Why is there religion???

[PDS]

38 minutes ago, BaalChatzaf said:

The processes of your body (that includes the brain, nervous system and glands)  are not deterministic  at the subatomic level.  A great deal of what happens not only to us but in the cosmos  was not pinned down and programmed  at the instant of the Big Bang.  Some things do happen by chance. As long as that is the case one must allow for Free (in t he sense of non-deterministic) Will.  

One can also "allow" for the existence of Ghost Ships and little forest fairies.  

Do you believe free will exists, or not?

[Brant Gaede]

1 hour ago, PDS said:

One can also "allow" for the existence of Ghost Ships and little forest fairies.  

Do you believe free will exists, or not?

I like to think of free will a little less atomistically--that is, free will exists in a person, yes or no?

--Brant

minor point

[BaalChatzaf]

2 hours ago, PDS said:

One can also "allow" for the existence of Ghost Ships and little forest fairies.  

Do you believe free will exists, or not?

I feel like it does.  Which proves nothing.

[Brant Gaede]

5 hours ago, william.scherk said:

Clairvoyance?  Guesswork? Evidence? it's  a decent conversation starter, I guess.  Anything about The Joo, and making general claims about The Joo -- this is a fine conversation starter.

Hmmm. The only way to find out if your speculations and conclusions are crap is to test each claim against reality as best we can.  If you aren't claiming any truth-value, then it isn't crap at all, just a conversation starter about offhand generalizing.  

I will pick one item, number 7,  dependent clause.   Protestants are more secular than Catholics ... no grousing about "tend to" ... since tend to be is measurable by the same means.

Before checking up on any of the claims/conversation-starters, can I ask if you believe that Protestants are more secular than Catholics?  If so, how would you measure it and put your belief to a test? 

More importantly, having started a conversation, are you prepared to sustain it?

LOL. That was funny how you carved me up like a turkey.

I'm not prepared to have a discussion for the sake of having one. You went down the list and picked one thing. You seem essentially disinterested. You want 200 posts of my opinion-your opinion? Discussion for the sake of discussion? Nothing wrong with that; it sharpens the mind. When I said that Protestants were more secular than Catholics it was apropos the C. ceremonies and music--the rituals, the mysteries. The theology. (Includes the Church of England, I suppose.) My impressions are superficial. I'm angling for someone to tell how and why I'm wrong. How I'm ignorant. I'm angling for expertise. I'm not angling for your Merck Manual approach, which is like the student going to the library and bringing back a bunch of answers to the teacher. I don't teach much. I am not your teacher. I am sure you'd make a wonderful student to a great teacher who'd go over your information point by point and help you sort out the good from the bad and the right from the wrong and adjust sundry emphases to better weightings and, above all, how to integrate and use. Above all you seem to have an academic's luxury of time. I don't. (I do think you are looking for that teacher, btw.)

--Brant

I was never a very good student. I'm an autodidact.

[Brant Gaede]

8 hours ago, moralist said:

Abortion is grisly, Bob.

Science devoid of morality is Nazism.

Greg

Is an expression of Nazism after Nazism takes over science.

--Brant

the wrong in your statement makes it all wrong, this time at least

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I have only skimmed through this thread, so if the following was mentioned, I missed it and sorry.

I recently finished reading The Confessions of Saint Augustine (John K. Ryan translation).

Augustine's argument about man's need for religion is far more sophisticated than I would have thought for a Catholic around 400 AD. He goes into the nature of time, of memory, senses, even of God as far as Augustine can understand Him--and it is not a trivial understanding. In fact, there is some Greek philosophy mixed in.

The need for religion argument goes something like the following. Man can make many things, but he cannot make himself. Thus God made man. God also made all natural things (including time) out of nothing--but a nothing that was obviously something to God. In other words, this part is beyond human understanding and can only be worshipped (or not). Man can control what he can do and perceive, but he can only worship (or not) what he cannot avoid and does not understand--including the force that made him.

I don't recall where Augustine objected to worshipping idols (his deal was against a pagan dualistic kind of Christianity called Manichaeism because he was a member for over a decade before converting), but I did read this objection over and over in The Old Testament. The reason I mention it is because it is based on a simplified form of Augustine's argument about God making man and nature. The argument is that God made man, then man made idols with the hands and materials God gave to man, then man worshipped those idols instead of God. Man thus worshipped things he made rather than worshipping the thing (God) that made him. This was the reason it was such a sin.

The need for religion to ancient Jews and Christians (as far as I can tell) mostly boils down to trying to understand how man can make things, but cannot make himself or make nature.

One of the coolest parts of Augustine's thinking was about God's rest on the seventh day in Genesis. (Note, Augustine considers a creation day as a time span different than an earthly day). Augustine claimed that God, after making everything, rested and is still at rest (and will continue), and that man reflects this pattern with human death--i.e., man makes a lot of things like God did, and also like God, man rests for eternity when his time comes around.

I can't say much about the metaphysics since this is beyond my experience, but this parallel in Christian storytelling is really cool.

 

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

In college over 50 years ago a fellow student, very conservative and religious, showed me a paperback the title he despised: Man Makes Himself.

--Brant

by V. Gordon Childe (a socialist and Marxist who committed suicide in 1957 by jumping off a 1000 ft cliff in his native Australia)

[william.scherk]

4 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

8 hours ago, william.scherk said:

More importantly, having started a conversation, are you prepared to sustain it?

LOL. That was funny how you carved me up like a turkey.

I'm not prepared to have a discussion for the sake of having one.

Oh, drat.

4 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

When I said that Protestants were more secular than Catholics it was apropos the C. ceremonies and music--the rituals, the mysteries.

Well, that makes sense.  I didn't actually have a come-back, but do pay attention to shit like the Pew multi-year surveys of religion in America.  What sort of stuck out about (a kind of) secularism is that on the whole, Protestants have a stronger belief in god than Catholics.  There are important differences, of course, between the evangelicals and the mainstream Protestant denominations -- the former are much more attached to their faith than the latter.

If you were talking about Catholics in larger aggregates -- maybe by nation, there the data is mixed. On the one hand we have the particular hardline French secularism (which they call laïcité) and then we have the sea-change in another ostensibly Catholic majority country like ireland --- witness the referendum on gay marriage there. And then there is Catholic Poland, Catholic Spain, and Catholic Portugal -- each suffused with Catholic history, and each with a distinct history of 'secularism' (or in Spain/Portugal, a fascist Catholic dictatorship.  So, I would say you can be right as rain, but it depends on which populations we look at.

Brant, most of what I do with you -- for fun -- is simply ask that dang dratted question from Objectivish epistemology: how do you know? How do we know?

The corollary is 'how do you know when you are wrong?' How can we know ...

Quote

My impressions are superficial. I'm angling for someone to tell how and why I'm wrong.

Well, regarding The Joo, I think you added caveats to take care of that: I might be wrong.

Quote

How I'm ignorant. I'm angling for expertise.

Oh, dear. There is expertise in thinking  rationally here, on average. That is probably the best we can do, as a second choice, the first choice being conversation with Knowledge.  Expertise generally costs money, if only as an IOU.

Quote

I'm not angling for your Merck Manual approach, which is like the student going to the library and bringing back a bunch of answers to the teacher.

I don't know what you mean by the Merck Manual approach, but it sounds awful. The student going to the library is definitely me.  I am also my teacher in this instance. 

Quote

I don't teach much. I am not your teacher. I am sure you'd make a wonderful student to a great teacher who'd go over your information point by point and help you sort out the good from the bad and the right from the wrong and adjust sundry emphases to better weightings and, above all, how to integrate and use. 

 Brant, there aren't many of us here anymore willing to converse.  I was a very difficult student in High School for part of the time --  for challenging teachers who peddled dogma and did not keep up with reality.  I think there is a habit of mind on a forum like this (structurally), or at least a communication habit. This is non-conversation, not by design, but as side-effect. In a conversation we would not speak in large paragraphs as in a more formal setting like a symposium.

But anyhow, I understand that sometimes you are squeezing a topic to make it squeak, or just to encourage a turnover in boring remarks -- and maybe sometimes say something provocative about The Joo or The Fashist.   I think our best extended exchange was when we discussed the two terms Climate Change and Global Warming.  

I am off to explore the Merck Manual trope ...

I should say "sorry" for unnecessary snark or imputation of motives.  This place would be the poorer without Brant Gaede. You are one of the only ones left who can bring us personal, first-hand impressions of  Rand and Nathaniel Branden. 

Edited May 25, 2016 by william.scherk
Spelking, grrrammar. Added a couple of country references

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

1 hour ago, Brant Gaede said:

... a paperback...: Man Makes Himself.

. . .

by V. Gordon Childe (a socialist and Marxist who committed suicide in 1957 by jumping off a 1000 ft cliff in his native Australia)

Brant,

Looks like Childe botched it. I wonder if he had trouble getting a job...

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

A job isn't the reason. Interesting Wikipedia read.

[Brant Gaede]

2 hours ago, william.scherk said:

Oh, drat.

Well, that makes sense.  I didn't actually have a come-back, but do pay attention to shit like the Pew multi-year surveys of religion in America.  What sort of stuck out about (a kind of) secularism is that on the whole, Protestants have a stronger belief in god than Catholics.  There are important differences, of course, between the evangelicals and the mainstream Protestant denominations -- the former are much more attached to their faith than the latter.

If you were talking about Catholics in larger aggregates -- maybe by nation, there the data is mixed. On the one hand we have the particular hardline French secularism (which they call laïcité) and then we have the sea-change in another ostensibly Catholic majority country like ireland --- witness the referendum on gay marriage there. And then there is Catholic Poland, Catholic Spain, and Catholic Portugal -- each suffused with Catholic history, and each with a distinct history of 'secularism' (or in Spain/Portugal, a fascist Catholic dictatorship.  So, I would say you can be right as rain, but it depends on which populations we look at.

Brant, most of what I do with you -- for fun -- is simply ask that dang dratted question from Objectivish epistemology: how do you know? How do we know?

The corollary is 'how do you know when you are wrong?' How can we know ...

Well, regarding The Joo, I think you added caveats to take care of that: I might be wrong.

Oh, dear. There is expertise in thinking  rationally here, on average. That is probably the best we can do, as a second choice, the first choice being conversation with Knowledge.  Expertise generally costs money, if only as an IOU.

I don't know what you mean by the Merck Manual approach, but it sounds awful. The student going to the library is definitely me.  I am also my teacher in this instance. 

 Brant, there aren't many of us here anymore willing to converse.  I was a very difficult student in High School for part of the time --  for challenging teachers who peddled dogma and did not keep up with reality.  I think there is a habit of mind on a forum like this (structurally), or at least a communication habit. This is non-conversation, not by design, but as side-effect. In a conversation we would not speak in large paragraphs as in a more formal setting like a symposium.

But anyhow, I understand that sometimes you are squeezing a topic to make it squeak, or just to encourage a turnover in boring remarks -- and maybe sometimes say something provocative about The Joo or The Fashist.   I think our best extended exchange was when we discussed the two terms Climate Change and Global Warming.  

I am off to explore the Merck Manual trope ...

I should say "sorry" for unnecessary snark or imputation of motives.  This place would be the poorer without Brant Gaede. You are one of the only ones left who can bring us personal, first-hand impressions of  Rand and Nathaniel Branden. 

William, any provocative from me is not by conscious intent. In a sense everyone here is provoking by not being the other fellow, just himself--natural human friction. I do naturally tend to get along with people. If I had joined the navy they'd have considered me fit for submarine service on that account. In Vietnam I defused a situation between me and another soldier on my team that could have led to a shootout or one of us having to depart. I invited him to my room to talk it out. I had my M-16 placed in just such a way on the floor to send a message without being too blatant about it. I explained A, B and C and I was willing to do G and H in exchange for X. Deal? He said yes. We did it. End of problem. I was still irritated. Today I'm still a little irritated thinking about it. I would be in a worse situation than that if I had had to shoot him. Or him, me. It was my (military) job right then and there to stop and correct what was going on. No one else could have done it without sending one of us to the C Team in Can Tho and that might have been too late. The other guy couldn't because his brain worked differently and not too well. So first I sent his alligator brain a message then switched to his cognitive overlay. There was no way he could claim I threatened him. Everybody had a rifle. He may have been killed in action later, but I don't know for sure.

The (standard) Merck Manual is a book for nurses et al. listing every possible sign and symptom for all known diseases and conditions almost worthless to doctors who treat it with contempt. I guess it was put out by the drug company which would explain a lot (just go look at a standard PDR). I admit a lot must have changed over the last 50 years.

You know you're wrong when you bump into something you shouldn't bump into. Off that crude base we advance to (my--I'm writing here! I'm writing here!) just victory on the deadly field of ratiocination.

Thanks for the religious update. Good info!

My base view/opinion of Rand? She made herself. It's a good thing she wasn't a government housing project.

--Brant

[moralist]

22 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

As long as there is income tax  we will never know real freedom.

There's no "we", Bob.

You're only speaking for yourself... not for me. 

And this is because you're ignorant as to how American Capitalism works. You've been an employee all of your life, which is why you've never known real freedom and never will.

I don't pay any taxes, my clients do. Taxes are just another business expense built into the purchase price charged to the end user. They do not come out of profit because they are added to the price charged. The government didn't teach you how to be free. They only groomed you to be a slave who never tasted freedom.

You freely chose to be cheat yourself out of freedom... because intelligence is no substitute for common sense.

 

Greg

[BaalChatzaf]

4 hours ago, moralist said:

There's no "we", Bob.

You're only speaking for yourself... not for me. 

And this is because you're ignorant as to how American Capitalism works. You've been an employee all of your life, which is why you've never know real freedom and never will.

I don't pay any taxes, my clients do. Taxes are just another business expense built into the purchase price charged to the end user. They do not come out of profit because they are added to the price charged. The government didn't teach you how to be free. They only groomed you to be a slave who never tasted freedom.

You freely chose to be cheat yourself out of freedom... because intelligence is no substitute for common sense.

 

Greg

Do you pay your  tax  or is your tax deducted from your income., Yes or No.  Which is it?

Each one of us is plundered by the government.  If one tries to avoid tax, he pays a penalty in time and effort to avoid arrest or confiscation.  If he is in prison for tax evasion he has payed a "freedom tax"

[Brant Gaede]

6 hours ago, moralist said:

There's no "we", Bob.

You're only speaking for yourself... not for me. 

And this is because you're ignorant as to how American Capitalism works. You've been an employee all of your life, which is why you've never know real freedom and never will.

I don't pay any taxes, my clients do. Taxes are just another business expense built into the purchase price charged to the end user. They do not come out of profit because they are added to the price charged. The government didn't teach you how to be free. They only groomed you to be a slave who never tasted freedom.

You freely chose to be cheat yourself out of freedom... because intelligence is no substitute for common sense.

Greg

Your poor clients. They walk in mud, you gloat above.

--Brant

where is my envy?

[Jon Letendre]

It is neither possible (there are too many distortions everywhere) nor useful to track down the apparent versus actual victims of this or that tax or type of tax.

The short and meaningful answer, covering the whole mess, is to say that everyone pays more for everything because of the systemic capital misallocation, unemployment, lower productivity, etc., which harms those the most who have the smallest disposable income after essentials.

[moralist]

5 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

Do you pay your  tax  or is your tax deducted from your income., Yes or No.  Which is it?

Each one of us is plundered by the government.  If one tries to avoid tax, he pays a penalty in time and effort to avoid arrest or confiscation.  If he is in prison for tax evasion he has payed a "freedom tax"

No.

I'm not an employee so I don't get paychecks like you did, Bob. Taxes are not deducted from my income  I pay quarterly business tax and simply add that cost to the prices I charge for the goods and services I sell.

Face it, Bob... you're NEVER going to understand what it's like to be free, because you've NEVER been an independent Capitalist producer. I used the characters in Atlas Shrugged who created Galt's Gulch as my business model... while you chose the movie "Brazil" for yours. This is the liberal government education YOU chose.

 

Greg

[moralist]

3 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

Your poor clients. They walk in mud, you gloat above.

--Brant

where is my envy?

Don't you know anything about American Capitalism, Brant?

My clients voluntarily seek me out and freely choose to do business with me. In over 35 years, I've never spent one penny on advertising and have completely relied on my clients personal recommendations for my business success.

Read Francisco's Money Speech. It's ALL there right in front of your freaking face in black and white.

I live by those principles... because they work.

 

Greg

[moralist]

27 minutes ago, Jon Letendre said:

It is neither possible (there are too many distortions everywhere) nor useful to track down the apparent versus actual victims of this or that tax or type of tax.

The short and meaningful answer, covering the whole mess, is to say that everyone pays more for everything because of the systemic capital misallocation, unemployment, lower productivity, etc., which harms those the most who have the smallest disposable income after essentials.

Everyone pays for the cost of the government they created in their own image.

So the only way out is to become an independent private sector American Capitalist who produces more than they consume.

 PROFIT is what BUYS your freedom.

 

Greg

[Jon Letendre]

4 minutes ago, moralist said:

Everyone pays for the cost of the government they created in their own image.

So the only way out is to become an independent private sector American Capitalist who produces more then they consume.

 PROFIT is what BUYS your freedom.

 

Greg

You wrote that on a computer you obtained inside the system, not found, made, or somehow birthed outside the system.

Taxes made that computer cost you more than it would have cost.

This means you could have had the computer and other goods, but you got only the computer, because of taxes.

[Jon Letendre]

One of the many ways growing statism is sold is by convincing people there is any truth to "these people pay those taxes, those people pay those taxes."

The truth is that the government costs all of us dearly in the form of goods and services that are not being enjoyed because of all the capital misallocation and unemployment caused by government. Taxes and regulations are destroying productivity, but it is unseen because this is about goods and services we would be enjoying, but are not enjoying, because they don't exist, because of policy.

Ah, but will the next Gov't fuckery have disproportionate effects, the fairness of which our society should debate for the next few years? It's all distraction. 

At this point there is so much govt fuckery that the identification of the most hit victims of the next tax is meaningless in light of the fact each of us is already living a vastly lesser life due to lack of separation of state and economics. Again, with the most devasting effect on those with the least means.

[william.scherk]

1 hour ago, moralist said:

6 hours ago, BaalChatzaf said:

Do you pay your  tax  or is your tax deducted from your income.[?]

Taxes are not deducted from my income 

Nice!

Greg wins this round handily.  

Back to the opening topic. Religion was invented by humankind to allow people like these demented nitwits a chance to feed fear and  prosper, tax-free.

[moralist]

47 minutes ago, Jon Letendre said:

You wrote that on a computer you obtained inside the system, not found, made, or somehow birthed outside the system.

Taxes made that computer cost you more than it would have cost.

This means you could have had the computer and other goods, but you got only the computer, because of taxes.

As a Capitalist, I did productive work to earn the money to purchase the computer in a fair value for value exchange which was produced by other Capitalists.

 

Jeez... what the f**k is up with you people?

Aren't there any American Capitalists here?

Didn't anyone here actually f**king READ Atlas Shrugged?

Didn't anyone here actually LEARN anything from it?

Didn't anyone here actually USE what they learned in real life?

Why not?

This is like talking to a bunch of European liberal socialists!  

Greg

[Jon Letendre]

12 minutes ago, moralist said:

As a Capitalist, I did productive work to earn the money to purchase the computer in a fair value for value exchange which was produced by other Capitalists.

 

Jeez... what the f**k is up with you people?

Aren't there any American Capitalists here?

Didn't anyone here actually f**king READ Atlas Shrugged?

Didn't anyone here actually LEARN anything from it?

Didn't anyone here actually USE what they learned in real life?

Why not?

This is like talking to a bunch of European liberal socialists!  

Greg

Which European liberal socialist insists that taxes reduce productivity and employment thus lowering the amounts of goods and services available for consumption?

[BaalChatzaf]

2 hours ago, moralist said:

No.

I'm not an employee so I don't get paychecks like you did, Bob. Taxes are not deducted from my income  I pay quarterly business tax and simply add that cost to the prices I charge for the goods and services I sell.

Face it, Bob... you're NEVER going to understand what it's like to be free, because you've NEVER been an independent Capitalist producer. I used the characters in Atlas Shrugged who created Galt's Gulch as my business model... while you chose the movie "Brazil" for yours. This is the liberal government education YOU chose.

 

Greg

You pay your taxes because that is the law.  If there was no government neither you nor I would be paying taxes.  Just because  you can pass the cost of tax onto your customers does not change the fact that you conform to law.  You are marching to the beat of someone else's drum.  Some freedom that is.

Also your contempt for people who work for a wage or salary is  plain.   Somehow an honest worker who sells his time, labor and skill does not match up to a proprietor.   Tell me,  have you ever hired anyone to do stuff for you.  Yes or No.  Which is it. 

And I never chose the government I have.  It was imposed upon me by force.  The last government chosen by free men exercising t heir own was was the government established in 1787 by the Constitutional Convention.   We have not had a Convention since so none of us really chose the government we have.

And you have not avoided the government on which you heap so much contempt.  You are bound to it and by it just like everyone else.  You just think you are free but  you are not.  Just keep that in mind the next time you stay right on a two lane  road.  

[merjet]

The moralist and master of self-delusion strikes again ... and again.

Quote

I don't pay any taxes, my clients do. Taxes are just another business expense built into the purchase price charged to the end user.

 

Quote

I'm not an employee so I don't get paychecks like you did, Bob. Taxes are not deducted from my income.