Monday, July 30, 2018

quasi-mystical word salads

quasi-mystical word salads: a term used on freethought blogs, but when I went back for the link, it was gone... is a nice term for a lot of stuff that I see on the net.

Here is an example of such http://www.patheos.com/blogs/tippling/2018/07/30/17776/

Saturday, July 28, 2018

A new type of preacher?

Do we have a new type of preacher developing or a new old religion?  It is a belief system, therefore, a religion.

Stoic Solutions Podcast where I offer practical wisdom for everyday life focusing on topics including gratitude, acceptance, overcoming adversity, finding meaning in life, moderation, dealing with change, friendship, loneliness, and anger.
http://donaldrobertson.name/2018/07/28/interview-justin-vacula-on-marcus-aurelius/

What about the big parts of Stoicism? Separation of control, and separation of the "event" and our thinking about "event". What about the hard attitude toward death? What he seems to be selling is a washed down version of Stoicism as described by the original authors.  Ah, but this is just the bait. After the hook is taken and the barb set, what is the story? Dose the answer lie in the donation button after being supported by a educational institute?

There is no doubt that the world needs preachers for those 60 some percent of the population who never read a book post high school. These people do need some guidance, but the real debate is over the name. Is "Stoicism lite" a more correct description? What they do is up to them, but truth is ultimate in Stoicism, so is this really Stoicism. But what do I know, I have only read, learned and studied this in isolation, more or less, for a short while, since the beginning of this century. 

As I have said, Stoicism is a religion. It does encourage logic, self examination of the points, and allows a three way split of all intake concepts, acceptance, rejection or abayence.  Based on what ever we currently believe, we can address any new concepts. That is the catch, we start learning from where we are at. If we have wrong ideas in our mind, we believe them to be right, and how are we to separate right from wrong?

Becoming a strong atheist has really forced change of my thinking. Many discussions, comments, or questions I have faced from the religious only make sense if they believe there is a god. If there is no god in our thinking, these quires are often not logical.

So you believe in "the big bang"? Well, that term is not a description of the events. It was big after a bit, but there was no atmosphere, so no bang. It did later produce a radiation pressure wave, which we can map today, 13.8 billion light years away, more or less. What happen before? There was nothing, Well it was cold, less that absolute zero, and a portion of space came to absolute zero. At absolute zero, the forces come into existence, the Higgs field comes into existence, which is spontaneous, and exothermic, and the chain reaction is started. It cannot be stopped. It would more exactly be described as a big flash. Sound, as described by the term bang, is a human perception of a shock wave in atmosphere. Not possible to understand if you think humans are anything more than a present day manifestation of aggressive cooperative bacteria. We all descended from that organic beginnings, through the fish.

It does not matter much. In the end we all just die anyway.     


Degrees of Seperation

https://www.canadianatheist.com/2018/07/survey-jacobsen/

Interbreeding with other races is different than associating with other races. Working with them is fine, even socializing, yet I believe in keeping some of each race pure. Each race will physically and psychologically strong/weak environments, the biological variation. In general the within group variation masks the between group variation, but many studies have teased out some differences. Those provide some advantages to specific breeds for some things, but cultural, religious, educational and experience are much bigger factors. Breed provides the genetic material, nurture provides much more conditioning for life.  

The selection of a mate to reproduce with is critical for the next generation. Those in power, the rich recognize and tend to stick together, a money criteria in mate selection. This likely purifies some characteristics, like stuck-upness, whatever the pc term is. Like tend to stick together, but when the privileged few are in control, privilege will remain. For this reason, money should be taken out of politics, so that the voice of the people is the voice of the people, not the voice of the wealthy, as it is in the US today, and less so in Canada.  


Tuesday, July 24, 2018

Danforth

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_N8QL9ReRs
Another Muslim shoots a bunch of people with illegal hand gun.

The only way this will end is to remove one of two from the mix, guns or Muslims. Or remove both. The way to remove guns is to stop manufacturing of guns. Education of the reality of religion; it is all just a tradition from the bronze age, it is just our thoughts that drive us; place non religious thoughts and the desire to kill can be removed. A book that says killing is the right thing to do is not helpful for peace.

Muslim is a religion of intolerance to other ideas of how we should live. They are just wrong, like christians. There are no gods, no afterlife. Death is final. We only get one life so we need to make this one as good as we can, good being not hurting others and being productive or valued in some form. Anything will do. The more I learn, the more I see the problems of wrong information in the world. Not just wrong, but damaging. Those who do not accept climate change caused by man are just looking away from reality. What can we say. The economy is less important than a planet that humans can live on. Over populations remains the big problem. Oh well, in the end we all just die anyway.

Since the politicals do not have the will to make the changes necessary from human survival, the extinction event will come. Oh well...

 

Monday, July 23, 2018

unreferenced notes from about the web

China, the importing of oil has reduced. WTF. So solar energy is affecting oil consumption. I would have expected coal first, but that may go unnoticed as much coal is not imported. Not much information flows out of China. China is perhaps the leader in solar adoption.

reethinker.co.uk/2018/07/23/non-orthodox-weddings-rabbi-gets-nabbed-by-israeli-police/
So the Jews are forcing there religion on... well there are followers, just not the right way.

Israel, the Jews are an invasive species anyway, the invaded and displaced Muslims to form Israel to start with. They form ghettos most everywhere they settle and do not mix with other populations much. Oh well. The world is over-populated anyway.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/992896/donald-trump-news-latest-poll-approval-rating-putin-russia-election-helsinki
Have the Russians hacked the rating system/ polling system? That could explain the growing loss of rational response in the US. A rise in support is not reflected in comments.

Religions seems to effect personality or individual behavior by defining what we should believe in a general way. Family is a Roman Catholic high, while community is a more protestant thing. Getting ahead by work is more protestant. Indulgences are certainly catholic, even where they still exist today.

So we become indoctrinated into our society and belief system in our youth, and modify it slowly as adults or not much at all. Or rapidly if we start to study our own belief system. Religion got society to here, and it is now holding us back. It is time to let go. 

Thursday, July 19, 2018

What if

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44892889

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2018/07/19/a-russian-spy-used-the-national-prayer-breakfast-to-infiltrate-america/ 

So the Russians have infiltrated a prayer group. What about the NRA? It is populated with the America government-defense industry, and that would be a good source of knowing what the US military capacity is? Is the NRA secure, or is it leaking to the Russians, like Trump?

It seems likely that Trump is a security weak point. How is the US going to handle that situation?

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44885633  

and yet more is revealed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGlUXz--eBk

So is Trump Russian? Treason?

Wednesday, July 11, 2018

Occam


http://www.patheos.com/blogs/daylightatheism/2018/07/the-search-for-meaning/#disqus_thread

To provide the next generations:


 Perhaps the simplest solution is the most likely, well, likely the answer is among the simplest where there are multiple choices... but what is the meaning of life?

Well there is not one... is simple but likely not quite true. To provide the next generation is a much more likely of a solution to the hypothetical question as to the meaning of life. Nothing more, nothing less.

Not a true Occam solution, but close.

 Some will, some will not, the biological diversity grows, as we overpopulate the world. We are ripe for an extinction event, partial more likely than complete.

Biological units must grow and die to be renewed. Oh well, that is our lot in life. What choice do we have?

Based on the rising Co2 levels, we have twice as many people who can be supported in the life style to which we have become accustomed.

Thursday, July 5, 2018

best july 4 comment

make us the adult in a house where in the basement a screaming orange toddler with a lit match holds us all in terrified thrall to his tantrums.