Mnemonics

[Bob Stephens]

On Thu, 30 Jun 2005 20:44:28 GMT, Joerg wrote:

since boasting and placing her own circle of
friends or the congregation in general above other groups in a "holier
than thou" manner is a big no-no.

Since when pray tell? (no pun intended)


Bob

 

[Joerg]

Hello Bob,

Since when pray tell? (no pun intended)

Sorry, didn't get that one. Neither what you wanted to say nor the pun...

Been a bit tired today, just came back from fixing a pipe in the pump
house. When it's 97F being in a small pump house is no fun.

Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com

 

[Jim Thompson]

On Thu, 30 Jun 2005 21:55:28 GMT, Joerg
<notthisjoergsch@removethispacbell.net> wrote:

Hello Bob,

Since when pray tell? (no pun intended)

Sorry, didn't get that one. Neither what you wanted to say nor the pun...

Been a bit tired today, just came back from fixing a pipe in the pump
house. When it's 97F being in a small pump house is no fun.

Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com

Gack! 97°F up in the hills? It's presently 109°F here, but dry as a
bone. I've been running up and down a 12' ladder blowing out the junk
in the mist system and replacing nozzles. Literally NO SWEAT ;-)

...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona Voice480)460-2350 | |
| E-mail Address at Website Fax480)460-2142 | Brass Rat |
| http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |

I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.

 

[Tim Wescott]

Bob Stephens wrote:

On Thu, 30 Jun 2005 20:44:28 GMT, Joerg wrote:


since boasting and placing her own circle of
friends or the congregation in general above other groups in a "holier
than thou" manner is a big no-no.


Since when pray tell? (no pun intended)


Bob

Since Jesus was running around preaching. There's an episode in at

least one of the Gospels where Jesus talks about not praying in public
just to let folks know how good you are. I'd quote chapter and verse at
you but I'm not even familiar enough to say which Gospel(s) it's in.

-------------------------------------------
Tim Wescott
Wescott Design Services
http://www.wescottdesign.com

 

[Joerg]

Hello Tim,

Since Jesus was running around preaching. There's an episode in at
least one of the Gospels where Jesus talks about not praying in public
just to let folks know how good you are. I'd quote chapter and verse at
you but I'm not even familiar enough to say which Gospel(s) it's in.

Matthew 6:5 "And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they
love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be
seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full."

It's ok to pray in public since it can be great witnessing and can give
people comfort. I have done it together with others. But never with the
intent to impress others or show them to be "holier than thou".

Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com

 

[Mark Fergerson]

Roger Johansson wrote:

Mark Fergerson wrote:

What part(s) of the creationist tradition is most valuable to you?

I've spoken with Joerg on this issue, and while I don't pretend to
speak for him he has echoed what most Xtians (and a few Christians)
say; it's the structure.

The social structure?

Yes. Humans are social animals, and those who are excluded
whether by choice or because they don't "fit in" suffer. FTM so does
society, because "loners" often have contributions to make if
society can only figure out how to fit them in. The dominant social
structures currently extant have a religious slant solely because
we've been playing with them for so long that they _seem_ natural.
Hence when a religious group finds one of these loners, they offer a
slot in their society that fulfills the loners need for company,
while requiring him or her to make certain behavioral alterations to
keep from frightening the little old blue-haired ladies.

Now you may object to the concept of compromise a priori, but you
have to pick your battles.

Or the mental structure of the ideology which is
used to justify the lifestyle and state of mind?

This is a perversion. A common one, and one which has persisted
for millenia, but a perversion none the less. It's a direct
consequence of psychopaths noticing that a hierarchical social
structure is a perfect way for them to _appear_ to fit in, while
using the system to their advantage.

Religious social structures are not necessarily "bad things" on
their own merits, just when psychopaths insert themselves into the
high end of the hierarchy. But that's also true of non-religious
social structures.

Structure is organisation. In modern times we have developed ways to
organise the society which are built on individual freedom, human
rights, ruled by democracy and rational arguments in an open discussion.

Yep.

But old power structures are still alive, and especially creationism.
They have no explicit formal power, but a lot of power in the social
field. Mobbing is common in schools, workplaces and homes.

Mobbing is a hardwired species-survival strategy that works by
enforcing conformity. Generally it works by frinst driving away
those that draw predators. This is seen in all social species.

Now that we're the apex predator it's counterproductive, but it's
still hardwired.

Your complaints would be better directed at our inability to make
our physical evolution catch up to our social evolution. We can see
where we ought to go, but we have genetic baggage that slows us down.

Fear and violence are fundamental
parts of the creationist system. You would not get that speeded
state of mind, the holy spirit, without fear and anger as the basis
for the male personality.

Why do you assume fear and anger are solely male characteristics?
Got a RadFem professor?

You forget that much of religion and philosophy (and science, for
that matter) are merely codifications of our hardwired behavior
patterns. Paternalism and the Nuclear Family are not arbitrary social
constructs but rather biological imperatives.

Man's nature is the final, and often the only argument for creationism.

I am not a creationist.

There is a lot of training going on in the creationist society.
Would we really need that much mental and social training if we lived
naturally?

Whether we "needed" it or not it would go on. Refer back to the
ape troupe example.

Creationism is a method for getting high. Love is made into a drug by
social methods, controlled by traditions and religion. The training of
both girls and boys is done for the ultimate goal that the man gets
high on love and power.

So what? So does woman.

It originated from nature, but it _is_ not nature, it has become a
religion, a set of traditions, a lifestyle.

I am uninterested in creationism except as a psychological
aberration. Yet the social systems incorporating it do attempt to
take into account real human social characteristics; if they didn't,
they wouldn't last.

The creationist system has been criticized for thousands of years, but
the rulers, kings and emperors, generals and politicians, have found it
useful for controlling the people, so the system has long ago left what
is natural and has become a political power structure.

Not quite; it _took advantage_ of what is natural, namely our
hardwired tendency to build political power structures.

The girls get high from love too, but they are not trained to be
constantly ready for exposure to violence, so they get shy if they go
outside when they are newly married. Fear can take many forms before it
is realized as fear.

Plenty of historical matriarchal counterexamples. However they
got overrun because patriarchal societies outbred them by keeping
their breeding females out of combat risk.

Men love girls, because girls are more natural than men.

How exactly are men more "unnatural"?

Girls love
children and pets, because children and pets are more natural than
girls.

Where do you get these ideas?

In the western countries we now see a project which wants to abolish
the patriarchal society, abolish the "man's" society by making
everybody into men. Women and children and all jesuses are going to be
trained in constant readyness to fight. One of the first movies in this
tendency was "Home alone", a young boy is home alone and has to defend
the house against robbers.

All "jesuses"? Oh, and don't mistake Hollywood for reality.

This idea does not seem to work so well, the alcohol consumption is
going up instead of down. Well, it was a stupid idea to begin with. It
would be much better to abolish the male mind, the holy spirit, the
violence, the need for speed.

So you prefer the idea of making everyone into women, especially
some idealized (unrealistic) version of what you appear to believe
women to be? Cannot possibly work.

We have those patterns and imperatives, including gender roles,
whether or not you or anyone else likes it.

We have actually been very successful in taking our society out of the
hands of the church, during the last hundreds of years. We have removed
all old religious crap from our official law in most countries in the
world. We have beaten the theists intellectually and thrown them out of
science and philosophy. Or they left voluntarily, they realized that
they couldn't win the discussion. The more they talked the more they
lost.

Thanks for ignoring my point. Shall I thus ignore yours?

No, I won't. Religion is not the real problem retarding our
social evolution; it's our genes.

Social life is not based on peace and rational thinking, it is
based on the same system we see in flocks of apes, where the young
men are running around screaming and throwing sticks and stones, to
impress the females and to scare each other. The creationist
tradition conserves and justifies a continuation of the stone age
power system into a modern time when we could have a much simpler
and easier life style. It would allow us to think clearer if we got
rid of all this creationism, all determined and grim male faces,
all use of threats and violence as methods to treat people.

What a lovely fantasy.

Well, it is lovely, compared to your usual references, obviously, and
it sounds like a fantasy compared to your usual references. So, what
are your usual references made up of?

History. You know, facts.

Did you grow up with parents in love? I did.

Please define "love".

Did you go to school with other kids who were also brought up in fear
of God (the father)?

Not a few.

Did you learn social stuff from the schoolbooks or from your class
mates?

Yes. Often the examples from the two sources conflicted. Guess
which I took seriously.

By the way, what is fantasy and what is reality in the theoretical world
is determined by who wins the argument.

I don't care about theory. Try looking at reality.

During the last hundreds of
years the religious side has lost every debate against science and
rational thought. And they will lose this one too.

Not until we become a rational species. That will have to wait
until we learn how to turn off our limbic systems at will, or do
without it completely.

We could let young girls grow up in peace, instead of throwing them
out to become very strong-minded love machines.
We could let boys learn about electronics and science instead of
forcing them to learn to fight and learn to be tough.

Yep, a fantasy. We are hardwired to do these latter things.

If we really were hardwired for the creationist system there would be
no opposition. We would have lived in a stable theocratic society for
thousands of years. But we haven't. We have struggled for thousands of
years to change the system and we have been very successful, officially
the church has lost all power and very few go to the church.

I didn't say anything about a "creationist system".

<snip incomplete sentence>

That is not the purpose of the law. The purpose of the law is to
establish rules we all have to follow, so we get a society we can
live in. Controlling people's minds is a religious idea, which is
not supported by modern law.

No, it isn't a religious idea. Go back to yout troupe of apes;
everybody obeys the alpha male for two good reasons. Short-term,
he'll whip your ass if you don't; long term, he knows how to survive
and so will you if you copy his behaviors.

Maybe you haven't heard about modern alternatives to creationism.
Democracy instead of dictatorship, human rights for all instead of all
rights to the initiated and no rights to non-initiated. Equality
between man and woman. Solving problems with discussions instead of
referring to human nature or whatever religious ideas originating from
the creationists.

Believe it ir not, I have. You appear to believe that we can wish
away our genetic baggage by associating it with religion, thus by
disproving religion, we can default to rationality. Unfortunately
the wetware you want to run your shiny new social software on is
incapable of it.

BTW, how do you associate "human nature" with creationism? I'm
arguing from Darwin.

"Living in the fear of God" is not a good idea in a modern world.
Fear causes violence, and that is the basis for creationism.

Nope. You're close though; fear causes caution and caution increases
the odds of survival.

If the fear is too strong it can even lead to ulcers, heart problems,
overeating, bulemia, the use of alcohol, tobacco, etc..

Yep, but those are examples of drives "driving the wrong way".

It looks like the fear is already too strong for the human body, not to
speak about what it has done to our minds, but
the media channels keep pouring out more excitement and fear every day.
The media channels are controlled by creationists who are not thinking
too clearly.

They typically attack one prejudice and amplify a thousand others.
To make money the movies have to make millions of creationists happy,
so they mix in 1 percent new material and 99 percent old stuff from the
Old Testament.

Sigh. Somehow you've confused cause and effect; religion is not
the root of human social structure, merely _one_ codification of it.
There are others you might investigate, but don't waste your time
trying to build one from scratch without taking harsh biological
realities into account.

Mark L. Fergerson

 

[Roger Johansson]

Mark Fergerson wrote:

BTW, how do you associate "human nature" with creationism? I'm
arguing from Darwin.

No, you are arguing from social darwinism, which is a creationist
counter movement against modern ideas like equality, democracy, human
rights, etc..

This kind of darwinism took a few parts from Darwin but ignored other
parts, like how individuals get better survival chances if they
cooperate.

When they concentrate on the need for every individual to fend for
himself they use Darwin incorrectly, because it fits the purposes of
creationism.

This kind of darwinism is called social darwinism, or vulgar darwinism.
Read about it in a history book, and realize that your talk about
"human nature" is a part of that anti-democratic, anti-scientific and
religious movement.

Social darwinism is very common in USA, so it wouldn't surprise me if
you are an american.


--
Roger J.

 

[Mark Fergerson]

Roger Johansson wrote:

Mark Fergerson wrote:


BTW, how do you associate "human nature" with creationism? I'm
arguing from Darwin.

No, you are arguing from social darwinism, which is a creationist
counter movement against modern ideas like equality, democracy, human
rights, etc..

Ah, I get it. Since I ain't fur ye, I must be agin' ye.

This kind of darwinism took a few parts from Darwin but ignored other
parts, like how individuals get better survival chances if they
cooperate.

Where did you read me support Rugged Individualism or similar
foolishness?

When they concentrate on the need for every individual to fend for
himself they use Darwin incorrectly, because it fits the purposes of
creationism.

Every individual must be able to fend for him/herself
_occasionally_, but those who try to make a lifestyle of it go nuts.

This kind of darwinism is called social darwinism, or vulgar darwinism.
Read about it in a history book, and realize that your talk about
"human nature" is a part of that anti-democratic, anti-scientific and
religious movement.

Oh, horseshit. You really want to believe that all people are the
same, but we simply aren't. Get over it.

Social darwinism is very common in USA, so it wouldn't surprise me if
you are an american.

And you're obviously a Europeon, and a Socialist to boot.


Mark L. Fergerson