My definition of a closed mind, Mayor of Simpleton, is a mind that has made its mind up and then closes that mind to anything that may challenge the closed mind. — david plumb

So you are very closed minded in your belief the the superheroes of today are the equivalent of the gods of yesterday. Without any evidence to prove your point.

Celebrities are also the new gods, they perform the same cultural, psychological role . — david plumb

This is why I asked you to provide some sort of evidence. What are your reasons for thinking this? If they do not perform the cultural and psychological roles that I listed, what do they do?

You, know kinda like Catholic purgatory, it's better than hell. — Hippyhead

Do you base that on personal experience? :rofl:

Maybe I am the only one to think this, but Hippyhead appears to have more of a chest that a lot of the chicks I know.

But at least the people watching appear to be wearing masks.

A closed mind is a good thing to lose — david plumb

Maybe it would be a good idea to lose yours then, you seem pretty convinced that you are 100% right and no matter others say you will still be right.

If one were to say that superheroes have or are taking the place of gods one would have to show some sort of evidence to back up the statements. Thus far you have failed miserable to do so.
The fact that they are popular, even among religious people, does not make then a god. If that were true then Elvis, Humphrey Bogart, and Obama are also gods.

For any being to take the place of a god would mean that it would have to fulfill the requisites of that god.
1. would have to been responsible for the creation of everything.
2. would have to be the guiding force behind the destiny of mankind
3. would have to be the moral compass of mankind's morality
4. would have to be the object of devotion/ worship of humanity

In the space below please list the Super Heroes that fulfill at least 2 of the above.

If so, then these current movie gods resemble the Greek, Roman and Norse gods. — Mayor of Simpleton

Some of the characters are actually based on them, Thor, Loke.

Great choices for a moral base no?

We all have a moral base, we all need a moral base and when these morals no longer exist then evil occurs. — david plumb

So the evil of the world is now caused by the super hero movies? How does that make sense?

And the good behavior of these heroes is set as a moral base for the people that don't believe in a god?

I am beginning to think that you are making less and less sense with each post you make.

And please learn how to quote properly.

If the people are so stupid that they are substituting comic book super heroes for gods then I ask again, why do they imitate and try to be super heroes but have never imitated nor tried to be gods.
Yes some old time rulers turned themselves into gods, power trips, but the common everyday man on the street does not do it, why not?

When you are young this can cement itself in your mind and unless you are brought up in a religious family these super heroes substitute a God that you know little about. — david plumb

How young are you talking about?
If you see superman when you are maybe 5 to 10 years old you have little idea about what a god actually is. This is actually true for a lot of adults as well. What you would do is play at being him, as many kid falling of roofs trying to fly. You see him as someone to imitate, you try to act like him.
While, as you said, this can cement itself into their minds but they eventually realize that they can never become him or call on him for help because he is just a comic book or movie character.
God on the other hand can be asked for help any time you want to, and occasionally it comes.

The reality is that the bare bones of the God question is simply as a protector and no more to most people. — david plumb

Your reality. With so many millions of people throughout the world worshiping gods who are the creators of everything not many view their god as a simple protector.

To reach the masses in the government needs to then society has to be dumbed down and dismantled in a Derrida way which is what has happened. Popular culture now is dominated by celebrities ( God substitutes again). — david plumb

You maybe right about the leaders wanting to dumb down the majority of society, but the movies are only a very small part of that. If that was to be a criteria for calling something a god, then a smartphone has a greater impact than super heroes.

If you do not hold sacred the christian god, why do you capitalize the word?

I doubt if the audience being targeted are going to critically analyse the differences between Gods and super heroes. — david plumb

Not much analysis necessary. I doubt that they are watching these movies looking for a god substitute anyway.
Most of the people that are influenced by the characters in these movies want to be like the heroes, they want to be more than their pitiful human life lets them be. The rest are just looking for entertainment.

To this audience the super heroes replace the need for God/Gods and thus continue to negate the need for religion , much as the Frankfurt School intended. Dumbing down of culture is everywhere. — david plumb

If someone has a need for a god they will worship one, but not many superheroes are believable gods even for the dumbest. They might hero worship them and even try to act like them, but how many people really try to act like a god?

The fact that lots of people watch these superheroes does in no way negate the need for religion, more over it proves the need for them. People need something to look up to, to guide and inspire them. If it was just a continuation as you state, then it would definitely point towards a need for some sort of religion.

The heirs of our world! :rofl: — Gus Lamarch

And may the gods(all of them) have mercy on us all. :cry:

The current Hollywood super hero films - are they simply a continuation of the Gods theme that has been around for thousands of years? — david plumb

No, not really. The gods were not just the guides of human destiny but also the creators of humanity. The super heroes do not claim anything like that.
That part would go to the alien forefathers groups.

When you are young you have a lot of energy, and little experience of how the world works. Adding to that you are, just by virtue of not having had a lot of time to build up a something in the world, usually not in a situation where you stand to lose much... and so among the youth the conditions are right for developing a culture that wants to change things. — ChatteringMonkey

Have you noticed how old the youths are today? You see "kids" of 30 acting they just got let out of school.
A lot of them still live with mom and dad even.

You are welcome, let me know what you think about his way of seeing art.

I always thought Tolstoy's ideas were a good place to start.

Once you're addicted to the spice melange (French for mixture/medley) in the Dune universe you're in a bit of a pickle. Withdrawal is fatal. — Nils Loc

But they say that the benefits are worth it. Good books the originals by Frank, read them many years ago. Then the son wrote another bunch which I read most of.

I don't know what you are referring to. — god must be atheist

You say you can't name names and then you name names. No contradiction at all, right.

Or you think having a Jewish and a German conglatulatory exclamation is a contradiction, when said side-by-side? I really don't know what prompted you to say there is a contradiction there. — god must be atheist

Never even noted that part, why would it be a problem though? Come to think of it, why even try to complicate things by introducing something like that?

No, I am not egoistic.
I is just a phrase I have to repeat often in my job.

. I can't name names, — god must be atheist

Congratulations, mazeltov, zum Wohl. — god must be atheist

Sort of contradictory don't you think!!!!

This might not be a really deep song, but when you are 15 and your brother is waiting to see if his draft card comes in the post it fits something deep inside.

Yes, every word counts, and no extraneous effort needed to make them get your point. Same with stand up comedians -- if they need to use more words to make the audience laugh, they've already failed. — Caldwell

“It is more fun to talk with someone who doesn't use long, difficult words but rather short, easy words like "What about lunch?”
― A. A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

The look on the other guy's face is saying more than the trumpette. :rofl:

Jeeezz, what area of the twilight zone were you trolling when you found that? :yikes:

:gasp: :worry: :shade:

I can't even remember my own number, but that is probably because I am not in the habit of calling myself to often.

Depends on the animal. A rabbit is probably closer to innate. — schopenhauer1

So if a simple rabbit knows these things without learning them, why are humans so dumb? Surely we should have a lot more innate knowledge than them because we have much better minds.

If you mean innate knowledge of what to do, no. The ability to deduct, inference, predict, may be different in us due to linguistic-minds that allow for higher degrees (or degrees at all) of constant deliberation and decision-making. — schopenhauer1

So the poor rabbit has no idea about why he should not build his house in a certain place, just that he should not do it. It would seem more reasonable that he could know about the places to build house, then review the piece of ground to see if it fits the template. That would mean that he had to compare his ideas to the information about the ground and come to a conclusion, which is reasoning. Just because his ideas are not in a language that we can understand does not mean that he cannot make deductions.

However, with these greater degrees of freedom we have, we are still (mainly) driven by certain necessities (survival, comfort, entertainment). — schopenhauer1

The same as any other animal.

So here we are with this highly deliberative/deliberating brain that must contend with unmovable circumstances. Thus you have a gap in this particular human animal, not seen in the rest. Here is the existential gap. — schopenhauer1

What are these unmovable circumstances that you talk about? Are any of them socially constructed by chance? I cannot think of anything in nature that humans alone have to face.

Why do you say this? — dussias

Because I am sick of people insisting that they know the right way to live, that they know the purpose of life, that I should do things their way, that they know how I should die peacefully.

All I want to do is live MY life. And I do not want to fight everyday to do so. Why should I go down fighting instead of loving?

Where do you live? — dussias

2,357.30 km (1,464.76 mi) west by north of you. If you cross the Caribbean you will come to my front door. I too live a reasonable life, though things are getting harder all the time.

When you say "being allowed to live" I can only agree with you if you live in a really shitty situation, where you are controlled to an important extent. — dussias

It does not matter where you live, or in what situation you live as long as no one tries to control you. That is what I mean by being allowed to live.
I know lots of poor people and some that are beyond poor. But most of them do actually prefer not to work to hard to change things. The really sad cases are the ones that are stopped from doing something like getting an education because they have to work just to eat and there is not really a lot of work right now.

Do you know about life in North Korea? Cuba? — dussias

I have one ex-student studying in South Korea, they have told me about life up north. Several ex students have studied in Cuba, medicine in Cuba is exceptional.

https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=encyclopedia

What would you have instead? — dussias

Err, just being allowed to live would be OK with me.

This is where we find ourselves. — schopenhauer1

Yep, that about sums it up.

We have more complicated decisions to make than a rabbit. Do we want a house or a mansion? But have you ever heard of a rabbit digging its burrow into a swamp? Do they have innate knowledge of where to build their house, or do they reason that it would be safer uphill from the wet ground?

Either way it puts human into a bit of a pickle. Is our reasoning ability based on innate knowledge or do we learn to reason?

Humans socially construct almost all cultural elements- which we use to survive. — schopenhauer1

A lot of them yes, but not all help us to live better.
Having a job is a social construct, designed to help us survive. But, as you say, lots of people hate what they do. Getting married is a social construct, designed to manage the properties and belongings of the people and to a certain degree stop bad genetic problems. But how many people hate being married?

Lots of these social constructs make your life suck. Taxes, social security, pension plans, mortgages, child support, alimony, credit cards, were all designed to make life, survival easier. But a lot of them don't do that, even if they are as some say "necessary evils"

Political parties(not politicians), armies, professional groups, social groups suck up peoples money and time and most people do not benefit in the least from them except as a pay check recipient or a most liked idiot on the site.

And not fitting in to, not agreeing with, not living up to the expectations, or not getting what you expected from these social constructs is what makes people hate things.

Why would anyone want to waste time and energy hating something, just because we can. Is it because we can reason?

That's assuming animals can have "reasons" in ways that humans do. — schopenhauer1

I doubt that anyone would say that they reason like humans do, because they are not humans. But the question is do they reason in some other way?
As I said, they do not have the reasons not hate the social constructs of their society like humans do. They accept that their life is for living as best they can and get on with it.
Lots of animals live social lives that have rules, restrictions and hierarchy as well as benefits. In a pride of lions, the old alpha male rules. But the younger males watch and wait for a chance to take over. Is the knowledge of when to attack innate, instinctual. Are they born with the signs of debility programmed into their brains? If that is so, then just how much of what we do and know is innate as well?

This goes beyond the job itself to the needs behind needing the job. Remember group-think. — schopenhauer1

The needs behind needing the job? And how does that work with group think?

Are you going to put out defenses, like a squid its ink, that reinforce not resenting the situation because of X reason (Don't be a whiny bitch.. etc.)? — schopenhauer1

Defense mechanisms help us to survive as well. And lots of people use them to stay same while they are doing the job they hate for the boss they hate even more. They go home and take out their frustration and resentment of the wife and kids because they cannot risk losing their socially constructed survival method. Why would a lion wait around for a chance to kill the king, could it be because of resentment and frustration at not being able to get laid? Or does instinct make them hang around?

Why? What's the alternative? — dussias

Not having to fight to stay alive. How can having a choice of how you die be beautiful?

It might be attractive to fight to live, but "going out fighting" is just dumb.

Kind of circular then: there is no proof of the existence of an unbeliever's g/G - well, of course, but vacuous. I think ↪TheMadFool
was saying something more (yet unspecified) than this. — 180 Proof

Pointing out that there is no proof that any god does not exist is the same as saying that there is no proof that any god does exist. Who really cares. I you believe fine, if not fine as well.
But my explanation was just to show how I viewed the idea of god. The same way I view the spaghetti monster, and I do not capitalize any of them.

You charged the original poster with, "If you get upset by them I think it says more about you and your agenda than theirs." — JerseyFlight

Do you know the difference between charging a person with something and making a comment on that persons attitude? It appears not, and I have no wish to help you figure it out.

To test the accuracy of this statement I asked you several questions, none of which you answered. — JerseyFlight

No, you asked me one questions a couple of times. And I did answer you. If you don't understand even after I explained it again that is your problem.

What you fail to see is that your bias (and that's what it is) is bent uncritically in favor of religion. — JerseyFlight

Don't you read the posts between the ones you make? Saying that I am in favor of any religion is like saying that someone's grandmother had balls.

If this was not the case then why not say this position is equally true of Nazis? It's because your cultural stance on Nazis is entirely negative, while you live too far apart from (cannot comprehend) the historical atrocities of religion. — JerseyFlight

Stop spouting garbage, you are not doing your cause any good with this kind of thing. Telling me this is exactly the same as what you are accusing me of doing to the guy that started this thread.

My cultural stance on nazis is beyond your conception because you have no idea who I am or anything about me that would allow you to logically make such a claim.
And please do not try to lecture me about history. Presuming that you know more than me would have to be proven before I would pay any attention to you.

Maybe we can drive the point home more. Suppose some fanatics from Isis wanted to come on here and start talking about Allah, would you still claim, "If you get upset by them I think it says more about you and your agenda than theirs." ? — JerseyFlight

Did I not say it loud enough, let me repeat it again for you.

I WOULD GET PISSED OF IF ANY FREAKING FANATIC THAT WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE KILLING OF PEOPLE INNOCENT PEOPLE CAME HERE OR TO MY HOUSE AND STARTED TALKING SHIT ABOUT HOW GREAT THEIR GOD IS.

But the people that come here to try and convince us to join them are not killers. Maybe their stupid religion is responsible for the deaths of people, but not these people.

Is not not possible for you to see that fanatics like that would not waste their time coming here, what could they possibly gain? and if you are scared of them your self, you can always hide behind an alias.

I don't think so. Why? Because you live in a time when you can see the dogmatic violence of Isis, understanding the dangers of religion requires more than your immediate impression. Suppose someone from Isis came on here long before they starting pillaging and mass murdering, what an ignorant fool you would look like right now. — JerseyFlight

And you live in a time when you are lucky enough to only see the pictures of these atrocities on the internet instead of of being there to see the damage. I was born just after WW2, and I still remember asking what had happened to the houses that used to be down the street when they removed the rubble.

I am more worried about people like you and others that want to silence the ideas of other people just because the don't like them.

Read a bit of history
https://abcnews.go.com/US/skokie-legacy-nazi-march-town-holocaust-survivors/story?id=56026742
When you understand why the lawyer did what he had to do, come back and talk to me about it.

I'm as anti-religious as they come and I think threads like this one are just as low-quality and (for lack of a better word) disruptive as the shallow little-reasoning religious threads are.

I generally think the best solution to that kind of problem is to ignore it (on the users' part; the mods have recourse to deleting on account of low quality or evangelism).

In which case I shouldn't even be making this post, but I am anyway. — Pfhorrest

Now that is strange, when I told the guy to just ignore them some jumped all over me about it. But you are right, I would not be here if it were to for someone else trying to pick holes in what I said.

Not according to any believers, theologians or religious traditions I'm aware of. — 180 Proof

No they aren't. In fact very few conceptions of god are the same. — MSC

I am not a believer, so I just use a generic, everyday definition of the word god

god=Any supernatural being worshipped as controlling some part of the world or some aspect of life or who is the personification of a force.

And I really don't care too much how they define their personal one.
Bullshit is still bullshit even if it is wrapped up as a fact.

Inquisitions — JerseyFlight

Holy fucking hell, run for your lives everyone. The inquisitors have come to TPF.

Did you not read what I said?

Let me explain again. I get upset with people that go out and kill other people because they don't like their color, gang, religion, sexual preference, the books you read, or any other stupid reason you can think of. I think anyone would as well.

But what does that have to with the people that come here to talk about how great their god is? Do you seriously think that they will be able to convert anyone here? Jeez, that is sad.

Which g/G is that? :roll: — 180 Proof

Any one of them will do, they are all the same.

That doesn't answer my question. — JerseyFlight

Of course it did not answer your question, it was not supposed to.

Seriously, is there any way to compare a bunch of hyped up bible blathers to the nazis?
Anyone with a half way working brain would have a right to get upset with the nazis, but a bunch of psalms readers!!!

If he is so scared of them then he must be very insecure about his own will to resist them. Maybe he is a closet christian and is projecting his disgust with himself at them, who knows.

But to deliberately try to have freedom of speech banned because he is scared that everyone on this forum will convert to christians and all of our children will also succumb to the dire consequences of it is just pathetic.

And why do you capitalize the letter N in nazi if you do not have respect for them.

Are you not going to tell me that I mis-understood the question?

Is this equally true of Nazis? — JerseyFlight

I have no idea about his political views, but he does seem to be a bit of a fanatic about the topic.