Why the posts about the Pope?

[DavidMillier]

Why is it that we must have some other group of humans to dislike?
Why do we insist on having an enemy? And why do we insist on
attacking whichever group happens to be the largest, most vocal,
most powerful, most protective, most kind, most evil, most wealthy,
or most vast?

I'm actually rather surprised that people get on as well as they do! When bad things happen or people behave aggressively or meanly to one another many people see that as a deviance of some kind and cast around for some sort of social explanation.

I suspect the explanation is rather obvious: long term, evolution favours organisms that survive and pass on their characteristics. Self centred, aggressive behaviour often achieves this so those characterics are common.

The fact that humans are capable of being co-operative and helpful on occasions also demonstrates that this behaviour often confers an advantage. However, there is always a tension between co-operative and selfish behaviour and the balance is a fluid dynamic one not static. bad behaviour will constantly come out despite the best socialising influences simply because in the right circumstances, the trait confers an advantage.

i also suspect that your comment about attacking the strongest group is wrong - we prefer to attack the weakest,those who can't fight back...

 

[DavidMillier]

Open and shameless.

The RCC and the Papacy preys on the feeble-minded. Period. Of those
flocking sheep-like people who are mourning this Pope many may
genuinely feel utter dismay and sorrow at his death (why they would
I have no idea - he was an old man. Children dying is tragic and
worthy of tears, old men dying is the circle of life but not
tragic). Many of the sheep will be there because they believe being
there will give them a head start on the path to an afterlife or
similar mumbo jumbo. Many just want to be on TV or to 'take part in
this once in a lifetime event' as one 26 year-old American couple
put it who had travelled to Rome. Pathetic.

The BBC World TV channel interviewed a Catholic Archbishop
yesterday - Peter Turkson, Archbishop of Cape Coast, Ghana who
actually stated (and confirmed when pressed on the point) that the
main challenge facing the RCC and the next Pope is church
attendance numbers in Europe and not HIV/AIDS or poverty in Africa
(or anything else that might actually help someone).

The RCC is concerned about itself, it always has been and it always
will. It covers up child abuse and is a great big sham.

To live a life on a false promise, to live and die in ignorance is
a life wasted. Those that encourage this and stifle free-thought
represent a great evil to humankind.

I hope you have your answer now. There is no need to bang on about
fame or whatever. It's about hypocrisy.

 

[Larry H. Smith]

..and replying to the intended post, ...or at least including a brief "quote" from it, ...will make your intended-listener more clear. ;-)

 

[DavidMillier]

Oh come on!

Mrs T in her heydey was loved and reviled - today the pendulum has swung much more to the reviled!

For people like myself who left school as she gleefully presided over the destruction of jobs, the NHS, the Civil Service, welfare institutions, any ideas of equality or society whilst expounding the economic views of a Chilean dictator this is a bit much to swallow.

Much of Mrs T's mystique came from events like incompetently giving away the Falklands, then rising from electoral death on a wave of flag waving hysteria.

You had to live through it to understand the dichotomy between the appearance and the reality of those days. 15% unemployment was no rosy society...

some oldies
Stallin
Hitler
Thatcher
Reagan

[snip]

--
Brian

Wow, what a high quality analysis. You've just taken two of the
most evil men of the twentieth century and grouped them with two of
the greatest leaders the UK and USA have ever seen. Thatcher and
Reagan made real, tangible contributions to world security and to
the countries they served.

Reagan was a thousand times more worthy of our tears than this or
any Pope and FYI Margaret Thatcher is still very much alive and
well remembered and respected in the UK. Their policies and
foresight have, despite the naysayers, stood the test of time.

We owe them our thanks.

--
"From now on, you shall be called 'Brian that is called Brian'."

 

[krusadr]

".. the Pope is still dead, back to the studio. We'll be back for an update in 15 minutes!"

Look, religion is wrong and this is good proof:

The RCC teaches that the universe is Earth-centric.

There was a time not long ago when the geocentric church doctrine was generally believed to be true. It was only in the 1500's that Copernicus put forward the first heliocentric model of the Solar System. There was outrage from the RCC. It undermined their position of total authority.

Now of course it is proven that the Earth orbits the Sun (if you dispute this then don't bother to reply, go to church).

This is the story of the bible. It is a fairytale written by men over a thousand years ago. It is a made-up story. Bit by bit it is shown to be ridiculous even to the sheep who flock to it.

If it is the word of god why is it so fundamentaly flawed I wonder? Not the word of god? Thank you.

I just can't believe that so many people can be so gullible. It is the greatest mystery of the world as well as the most damaging.

What a truly pathetic species the human race is. What a waste of all the natural gifts we have.

What would ET say if he observed humans on this beautiful blue and green oasis we inhabit, shuffling about in gloomy churches, preying to invisible and imagined supernatural beings and obsessing about the only thing that defines the meaning of the word "nothing", what happens after death? What a retarded and useless species would be the conclusion of any intelligent observer.

 

[Larry H. Smith]

This philosophical proposition, ..that the basic nature of humankind is "competetive", rather than "cooperative", is instilled early by far too many religions( "Original sin"/ intrinsic "evil nature" which must be "controlled", etc.).

This promotes acceptance and belief in ourselves and one-another as in-fact being what our worst-elements make possible.

The progressive (and unusual, by virtue of it's relative scarcity) view that humankind instead is capable of behaviour made possible by our more-NOBLE elements, is, IMO the view that must prevail for the race's promise to be fulfilled.

Progress is being made in teaching and perpetuating the 'cooperative' view of human nature, ...despite the long entrenchment of philosophies of fear, mistrust and personal "unworthiness" (most religions).

May it continue.

Larry

 

[hello goodbyte]

Well the Clinton lying was absolutely barefaced and indisputable
lying to the American people DIRECTLY on camera.

Like what Bush does every time he holds a press conference.

It was done simple
to save Clinton's own skin and had nothing to do with the greater
good or even for that matter to avenge the victims of 9/11,

Greater good, meaning?

And there was never any evidence linking Iraq to Osama. On the contrary, they were far from being even on speaking terms.

however

you want to think about it. It was a shameless demonstration of the
utter contempt tat Clinton felt for the American people.

Clinton was definitely a lying and conniving sonava just like the rest of them.

The W Bush / WMD situation is completely different. For a start it
was about world stability/terrorism/disdain for Saddam/oil for the
US (pick whichever you like) and not about W Bush's sex life.
Secondly, there were arms inspectors searching and openly reporting
their lack of findings. Why do that if the intent is simply to lie?
Thirdly Bush acted for what he and his advisors thought was the
best thing for the US/ Middle east/ World (pick-n-mix again).

It is just plain silly to compare the two things.

My point was that Clinton lied and nearly got impeached. Bush & Co lie, fabricate evidence and misrepresent the facts to start an illegal war resulting in the deaths of at least 100,000 innocent civilians and over 1.000 US troops, with many more severely injured, many for life, and what happens?

How many unnecessary deaths did Clinton's fling cause?

---

 

[krusadr]

Sorry Larry you are correct, my apologies, however I think you'll agree that it's pretty obvious to whom I was replying. Or come to think of it maybe not to the unthinking sheep...

--

"There shall, in that time, be rumours of things going astray, erm, and there shall be a great confusion as to where things really are, and nobody will really know where lieth those little things wi-- with the sort of raffia work base that has an attachment. At this time, a friend shall lose his friend's hammer and the young shall not know where lieth the things possessed by their fathers that their fathers put there only just the night before, about eight o'clock."

..and replying to the intended post, ...or at least including a
brief "quote" from it, ...will make your intended-listener more
clear. ;-)

 

[Larry H. Smith]

Sorry Larry you are correct, my apologies, however I think you'll
agree that it's pretty obvious to whom I was replying.

Yes, I agree, ...should have been pretty clear. ;-)

 

[Brian]

That is interesting. My brother works in the nuclear labs in Las Alamos, NM. One of the comments he made when he first moved there was that he couldn't believe the vast number of churches there and how many people went to church. We are talking one of the largest think tanks of top scientists.

So we got Bob and Rick. Both work together to come up with a new theory of sub atomic particles. Bob is a devout believer in God and Rick isn't. Bob is a Guillible idiot while Rick isn't. doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Just because one has hopes and beliefs in the unseen, does not make him gullible. On the other hand not believing doesn't make you not gullible.

By the way how can it be a waste of natural gifts? A gift implies that it was given. If there is no God, there is no natural gift. I suppose you could call it talent.

I worked in Toyota, Japan at Toyota for quite some time. Nearly all of the people I worked with had a belief in the beyond.

And how do you know that ET doesn't believe in God? Maybe ET sees these people shuffling about in churches the same way you might see someone shuffling about in the Library of some University.

I just can't believe that so many people can be so gullible. It is
the greatest mystery of the world as well as the most damaging.
What a truly pathetic species the human race is. What a waste of
all the natural gifts we have.

What would ET say if he observed humans on this beautiful blue and
green oasis we inhabit, shuffling about in gloomy churches, preying
to invisible and imagined supernatural beings and obsessing about
the only thing that defines the meaning of the word "nothing", what
happens after death? What a retarded and useless species would be
the conclusion of any intelligent observer.

--
Brian

 

[krusadr]

OK now I'm replying in the correct sequence ;-)

You might find this website interesting...

http://www.pantheism.net/

I hate to label myself with any -ism or whatever but I agree with everything I have read on this site so far and to the extent of disliking 'religions' getting money from the public purse in the form of tax-breaks etc, I approve of the WPM having a similar status. The nearest I ever come to worship is the wonder I feel gazing through my telescope or enjoying the beauty of the outdoors. This is the basic tenet of the WPM.

We are a part of the universe. We exist from matter fused in stars billions of years ago from hydrogen atoms. We shall in turn die and return to the earth nourishing and making room for new life. There is comfort in understanding our role in the universe and in embracing it rather than scrabbling for some imagined afterlife.

This philosophical proposition, ..that the basic nature of
humankind is "competetive", rather than "cooperative", is instilled
early by far too many religions( "Original sin"/ intrinsic "evil
nature" which must be "controlled", etc.).

This promotes acceptance and belief in ourselves and one-another as
in-fact being what our worst-elements make possible.

The progressive (and unusual, by virtue of it's relative scarcity)
view that humankind instead is capable of behaviour made possible
by our more-NOBLE elements, is, IMO the view that must prevail for
the race's promise to be fulfilled.

Progress is being made in teaching and perpetuating the
'cooperative' view of human nature, ...despite the long
entrenchment of philosophies of fear, mistrust and personal
"unworthiness" (most religions).

May it continue.

Larry

 

[Brian]

I don't think that comment is wrong in its entirety. I think humans by nature attack things that they don't like or that they are afraid of as well as weak things. The difference is tactics. People attack strong opponents differently than weak ones. They attack entities that are less likely to retaliate differently than entities that immediately retaliate.

i also suspect that your comment about attacking the strongest
group is wrong - we prefer to attack the weakest,those who can't
fight back...

--
Brian

 

[krusadr]

Oh come on!

Mrs T in her heydey was loved and reviled - today the pendulum has
swung much more to the reviled!

For people like myself who left school as she gleefully presided
over the destruction of jobs, the NHS, the Civil Service, welfare
institutions, any ideas of equality or society whilst expounding
the economic views of a Chilean dictator this is a bit much to
swallow.

Much of Mrs T's mystique came from events like incompetently giving
away the Falklands, then rising from electoral death on a wave of
flag waving hysteria.

You had to live through it to understand the dichotomy between the
appearance and the reality of those days. 15% unemployment was no
rosy society...

I did. I remember Maggie putting a stop to idiots like Arthur Scargill, a thoroughly repugnant trade unionist (for those who don't know). I was starting university around the time of the miners strike.

Maggie was the best thing to happen to the UK since Churchill.

We disagree, I know. It is a difference of perspective. Uneconomical coal mines should be closed. Greedy strikes for unreasonable pay were the cause. 'Hoisted by ones own petards' is the phrase that springs to mind.

Those miners believe the rest of the country owed them a living. You may too. I don't.

some oldies
Stallin
Hitler
Thatcher
Reagan

[snip]

--
Brian

Wow, what a high quality analysis. You've just taken two of the
most evil men of the twentieth century and grouped them with two of
the greatest leaders the UK and USA have ever seen. Thatcher and
Reagan made real, tangible contributions to world security and to
the countries they served.

Reagan was a thousand times more worthy of our tears than this or
any Pope and FYI Margaret Thatcher is still very much alive and
well remembered and respected in the UK. Their policies and
foresight have, despite the naysayers, stood the test of time.

We owe them our thanks.

--
"From now on, you shall be called 'Brian that is called Brian'."

 

[Classic Man]

"There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle." --A. Einstein

Two very opposing world-views. Not surprising that he who prefers one way, can't comprehend people preferring (& living) the other.

Maybe that's why there are such different opinions on this thread.

Maybe some us need to respect "the other side" a bit more, whichever that is.

Name-calling, bashing, & worse: vilifying somebody who does not share our views/beliefs/(insert yours here), simply make the person who does it himself even more vile. Worse, it is simply uncivil.

There is some reallt "tasteful" food for thought in certain posts, only marred by the sprinkling of insults & lack of respect every paragraph or two.

 

[DavidMillier]

I disagree because I was 17 in 1979 and just starting to look for a career.

And within 2 years of Mrs T, 1m unemployed became 4 1/2 million and I started my working life spending 2 years on the dole - a dole whose meagre benefits were rapidly slashed by that same Mrs T's agressive public expenditure cuts.

Add that to the insane monatary policies that pushed my parents' mortgage interest rate to over 18.5%, those were not good times to be making your way in life...

Still, even though I support sensible Unions, I have to agree that neutering crazy miltant unions that thought they were running the country was a good thing. It's a pity the only way she achieved that feat was through destroying the economy overnight though...

Oh come on!

Mrs T in her heydey was loved and reviled - today the pendulum has
swung much more to the reviled!

For people like myself who left school as she gleefully presided
over the destruction of jobs, the NHS, the Civil Service, welfare
institutions, any ideas of equality or society whilst expounding
the economic views of a Chilean dictator this is a bit much to
swallow.

Much of Mrs T's mystique came from events like incompetently giving
away the Falklands, then rising from electoral death on a wave of
flag waving hysteria.

You had to live through it to understand the dichotomy between the
appearance and the reality of those days. 15% unemployment was no
rosy society...

I did. I remember Maggie putting a stop to idiots like Arthur
Scargill, a thoroughly repugnant trade unionist (for those who
don't know). I was starting university around the time of the
miners strike.

Maggie was the best thing to happen to the UK since Churchill.

We disagree, I know. It is a difference of perspective.
Uneconomical coal mines should be closed. Greedy strikes for
unreasonable pay were the cause. 'Hoisted by ones own petards' is
the phrase that springs to mind.
Those miners believe the rest of the country owed them a living.
You may too. I don't.

some oldies
Stallin
Hitler
Thatcher
Reagan

[snip]

--
Brian

Wow, what a high quality analysis. You've just taken two of the
most evil men of the twentieth century and grouped them with two of
the greatest leaders the UK and USA have ever seen. Thatcher and
Reagan made real, tangible contributions to world security and to
the countries they served.

Reagan was a thousand times more worthy of our tears than this or
any Pope and FYI Margaret Thatcher is still very much alive and
well remembered and respected in the UK. Their policies and
foresight have, despite the naysayers, stood the test of time.

We owe them our thanks.

--
"From now on, you shall be called 'Brian that is called Brian'."

 

[DavidMillier]

Point taken.

i also suspect that your comment about attacking the strongest
group is wrong - we prefer to attack the weakest,those who can't
fight back...

--
Brian

 

[Jan Moren]

Another 30 posts and this thread about a silly dead pedophilic priest will finally disappear.

--
http://lucs.lu.se/people/jan.moren/log/current.html

 

[krusadr]

That is interesting. My brother works in the nuclear labs in Las
Alamos, NM. One of the comments he made when he first moved there
was that he couldn't believe the vast number of churches there and
how many people went to church. We are talking one of the largest
think tanks of top scientists.

The US with it's high level of education is the biggest mystery. It's more understandable when you consider those in the third world hanging on to the hope of something better but the US is a deeply flawed in this way IMO. Western Europe (the UK in particular) is much more sensible when it comes to religion.

So we got Bob and Rick. Both work together to come up with a new
theory of sub atomic particles. Bob is a devout believer in God
and Rick isn't. Bob is a Guillible idiot while Rick isn't.

Bob has aspects of the gullible to his personality yes. Definitely. In fact for him to believe that with his education is basically as neurotic and foolish as it is for anyone in this day and age to smoke when the danger of smoking is so widely understood. You might consider him more foolish than those underprivileged and undereducated followers in the third world. In fact I do.

doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Just because one has hopes and
beliefs in the unseen, does not make him gullible. On the other
hand not believing doesn't make you not gullible.

Doesn't it? I guess it depends on how ridiculous those hopes and beliefs are.

By the way how can it be a waste of natural gifts? A gift implies
that it was given. If there is no God, there is no natural gift.
I suppose you could call it talent.

You live as a result of all that has gone before. The gift of your life and of every living thing on our planet is the gift or legacy of those who have lived before and died and made room for us. Without death there would be no new life. Death of people, plants and animals provides the nutrition for us. It makes physical room for us on our over-crowded planet. Forget this god rubbish. You could consider your life a gift from your parents, grand-parents, and all your descendants tracing back to the very origins of life on Earth. They gave you life and they gave their bodies up to the soil so that the next generation could continue.

That my friend is the gift of life. Understand that and be grateful. When you die you return your body as nutrients to the world and you make room for the new. Don't waste your thanks on an imagined bogie-man in the sky that doesn't exist.

Do you accept evolution or do you believe in the 'Creation' ?

I worked in Toyota, Japan at Toyota for quite some time. Nearly
all of the people I worked with had a belief in the beyond.

And how do you know that ET doesn't believe in God? Maybe ET sees
these people shuffling about in churches the same way you might see
someone shuffling about in the Library of some University.

LOL perhaps you are right, but I'll give you a clue, spacecraft do not get built as the result of churches ;-)

--

"All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?"

 

[DavidMillier]

There are many motivations for developing religious faith. However, it is still perfectly plausible that even the most sincerely held belief stemming from the most profound of motives can simply not be in accord with reality.

The Church once stood where science stands now and claimed that religion could explain not only the spiritual but also the physical world. Time and time again as science was developed, layer by layer it revealed many cherished religious explanations for what they are - absurd.

One thing that has always struck me from the study of biology is how far from perfection biological organisms often are.

Before modern science, this went unnoticed and many thinkers commented on the perfection of biological design and suggested this could only be explained by the workings of a supernatural intelligent designer.

But now the jerry-built, ramshackle, non optimal design of many organs and biological structures (the human eye is an example - the retina in backwards with the light sensors pointing the wrong way!) has been exposed by science.

The notion that such designs would have been perpetrated by a perfect supreme being incapable of error is a difficult one to swallow. Natural selection, of course, as a postulated prime mover, not only explains such shoddy workmanship but positively demands it as part of the process. Occam's Razor...

So we got Bob and Rick. Both work together to come up with a new
theory of sub atomic particles. Bob is a devout believer in God
and Rick isn't. Bob is a Guillible idiot while Rick isn't.
doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Just because one has hopes and
beliefs in the unseen, does not make him gullible. On the other
hand not believing doesn't make you not gullible.

By the way how can it be a waste of natural gifts? A gift implies
that it was given. If there is no God, there is no natural gift.
I suppose you could call it talent.

I worked in Toyota, Japan at Toyota for quite some time. Nearly
all of the people I worked with had a belief in the beyond.

And how do you know that ET doesn't believe in God? Maybe ET sees
these people shuffling about in churches the same way you might see
someone shuffling about in the Library of some University.

I just can't believe that so many people can be so gullible. It is
the greatest mystery of the world as well as the most damaging.
What a truly pathetic species the human race is. What a waste of
all the natural gifts we have.

What would ET say if he observed humans on this beautiful blue and
green oasis we inhabit, shuffling about in gloomy churches, preying
to invisible and imagined supernatural beings and obsessing about
the only thing that defines the meaning of the word "nothing", what
happens after death? What a retarded and useless species would be
the conclusion of any intelligent observer.

--
Brian

 

[DavidMillier]

Amen!

You might find this website interesting...

http://www.pantheism.net/

I hate to label myself with any -ism or whatever but I agree with
everything I have read on this site so far and to the extent of
disliking 'religions' getting money from the public purse in the
form of tax-breaks etc, I approve of the WPM having a similar
status. The nearest I ever come to worship is the wonder I feel
gazing through my telescope or enjoying the beauty of the outdoors.
This is the basic tenet of the WPM.

We are a part of the universe. We exist from matter fused in stars
billions of years ago from hydrogen atoms. We shall in turn die and
return to the earth nourishing and making room for new life. There
is comfort in understanding our role in the universe and in
embracing it rather than scrabbling for some imagined afterlife.

This philosophical proposition, ..that the basic nature of
humankind is "competetive", rather than "cooperative", is instilled
early by far too many religions( "Original sin"/ intrinsic "evil
nature" which must be "controlled", etc.).

This promotes acceptance and belief in ourselves and one-another as
in-fact being what our worst-elements make possible.

The progressive (and unusual, by virtue of it's relative scarcity)
view that humankind instead is capable of behaviour made possible
by our more-NOBLE elements, is, IMO the view that must prevail for
the race's promise to be fulfilled.

Progress is being made in teaching and perpetuating the
'cooperative' view of human nature, ...despite the long
entrenchment of philosophies of fear, mistrust and personal
"unworthiness" (most religions).

May it continue.

Larry