I simply mean that being only in the grocery store, I will refrain from telling the farmer his business. — tim wood

In a botched robbery attempt two people, a produce buyer and a farmer, are held hostage in a grocery store. Both in existential terror, they conspire on a plan to escape, but having a captive audience the produce buyer can’t help telling the farmer his business. The planning goes haywire and general whackyness ensues. It could be a comedy. Think Tarantino/Brooks.

I shan't participate and accordingly abstain from voting. — tim wood

Meaning that you have no interest in reading them as well? There are some good writers on the forum, at least good enough to be entertaining.

We Americans have an inflated sense of power and privilege.

If words were able to form concepts in the minds of people we would understand a foreign language simply by reading or hearing it. — NOS4A2

Unless it's learning by brail or olfactorily, we do learn a foreign language by reading and/or hearing.

In a sense, the mind shapes the language, not the other way about. — NOS4A2

Our neural pathways are constantly being rewired or reinforced, and our memory is auto-associative.

Well yes, a young child who associates McDonalds Happy Meals with tasty food and toys will no doubt see an advertisement and remind himself of the association. But one who cannot associate it, perhaps because he does not know what McDonalds is or how their Happy Meals taste, will be unable to make that association. In each case the cause of these different effects is the child, not the words. — NOS4A2

If McDonalds did no branding/advertising then in both cases no association would be made. It's highly unlikely that a billboard plainly displaying "Food next exit" would inspire much enthusiasm from a young child.

I’ve seen forums that employ suspensions and it doesn’t appear to be very effective. The suspendee typically never comes back and if they do the suspension only serves to further aggravate them, causing more grief and no benefit for all parties.

The only effective solution I’ve seen is to screen the posts of troublesome members before they are published. I doubt the moderators here would want to take on that workload however, even if it were a good solution.

A 2000 study* examined data on tobacco consumption from 22 member countries of the Organization for Economic Development and Development (OECD) from 1970 to 1992. The research confirmed that tobacco advertising increases consumption, comprehensive advertising bans reduce consumption, and that partial bans have little or no effect. OECD countries with comprehensive advertising and promotion bans experienced a 7.4 percent reduction in smoking and a 5.4 percent reduction in overall tobacco consumption.

* Saffer, H. Tobacco Advertising and Promotion. In: Jha P, Chaploupka F, editors. Tobacco Control in Developing Countries. New York: Oxford University Press, Inc.; 2000. p. 215-236.

His faith must empower his extraordinary shamelessness.

In that respect, since there is obvious mystery, paradox and contradiction in life, how does the typical Atheist reconcile their belief system, logically? — 3017amen

It could be said that everyone has a 'belief system' or more or less coherent set of beliefs that work together to form a framework of the world, but there is a significant difference between a secular belief system and a religious belief system. The purpose of the latter is to bind a community, via common values and telos. It employs rituals, narratives, moral norms, a hierarchy of authority, etc. It is necessarily social and requires an ultimate authority figure and necessarily requires faith in that ultimate authority.

Atheists don't need their beliefs validated by a higher authority.

It is better to have something to philosophize about than to have nothing. — Apollodorus

I'd rather philosophize about nothing than philosophize about sky father.

first there was theism and then a-theism, which suggests the primacy of theism over a-theism. — Apollodorus

Ah, the my beliefs came before your beliefs argument. By this logic flat earth theory has primacy over science.

Only one person has ever been unbanned and it wasn’t him. — Pfhorrest

The fellow I was thinking of has been banned at least twice.

Banned Foghorn — Baden

I'm guessing not for the first time.

When a man sees an advertisement that is the end of the interaction. Everything after that—whether he decides to buy the product or forgets about it—is caused by the man. — NOS4A2

Man is persuaded by an advertisement to purchase a product or service that has particular attributes for what he judges to be a reasonable price, but, further along the interactive buying process he finds that the deal wasn’t as advertised. Every touch point between a business and customer is an interaction, in other words, hence the importance of consistency in branding/advertising.

It was on account of you and other posters like Trinidad being targeted on account of speaking to me. — skyblack

Honestly, it’s kind of creepy to watch you three talk to each other.

@Foghorn and @Trinidad

… i have be careful who i speak with. — skyblack

Ouch, public disassociation. That’s gotta hurt coming from one of the cool kids.

The price tag for hearing what I would propose is… — Foghorn

Anselm's "proof," — tim wood

I was thinking about this and found that it’s actually difficult to not imagine something greater than God, because for there to be something definable as God there must be some kind of delineation or boundary, so we’re always (infinitely) forced to imagine what’s beyond that boundary.

Both players have to agree on a draw, otherwise it’s a resignation, all kidding aside.

Everything he said was posturing, my guess is he was hoping to barf out enough words that he could have plenty of weeds to hide in when he inevitably evaded addressing the actual topic of debate. — DingoJones

I guess he only needs to fool himself.

180 calls 3017 a limp dick, finally getting some good insults. :clap:

Here's the classic ontological argument based upon the same logico-deductive reasoning:

1.By definition, God is a being than which none greater can be imagined.
2.A being that necessarily exists in reality is greater than a being that does not necessarily exist.
3.Thus, by definition, if God exists as an idea in the mind but does not necessarily exist in reality, then we can imagine something that is greater than God.
4.But we cannot imagine something that is greater than God.
5.Thus, if God exists in the mind as an idea, then God necessarily exists in reality.
6.God exists in the mind as an idea.
7.Therefore, God necessarily exists in reality. — 3017

This seems very odd reasoning because no one can even begin to imagine God. It’s like saying that someone can imagine the entire universe, but no more than the entire universe. There is more to the universe than any human being could begin to imagine.

Unfortunately, Mystic was banned so you're down a rising star (conformist), skyblack. Sorry to be the bear-er of bad news.

I drifted off to dreamland a few times while reading 3017’s opening post but from the bits I picked up he is accusing 180 of possessing an “Einsteinian grudge” against the color red.

Why did Einstein hate red?

He exposes the bear necessities that will put our minds at ease. What’s not to like?!

Seriously though, there are guru-wannabe members like skyblack who are in no danger of being banned for low quality.

The pinko philistines would ban Jesus fer’sher.

So shun all outer & inner authority and live by the bear necessities of life. Oh no, I feel a song coming on...

This is the only one I caught site of that was kinda funny, so you’re not missing anything.

If God were immaterial we would not know of God's existence because God would be completely undetectable.
— praxis

That's merely an assumption, not a logical truth or an empirically decidable claim. — Janus

It is logical to conclude that nothing (no material existence) is undetectable because nothing can't produce sound waves, reflect light, etc. Also, if it's not an empirically decidable claim then it is irrefutable. :smile:

And the medium is cheese. This is rationally irrefutable.

This is a logical contradiction since God is understood to be an immaterial being. — Janus

If God were immaterial we would not now of Gods existence because God would be completely undetectable.

God is made of cheese.

religious belief is not rationally refutable — Janus

So if I contrive some silly religion no one can rationally refute it?

You apparently rely heavily on authority figures like Russell so perhaps you’re a good candidate for religiosity and not so inclined to think for yourself.

I was guessing, not reporting… oh, okay.

Maybe I can answer for you. You’re not religious because you have no faith in any religious doctrine or religious authorities that you know of.

Because I am not religious. Why would I be? Presumably you think that if someone reasons to the conclusion God exists, they will then think 'well, I better go join a religion'. Why would I do that? How does one get from 'God exists' to 'the bible is correct about everything' or 'the Koran is correct about everything'?? Maybe they are or one of them is - but it is not implied by the argument on whose basis I believe in God. — Bartricks

You don’t need to presume what I think in order to answer what I asked. That you can’t answer suggests that you don’t understand the subject matter well enough to formulate an answer beyond I’m not religious because I’m not religious.

And faith isn't necessary to be religious. Perhaps this claim confuses you and sounds like it might contradict my claim not to be religious - it would sound like that to the dumb. — Bartricks

I asked why you aren’t religious. Perhaps you’re too dumb to answer.

What are you on about? I am not religious. I believe in God. I am not religious. — Bartricks

Why aren’t you religious?

I’ll quote you again for the third time:

But the idea that faith is 'required' for religion is absurd. — Bartricks

We may need no more faith in God than chatting with them at the local pub. They may be as plainly real as anyone or anything else. No “faith” required. Religion, on the other hand, is a different matter.

Did you read anything I said? — Bartricks

Yes. Oddities sometimes attract my attention.

You wrote:

But the idea that faith is 'required' for religion is absurd.

Significantly, your claim is about faith in relation to religion. It’s as though you cannot separate the concepts of religion and God. I will attempt to help you with that.

Imagine that on some lazy afternoon you’re performing your most popular tricks at the local pub and **SHABANG** a giant Rastafarian woman materializes in the barstool next to you. All the other bar patrons are like, “Wow, good trick, Bartricks!” You’re dumbfounded, of course, not knowing what’s going on. You timidly say hello to the giant woman. She explains that she is God and just dropped in for a pint of Guinness. Everyone being skeptical of her claim, she proceeds to perform various acts that convince even the most skeptical of her claim.

You then ask her, “So all that stuff in the Bible is true?”

“No, that’s all bullcrap, man. I created the universe to grow ganja.”, she confided.

Religion?