mistermack

How can a robber fight a legitimate war, to keep their stolen property? The mass Jewish immigration was not legitimate. The setting up of the State was not legitimate. They only legitimate thing that they could do would be to fuck off out of there, and pay compensation to the surviving Palestinians.

It's probably all been said, but the way I look at it is yes, you can believe anything you want, in theory. But in reality, the vast majority of people are MADE to believe in God, by being indoctrinated from a very young age. And that's what I hate about religion. Not so much the silliness of it, or all the wasted praising and money wasted. It's the insidious compulsion by indoctrination. I think it's false to argue that people have a choice, once they grow up. For most, that choice has been removed by the indoctrination process. They THINK they are choosing to believe. But they're not.

Same way that squatters right to keep your house would be "so called". Can you explain why Israelis have a right to keep the stolen land they are squatting on?

But I asked, "Do you think that light can travel through nothing at all? " So you are obviously equating empty space with nothing at all. I'm not going to pretend I know the score, but what I've been reading up to now doesn't match up with the idea that a vacuum is nothing. Even the curvature of space time doesn't suggest the curvature of nothing. If you can curve nothing that is.

Wish I knew. But it can't be nothing. One thousand times nothing is nothing. A thousand metres of space time is a thousand times bigger than one metre. Quanta? The way that light interacts with space time seems to be the most basic definition. Do you think that light can travel through nothing at all?

The Jews don't accept a lot of those so-called prophecies as anything of the sort. But others did. And it all gets mixed and confused with other gods and other stories. So what did you mean then, when you said it started with a real person?

You said it started with a real person. Or did you mean it in the same way that Sherlock Holmes started with a real person?

Yes, we are certainly unique in loads of ways. But going on the fossil record, eight million years ago, our ancestors, and those of Gorillas, Chimps and Bonobos were the same ape. Over those eight million years, Gorillas split off, and then Chimps and Bonobos, from us. (or we split from them, same thing) They are all social apes, just like us, but we evolved the big brains and the language skills, and they didn't. So it wasn't living in big social groups that made the difference between us and them. It might be that improving language skills kick started intelligence gains. Or vice versa. But it would be hard to prove now.

You seem convinced that imaginary figures can't get going. There must have been a real Sherlock Holmes, and James Bond. The angel Gabriel, do you think he started out as a real man? Stories can and do come out of nothing. Religious fanatics dream them up. Sometimes literally. Sometimes from earlier legends, sometimes borrowing from other religions. I'm willing to concede that there COULD have been a real Jesus. But probably not. But you don't seem to concede the opposite. I'd like to hear why you think it's impossible.

To get back to the point, does anyone consider my posts antisemitic? Because that's what the activists are pushing for. If they get their way, people who argue like me will be excluded from the Labour Party, and those already members will be forced out. That's the whole objective of the organised clamour against "antisemitism" in the Labour Party. To me it's obvious. It's nothing to do with antisemitism. It's about shutting up criticism.

The way I see it, Christianity could have started in two ways. Either with a real man called Jesus, or with a "Son of God" legend that grew up in the same way as the legends of Satan and Angel Gabriel etc. If it came from an original "Son of God" cult, within the Jewish religion, it would have been one of many. There were LOADS of cults within the Jewish religion. Obviously, they all came from fabricated stories, so fabricating a son of god legend is nothing out of the ordinary. If that happened, then the stories gradually morphed from a heavenly son of god into a flesh and blood Jesus. We have the flesh and blood part, in the gospels. So by the year 70, the talk was definitely of a real human Jesus. It's what went before, that is a mystery. Paul's letters (starting around year 55) seem to be in a transitional period. There is some reference to Jesus as a man, but very vague and limited. It's my guess that as you go back in time, it would have been less stories of a real man, and more of a heavenly god. Unfortunately, it seems like anything earlier has been erased. That in itself is suspicious. As are the existence obvious later forgeries, trying to create a false history. Churches like to control what history people read. The various religious authorities sat on the dead sea scrolls for decades, until they started releasing select bits. It's obvious that nothing controversial will ever be allowed to come out from them. The actual truth is of no interest to them. They want you to believe what THEY choose for you.

Yes. But empty space time isn't nothing. That's what I'm getting at really. The dimensions are dimensions of something, not nothing. In a universe of nothing, a metre is the same as a kilometre or a light year. In a universe of empty space time, a kilometre is still a thousand metres. Obviously, a universe of nothing is infinitely nothing, so you can say it doesn't exist. Infinitely nothing is as mysterious as a positive infinity.

That's a pretty dumb comparison. How many Jewish villages have been bulldozed recently, to make way for Palestinian settlements? You were certainly right about knowing little. I will grant you that.

This pressure on labour is part of a modern conspiracy. I'm not usually into conspiracy theories, but this one is out in the open for anyone to see. People supporting Israel have got together recently, and agreed to use any chance that arises, to portray ANY criticism of Israel as antisemitism. It's a powerful weapon, and the media are giving them full rein, and not picking up on it at all. As far as I'm concerned, antisemitism is restricted to prejudice against Jews for being Jews. And it stops there. Criticism or prejudice against Israel is definitely NOT antisemitism. It's a legitimate point of view. And as far as I'm concerned, that includes zionism, and the so-called "right" of Israel to exist. That's what they are trying to deter, by falsely labelling people who have strong anti-zionist opinions as antisemitic. As far as Hamas or Hezbollah are concerned, they have been CREATED by the establishment of Israel. I don't like Corbyn at all, but I have no problem with any support he gives to either of those organisations. They are no more terrorist than the State of Israel. They use terror to fight terror. Big deal. They didn't ask to have their land stolen. Winston Churchill in his most famous speech said "we will fight them on the beaches....... etc etc etc, and everyone said "what a guy, what a speech" when if fact he was just a lying bullshitter, it would never have happened. Hamas and Hezbollah on the other hand ARE fighting them on the beaches, etc etc. and get labelled terrorists by the Israel-loving media. What obnoxious double standards.

I don't think that's how most people use the word. I always thought of dimensions as properties of space time, and the axes of co-ordinate system is just a way of modelling the actual dimensions. If there is no space time, there is surely no dimensions. One thousand times nothing is still nothing. And pointing 90 degrees from nothing is still pointing at nothing.

No, that irritation. Rage is several levels up from that. I have remembered one incident of nearly road rage in my life, that was nearly forgotten. I was doing some very early morning deliveries, I was in an absolutely STINKING mood, can't remember why, and in the dark a cyclist with no lights nipped right in to the place where I was reversing. I was in such a foul temper I just said fuck him, and carried on reversing. I just thought, if he can't be bothered with lights, I can't be bothered with seeing him. He jumped out of the way just in time, pulling his bike out of the way and dropping it. He started mouthing off, and I offered to fight him right then and there in the street, and I think he knew I meant it, because he decided to leave. It was a really stupid thing to do, he was younger than me and looked a bit bigger, I would probably have regretted it even more, later. But the point is, you can catch someone at the wrong time, on the wrong day, who isn't normally like that. That's the only time in my life I've ever got remotely close to road rage, but it still happened.

Yes, the gospels are much more specific. The trouble is that they are generally agreed to be works of fiction, or at any rate, so fictionalised that there is nothing of historical value in them. If you're a believer, then you will choose to believe them. But there's nothing in them reliable enough to call history. Yes, but only half of those epistles are thought to actually be by Paul. The other 7 are forgeries. In the half that are generally accepted to be by Paul, yes there are references to Jesus. But only in the vaguest possible terms, such as "Jesus who died and rose again". There's no disputing that he was writing about a CHARACTER called Jesus. And that there were various stories about him being the prophesied messiah, as well as the Son of God. But there's nowhere in Paul's epistles that you can you can get any reference to a real Jesus who died only about 20 years previously. That's why a lot is made of the words, "James, the brother of Jesus". It's the only scrap of a reference to what might have been a real living Jewish man. But it's very tenuous and ambiguous. I would want and have expected loads of biographical stuff, and direct quotes, in Paul's letters, if Jesus had been real, and Paul had met with Peter and James, as he claimed. Jame could easily have been given the title "the brother of Jesus" much later, as the gospel stories of a real Jesus grew up around the original "Son of God" legends. Since the earliest copies of Paul's Epistles date from the year 200 and later, the title "the brother of Jesus" could have been added at any stage. If it was a widely used title in the year 200, people making copies would see nothing wrong with adding it. Going by the wide differences in the gospels, they certainly saw nothing wrong with adding to documents they were copying, sometime making wholesale changes.

It's in the fossil record. There were fully bipedal apes, that had brains comparable to modern chimpanzees. They date to five or six million years ago. If you search for australopithecus afarensis, or adipithecus ramidus, you will find loads of evidence. So it's solid fossil evidence of apes with modern human feet, not ape feet. Also, there are fossilised footprints from the same date, showing upright walking by the same feet. Search for Laetoli Footprints. Complex social groups do encourage some intelligence, but there are plenty of monkeys and apes who live in similar groups.

I've never gone as far as road rage, but like most people I've fumed about other drivers behaviour. One thing I noticed a few years ago, is that I was fuming far more in the first fifteen minutes of driving. Especially in the morning. For some reason, I was much more likely to get aggressive (internally) in that period than later. Once I'd noticed it, I consciously fought the tendency, and told myself to chill, and soon was able to recognise it and defuse it. Has anyone else ever noticed something similar?

It seems to be a thing with the human psyche that self-righteous anger is often out of proportion. The idea that you are some sort of hero, putting less thoughtful or caring people to rights is very appealing, and often sends people over the top. Especially if you can picture yourself as some sort of heroic defender of the innocent. In the news recently, Disney cast a straight actor, Jack Whitehall, as their first gay character. There was a self-righteous clamour of protest, that they should have cast a gay actor. Stephen Fry popped up, and pointed out that he'd been playing straight parts all his career.

We humans really are freaks when it comes to intelligence. But it doesn't mean that there's anything special about Africa. It happened there, and didn't arise elsewhere, so it's obviously a unique combination of things peculiar to Africa. I suppose you can regard that as special if you like. But only in the sense that everywhere is special in it's own way. Africa happened to be the home of our ancestor that gave rise to us, chimpanzees and gorillas. So it wasn't so special that we HAD to evolve as we did. Like the rest of evolution, it's down to chance. What's definite, is that our own line firstly became bipedal, a long time before there were clear signs of a bigger brain. But after that, we did eventually started evolving the big brain, and the chimps and gorillas did not. So it was something about the lifestyle of bipedal apes that gave rise to more intelligence. There are various ideas about that, but no real consensus. The only thing you can be sure of, is that the more advanced intellectually were surviving in bigger numbers than the more primitive, over millions of years. So really, it's likely to have been behaviour, and not the location, that put us on the road to the present. Chimps and Gorillas and Bonobos did perfectly well in Africa, without needing to evolve a bigger brain.

That doesn't follow. Eagles eat monkeys. Sharks eat seals and dolphins. Crocodiles kill people. Snakes eat monkeys and apes. It's not really a rule that predators require a big brain.

I can't read Eherman, I haven't got his book, but I have heard his arguments in debates on youtube. He's skilled and persuasive, but I think his points are weaker than he portrays them. When he addresses the lack of detail on a real Jesus in Paul's epistles, for example, he compares Paul to his Mother. It's really a totally false comparison. Paul was an enthusiastic convert evangelist, dedicating his life to spreading the word about a man/god who only died 25 years previously. And his letters were ABOUT the new religion, of Jesus the man/god, who was not long dead. I presume Bart's mother's letters were more mundane. The religion is 2,000 years old now, and she would have been an adherent for a very long time. The novelty must wear off at some point. So it's a non-argument in my opinion. Nobody in Paul's position, speaking about a real man/god, would have ignored the real personal details of Jesus so dramatically, unless they weren't there. I can maybe concede that there was SOME talk at the time of Jesus having been real. There had to be a transition at some point, as they were trying to make the story fit the prophesies. Here's Bart, giving his reasoning :

Those are all monkeys though, not apes.

Well, I was replying it that case to a sarcastic post, so why not? It's too tempting, if a post is sarcastic AND on the wrong track. Anyway, I really don't mind, if someone points out my own lack of knowledge on a subject. (which happens a lot) It's not good for the ego but it's an incentive to look stuff up. There are Orang Utans and lots of Gibbons in Asia, and there was the extinct Gigantopithecus that I mentioned earlier. So their ancestors would have been around. Probably others too I imagine.