Dawkins' Atheist Bus

[nomadthethird]

I'm sorry, this would take to long to get into... but I guess I could just say that on a lot of traditional levels, practitioners and believers in Animism, Hinduism, Catholic Mass, Hermeticism, Egyptian Magic, Greek Mysteries and Cults, Lutheran Litergies, Shintoism, Chaos Magicians, New Agers, etc etc... are practicing the same fundamentals of ritual based on the same assumptions. It's their values and alignments that are different. Which do happen to be crucial details. Study theurgy, liturgies, etc, and you start to realize that true or not, there are a few fundamental processes these systems work in.

Yes, I agree, I think most religions share certain fundamental characteristics...

 

[nomadthethird]

I should probably also mention that it's a misunderstanding of (current) big bang theory to simply say "In the Beginning there was nothing, which exploded" (as Terry Pratchett puts it). A number of current hypotheses don't involve a singularity at 'time zero', but do actually discuss the possible physical conditions before the BB - thus you have ideas like our universe 'budding off' from an existing universe, so-called chaotic inflation or bubble universe models (examples of 'eternal inflation' models), or even a big bang resulting from the energy released in a collision between oscillating space-time manifolds called 'branes'. All massively speculative, but phenomenologists are nonetheless making some headway in finding ways to make these models empirically testable, I think.

This is really interesting I want to know more about this...

 

[Mr. Tea]

Weird synchronicity just then...was walking through the college cloisters with RevCo's 'No Devotion' on my MP3 ("Let's burn the temple of misery...the voice of God means nothing anymore...") and found myself in the middle of an exhibition by the student union's Islamic Society. Seemed kind of fitting given recent discussion in this thread and luka's (anti-)evolution one...

 

[nomadthethird]

There's an interesting McKenna video talking about Jayne and the "voices" theory of human cognition/evolution...in pre-history early on in human evolution we didn't talk or really have consciousness, we only experienced the "bicameral mind" during times of extreme stress...usually as a voice, and this was interpreted as the "voice of God"...now we call it schizophrenia...pretty awesomely strange...

 

[Mr. Tea]

I'd imagine it's pretty well established by now that one man's prophet is another man's schizophrenic...this idea of the bicameral mind is pretty interesting, though. I love his 'stoned ape' theory of the origin of self-awareness, too.

 

[nomadthethird]

I'd imagine it's pretty well established by now that one man's prophet is another man's schizophrenic...this idea of the bicameral mind is pretty interesting, though. I love his 'stoned ape' theory of the origin of self-awareness, too.

What I like about McKenna is how obviously well-read he is in so many different subjects. I can't take a guru seriously who's just telling me to do yoga and eat granola.

 

[IdleRich]

So, the next phase in the battle begins

"Every religion on campus has its student society, from the Christian Union to the Jedi Knights. Now the non-religionists will have theirs too.
The National Federation of Atheist, Humanist and Secular Student Societies launches today to mobilise non-believers.
The "anti-God squad", as it is happy to be called, says it will fight for the voices of what it believes to be the majority of students to be heard on campus and further afield.
It is planning campaigns and events across the country to protest against religious privilege and promote the understanding of science.
It has the support of some of the country's leading critics of religion: the scientist Richard Dawkins, the philosopher AC Grayling, and the Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/feb/19/atheist-student-society

Incidentally, I like the way this seems to be the (Christian) party line these days:

Pod Bhogal, head of communications at the Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship (UCCF), said: "Universities are a marketplace of ideas where concepts can be exchanged. Anything that encourages intelligent and meaninful discussion we see as positive. We are thankful for the atheist bus campaign because it raised awareness of spiritual things and put God on the agenda."

Often professed but how often do they actually mean that?

 

[nomadthethird]

So, the next phase in the battle begins



http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/feb/19/atheist-student-society

Incidentally, I like the way this seems to be the (Christian) party line these days:


Often professed but how often do they actually mean that?

This is interesting...

I don't know what I think of this sort of "atheist society" thing. In a way, it reduces the refusal to believe in gods to a sort of humanism that's equally stupid as religion and just as repugnant to me. It also does atheists the indignity of forcing them to engage with "belief" systems that are a dime a dozen as if they are all equally valid, which they aren't.

Beliefs are like assholes, everyone has one.

 

[IdleRich]

I don't know what I think of this sort of "atheist society" thing. In a way, it reduces the refusal to believe in gods to a sort of humanism that's equally stupid as religion and just as repugnant to me. It also does atheists the indignity of forcing them to engage with "belief" systems that are a dime a dozen as if they are all equally valid, which they aren't.

I'm not precisely sure what to think either. Basically it's childish and probably non-productive but overall I tend to come down on the side of it being the right thing to do. Basically because it annoys people who need annoying and it shows that there is some anger about the special treatment of religion and some will to fight back about it. I think that without realising I probably did feel a low level annoyance at all the preaching we are bombarded with outside churches and in the tube and I think that it is reassuring (in a childish way) to know that enough people feel like me to do something about it. It's not a high brow or mature argument that I'm making but I just like the adverts I guess.
Anyway, I obviously cared enough about the different standards applied to the atheist/religious adverts to complain about them and if you feel the same you can do it here.

http://www.asa.org.uk/asa/how_to_complain/complaints_form/

"Beliefs are like assholes, everyone has one."

I used to know someone with no arsehole. He had to shit through a specially made hole that opened when he operated this metal box in his chest.

 

[vimothy]

I used to know someone with no arsehole. He had to shit through a specially made hole that opened when he operated this metal box in his chest.

What?!?!

 

[IdleRich]

"What?!?!"

What what? I think what I said was perfectly clear.

 

[vimothy]

It was clear, but is it true? You knew a guy with no arse who shat through a specially constructed mechanical sphincter operated via a control box in his chest -- are you sure you didn't read about this in a comic????

 

[IdleRich]

"It was clear, but is it true? You knew a guy with no arse who shat through a specially constructed mechanical sphincter operated via a control box in his chest -- are you sure you didn't read about this in a comic????"

Nah, I mean, I never saw the sphincter itself, certainly not in action, but he definitely had this box in his chest under his skin (plus a fucking huge scar down the middle), it was kind of his party trick to lift his shirt open and let people wobble it around. I think you had to use a magnet or something to operate it.

 

[don_quixote]

"i can wiggle my ears"
"i can play flute with my nose!"
"ive got a thumb that can bend right back!"
"ive got an ARSEHOLE in my CHEST"

 

[IdleRich]

"ive got an ARSEHOLE in my CHEST"

Dunno where the hole was actually.
Anyway, back on topic, does that sound like something that God would do?

 

[vimothy]

Knowing my friends, I'd be very careful about getting drunk and fallng asleep at parties.

 

[poetix]

I've always wished I could piss through my index finger. Just point and piss. That would be sweet. Like being Mork from the planet Ork, but in reverse.

 

[nomadthethird]

It was clear, but is it true? You knew a guy with no arse who shat through a specially constructed mechanical sphincter operated via a control box in his chest -- are you sure you didn't read about this in a comic????

You've never heard of a colostomy bag?

There's that "mermaid girl" in the U.S. who was born with no real parts or whatever so they made some surgically and I think she has a bag.

There are people who like getting catheters sexually.

It's a mad mad mad world.

 

[nomadthethird]

I'm not precisely sure what to think either. Basically it's childish and probably non-productive but overall I tend to come down on the side of it being the right thing to do. Basically because it annoys people who need annoying and it shows that there is some anger about the special treatment of religion and some will to fight back about it. I think that without realising I probably did feel a low level annoyance at all the preaching we are bombarded with outside churches and in the tube and I think that it is reassuring (in a childish way) to know that enough people feel like me to do something about it. It's not a high brow or mature argument that I'm making but I just like the adverts I guess.
Anyway, I obviously cared enough about the different standards applied to the atheist/religious adverts to complain about them and if you feel the same you can do it here.

http://www.asa.org.uk/asa/how_to_complain/complaints_form/

I'll complain. It's completely ridiculous that the religious ads didn't need to use the word "probably"...

 

[IdleRich]

Nice one.