Comments | tongodeon: The Tree of Liberty

tongodeon

The Tree of Liberty

Jan 11, 2011 00:58

Popular political quotes often turn out to be fabricated, misattributed, or at very least taken out of context. But the people quoting Thomas Jefferson's famous "tree of liberty" seem to have his words and intent entirely correct. Thomas Jefferson's famous quote, originally written to William Stevens Smith on 13 November 1787, seems to be even more ( Read more... )

politics, thomas jefferson

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tongodeon January 17 2011, 00:16:54 UTC

The problem with religious arguments is that they fall back on the basic appeal to authority.

I'm not sure if you caught one of my older posts, but that was Nicholas Epley's conclusion. God is the ultimate argument from authority. People don't just attribute God to their own moral beliefs - God's "will" can be swayed with the same techniques that are used to sway human opinion, and the neurocognitive process of determining God's will is the same as the process of introspectively determining one's own opinion, distinct from evaluating someone else's opinion.

tongodeon January 20 2011, 11:36:08 UTC

And YOU are not understanding what I'm saying. :)

I understand what you're saying, and I disagree with it.

Inspiration given at the last minute is not a man-made car. It's not opening a jar of peanut butter. It is knowledge poured into your head from a source you cannot tap on command.It would be one thing if the "knowledge from a source you cannot tap" had the hallmarks of external knowledge. But the knowledge that you described - the way you treated your wife unfairly, the importance of your apology, its effect on your relationship - are all things that you knew perfectly well. Things you know better than anyone else in the world, I reckon. It would be different if what you described actually did contain knowledge from an external source, knowledge that you couldn't have known any other way, like the object that's sitting to the left of my computer right now ( ... )

ianvass January 21 2011, 21:34:46 UTC

This is one of the reasons I enjoy talking to you - as we discuss more things, we are able to build a baseline whereby we can learn more about each other.

Here's some info you didn't have about me before and this comment is prompting now.

I am not just a therapist, I am a teacher and a trainer and public speaker. I know about the Flow. I use it all the time. Every time I start speaking to a group, I hit the flow and I can reliably get it every time. Well, there are occasions where I don't, but they are by far the exception. My religion does not prevent me from studying this and harnessing this. It's great stuff, and hardly an exclusive religious experience. I also write creatively, and I hit the flow there as well - it's a great feeling!

So now you know that I know about the flow, yo. Word. :)

But that being said, let me make this more explicit. I know what being in the flow feels like. I know what some of these last minute pushes feel like.

This experience did not feel like that at all. if I could harness THAT experience, I ( ... )

tongodeon January 23 2011, 21:03:51 UTC

This experience did not feel like that at all. if I could harness THAT experience, I could write world class novels in days. It felt like I was literally just transcribing a talk that someone else handed to me. Not the flow. Not anything like it.

Do you have any actual record of this speech which was supposedly handed down to you from God Himself? Either a recording of the speech as you delivered it, or the written speech that you transcribed from God?

theweaselking January 21 2011, 16:21:30 UTC

But you CANNOT force this kind of inspiration to appear on command. You can develop yourself so that your natural ability grows, but these moments cannot be forced, predicted with 100% accuracy, or reliably reproduced every time.

First: they *can* be reproduced, identically, perfectly, regardless of religion or nonreligion, or the choice of religion.

Which is to say, they are demonstrably not restricted to or a product of religion. Religion simply prevents you from understanding them by presenting a nonexplanation and forbidding you from seeking an explanation.

Second: They *can* be induced, deliberately, on demand, by people who know what they're doing. "Getting into the zone" is a practiced mindset.

God? Not a tool. Really? Because because everything that you say comes from God, from the feeling of community and in-group membership all the way down to the fervent "high" of new religious conversion, happens regardless of *which* God you credit, and also happens with no God involved - sports team support, hobby membership, etc ( ... )

ianvass January 21 2011, 21:48:52 UTC

First: they *can* be reproduced, identically, perfectly, regardless of religion or nonreligion, or the choice of religion.

See my comment to tongodeon about this (I just wrote it, in case you missed it). We're not talking about the same thing.

Really? You can demonstrate that people who love God get more blessings from God than people who don't?Sort of. I should clarify my words. Jesus said, "If ye love me, keep my commandments." So when I say "those that love God get more blessings," what I very specifically mean is, "those that obey His commandments get certain blessings associated directly with those commandments, along with some extra bonus stuff as we prove ourself faithful ( ... )

theweaselking January 22 2011, 00:36:09 UTC

"those that obey His commandments get certain blessings associated directly with those commandments, along with some extra bonus stuff as we prove ourself faithful."

What extra bonus stuff would that be, and how can you show that it comes from Jehovah and not from Odin?

He said don't have sex outside of marriage. Those that don't do this almost never suffer from STDs, and there is a host of other societal and personal issues that arrive when this commandment is broken. One person may do just fine breaking this commandment, but as a whole, those that do not avoid all kinds of ugly problems.

Some people who obey the command spend their lives miserably unhappy, because they're simply not capable of being happy monogamously or they chose to be monogamous with someone they're not suited for.

I believe He said not to drink alcohol, smoke tobacco, or take illegal drugs. Those of us who have followed this commandment have saved a ton of cash, generally avoided all kinds of diseases (there are always exceptions), not endangered us or our ( ... )

theweaselking January 22 2011, 01:56:56 UTC

Oh, and:

For example, He said don't have sex outside of marriage. Those that don't do this almost never suffer from STDs, and there is a host of other societal and personal issues that arrive when this commandment is broken. One person may do just fine breaking this commandment, but as a whole, those that do not avoid all kinds of ugly problems.

You, of course, completely disregard the possiblity of rape and infidelity - but, then, "only punishing people who break God's law" might imply that God's existence and God's love were potentially possibly different from "God does not exist" - and, in your epistemology, God's existence and God's nonexistence must always and eternally be functionally identical, to prevent the difference between the two being used to argue one way or the other.

(Have I mentioned yet that I find this position intellecutally bankrupt, morally valueless, and philosophically lazy? Because it is all three.)

tongodeon January 23 2011, 21:15:29 UTC

See my comment to tongodeon about this (I just wrote it, in case you missed it). We're not talking about the same thing.You're trying to describe this experience that you had so that it sounds as awesome as possible. And I'm trying to explain that "writing something really fast" is not a superhuman feat. Neither is "writing something really good really fast". Neither is "feeling really good while writing something really good really fast". It's an unusual experience, but the only difference between what you've described and what other people describe is that other people don't imagine that God did it ( ... )

theweaselking January 23 2011, 21:51:45 UTC

And that's not just an awfully convenient coincidence, it's exactly what I'd say if I was just making it up.

And, also, completely inconsistent with the ideas that God is a loving God, that he loves *you*, and that his commands and behavioural requirements are relevant.

torrain January 21 2011, 16:35:30 UTC

Excuse me, you're saying "God loves his children but goes out of his way to jerk around the ones that try to apply the brains he gave them to his world and He will make sure that that doesn't ever work in the really really really important instance?"

Screw you and your idea of God, buddy.

(I'm gonna go talk to a Jesuit, they're okay with this brains/education/rational thought thing. You, on the other hand, appear to have the hots from some protosadistic jackass playing cosmic peekaboo.)

ianvass January 21 2011, 20:54:59 UTC

Let me make sure I understand clearly what you are saying.

"Ian, you believe in a God who plays favorites and those of His children who especially intelligent and keen will never actually be able to find Him because He's kind of a jerk. He gave us brains, but then plays a stupid game, staying just out of reach of those people who actually use them, choosing to bless and love abject idiots who don't use them at all.

And I like Jesuits because they believe that God is actually a reasonable guy."

Is that right?

theweaselking January 22 2011, 01:39:53 UTC

Not quite.

Try "Ian, you believe in a God who gave people brains, allowed them to use their brains to understand the universe, and then, in the one case that REAAAAAAALY matters[1] didn't prohibit their use, didn't inhibit their use - he just caused those very same brains to fail in a way that is identical in every respect to concluding the WRONG answer that will cause Him to torture them for eternity.

I prefer Jesuits, because they attempt to discuss God rationally, and to explain the lack of evidence for God using reasons more sophisticated and more believable than 'we can't see God because GOD IS HIDING, FOR LAUGHS.' Which is what you appear to be saying."

My version isn't perfect, but it's closer, and may provide a different angle for understanding her post.

[1]: Eternal salvation, of course

torrain January 22 2011, 02:11:55 UTC

No.

"Ian, you believe in a god who has created a world that can be learnt from by approaching it in a rational manner. However, he has also set it up so that people who bother to apply their god-given brains to the world[1] will never ever ever be able to assess his existence in the same way that he, through his creation, has taught them everything can be assessed. In fact, he specifically goes around doing things like keeping the healing power of prayer from working for sick people if the effects of said prayer are being recorded, because apparently keeping anything like proof evidence out of the hands of people who want to learn about his creation is more important than that whole pity, mercy, and love thing."[2 ( ... )

tongodeon January 23 2011, 20:14:06 UTC

I dated a Mormon woman on and off through College. Her faith was very important to her, and she basically said I had to convert or she'd have to find a Mormon husband ( ... )

theweaselking January 21 2011, 16:38:02 UTC

It's always interesting how the commonality of an experience is used as a reason to cheapen it or "prove" that God doesn't exist.Nobody's saying it proves God doesn't exist, if only because "proof of nonexistence of an untestable" is a meaningless statement. What they're saying is that the presence of the EXACT same behavior in both religious and nonreligious contexts, and of the EXACT same behaviour in mutually contradictory religious contexts, proves that the experience does not come from a real God - because, if it did, it would only happen when that real God was involved, and it happens all the time, whether any given God is involved or not ( ... )

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