ever, that our belief system will not change when new information enters our awareness. Such promises can only be kept if we effectively stop learning and stop cross analyzing. --So either my friend was just nodding and repeating what he was told to say at his religious confirmation ceremony without thinking about it, or he was actually really promising to limit his rational thought processes to only those which would allow continued "belief" in biblical doctrine; a virtual lobotomy. Either way, it was a very disheartening event to witness; this is a guy who is otherwise smart and aware and caring. Luckily, it's possible to change your mind, and so all I can do is continue being myself and allow him to grow as he best sees fit. But it has been a challenge to remain respectful.
I'd been invited to his confirmation and he really wanted me to be there, so I went. It was my first time inside a church in many years, and I was reminded again why I cannot stand religion. --I was the only person, I think, in a church filled with almost my entire community, sitting there thinking, "This is all absolutely fucking insane. All these people are crazy! Aren't they hearing this stuff? Don't they SEE what is going on here?" --I've read the bible, and I've studied the other various religions, I know how cults work, I know how social control works, I know how mind-programming works, and I know enough psychology to know how and why people can be seduced, or worse, how (as you point out), they WANT to be seduced. I can tear the whole thing apart like the sand castle that it is, and I've done this over and over. Anybody with a brain can do it; it's fish in a barrel stuff.
But I held back on that day. I'd been invited by my friend, who knows full well my views on this, so all I could do was agree to watch him do this thing.
Hmm. I am very hesitant about allowing this to devolve into a "Who is worse" contest; killing is killing and none of it is "better". --I realize that my original post was constructed in a comparative manner, but my intention was to offer examples refuting the notion that the U.S. Government does not bear any resemblance to a totalitarian regime and that people should in effect, stop complaining.
The problem is that there are now rumblings in the West about perhaps focusing military solutions on Pakistan. I find this very disturbing, and so I will offer some comparisons with the intention of perhaps alerting people to the false logic and hypocrisy in such lines of thinking. ..
Try 3 million in 1971 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1971_Bangladesh_atrocities) There is a difference between people killed in the exigencies of war (as in US involvement in Iraq), a transient phenomenon, and the pervasive intolerance and violence all across Pakistan, which lasts for decades.
Well, without wanting to ignore such mass-killings, it is worth noting that according to that wiki article, the final figure (3 million) you quote is actually hotly disputed. --Though, more to my main point, it is worth pointing out that the U.S. war machine is pretty much jammed in the 'On' position. While the names of the conflicts and regions may change, I think calling the endlessly bloody results of U.S. military endeavors "exigencies" or a "transient phenomenon" is a wee bit disingenuous.
and 500-3000 women a year (http://archives.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiapcf/south/12/11/pakistan.women/), and numerous religious minorities.
With regard to the deaths of woman, I can only say that the Pakistani civilian culture is certainly riddled with violent behavior. I do not argue that. And while this public behavior is in many cases sanctioned by government policy, it seems to me that this problem is more cultural than political. No doubt, Pakistan is a mess.
However. . , is this a reason to condemn Pakistan and perhaps even levy Western military pressure upon the region?
Well, to me this idea seems more a result of media spin in support of the Military Industrial Complex than anything else. So I thought. . , I know! Let's compare violent crime in the U.S. civilian population to that in Pakistan, and I bet we'll discover that the U.S. is at least as violent, if not more so; heck, the murder rate in California alone is usually at least a couple thousand annually. --Then I can ask such thought-provoking and debate-killing questions as, "Given such figures, shouldn't the world community instead be sending military forces to control the rampant violence in the U.S.?"
So I looked up some figures, and I'll be blowed if the first item I came across wasn't this comparative chart, which actually places Pakistan as being the least violent place with regard to homicide rates by country, with the U.S. and Poland coming in the middle immediately after all the most screwed up countries on the world map.
So what do we do with this kind of information?
Well, for one, we have to stop right away the, "Who is worse" game. Killing is bad, period. And again, I want to stress that I only offer these comparisons to shake people up and stop them from thinking of the Middle Eastern countries as, "Bad Places Which Need Western Guidance." That message is pure war-monger nonsense, and I doubt very much that they come from people like you; such messages are marketing spin which were probably very expensive and labor-intensive to produce. The truth of the matter is that humans are treating each other abysmally all over the planet, and that evil government is a deep and wide-spread problem. And finally, I think that military intervention is the LAST thing which should be considered in any situation. --Indeed, I'm not convinced that it shou
Just because our TVs are filled with lots of colorful distractions, and our homes are nicely replete with Walmart furnishings, it does not stand true that all is right with the world. The Military Industrial Complex requires for effective functioning that a portion of its gear box be well-oiled. If you were a good little rally-attending German citizen, then life in the late thirties was also pretty good. If one is to guage the state of our governments, one needs to care about how people other than ourselves are being treated by those governments.
I can see many reasons for people to be concerned about the U.S. government. Outward shows of totalitarianism, like having the internet lock up for a day because of religious/political dogmatic beliefs, are certainly impressive. I can't find anything in the news to soften my own reaction to the Pakistani government. But "Who is worse" arguments seem to me a distraction. There are problems all over which should all be recognized. Getting caught up in nationalism is a great way to lose focus on the actual issue.
"America's entire B-2 stealth bomber fleet, which has played a crucial part in all major US conflicts since 1989, has been grounded after one of the jets crashed near a military base in Guam. The crash -- the first involving the B-2 -- was the most expensive single aircraft accident in history. (The planes cost $1.2B each.) Officials assume the crash was caused by either mechanical failure or human error, but have grounded all B-2s to ensure there is not some fundamental fault developing in the 21-strong fleet. The crash occurred Saturday morning local time as the B-2 was taking off from Andersen Air Force base on Guam, a US territory south of Japan. An Air Force spokesman said, 'The cause of crash is unknown, pending an investigation. The pilots had ejected safely -- no serious injuries. One is mobile, one is still in the hospital under observation.'"
Okay. Let's look at the pertinent details which you are meant to have soaked up but not think about consciously until it becomes useful later.
"1989" "Crashed" "Grounded" "Crucial part in all major US conflicts". --The impression you are to have is of a once proud and distinguished, but now old and unreliable fleet.
"21-strong fleet." --Really? Only 21? I didn't realize. . . (But now you do. Why?)
Having known several journalists, both old guard and new, it is a curious reality that often the people publishing these stories do not know the reasons they are instructed to word things just so, knowing only that deviation is not permitted.
The parent poster may not have all his facts correct, but don't you think you're being a little harsh?
But I guess Orwell was right when he wrote that Fascism has come to mean little more than "something that I don't like," (writing in the 50's!), and here we see another example of people desperate to call something they hate Fascist, and they aren't going to let something like whether or not it actually has any of the aspects of Fascism (or Fascism of it) get in the way.
What constitutes a definition of fascism and fascist governments is a highly disputed subject that has proved complicated and contentious. Historians, political scientists, and other scholars have engaged in long and furious debates concerning the exact nature of fascism and its core tenets.
Most scholars agree that a "fascist regime" is foremost an authoritarian form of government, although not all authoritarian regimes are fascist. Authoritarianism is thus a defining characteristic, but most scholars will say that more distinguishing traits are needed to make an authoritarian regime fascist.
People are upset about the government tapping their phone lines. What difference does it make if phone taps don't fall precisely into some pre-defined category which nobody can agree on anyway?
Many words naturally evolve. The intent behind them the thing which matters.
The Bush government is a, "Thing I Don't Like", but if I call the Bush Government, "Fascist", I'm communicating a lot more in a lot fewer syllables.
So many of the people I've met over the years have been young souls grinding their way through life in awkward, embarrassing-to-watch displays of thoughtless, self-centered, over-dramatic, cruel behavior.
--I actually have found that this can be observed by region. Certain big cities seem to be coalescing points for childish behavior. Conversely, those towns with smoothly-running municipal systems, low crime and stress levels and generally happy people also tend to be populated with a higher number of, what appear to me, as more mature souls who treat each other with patience and respect. For some reason, the various groups don't intermingle very well, or put another way, 'water rises to its own level'. No surprise there, I suppose.
I wonder what town this ridiculous law suit originated in. . .
The idea is neat, but even if the thing cost only $20, I'd stick with my little plug-in laptop-sized keyboard.
For me, maximizing physical desk space is very important. Plus, I touch type.
But it certainly does look like a neat device. Kudos to Lebedev for getting to a point where they can actually ship this beast. I know what it's like to hanker after a cool new gadget, so I send my best wishes to all those who have been aching to get their fingers on one of these things.
I can remember clearly every time my geek gland kicked in and made me super-excited about getting some new toy. Last time it was when LED flashlights began to filter onto the market; I spent nearly eighty bucks on a killer LED flashlight which takes 3 D-cells, and was overjoyed to do so. Before that, it was a mini lap-top which had no moving parts (other than the keys and the screen) and which specialized in word-processing and document reading; the Asus EEE would have satisfied me in a big way, but this was a few years back and the best I was able to do was an old HP Jornada 820 found on eBay, (and which I use a heckuva lot more than that flashlight, but LED flashlights are still super-cool IMHO). --Before that, it was one of those lightsaber toys with the extending blade. Very exciting days! Oooh! And long before that, I remember being really pumped to get one of the original mini-leatherman tools. I've had that for nearly twenty years and I still used it regularly. Great gadget!
Whoa. I thought this thread was well and truly buried.
--Computers are funny, and I'm not sure what forces are in effect, but I've certainly experienced what you describe. I've built and maintained PC's for friends and they tend to behave well for me. --And more than once have I made them stop misbehaving simply by standing in front of them. I don't think this kind of thing is unique by any means, as your story would suggest. Though, I've never really done any measuring to see if it's just an observational bit of mental pattern building where really there is nothing special going on, or if there is some kind of reality bubble surrounding certain people which makes computers work better.
Beats me, but I've definitely noticed the effect more than once.
If there's an actual force at work, then my first thought would be that it's simply another aspect of belief and intent affecting the behavior of reality. --I've certainly found that intent changes the behavior of larger events. Why not micro-events?
I don't know why this info was not included in the up-front literature. --It's only mentioned on the bottom left corner of one of the design graphics.
Four hours is an awesome run-time for such a device.
I lived in a house once where the land lord had a wind-up radio. It was great in every respect other than its run time; every fifteen minutes or so you had to crank it up again, which made it annoying to use.
I went and read the various descriptions in the article, and it seems to me that about half of these ideas are not new at all, but have simply been re-labeled. Here's my brief reaction to a few of them. . .
Surprise Modeling: "To monitor surprises effectively, says Horvitz, the machine has to have both knowledge--a good cognitive model of what humans find surprising--and foresight: some way to predict a surprising event in time for the user to do something about it." You mean like weather forecasting? Isn't most, if not all scientific pursuit dedicated to the understanding of natural systems so that we can know what to expect where once we were attributing events to Zeus and such?
Connectonomics: "Lichtman is a neuroscientist, and the image is the first comprehensive wiring diagram of part of the mammalian nervous system. The lines denote axons, the long, hairlike extensions of nerve cells that transmit signals from one neuron to the next; the leaves are synapses, the connections that the axons make with other neurons or muscle cells. The diagram is the fruit of an emerging field called "connectomics," which attempts to physically map the tangle of neural circuits that collect, process, and archive information in the nervous system." --Well that's very nice, but perhaps he ought to examine the role DC currents play in cellular and nervous system activity. Broken bones don't knit back together through the application of electricity for no reason. What else does low-current DC electricity do in the human body? Actually, quite a lot; a fair bit is known about this subject, but that information seems to elude the Dr. Lichtmans of the world. --And why shouldn't it, what with such massive interest in the development of the following technological bonanzas. . .
Wireless Power: "Having difficulty imagining a vast infrastructure of wires extending into every city, building, and room, Tesla figured that wireless was the way to go. He drew up plans for a tower, about 57 meters tall, that he claimed would transmit power to points kilometers away, and even started to build one on Long Island. Though his team did some tests, funding ran out before the tower was completed. The promise of airborne power faded rapidly as the industrial world proved willing to wire up." --Yup. Tesla. And all this time I was thankful he never achieved his goal in this regard. Cell phones are bad enough as it is, which is why I expect out of all these 'emerging' technologies, that this one will be unstoppable.
Reality Mining: "Researchers have been mining data from the physical world for years, says Alex Kass, a researcher who leads reality-mining projects at Accenture, a consulting and technology services firm. Sensors in manufacturing plants tell operators when equipment is faulty, and cameras on highways monitor traffic flow. But now, he says, "reality mining is getting personal."" What? So the massive profit growth of the whole Air Miles thing has up until now been sold simply as a way to keep track of how much milk is left in stock at the local 7/11? Gosh. Who knew?
Other people have commented on the bio-fuels thing, and the fact that we've had Java and Flash for some time now, and anyway I have to leave the house in a few minutes. So enjoy the future. Ciao.
Here's a question: How do torturers practice their skills? How does an agency determine the best way to exact pain? A homeless test subject scooped from the streets has nothing to confess which will stop such "explorations". --Of course, information collection is just an excuse. The real reason people torment one another is to feed, so accuracy is hardly an important issue, except to keep the self-deception spinning so long as it is necessary.
In any case, there is little doubt that you will find yourself one day strapped to a table learning the other side of the coin, karma being what it is. Sadly, compassion is usually learned through direct exposure to suffering.
I suspect my words must sound like babble at the moment, but I'll wish you good luck anyway.
Slashdot Mirror
I think this all comes to two basic ideas which are both articles of faith which we each think of in different manners.
1. Biblical authority. --You make the argument, if I am hearing you correctly, that it doesn't matter what happens to be written in the bible, it's having heavenly guidance in reading it and interpreting those words which counts. --This sounds like a direct form of bibliomancy; using words and passages selected at seeming random in books or dictionaries but allowing a spirit to channel and thus direct your selection and interpretation of those words to form a communication. If you read the bible allowing (hopefully) Christ to direct your eyes and understanding, then the bible becomes a sort of code book for distributing messages direct from God.
I've never heard that idea before, and I think there could be a lot of validity in it.
However, I definitely think that the core information of the bible is still highly suspect and broken. --And text, taken straight, is certainly designed by its authors to be interpreted according to the author's intent, and as such, offers a corrupt message, from which many of the ideas you present are prime examples.
I find that many of the commonly accepted stories in the bible are worth questioning. For instance, I am not convinced that Christ was even crucified; there are claims made which describe the crucifiction as a holographic insert perpetrated by alien forces to alter human history in very specific ways. While this is a far-out story, there are a multitude of corroborating bits of evidence which suggest that such beings and technology are indeed in existence, (everything from crop circles and UFO's to high level physics which suggest that at higher levels of reality, time and matter are not obstacles to such interference.) I can definitely see how the crucifiction has taught humankind behavioral patterns which allow easy subjugation to psychopathic business and political leaders, ("turn the other cheek", "forgive and forget", "love thy enemy") --All worthy ideas from one point of view which the crucifiction brutally twisted in the minds of everybody so as to allow a wide-spread version of Stockholme Syndrome to afflict every corner of society. As a very basic for instance, would Bush have gotten away with so much villainy if the national psyche was not set up to continually forgive him his lies and murderous actions?
So what do I trust? An ancient book which it would be insane to believe was not fiddled with, quoting sources I have no reason to believe were really angels or divine voice and not self-serving alien intelligences who know how to electromagnetically trigger feelings of divine ecstasy so as to give commandments and advice which anybody can clearly in the big picture has had the opposite effect upon human society than it claims to intend? --Or do I trust the evidence I collect with my own senses, which I am able to test and logically reduce through examination and cross analysis, and which comes from our current times where it is much easier to see and account for the many corrupting forces?
The more I learn and research, the more convinced I am that the Christian view is a dead-end bugaboo. And here's an interesting observation: the Christian perspective is rationally inbred; that is, it relies heavily upon constant reviewing and re-thinking of very old, very questionable data, using endless circular logic which is incapable of cutting out any false messages since it is all sacred. It is a closed system with very little new data to inform it, the bulk of its energy being spent to explain outside occurrences according to its limited rule-set. By contrast, the approach I take requires the constant seeking and absorption of new data, is not opposed to entire logic structures being canceled out end discarded when new information comes along which shows errors or gaps in thinking. As such, it is always growing more powerful. Since knowledge i
Good, since you know enough about religious thinking, I can doff my unwieldy -2 cursed clubs of restraint on using theological history and use the more powerful +25 cannons.
;~)
I hope you don't use the word "hubris" after saying that. . .
In the sense that you imply that them saying "we promise to believe" means, it would be totally out of line with any form of any non-heretical Christian teaching. The view implied might be found in a Pelagian outlook, which is predicated on the belief that man's ability to good is unaffected by the Fall, but that was soundly deemed heresy by the Church and was directly repudiated by Augustine in the 400s because it directly implies that someone can be saved by one's own merits apart from Jesus Christ's atoning work. Any orthodox Christian theology which uses such terms would have an implicit recognition that God's grace is already present sustaining their faith and therefore it is not something which can be viewed as a promise to create faith by one's own powers.
The facts of the history of Christianity eat up your criticism because it flatly denies what you are saying that they could possibly have meant by saying what they did. The only way any Christian group might have this sort of error in thinking is if they totally threw away both the Church Fathers and Scripture, since both of these concur on this point. Since you said priest and described a confirmation, I can only presume this was a Roman Catholic ceremony. Of all the theological traditions, Roman Catholic theology has a very strong recognition that God's grace is a seed that enables one to live faithfully and to cooperate with His Will. That terminology if it really was in that form, would therefore necessarily have the underlying presupposition that God's grace is present and evidenced in their hearts. To say anything less is to call the church you visited heretical. Considering that the Catholic Church is the one that Augustine called home, I would think it rather strange for them to suddenly become true Pelagians. Thomas Aquinas, after all, built his scholastic theology of the Summa Theologica on Augustine in large part.
Heretical? Well, there was clearly no desire to be heretical; these were all good, well-intentioned people. --My assumption was that if the minister were forced to review what he'd said, he'd either attempt to justify it through the kind of philosophical argument you just provided, or if he had the guts, he'd simply admit that he made a verbal gaff and take it back. --And I'd give it back, too, though I'd probably first say some infuriating thing about Freud. --Because really in this case, and despite all that fast dancing, it's the person making the promise who is most affected by it. I doubt the half-dozen people being confirmed at that ceremony were all philosophically and academically agile enough to create such a squirrelly logical escape hatch to, "I promise to believe". I mean, come on!
Yes, I did misunderstand your objections quite greatly. I apologize for that.
No worries. The internet is given to the making of assumptions we all later regret, text being the great limiter of communication that it is. I spent the last day regretting the angry tone in my previous post. Sorry about that.
It is good that you believe in God. It may behoove you to read James 2:19, however. (Note, I'm suggesting this even though it runs the risk of complicating the discussion into what the distinction is between faith and fruits of faith)
Why is it good? Are you implying that somebody is judging me? Here's a quick but important note: The people whose opinions I value most do not judge others. Judging people ALWAYS results from and resolves to Fear.
As for James 2:19, and every other book and verse. . . The bible is a wholly unreliable document, filled primarily with metaphor and having passed through the hands and influence of numerous agencies which well understood the power of religion
with that and the "live my life" crap you just come off as sanctimonious
Sanctimonious? Well, that's subjective. All I can say is that I do my best to be the best version of myself. I don't always get it right, but it's hardly fair to say that anybody's efforts are false.
And calling me a liar? Come on. --You can't actually do that within the bounds of logic. The best you can honestly say is that you have trouble believing me. --And seriously; my little anecdote is really not that far out, but if your experience of the world has been limited to predictable excursions, then I can see why you might be inclined to think otherwise. Six billion people offer a lot of different possibilities. Get out and try meeting some of the more interesting ones and then you'll see. But you won't get very far if you pre-judge everybody and call them names. --You'll just find yourself sitting grumpily at a little table in the corner, scowling at the world for not existing according to the instruction manual while there is dancing and music in the streets.
-FL
Actually, I almost said the moral was, "Don't be Stupid!", thinking that this was the ubiquitous moral of all stories, but then figured it was way too pejorative. Even smart people make mistakes when they don't know any better.
-FL
The Lady falls in love with a Snake, and she invites him into her home.
The Snake bites her, and hurt and horrified, she cries, "I will surely die! Why? Why did you bite me?"
"But my dear," the Snake replied, "I am a Snake, and you should have known better."
Moral of the story? Same as every other. . . "Ignorance Endangers."
-FL
Speaking of tags. . .
Holding knowledge of another's dark secrets is one of the foremost ways the game of politics is played.
I remember knowing the daughter of a political figure who had taught her well; he took her out drinking often when she was only a young teen so that she could build up a high tolerance to alcohol. He taught her how to dig up secrets in her opponents, and he taught her how to corrupt her fellows so that they would have secrets to fear losing control of. He was grooming he for political life; in short, he taught her the ways of Fear.
Early on when I met her, I told her that my way of living was to remain open about everything; there was no secret I would be too frightened to share, and in this way, there was no way I could be bound or controlled. I saw fear in her eyes when she looked at me then, and I didn't understand why until I got to know her better.
I have seen more harm arise from secrets kept than I ever would have imagined possible. And I have seen the most ludicrous acts which would normally be sorely condemned by society, not only easily forgiven but benefited from by entire communities simply because the participants were never afraid to share their thoughts and actions openly.
In this way, knowledge shared is power gained, and that is the only kind of power one really needs, because Good Guys don't play chess.
Just some thoughts.
-FL
You say "thousands of deaths every year due to violence"? really? Where are your statistics for the "thousands" figure? I've been in the US for a decade now and keep up with the news and stuff, and out-and-out homicidal crimes are very rare compared to Muslim countries. Lots of robberies and rapes and stuff, but very few actual murders. Show me some reliable facts and figures about violent deaths, individual or en-masse, in the US.
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In 2004, the United States reported. .
16,137 Murders 854,911 cases of Aggravated Assault. 94,635 cases of Forcible Rape
The worst cases of ethnic violence in the US in the past 2 decades have been the Crown Heights riot (Blacks against Jews)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_Heights_Riot some 2-3 actually died, LA riots (Blacks against Asians mostly) with some 60 people dead, and this business with Jena Six (one dead). Add the Columbine incident and the Virginia Tech incident and lesser incidents and you have maybe a few hundred actual deaths from ethnic violence in the US in the last 20 years. Even despite this the US enjoys 100% religious freedom. So much so that even $cientologists are allowed to practice. Compare that with Pakistan. Millions of Bengali Hindus and moderate Muslims murdered in 1971, 17,000 Baluch murdered in 1974 alone.
We've been over this. You're trying to compare only recognizable behavioral sets without looking at the bottom line. Why does only ethnic or religious violence count? Why does only violence perpetrated within home borders count? I have already pointed out that the U.S. has been at war with one country or another almost since its inception; the resulting body count is in the millions. The U.S. actions in Vietnam alone was responsible for between one two million deaths of non-Americans, and over three hundred thousand American casualties, (we must not forget that a nations' own troops must be counted among the victims of an oppressive state.) --It should also be mentioned that several of these wars were used to create the infamous banana republics, and various other slave nations all now living and acting in service to the U.S. economy.
I have been trying to figure out why you are putting up so much resistance. --It's certainly not as though I am trying to say that the U.S. is "Worse than Pakistan", although you seem to keep assuming that this is in fact my message. --I don't really know why, as I have several times now made it plain that I feel such comparisons were altogether unhelpful and that there are larger issues at stake. Since I am obviously not getting this message across, I will repeat myself one more time: my intent is to illustrate why it is wrong to point to a country like Pakistan and, by way of that comparison, tell people in effect to stop complaining and be happy with the state of the U.S. Toward this end, I have made efforts to direct attention to following qualities of the United States. .
1. Violent and oppressive tendencies internally; (see the crime figures posted above, and previous links to current prison population data, (in fact, here's a new item on it which just hit the news), and the hundreds of yet-to-be-filled prison camps built in preparation for some projected eventuality.)
2. Violent and oppressive tendencies externally; (through endless wars on other nations, also linked previously.)
Do you really not understand this? Do you really think I am spending all this energy because I am seeking to somehow diminish Pakistan's tragedies?
The U.S. hasn't experienced any genoci
Perhaps I should revise it, in that case, to say to say that you failed to comprehend what was actually being meant.
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You may certainly revise it, but you would still be incorrect. I was there, I heard what was said, and I have a full enough background in religious thinking to understand what was meant. And "I promise to believe in Jesus Christ and accept him as my lord."?? There's simply no wiggle room there.
As for my alleged "logical nonsense," what I said was perfectly reasonable although I am clearly not limiting myself to a naturalistic or materialistic perspective, as I noted. To attempt a deconstruction, what I am saying is that, that some people actually have faith in God, despite your incredulity of this fact. It is also true, then, that those who believe God do not view the study of God as a "false puzzle." If they did, they wouldn't be pursuing it.
No, you're mis-understanding me. I have no problem with faith. Heck, I believe in God, too. But my definition of God would appear alien to most and certainly has nothing to do with a bearded sociopath who lives in the sky. The false puzzle I am talking about is not based on faith. --I was referring directly to your convoluted wording in such lines as. .
"Instead, faith is a creation of God, by His unmerited grace. Without the grace of God, there is no such thing as faith. God's grace is manifest through the Word and through the lives of the faithful and in many ways in nature, despite its imperfections. One cannot choose merely create that which is not there and were God's grace absent then faith would never exist."
"Faith is a creation of God, by His unmerited grace."? --When I break this down into its component parts, I read something which is heavily influenced by a deep lack of self-worth. Unmerited grace? How can it possibly be that some of God's creation is more worthy than another, or is it implied here that none of it is worthy? In either case. . Ugh. --And again what exactly is 'Grace' supposed to be? If we're just talking about the dictionary definition here, then why bring it up at all? --And why can I not have faith in something without it a) belonging to God, and b) being prettied up first by an emotionally charged adjective like 'Grace'? Double Ugh!
It is evident to me that we are all fragments of the infinite and mysterious universe; and as such, we are all pieces of God which contains it all. In as much as this is true, then my faith and your faith would not exist if we, that is if God, did not exist. It's nothing but a simple truism. Why waste breath on it other than to take power away from the individual and put it outside of ourselves? And why is it important to attach the word, 'Grace' to it other than to illicit an emotional response which again, in every case of religious dogma, is unerringly used to manipulate its audience?
"God's grace is manifest through the Word and through the lives of the faithful and in many ways in nature, despite its imperfections."
This kind of sentence makes my stomach turn. It is patterned after the same kind of half-lidded head-shaven Moonie mumbling which makes up cult thinking.
"God's grace is manifest"? First of all, what's wrong with just saying, "God is manifest"? I'm serious. --Why is it so important to play at embellishment with the word, "Grace" along with that other verbal fluff? If I may. .
"God is manifest in everything. If it exists, it is part of God." Period. We're stating a truth here, we're not trying to win a Hallmark poetry contest.
But of course, I know why this is not acceptable. --Because the god of all these religions is in fact exclusionary and vindictive and generally expressing of anything BUT unconditional Love. --And in order to perpetuate this, such religions feel the need to specify that God's so-called 'grace' is manifest through the lives of the faithful, (implying that the unfaithful are somehow not part of God.), --and lucky Nature, (despi
No, I remember quite clearly both the event and the words spoken, thank-you. --I have discussed this elsewhere with another person in this thread with a similar question and we got into some depth with regard to it.
Okay, I don't want you to feel slighted by this, but Man! That was the most obfuscated bit of logical nonsense I've read in a long while. It reminds me of advice from a coffee mug or a Calvin & Hobbes strip I read someplace which, (unlike my little church experience), I will now horribly mis-quote: "If you don't have anything good to say, then say something baffling; that way people will think you're smart and nod quietly." --A practice employed by phony art critics and high-brow university hacks everywhere.
It has been my experience that explanations which hinge heavily on the definitions of such words as "Grace", which in turn have deliberately squishy and hard-to-pin down meanings, are generally attempts to pull the wool over people eyes and keep them spinning.
Things in the spiritual realm are both far more simple and far more complex than allowed by that kind of goofy sophistry. I can talk at great length on the subject of spirituality and non-orthodox realities, and I can do so in a manner which makes sense of very complicated subjects. --But I didn't get to that point by giving my brain over to a bunch of ancient religious scams. If you really want to understand how the universe works, you would do well to quit mucking around with this murky nonsense. There are certainly things which our brains are not capable of wrapping themselves around, and they will challenge you well enough, so there's no need to go seeking such false puzzles.
-FL
I did some more digging as well to see what the precise ceremony entailed. Oddly enough, the various more 'official' treatises on the ceremony of confirmation included very little by way of specific words spoken by the subject, mostly focusing instead on anointing with oils and small things the minister says and does with his hands, etc. However, in actual practice, I witnessed words being spoken in the form of, "Repeat after me". --And I found that example of somebody else going through the same treatment, so I know it wasn't specific to this particular congregation. The impression I have now is that there is room for flexibility among ministers in how they perform this ceremony; that's how the general approach has been described to me at any rate by the catholics I know.
But as I said, I have no confidence here that I'm not just seeing your memory being a bit rusty since you probably understood it even less than I would have.
Unless I was struck with an instantaneous case of short-term brain damage, then I have no reason to think that what I am reporting is inaccurate. --The wording jumped out at me loud and clear and hit me like a brick; it wasn't a matter of seeing the logical fallacy after the fact. I saw it immediately and thought, "WOW! I can't believe he just said that! I'm going to have to remember that!" And so I did.
Could they have possibly said "I promise to have faith in Jesus" or something like that, and you translated "faith" to "belief"? Because the technical religious definition of "faith" is more akin to "trust" than what people call "blind faith."
Of course it's possible. --But so is winning the lottery. I am only allowing the possibility for the sake of mathematics. What's more likely is that the minister simply managed to word things in a somewhat clumsy and/or thoughtless manner; it's easy to goof during a public speaking engagement. Though nobody but me seemed to care or take note, which fits well with the notion that this religion does indeed have a required and accepted belief component, but that goes without saying. --Essentially, I got the impression that only geeks like me sweat the small print and that the general community just casually wants to follow along, the specifics being far less important than the overall feeling of ceremony and group dynamic.
I should mention, to shift gears somewhat, that I don't actually have anything against the idea of faith, although my understanding and use of the term is applied somewhat differently than I think might be commonly recognized. --As surprising as it might appear at this point, I am actually quite fascinated and involved with the concept of spiritual development. I simply don't bother with pre-packaged religions and churches, cults, leaders, movements, memes or any of the host of available 'isms'. Rather I approach the whole subject the same way I've approached any other force or person in the world; knowledge collection through direct experience and research, and then refined through basic cross analysis. I have no doubt whatsoever that there are powerful unseen forces moving in the world, --but I find the ancient, broken-telephoned and in all likelihood, deliberately corrupted messages broadcast by the major religions use to explain these forces to be a waste of time, and indeed, if taken at face value, misleading and destructive.
But that's just me.
-FL
Well I didn't actually specify that it was a Catholic church. --But I did say that it was my friend's confirmation, which suggests to me that you already know exactly which ceremony I'm talking about. I don't think I need to 'prove' that it exists.
Maybe you have no idea what was being said or what was going on. Maybe what you saw was not "promising to believe," but "declaring that they had concluded the evidence warranted this belief," which would make just about everything you say afterward a strawman.
I hunted around and found this description of how one fellow's confirmation went which was very similar to the ceremony I saw my friend go through. .
I cannot remember the exact grammar, but the line in question went very much, if not exactly like this: "And I promise to believe in Jesus Christ and accept him as my lord."
This is the line which made my jaw drop furthest, though the entire proceeding was littered with similar examples. So, no it wasn't a strawman, though it remains easy enough to knock down. --And for the record, even if this was a verbal gaff on the part of the minister, the basic tenet still holds for this religion; You have to believe in a certain set of basic 'truths' otherwise you don't belong.
Please recognize that I am not attacking you or any follower of this religion, and I would encourage that people do as they feel they must do. That's the only way to learn. --But I make no apology for criticizing religion itself; this is the result of my own learning process.
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Yes, because unlike the US, Pakistan has no realistic system of checks and balances to address their problems. There are far more tribalized than any culture in the US, and tribal violence and massacres are embedded in savage ritualism (Google for the term "Pukhtunwali" and ignore the Pakistani Fundamentalist hate sites you get and see for yourself), and is completely out of control (given that large sections of the Pakistani Army and their Secret Police subscribe to such chauvinistic views).
I see. I rather suspect, however, that such an interventionist attitude would be very poorly received by the actual population, and that this would in effect nullify whatever high-minded attempts to establish order in the region according to the ideals of the invading forces might be tried. In any case, this is a very touchy issue. Is it okay for one nation to impose its cultural values upon another? I would be very careful before venturing into those waters, as it must be assumed that one culture is superior to another, an assumption which will be met with high criticism. We must remember that these are nations filled with proud adults, not with children.
Whatever the case, I question if the U.S. system really does have realistic checks and balances to address their own problems. A great deal of energy is expended to make it appear that way, but I'm not sure I believe it to be true, especially given recent examples of corruption in the court systems and voting systems with regard to recent elections. The appearance of civility definitely stands in stark contrast to the kind of tribal violence you describe in Pakistan, but the reality of corruption doesn't diminish, and by extension, the ability to create real and lasting change remains illusory.
Which is very politically correct, but factually bogus. There are much more reliable sources you can find about the complete lawlessness of the NWFP regions in Pakistan. Honor killings and such are quite rampant in the country, and the homicide rates are exponential. It's just that their government tries to suppress what really goes on in their country
"Politically correct"? I'll have to take your word for that. --Though, yes, I agree that Pakistan, based on what I have read and heard directly from people I have known who came from the country, is rife with difficulties which are not going to be covered by comparative charts detailing violent crimes even if they were compiled by the U.N.. --I recognize this, and figured you'd probably jump on that. Fair enough. But that wasn't really my point, and I would hope that you recognize that as well.
To be clear, my point was this; U.S. culture foments public violence and misery and lots of it. --There are many thousands of killings, rapes and other violent crimes committed every year in the United States. Violence for Violence; we are talking about real blood shed in both the U.S. and in Pakistan. Despite the reasons for this violence being extremely different culturally, the end result is still violence, and these things can be stacked in the same pile and looked at with the same eyes. I don't think this reeks of sophistry at all. --I think it illustrates just how easily the people of one culture can myopically believe that their violence is somehow "acceptable" whereas the violence of another culture is worth launching a war of invasion to prevent. --A woman stoned to death for not being submissive enough certainly inflames emotions in the West. But gang violence in LA resulting from deliberate economic warfare waged against Black and Hispanic Americans is no less vile. Indeed, given the track record of White America when it comes to any people who are not white, I wonder just how much better off the Pakistani people would be under American 'adult supervision'.
Pakistan is not in the Middle East. Learn some geography. Middle Eastern countries are generally paradise compared to Pakistan, which is why millions of Pakistanis are swarmin
I've watched friends become church-goers; kneel before a priest and promise to believe in biblical claims. How can anybody "promise" to believe anything? Isn't belief the final product after a process observational and logical cross analysis has taken place? All you can realistically promise to believe is what your mind tells you is true. And since we are constantly learning, then we cannot promise, ever, that our belief system will not change when new information enters our awareness. Such promises can only be kept if we effectively stop learning and stop cross analyzing. --So either my friend was just nodding and repeating what he was told to say at his religious confirmation ceremony without thinking about it, or he was actually really promising to limit his rational thought processes to only those which would allow continued "belief" in biblical doctrine; a virtual lobotomy. Either way, it was a very disheartening event to witness; this is a guy who is otherwise smart and aware and caring. Luckily, it's possible to change your mind, and so all I can do is continue being myself and allow him to grow as he best sees fit. But it has been a challenge to remain respectful.
I'd been invited to his confirmation and he really wanted me to be there, so I went. It was my first time inside a church in many years, and I was reminded again why I cannot stand religion. --I was the only person, I think, in a church filled with almost my entire community, sitting there thinking, "This is all absolutely fucking insane. All these people are crazy! Aren't they hearing this stuff? Don't they SEE what is going on here?" --I've read the bible, and I've studied the other various religions, I know how cults work, I know how social control works, I know how mind-programming works, and I know enough psychology to know how and why people can be seduced, or worse, how (as you point out), they WANT to be seduced. I can tear the whole thing apart like the sand castle that it is, and I've done this over and over. Anybody with a brain can do it; it's fish in a barrel stuff.
But I held back on that day. I'd been invited by my friend, who knows full well my views on this, so all I could do was agree to watch him do this thing.
Brrr. I'm sorry. I'm venting.
Or perhaps I should say. . .
Fucking 'A'.
-FL
Hmm. I am very hesitant about allowing this to devolve into a "Who is worse" contest; killing is killing and none of it is "better". --I realize that my original post was constructed in a comparative manner, but my intention was to offer examples refuting the notion that the U.S. Government does not bear any resemblance to a totalitarian regime and that people should in effect, stop complaining.
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The problem is that there are now rumblings in the West about perhaps focusing military solutions on Pakistan. I find this very disturbing, and so I will offer some comparisons with the intention of perhaps alerting people to the false logic and hypocrisy in such lines of thinking. .
Try 3 million in 1971 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1971_Bangladesh_atrocities) There is a difference between people killed in the exigencies of war (as in US involvement in Iraq), a transient phenomenon, and the pervasive intolerance and violence all across Pakistan, which lasts for decades.
Well, without wanting to ignore such mass-killings, it is worth noting that according to that wiki article, the final figure (3 million) you quote is actually hotly disputed. --Though, more to my main point, it is worth pointing out that the U.S. war machine is pretty much jammed in the 'On' position. While the names of the conflicts and regions may change, I think calling the endlessly bloody results of U.S. military endeavors "exigencies" or a "transient phenomenon" is a wee bit disingenuous.
and 500-3000 women a year (http://archives.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiapcf/south/12/11/pakistan.women/), and numerous religious minorities.
With regard to the deaths of woman, I can only say that the Pakistani civilian culture is certainly riddled with violent behavior. I do not argue that. And while this public behavior is in many cases sanctioned by government policy, it seems to me that this problem is more cultural than political. No doubt, Pakistan is a mess.
However. . , is this a reason to condemn Pakistan and perhaps even levy Western military pressure upon the region?
Well, to me this idea seems more a result of media spin in support of the Military Industrial Complex than anything else. So I thought. . , I know! Let's compare violent crime in the U.S. civilian population to that in Pakistan, and I bet we'll discover that the U.S. is at least as violent, if not more so; heck, the murder rate in California alone is usually at least a couple thousand annually. --Then I can ask such thought-provoking and debate-killing questions as, "Given such figures, shouldn't the world community instead be sending military forces to control the rampant violence in the U.S.?"
So I looked up some figures, and I'll be blowed if the first item I came across wasn't this comparative chart, which actually places Pakistan as being the least violent place with regard to homicide rates by country, with the U.S. and Poland coming in the middle immediately after all the most screwed up countries on the world map.
So what do we do with this kind of information?
Well, for one, we have to stop right away the, "Who is worse" game. Killing is bad, period. And again, I want to stress that I only offer these comparisons to shake people up and stop them from thinking of the Middle Eastern countries as, "Bad Places Which Need Western Guidance." That message is pure war-monger nonsense, and I doubt very much that they come from people like you; such messages are marketing spin which were probably very expensive and labor-intensive to produce. The truth of the matter is that humans are treating each other abysmally all over the planet, and that evil government is a deep and wide-spread problem. And finally, I think that military intervention is the LAST thing which should be considered in any situation. --Indeed, I'm not convinced that it shou
Will somebody please mod this person correctly?
How many documented civilian deaths since 2003 is Pakistan responsible for? (In ONLY one other country?) --For that matter, what percentage of its own citizenry does Pakistan keep in prison as compared to the U.S.?
Just because our TVs are filled with lots of colorful distractions, and our homes are nicely replete with Walmart furnishings, it does not stand true that all is right with the world. The Military Industrial Complex requires for effective functioning that a portion of its gear box be well-oiled. If you were a good little rally-attending German citizen, then life in the late thirties was also pretty good. If one is to guage the state of our governments, one needs to care about how people other than ourselves are being treated by those governments.
Also. . . People in North America are concerned about such disturbing trends as the large number of empty prison camps built on U.S. soil, and the whole Black Water thing.
I can see many reasons for people to be concerned about the U.S. government. Outward shows of totalitarianism, like having the internet lock up for a day because of religious/political dogmatic beliefs, are certainly impressive. I can't find anything in the news to soften my own reaction to the Pakistani government. But "Who is worse" arguments seem to me a distraction. There are problems all over which should all be recognized. Getting caught up in nationalism is a great way to lose focus on the actual issue.
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Okay. Let's look at the pertinent details which you are meant to have soaked up but not think about consciously until it becomes useful later.
"1989" "Crashed" "Grounded" "Crucial part in all major US conflicts". --The impression you are to have is of a once proud and distinguished, but now old and unreliable fleet.
"21-strong fleet." --Really? Only 21? I didn't realize. . . (But now you do. Why?)
Having known several journalists, both old guard and new, it is a curious reality that often the people publishing these stories do not know the reasons they are instructed to word things just so, knowing only that deviation is not permitted.
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But I guess Orwell was right when he wrote that Fascism has come to mean little more than "something that I don't like," (writing in the 50's!), and here we see another example of people desperate to call something they hate Fascist, and they aren't going to let something like whether or not it actually has any of the aspects of Fascism (or Fascism of it) get in the way.
Definitions of Fascism.
People are upset about the government tapping their phone lines. What difference does it make if phone taps don't fall precisely into some pre-defined category which nobody can agree on anyway?
Many words naturally evolve. The intent behind them the thing which matters.
The Bush government is a, "Thing I Don't Like", but if I call the Bush Government, "Fascist", I'm communicating a lot more in a lot fewer syllables.
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--I actually have found that this can be observed by region. Certain big cities seem to be coalescing points for childish behavior. Conversely, those towns with smoothly-running municipal systems, low crime and stress levels and generally happy people also tend to be populated with a higher number of, what appear to me, as more mature souls who treat each other with patience and respect. For some reason, the various groups don't intermingle very well, or put another way, 'water rises to its own level'. No surprise there, I suppose.
I wonder what town this ridiculous law suit originated in. . .
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For me, maximizing physical desk space is very important. Plus, I touch type.
But it certainly does look like a neat device. Kudos to Lebedev for getting to a point where they can actually ship this beast. I know what it's like to hanker after a cool new gadget, so I send my best wishes to all those who have been aching to get their fingers on one of these things.
I can remember clearly every time my geek gland kicked in and made me super-excited about getting some new toy. Last time it was when LED flashlights began to filter onto the market; I spent nearly eighty bucks on a killer LED flashlight which takes 3 D-cells, and was overjoyed to do so. Before that, it was a mini lap-top which had no moving parts (other than the keys and the screen) and which specialized in word-processing and document reading; the Asus EEE would have satisfied me in a big way, but this was a few years back and the best I was able to do was an old HP Jornada 820 found on eBay, (and which I use a heckuva lot more than that flashlight, but LED flashlights are still super-cool IMHO). --Before that, it was one of those lightsaber toys with the extending blade. Very exciting days! Oooh! And long before that, I remember being really pumped to get one of the original mini-leatherman tools. I've had that for nearly twenty years and I still used it regularly. Great gadget!
So enjoy your funky keyboards!
-FL
--Computers are funny, and I'm not sure what forces are in effect, but I've certainly experienced what you describe. I've built and maintained PC's for friends and they tend to behave well for me. --And more than once have I made them stop misbehaving simply by standing in front of them. I don't think this kind of thing is unique by any means, as your story would suggest. Though, I've never really done any measuring to see if it's just an observational bit of mental pattern building where really there is nothing special going on, or if there is some kind of reality bubble surrounding certain people which makes computers work better.
Beats me, but I've definitely noticed the effect more than once.
If there's an actual force at work, then my first thought would be that it's simply another aspect of belief and intent affecting the behavior of reality. --I've certainly found that intent changes the behavior of larger events. Why not micro-events?
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Oh, well. It would have been nice.
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Four hours is an awesome run-time for such a device.
I lived in a house once where the land lord had a wind-up radio. It was great in every respect other than its run time; every fifteen minutes or so you had to crank it up again, which made it annoying to use.
-Fl
Surprise Modeling: "To monitor surprises effectively, says Horvitz, the machine has to have both knowledge--a good cognitive model of what humans find surprising--and foresight: some way to predict a surprising event in time for the user to do something about it." You mean like weather forecasting? Isn't most, if not all scientific pursuit dedicated to the understanding of natural systems so that we can know what to expect where once we were attributing events to Zeus and such?
Connectonomics: "Lichtman is a neuroscientist, and the image is the first comprehensive wiring diagram of part of the mammalian nervous system. The lines denote axons, the long, hairlike extensions of nerve cells that transmit signals from one neuron to the next; the leaves are synapses, the connections that the axons make with other neurons or muscle cells. The diagram is the fruit of an emerging field called "connectomics," which attempts to physically map the tangle of neural circuits that collect, process, and archive information in the nervous system." --Well that's very nice, but perhaps he ought to examine the role DC currents play in cellular and nervous system activity. Broken bones don't knit back together through the application of electricity for no reason. What else does low-current DC electricity do in the human body? Actually, quite a lot; a fair bit is known about this subject, but that information seems to elude the Dr. Lichtmans of the world. --And why shouldn't it, what with such massive interest in the development of the following technological bonanzas. . .
Wireless Power: "Having difficulty imagining a vast infrastructure of wires extending into every city, building, and room, Tesla figured that wireless was the way to go. He drew up plans for a tower, about 57 meters tall, that he claimed would transmit power to points kilometers away, and even started to build one on Long Island. Though his team did some tests, funding ran out before the tower was completed. The promise of airborne power faded rapidly as the industrial world proved willing to wire up." --Yup. Tesla. And all this time I was thankful he never achieved his goal in this regard. Cell phones are bad enough as it is, which is why I expect out of all these 'emerging' technologies, that this one will be unstoppable.
Reality Mining: "Researchers have been mining data from the physical world for years, says Alex Kass, a researcher who leads reality-mining projects at Accenture, a consulting and technology services firm. Sensors in manufacturing plants tell operators when equipment is faulty, and cameras on highways monitor traffic flow. But now, he says, "reality mining is getting personal."" What? So the massive profit growth of the whole Air Miles thing has up until now been sold simply as a way to keep track of how much milk is left in stock at the local 7/11? Gosh. Who knew?
Other people have commented on the bio-fuels thing, and the fact that we've had Java and Flash for some time now, and anyway I have to leave the house in a few minutes. So enjoy the future. Ciao.
-FL
I'm sure you'd go far with the right employers.
Here's a question: How do torturers practice their skills? How does an agency determine the best way to exact pain? A homeless test subject scooped from the streets has nothing to confess which will stop such "explorations". --Of course, information collection is just an excuse. The real reason people torment one another is to feed, so accuracy is hardly an important issue, except to keep the self-deception spinning so long as it is necessary.
In any case, there is little doubt that you will find yourself one day strapped to a table learning the other side of the coin, karma being what it is. Sadly, compassion is usually learned through direct exposure to suffering.
I suspect my words must sound like babble at the moment, but I'll wish you good luck anyway.
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