What fool would want to not give his or her true self under circumstances like these, eh?
— god must be atheist

The problem must be that you don’t know yourself well enough, and that basically amounts to ignorance or the opposite of wisdom. — praxis

Thanks, but I don’t know if I’m wise or reckless. It’s easier to be brave when you’ve been pushed into a corner with nothing to lose but your false freedom. Lies, lies, lies all around from the streetwalker all the way up to Congress, the President, CIA, FBI, NSA, etc. etc. etc.

Isn’t it refreshing to hear some honesty for a change?

Property ownership is a legal fiction granted by the state, especially land ownership, the biggest mistake of our warring empire cultures in history. It is not a natural right. It’s a tool to oppress those without large land property holdings (or the contemporary capital equivalent). Property is oppression.

said:

“Are you ready to make a claim?“

My claim is that you are delusional in a way that far surpasses my so-called delusions that I have been gaslighted about for many, many years. Were you abused, too? Or is it a genetic predisposition? Or both?

I believe everything Donald Trump says. He speaks the language of the people! lol

Plus sixteen years of gaslighting.

The resolution to both apparent paradoxes is that those with lesser knowledge see something mystical and supernatural, while the so-called "mystical" or "supernatural" beings themselves possess superior knowledge and know that everything about them is in fact perfectly natural and amenable to science. — Pfhorrest

All humans have “lesser knowledge”. We are all ignorant of what causes us to be conscious. Don’t fool yourself. Science cannot even answer this question as it deals with matter and energy and fields. Science can’t even prove to you that others aren’t philosophical zombies. Consciousness is not in science’s purview. Neither is God.

That was 16 years ago. Sixteen years of harassment and surveillance. I still don’t have a criminal record.

what we have is the public vs. corporations vs. the state. — BitconnectCarlos

I can get behind this in general if you grant that the corporations (at least the biggest ones) essentially control state policy. I have just as much distrust of the private sector as I do the government.

I’m sure I don’t understand you. My wife is a stepmom to my boys, by the way.

When I was married to my ex-wife, she told me that the guy I beat had “fucked her best friend in her sleep.” I already didn’t like the guy because he would spend nights over at my house with my ex and her best friend when I was away. He also made fun of me for being “weak” for taking medications for depression and psychosis.

So when he called my house that same day that my ex told me that, I was irate and threatened him and told him to never come to my house again. Well, he showed up at my front door about an hour later with his buddy to kick my ass. I fought both of them, and his buddy cut my eye which I needed stitches for later (he was wearing rings). After his buddy cut my eye, I didn’t go down but yelled, “you fucker!” and I stood my ground. He must have been, well, I don’t know what he thought but he told me to fight the alleged rapist. I walked up to the guy and jacked him in the face, and I kept hitting him. He didn’t go down as I expected him to but kept ahold of my shirt with his clenched fist. So, I kept hitting him in a rage. Mind you I was rushing with adrenaline from the cut eye. He still didn’t go down but kept clutching my shirt. I finally stopped when his buddy said something. I can’t remember what he said, but I realized that I had done enough. His buddy helped him to their truck, and it was over.

This guy’s best friend from high school is a Sheriff’s deputy in that county. Even though I was never charged by the DA because no jury would ever convict me, I’ve been harassed by the police ever since. I’ve also been under surveillance ever since.

Oh well.

First readings, then, ought to be a modest, humble, measured and prudent look at the text itself: first reading irreducibly meaning reading. The metes and bounds of the text being at least tentatively set, you go on from there. The idea being you don't allow yourself to float away into a footless sky of fantasy. — tim wood

Perhaps it appears I’m guilty of this? Perhaps I am, but I don’t think so. My interpretations are merely my own. To determine what was “meant” by the text is to understand the history that ancient peoples had an oral tradition that culminated in the written word. It is likely that they were recalling their more ancient past. At least it seems obvious to me.

This thread is led by a Christ-like consciousness. How dare you judge!

If that is your name, good. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Are you sure you’re not Jesus? You’re so wise and messianic.

No. But following his esoteric ways and having suffered my apotheosis, has given me a Christ consciousness. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Clearly.

The fact that you will not name your imaginary god tells me a lot. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

I didn’t realize I had to give God a name. I guess I will call Her “Bertha”.

Who is your God? The genocidal Yahweh? — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Obviously you’re not familiar with me. Maybe if you would branch out from your own inane threads, you would learn something. Yes, I am stupid... along with the rest of humanity. You seem to be the only smart one. Are you Jesus returned?

Yes we do.

We do not have the political will. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Really? Explain. I think we all would love to hear the solutions.

I thought you did not like literal reading. Are you a hypocrite or a liar? — Gnostic Christian Bishop

I’m not taking it literally. What makes you think I am?

Fuck you. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

We’re all already fucked.

I give them a lot of credit and only go into literal use to engage the fools who are literal readers of myths.

I seek the foolish literalists, as the non-literalists are, as you seem to know, a lot brighter and mostly do not need the correcting that would have them stop using homophobic and misogynous teachings the way immoral literalists do. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

That’s good. I just don’t think you have an audience here. I also think your approach is all wrong.

It’s also encroachment of natural habitats due to overpopulation, overfishing, introduction of alien species into habitats that don’t know what to do with them, factory farm runoff into the water supply, strip mining for all of our useless technologies, pollution in the oceans, overuse of antibiotics causing resistant bacteria, and the list goes on.

I’m sorry but no one knows how to fix our problems. Perhaps an alien race will save us (or enslave us).

The Serpent in Genesis tempted Adam & Eve, claiming they would gain the knowledge of God. I thought you would know that.

Of course the Roman Catholic Church, and by extension all of the sects that followed their example, is self-serving and corrupt. I don’t think there are many people here who would deny that. Who is your audience exactly?

I have not come to bring peace, but war. I adlib Jesus and thus refute your statement.

He was also against the divorce laws of Moses and would have implemented an even more disgusting no divorce policy.

Some of the moral tenets put into Jesus by Rome were ok. Many were not moral tenets at all. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

You really have no imagination. As @StreetlightX once said, you’re a “fucking retard.”

I think you’re the one who is taking the myth literally. Ancient people had an oral tradition, myths that taught through metaphor and morals. The smart ones certainly didn’t take their stories literally. Likewise today. They were most likely passing down a history lesson before there was written language (illustration of truths through fiction are easier to pass down through oral tradition than brute facts). They were telling a story from their hunter-gatherer history (Garden of Eden). Perhaps the dumb ones thought that the original sin was sex. The ones telling the stories? I believe most of them had more insight than you give them credit for.

Global climate change will be our Rubicon and will determine our collective fate in theses days of mass extinctions. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

We are the cause of the current mass extinction. Sooner or later, the ecosystem will fail to sustain us. I’d certainly call this a mess.

That does not follow. Three other humans are said to have been born without original sin: Adam&Eve (who committed the original sin) and Mary (mother of Jesus). — Relativist

And as the legend goes, Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit. It could be argued that this is how he was without sin. Mary, on the other hand, is just said to have found favor with God. Adam & Eve were created innocent, then thought they knew better than God. If there is a God (I believe so), then most of us are guilty of this. My conception of God is quite different than what’s portrayed in most of the Bible, though.

The Knights Templar were also involved in banking, and they were all slaughtered by the Church in a coup for their so-called heresies.

Maybe, but anti-Semitism was also associated with Germany's failure to become an integrated nation like the UK or France. They attempted forced assimilation through public education, but it didnt work. Jews remained distinct. This is a case where distinctness causes friction that eventually erupts into bloody scapegoating, but racism wasnt the primary driver, it was a symptom of social — frank

That was part of it (or maybe even most of it). Christians during the Dark Ages weren’t allowed to be bankers, leaving the profession LARGELY to the Jews who were barred from many other professions. This unfortunately led to mistrust of the Jews, something that they were not at all at fault for.

Haha! And they call me an inconsistent bipolar schizophrenic drug addict.

I think it's important to be knowledgeable about areas where expert opinions are varied. If they're not varied then there's probably hard evidence for their position but if many experts have differing or opposing positions then it might be an issue of interpretation. I am always particularly distrusting of experts that haven't actually demonstrated their proficiency. To me, that generally means doing something or achieving something that required proficiency — Judaka

Unfortunately the experts in the fields with good models of explanation with the hard evidence to back it up OFTEN think they know how to run things. The thing is no one knows how to save humanity from itself.

Also, even if people don't call what they're doing philosophy but something else instead, it's still philosophy. — Judaka

Right. All areas of knowledge and informed opinion involve philosophy.

Hawking suggested that to save humanity we should move out into space. We haven’t gotten past the moon and haven’t been there in over 40 years. Many intelligent people even doubt if we ever really even got there. 1969 technology?

Hawking was doing ethics and metaphysics in his life work, and the dolt didn’t even realize it.

Thank you. You gave me some things to think about.

I don’t know. Logically that conclusion is inescapable if you only consider us as matter and energy. I even wrote a now unpublished book which I have since rebuffed saying just that.

maybe

I like to troll the authorities for their harassment of me. I put someone in the hospital once. I didn’t get charged, but his friend is a cop. I’ve also trolled the FBI and NSA toll free numbers, too.

Ah. So you are a metaphysical entity. I always wondered what they would look like in person.

Pleased to meet you. — god must be atheist

:smile:

The distinction between chaos and patterns is in the mind of the beholder. Who is to say what the chaos theory would be for a different species — Gregory

I presume any technologically advanced alien species would likewise see these patterns, too, and maybe many more.

By-the-by: my name, real name, is also God Must Be Atheist. And the profile pic was taken of me back in God school. (I failed, never graduated, after repeating grade 3 five times. I could not master the concept of 3-0=1 properly. Basic god math, if you ask the teachers.) — god must be atheist

You’re too funny. The police and the NSA know it’s me, though. Meta-data and all.

Although we do argue from time to time.

I unequivocally agree.