Call yourself a freethinker?
Look around, not your own, your mind is.
Look at your day-to-day environment? Positive, empowering? Negative, controlling and destructive?
Everyone (including me) is trying to sell you something. The question is, will buying in do you any good? Improve your life?
* Yoga * Zen * Homeopathy * Automobiles * Finance * Guns * Vitamins * Herbs * Medicines * Security * Meditation * Conspiracies * 'The Truth' * TV * Music * Sex * Love * Knowledge * Respite * Travel * Technology * Control * The Future * History * God* Magic * The Secret * Inside Trading * Romance * Philosophy * Government * Eternity * Art * Hell * Heaven * Popularity * Education * Science * A Home * Labour * Money * Quantum Healing * Magic Water * UFO's * Nature * Organics * Beauty * Power * Acupuncture * Ideology * Politics * War * Morality * Evolution * Creation * Buddhism * Interior Design * Make Overs * Big Brother * Energy * Quarks * Big Bangs * Small Government * Nanny State * Peace * Time * Image * Grammar * Spinach * Billboards *
...something...
What I'm asking is, what is 'freethought' and does it matter? Are we free?
When we give up one illusion, are we merely accepting another?
What would an illusion free existence be like?
How reliable is your world view? Mine? (Am I being stupid? Again!)
_________________ "The whole religious complexion of the modern world is due to the absence in Jerusalem of a mental asylum." T.Paine
]frothy/scaleless/random/causeless/purpose-free[^]emergent/self.directed/inherrent'order/unbounded/lumpy[
DigitalAtheist Graduate Thinker
Joined: Apr 13, 2009
Posts: 659
Location: Canada
Posted:
Tue Aug 11, 2009 11:42 am
PTP wrote:
Everyone (including me) is trying to sell you something.
You're not one of those guys who keep calling me at suppertime, trying to sell me a cell phone, are you? STOP CALLING ME! >click<
You are asking about 15 questions in this one little post, but I think your main drive is this: "What I'm asking is, what is 'freethought' and does it matter? Are we free? When we give up one illusion, are we merely accepting another?" which – I think – can be paraphrased to say "should we think?" So here's my take.
Some philosopher friends of mine – with the philosopher's insatiable need to classify and categorize – have called my own worldview a "materialist" worldview. That doesn't mean that I'm living in a Madonna video, but it means that everything is tied to the tangible. Beyond the truely animal needs of survival and survival of the species, we really don't need very much, Maslow be damned. I prefer to call this little paradigm, "
fightin' n' f*ckin'.
" Every situation can be boiled down to one of these two things. If we keep this paradigm in mind when making decisions, we can be fairly certain that we can avoid being snookered by unconscionable blackguards and liars.
No, I do not think that you are being stupid. Freethought is the means that we have to avoid lives of slavery – at least when a person develops a chemical intolerance to the "opiate of the masses."
Happy Tuesday!
_________________ Be very, very careful what you put into that head, because you will never, ever get it out. - Cardinal Wolsey
PTP The Learned
Joined: Dec 04, 2008
Posts: 163
Location: Aussie
Posted:
Tue Aug 11, 2009 11:42 pm
DigitalAtheist wrote:
Freethought is the means that we have to avoid lives of slavery – at least when a person develops a chemical intolerance to the "opiate of the masses."
What am I aiming at here? What am I selling? Those who control information control perception and perception to the uncritical, is reality (IMHO). A close friend firmly believes the US didn't go to the moon, ever. This is real to him.
Those who peddle their particular type of delusion see other forms of myth as cultural competition. An example from skeptical & critical thought podcast 'the Pseudoscientists' (ep.2) refers to 'battleground Hollywood' - worth a look;
We are living in the second or third "media generation"--a time in which media is as ever present as the air we breathe and its influence on the human race virtually immeasurable. Since 1985, our non-profit organization--with offices in Southern California and Manhattan and international affiliates--has been serving leaders of global media in a number of ways:
* Consulting on the huge and widely diverse Christian community as a potential market for media product
* Building trust relationships between media company executives and evangelical leaders
* Helping resolve conflicts involving Christians and media companies
* Providing
confidential
, personal counsel on the Christian faith and on ways to build a more personal relationship with God
Freethinkers will suspect that this organisation is not interested in freedom of thought, quite the opposite. This site would 'advise against' a (crap) movie such as 'Twilight' - which is ironic because vamps are as real as the demons* in which they believe! The blind leading the blind.
Let's be equal opportunity skeptics. This trend includes the recent pressures by Islamic governments on the UN to suppress criticism of religion. China does exactly the same from a secular basis with Google. Ireland passes blasphemy laws (we came close in Oz 5yrs ago). The pope's hierarchy 'officially' endorses miracles and denounces condoms in Africa. Trading illusion for (testable, real, objective) reality.
The enemy of politico-religious enforced dogma is a free press and the right to peaceful demonstration. It is also literature, education, the arts especially humour and satire. Most of my life I believed these things to protected and unassailable. As wise man say "do not ass.u.me, you make an ass out of u & me' ... Those who live by illusion don't respect rights.
My moonhoaxer friend? I just give him that smile & go hmmm really?
[* by which I mean spiritual or even 'real' entities which need to be 'exorcised' by a qualified professional - not the ancient Greek meaning or a psychological allusion etc. ]
_________________ "The whole religious complexion of the modern world is due to the absence in Jerusalem of a mental asylum." T.Paine
]frothy/scaleless/random/causeless/purpose-free[^]emergent/self.directed/inherrent'order/unbounded/lumpy[
PTP The Learned
Joined: Dec 04, 2008
Posts: 163
Location: Aussie
Posted:
Wed Aug 12, 2009 2:26 am
Trading illusion for reality. 'Nothing fails like prayer'
Quote:
Flying rabbis protect Israel from swine flu
y Middle East correspondent Anne Barker
Posted 5 hours 38 minutes ago
Updated 5 hours 12 minutes ago
The rabbis chanted prayers and blew ceremonial trumpets as their plane circled.
The rabbis chanted prayers and blew ceremonial trumpets as their plane circled. (Reuters: Yehuda Shlezinger/Israel Hayom)
* Video: Fighting flu on a wing and a prayer (ABC News)
About 50 rabbis and Jewish mystics have flown over Israel for an airborne prayer meeting in the belief it may stop the spread of swine flu.
They chanted prayers and blew ceremonial trumpets as their plane circled.
One of the rabbis says he is certain the danger to Israel has now passed because of the prayer flight.
So far 2,000 Israelis have caught swine flu and five have died, but Israel's health ministry says once winter sets in hundreds could die.
_________________ "The whole religious complexion of the modern world is due to the absence in Jerusalem of a mental asylum." T.Paine
]frothy/scaleless/random/causeless/purpose-free[^]emergent/self.directed/inherrent'order/unbounded/lumpy[
PTP The Learned
Joined: Dec 04, 2008
Posts: 163
Location: Aussie
Posted:
Tue Aug 18, 2009 2:09 am
Illusion takes many forms. Yet the patterns repeat. Obsession, rules, dogma. False epistemology. This one from the Atheist Network page.
Quote:
Healthy food obsession sparks rise in new eating disorder
Fixation with healthy eating can be sign of serious psychological disorder
Orthorexia nervosa sufferers like to focus on 'righteous' eating and have rigid rules about avoiding certain foods.
"The issues underlying orthorexia are often the same as anorexia and the two conditions can overlap but orthorexia is very definitely a distinct disorder," said Philpot. "Those most susceptible are middle-class, well-educated people who read about food scares in the papers, research them on the internet, and have the time and money to source what they believe to be purer alternatives."
Quote:
"And just look in the bookshops – all the diets that advise eating according to your blood type or metabolic rate. This is all grist for the mill to those looking for proof to confirm or encourage their anxieties around food."
_________________ "The whole religious complexion of the modern world is due to the absence in Jerusalem of a mental asylum." T.Paine
]frothy/scaleless/random/causeless/purpose-free[^]emergent/self.directed/inherrent'order/unbounded/lumpy[
PTP The Learned
Joined: Dec 04, 2008
Posts: 163
Location: Aussie
Posted:
Thu Aug 20, 2009 12:04 am
And for my next exhibit, the world dominationist.
Next week tune in for the 'end of the world' nut.
Quote:
rayback
The Learned
Joined: Jun 10, 2009
Posts: 179
PostPosted: Thu Aug 20, 2009 1:58 am
Anyway, back to the thread.
God's System is set to take over the West in next 30 years.
Why?
Because even the Western Atheists have said that materialism and secularism cannot survive and only Islam can fill the void.
Other religions are not fit to satisfy modern critical thinking of western civilisation.
Atheist thinkers have admitted that only a rational religion like Islam can conquer the West.
And we see that is exactly what is happening before our eyes.
Today, Islam is the converting people in Western nations at a faster pace than before World War 2.
God's System is spreading fast among Europeans and Americans.
Just look at the official reports, even on CNN and FOX news, both anti-muslim TV channels.
No point living in denial.
A small proportion of agitators have seen the error of their ways. Muslim leaders in Western Democracies now begin to preach the middle way and move away from extremism. As has been seen in France and Australia, the transition will be slow, painful and not without innocent victims. One can only hope that the better aspects of humanity prevail. Peace out Infidels.
[ADDENDUM - should we also have a 'Shire' here [Reggie? your angle?] or do we do the Klingon back turning thing?]
I have now been banned from posting on other sections of this forum.
The threads which started are many people commented have been prohibited for me.
I am not allowed to post on them.
In fact, the moderators of this forum have for unknown reasons decided to censor me.
This is Atheists' thrash that any thinking person would be able to see.
Atheists dont like it when anyone uses reason to shake them.
Though they shout about logic, Atheists are actually anti-reason and suppresive.
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Old 07-07-2009, 12:20 PM #2
Louis Louis is offline
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Default Re: Atheists oppressed rayback
Nope. You abused the privilege of using this forum to dialog respectfully with adults, and after repeated warnings about behaving like a boorish and offensive trouble-maker, you were treated exactly as you deserve. Predictably, you have decided to call the action used against you "censorship" and "oppression", failing to understand that censorship is practiced by governments and not by private discussion boards that have every right to editorialize in order to maintain a usable forum for grown-ups, and changing the definition of "oppression" to somehow make you out to be a martyr for free speech -- when in fact, you're just a trolling rabble-rouser whose speech is debasing and anti-intellectual. Peddle your self-serving clap-trap elsewhere.
Ray Ray Ray! See there's yer problem!!
You attract more ants with honey than vinegar!
All you're attracting is flies with your crap.
_________________ "The whole religious complexion of the modern world is due to the absence in Jerusalem of a mental asylum." T.Paine
]frothy/scaleless/random/causeless/purpose-free[^]emergent/self.directed/inherrent'order/unbounded/lumpy[
iPondR Graduate Thinker
Joined: Aug 19, 2009
Posts: 534
Location: Aussie Prawn Facility; District 10
Posted:
Fri Aug 21, 2009 12:01 am
One approach to dealing with the deluded. You decide (politics & ideology aside for now....)
Posted Tue Aug 18, 2009 11:49am AEST
Updated Tue Aug 18, 2009 11:48am AEST
Lemon-headed aliens, scrambled fighter jets and mysterious lights over a cemetery are among details of some 800 UFO sightings released by British authorities.
The 1981-1996 archives show the reports surged while TV series The X-Files was running on British television, and again when 1996 blockbuster Independence Day was in cinemas.
...
In another account bound to excite ufologists, a former armed forces chief urged authorities to take more seriously a report by US Air Force (USAF) staff near an airbase in eastern England.
The individuals "reported seeing a strange glowing object in the forest," said a report by a USAF commander, recounting what three of his staff told him of the incident, early on the morning of December 27, 1980.
"It illuminated the entire forest with a white light. The object itself had a pulsing red light on top and a bank of blue lights underneath. The object was hovering or on legs. As the patrolmen approached the object, it manoeuvred through the trees and disappeared."
And sceptics will also point to a more general trend made clear by the latest archives.
In 1995 there were 117 UFO sightings reported to authorities, but this spiked to 609 in 1996, according to the MoD reports, released after a three-year project with the National Archives.
"It's evident there is some connection between newspaper stories, TV programs and films about alien visitors and the numbers of UFO sightings reported," said UFO expert and journalism lecturer David Clarke.
"Aside from 1996, one of the busiest years for UFO sightings reported to the MoD over the past half century was 1978 - the year Close Encounters of the Third Kind was released," he added.
Once again, if it is possible for Airforce officers to get it wrong 30 yrs ago, what chance do we have with stuff that happened 2000 yrs ago!
Back in the day... the dial-up era, you'd read and read & try to make sense of it all. You'd watch X-files, read books about MJ-12, MIB's, alien abductions (& naughty probes ) movies about Roswell and TV doco's like Unsolved Mysteries, not to mention all the new age crazy stuff about contacts and the meaning of life the universe & everything!!
My take on all this... once something acquires a kind of critical mass, people start jumping on the bandwagon to 'narnia'... all sense of reality and objectivity goes out the window. It's just not sxy to be rational! Sheesh.
_________________ I take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance, any day... - Douglas Adams
iPondR Graduate Thinker
Joined: Aug 19, 2009
Posts: 534
Location: Aussie Prawn Facility; District 10
Posted:
Wed Sep 09, 2009 6:20 am
BBC News wrote:
People with conditions such as HIV, TB and malaria should not rely on homeopathic treatments, the World Health Organization has warned.
OK, tell me, true believers, who proclaim so loudly on this here forum, on what planet do sugar pills treat AIDS!!! Please tell me how these people inflict themselves on the developing world!
About as effective as mumbling something at the sky I would say...
So far as I have been able to see, ALL appeals to supernaturalism have something in common. Delusion. And no Reality Compass (TM).
_________________ I take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance, any day... - Douglas Adams
iPondR Graduate Thinker
Joined: Aug 19, 2009
Posts: 534
Location: Aussie Prawn Facility; District 10
Arthur David Horn, Ph.D., author of Humanity’s Extraterrestrial Origins, and former anthropology professor at Colorado State University,
will give evidence that the origins of humanity came from extraterrestrial life, rather than Darwin’s evolution theory
.
Leo Sprinkle, Ph.D., author of Soul Samples, and professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Wyoming, will describe his research regarding
thousands
of people who have interacted with extraterrestrials and spacecraft, with many of them having been on board the craft.
Norma Milanovich, D.Ed., author of We The Arcturians, and former education professor at the University of New Mexico, will talk about her experiences regarding her interaction with an advanced ET civilization from Arcturus.
Wendelle Stevens, a renowned extraterrestrial and UFO researcher, was the first to investigate Billy Meier and his physical interaction with the Pleiadians, resulting in Stevens’ highly acclaimed book
Message
from the Pleiades.
Best selling author Stan Romanek will talk about his many documented experiences with the “Gray” extraterrestrial civilization and present actual photos of these visitors, as discussed in his book
Messages
.
Sheldon Nidle, co-author of You Are Becoming a Galactic Human, has interacted with extraterrestrials from Sirius for over forty years, and will discuss their
messages
about the upcoming changes on Earth.
Ron Regehr, a former aerospace engineer, and Associate Director of Research for MUFON, will talk about his 50 years of research regarding the interaction of extraterrestrials with the Hopi and Anasazi native American nations.
Rainbow Eagle, revered Wisdom Keeper, Peace Shield Teacher, and author of Native American Spirituality: A Walk in the Woods, will discuss the interaction of Native Americans and various extraterrestrial civilizations whose legends go back thousands of years.
I really hope there's intelligent life somewhere out in the cosmos, 'cause there's bugger all down here on earth...
_________________ I take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance, any day... - Douglas Adams
iPondR Graduate Thinker
Joined: Aug 19, 2009
Posts: 534
Location: Aussie Prawn Facility; District 10
Posted:
Thu Sep 10, 2009 12:40 am
Caring and sharing as I am, in my evil humanist ways... a little bit of reading...
Meditation both activates the frontal lobe, which "creates and integrates all of your ideas about God," and calms down the amygdala, the
emotional
region that can create images of an authoritative deity and
fog our logical thinking
.
The parietal-frontal circuit gives us a sense of the space around us and our place in it. Meditation suppresses this sense, giving rise to a serene feeling of unity with God or the world.
Neurotheology?
Meditation works, it has been demonstrated scientifically. It does not rely on magic and mysticism. Taking ancient Vedic writings and trying to fit them to modern science makes for interesting speculation, but adds little to reality. Sorry Fritjoff, Deepak.
The frontal lobe deals with ideas about the totality of being, i.e. life, the universe...
While the amygdala fight with this state when the individual is whipped-up emotionally into frenzy... and at the same time suppressing reason and logic. (sound familiar?) - which explains the appeal to emotion...
My pet theory. The brain runs several nested processes (per evolutionarily derived physical structures and connections) supporting a massive
'reality simulator'
- which allows us to
make sense of the vast amounts of sensory input in real time
, while processing cognitive activity (modelling), decision making (logic, reasoning and assessing probabilities) and memory (storing inputs (images, sounds), ideas as retained thoughts (language or symbolic).
So in that way, we do indeed 'construct' our own reality. However, it does not follow that there is some kind of direct causal relationship between what we think internally and external reality - other than through our
actions
. Rather, it is what you would expect, that reality and input influences the mental model. GIGO applies here... 'garbage in...'
_________________ I take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance, any day... - Douglas Adams
iPondR Graduate Thinker
Joined: Aug 19, 2009
Posts: 534
Location: Aussie Prawn Facility; District 10
Posted:
Tue Sep 22, 2009 7:50 pm
Apocalyptic Dawn - Armageddon, Armageddon outta here...
It's 20 minutes past dawn,
there is no sun, just a weird orange glow in the sky
- in all directions ...Ok I take it all back, I'd say I have minutes to convert before the rapture begins..... hmmmm those
calculations
must've been off by a couple of days (it was supposed to be two days ago!!! - maybe it's a time zone thing?)
or... maybe it's the Galactic Federation coming now that the planet has entered the halo around the Pleiades? Damn, maybe I should've gone to the channeling session!!
No, wait I got it!! Maybe it's punishment from god for legalised abortion? Or was that gay marriage?
Oh, wait a minute, it's not 2012 yet!! What's going on??
Or, maybe it's that dust storm the Bureau of Meteorology PREDICTED yesterday... damn naturalists.
Bureau wrote:
Forecast for Wednesday
Strong to gale force west to northwest winds, gradually easing late afternoon and evening. Raised dust likely, otherwise fine. Cloudy periods.
Precis: Very windy. Raised dust. Fine.
Fire danger: Very high
_________________ I take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance, any day... - Douglas Adams
iPondR Graduate Thinker
Joined: Aug 19, 2009
Posts: 534
Location: Aussie Prawn Facility; District 10
Posted:
Wed Sep 23, 2009 1:19 am
OK, time for an update to Dustocalypse, Sydney Style.
Well, I'm still here, converted back to sin as fast as I could.
The sun's still there, guess we're OK for the next few billion yrs.
16,000 metric tonnes of red dirt being blown across the city, per hour. Worst in 70 yrs.
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- not the ancient Greek meaning or a psychological allusion etc. ]
) movies about Roswell and TV doco's like Unsolved Mysteries, not to mention all the new age crazy stuff about contacts and the meaning of life the universe & everything!!
