Philosophy Now Forum

Case in point, in my own case, is Walker on these boards.

Walker I respect for his high intellect, and for his clear mind. There are others around here who have high intellect, but they are clearly demented. Walker is normal, smart, and courteous.

But. He is a devout God-worshipper. I hate that. Despite my personal liking him, or maybe because of that, he has the power sending me into orbit, when he makes statements that presupposes that nobody is able to be truly atheistic, that everyone depends for everything on Walker's God.

So he and I pr!ck each other, needle each other. I, more rudely than he.

To this day I can't understand how he can be religious despite his clear thought processes and high intellect. I haven't seen that combination ever before. Most people of his born-with credentials and talents accept that god is a possibility, but only a remote one and with no discernible evidence of being. Most people realize that the faiths are based on thousands-of-years old texts, written by uneducated, gullible dilettante (in case of Christianity) or by people with set agendas (Muslims, Jews, Mormons) who use it clearer than the azure sky in the deepest summer as a control mechanism over the masses.

Plus the texts have no back-up evidence for believability other than their own claims.

It's like you MUST believe I am the sultan of Turkmenistan, because I say so. Nobody falls for that, except the Christians, Muslims and Jews. And maybe the Hindus. Or the Sun-worshippers of Mezo-America, or the polytheist pagans of Papua-New Guinea, or the unitheist pantheists.

This is the only contention I have on this board. Not undersanding where Walker comes from, and why he is like he is. Because, I am telling you, he is.

-1- wrote: ↑Thu Nov 22, 2018 11:38 am Case in point, in my own case, is Walker on these boards.

Walker I respect for his high intellect, and for his clear mind. There are others around here who have high intellect, but they are clearly demented. Walker is normal, smart, and courteous.

But. He is a devout God-worshipper. I hate that. Despite my personal liking him, or maybe because of that, he has the power sending me into orbit, when he makes statements that presupposes that nobody is able to be truly atheistic, that everyone depends for everything on Walker's God.

So he and I pr!ck each other, needle each other. I, more rudely than he.

To this day I can't understand how he can be religious despite his clear thought processes and high intellect. I haven't seen that combination ever before. Most people of his born-with credentials and talents accept that god is a possibility, but only a remote one and with no discernible evidence of being. Most people realize that the faiths are based on thousands-of-years old text, written by uneducated, gullible dilettante (in case of Christianity) or by people with set agendas (Muslims, Jews) who use it clearer than the azure sky in the deepest summer as a control mechanism over the masses.

Plus the texts have no back-up evidence for believability than their own claims.

It's like you MUST believe I am the sultan of Turkmenistan, because I say so. Nobody falls for that, except the Christians, Muslims and Jews. And maybe the Hindus. Or the Sun-worshippers of Mezo-America, or the polytheist pagans of Papua-New Guinea, or the unitheist pantheists.

This is the only contention I have on this board. Not undersanding where Walker comes from, and why he is like he is. Because, I am telling you, he is.

I concur. He is a bit of an anomaly. Nick is another matter--dark to the core.

vegetariantaxidermy wrote: ↑Thu Nov 22, 2018 11:42 amHe (Walker) is a bit of an anomaly. Nick is another matter--dark to the core.

They are two wholly different ball games. Nick_A has clearly cognitive problems and impaired judgment, despite his high intellect. Make no mistake, Nick_A has a high IQ. But he is not using it because (not a fact but my opinion) he is very ill.

But Walker seems to be normal in mental health. He is incredibly intelligent. But for some unknown reason, he is a devout God-worshipper.

I still need to figure out how to wrap my head around that.

-1- wrote: ↑Thu Nov 22, 2018 11:56 am But Walker seems to be normal in mental health. He is incredibly intelligent. But for some unknown reason, he is a devout God-worshipper.

I still need to figure out how to wrap my head around that.

Have you considered the alternative possibility?

There could be two types of worshipers:
1. Born into worship (e.g learned it from your social circle) never bothered to question it.
2. Those who have reasoned themselves INTO that position.

What if #2 requires an IQ higher than yours?

At least one (super-intelligent) logician has a valid argument that you probably don't understand: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gödel's_ontological_proof

The respect that I give is relative to my own prejudices. I am prejudiced against fascist, dogmatic, conceited, and extreme right-wing views .

There is discussion to be had about whether people who might stir up fascist, dogmatic, or extreme right wing feeling ought to be excluded from online or real life venues where vulnerable people might read them or hear them.

-1- wrote: ↑Thu Nov 22, 2018 11:56 am

vegetariantaxidermy wrote: ↑Thu Nov 22, 2018 11:42 amHe (Walker) is a bit of an anomaly. Nick is another matter--dark to the core.

They are two wholly different ball games. Nick_A has clearly cognitive problems and impaired judgment, despite his high intellect. Make no mistake, Nick_A has a high IQ. But he is not using it because (not a fact but my opinion) he is very ill.

But Walker seems to be normal in mental health. He is incredibly intelligent. But for some unknown reason, he is a devout God-worshipper.

Walker isn't "incredibly intelligent". Even when he is discussing stuff he likes and is trying as best he can to make a valid point, he non-sequiturs himself because he isn't able to string together coherent thoughts across multiple sentences. When he is actively trying to break the flow of other people's arguments, that non-sequitur thing is the majority of his shtick, so what serves to highlight his inadequacy when he is in creative mode serves to mask it when he is in destructive mode.

Nick and Walker both are both further hampered by deep seated fanaticism though. Like all fanatics, they assume that whatever their own belief happens to be, it is stark staringly obvious that it is true, and therefore there is no honest way to disagree with them. This excuses any lies they tell as merely fighting back against dirty opponents. It also makes all facts negotiable, subject to the initial prejudice, rendering the victim incapable of evaluating evidence sensibly.

Nick is obviously carrying the additional weight of a severe personality disorder. But walker is a cautionary tale, one that could happen to any of us. Not a highly intelligent being subject to forces of madness unlike us normies, just a slightly mad old man with a fairly common problem. The same sort of rational blindspots are visible in others here...

For instance, some people might feel that every religion is obviously false. They can convince themselves that no reasonable honest person would buy into ancient scriptures from a time when nobody knew about electricity so they believed in sky demons that hurl thunderbolts or something. Then they might meet somebody who they think is reasonable and honest, but does believe that stuff. The obvious thing to do here is to notice that reasonable honest people can believe it after all, and recognise an error in their own thinking. The fanatic might need a timeout to synthesize this new information, perhaps to wrap their head around something which is not really such a conundrum.

Less combatively, I can think of one perfectly nice forumite who has a predeliction for disaster fantasy... global warming to do this, overpopulation to do that, probably the whole wars fought for water thing too... It's all a bit over the top and assumes nothing can be done in regards to problems which are real, but relatively fixable. I think the predictions there ulimately include some dystopian YA novel scenario where the rich all live in a fortress from which they perpetually pound the poor with artillery made by the robots that stole all the jobs. I don't think that predictions of this sort are supported by sensible evidence.

There's plenty more of that to go around, it happens both to smart and to thick people, and to nice and nasty sorts too.

FlashDangerpants, I agree with your assessment more-or-less. According to the criteria of your classification, I am also a fanatic, because I think those who rather believe ancient text than modern science, and furthermore believe in impossibilities are just plain stupid. God worship is not impossible, but pointless, as god never presents itself, and we don't know what god wants from us, if anything. But to believe that what God wants is written in ancient text is in my opinion plain stupid.

So I am a fanatic.

I don't think I understand your point, if there is one, about meeting a reasonable person who is a god-worshipper of some religion, and I'm an atheist. You used "their" that could refer to either person, so I don't understand your point (if there be any on that section). "The obvious thing to do here is to notice that reasonable honest people can believe it after all, and recognize an error in their own thinking." Whose thinking and who recognizes the error? Both the object and the subject of the sentence fragment are masked. "It" is also a non-detectable pronoun. Precisely like "their", "it" has no clear and obvious antecedent. This is your conclusion, and you wrote it in a way that is fully incomprehensible. I hope you can see my point of why I can't see your point (if any) in this paragraph of yours.

I won't concede that Walker is not intelligent. I watched him argue, and watched him put forth cases. He is very careful, and he presents good arguments. He is reticent, true; but verbosity is not always a sign of knowledge or of an ability to solve complex problems.

The extremely nice forumite you mentioned, I think of her as a shrew. Maybe you are ModA, and as mods, you people have more empathy and sympathy for each other. You bear the same burden, and that binds you guys. This is just my opinion, I have no knowledge whether you are ModA. To see my point, try one day in a different alias from your normal, so she wouldn't know who wrote the post, to differ with her opinion. She will gut you out, so fast as to put a vulture to shame.

With the rest you said, I agree.

I am not a mod and I don't have any sort of secondary account here. I was being cautious with naming the extremely nice forumite only becasue I wanted to avoid having to confess to having difficulty telling a couple of people apart from each other. There's nobody here that I have any concern about disagreeing with, and I certainly don't expect anyone to agree with all my positions.

With regard to the general point about blind spots, I am certain all of us have them, to the extent of detriment or impairment to our reasoning on substantial matters. Fanaticism enables us to elevate those small natural flaws into actual obsessions, effectively pointing blinkers at the blind spot until it takes up most of the visual field.

I don't feel that sentence was really so malformed if taken in context, but for the avoidance of doubt... this sentence you wrote...
"But Walker seems to be normal in mental health. He is incredibly intelligent. But for some unknown reason, he is a devout God-worshipper."
Indicates that there is some logical incompatibility between sanity and intelligence in combination with religious belief.
It also indicates that you have an example of somebody sane and intelligent who nonetheless believes, resulting in a conundrum.
You only have a couple of choices to resolve your dilema. Either they are compatible, or Walker lacks intelligence/is mad.
Even though I don't agree with your assessment of Walker, it is still trivially simple to find rational, sane, decent people of most faiths out there*
Therefore the supposed incompatibility seems obviously suspect. Tbh I sort of assumed you were joking about that though, I didn't expect to need to make a big point of it.

I have witnessed Walker attempt to make a large number of arguments, none has ever been well argued. He isn't reticent at all, a better description of his style would be gnomic. He writes in moderately pithy little mcnuggets with everything between left unsaid in order to leave the bulk of his argument to innuendo. It looks superficially wise when placed next to the flatulent excesses of Nick, but that's just a trick of the light.



*The valid exclusion being cannibal death cults and maybe scientology, so fuck off Veritas Aquafresh, I am still not bothing with that conversation.

Belinda wrote: ↑Thu Nov 22, 2018 1:48 pm The respect that I give is relative to my own prejudices. I am prejudiced against fascist, dogmatic, conceited, and extreme right-wing views .

There is discussion to be had about whether people who might stir up fascist, dogmatic, or extreme right wing feeling ought to be excluded from online or real life venues where vulnerable people might read them or hear them.

Said like a true fascist. It shouldn't matter at all what anyone says, as long as others have the capacity to think critically and question everything.

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Thu Nov 22, 2018 4:36 pm I am not a mod and I don't have any sort of secondary account here. I was being cautious with naming the extremely nice forumite only becasue I wanted to avoid having to confess to having difficulty telling a couple of people apart from each other. There's nobody here that I have any concern about disagreeing with, and I certainly don't expect anyone to agree with all my positions.

With regard to the general point about blind spots, I am certain all of us have them, to the extent of detriment or impairment to our reasoning on substantial matters. Fanaticism enables us to elevate those small natural flaws into actual obsessions, effectively pointing blinkers at the blind spot until it takes up most of the visual field.

I don't feel that sentence was really so malformed if taken in context, but for the avoidance of doubt... this sentence you wrote...
"But Walker seems to be normal in mental health. He is incredibly intelligent. But for some unknown reason, he is a devout God-worshipper."
Indicates that there is some logical incompatibility between sanity and intelligence in combination with religious belief.
It also indicates that you have an example of somebody sane and intelligent who nonetheless believes, resulting in a conundrum.
You only have a couple of choices to resolve your dilema. Either they are compatible, or Walker lacks intelligence/is mad.
Even though I don't agree with your assessment of Walker, it is still trivially simple to find rational, sane, decent people of most faiths out there*
Therefore the supposed incompatibility seems obviously suspect. Tbh I sort of assumed you were joking about that though, I didn't expect to need to make a big point of it.

I have witnessed Walker attempt to make a large number of arguments, none has ever been well argued. He isn't reticent at all, a better description of his style would be gnomic. He writes in moderately pithy little mcnuggets with everything between left unsaid in order to leave the bulk of his argument to innuendo. It looks superficially wise when placed next to the flatulent excesses of Nick, but that's just a trick of the light.



*The valid exclusion being cannibal death cults and maybe scientology, so fuck off Veritas Aquafresh, I am still not bothing with that conversation.

That's very good FDP. A perfect description of him. You have to remember though, that he is a religionist, and as such cannot produce a rational argument so he's devised his own 'special' way of disuising that fact. At least he must be aware of his limitations.
It's similar to 'corporate-speak'--a language designed to make it sound as if you are saying something when you are actually saying nothing.

Davyboi wrote: ↑Tue Nov 20, 2018 8:14 pm This new topic I've created, is basically a way of me trying to let go of my anger! And giving a reference point for other people to send, igronant, narrow minded, self obsessed people too.. So these idiots can be reminded why they are here!
I myself have recently joined, I joined because I am very interested in these type of topics being discussed! I joined to learn.. I will be honest, before I joined I thought I was quite learned! I was wrong! Lol.. There are many people on this forum who are very intelligent, some of the stuff posted is well out of my league... But with time I will study, learn and comprehend... By learning and asking people on here for advice.. But there is a problem I have got, I was brought up as a child, to respect other people's views opinions, no matter how much they were different from my own! Each person has their opinion, views just as important as our own!
Please respect other peoples views and opinions! A heated discussion is good for the mind and soul!
But to impose your views, ridicule and basically insult people is wrong... So please think about it!

You must understand that in modern philosophy there is right thinking and wrong thinking. Right thinking must be protected by insult, ridicule and similar delights. It is for your own good and the good of society. Right thinkers know best so wrong thinkers must be scorned.

For example, secular atheists are right thinkers while universalists accepting a conscious source of existence are wrong thinkers. They cannot be respected since the danger they present to normality justifies whatever ridicule and insult the creative right thinker can come up with. When you learn to think right, all insults will vanish. You will be accepted as educated and normal.

Been reading everyone's posts! Didnt see all this coming! Lol...looks sounds like a free for all..but at least it's better said then not, loving it!

-1- wrote: ↑Thu Nov 22, 2018 11:38 am Case in point, in my own case, is Walker on these boards.

Walker I respect for his high intellect, and for his clear mind. There are others around here who have high intellect, but they are clearly demented. Walker is normal, smart, and courteous.

But. He is a devout God-worshipper. I hate that. Despite my personal liking him, or maybe because of that, he has the power sending me into orbit, when he makes statements that presupposes that nobody is able to be truly atheistic, that everyone depends for everything on Walker's God.

So he and I pr!ck each other, needle each other. I, more rudely than he.

To this day I can't understand how he can be religious despite his clear thought processes and high intellect. I haven't seen that combination ever before. Most people of his born-with credentials and talents accept that god is a possibility, but only a remote one and with no discernible evidence of being. Most people realize that the faiths are based on thousands-of-years old texts, written by uneducated, gullible dilettante (in case of Christianity) or by people with set agendas (Muslims, Jews, Mormons) who use it clearer than the azure sky in the deepest summer as a control mechanism over the masses.

Plus the texts have no back-up evidence for believability other than their own claims.

It's like you MUST believe I am the sultan of Turkmenistan, because I say so. Nobody falls for that, except the Christians, Muslims and Jews. And maybe the Hindus. Or the Sun-worshippers of Mezo-America, or the polytheist pagans of Papua-New Guinea, or the unitheist pantheists.

This is the only contention I have on this board. Not undersanding where Walker comes from, and why he is like he is. Because, I am telling you, he is.

I don't know walker, but because of your post I have looked at his posts, you kinda got a point...nice guy tho...I have friends like that, not as intelligent! Lol...who blindly follow there religion...really pisses me off! It's a hate/love relationship for me with these types of people, I admire them for their stubborness, their sheer unwavering commitment..but also hate the fact they Carnt accept what is scientifically proven...I find it easier not to dwell too much, because it drives me nuts..lol...then again that could just be me! Lol

Belinda wrote: ↑Thu Nov 22, 2018 1:48 pm The respect that I give is relative to my own prejudices. I am prejudiced against fascist, dogmatic, conceited, and extreme right-wing views .

There is discussion to be had about whether people who might stir up fascist, dogmatic, or extreme right wing feeling ought to be excluded from online or real life venues where vulnerable people might read them or hear them.

I personally think that no matter what someones views, opinions be they fascist, racist or just sheer crazy! Should be heard! And should never be excluded! But not judged! Or ridiculed or disrespected To hide this and oppress these people only gives power to their cause, at the end of the day, each person is equal! Or so I have been taught! And as for vulnerable people, please Belinda! Who do you categories as vulnerable?? Are there specific boxes that say someone is classed as vulnerable? Because I personally think everyone has or is vulnerable at some point or area of their live...better to be decieved, and learn.

Davyboi wrote: ↑Thu Nov 22, 2018 8:25 pm

Belinda wrote: ↑Thu Nov 22, 2018 1:48 pm The respect that I give is relative to my own prejudices. I am prejudiced against fascist, dogmatic, conceited, and extreme right-wing views .

There is discussion to be had about whether people who might stir up fascist, dogmatic, or extreme right wing feeling ought to be excluded from online or real life venues where vulnerable people might read them or hear them.

I personally think that no matter what someones views, opinions be they fascist, racist or just sheer crazy! Should be heard! And should never be excluded! But not judged! Or ridiculed or disrespected To hide this and oppress these people only gives power to their cause, at the end of the day, each person is equal! Or so I have been taught! And as for vulnerable people, please Belinda! Who do you categories as vulnerable?? Are there specific boxes that say someone is classed as vulnerable? Because I personally think everyone has or is vulnerable at some point or area of their live...better to be decieved, and learn.

But Belinda has a point. After all it is why Socrates had to be killed. He was a wrong thinker who questioned the dictates of the experts in society and even questioned if anyone knew what piety is.To make matters worse all his wrong thinking was corrupting the youth of Athens. This was intolerable so of course he had to be killed. How else can right thinkers deal with these wrong thinkers as they disturb the peace and corrupt the youth of the day?

Simone Weil wrote that one must be willing to annoy the Great Beast. With that attitude it is a wonder this young upstart lived as long as she did. It was inexcusable that she abandoned marxism and died a Christian mystic. Simply intolerable!. Right thinkers have an obligation to destroy her memory for sake of right thinkers everywhere.