the more entrenched injustices of the world...

[Alex Jacob]

Dan,

Non sequitur is spelled with a 'u' and not an 'e'. Take that from a cat who mispells Kierkegaard religiously. ;-)

"I still think it's worth asking what psychological force motivates us to do it."

I try to tell you what I think, Dan, but it really isn't received that well. You say that I should just answer your question, but it is a situational issue.

"...it's about the psychological drives they bring to such an act."

The entire answer to your question [this is a bit of a koke] is contained in the animation that philomaster posted, having to do with D&D, role-playing, peer-bonding, cheetos, and girls. It seemed really hilarious to me...

[Worse than those extending party-favors are feathered vibrating butt-plugs. However, they are only used as a last resort.]

[Dan Rowden]

Dan,

Non sequitur is spelled with a 'u' and not an 'e'.

Yeah I know. You think I lack a sense of humour when what we lack is the same sense of humour. This is part of the "problem" of humour - its subjectivity. It's why the underlying psychology of its use is really the more important consideration.

Dan: "I still think it's worth asking what psychological force motivates us to do it."

Alex: I try to tell you what I think, Dan, but it really isn't received that well. You say that I should just answer your question, but it is a situational issue.

I thought the context was reasonably clear.

Dan: "...it's about the psychological drives they bring to such an act."

Alex: The entire answer to your question [this is a bit of a koke] is contained in the animation that philomaster posted, having to do with D&D, role-playing, peer-bonding, cheetos, and girls. It seemed really hilarious to me...

Well, that's all well and good, but what did you see as the point of that in the context of the thread? I'm afraid that's totally lost on me.

[Alex Jacob]

"Well, that's all well and good, but what did you see as the point of that in the context of the thread? I'm afraid that's totally lost on me."

I've noticed this in other forums when you have a relatively small group of persons who post, who engage in conversation: that it always ends up being pretty much the same conversation, just taking place in different contexts. I certainly admit the recent exchanges don't seem to have much to do with injustices...

Hermes, Mercury, 'mage', magic missile (from d&d), and then the humor in discovering, in the thread, a sort of replication of a role-playing scenario. It was a sort of inside joke I guess.

[Tomas]

.

Ol' Alex is waking up :-)


-Alex-
I've noticed this in other forums when you have a relatively small group of persons who post, who engage in conversation: that it always ends up being pretty much the same conversation, just taking place in different contexts.

-tomas-
Sure, these certain cliques come in swarms, they 'shout down' any dissenting views by crying "foul" to the moderator (who they've concertedly culled into their back pockets) usually through PM's and the like.

They don't work, claim to be "intellectual", but you know, will be the first to be dragged out and shot dead. They are worthless to humanity, they troll with alias names, stupid avatars lifted from someone else. Get you all worked over the trivialities ... while ignoring the actual injustice they do to their actual physical neighbor, much less the homeless mother with child... never considering their plight more than mere trollish words on "genius".




Alex-
I certainly admit the recent exchanges don't seem to have much to do with "injustices"...

-tomas-
Stick around, you'll become more disheartened as they lay their pins and needles into your moral fibers.




-Alex-
Hermes, Mercury, 'mage', "magic missile" (from d&d), and then the humor in discovering, in the thread, a sort of replication of a role-playing scenario.

-tomas-
Learn a trade that can utilized in the real world of employment, for then, you will never go hungry. When the handle is pulled (and the floor is removed), be sure you have your integrity intact. You may be stripped bare before the world, see Saddam Hussein for example, he watched all the American gangster movies, but in the end, he tried to make a deal with the devil (the Democrats and Republicans) but he swung in the wind with not a leg to stand on.

BTW - American Special Forces placed the hemp rope around his neck, George W Bush insisted upon this.
Bill Clinton has the same blood on his hands as he begun the sanctions (and bombing) on the Iraqis (500,000 children dead).

Nobody cares, Alex. Nobody.




-Alex-
It was a sort of inside joke I guess.

-tomas-
Such is the games the trolls play here


Tomas

.

[Dan Rowden]

I've noticed this in other forums when you have a relatively small group of persons who post, who engage in conversation: that it always ends up being pretty much the same conversation, just taking place in different contexts. I certainly admit the recent exchanges don't seem to have much to do with injustices...

Hermes, Mercury, 'mage', magic missile (from d&d), and then the humor in discovering, in the thread, a sort of replication of a role-playing scenario. It was a sort of inside joke I guess.

Oh, right. One can liken any discussion board dynamic to a role playing scenario. If that's supposed to be insightful humour I'm glad to be absent its mercurial delights. To be honest, it smacks of boredom relief more than anything.

[Unidian]

Have you ever played D&D?

[Dan Rowden]

Once, but not with interesting people. I see no potential without that qualifier.

[Sue Hindmarsh]

brokenhead wrote:

Sue: Christians are people who haven’t grown up. They continue to need to hold tightly to their "toys": their fantasies - for without them, they feel they’ll have nothing left to support them. And this may well be true - but it is far better to live free from such lies.

That's just silly, Sue. If you had said "Some Christians...," It wouldn't be silly, it would be true, because some of any sect, creed, race, ethnic group, gender, etc... are people who haven't grown up.

Just sticking to Christians - in what ways do you think they haven’t "grown up"?

You are implying the words most or all there, which is utter nonsense, since you don't know most or all Christians.

But seemily you do!? You've divided them into two groups: the one’s that have grown up, and the ones that haven’t.

I'm not discussing the differences between Christians, I'm discussing the underlying psychology one needs to become a Christian in the first place.

I'd have to say, speak for yourelf, but I think that's what you are doing. You are describing the upbringing in yourself which you have consciously rejected. That is fair. Or it would be, if that's what you said you were doing. I guess if you phrase it this way, you can tell yourself you have actually accomplished something, you have been brave enough and wise enough to tell the truth where others would not. It's pretty easy to belittle a group of people who turn the other cheek, right?

Have you ever considered that a person can possess knowledge about a thing without it having anything to do with their past, or personality. For example: 1+1=2 is knowledge that does not depend on how I was raised, or on my emotional state. Understanding the underlying psychology of people's thoughts and actions can be approached logically - which is what I do.

Broke, I gather you're a Christian - so I can understand your feeling the need to speak up for them. But remember that this is a philosophy forum, and all attachments and alliances are grist for the mill. And that is exactly what I am doing with Christians - grinding the concept down to see if there is any truth in it.

I'll be the first to admit that many Christians never examine what they have been taught about Christ and his life and work. They may go to services and have it be like dropping their clothes off at the cleaners once a week, let the pros handle it. Yet I stop short of saying what all or most of them think or have in their hearts.

The first two lines of that paragraph is a description of what those "many Christians" are attached to. Attachments ARE: "what is in their hearts". People act from their attachments. So therefore, you do know what "many Christians" have in their hearts.

It is presumptuous of you to go on about the baby-husband thing, as if most women haven't outgrown their dollies. And to go on about the man-in-the-sky cartoonish concept.

Why is it "presumptuous" of me to go on about the 'baby-husband' thing?

And I never said women haven’t outgrown their dollies. I wrote that Christians (both males and females) haven’t grown-up because they still cling to fantasies.

If I don't trust myself to know how other people relate to god,

It is extremely important for a thinker to trust their own mind. If they don't, they're not serious about thinking.

I certainly can't trust your take on it.

I'm not asking you to. The whole point of these philosophical discussions are to get to the rock-bottom truth of things. I'm not here to make friends, or to keep you company - I'm here writing about sanity: Truth. That's the only reason to be here.

You are good at pooh-poohing easy stereotypes. Do you have anything constructive to say about Jesus teaching? You seem to drop in the cut-and-pastes from the NT, but then you go on about shadow-boxing with your stymied notions of how people understand those same quotes.

I use quotes of Jesus’ to drive home a certain point I'm making. I do this because he and I think the same way on things. Like my work, his work is also a joyful celebration of sanity.

When you disagree with my use of quotes, you’ll have to form an argument against the subject matter they are being used to describe.

[Alex Jacob]

Dan wrote:

"Oh, right. One can liken any discussion board dynamic to a role playing scenario. If that's supposed to be insightful humour I'm glad to be absent its mercurial delights. To be honest, it smacks of boredom relief more than anything."

It is likely that you won't see the strange beauty and potency and 'truth' in what you wrote, but I am facinated by the fact of role-playing...by the fact of the guiding power of story...and by the fact that there is no way to exist or to act in this world outside of story: a story that guides your existence, a story that determines the events that you encounter. The key is to find the relevant story, the key is to blow breath & potency into it.

I defy you to name an alternative!

One liberates oneself from one level of story only to find oneself in another story. Tell me a story, Dan! Really, this is all you are ever doing, yet the stories you seem to admire---God forbid that they'd take Gideon's Bible from the Prison and replace it with Poison for the Heart, I'd hang myself thrice before the cock crowed---are stories that pretend to remove themselves from story, crawl into a dark little box where not even Nature can penetrate [that according to K Solway], and in which the spirit cannot operate. This is Ultimate Reality and is the desired end?

Funny, ain't it? What you reject as having no value is exactly the stone upon which I shall build my Temple!

You wrote in another thread:

"The quantum/causality debate seems entirely significant to me in that it forces us to stop and think about the nature of causality itself. I don't see how that can ever be a bad thing."

Me neither. And yet it is with a certain apprehension that I ask you, in the most direct terms, just what you conclude from the quantum causality problem?

Tell me a story, Dan!

[Jamesh]

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/they-knew-but-did-nothing/2008/03/07/1204780065676.html

Some good evidence here of the Bush Administrations choice to ignore terrorism warnings.

If I was a yank I'd be seeking, at the very least, the dismissal of all involved. They should actually receive prison terms for treachery.