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- Taylor
- Registered User
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Member for 18 years, 3 months, and 12 days
Last active Thu, Jan, 14 2016 16:35:49
- 8 Followers
- 12,626 Total Posts
- 83 Thanks
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Oct 6, 2008
I have only one thing to say about your list:Posted in: Ugstal Urniancepter Doggienavicenewton Bobwebacks
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Oct 6, 2008
@ Magic Mage: Yes indeed there are, read the comment right below yoursPosted in: Thoughts on Religion.
@Tarmogoyf: Yes I am wrong.... that's what I said.... And this is not 'about you.' I am writing this blog because of all the many people with your point of view that I have come across on these forums.
1)No, it's clearly not, as you say in your next point.
2) See, your linking the two together. The problem here is that you feel religion=ignorance. <- This is wrong. This is right-> religion=religion and ignorance=ignorance. Many very smart people had faith, from Newton to Einstein.
3) YOU seem to have a very strong belief in you're own rightness. I am talking about people like you(and me).
4) See, you lumping all theists into the same group again. That would be like me saying all atheist think its ok to have sex with minors because I found a video on youtube by an atheist that was saying it was ok. SOME SMALL groups of theist feel that faith and modern science can't go hand and hand. But MOST theist believe that God made the universe with a set of rules, and we are allowed to figure out those rules, which is also called science.
5) So, you believe if she gave up her faith her IQ would jump?
I do not know if your PS is a joke or not, so I do not know how to respond to it. If you would like to talk to me more please go here:
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=109078&page=6 -
Sep 29, 2008
Taylor posted a message on Invisible Pink UnicornsThe amount I know about everything, compared to the amount that CAN be known about everything, is almost exactly 0. So, I do not know how probable it is.Posted in: Thoughts on Religion.
Yes, exactly my point. TYQuote from Cabalwannabe »Life is for living, not pointing the finger saying "My understanding of the world is better, so you're inferior to me". -
Aug 13, 2008
Taylor posted a message on Incredible what 3 years can change.hu, I live in NH. You going to the PTQ this week?Posted in: The Cadet's Random Idiocies
I can't make it. -
Jul 24, 2008
Taylor posted a message on Experience: what you don't have until after you need it.But everything is much easier when your level one.Posted in: Thoughts on Religion.
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Mar 4, 2008
Taylor posted a message on If I am to have a Blog... This post should be in it!You should go over to the debate section than:Posted in: Thoughts on Religion.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/forumdisplay.php?f=217
I think if you posted a mortified version of this reply on there as a topic starter you might be surprised at the number of very intelligent Theists come out to argue. -
Mar 3, 2008
Taylor posted a message on If I am to have a Blog... This post should be in it!Your last statement is very arrogant. One of the basic forces behind me becoming agnostic was because I did not feel like my opinion was more or less valued than anyone else's.(even-though I love to argue with people, I found I was only able to form arguments if I understood the other person's side)Posted in: Thoughts on Religion.
The "only if you are willing to comprehend" bit seems to metaphysical and cryptic and as such does not go with the rest of your post. -
Mar 3, 2008
I find that drafting in this set is very hard. It really makes you remember what you have picked, and pushes you if you do not. The creature type in most other drafts is the lest important part, but here its the most. As such you have to know EVERYTHING about EACH card you drafted.Posted in: TarmoBlog
I have won drafts where I could just barley remember which color I was drafting I was so tired, but for this, you COULD NOT do that. (and the signals are much harder to read, since its color AND creature type)
I think that limited in this formate is about as far from 'n00b' as you can get.
As for the set design being 'n00b' I think they did a much better job with this tribal block than with the lest. They went back a re-did EVERY creature type in ALL of magic, to make sure changelings where good. I love looking back at the old cards and seeing what they changed.... ITS COOL!
This was a good set to kick off the new creature type policy! - To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
If it makes you feel any better, I would likely give my own posts lower than an A-, but I am my own greatest critic...
I don't think I really do believe one of those things is good and one of them is bad. I mean, I understand the connotation for 'indoctrination' is normally negative in this day and age, as the connotation for "critical thinking" is normally positive. But, I don't think I really draw a line about "good and bad" when speaking about the actual things those labels can describe. Someone can be "indoctrinated" into a very positive thing, and often times "critical thinking" can be a little too critical, in my opinion. But -really- since I don't -in anyway- believe in free will, I don't see much of a difference. Additionally, one could be "indoctrinated" into "thinking critically," so it's not even a dichotomy.
Anyway, really, I was just trying to find some common ground with the people I was talking to. I know DJK3654 said one was good and one was bad, and I assumed you felt the same. Thus, instead of wasting most of my post explaining or debating the meaning of words, I just went off of what I assumed was an accepted understanding (like I am now by using English words to mean what I assume people think they mean). I felt being too nitpicky about things would only become counter productive. For example, the statement "I don't believe in free will" could easily spark a whole different debate that would completely derail the discussion, as would a debate about the 'connotation' of "indoctrination" or "critical thinking." Thus, I find this line of discourse harmful to the overall debate.
But, since I seemed to have upset you with my restatement of DJK3654's position, I guess I should write all this about my opinion of the epistemology of "indoctrinated" and "thinking critically." But, Stairc, I doubt anyone else gives a ***** about this literal semantic tangent. Franky, I'm a little incredulous that you do. I will say if you attempt to debate me about free will or continue to harp on my opinion of "indoctrinated" and "thinking critically," I'm just going to ignore you. That's not what this thread is -in my opinion- about. And, I genuinely don't feel included to derail it.
Nothing did.
In fact, your highlighting that aspect of your position was what I liked most about your post. I'm just saying if you want top marks in my book, you'd have to do more. But--as we've been discussing--it's really up to you how much you care about 'top marks.' If you care enough, you'll do some research and come back better informed. If you don't, you'll not.
Up to you.
As well as a few other cognitive biases account for why people think it's a thing.
It seems very closed minded to not want to even check if the information exists. I can say I found the first google hit pretty enlightening myself. But--then again--I am here to learn, not just vomit up what I 'know' is 'right.'
I was just restating DJK3654's position. I thought it was yours as well. I guess not?
Speaking of dodging, I like how you only responded to those two things, which--I felt--were the least important/interesting part of my post.
Ah well. I guess that's that.
But, an A- is a good grade.
"A-"
My mistake for actually trying to bring in cited facts, instead of just making two up that prove I'm right.
Except, it's not 'the reality.' You make it seem like every non-religious threat is plausible, but it's not. Lots of people shouldn't go to college, and lots of people that don't go to college do very well.
Heck, it matters more how rich your parents are, not religious:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/10/18/poor-kids-who-do-everything-right-dont-do-better-than-rich-kids-who-do-everything-wrong/
But, I guess this is more of the "too big" and 'real life' cited facts you don't want to muddy the waters with. I wouldn't want to stray too far from your script. So, no secular parent has ever told their child to think a certain way?
A few posts ago you were saying people should teach children to 'think critically.' Guess what? That's telling them how to think.
I get that critical thinking is good and indoctrination is bad. But, the issue isn't as black and white as "secular existential threats are helpful to children, while religious ones are harmful." You can have a bad closed-minded atheist parent and a good open-minded theist parent.
The religious aspect is tangential to what is helpful or harmful.
Just like "I'll kill you if you do that again" is 'more severe' than "I'll break your arm if you do that again."
Of course, since both are empty threats, they're generally ineffectual. But -yes- one empty threat is 'more server' than the other empty threat (even if one is slightly more believable).
I'm not sure if "you'll burn in fire" is 'more severe' than "you'll die disgraced, unloved, and alone after bringing shame to your entire family." But, I guess that's not what you're talking about. You only care about the specific instance you brought up, and not about the overall "potential secular threats" vs "potential religious ones." Nor -it seems- the larger issue of what actually resonates with children and affects their mental wellbeing.
And, so, ok, you're right, the threat:
"Do you like failing tests? Do you want to flunk out of school? If not, then study. If you screw up high school, it's going to make things harder for you for the rest of your life."
Is 'different' and 'less severe' (when taken ONLY at face value) than the threat:
"Do you want to make our loving god mad? Do you want to burn in fire forever and ever? If not, accept god. If you mess up and start doubting, you'll go to hell."
Ya got me
Additionally, many religions don't go in for "infinite agony." Many Christians, for example, preach that the bad people don't get resurrected on Judgement Day, and remain dead as their punishment. You're argument doesn't even address the religions that don't have an "eternal punishment," which is most of them. An 'Eternal Hell' for the majority of bad people is a pretty nuanced thing, fairly unique to sects of Christianity and Islam.
It seems to me, you're only arguing against parents that really lace into their kids about hell, and -yeah- that's bad. I don't think anyone would argue that many parents are guilty of unimaginable cruelty because of their faith.[1] But, there are also secular parents harming their kids using 'emotional pressure.' "South Korea has the highest suicide rate in the world among developed nations"[2], and only 29% of the county is Christian (it's mostly secular)[3]
Anyway, children respond to constancy and followthrough. If you're going to threaten them with punishment, you have to followthrough with it. "Going to a lake of fire" isn't going to work the second time, because they never went to it the first time you threatened it. I would suspect that parents that DO use the "hell" tactic must follow it up with other punishments, because empty threats aren't effective.[4]
I would be more concerned about what earthly punishment is being used to backup the "hell" empty threat.
Based on what you've said, it sounds like the section option is easier to ignore. I don't know why "forever screw up your life" is worse than "you'll go to hell." Especially if you're include to believe this is the only life we get, "forever screw up your life" is literally just about the worst thing that could happen. But--regardless of your religious inclination--"hell" is a pretty nebulous idea, while "your life" is pretty concrete to everyone. Speaking as an ex-religious person myself, I've became fully capable of ignoring the "fear of hell," but I am most decidedly not free of the "fear of screwing up life," and likely never will be.
Regardless--If I'm going to pretend I buy into the whole "free will" thing at all (which I don't)--then I think this is the bottomline:
This is true of everyone in any situation, ever.
A prisoner is not free in body, but he can be more free in mind than his jailer.
Specifically, I think -based on this statement- you don't understand the difference between a physicalist and a dualist.
Recommended reading:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/physicalism/
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/dualism/
Anyway, the subtitle to his book is "A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion."
So.... yeah....
But, even regardless of that, whether you want to classify what he is talking about as "true spiritism" or not (and you may or may not) isn't really the point; the "purely physical mechanical explanation might not suffice" bit is.
Which is too much inline with the view point I had going in to argue with. So... Yeah... NVM then...
"Carson v Trump" in the primaries isn't what the republican party wants. They'll keep having debates until it changes.
Again, I understand they can exist, my problem is I feel those that arrived at this belief wasn't "arrived at [it] from any kind of logical standpoint."
Since I'm not sure to what extent this feeling of mine is justified, I was hoping someone might explain how it isn't. Thus, I could weigh their words, and -subsequently- weigh my own views.
But, this thread wasn't created to bash Sam Harris's agnostic-anything. I made it in a simple attempt to better understand the worldview of atheists who would also classify themselves as 'spiritual,' and was using Sam Harris as an example.
Interestingly enough, he addresses this:
"Some readers may think that I’ve stacked the deck against the sciences of the mind by comparing consciousness to a phenomenon as easily understood as fluidity. Surely science has dispelled far greater mysteries. What, for instance, is the difference between a living system and a dead one? Insofar as questions about consciousness itself can be kept off the table, it seems that the difference is now reasonably clear to us. And yet, as late as 1932, the Scottish physiologist J. S. Haldane (father of J. B. S. Haldane) wrote: 'What intelligible account can the mechanistic theory of life give of the . . . recovery from disease and injuries? Simply none at all, except that these phenomena are so complex and strange that as yet we cannot understand them. It is exactly the same with the closely related phenomena of reproduction. We cannot by any stretch of the imagination conceive a delicate and complex mechanism which is capable, like a living organism, of reproducing itself indefinitely often.'
Scarcely twenty years passed before our imaginations were duly stretched. Much work in biology remains to be done, but anyone who entertains it at this point is simply ignorant about the nature of living systems. The jury is no longer out on questions of this kind, and more than half a century has passed since the earth’s creatures required an élan vital to propagate themselves or to recover from injury. Is my skepticism that we will arrive at a physical explanation of consciousness analogous to Haldane’s doubt about the feasibility of explaining life in terms of processes that are not themselves alive? It wouldn’t seem so. To say that a system is alive is very much like saying that it is fluid, because life is a matter of what systems do with respect to their environment. Like fluidity, life is defined according to external criteria. Consciousness is not (and, I think, cannot be). We would never have occasion to say of something that does not eat, excrete, grow, or reproduce that it might be “alive.” It might, however, be conscious."
I know
"I am sympathetic with those who, like the philosopher Colin McGinn and the psychologist Steven Pinker, have suggested that perhaps the emergence of consciousness is simply incomprehensible in human terms. Every chain of explanation must end somewhere—generally with a brute fact that neglects to explain itself. Perhaps consciousness presents an impasse of this sort. In any case, the task of explaining consciousness in physical terms bears little resemblance to other successful explanations in the history of science. The analogies that scientists and philosophers marshal here are invariably misleading...
No one has described a set of unconscious events whose sufficiency as a cause of consciousness would make sense in this way. Any attempt to understand consciousness in terms of brain activity merely correlates a person’s ability to report an experience (demonstrating that he was aware of it) with specific states of his brain. While such correlations can amount to fascinating neuroscience, they bring us no closer to explaining the emergence of consciousness itself...
Might a mature neuroscience nevertheless offer a proper explanation of consciousness in terms of its underlying brain processes? Again, there is nothing about a brain, studied at any scale, that even suggests that it might harbor consciousness—apart from the fact that we experience consciousness directly and have correlated many of its contents, or lack thereof, with processes in our brains. Nothing about human behavior or language or culture demonstrates that it is mediated by consciousness, apart from the fact that we simply know that it is—a truth that someone can appreciate in himself directly and in others by analogy.
Here is where the distinction between studying consciousness itself and studying its contents becomes paramount. It is easy to see how the contents of consciousness might be understood in neurophysiological terms. Consider, for instance, our experience of seeing an object: Its color, contours, apparent motion, and location in space arise in consciousness as a seamless unity, even though this information is processed by many separate systems in the brain. Thus, when a golfer prepares to hit a shot, he does not first see the ball’s roundness, then its whiteness, and only then its position on the tee. Rather, he enjoys a unified perception of the ball. Many neuroscientists believe that this phenomenon of “binding” can be explained by disparate groups of neurons firing in synchrony. Whether or not this theory is true, it is at least intelligible—because synchronous activity seems just the sort of thing that could explain the unity of a percept.
This work suggests, as many other findings in neuroscience do, that the contents of consciousness can often be made sense of in terms of their underlying neurophysiology. However, when we ask why such phenomena should be experienced in the first place, we are returned to the mystery of consciousness in full...This is not to say that our understanding of the mind won’t change in surprising ways through our study of the brain. There may be no limit to how a maturing neuroscience might reshape our beliefs about the nature of conscious experience. Are we unconscious during sleep or merely unable to remember what sleep is like? Can human minds be duplicated? Neuroscience may one day answer such questions—and the answers might well surprise us. But the reality of consciousness appears irreducible. Only consciousness can know itself—and directly, through first-person experience. It follows, therefore, that rigorous introspection—“spirituality” in the widest sense of the term—is an indispensable part of understanding the nature of the mind."
-Sam Harris, Waking Up