tar

Mondays Assignment: Die, That is much more along the line of what I am saying. I would just add that people probably do not do things for "some particular reason", as much as they do things for "all the reasons" existing at the time. And I would not discount the "finding of patterns" as being a "incorrect" way of noticing the world. On deep inspection, it appears to be what we do as humans. That they (the patterns) are representations of the actual thing, and not the thing itself, may therefore be true in some senses. But even the patterns themselves were "generated" by something other than the representation. And in this, existence of the "generator" is strongly implied in the pattern. If it is an analog pattern you are picking up, it may be an analogy of the actual thing, but if you hear a C note, there probably really was a guitar string plucked, that vibrated at that particular frequency (with appropriate over and under tones). Regards, TAR2

Mondays Assignment: Die, Well not really, I was not talking about things depicted in religious scriptures, that have not been refuted. I was talking about things depicted, that YOU would not refute, because its evident to you as well. If YOU were to remove all the impossible things, and still retained a common thread, a common group of concepts, any common feelings and thoughts and meanings, that stood on their own, without the need for the particular false image, arrived at by a particular wise man. Like any myth, there is an element of truth, a valuable insight, a real and usable and workable meaning...regardless of the particular characterisations, and after dismissing the illogical stuff, to be found in most religions. I have already admitted my atheism. You need not argue against Gods, in order to bring me to insights I have already had. What you need to do is tell me why I can not feel obligated to objective reality, why this belief I have that I am both subject to it, and responsible for it, along with the other consciousnesses I know have existed, do exist and will exist, is a broken thing. I do not subscribe to the "accident" logic you are promoting. If we had three feet we would wear trios of shoes, not pairs. What has that got to do with what we are talking about? We are discussing the belief in God, that most people on this planet have, in one way or the other. I am not trying to prove that therefore each person's idea of god is correct, and an entity of the exact description a person would give, actually exists. I am trying to find out what real thing it is, we are attempting to describe. The thing we have metaphors about. I am trying to argue that it is the thing we sense, the thing we know, the thing we believe in, and the metaphors do not do it justice. We ARE humans on the planet Earth. We do do the things we do, and believe the things we believe, and if any of a billion people, would have done, or said, one little thing differently than they did, the history of the world would be different. But they did not do it differently than they did it. They did it the way they did. And they did it on purpose. No accident. No "if this" or "if that" is on the table. In a real sense, each of us is 100% universe material, and the universe has actually done what it has done up to now, and has not yet done, what it is going to do next. For real. Regards, TAR2

Iggy, I found it strange myself, that in interviewing people that were caught, mid plan, about to effect a suicide bombing, that only 40% had suicidal tendencies. Guess the others didn't fit the psychological profile, and the researchers must have been not counting the planned suicide bombing as a "tendency". Which left me thinking, especially with the hair gel fact thrown in that a lot of them were rather attached to themselves, and probably did not consider that the explosion would be the end of them. Not too surprising, I suppose, considering the emphasis on the "afterlife" in the Koran, and the idea that seems to be around, that dying for "the cause", is a ticket to heaven. If one is convinced that "this life" is just a test that you can pass or fail, with wonderful or dreadful consequences for yourself, and there is a way to get an automatic A, then "going for" the A, would not be crazy at all, but a rather sound decision. To me and you, they are obviously wrong about the heaven thing. It makes no sense. They are giving up the only thing they have, (their life), on the false promise of a "better" one. It is, on its face, downright insanity...But then there are things I might die for. My family, my flag, a fellow soldier in a cause of MINE...which makes me re-evaluate a bit. Is it crazier to believe that objective reality is subject to you, or that you are subject to objective reality? Regards, TAR2

Inow, Well yes, it is the same. But people don't believe Harry Potter is a real boy that performs real magic. But they still identify with him, for other reasons. That Harry Potter defeated Voldimort was not because of the magic. Voldimort had equal magic that cancelled out Harry's. Harry had love and faith. Voldimort had nothing. The love and faith were the real things that defeated evil. Regards, TAR2

Inow, But would you make a distinction between what a theist is taught about God in church, temple, mosque, and what a theist believes about God, based on his/her own understanding of reality? If we are to only argue against the evidence for flying donkeys carrying angels, and visions wearing jewels, and various other images that seem to be only real to the visioner, then we are simply arguing against the unicorn, the drawing of God, the representation of God. Theists must have more than that in mind, when they talk about God. I know from Mohammed's words in the Koran, that Allah is to be taken as that one entity which is our creator. In my mind, that can only mean nature itself, the universe itself, the objective reality that I am in and of. There is no other thing I know of, that will fit the description. It is interesting that Mohammed often warns against holding any false images of this entity. He was very constantly speaking against the Idol worshippers of his time, and warned against the error of believing that Allah had any associates. And he often mentioned he was but a messenger, and subject to Allah completely, as the rest of the world is. He did not, in my estimation, think that Allah was anything you could or should make a drawing of, because the drawing, or the statue, or image, would not come close to BEING Allah, and any such vain attempt would be insultingly erroneous. There are a couple billion humans on this planet who "understand" what Mohammed was telling us about Allah. I am not one of them, I do not believe that this life is a way station, on the way to an "afterlife" where the Most Merciful will reward those who have followed his final messages given to Mohammed, and punish those who have fallen from the way. The whole setup is faulty in its logic and winds up with Mohammed usurping the power of Allah, and judging and killing and taking tithe in Allah's stead. But I do not think that you or I are in a position to know what of a believer's beliefs are of true things, and on what level, literally or figuratively they may be true. They may actually be worshipping the same lord that you and I take for granted...after all, there is only one reality evident. I am all for dismissing the c**p in the scriptures, as fictional nonsense, not literally true...but retaining the notions that come naturally to all of us. Whatever those notions might be, that are commonly understood. I guess what I am saying, is that if you dismiss everything unreal and not evident that was ever said in any religious text about God, and there is something left standing, then THAT is what believers in God, are believing in, and they are not broken to believe in it, because it is true and existant. The other "broken stuff", they could discard, as easily as you or I could. But the real portion cannot be dismissed, by anyone and people tend to attach a lot of c**ppy baggage to the real portion, and don't know which parts are real, that they should retain, and which parts are c**p that they should toss, when asked to "face reality" by another mortal human. Cause after all, we all seem to have a sense that we are being held accountable for our lives. Accountable to objective reality in someway or another. Whether we really are or not, does not seem to be the question. The question is more "by who or what ARE we being held accountable"? Regards, TAR2

Inow, I meant it as comic relief, and was poking fun at both the theist that would believe their god WAS real when everybody else knew their particular characiture does not "actually" exist, but is more like a drawing they have made in their minds, AND poking fun at you for repeatedly suggesting that belief in God is therefore equivalent to belief in Unicorns, which would be the case only if objective reality did not actually exist, in the same way that unicorns don't actually exist. This is not the case. Objective reality DOES actually exist. Which in reference to the thread OP would suggest to me that there is an important distinction to be made between belief in God, and belief in ones personal drawing of such. God itself is impossible to argue against if it is to be taken as equivalent to objective reality. And belief in God in this case is completely NOT broken because its existence is evident in other people, the Earth, the Sun, the stars, the flowers, the DNA that builds a human mind, and in our consciousness and ability to personally internalize representations of all of it. But arguing against any personal characterization of God is easy, because its just a drawing, it, this characterization, is NOT real, and falls way short of being a "one to one" representation of actual reality. I personally believe that most theists are well aware of this distinction, and are believing much more in the actual thing they are attempting to draw, then in their drawing of it. But there are those, that believe in the drawing itself, MORE than in actual reality, and these people are both broken, in the ways you have amply described in this thread, AND strawmen that are easy to take down. Belief in God, and belief in Unicorns is not equivalent. Regards, TAR2

I do believe you have something there. A Leprechaun would indeed get excited at such a sight.. Everybody knows they like to hide their gold at the end of a rainbow. (P.S. That's not a real unicorn, its just a drawing.)

Iggy, I wouldn't say that is directly contradictory to Music's point. The post-tramatic stress people(20%), and the people who had tried killing themselves before (13%) could be among the 40% with suicidal tendencies. Which still leaves a potential 60% of the interviewees without suicidal tendencies. How many of the 53% with depressive tendencies fall into the "want to kill myself" category is also not defined in the abstract, and I don't know enough about psychology to know what level of depression would be considered mentally ill, nor what level of depression one must exhibit to be classified as having depressive tendencies. (I would even suggest that if a person didn't get depressed every once in a while, about this thing or that thing, they themselves probably have something a little "wrong" with their thinking or at least be a bit "unrealistic".) Just in general I would think that we have defined enough mental disorders that just about all of us, or at least a great majority of us, have exhibited symptoms of one or another of them, at some many points during our lives. The hair gel thing, on the other hand is rather indicative of a "disconnected" and rather inconsistent mind, considering they evidently have rather a strong feeling of "self" in their lack of modesty, which might suggest, they were rather convinced that this "self" of their's was not going to cease, when they blew themselves up...which is evidentially quite a "crazy" idea. At least in my book, and Inow's book, and anybody's book, who understands that we cannot be human, without a human to be. Which leads the discussion, in my mind, back to the ideas of authority and self-less-ness for the good of the collective, and what actual objective principles exist that would define when it is you are doing something for yourself, when it is you are doing something for others, and when it is you are doing something for the benefit of objective reality on objective reality's command. Regards, TAR2 After all, humanists believe in the "progress" of humans, beyond their own individual lives. Is this "crazy"? Or should we give humanists a pass?

Faith=KNOWING, what you don't know.

Inow, I have forgotten if we allowed belief in a personal God to be unbroken. The U.S Constitution (wisely in my estimation) allowed for it, with the provision that it be a church thing, not a state thing. That an individual was responsible for his or her relationship with God, and that relationship should neither be affected by the state or have effect on the running of state business. That one could serve their God, and serve their state, but the state should serve all regardless of the religious beliefs held by each person. Wise, in that nearly everybody then, and most people now, do listen to some quiet sure voice within them, that tells them the difference between right and wrong. There are not enough police, or cameras to watch everybody, all the time. We have to police ourselves, listen to our conscience, do the right thing, on our own, when nobody but ourself is watching or caring or responsible...or we wouldn't have a society. That these rules we each go by, are self generated, is a reasonable assumption. They are the rules we have learned from our individual interaction with objective reality. We each, I theorize, come up with that combination of rules that best serves all the constituents we value. But here (if true) is where there is some evidence for God. Because after yourself, there is your family and friends you must do it right by, and the organizations of which you are a member, and your fellow organisms on this Earth, and the Earth itself, and our Sun. All "things", real things in an objective reality, that any human could in truth, call "his" or "her's". That any one of us, can and does "know" this objective reality as "his" or "her's", that is responsible for creating them, and that they are responsible to, that they "know" existed before they were born, and they "know" will exist after they die. That we each know is eternal (or at least has a beginning and end far enough removed from our personal lifetime to be a close approximation to eternal) and we each "know" it could be infinite in size and scale (or at least stretch between the size of a quark and the size of a universe)...and STILL we consider the whole shooting match "ours"...the one and only universe that TAR2 was made by, and responsible to... If I believe in this thing, that I KNOW is real, and I believe in myself, and life on Earth, that is but a tiny flash within the enormity of space and time, how could I either be wrong, or have generated the rules, by myself? Regards, TAR2

Though I don't think "no story" is preferable. Nor do I think the story about hydrogen atoms accidentally creating TAR2 is very good. Iggy, Was listening to a Catholic talk about Catholic school the other day, and the fact that they saw through the God/Nun thing the first time they told a lie and got away with it. (no lightning strike). Regards, TAR2

Inow, Thank you for the reading list. Looks like some good themes. Especially the one about "stories" being the way we interpret reality. And I would like to, (without having even fully read the abstract or peeked at the trailers), tie that general idea into this discussion. The David B. devil dog would be a good indication that David B. believed the stories about the devil that the Bible and society has been telling us for several thousand years. Either that, or that there is "the Devil" and he spoke through the dog. I will go with the first take. But belief in the story seems to be the real thing that occurred. David Berkowitz seems to have not only been broken in taking the story literally, but in getting the story wrong. You're not supposed to LISTEN to the devil, you are supposed to cast him out of your being, so you can be with/of God. I am not so sure that religious people are broken, to "listen" to the stories of the Bible, "as if" they are written by God, through his Prophets. If you take God as an Ideal that is, and not an actual sky Pixie. Most of the 10 commandments, if not all, are sort of reasonable. And many of the stories and themes in the Bible can be traced back to various tribal ledgends and actual societal morays of the day. Somewhat outdated by now, I am sure, but the stories cemented our societal roles into our psyches. Somewhat liberating to NOT believe in the God of the bible, allowing us to "write our own story", or at least change the plot and characters enough to reject the "king with divine power" and the male chauvanism and slavery and cruel injustice and domination that that the old testament story line would not only allow, but ensure. (Wait, I think maybe I just ran myself out of my own argument.) I was heading in the direction of suggesting that we still NEED stories to go by, thereby validating the belief in a master story teller...but it appears that believers in the Abrahamic God, would have to be broken on this count, as well. Bad story line. Regards, TAR2

Inow, Well I see your point. And I have no wish to insinuate that things that are nonsense are sensible. Just looking for the "reasons" why nonsense is entertained, under the theory that there must be a reason. Along with determining that God (the Abrahamic one) is nothing more than a sky pixie, you have similiarly dismissed ghosts and alien abductions as fantasies, with no basis in reality. That all these things are without any reason to accept as factual components of reality. Perhaps you have it pegged, and your threshold, and the threshold defined by the 10 points of Dawkin's organization is indeed the threshold I should hold myself to, and in so doing, "accept" reality and solidly join forces with those humans who are doing it "right". There is great draw to this tact, for me, it makes sense on just about every level I can think of. Except for the fact that I spoke to God when I was 13, felt the love of Christ in the air on several occasions in my youth, witnessed along with a dozen other people some "visitors"(lights) hovering over a power line for 10 or 15 minutes (refueling perhaps), when I was 18, had a community run in with a ghost around the same time, and had an epiphany on a mountaintop in Germany when I was 25 or so, where I "understood" "treeness" and what life on Earth was all about. Whatever determination I make about what is NOT B.S. has to include an explanation of these later things in terms of facts that are worthy of our time, consideration and mutual acceptance. I am expecting there to be a real explanation for everything I have experienced. Everything I have sensed. And the real explanations are the only ones I am expecting to find. They are the only ones that make any sense. They are the only ones that could actually be the case. Whether I look for answers in the human mind, or in human culture, or in a physics textbook, or in the night sky, I expect no magical impossible answer, I expect to find the truth, what ever really is the case. Regards, TAR2

Inow, Perhaps that's it. That is my point. Metaphor is all we have. When we use it together, its perfectly alright. When someone else uses it, they must be using woo. I happen to think that woo is OK. Especially if two people have reason to allow the same woo. Makes it potentially real. Regards, TAR2

That people that believe in God, may be believing in a true thing, basically, and just have attached, to various degrees, fanciful attributes that make the whole "belief" a false and broken thing, in your view, but that the fanciful attributes can be discounted, or pointed out, or debunked or explained in various positive ways...leaving still, enough meat on the bone, for a rational person, an unbroken person, to hold a belief in God, that is based mostly on the real, actual experience of a conscious, mortal human, alive amidst the enormity and detail of reality. That people who believe in God, believe in similar things, as I believe in, and that it is not so odd or broken, for a human to expect that what they are capable of (such as consciousness, and finding meaning, and taking ownership and responsibility for life beyond their own life) might indeed be a characteristic of the universe of which they are a small representative example. Regards, TAR2

Inow, When it comes to "practical" knowledge, of what is "real" and what is "made up" with no basis in truth, there are many aspects of "god", as described by theists, that are not reasonable, not evident, and are likely to be "unreal" and unfindable, and unuseful, in a practical sense, when "looked for" by another human, listening to the description of God, pronounced by the theist. But my argument, is that those aspects are NOT the aspects of God upon which the theist is basing their belief. That they are indeed "wrong" about these impossible aspects, but indeed "right" about their connection to and knowledge of "objective reality"...in all the true ways that we as humans are connected to, and DO have knowledge of the universe/GOD/reality. As atheists, you and I, and others, are asking theists to inspect their beliefs and throw out the impossible stuff, and retain the reasonable true stuff. I have a theory, that they do not know how to do that, because they think we (atheists) have thrown out, or do not recognize the true stuff, that comes automatically and obviously to all on the planet. And this automatic true intuition is not something a theist can, or should be asked to discount. Were the difficulty comes, I think, in these discussions, is in determining, on what basis exactly, does ones true intuition become false...just because someone else has drawn the line between fact and fancy differently than you have. Using myself as an example, I have determined that certain things are true in a figurative sense, but not in a literal sense, but retain great value to believe in none-the-less, even if taken only in the figurative sense. That there is real reason to believe in God as a proxy for the "higher ideals" that we hold. Because the ideals themselves, are real and valuable. And there is real reason to believe in God as proxy for objective reality, because objective reality really does exist. We are all rather sure of this fact. We "know" this. And I don't like, myself, when someone suggests that I can not know THIS, when I most certainly can and do. Just as reliably as any human, that might proclaim they have a way to know it "better". Regards, TAR2

Inow, I didn't think that was all I was saying. I thought I was pointing out, that it makes "sense" to believe in objective reality, as I thing which you can in truth, "know", and have good reason to feel a part of. That we have the ability to put ourselves in the shoes of another, whether that other be person, place or thing, huge or tiny, past, present or future, real or imagined...suggesting that it may not be "broken" to do this, but indeed crucial to human thought and consciousness. And this, facility, if assumed to be in others, allows a collective "real" objective look at things, where one can put themselves in the shoes of the collective, and "pretend" to know, what the collective knows, and it is not a large step to then "pretend" to know, what the Earth might know and desire, and what the universe might know and desire. And these shifts in perspective, these takings of various veiwpoints, are not totally baseless, because its what humans can do, for one, and its therefore something living entities on Earth can do, and for two, we are something that the universe itself is able to create. By accident, or on purpose, it takes what came before, to exist, for any entity at all, with any charateritics to emerge from it. Automatic, built in knowledge that needs no formulae or measurements to arrive at. Automatic, built in knowledge of nature, being nature itself that we are, that we sense, that we remember and think about. dOG, Trump cards because one cannot both claim they are 100% nature AND outside of nature. The outside of nature thing, must be a supernatural claim, an unsupportable claim an extraordinary claim. Whether held by a scientist, or a bible belt Christian. When you take a God's eye view, it is either a false thing you do, or a true thing you do. I think the evidence is in favor of it being a true thing you do. And perhaps that means its a true thing the Bible Belt Christians are doing, as well. Regards, TAR2 and although I hate to admit it, it might also mean that 100 thousand Muslims circling the stone in Mecca, might also be doing a true thing, regardless of the fact, that to me, they are self hypnotised, mindless slaves, reciting over and over in their minds the words of the Prophet, worshipping an untrue thing.

Inow, OK, I used "established" in an unestablished way, when referring to the "beliefs" that religious people have that they "know" God. And I don't want you to think, that I am trying to prove that the images of God we hold, are of an actual, limited thing, as in the God of Abraham, that has specific likes and dislikes, and writes things in books, chooses certain people to cast in a fire, and certain people to play harps in the clouds. Gods, in this sense are not "real", can not be proven to exist, and have to either be understood to not really exist in nature, or to be "supernatural" in essence. But there are at least two cards I have played that you have swept off the table, as "not trump" cards, which I do not believe you have "established" as "not trump" cards. You have taken a few tricks for your team, I believe, inappropriately. One is that to an individual human, other humans represent a very real embodiment of nature. The other is that to a collection of humans, an individual human represents a very real embodiment of nature. If a "loonie" moonie were to walk up to you in an Airport in the late 60s and state to you that God was love and love was inside you, and all around you, and offer you a flower, you would keep walking to your plane. But is there an actual argument you have "against" their claim? Probably not. You already know what they are claiming is true...on certian levels in certain senses. Just not entirely workable "in reality". For instance, people can claim that they "love" humanity, when they can't stand the asshole next door. Or you, Inow, can claim that rationality, consistency, and strict adherence to belief only in what has been evidencially proven, is the way to truth that humanity must follow to "advance" to the correct state of being, while admitting that the majority of humans are unwilling, or incapable of doing such. If one is to have faith in "other" humans as a proxy for "objective reality", one has to accept the findings of all as having potential meaning, or else one might be guilty of "cherry picking", and imagining that objective reality only has the attributes, assigned to it by experts, and not just any experts, but experts that follow the proper protocol, and not just that, but that also agree with the model of the universe, that you yourself, hold in your head. It seems to me that I can not hand off "objective reality" to be "known" only by another. I must retain the intimate knowledge of it that I have of it, to compare and contrast, with the findings of other real beings. And it could not be said that the whole operation is not the universe finding a way to look at itself. Regards, TAR2

Inow, The thread got a little fractured. I was sort of driving at a point (by circuitous routes no doubt) and trying to follow peoples arguments and what points they were driving at. Trying to stay up on where everybody was, what points they had conceded or rejected and such. I have lost track. Who has the ball? And what goal line is that team driving toward? It seems that team "broken" has established that "truth" is a thing best determined with other peoples help, as in the "scientific method". And this would be considered the "best", unbroken way to address reality, as it has yielded much knowledge about reality, allowing humankind to deal with it and provide humans with many "advantages" over a rather "unfeeling" and "unhumanlike" universe. Team "broken" has also established that within the human phyche there is the ability to converse with unseen others, but made the distinction, between the "reality" of imagining a friend or thread compatriot, or relative and that of imagining a conversation with a garden gnome, or a sky pixie (or God, if he is to be concieved of as a big powerful human who controls everything, and has a need for your belief and devotion, and oddly also has a list of particular rules for you to follow.) Team "unbroken" has established that there is a body of "truth" that can be known about the universe while standing alone on a mountaintop, or sitting in a dark cave, or while high on mushrooms, that is real and valuable. That a person can have a revelation about his or her relationship to the greater reality which "binds" one to it and these insights are about actual reality, yielding "proper" ways to behave toward it, including among other things, the other people in it. Team TAR2 has established that there must be a middle way, that takes the "spirit" of the universe as both a thing of human imagination, and a real thing that must exist, even if the only proof of it, is you. Regards, TAR2

'the asinine cretin' Its not a tangent to me. Its more or less where I have been trying to go, that is argue toward, and then maybe a little more, in Inow's thread this split from, and in my responses to Appolinaria. With a challenge, or "opportunity" to one element. If God is to be considered nature in the above paragraph, we need not consider anything that nature has to offer, as something extrinsic to humaness...if, we realize or acknowledge the fact that we ourselves as humans are 100% natural. That is, there are about a zillion things about us that exist elsewhere, that would realistically allow us to associate ourselves with those things. And very few, if any things that we could find only in ourselves, contrary to nature, or without natural causes. Therefore what the universe is extrinsically capable of includes the creation of a human named TAR2. And the power and possibilities of the universe are already built into TAR2, therefore ARE intrinsic characteristics. There is probably a name for this type of philosophy, but it seems to me to be very logical and a philosophy that anybody could hold, with no worries about being wrong. It doesn't require anything to be the case, that isn't already very apparent to everybody. What people DO with this realization however, seems to cause a bit of contention. Some thusly take responsibility for everything, inappropriately. Some thusly take responsibility for nothing, inappropriately. Some thusly usurp the authority of nature for themselves, appropriately or inappropriately. And in a lot, of cases, that I have noticed (including myself), people seem to feel the way they have it parsed is good, and feel that the way that people they talk to have it parsed is questionable, and that certain third parties have it completely wrong. (like the linguistic finding that the same idea framed in the first person is good, in the second person questionable and in the third person negative... as in "I am exploring my sexuality", "you are loose", and "she is a slut".) In anycase, it appears that whatever a person does with this "conscious human within a greater reality" thing it is bound to be somewhat appropriate for the individual and somewhat questionable to some, and downright inappropriate to others. Inow feels that "Godidit" is a lously excuse for rational thinking...whereas I think its sort of a foregone conclusion (in the manner just expressed.) Appolinaria, Another way to look at it, is that if you know what "meaning" means, then automatically, there has to be meaning in the universe. Whether you find it in yourself, the other gal, or in the heavens. Regards, TAR2

the asinine cretin, I suppose my rule would be, if the thing you, or I, or they are/am considering the truth, is a thing that only you or only I or only they can know, it is probably a false or made up, imaginary thing. Whereas if it is a thing that everybody can know, it is probably true. Consider the condition of a person living their whole life, never hearing the name Jesus, nor any talk of his being the son of God or the messenger of God or anything about Christianity. The common things about reality that this hypothetical person and a devout Christian would both consider to be true, would be the true type things. The things about reality that only the Christian "knows" are probably the silly, made up stuff. I am not trying to be cryptic. Just allowing that the truth that the asinine cretian knows and the truth that TAR2 knows, is already the case, is already true and need not be "pointed out" by one of us, to the other. The "unexplained" that needs no explanation, if you will. The already assumed, common reality that we are in and of. Inow knows this thing we all share, Appolinaria knows it, everybody knows it...already. Regards, TAR2 I forget what I was "saying before". Can you give me a hint? As for "good and bad", I am calling things we tend to associate with, for whatever reasons, good, and things we tend to dissassociate with for what ever reasons, evil. These things might well be subjective.

Appolinaria, Thank you. Regards, TAR2 the asinine cretin, I have some guesses, on some different levels, but I just punched my alarm's snooze button for the last time, allowed, this morning and will have to go right to conclusion type stuff, with no supporting logic. We often associate with the "good" portions and disassociate with the bad. This does not mean we are not associated with both, nor that either is unreal. So it is better, in my mind, to associate with all of it, and do what you can to minimize the "evil" parts. Whether it be the silly stuff that others do, or the silly stuff you do yourself. And since there is a LARGE area of concern, that would have to be considered "outside" my pervue, and our pervue together, and the pervue of all of us put together...a little bit of shared reverence and uncertianty, is problably not inappropriate. That is, NOT silly. Regards, TAR2

The asinine cretin, Well, let's say that is bunk. I am not sure why religious people need to tack on all the silly stuff. It obscures the reality of it. Perhaps its like the game of "whisper down the alley" where the first person whispers something into the ear of the person on their left, and it goes around till the person on the first person's right says the thing outloud, and everybody laughs, because it is neither the thing they heard whispered nor the thing they whispered. Regards, TAR2

Appolinaria, Well, three things I would like to mention. Whatever the case, we (humans) seem to be in the same boat, so anything we can do, for fellow humans, is probably a good idea. And it might be worth it, to notice, that many many people have made effort to do just that. Not just for their families, but for their communities, and nations, clubs and associations. How else could we have so many ways to protect ourselves from exposure, wild animals, disease, hunger, thirst, and natural disasters. And the efforts made by humans, for humans, goes right up the hierachy of needs pyramid through art and music to all sorts of establishments and associations that foster, maintain and protect, human happiness and fulfillment. The "deeper meaning" seems already felt and understood, as soon as you notice you are not alone in the boat. Secondly, though mortal, we have an appreciation of the size and scope and intricate detail of the universe, which we could not have, unless we were "here and now" viewing it. To know everything at once, all of time and space, would be rather lonely and singular in nature...somewhat akin to knowing nothing at all. To be "separate" like we are, ALLOWS us to know the rest. This seems to me to be a "positive" thing the universe has done, on my behalf...and yours. And thirdly, since there is nowhere else to come from, and no where else to go, but the universe, I can consider it mine. And me, it's. With no worries at all, that such a consideration is untrue. Which means that things for TAR2, will be quite similiar after I die, as they were, before I was born. And that as a little peice of the universe, I can know that the universe, has done some doing indeed, up to "here and now", and has not yet done, what it is going to do next. Regards, TAR

Appolinaria, I can and do accept your argument as "true". But I also, on the basis of it, accept the importance of making the distinction that Inow is making. That while you can formulate any number of "possible" models of reality that you can try and make the evidence fit, its been consistently turning out, that there is a "real" reality from which we all draw, where the evidence already fits together flawlessly, and we need only discover it, and share our knowledge of it, to arrive at a "better" model of it. That on the basis of this collective truth, based on the real evidence, we can discard certain claims of "what is true", if the claims have no place to fit, in the already established, collective understanding of reality that is housed in the libraries and minds of universities and learned people. That the worse possible place to look for common evidence is in places that only you claim access to. And based on THIS fact, we can together discard reasonably, claims of truth, based on faith alone. And in THIS way make the claim that people that believe in God are broken. If the truth of the God believed in, can only be taken on faith, and no actual evidence, pointing to it, can be found. Regards, TAR2 (but to our point, also an understanding that highly values faith and tradition and respect of the findings of those around us, and those that came before, and THIS kind of faith is absolutely required and should not accidently be tossed with the bathwater) (and to my point, that people that believe in God are NOT broken if they can find but ANOTHER reason, other than their own faith, to believe in it) (and to a general thread point, that faith based beliefs should be learned about in school, but indentified as such, and not be taught in physics and biology and Earth science class nor be entered into the laws of a secular society in an unsupported manner)