BBO Discussion Forums: The Problem with Religious Moderation - BBO Discussion Forums

Jump to content

  • 52 Pages +
  • « First
  • 29
  • 30
  • 31
  • 32
  • 33
  • Last »
  • You cannot start a new topic
  • You cannot reply to this topic

The Problem with Religious Moderation From Sam Harris

#601 User is offline   Zelandakh 

  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Group: Advanced Members
  • Posts: 10,732
  • Joined: 2006-May-18
  • Gender:Not Telling

Posted 2013-November-10, 20:18

View PostVampyr, on 2013-November-08, 23:26, said:

...

View PostVampyr, on 2013-November-09, 01:13, said:

...

Craziest double-post ever!
(-: Zel :-)
0

#602 User is offline   Vampyr 

  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Group: Advanced Members
  • Posts: 10,611
  • Joined: 2009-September-15
  • Gender:Female
  • Location:London

Posted 2013-November-10, 20:54

View PostZelandakh, on 2013-November-10, 20:18, said:

Craziest double-post ever!


Well, if you're going to post it twice, it is worth putting some real effort into it!
I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones -- Albert Einstein
0

#603 User is offline   nige1 

  • 5-level belongs to me
  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Group: Advanced Members
  • Posts: 9,128
  • Joined: 2004-August-30
  • Gender:Male
  • Location:Glasgow Scotland
  • Interests:Poems Computers

Posted 2013-November-11, 20:04

View PostWinstonm, on 2013-November-10, 19:35, said:

Moderator may want to close this thread. It is now pointless.
Disagree. Still lots of interest. For instance 32519 might be right that if you trust in Elohim and short stocks like Twitter, you could make a fortune :)
0

#604 User is offline   Trinidad 

  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Group: Advanced Members
  • Posts: 4,531
  • Joined: 2005-October-09
  • Location:Netherlands

Posted 2013-November-12, 02:21

View Postnige1, on 2013-November-11, 20:04, said:

Disagree. Still lots of interest. For instance 32519 might be right that if you trust in Elohim and short stocks like Twitter, you could make a fortune :)

I put it on my calendar. To be on the safe side, I will make sure that I don't have any Twitter stock between Summer and Christmas 2014. ;)

Rik
I want my opponents to leave my table with a smile on their face and without matchpoints on their score card - in that order.
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds the new discoveries, is not “Eureka!” (I found it!), but “That’s funny…” – Isaac Asimov
The only reason God did not put "Thou shalt mind thine own business" in the Ten Commandments was that He thought that it was too obvious to need stating. - Kenberg
0

#605 User is offline   32519 

  • Insane 2-Diamond Bidder
  • PipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Group: Advanced Members
  • Posts: 1,471
  • Joined: 2010-December-22
  • Gender:Male
  • Location:Mpumalanga, South Africa
  • Interests:Books, bridge, philately

Posted 2013-November-12, 02:37

View Post32519, on 2013-November-08, 21:36, said:

If you think I am joking about the stock market, then consider this:
Recently we first had Face Book and then Twitter listing on the stock market. For those of you who play the stock market, you be the first to post the following here –
1. The current market capitalization value of both,
2. The projected revenue stream of both, and
3. The actual revenue stream of both.

Then sit back and look at the numbers in your post. With no revenue, how on earth do you ever expect to receive any dividends on your investment. From this, it has to be glaringly obvious to even the worst investor who ever walked planet earth that much of what goes on in the stock market is nothing more than a giant ponzi scheme. All you have done by investing in either of these two stocks, is to buy into the feeding frenzy currently underway in the market. But it’s soon to be brought down by Elohim. I have no idea WHAT the catalyst is going to be to spark the collapse. What I do know is that the carnage is going to be massive. Across the globe millions of people are going to be left destitute.

The children of Elohim, those who believe and trust in him, make sure that you are out of the stock market by 9/11 next year.

The tragedy here is that the innocent are going to be burned along with the greedy. Your hard earned pension deductions get paid over to some or other firm who invests it on your behalf, most of it ending up in the stock market. The firm doing the investing never loses. They take a % commission on everything they manage. When the market turns belly-up, all they do is shrug their shoulders and say, “It was out of our control.” The same goes for private investors making use of a broker. The broker takes his commission regardless of what happens to your money. The employees of these firms continue earning their fat salaries while you have to start from square one again to build up your retirement nest egg.

In my own country the number of broking firms who appear overnight and disappear just as quickly are “a-dime-a-dozen.” There have been enough cases of the broking firms simply vanishing with your hard earned money when they believe the pot is full enough to live off it wherever they end up fleeing to.
0

#606 User is offline   nige1 

  • 5-level belongs to me
  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Group: Advanced Members
  • Posts: 9,128
  • Joined: 2004-August-30
  • Gender:Male
  • Location:Glasgow Scotland
  • Interests:Poems Computers

Posted 2013-November-12, 07:09

View PostTrinidad, on 2013-November-12, 02:21, said:

I put it on my calendar. To be on the safe side, I will make sure that I don't have any Twitter stock between Summer and Christmas 2014. ;)
Great. If there are enough sellers, 32519's cunning scheme will work :)
0

#607 User is offline   32519 

  • Insane 2-Diamond Bidder
  • PipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Group: Advanced Members
  • Posts: 1,471
  • Joined: 2010-December-22
  • Gender:Male
  • Location:Mpumalanga, South Africa
  • Interests:Books, bridge, philately

Posted 2013-November-12, 07:28

With this post I am signing out of the BBO Forums (much to the relief of most of you) to watch the things posted here unfold, the first of which will be the stock markets slowly inching up to new heights never seen before (nor ever will be seen again).

What or where would an alternative be to build up your retirement nest egg?

I cannot remember the details, but the Inland Revenue Services in my own country, not too long ago, started making proposals something along these lines:
From day one that are registered as a tax-payer, on the same day your very own retirement funding account gets opened with them, alongside and linked to your tax number. Every month when you receive your salary, a percentage, governed by the current retirement funding laws, gets paid into this account (instead of handing it over to some or other pension fund administrator). All monies PAID INTO this account are 100% free from all costs/fees etc. which the pension fund administrators currently siphon off. The IRS will have the use of this money, either replacing, or at least partially reducing, the need for the issuing of Government Bonds to raise additional funds for the fiscus. At the end of every month the IRS will credit this retirement funding account of yours with a fair value market related interest rate. You will be able to monitor and watch your own nest egg grow by logging into the IRS service via the internet, much like you can do now to fill in your income tax return online.

Taxing of whatever has been accumulated into this account, will only be upon every withdrawal. Withdrawals are governed by reaching retirement age, death, emigration, unemployment etc.

As more and more people see their life savings disappear with every market crash, these pension fund administrators are being seen as parasites, parasites taking fat commissions from your hard earned money to pay themselves fat salaries at zero risk to themselves. A rethink of the entire industry is long overdue.
0

#608 User is offline   32519 

  • Insane 2-Diamond Bidder
  • PipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Group: Advanced Members
  • Posts: 1,471
  • Joined: 2010-December-22
  • Gender:Male
  • Location:Mpumalanga, South Africa
  • Interests:Books, bridge, philately

Posted 2013-November-25, 03:17

This newspaper article enticed me back into the forums.

I couldn't help wondering if it has anything to do with this post,

View Post32519, on 2013-November-10, 02:45, said:

I am quite happy to join with you in poking fun at both Jesus and Christianity. Why? Neither have any place with Elohim, the God of the Jews. Neither names occur in the ORIGINAL eye-witness accounts, letters and books which make up the New Covenant (calling it the New Testament is an attempt to distance Yahweh as its originator. The Old Covenant came through Abraham).

The Vatican currently have their very own Edward Snowden, either a current or a former employee, who has/had access to the ORIGINAL documents and is starting to leak their contents out. In the ORIGINAL documents, it was Judah (not Jesus) who was the chosen son of Yahweh, the son that Yahweh sacrificed to take upon him the transgressions of the entire human race. Judah was the fourth son of Jacob. Go and read Genesis Chapter 49 to see how Jacob blessed his 12 sons before he died. In the first 400 years directly after the resurrection there was a systematic carefully orchestrated movement to replace Judah’s name, first with Joshua (Moses’ successor), which was then simplified to Jesus.

So who is it that is leaking out the info? It may actually even be Pope Benedict XVI, the first Pope in 500 years to resign while still in office. Read some of the reforms he tried to reintroduce. External pressure may have been taking an adverse effect on his health forcing him to resign.

or this one?

View Post32519, on 2013-October-19, 10:24, said:

There must be at least one Roman-Catholic lurking in the background, following the thread on Religious Moderation and this one. Whoever you are I make an appeal to you! Christmas is just over two months away. When your Pope delivers his Christmas message, there are plenty of the world’s major television stations broadcasting his message. It is a perfect stage to set the ball rolling at a much faster pace. Print out the other thread and the last part of this one and get it to your Pope sooner than later. Get him to include in his Christmas message, “The physicists have brought down the theory of evolution,” while waving all those printouts in the air. The thunderous roar from everyone gathered before him listening, is going to echo across every nation who has a television camera there. The lost sheep from among your own members, who were led astray by the evolution theory, are going to be trampling upon one another to get back into your cathedrals and churches. There simply will not be enough room for them all as the cram your pews to find out what happened.

The sooner we can start the fight between the evolutionists and the physicists, the sooner more and more of their numbers are going to cross over to our side. And they are going to be bringing along with themselves all the other unproven theories. The spotlight of the world is going to be on all those theories. But now we are going to have from among their own numbers pointing out to all the problems with many of those theories.

So again – I appeal to you to get those printouts to your Pope before his Christmas message.

0

#609 User is offline   Vampyr 

  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Group: Advanced Members
  • Posts: 10,611
  • Joined: 2009-September-15
  • Gender:Female
  • Location:London

Posted 2013-November-25, 05:58

You do realise that the Catholic Church accepts evolution, don't you?
I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones -- Albert Einstein
0

#610 User is offline   hrothgar 

  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Group: Advanced Members
  • Posts: 15,497
  • Joined: 2003-February-13
  • Gender:Male
  • Location:Natick, MA
  • Interests:Travel
    Cooking
    Brewing
    Hiking

Posted 2013-November-25, 07:57

View Post32519, on 2013-November-25, 03:17, said:

This newspaper article enticed me back into the forums.


Bullshit...

You got yourself temporarily banned.
Said ban was lifted, and like some odious yeast infection that never really dies, you're back to annoy us once more.
Alderaan delenda est
0

#611 User is offline   gwnn 

  • Csaba the Hutt
  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Group: Advanced Members
  • Posts: 13,027
  • Joined: 2006-June-16
  • Gender:Male
  • Interests:bye

Posted 2013-November-25, 08:03

32519's post is dangerously close to being de-magnetted from someone's fridge :(
... and I can prove it with my usual, flawless logic.
      George Carlin
1

#612 User is offline   kenberg 

  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Group: Advanced Members
  • Posts: 11,228
  • Joined: 2004-September-22
  • Location:Northern Maryland

Posted 2013-November-25, 13:37

You are thinking that the Pope and Netanyahu decided to hold a meeting because of a couple of your posts on bbo? Could be. Well, not really. But fret not, they don't read my posts either.
Ken
1

#613 User is offline   Vampyr 

  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Group: Advanced Members
  • Posts: 10,611
  • Joined: 2009-September-15
  • Gender:Female
  • Location:London

Posted 2013-November-25, 16:30

View Postkenberg, on 2013-November-25, 13:37, said:

You are thinking that the Pope and Netanyahu decided to hold a meeting because of a couple of your posts on bbo?


Oh, was that the point? Love it.
I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones -- Albert Einstein
0

#614 User is offline   32519 

  • Insane 2-Diamond Bidder
  • PipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Group: Advanced Members
  • Posts: 1,471
  • Joined: 2010-December-22
  • Gender:Male
  • Location:Mpumalanga, South Africa
  • Interests:Books, bridge, philately

Posted 2013-November-25, 22:23

View PostVampyr, on 2013-November-25, 05:58, said:

You do realise that the Catholic Church accepts evolution, don't you?

No doubt you are referring to this post:

View Posthrothgar, on 2013-October-18, 06:58, said:

The easiest way to proceed is to reference Roman Catholic teachings on so called theistic evolution.
http://en.wikipedia....h_and_evolution
http://en.wikipedia....istic_evolution
The Roman Catholic Church has long held that there is nothing contradictory between religion and evolution. They believe that God was the first mover, that God created the universe, and directly created the human soul. However, they also believe that evolution is god's tool in shaping the material world.

I posit that this distinction shows how the theory of evolution can be treated separately and distinctly from the Big Bang Theory.

I’ve got some sad news for you my sweet sister, you need to read the WHOLE ARTICLE carefully. Hrothgar has already summed it up for you. But here is an extract anyway…

"In 1996, Pope John Paul II reiterated the Catholic TE position, according to which God created, evolution occurred, human beings may indeed have been descended from more primitive forms, and the Hand of God was required for the production of the human soul"

My source [informant] says to me that the Pope agreed to “go along with the Theory of Evolution,” PROVIDED THAT the article states that the creation itself is at the hands of God. The key point here is that creation was by the hand of God. The Big Bang Theory for the origin of creation is rejected. Without the creation itself you cannot attach an evolution theory onto the back of it. Apparently the thinking was, or THE POPE KNEW, that it was only a matter of time before some desperate evolutionist (or atheist) would need to attach the evolution theory to God to keep it standing when no alternate explanation for creation itself could be found. The evolutionists, but especially the atheists, would eventually be forced to acknowledge that God is real and the creator of everything. Once that happens the Roman Catholic Church will be able to publish on the front page of every major newspaper across the world something like this:
“We, the Roman Catholic Church, dangled a carrot in front of the evolutionists, knowing that it was just a matter of time before some or other carrot-snatcher would come along and SNATCH OUR CARROT, and now that it has happened they got carrots! The physicists have brought down the evolution theory with the stupidity of the Big Bang Theory.”

So I think the Pope was quite ingenious to dangle the carrot out waiting for the carrot-snatcher to come along. Surely you didn’t believe that he would be that stupid to agree to the evolution theory without a hidden motif waiting to come to light at the appropriate time?
0

#615 User is offline   Vampyr 

  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Group: Advanced Members
  • Posts: 10,611
  • Joined: 2009-September-15
  • Gender:Female
  • Location:London

Posted 2013-November-25, 23:34

325, I do not think that I am alone in continuing to be puzzled by the connection you see between the origin of the universe and biological evolution. Why won't you explain this?
I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones -- Albert Einstein
0

#616 User is offline   WellSpyder 

  • PipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Group: Advanced Members
  • Posts: 1,627
  • Joined: 2009-November-30
  • Location:Oxfordshire, England

Posted 2013-November-26, 03:39

View PostVampyr, on 2013-November-25, 23:34, said:

325, I do not think that I am alone in continuing to be puzzled by the connection you see between the origin of the universe and biological evolution. Why won't you explain this?

I agree with your first sentence, but not your second one!
1

#617 User is offline   Vampyr 

  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Group: Advanced Members
  • Posts: 10,611
  • Joined: 2009-September-15
  • Gender:Female
  • Location:London

Posted 2013-November-26, 06:30

View PostWellSpyder, on 2013-November-26, 03:39, said:

I agree with your first sentence, but not your second one!


Well, I would like to know really. Another puzzling fact is that 325 is now enlisting the help of the Pope in disproving the science of origins of stuff, when earlier in this thread he said that the Pope was the false prophet and moreover, in his own pocket (the latter, by the way, is considered a sin by the Catholic Church.)
I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones -- Albert Einstein
0

#618 User is offline   billw55 

  • enigmatic
  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Group: Advanced Members
  • Posts: 4,757
  • Joined: 2009-July-31
  • Gender:Male

Posted 2013-November-26, 07:21

Religious opposition to the big bang puzzles me. If god created the universe, he must have used some method. Why shouldn't the big bang be god's toolbox? There is no logical contradiction whatsoever, and no need to willfully ignore the truckloads of observational data that support the big bang. The Catholic doctrine seems to me to be eminently sensible, at once embracing both the spiritual and the scientific.

Of course, that doesn't make it true. But it does make it understandable, self consistent, and socially agreeable to many people with interests in either field of study, or both. And still ... it could be true.
Life is long and beautiful, if bad things happen, good things will follow.
-gwnn
0

#619 User is offline   gwnn 

  • Csaba the Hutt
  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Group: Advanced Members
  • Posts: 13,027
  • Joined: 2006-June-16
  • Gender:Male
  • Interests:bye

Posted 2013-November-26, 07:57

View Postbillw55, on 2013-November-26, 07:21, said:

Religious opposition to the big bang puzzles me. If god created the universe, he must have used some method. Why shouldn't the big bang be god's toolbox? There is no logical contradiction whatsoever, and no need to willfully ignore the truckloads of observational data that support the big bang. The Catholic doctrine seems to me to be eminently sensible, at once embracing both the spiritual and the scientific.

Of course, that doesn't make it true. But it does make it understandable, self consistent, and socially agreeable to many people with interests in either field of study, or both. And still ... it could be true.

I probably mentioned this somewhere upthread but actually apologists like William Lane Craig are actually quite thankful for there being a Big Bang since it supports one premise of the Kalam Cosmological Argument (the second one: "The Universe began to exist." while the first one is "Everything that began to exist has a cause" this one aiming to circumvent the question who designed the designer).
... and I can prove it with my usual, flawless logic.
      George Carlin
0

#620 User is offline   32519 

  • Insane 2-Diamond Bidder
  • PipPipPipPipPipPip
  • Group: Advanced Members
  • Posts: 1,471
  • Joined: 2010-December-22
  • Gender:Male
  • Location:Mpumalanga, South Africa
  • Interests:Books, bridge, philately

Posted 2013-November-28, 06:11

More wasted money, time and energy!
0

  • 52 Pages +
  • « First
  • 29
  • 30
  • 31
  • 32
  • 33
  • Last »
  • You cannot start a new topic
  • You cannot reply to this topic

30 User(s) are reading this topic
0 members, 30 guests, 0 anonymous users