Can the Religious Be Trusted?

[BigMike]

Jeez, guy, make up your mind...are you goin' or stayin'?

Anywho, back to it...

That’s the critical difference you keep overlooking.

If this...

Here’s the brutal truth: your brain is a deterministic machine, operating under the same unyielding physical laws as a rock rolling downhill. You don’t control your thoughts, your desires, or your decisions. You are driven by a cascade of external inputs, biological processes, and environmental stimuli—all of which you neither initiated nor directed.

...is true, then it's a difference that doesn't matter. Whatever we do -- write philosophy, debate ideas, contemplate trustworthiness, etc. -- is utterly beyond our control. All of that, and us, are part of a pattern'd motion, begun almost 14 billion years ago. Our accomplishments, our crimes, and everything in-between, all of it causally inevitable. This back & forth between us was always going to happen and always going to happen exactly as it is happening. You, the acolyte of deterministic forces; me, the knuckle-dragger: nuthin' of either us is ours. We are links in a causal chain, points of transmission for blind forces, organic matrices suffused with electricity. Meat machines. We accept inputs, we out put. We're noise-to-signal-to-noise convertors. We're just elements in the biggest heat exchange, ever. We're momentarily stable aggregates of particles.

Who we are, what we think and do, all overwhelmed by what we are, which is, rock-bottom, nuthin' at all.

Now, I don't believe a word of any of that, but you supposedly do, or should, cuz if this...

your brain is a deterministic machine, operating under the same unyielding physical laws as a rock rolling downhill. You don’t control your thoughts, your desires, or your decisions. You are driven by a cascade of external inputs, biological processes, and environmental stimuli—all of which you neither initiated nor directed.

...is true, then all that is true.

(can) faith-based reasoning can reliably lead to truth

Depends on the faith and the faith-holder.

Certainly, we know non-faith-based rationality is no reliable compass. I mean, look at you: your sterile thinkin' has you seein' us all as meat machines, which may, somehow, be of comfort to you, but most certainly is not the truth of us.

Henry, you’re not debating ideas—you’re flinging half-baked distortions like a petulant child. I step away for 24 hours, and here you are, gleefully distorting my views, spreading outright lies, and patting yourself on the back as though you’ve accomplished something other than intellectual self-humiliation. You’re not engaging; you’re performing. And it’s pathetic.

You drag out my words, twisting them into some absurd caricature—“meat machines,” “momentarily stable aggregates”—as if your cheap rhetorical flourishes somehow dismantle determinism. They don’t. All you’ve done is reveal your inability to engage with the actual argument. Determinism doesn’t negate discussion, nor does it render human experience meaningless. It explains why we discuss, why we act, and why things unfold as they do. But understanding that requires more than the shallow, knee-jerk contrarianism you mistake for wit.

Your smug dismissal of “sterile thinking” and your laughable faith in “faith-based reasoning” are just more evidence of your intellectual cowardice. You don’t want to face the fact that your cherished notions of free will and human exceptionalism are comforting illusions, so you lash out instead. It’s easier for you to mock than to think, to jeer than to grapple with ideas that make you uncomfortable. That’s not cleverness, Henry—that’s cowardice.

And let’s not pretend you’re making some grand philosophical point here. You’re throwing tantrums in verbose prose, hoping that the noise will distract from the fact that you’ve contributed nothing of substance. You revel in your own ignorance and wear it like a badge of honor, mistaking stubbornness for depth. It’s laughable, really, if it weren’t so tedious.

So let me spell it out for you one last time: determinism isn’t the nihilistic straw man you’ve constructed. It’s a framework that explains human behavior within the laws of causality. If you can’t understand that—or won’t—it’s not because the concept is flawed. It’s because you lack the intellectual honesty or capacity to engage with it. And frankly, I’m done wasting my time on your childish antics. Stay in your echo chamber, where your hollow arguments bounce around unchecked. You’ll get no more of my attention.

[henry quirk]

Determinism doesn’t negate discussion, nor does it render human experience meaningless.

If this...

Here’s the brutal truth: your brain is a deterministic machine, operating under the same unyielding physical laws as a rock rolling downhill. You don’t control your thoughts, your desires, or your decisions. You are driven by a cascade of external inputs, biological processes, and environmental stimuli—all of which you neither initiated nor directed.

...is true, then -- yeah -- all that we are and do is meaningless.

your laughable faith in “faith-based reasoning”

These...

Depends on the faith and the faith-holder.

...are my words, Mike. Not seein' that as a faith-statement on my part.

You don’t want to face the fact that your cherished notions of free will and human exceptionalism are comforting illusions

Mike, if this....

Here’s the brutal truth: your brain is a deterministic machine, operating under the same unyielding physical laws as a rock rolling downhill. You don’t control your thoughts, your desires, or your decisions. You are driven by a cascade of external inputs, biological processes, and environmental stimuli—all of which you neither initiated nor directed.

...is true then how is my failin' to face facts my fault?

You’ll get no more of my attention.

Fine by me, Mike. As I say: I don't need to tussle with you to comment your posts, and to point out the contradiction between your determinism and your airy-fairy expectations.

[Alexis Jacobi]

You’re raising what seems to be a common critique, but in doing so, you’ve sidestepped a central and undeniable feature of human existence—perhaps intentionally, perhaps not. You claim I “reduce” humanity to the physiological brain, as though acknowledging the physical processes underlying learning, memory, and behavior somehow strips away what makes us human. But in framing it this way, you miss what is, to me, the single most remarkable characteristic of humanity: our ability to learn and remember, and how this reshapes not just who we are but how we act. This isn’t some vague philosophical point; it’s the backbone of my view. And yet, it seems to be the one thing you, and most others here, consistently fail to engage with.

The way I relate and respond to you (you as an intellectual phenomenon in our present I must add) is to see you as evincing an ideological obsessiveness. Really an idée fixe.

This is how you have organized its expression:

Here’s the brutal truth: your brain is a deterministic machine, operating under the same unyielding physical laws as a rock rolling downhill. You don’t control your thoughts, your desires, or your decisions. You are driven by a cascade of external inputs, biological processes, and environmental stimuli—all of which you neither initiated nor directed.

You take all free agency away, and then you work out a way to introduce it all back in again! Your position is an absurdist’s conundrum but in no sense do I disagree that elements in your discourse are “true” — in the sense that facts are true.

Your “molecules of water flowing in a riverbed” argument is flawed simply by the fact that if I am flowing along in a current (i.e. life) and that I am determined by being in that flow, which indeed I am, volition exists for me in some quantifiable degree and it does not for the water molecule. In this way, your argument does not stand and does not illustrate our actual condition.

Transpose “conditioned” for “determined” and that position will make sense to me.

If you then say “but we are all in a conditioned flow” and call that situation determined, I cannot but agree. We are all in a world and conditioned by that world-reality. Except that even if you reduce “mind” to “brain” and say that our cognition all occurs in brain-function — and that is what you do say (and deny supernaturalism in any sense) — then what I say in response is that even that brain can make choices — just as I could make various choices if I were carried along in a current.

A molecule cannot, but a living being can. And man especially has access to conditioned, but not strictly determined (in the sense of the falling rock or the water molecule is determined), choices: i.e. volition.

Is it truly or absolutely “free”? No, because it is held within its form in space and time. But man’s mind has all sorts of options that can only be described, or described fairly, as real and not apparent or as imagined.

If you say that any decision is made within a context, and which is a further step or development on a given moment and from an existing condition, platform or background, and if that you call determinism, I can agree with that view.

But I still cannot put to the side nor remove from my understanding that on that base of pre-existing conditions that I have options. If you say “having options does not change essential conditioning by circumstances” I could only agree. But that only points back to the fact of being conditioned, not determined.

However, it is clear that “choice” is a complex question. It depends on self-awareness and self-consciousness as well as degrees of empowerment. And these require a good deal of explanation to define what they are and how they do or do not arise.

Your anthropology is extremely limited for a dozen reasons, not the least bring your obsessively conceived but limited predicates. You have an entire ideological construct that you are obsessed with and your sciency views are its support and in this sense its cage.

If you don’t mind I will please charge you $1,250.00 for this careful analysis. Venmo, PayPal and all major cards are accepted of course.

[BigMike]

You’re raising what seems to be a common critique, but in doing so, you’ve sidestepped a central and undeniable feature of human existence—perhaps intentionally, perhaps not. You claim I “reduce” humanity to the physiological brain, as though acknowledging the physical processes underlying learning, memory, and behavior somehow strips away what makes us human. But in framing it this way, you miss what is, to me, the single most remarkable characteristic of humanity: our ability to learn and remember, and how this reshapes not just who we are but how we act. This isn’t some vague philosophical point; it’s the backbone of my view. And yet, it seems to be the one thing you, and most others here, consistently fail to engage with.

The way I relate and respond to you (you as an intellectual phenomenon in our present I must add) is to see you as evincing an ideological obsessiveness. Really an idée fixe.

You take all free agency away, and then you work it all back in again. Your position is an absurdist’s conundrum but in no sense do I disagree that elements in your discourse are “true” — in the sense that facts are true.

Your “molecules of water flowing in a riverbed” argument is flawed simply by the fact that if I am flowing along in a current (i.e. life) and that I am determined by being in that flow, which indeed I am, volition exists for me in some quantifiable degree and it does not for the water molecule. In this way, your argument does not stand and does not illustrate our actual condition.

Transpose “conditioned” for “determined” and that position will make sense to me.

If you then say “but we are all in a conditioned flow” and call that situation determined, I cannot but agree. We are all in a world and conditioned by that world-reality. Except that even if you reduce “mind” to “brain” and say that our cognition all occurs in brain-function — and that is what you do say (and deny supernaturalism in any sense) — then what I say in response is that even that brain can make choices — just as I could make various choices if I were carried along in a current.

A molecule cannot, but a living being can. And man especially has access to conditioned, but not strictly determined (in the sense of the falling rock or the water molecule is determined), choices: i.e. volition.

Is it truly or absolutely “free”? No, because it is held within its form in space and time. But man’s mind has all sorts of options that can only be described, or described fairly, as real and not apparent or as imagined.

If you say that any decision is made within a context, and which is a further step or development on a given moment and from an existing condition, platform or background, and if that you call determinism, I can agree with that view.

But I still cannot put to the side nor remove from my understanding that on that base of pre-existing conditions that I have options. If you say “having options does not change essential conditioning by circumstances” I could only agree. But that only points back to the fact of being conditioned, not determined.

However, it is clear that “choice” is a complex question. It depends on self-awareness and self-consciousness as well as degrees of empowerment. And these require a good deal of explanation to define what they are and how they do or do not arise.

Your anthropology is extremely limited for a dozen reasons, not the least bring your obsessively conceived but limited predicates. You have an entire ideological construct that you are obsessed with and your sciency views are its support and in this sense its cage.

If you don’t mind I will please charge you $1,250.00 for this careful analysis. Venmo, PayPal and all major cards are accepted of course.

Alexis,

Let me be blunt because your response, while verbose, dances around the central point without addressing it directly. You’ve sidestepped the key issue yet again, choosing instead to frame me as some ideological obsessive while avoiding the very question I posed. I won’t let this slide. If you have something substantive to contribute to this discussion, then prove it. Start by answering the question I’ve already asked, clearly and directly:

Do you acknowledge that memories are stored in the brain as physical alterations—in the form of strengthening and weakening of synaptic connections? If not, explain why. If you do, then tell me, in your own words, how you think learning and memory work, where they reside, and how they influence future actions. And finally, explain why you think this deterministic process contradicts my view.

Until you grapple with this fundamental question, you have no basis for critiquing my argument. If you don’t understand—or worse, won’t address—how learning, memory, and understanding function at a physical level, then anything you have to say about determinism is baseless. You’re shooting arrows at a target you haven’t even bothered to look at.

Your attempt to differentiate “conditioning” from “determinism” might sound sophisticated, but it falls apart when we recognize that the two are not mutually exclusive. Being conditioned is a form of being determined. The brain—whether in humans or other organisms—responds to inputs and forms patterns based on those inputs. Those patterns, reinforced through experience and learning, deterministically shape future responses. The fact that you experience the sensation of “options” is not evidence of true volition; it’s evidence of how complex and adaptive the deterministic processes in your brain really are.

Let’s talk about this so-called volition you insist upon. You compare yourself to a person carried by a current, claiming that, unlike a molecule, you can "make choices." But what are those “choices” if not the inevitable outcome of how your brain has been shaped by prior conditions? The intricate pathways in your brain, formed through learning and memory, are what allow you to navigate the current in the way you do. It’s not some magical, transcendent capacity for choice—it’s cause and effect, playing out at a level so complex that you mistake it for freedom.

Here’s the thing, Alexis: if you feel compelled to ridicule me or my perspective, fine. Take your shots. But you will answer my question first. If you can’t articulate how learning and memory work, or if you dismiss the undeniable physical basis of these processes, then you have nothing rational to contribute to this conversation. You cannot meaningfully critique determinism without addressing how the brain stores information and uses it to shape future actions.

So, start your next response with an answer. Don’t veer off into tangents about “ideological obsession” or “sciency cages.” Don’t pivot to more metaphors about currents and molecules without first explaining, in clear terms, your understanding of how humans learn and remember. If you sidestep this again, it will be clear that you are more interested in posturing than in engaging with the substance of my argument.

If you believe your position has merit, show it. But if all you’ve got is rhetorical hand-waving, then save yourself the effort. This conversation requires clarity, Alexis, not evasion.

[Alexis Jacobi]

My core point is to validate “choice” and, within limitations, volition. Your stated understanding negates these:

Here’s the brutal truth: your brain is a deterministic machine, operating under the same unyielding physical laws as a rock rolling downhill. You don’t control your thoughts, your desires, or your decisions. You are driven by a cascade of external inputs, biological processes, and environmental stimuli—all of which you neither initiated nor directed.

I have no reason to deny the physiological base of brain function, nor that memory depends on physical structures, as you point out.

An acting, functioning self exists, and in our case especially — that of man — we make relatively free and non-determined choices. Or in any case we have this capability. Higher minds, and better prepared (or endowed?) minds have all sorts of resources that augment their capability of making choices. And it is in that that defines “man”.

Certainly the physiological aspect of man is undeniable. But I myself never had reason to deny it. However, the realness of consciousness in IC’s sense, and of numerous scientists who cannot fully explain it in strictly physiological terms, still motivates my views, or distinguishes them from yours.

I have a whole host of good reasons to oppose your ideology, which is a form of metaphysics arising out of your ideologically-inclined mind.

Being conditioned is a form of being determined.

Excellent! And with this I agree. And to change or effect that conditioning — that is where choice and volition have (tremendous) relevance.

Those patterns, reinforced through experience and learning, deterministically shape future responses.

Here is where you screw up. I’d correct what you propose here to: We have a capability to review, to see from some distance, and to conceptualize varying options. We can act against those “patterns” and in this way we act differently from “rolling rocks”.

The “patterns” are a ground, and that includes what had been learned and recorded in memory, but we are not determined to choose in the sense that a robot can only do what its programming determines. We have access to other potentials — and these are what makes us human.

[Previous balance: $1,250.00 to which, if you are cool with it, I’ll add another $250.00 that brings your owed amount to $1,500.00]

[Atla]

Atla, I don't disagree that determinism includes the possibility of collapse as much as it includes the possibility of progress. If humanity is heading for collapse, then yes, that's the deterministic trajectory based on countless prior causes—our actions, systems, and decisions stacking up like dominos. But acknowledging that doesn’t negate the value of understanding those forces or trying to change them.

If progress sometimes isn’t possible, it’s not because we’ve escaped determinism—it’s because the conditions deterministically lead to failure. The same is true of success: if progress happens, it’s because the right deterministic factors aligned to make it happen. Recognizing that is part of facing reality, not hoping for miracles but understanding that what we do now—within deterministic constraints—still shapes the outcome. Collapse might feel inevitable, but so, too, would progress if the right conditions were created. That’s determinism: no miracles, just cause and effect.

I don't know why you feel the need to keep repeating the meaning of determinism when everything I said was based on it.

Atla, fair enough—point taken. But if your argument is already rooted in determinism, then we’re not really in disagreement. My point wasn’t to reiterate the definition but to emphasize that even within a deterministic framework, understanding and influencing conditions matters. Whether the trajectory leads to collapse or progress, it’s all deterministic, yes—but the key is recognizing that how we act now is part of that causal chain, not separate from it. If we’re doomed, then that’s the result of our deterministic past, but the same framework allows for the possibility—however slim—of steering things differently if conditions align. It’s all still on the table, no miracles needed.

Yes that's what determinism means. My point is that we'll probably need a (deterministic) miracle for humanity to make it, obviously.

[BigMike]

My core point is to validate “choice” and, within limitations, volition. Your stated understanding negates these:

Here’s the brutal truth: your brain is a deterministic machine, operating under the same unyielding physical laws as a rock rolling downhill. You don’t control your thoughts, your desires, or your decisions. You are driven by a cascade of external inputs, biological processes, and environmental stimuli—all of which you neither initiated nor directed.

I have no reason to deny the physiological base of brain function, nor that memory depends on physical structures, as you point out.

An acting, functioning self exists, and in our case especially — that of man — we make relatively free and non-determined choices. Or in any case we have this capability. Higher minds, and better prepared (or endowed?) minds have all sorts of resources that augment their capability of making choices. And it is in that that defines “man”.

Certainly the physiological aspect of man is undeniable. But I myself never had reason to deny it. However, the realness of consciousness in IC’s sense, and of numerous scientists who cannot fully explain it in strictly physiological terms, still motivates my views, or distinguishes them from yours.

I have a whole host of good reasons to oppose your ideology, which is a form of metaphysics arising out of your ideologically-inclined mind.

Being conditioned is a form of being determined.

Excellent! And with this I agree. And to change or effect that conditioning — that is where choice and volition have (tremendous) relevance.

Those patterns, reinforced through experience and learning, deterministically shape future responses.

Here is where you screw up. I’d correct what you propose here to: We have a capability to review, to see from some distance, and to conceptualize varying options. We can act against those “patterns” and in this way we act differently from “rolling rocks”.

The “patterns” are a ground, and that includes what had been learned and recorded in memory, but we are not determined to choose in the sense that a robot can only do what its programming determines. We have access to other potentials — and these are what makes us human.

[Previous balance: $1,250.00 to which, if you are cool with it, I’ll add another $250.00 that brings your owed amount to $1,500.00]

Alexis,

Let’s cut through the theatrics and get to the core of this. You claim to validate “choice” and “volition” while acknowledging the physiological basis of memory and brain function. Yet, you then assert that we have some mysterious ability to override the deterministic processes of our neural architecture, as if this capability arises from a dimension you neither explain nor substantiate. Let’s address this point by point because your response reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of what determinism actually entails—and why your insistence on “free choice” doesn’t hold up under scrutiny.

First, I’m glad to see you concede that memory is dependent on physical structures. That’s a start. But let’s follow this concession to its logical conclusion: if memories are stored as physical alterations to synaptic pathways, then the process of recalling and acting on those memories must also be governed by those physical structures. The very ability to conceptualize “options” and review “patterns,” which you insist distinguishes humans from rolling rocks or robots, is itself determined by the current state of your neural network. The options you perceive, the thoughts you entertain, and the decisions you make are all constrained and shaped by this deterministic system.

You state that humans can “act against those patterns” and claim this makes us fundamentally different. But I challenge you to explain how this happens without invoking some mystical, non-physical force. What you call “acting against patterns” is simply the result of new inputs reshaping those patterns—a deterministic process. If you believe otherwise, you must explain where this supposed independence originates and how it operates in defiance of the laws of physics and biology.

You also suggest that humans, particularly those with “higher minds,” possess resources that augment their ability to make “relatively free” choices. But let’s be clear: the capacity for reflection, reasoning, and imagining alternatives is itself a product of deterministic brain function. It’s not freedom from causation; it’s causation working at a higher level of complexity. A rock rolls downhill because of gravity and terrain. A human deliberates because of synaptic connections, hormonal activity, and prior experiences—different mechanisms, but still deterministic.

Your assertion that “we are not determined to choose in the sense that a robot can only do what its programming determines” is a false analogy. Robots are limited by the scope of their programming, yes, but so are humans—our “programming” just happens to be more intricate and adaptive, shaped by biology, culture, and experience. The fact that we can conceptualize alternatives and simulate possible outcomes doesn’t contradict determinism; it exemplifies it. Your insistence on this point reflects a misunderstanding of how complexity arises from simple deterministic rules.

Now, let’s get to the crux of your claim: that humans are capable of “changing or affecting conditioning” through choice. This is tautological nonsense. Of course, humans can change their conditioning—but only through deterministic processes like learning, memory, and adaptation. The act of studying a subject and applying that knowledge later is not evidence of free will; it’s evidence of deterministic cause and effect. When you “choose” to act differently from your patterns, that choice arises from new conditions—inputs that have reshaped your neural architecture. You’re not defying causation; you’re enacting it.

Your repeated allusions to consciousness and “mind” as somehow separate from deterministic processes betray the same magical thinking I see in many critiques of determinism. You invoke “scientists who cannot fully explain it” as though their uncertainty validates your position. But appealing to gaps in understanding is not an argument—it’s a dodge. If you want to claim that the mind operates outside deterministic principles, then you need to do more than gesture vaguely at “potentials.” Show your work.

Finally, your insistence on framing my position as an “ideological obsession” is a lazy dismissal. I’m not advocating for determinism because of ideology; I’m advocating for it because it’s supported by evidence. If you want to counter that, you must engage with the evidence itself—not paint my argument as some kind of metaphysical cage. Your rhetorical flourishes about “higher minds” and “other potentials” are empty until you ground them in something tangible.

So here’s the deal, Alexis: you owe this conversation a coherent answer to my question. If you believe there’s something about learning, memory, or the “mind” that defies determinism, explain it. If not, then your argument collapses under its own vagueness. You accuse me of reductive thinking, but it seems to me you’re the one avoiding the reality that the richness of human experience can—and must—be understood through the physical processes that underpin it. Start your next response by addressing the learning and memory question directly. If you don’t, there’s no point in continuing this conversation.

[Alexis Jacobi]

It is not a “lazy dismissal” to express what it is that I notice about your perceptual system, the predicates that inform it, and the ideology that you created or that results from that ideology. Not at all.

By “obsession” I mean an intensity of focus on a select set of ideas and notions. These “determine” the ideology you have formed.

The long and the short of it, if you really wanted to reduce this to basic elements, is that I do not care what means you employ to arrive at your anthropological ideology that man (i.e. me, you, the next guy) does not have agency (as I define agency). I disagree with this operative conclusion andcregard it as false. However, I do recognize and accept that it is utterly and incontrovertibly real in your mind. Carry on!

The very ability to conceptualize “options” and review “patterns,” which you insist distinguishes humans from rolling rocks or robots, is itself determined by the current state of your neural network. The options you perceive, the thoughts you entertain, and the decisions you make are all constrained and shaped by this deterministic system.

My view is that in this is where your core “error” is located.

Since I do not dispute, nor would I dispute, that a “neural network” located in space and time exists, and is “conditioned” as such, my thrust is only that a man — you or I or some other — have access to act let’s say creatively and intelligently within that limitation. I reject this phrasing:

Here’s the brutal truth: your brain is a deterministic machine, operating under the same unyielding physical laws as a rock rolling downhill. You don’t control your thoughts, your desires, or your decisions. You are driven by a cascade of external inputs, biological processes, and environmental stimuli—all of which you neither initiated nor directed.

We are not merely “rocks rolling downhill” nor molecules of water impelled along determined, unalterable paths. I accept a grounding in biological structure however, and can include the brain’s functions in my understanding of “mind” (as in IC’s usage).

But I cannot go along with you nor your obsessed posture. There are many different reasons why, but the larger on has to do with how destructive such a reduction would be to knowledge and understanding (in my sense of these).

To reduce us to “rolling rocks” and to state that we “don’t control [our] thoughts, [our] desires, or [our] decisions. That [we] are driven by a cascade of external inputs, biological processes, and environmental stimuli” will result in undermining the self (and the persona) in our world. But this does not negate external inputs, biological processes, nor environmental stimuli!

They must all be considered in a holistic way.

And as you know I do accept that a “realm of the metaphysical” exists. And though I cannot explain it in terms amenable to science terms (materialist philosophy) I not only “believe in” a supernatural power but understand that I have a relationship to it. But how it can be described as acting on the physical world is a puzzle for me personally.

(Since we won’t go much further here, and because I need moolah, I will reduce your $1,500.00 debt to $750.00 if that helps.)

[Atla]

.

Anyway FYI, this forum fell about 5 years ago to the religious nutters and the schizophrenic nutters (and the religious-schizophrenic nutters), so don't feel too bad about not achieving much here. This forum is mainly for entertainment.

[Gary Childress]

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Anyway FYI, this forum fell about 5 years ago to the religious nutters and the schizophrenic nutters (and the religious-schizophrenic nutters), so don't feel too bad about not achieving much here. This forum is mainly for entertainment.

Schizophrenia is an unavoidable illness, religion is entirely intentional. How dare you insinuate any likeness between our nutters and theirs.

[BigMike]

.

Anyway FYI, this forum fell about 5 years ago to the religious nutters and the schizophrenic nutters (and the religious-schizophrenic nutters), so don't feel too bad about not achieving much here. This forum is mainly for entertainment.

That explains a lot! Thanks.

[Alexis Jacobi]

.

Anyway FYI, this forum fell about 5 years ago to the religious nutters and the schizophrenic nutters (and the religious-schizophrenic nutters), so don't feel too bad about not achieving much here. This forum is mainly for entertainment.

That explains a lot! Thanks.

Might I recommend that at the very least you offer a payment for his valuable service?

[Gary Childress]

Anyway FYI, this forum fell about 5 years ago to the religious nutters and the schizophrenic nutters (and the religious-schizophrenic nutters), so don't feel too bad about not achieving much here. This forum is mainly for entertainment.

That explains a lot! Thanks.

Might I recommend that at the very least you offer a payment for his valuable service?

Why? You've never paid me for my service to you. Isn't chatting on a forum pretty much free?

[Alexis Jacobi]

I’m not advocating for determinism because of ideology; I’m advocating for it because it’s supported by evidence.

You take specific and narrowed set of evidences, apply a mathematical logic to them, and by mulling over them seem to have converted your conclusions into an actionable ideology.

I do wonder at times if our inclinations actually influence or determine (heh heh!) what evidences we gather and allow. So it is not impossible that “ideology” could come first.

In this sense:

But the thing a man does practically believe (and this is often enough without asserting it even to himself, much less to others); the thing a man does practically lay to heart, and know for certain, concerning his vital relations to this mysterious Universe, and his duty and destiny there, that is in all cases the primary thing for him, and creatively determines all the rest.

CARLYLE

[Alexis Jacobi]

Why? You've never paid me for my service to you. Isn't chatting on a forum pretty much free?

You never asked.