You With Us Or Agin’ Us?

A Facebook discussion. D’s original post:

https://johnpavlovitz.com/2019/09/26/im-not-the-radical-left-im-the-humane-middle/

D: I think I'm just middle of the road. But somehow I'm an agitator in my postings according to some people. This sums it up for me.

A: Me too Dan. Don't feel all that radical but I am pissed off.

J: Yes!

R: Thanks for sharing. Remember, when we thought the world we were entering promised a brighter future? How did that work out?

“You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one”

RK: This is by far an excellent example of what should be described as a human being.

K: I’m right there with you Dan! I don’t feel far left either! I care for other people!

T: I’m with you, Daniel. You are not alone!

L: I was taught that to far to the right can be as dangerous as to far to the left:

Me: Reminds me of an editorial I read some years ago.
A young man reported that he was basically a political moderate. Because of his religion, he had been attending a Christian college. Obviously, his political attitudes were not in line with those around him. Seemed everybody else at the college was extremely conservative. He got really tired of having to explain that he wasn’t a radical left wing nut, he was just a moderate. So he switched to a public college.
But things didn’t work out for him that well. At the public college, he found he was constantly being accused of being a radical right winger, an ultraconservative. He couldn’t find a solution, so he just put up with it until graduation.
People love to categorize everyone around them. The most radical people think that everyone who isn’t in complete agreement with them must belong to the opposite and equally radical group.
It’s a sad fact about the way the human mind works and the way our culture is pushing us. Compromise and moderation just aren’t very popular, even though the great majority of us are moderates who are willing to compromise. The extremists of both polarized opposites dominate the media, the discussion, and our politics.

Anti Evangelicals

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/millennials-are-leaving-religion-and-not-coming-back/



Again, a brief post, but in the light of the previous comments I have made on the subject it is simply confirmation of what I have been saying for decades.

The more churches become secularized and politicized the more they drive away their future members. Just as happened in Europe in the past two centuries, it is coming to pass in America. In many ways this is sad, but all in all I believe we will be a much healthier nation as a result.

Inevitably as churches lose more and more ground, they will become more and more fanatic and more and more political. They will become more and more determined to create an atmosphere in which their particular sect is the law of the land in a desperate attempt to ensure their survival. This is a positive feedback loop. It inevitably leads to self destruction.

> ...”we came to see all of this negativity from people who were highly religious and increasingly didn’t want a part in it.” This view is common among young people.

...research has suggested that the strong association between religion and the Republican Party may actually be fueling this divide. And if even more Democrats lose their faith, that will only exacerbate the acrimonious rift between secular liberals and religious conservatives. <

Come Nineveh

Very brief post but I’ve covered this topic so many times over the last few decades I don’t really care to add repetitive commentary. I started complaining about it in the days of Ronald Reagan. Still, here is more evidence that what I said would happen is actually happening.

> For the first time, China has taken the Nature Index crown as the biggest producer of high-quality research in chemistry, knocking the United States down to second place. <

Once Chinese science was the greatest in the world. Then the fundamentalists and the China First/China Only groups took over. China was quickly surpassed by much tinier nations who had stayed on the science road. Eventually those tiny nations bullied China any way they wanted to as China descended into Third World status. Now the United States, long the producer of the greatest science in the world, is turning to fundamentalism, America 1st/America Only belief while China turns back to science. We are slipping. They are gaining.

Is anyone really surprised?

https://www.natureindex.com/news-blog/these-ten-countries-top-the-ranks-in-chemistry-research?utm_source=Nature+Briefing&utm_campaign=bf160736fb-briefing-dy-20191212&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c9dfd39373-bf160736fb-44635989

Cry 'Havoc!,' And Let Slip The Dogs Of War!

As conservatives once again freak out about the imaginary war on Christmas in the last few decades that never actually happened, it pays to ask a serious question. Who has actually waged a war on Christmas in America?

The answer is:

The Puritans.

You know. Those evil, liberal, atheist, latte loving, avocado eating, socialists. Wait a minute. Weren’t the Puritans ultra conservative, ultra religious, ultra Christians? They could not have been the ones to ban Christmas…could they?

May 11, 1659
The General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony issued the following order.
For preventing disorders arising in several places within this jurisdiction, by reason of some still observing such festivals, as were superstitiously kept in other countries, to the great dishonor of God and offense to others:
It is therefore ordered by this court and the authority thereof, that whomsoever shall be found observing any such day as Christmas or the like, either by forbearing labor, feasting, or any other way upon any such account as aforesaid, every such person so offended, shall pay five shillings as a fine…”

(FYI: They also banned Easter.)

Why? Because God said only the Sabbath should be kept holy and they thought that it should be honored with solemn, long, grim church services. Anyway, people are notorious for doing fun things at Christmas. I mean they played games! So wicked! Not to mention they drank!

Cotton Mathers’ father declared, “The generality of Christmas-keepers observe that festival after such a manner as is highly dishonorable to the name of Christ. How few are there comparatively that spend these holidays (as they are called) after an holy manner. But they are consumed in Compotations, in Interludes, and playing at Cards, in Revellings, in excess of Wine, In mad Mirth.“

To enforce these restrictions the authorities, “… dispatched town criers on Christmas Eve to shout "No Christmas, No Christmas" through the streets of Boston.” (https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/54131/time-boston-banned-christmas)

Great! But it gets better. Although the law was repealed, the attitude that Christmas was a bad thing lasted for a very long time.

All the way up to the year before Ulysses S. Grant declared Christmas a national holiday (1869), school children in Boston who decided not to attend public school on Christmas Day were severely punished. They were punished by up to expulsion from school for such a heinous offense.

I’ve known about the banning of Christmas by the Puritans for decades but I want to give thanks to the Internet channel Today I Found Out for these details.

So if you do insist on making declarations about the war on Christmas please remember that war was waged by ultra conservative, ultra religious, ultra Christians. Not by liberals. In fact it was liberals who overturned the law and declared Christmas a national holiday.

The war on Christmas? Yes there was one. Because the Liberals won, we can all still joyfully say, “Merry Christmas!”

Wanna Bet?

From Rational Wiki:
Pascal's original text is long-winded and written in somewhat convoluted philosophy-speak,[2] but it can be distilled more simply:
If you believe in God and God does exist, you will be rewarded with eternal life in heaven: thus an infinite gain.
If you do not believe in God and God does exist, you will be condemned to remain in hellforever: thus an infinite loss.
If you believe in God and God does not exist, you will not be rewarded: thus an insignificant loss.
If you do not believe in God and God does not exist, you will not be rewarded, but you have lived your own life: thus an insignificant gain.

My comments: The wager is a very popular point of discussion. I remember thinking about it when it was introduced to me in high school class. It sounded false and nonsensical. It didn’t seem right to bet on the existence of God in order to make a gain for yourself.
My current responses are a little more complex but can be summed up in the following scenario.

An atheist, a true believer, and a skeptic who has made Pascal’s wager by making an effort to believe in God just in case all die at the same moment when a meteor crashes into the TV studio where they are having a debate. To the surprise of two of them, they find themselves in the presence of Jesus who is about to judge them.

Jesus looks at the true believer and says, “Not only did you believe, You just happened to believe in the right God and not only that, but also in the right sect. Go straight to heaven!”

Then he turns to the atheist. “OK. You didn’t believe in me but your beliefs were honest and you lived a really decent, good, moral life. I have to respect someone who makes an honest effort and really works hard define the nature of reality and seeks the truth as best he can. You go to heaven too.”

Then he looks at the man who made the bet. “I really hate hypocrites. Do you really think I was stupid enough to think you were sincere when you were just trying to hedge your bets? You disgust me! Go to hell!“

Maybe Pascal’s wager isn’t such a good bet after all. You know what they say about race track touts...if they know the winning horse, why don’t they just bet their own money on it?

Memories

From my Facebook post.


Hey, Bobbie! Remember when the war was being planned and I said to anyone willing to listen that the day would come when Americans would all ask, “How did we get into this mess,” and I added, , “Just look into the mirror. That’s how.”?

I forgot to add, and we are being lied to by our leaders.

A war as pointless and unwinnable as Vietnam for many of the same reasons. This is why we “lost” China. I learned that when I was an undergrad, in the 60’s. The world is not full of middle class Americans who want exactly what we want.

L: yes indeed and on and on it goes... smh

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/afghanistan-papers/afghanistan-war-confidential-documents/

Self Denial To The Max

There is a reason that a proposed scientific conclusion, however firmly based in evidence it may seem to be, is invariably subjected to a long dip in a tank of hungry piranha. Critics of science simply do not understand just how savagely scientists attack each other’s findings. Even Einstein’s theories are subject to constant questioning and are repeatedly tested. The primary reason is that this is the only way to be certain that any data,or conclusion based on any data set, is in fact correct. There are many reasons it might be incorrect, but one of the main ones is that scientists are, after all, only human.

I’m pleased to learn from this article both the flaws of this highly touted experiment which is so loudly declared to conclusively prove something that I absolutely believe to be false, but also the long standing criticism which has always been obvious to me. What is the psychology behind highly intelligent individuals being almost bitterly determined to prove that they have no consciousness and no free will? What drives a person to want to be a conscious-less, mindless robot? I’d really love to see an in depth psychological study of the advocates of this peculiar position.

I would like to ask these individuals the following question.

I recall reading, I believe it was as far back as high school, a story about a boy in a psychiatric institution. He suffered horribly for reasons I cannot recall. In order to avoid the pain and suffering his emotions caused him, he decided he was a robot. He would walk about during the day carefully aligning the imaginary wires which plugged him into the wall, telling people not to step on those wires as they might accidentally disconnect him. I do not recall what caused his condition or if he was ever able to recover. However, it is very interesting that this child wanted to be an unconscious and unfeeling being to avoid the horrors of his suffering.

I recall a Star Trek episode of a similar theme in which a boy wanted to become Data and avoid feelings because he felt guilt over what he thought was a terrible crime he had accidentally committed.

So, what is it which drives you to wish to be an emotionless, non-conscious object? Why do you feel this compelling need to be a bio-chemical robot? What trauma drives you? Why are you so afraid of being responsible for your actions?

> ...why are so many intellectuals so intent on proving that they have no free will? (As the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead pointed out ironically, “Scientists animated by the purpose of proving themselves purposeless constitute an interesting subject for study.”) <

Scientific American

How a Flawed Experiment "Proved" that Free Will Doesn't Exist

https://apple.news/AhCXobNpkTnaR4KHC1RBTRg