No Missing Link

[Godfree]

I don't much care what the religious say, as it's usually gobbledegook. But many people do seem to have such a need, and will go along with all the flavours, no matter how unsavoury, of gobbledegook for the illusion of an absolute.


The story is almost irrelevant. There have been many stories, all incredible and all fervently believed. The central factor in all religions is the promise of eternity in some post-mortal realm, and - more important still - superiority over one's rivals; a sacred excuse to take other people's land, wealth and lives.[/quote]

We seem to think a lot alike Skip ,
to see the past in it's true light , is a bit uncomfortable for some in the west ,
the process of colonization was legal , because christianity was being forced onto the people ,
the idea that you could steal their land wipe most of them out ,
and then claim it as being you saving them from hellfire and eternal damnation ,
makes it very hard to have any respect for the christian culture that is still in power today .
burning witches at the stake was just the tip of the iceberg ,
there was a whole heap of torture and violence against the "non-believers"
unfortunately I think we in the west are still a religious dictatorship ,
disguised as a democracy .

[Skip]

Godfree,
Zoom out just another notch or two.

to see the past in it's true light , is a bit uncomfortable for some in the west ,

It's not just the west, it's all of human history. The Muslims did the same thing in their empires, and want to do it again. The Christians did it in their empires and want to do it again. They're both working like mad to claw back the progress of the past 400 years - with remarkable (well, okay, terrifying) success. The good news is, they're also at each other's throats, so maybe the last clown standing will be a Hindu or communist or Buddhist.
As long as he doesn't beat his kids and dogs, i don't care.

[Hjarloprillar]

hey

i have a daughter and a gran daughter.
"You stupid woman (I should use another word that starts with the letter "b," which is probably more appropriate, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt)"

Labling posters by gender is uncool.
90% pf the horror on this planet is from men. torture rape genocide.

dont push it dude.

[Godfree]

Godfree,
Zoom out just another notch or two.

to see the past in it's true light , is a bit uncomfortable for some in the west ,

It's not just the west, it's all of human history. The Muslims did the same thing in their empires, and want to do it again. The Christians did it in their empires and want to do it again. They're both working like mad to claw back the progress of the past 400 years - with remarkable (well, okay, terrifying) success. The good news is, they're also at each other's throats, so maybe the last clown standing will be a Hindu or communist or Buddhist.
As long as he doesn't beat his kids and dogs, i don't care.

We my logic tells me that no religion can ever reign supreme for long ,
that the only system that will stand the test of time is one based on science and the facts ,
not mythology and ignorance , so I do care which belief system wins the day/world .
an Atheist system , is inevitable in my opinion and the church is fighting tooth and nail ,
to stop the Atheists getting a start , because the rest is just a matter of time ,
it's like the Green movement , slowly but surely it will replace the capitalists greedy agenda ,
and capitalism and religion are one and the same ,
so there are the battles lines , Green Atheists ,vrs religious capitalists ,,
I know which one I want to win ,,!!!

[Hjarloprillar]

Godfree

Interesting.
I am a male so no-one gets confused.
Who is who is not so much as slander of gender. We are all one species..
If the enemy is at the gate why are we engaged in a knifefight in bathroom.

[Skip]

... no religion can ever reign supreme for long ,

No religion has ever reigned. Religion is just a tool, like money and guns, in the hands of the rulers.

that the only system that will stand the test of time is one based on science and the facts ,

That would be nice. Well, maybe nice-er.

... the church is fighting tooth and nail...

Not just "the church", by which i suppose you mean the RC one, but all the organized religions, of which the most virulent at present are fundamentalist Christianity and fundamentalist Islam - they're both beyond reason and hell-bent on returning to the middle ages.
Want their slaves back, whatever it takes.

... because the rest is just a matter of time ,

This, right here, is the crux of the matter -

it's like the Green movement , slowly but surely it will replace the capitalists greedy agenda ,
and capitalism and religion are one and the same ,
so there are the battles lines , Green Atheists ,vrs religious capitalists ,,
I know which one I want to win ,,!!!

- i fear we've left it too late.
Everything, and i mean everything - survival of the species, survival of any earth species*, the who shebang - depends on the current economic system breaking down soon enough for something to be salvaged.

*except maybe cockroaches

[Hjarloprillar]

i fear we've left it too late.
Everything, and i mean everything - survival of the species, survival of any earth species*, the who shebang - depends on the current economic system breaking down soon enough for something to be salvaged.

*except maybe cockroaches
----------------------------------
no we are not too late.
2020 maybe.

Though to save the bacon. is going to require a HUGE investment. 50 trillion $
thats world produce for 3 years.
or we all die

i choose 50 trillion

we would have been better off if ww2 turned into an atomic war with russia.small weapons and fear.. and we would have blown our wad.
now . we can turn earth into a ball of lava with gigaton weapons and /or complete disregard for environment. we strangle the biosphere and sell one more big mack.

shark says i need therapy

yet iv'e done that and the therapists run away.
And they are the professionals
Its the iq

[Godfree]

Godfree

Interesting.
I am a male so no-one gets confused.
Who is who is not so much as slander of gender. We are all one species..
If the enemy is at the gate why are we engaged in a knifefight in bathroom.

Now thats a strange quote , I'v never actually had a knifefight in the bathroom ,
that must have come from the middle east , Turkey or Iraq ,,??
as your username would suggest , but your profile pic , now thats confusing ,?
don't worry there is always plenty for us to get confused about ,
and if there's nothing there , we will invent something ,
so what is your religious beliefs , are you a muslim ,?
do you accept that we are monkey ,,??

[SpheresOfBalance]

Godfree

Interesting.
I am a male so no-one gets confused.
Who is who is not so much as slander of gender. We are all one species..
If the enemy is at the gate why are we engaged in a knifefight in bathroom.

Now thats a strange quote , I'v never actually had a knifefight in the bathroom ,
that must have come from the middle east , Turkey or Iraq ,,??
as your username would suggest , but your profile pic , now thats confusing ,?
don't worry there is always plenty for us to get confused about ,
and if there's nothing there , we will invent something ,
so what is your religious beliefs , are you a muslim ,?
do you accept that we are monkey ,,??

Prill, like me, trys to be a metaphor king, though try may be a misnomer, I think sometimes it's just a factor of one's environment, like you have hinted at, by making reference to his country. One can assume all too easily that a particular metaphor or analogy is universal, while sometimes, it's only local. This is one of the reasons I never liked Dennis Miller's humor (he used to do the news sketch on a comedy show here in the US called, "Saturday Night Live," His material was about the particulars of real current events in the news, that he'd make light of. Since, at that time, I hardly watched the news, I never got his jokes. Unlike some, to me, this is not necessarily indicative of ones stupidity, rather their ignorance of the particular info at hand, which can be an indication of many things, but surely, not necessarily, intellect.

So, while I'm unfamiliar with the specific reference prill made, i.e., "If the enemy is at the gate why are we engaged in a knifefight in bathroom," as I've never heard it before, I get the gist of it. I see that he is saying why fight amongst ourselves, when we have much bigger fish to fry, (when we have a larger, more common enemy). I've thought something similar to this before, when considering how humans fight (war) amongst each other. I thought, 'watch how we'd all band together and stop our warring, if aliens came to take over the world, Muslims, Christians, atheists, blacks, whites, Jews, rich, and poor all fighting together against a common enemy.' And I thought to myself, this would be good, finally an end to senseless warring amongst humans. But it only lasted for a moment, as I realized it was no cure for the disease, rather only the exact same one, only in a much larger arena.

I have always accepted that we are advanced monkeys, though I use the term advanced, very loosely, especially in some cases. Come on, if life on earth started from chemical formation, due to the dissemination of elements, born of a stars destruction, then of course all life on planet earth is related, in one way or another, how direct or indirect, I see as really not mattering much, I mean, cousins versus siblings, come on, isn't that just splitting hairs? The way I see it, as soon as one finds fossils or human remains dating back more that 6000 years, it tears the religious dogma all to hell and back. Not that I don't then believe, that we could have been created by an intellect, purposely. I just don't believe in any organized religion. The only one that really makes any sense to me at all, given what I know of it, is Buddhism. And no, I've never been to any church, religiously. Architecturally, or because my wife wanted our marriage their, is another story.

[Godfree]

[quote="SpheresOfBalance"][quote="Godfree"][quote="Hjarloprillar"]Godfree

Come on, if life on earth started from chemical formation, due to the dissemination of elements, born of a stars destruction, then of course all life on planet earth is related, in one way or another, how direct or indirect, I see as really not mattering much, I mean, cousins versus siblings, come on, isn't that just splitting hairs? The way I see it, as soon a
s one finds fossils or human remains dating back more that 6000 years, it tears the religious dogma all to hell and back.

but they keep surviving , despite the mountain of proof we have for evolution ,
we still have the creationists and the intelligent design idiots ,
carrying on as if there was no proof , as if they didn't hear , can't see ,
Nelson is turning his blind eye again ,,!!!,,there's one for prillar to interpret ,
so now we have irrefutable proof we are monkey ,
I presume they won't hear or see that either ,,???

[Godfree]

Well , we have the thread back , so lets see if we can keep on subject ,
there is clearly a lot to discover about our history and the journey our ancestors had ,
in getting to this point , we are still evolving , it just happens a bit too slow for people ,
to see the changes within one lifetime ,
space and the cycle of the universe can be the same ,
plate tectonics wasn't understood until about 100 years ago ,
So there is no missing link , when will government acknowledge this ,
when will charter schools acknowledge this ,
will religion ever accept it , and will that be the pattern for the future ,
as more and more irrefutable evidence comes out ,
the religious just become more paranoid dismissive and deny reality more and more ,
is this the beginning of a new division ,science against the fundamentalists ,
thats the battle I thought we were going to have years ago ,
but they kept claiming a missing link , they had an out , in there eyes at least ,
well it's gone , no missing link , I have yet to get a religious person to acknowledge it ,,!!!

[Skip]

is this the beginning of a new division ,science against the fundamentalists ,
thats the battle I thought we were going to have years ago ,

They did have it for centuries - especially the 15th, 16th and 20th. Nobody won, so they're having more of it. The thing about that battle, though: it's not over facts. It's about power. Whatever evidence you show to somebody who wants to stay in control that they're incompetent, they won't accept it. A drunk won't refrain from driving; a senile surgeon won't stop operating; a mad king won't abdicate; a CEO who has lost $millions won't step down; a general whose tanks are floundering in mud won't order retreat. Popes, ayatollahs, chief rabbis and millionaire televangelists are not going to give up leading masses of people around by rings through their frontal lobes - nor all the pomp and toadies, costumes, photo sessions and speechifying, bullet-proof limos, fawning heads of state, choir-boys and other tasty morsels that go with being boss.

The only way religion will ever lose its hold is through people's common sense. But that means relinquishing the dreams of heaven, the hope of a nice life somewhere else after a miserable one on earth... We could achieve that by giving everyone a nice life on earth (We could, but won't.) What we cannot do is talk people out of the delusion of exclusive righteousness that religions confer on their believers.


(PS Godfree, I notice you have a little trouble with the pesky open and close quote marks. Might be easier to highlight the text you want, Control C, then click on the quote button on your reply box tool bar: cursor is between the quote marks, Control V. That way, you can take just a sentence or two, from as many other posts as you like.)

[Godfree]

What if one is to suffer at the 'hands' of this creator to the extent of not only not wishing to live...but to never live again?
To only continue life so as not to harm those that love them.
To such a subject...was it really such a gift?
Isn't it the truest betrayal that they may one day have to live again for the same level of suffering to repeat?

To which creator do you refer ,
psychologists would tell you it is you who is making you suffer , blaming others for who and what we are ,
is a cop out , your to blame you choose to believe the nonsense , it's your fault ,
you could just as easily chose to be an Atheist ,
and realize your responsibilities and manage your life better ,
if your life is so bad you only stay here so as to not hurt others ,
then there are lots of things that have gone wrong in your life , not just that you imagine a creator ,
you will be making lots of other bad decisions ,
like giving 10% of your income to your local church ,
trusting in the opinions of those who claim to be gods messenger , ie , priests/bishops/pastors/cardinals ,
you have created a world that you find so intolerable you imagine it to be only suffering ,
if you were forced to do it all again ,
I would suggest that your irrational belief in god ,
has ruined your life ,,!!!

[Godfree]

is this the beginning of a new division ,science against the fundamentalists ,
thats the battle I thought we were going to have years ago ,

They did have it for centuries - especially the 15th, 16th and 20th. Nobody won, so they're having more of it. The thing about that battle, though: it's not over facts. It's about power. Whatever evidence you show to somebody who wants to stay in control that they're incompetent, they won't accept it. A drunk won't refrain from driving; a senile surgeon won't stop operating; a mad king won't abdicate; a CEO who has lost $millions won't step down; a general whose tanks are floundering in mud won't order retreat. Popes, ayatollahs, chief rabbis and millionaire televangelists are not going to give up leading masses of people around by rings through their frontal lobes - nor all the pomp and toadies, costumes, photo sessions and speechifying, bullet-proof limos, fawning heads of state, choir-boys and other tasty morsels that go with being boss.

The only way religion will ever lose its hold is through people's common sense. But that means relinquishing the dreams of heaven, the hope of a nice life somewhere else after a miserable one on earth... We could achieve that by giving everyone a nice life on earth (We could, but won't.) What we cannot do is talk people out of the delusion of exclusive righteousness that religions confer on their believers.


(PS Godfree, I notice you have a little trouble with the pesky open and close quote marks. Might be easier to highlight the text you want, Control C, then click on the quote button on your reply box tool bar: cursor is between the quote marks, Control V. That way, you can take just a sentence or two, from as many other posts as you like.)

I think you make a lot of sense , and it is people like you and I that need to step up to the plate as a leader ,
as revolting as it sounds , if you want something done properly in this world ,
you tend to have to do it yourself , we are going to have to be the replacements ,
or someone like us , someone with the smarts to put it just like you did ,
it's not that hard to grasp the basic picture you painted ,
logical easy to follow , most people can understand what you posted ,
but chose to turn a blind eye deaf ear , dead brain , and pretend it didn't make sense ,
which is why I often refer to the "irrational belief in god"
not sane , not rational , bound to only cause ,"suffering " to connect with the post above ,,!!!

and cheers for the heads up on the Control C , I'm late starter on computers/keyboards ,
never took typing , I don't know most of it still , us self taught people can be like that ,
I can format , load op's , prefer linux , but currently on xp ,I do a lot of my own repairs and ,parts swapping ,
but know very little about typing , word processing , keyboard function in general ,,well done ,

[Skip]

I'm no leader. As someone once replied to why they didn't have children: "I never want to be the recipient of that much ingratitude."
There have been plenty of smart humans, who were perfectly willing to tell their fellow men how to do things better, make things better, treat one another better. They are writing articles and books and making movies, and sometimes running for public office.
In the best case, people nod and say, that's a smart guy, and then keep doing what they're doing. In the worst case, of course, they crucify him and then blame their brutal, repressive, hateful religion on him.

You can show people the way, but they can't seem to stay on it. I suppose they have to find their own.

I've just been reading Kurt Vonnegut's book of essays, called "Fates Worse Than Death." He saw it all, knew it all, said it very well - and amusingly. I recommend that book for perspective.





(The good, clever programmers make it easier and easier - but you have to keep learning new symbols.)