Philosophy Now Forum

henry quirk wrote: ↑Thu Jun 05, 2025 6:10 pm

Martin Peter Clarke wrote: ↑Wed Jun 04, 2025 8:53 am

In England you need planning permission to change your pillow cases.

In some place here (the metropli mostly) it's the same.

It's Islamic; that which isn't permitted is forbidden.

(i) Really? The islamists have penetrated that deeply?

I deployed big solid rubber wedges against the curb in to my drive. That was illegal it turned out. I got a letter from the council. Unbelievable.

(ii) Tell me you defied them.

You'd shoot me on sight.

(iii) Nah, I'd yell at you first get offa my lawn!. Then I'd shoot you. When I was a kid I was pretty adventuresome myself. Today, I'd shoot young me in the ass with birdshot.

Education

(iv) Oh, I was adequately taught in the mill, same as you, I guess. But what I learned was out of the classroom.

you're a man of property.

(v) A tiny plot upon which sits a tiny house.

More than your fair share?

(vi) What is my fair share?

I'm mainly harmless.

(vii) I'm not.

I'm 70 for heaven's sake.

(viii) Well that's no excuse. Old men ought to be fear'd, not dismissed.

But I can look pretty damn intimidating in my drover's hat and coat. And there's always the knobkerrie. It scares even me!

(vix) There you go: fake it till you make it. Don't fear your tools, respect them.

The cops saw me with it, walking through the park at night, and didn't bat an eyelid.

(x) Yeah but aren't Brit cops *ahem* pussies?

attacked for being the good Samaritan

(xi) You gotta tell that story.

It's all part of the package that's gotten me this far.

Yeah you are a sunny guy...kinda annoying (I kid! not)

you have a handsome persona.

I can be civil...it's work.

He's back in Romania now (for real, the police ID'd him), with all my power tools.

Son of a bitch deserved birdshot in the ass.

A Makarov off the dark web. An AK for the apocalypse collapse.

A shotgun is the finest, all-around weapon you can use. it's low maintenance and versatile. And legal for you, yes? Get one. A basic pump action or a double. Spicy times are comin'.

When the internet goes sentient and commits suicide.

LLMs ain't gonna do nuthin' but fade away once folks get that the things are mostly hype.

grouse moor

Where's the sport in those? What makes hunting hunting is the hunt. The possibility of goin' home empty-handed. Managed hunts = cheating.

Hippicrite

Our genetic shackles guarantee it.

There are no such things.

To whom?

To me, for a start.

Well yeah, we're naturally wired to oppose such.

We're metaphysically disposed to object.

That gives us the right.

Biology gives us nuthin' cept means. Motivation, reason, intuition, those are sourced in spirit.

We're the most remarkably eusocial species evolution will ever come up with.

We're hylomorphic free wills. Our sociability, nowadays, is a matter of choice. Evolution may have shaped the meat but it had nuthin' to do with the mind.

Convince you? Utterly impossible.

Not in scenario I offered, no.

Sandy Hook?

Part of the New York metropolitan area.

The masses have none whatsoever, but limited spending power

If that were so, politicians wouldn't spend the bulk of their time hoodwinkin' 'em and curryin' favor.

We have lamp posts we could decorate with them if it came to it.

It'll come to that, sooner or later.

Skepsis is my territory.

A pinch or two of salt.

If there were a ground of infinite being from eternity, They would be transcendent Love.

I can't see why this would be, have to be, so.

Where do you make yours up from if not the Bible?

Well, I didn't make Him up. He's there.

My particular take comes from reason and intuition...and Robert E Howard. God is just. Justice can be harsh and uncompromising.

If there were one infinite eternal universe

What there actually is: one, finite, reality. Essentially a big friggin' box.

is your single universe this finite one, observable becoming un-, only?

Nuthin' lasts forever.

(i) Och no, Islamism is not a problem in Europe. As long as we keep our noses out of the Ummah. Every time there's been an attack, we've been sticking our noses in somewhere. Losing small wars, big time. No, it's British culture. It's as I said, if it's not permitted, it's forbidden, as in Islam. I live in a city where the largest minority, including white British, is Muslim. I love the place. I've worked for a Muslim business in the Muslim 'quarter'. I had a Muslim boss prior to that. He sent his kids to a Roman Catholic school! I've had a young Muslim guy, robed, come up to me on the street and shake me by the hand because his mom told him about me picking up litter. I have Muslim neighbours. I fix things for them. They feed me! In a previous neighbourhood we used to have street parties with our Muslim neighbours. Halal of course! Fascinating. I've worked in Kuwait. Holidayed in Morocco. It's not a monolithic monoculture in the slightest. I've been proud to wear the Keffiyeh as an act of atonement. You'll be horrified to know. People are people. People are bloody fantastic given an nth of respect. I live 200 yds from the most cosmopolitan street in Britain. Roman troops used to march past my house. We are neighbours first. I host Muslim feasts in my church hall. Had a Muslim baby shower last week. I am proud of my city.

(ii) I can't afford to! They're a bigger gang even than the cops! Who do love a BBC accent.

(iii) Clint! Gran Tourismo. My sig when commenting on Christian websites used to be 'Fiat meam diem, baro!'. Clint can do no wrong. You see, you're just not an ugly American. Despite your claim to the contrary. Birdshot. Not buck. But still not salt I notice!

(iv) Well, I've been out in all weathers too. Even on a motorbike. I've survived (duhhh!). But our weather is a lot more temperate admittedly. Usually. Out in full Belstaff wet gear, on my Suzuki 250 GTA, in the North European Monsoon was cool. Until I hit black ice months later. How I walked away I don't know. As my Dad (a biker too) used to say, it's impact that kills. Just don't hit anything. Nothing ever overtook me. Metaphorically too. All weathers. Starting big time at about 17. Ego heights. Crashing and burning. But I bet your stories top mine. Mainly. Pure survival stuff and lessons of life. All weathers. Strange cul-de-sacs. More than your average Joe. Got trapped caving once. That was after getting lost. 750 feet underground. Mind wiping. Loved and lost too many times. Put my kids through poverty. So it wasn't all plain sailing.

(v) - (vi) Then you're little people. My plot's smaller 'n yorn! But you're not exactly a cattle baron or a slumlord. I'm sorry, this just won't do. I'm finding it hard to regard you as a class enemy. You sound like the average in my Imagine mindscape. Privately sufficient. We just need to widen that net.

(vii) - (x) Later! Yeah. They are. On average. Which is to be preferred. I used to complain in one rough town we lived in that there wasn't enough police brutality.

(xi) OK. I will.

I was walking briskly to my car the other side of the large park after work, passing the most impressive Lutyens war memorial, when I heard a commotion stage right. It involved a shout. Possibly in my direction. I couldn't resist a loud 'Sorry?' whilst carrying on. I then heard running footsteps getting louder. Uh oh. Nothing. Then another commotion. I turned round and two Bangladeshi heritage lads were kicking at a cyclist. I made the mistake of loudly saying, 'What's going on here?'. That got their attention. One guy got in my face, from below, and I saw I could make a move, but I didn't. As he hadn't. I was actually trying not to laugh. Some guy went by on his bike and didn't stop. Then in my face guy's buddy blindsided me with a haymaker to the jaw from the side. I was stunned. But actually made the split second decision to collapse in to a foetal position. I was fully conscious. The commotion continued above me. The first cyclist was remonstrating with them, no more violence, he bent down down to look at me, because I was groaning and foaming at the mouth. I looked him in the eye and winked theatrically with the one nearest the ground. He spoke about my serious head injury. Another commotion. Another group of Bangladeshi heritage lads - who must have known them, may have been in the initial commotion - had swooped on the other two, picked them up, and threw them away. They helped me up. Shaken but not stirred. They were most solicitous, asked where my sons were. They were appalled that such disrespect had been shown to me by their peers. Then the pussy cops drove over the park, on the grass, blues and twos as we say. The other guy on the bike probably called them. The two drugged up lads, on monkey dust or ketamine or something (we don't do crystal meth here), pelted off in to the misty gloaming. The cops stopped at us. Got the story and went baying off after the two. They should have brought dogs. Didn't catch them. My jaw was fine. A subcutaneous contusion. No bruising. Got home late and my wife berated me. When I told her what had happened she berated me again. Triple whammy. The cyclist was an academic at the nearby university. He never forgot.

So I bought the telescopic cosh. But it worried me having it! Especially as there was a e-paper trail...

And 25 years before, a housemate and I, early-mid 20s respectively, had just been to the theatre in Bath. Great little play, superb cast. Including Steed from the Avengers. Patrick Macnee. Walking home on the A4, we passed a bunch of racially harmonious lads, black and white, outside an army reserve centre. As tall as we. My companion, Rob, in his duffle coat, mumbled to accelerate our pace, which I regretfully did. That set them off. In every sense. They surrounded us and began to interrogate us. In fact Rob was the target. Not me. One of them grabbed him by the lapels and said 'We don't like duffel coats!'. I had been silent until then, but felt compelled to say 'Please don't do that'. That go their attention. A bad habit (see above). A cop car came speeding by, blues and twos, and we all just watched. Back to me. The leader of the pack looked me up and down in my suit, I'd been to my Sabbatarian church in Bristol earlier, and said 'Are you in that American religion?'. My already chilled blood froze. Either he was demon possessed and knew. Or what? What rationally could he mean. Mormons. I laughed and shook my head and said 'What, Mormons? No'. Another said 'Ask them for their money'. So we emptied our meagre pockets and handed over. The pack leader ordered everyone to stop. They did. He kept looking at me and... apologized. He told the others to give us our money back. They did. He offered his hand. I clenched my thighs together to inhibit a kick in the groin. I thought he could be toying with me. And shook. Hands. We parted. I was elated. Rob was in shock and blaming me... I'd told him to shut up during the commotion. He wasn't helping. Poor lad. White as a sheet.

And much else besides. Guns, knives, broken bottle. Wasn't standing for that. Used a curtain.

I've encountered similar groups since, always kept my pace and direction, always expected them to part for me if necessary, always said thank you. Or just good evening on passing by. One group had gone by and I heard one say 'What did he say', I turned and said 'He said 'Good evening''. As you say, fake it till you make it. Two guys were squaring up one night and I just walked straight between them. Gave them all the excuse they needed to de-escalate. Works wonders in security. Just lean in with your hands in your pockets.

(xii)... Later!

Henry Quirk wrote:

We're hylomorphic free wills. Our sociability, nowadays, is a matter of choice. Evolution may have shaped the meat but it had nuthin' to do with the mind.

True. the minds of men are shaped by the beliefs that prevail in the cultures in which they are immersed. Even you, Henry, had parents, maybe siblings, friends and access to public media. You did not invent your ideas-------you learned those from others one way and another. You mistake culture for God.

Same with Martin Peter Clarke, he did not invent his ideas, all of those came from the culture: Martin and you Henry each learned from Romanticism that the colourful rebel individualist is a good model.

Belinda wrote: ↑Fri Jun 06, 2025 9:22 am Henry Quirk wrote:

We're hylomorphic free wills. Our sociability, nowadays, is a matter of choice. Evolution may have shaped the meat but it had nuthin' to do with the mind.

True. the minds of men are shaped by the beliefs that prevail in the cultures in which they are immersed. Even you, Henry, had parents, maybe siblings, friends and access to public media. You did not invent your ideas-------you learned those from others one way and another. You mistake culture for God.

Same with Martin Peter Clarke, he did not invent his ideas, all of those came from the culture: Martin and you Henry each learned from Romanticism that the colourful rebel individualist is a good model.

Ooooh! Yep. Ya got me. I try and keep it under wraps nowadays. In real life.

henry quirk wrote: ↑Thu Jun 05, 2025 6:10 pm

Martin Peter Clarke wrote: ↑Wed Jun 04, 2025 8:53 am

...

It's all part of the package that's gotten me this far.

(xii) Yeah you are a sunny guy...kinda annoying (I kid! not)

you have a handsome persona.

(xiii) I can be civil...it's work.

He's back in Romania now (for real, the police ID'd him), with all my power tools.

(xiv) Son of a bitch deserved birdshot in the ass.

A Makarov off the dark web. An AK for the apocalypse collapse.

(xv) A shotgun is the finest, all-around weapon you can use. it's low maintenance and versatile. And legal for you, yes? Get one. A basic pump action or a double. Spicy times are comin'.

When the internet goes sentient and commits suicide.

(xvi) LLMs ain't gonna do nuthin' but fade away once folks get that the things are mostly hype.

grouse moor

(xvii) Where's the sport in those? What makes hunting hunting is the hunt. The possibility of goin' home empty-handed. Managed hunts = cheating.

Hippicrite

Our genetic shackles guarantee it.

(xviii) There are no such things.

To whom?

(xix) To me, for a start.

Well yeah, we're naturally wired to oppose such.

(xx) We're metaphysically disposed to object.

That gives us the right.

(xxi) Biology gives us nuthin' cept means. Motivation, reason, intuition, those are sourced in spirit.

We're the most remarkably eusocial species evolution will ever come up with.

(xxii) We're hylomorphic free wills. Our sociability, nowadays, is a matter of choice. Evolution may have shaped the meat but it had nuthin' to do with the mind.

Convince you? Utterly impossible.

(xxiii) Not in scenario I offered, no.

Sandy Hook?

Part of the New York metropolitan area.

The masses have none whatsoever, but limited spending power

If that were so, politicians wouldn't spend the bulk of their time hoodwinkin' 'em and curryin' favor.

We have lamp posts we could decorate with them if it came to it.

It'll come to that, sooner or later.

Skepsis is my territory.

A pinch or two of salt.

If there were a ground of infinite being from eternity, They would be transcendent Love.

(a) I can't see why this would be, have to be, so.

Where do you make yours up from if not the Bible?

(b) Well, I didn't make Him up. He's there.

(c) My particular take comes from reason and intuition...and Robert E Howard. God is just. Justice can be harsh and uncompromising.

If there were one infinite eternal universe

(d) What there actually is: one, finite, reality. Essentially a big friggin' box.

is your single universe this finite one, observable becoming un-, only?

(e) Nuthin' lasts forever.

(xii) Yep. A highly extroverted introvert. Hiding in plain sight. Irritatingly sanguine.

(xiii) You can't help yourself either. And you have the moral and character development to actually work at it. Tsk, tsk. Dear oh dear. Give in to it man!

(xiv) He did. One of our national treasures was Spike Milligan. I saw him do stand up! Sit down actually. He just sat there for a good couple of minutes in silence turning over a pile of paper. Paused. Continued. Iterate. Over a thousand men weeping with laughter. He finally said, 'I haven't prepared anything, so nothing can go wrong'. 50 years ago he shot a burglar with an air rifle. The BBC interviewed him, and he explained that he bought it to deter cats from predating birds in his garden. 'I shot him up the bum [ass]!'. There was no caution let alone a prosecution. It would have brought down the government.

(xv) It's legal for country folk for vermin. Difficult for townies. You have to belong to a shooting club and have a gun safe. Country folk need safe too.

(xvi) Yeahhh, they are, but. Like spreadsheets, they actually increase the amount of work you have to do.

(xvii) Well said. Although black grouse are remarkable fliers. As long as country folk don't set dogs on non-humans that's fine by me. Heart shots only. I have stood in the middle of the Fernie Hunt's seething hound pack. Wonderful. A rider on the ridge struck a spine tingling Civil War pose (ours two centuries before yours. My city still bears the scars).

(xviii) You are a transcendent being. I am not. I'm meat. In bone box. 4 billion years in the making. Emergence upon emergence upon emergence.

(xix) Democracy is a danger to you?! Well yeah, it's a danger to us all in that it guarantees evil morons lord it over us with leveraged wealth.

(xx) Metaphysically disposed? WTF is that?! Pardon my French. We're genetically disposed.

(xxi) Nature is sourced in nature. What is this spirit, apart from metaphor? Whence it's source? 'Beyond' nature.

(xxii) Immaterial form?! Choice?!?! What are these heat haze mirages? Mind is a state of matter, via meat. Show me any of your metaphors. Point to them. Calling metaphor metaphysics by bypassing nature with no warrant doesn't show them. Doesn't elevate them distinct, real, above nature.

(xxiii) What about my shiv at your left carotid, from behind? Would that convince you?

...

(a) God could be Cthulhu? Conjured by Howard's friend Lovecraft? Inspirer of King's Mother in Revival? Where do you get your God? Your Deus? Shining Zeus. Jupiter. Sky Father. My God is best case. Yours sounds like myth as old as Egyptian civilization.

(b) More than mine? Where? How? He's in culture. OK, He, They, it is not bad in some cultures. Well one. The Great Spirit. Is that your source? Or/and Brahman? No. They're not spiteful.

(c) Reason comes last, but you put it falsely first. It comes after your feelings - 'intuition' - about early C20th (BCE-CE) weird tales. It's slave to that: in reverse order. The all consuming, mind twisting horror of a 'just' God. Vastly more ancient than and continuous from Maat. Our harsh and uncompromising justice writ infinitely, irrationally, insanely large. And I loved Him too. I am a victim of culture too. I'm still in awe of that greatest fictitious character. Under the terebinth trees of Mamre. That God. They are all the same. Childishly ignorant, incompetent and murderously vengeful. A two year old. Masked by eldritch grandeur. All. All as perfectly bad as Jerome Bixby's brilliant creation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alftDlWxJcY. The Greeks called the Erinyes, Furies, the Eumenides, Graces. To placate them Yeah it's a good life. God, we're sick with fear. Fear that Jesus does nothing to assuage. And you don't even include him. It's all one benighted literary, infantile psychological trope.

Are you Texan too? Have you read Meyer's The Son? The land makes us. Ours has not been as savage as yours, at home, for a long while. We're just pathetically mediocre now. We've institutionalized social injustice flawlessly, inextricably. Marx despaired of the revolution here two centuries ago, when it was a orders of magnitude, sigmas, more likely. It's genetically impossible after all.

(d) So what was there before this one finite reality of yours? And what follows it? Null? Ah! Heaven. So what was before for His eternity? What was He doing? Omming timelessly? Why did He impossibly change? And become spiteful with it.

(e) Indeed not, not even the God of (d). A God who meaninglessly encompasses a single blip.

Sigh.

Dear henry, dear henry.

Martin Peter Clarke wrote concerning gods and stuff:

It's all one benighted literary, infantile psychological trope.

It's not as complicated as that,Martin . it's called personification.
Some religious sects allow you to make whatever you most value your personified deity. E.g. parenthood, natural wilderness, mathematical truth, music, self, entertainment, native land, tribe, race, and so forth, and such sects allow that each individual is following their own path guided by a compass which may be personified also in the person of JC, a respected friend or relative, a sacred book, a Hollywood hero and so forth. Can tell what a man's deity is by what takes up that man's feeling and thinking.

A sect like the above is less concerned with social control than with providing a safe space for free thoughts and prayers. The sociol control element comes from fellowship and respect from peers.

Belinda, Martin:

Bear with me, please. I owe you both responses but am time-press'd now. Things will let up by Monday, so look for posts then.

Your Friendly Enemy, H. Quirk

"Grouse moor" concerning, I have actually met three moral idiots who paid their money to shoot over a grouse moor for fun. One of them was scathing about my well trained German shepherd who had not been trained same as her labradors. to retrieve dead birds. These individuals were all Tories. I never personally met any dastardly landowner who own these places. Land use is an escalating problem, and grouse moors typify land use by idiotic or money grubbing individuals who can afford to entertain themselves by killing things on vast tracts of privately owned land.

Gamekeepers are employed to burn heather to provide new growth for specially bred 'game' birds to eat, and in doing so kill native animals , insects , and plants. I support careful and well informed rewilding together with public access.

So with regard to the title of this forum, my answer is "Yes". Communism is another belief system. It was supposed to be at its inception a system of natural necessity, however, like all the other systems , communism became a system of hierarchical control. Political conservatives who believe that hierarchical systems of control will make them happy are optimistic to the degree of stupidity.

It's a constant struggle for the common men and women to protect any socialist gains they have against greedy or stupid political conservatives. You cannot go it alone, Henry, you need to get political. This world is not as lucky as the world of High Noon.

henry quirk wrote: ↑Sat Jun 07, 2025 1:27 pm Belinda, Martin:

Bear with me, please. I owe you both responses but am time-press'd now. Things will let up by Monday, so look for posts then.

Your Friendly Enemy, H. Quirk

Not a problem, dear henry. I hope time decompresses for you soon.

Belinda wrote: ↑Sat Jun 07, 2025 11:20 am Martin Peter Clarke wrote concerning gods and stuff:

It's all one benighted literary, infantile psychological trope.

It's not as complicated as that,Martin . it's called personification.
Some religious sects allow you to make whatever you most value your personified deity. E.g. parenthood, natural wilderness, mathematical truth, music, self, entertainment, native land, tribe, race, and so forth, and such sects allow that each individual is following their own path guided by a compass which may be personified also in the person of JC, a respected friend or relative, a sacred book, a Hollywood hero and so forth. Can tell what a man's deity is by what takes up that man's feeling and thinking.

A sect like the above is less concerned with social control than with providing a safe space for free thoughts and prayers. The sociol control element comes from fellowship and respect from peers.

That's in parallel now Belinda. In the WEIRD world. The God of the People of the Book abides. A nasty, grandiose, inadequate bastard.

Martin Peter Clarke wrote: ↑Mon Jun 09, 2025 12:22 am

Belinda wrote: ↑Sat Jun 07, 2025 11:20 am Martin Peter Clarke wrote concerning gods and stuff:

It's all one benighted literary, infantile psychological trope.

It's not as complicated as that,Martin . it's called personification.
Some religious sects allow you to make whatever you most value your personified deity. E.g. parenthood, natural wilderness, mathematical truth, music, self, entertainment, native land, tribe, race, and so forth, and such sects allow that each individual is following their own path guided by a compass which may be personified also in the person of JC, a respected friend or relative, a sacred book, a Hollywood hero and so forth. Can tell what a man's deity is by what takes up that man's feeling and thinking.

A sect like the above is less concerned with social control than with providing a safe space for free thoughts and prayers. The sociol control element comes from fellowship and respect from peers.

That's in parallel now Belinda. In the WEIRD world. The God of the People of the Book abides. A nasty, grandiose, inadequate bastard.

Yes that god still exists we see Him all around in several parts of this sorry world and as you note I don't like Him either. He is scary. He gets reborn here and there in some monstrous form. Zionism. Racism. Speciesism. Sexism. Dictatorships. The ultimate blasphemy of politicising God.

Belinda wrote: ↑Mon Jun 09, 2025 11:23 am

Martin Peter Clarke wrote: ↑Mon Jun 09, 2025 12:22 am

Belinda wrote: ↑Sat Jun 07, 2025 11:20 am Martin Peter Clarke wrote concerning gods and stuff:

It's not as complicated as that,Martin . it's called personification.
Some religious sects allow you to make whatever you most value your personified deity. E.g. parenthood, natural wilderness, mathematical truth, music, self, entertainment, native land, tribe, race, and so forth, and such sects allow that each individual is following their own path guided by a compass which may be personified also in the person of JC, a respected friend or relative, a sacred book, a Hollywood hero and so forth. Can tell what a man's deity is by what takes up that man's feeling and thinking.

A sect like the above is less concerned with social control than with providing a safe space for free thoughts and prayers. The sociol control element comes from fellowship and respect from peers.

That's in parallel now Belinda. In the WEIRD world. The God of the People of the Book abides. A nasty, grandiose, inadequate bastard.

Yes that god still exists we see Him all around in several parts of this sorry world and as you note I don't like Him either. He is scary. He gets reborn here and there in some monstrous form. Zionism. Racism. Speciesism. Sexism. Dictatorships. The ultimate blasphemy of politicising God.

Aye, He is a Bronze Age myth, from when we were two, evolved through the Iron Age with which we are continuous. We have been in arrested development ever since. We cannot attach to our theoretical neotenous adult. Religion based morality fails everywhere. Europe, Russia, the US; Christendom, India, the Ummah. Secular societies are no better. China, DPRK. We are flawedly (redundant phraseology) moral in our genes. In our pack apex predator pre-wiring for experience, now bottle necked in civilization.

Martin Peter Clarke wrote: ↑Mon Jun 09, 2025 11:46 am

Belinda wrote: ↑Mon Jun 09, 2025 11:23 am

Martin Peter Clarke wrote: ↑Mon Jun 09, 2025 12:22 am
That's in parallel now Belinda. In the WEIRD world. The God of the People of the Book abides. A nasty, grandiose, inadequate bastard.

Yes that god still exists we see Him all around in several parts of this sorry world and as you note I don't like Him either. He is scary. He gets reborn here and there in some monstrous form. Zionism. Racism. Speciesism. Sexism. Dictatorships. The ultimate blasphemy of politicising God.

Aye, He is a Bronze Age myth, from when we were two, evolved through the Iron Age with which we are continuous. We have been in arrested development ever since. We cannot attach to our theoretical neotenous adult. Religion based morality fails everywhere. Europe, Russia, the US; Christendom, India, the Ummah. Secular societies are no better. China, DPRK. We are flawedly (redundant phraseology) moral in our genes. In our pack apex predator pre-wiring for experience, now bottle necked in civilization.

What do you make of hope as part of one's psyche?

Belinda wrote: ↑Mon Jun 09, 2025 12:02 pm

Martin Peter Clarke wrote: ↑Mon Jun 09, 2025 11:46 am

Belinda wrote: ↑Mon Jun 09, 2025 11:23 am
Yes that god still exists we see Him all around in several parts of this sorry world and as you note I don't like Him either. He is scary. He gets reborn here and there in some monstrous form. Zionism. Racism. Speciesism. Sexism. Dictatorships. The ultimate blasphemy of politicising God.

Aye, He is a Bronze Age myth, from when we were two, evolved through the Iron Age with which we are continuous. We have been in arrested development ever since. We cannot attach to our theoretical neotenous adult. Religion based morality fails everywhere. Europe, Russia, the US; Christendom, India, the Ummah. Secular societies are no better. China, DPRK. We are flawedly (redundant phraseology) moral in our genes. In our pack apex predator pre-wiring for experience, now bottle necked in civilization.

What do you make of hope as part of one's psyche?

An existentially essential bias. I hope! Despite Trump reversing out of the liberal cul-de-sac, leaving Europe to wither on the vine.

Martin Peter Clarke wrote: ↑Mon Jun 09, 2025 12:54 pm

Belinda wrote: ↑Mon Jun 09, 2025 12:02 pm

Martin Peter Clarke wrote: ↑Mon Jun 09, 2025 11:46 am
Aye, He is a Bronze Age myth, from when we were two, evolved through the Iron Age with which we are continuous. We have been in arrested development ever since. We cannot attach to our theoretical neotenous adult. Religion based morality fails everywhere. Europe, Russia, the US; Christendom, India, the Ummah. Secular societies are no better. China, DPRK. We are flawedly (redundant phraseology) moral in our genes. In our pack apex predator pre-wiring for experience, now bottle necked in civilization.

What do you make of hope as part of one's psyche?

An existentially essential bias. I hope! Despite Trump reversing out of the liberal cul-de-sac, leaving Europe to wither on the vine.

i endorse that all right.

Naaw, Peter has lovely Muslim friends that are part of the minority where he lives...Bath?

Love to see him walk through a Muslim majority area, perhaps somewhere near Birmingham or Manchester or London and carry a big rainbow flag. Let's see how he feels then about Muslims and their Islam..

..they infiltrate gradually, then become the majority, then you are told by those "friendly" Muslims that you cannot walk your filthy animal past their Mosque - yes, your best mate, your dog, is no longer allowed on the former lovely streets of UK in some areas..