I am unsure if “G_d” is a thing that is aware of itself, but, my behaviour attempts to account for it being true.
Buggy system
Human cognition, when it is tasked with making a JUDGEMENT ABOUT X, has a bug where it reaches around blindly in the dark for any thing that makes sense and returns the very first thing it arrives at to the user — usually with an unreasonably high confidence flag that seems to be inversely proportional […]
Valerie Tarico: Ancient Sumerian Origins of the Easter Story
Let’s start with the first part of the myth. Inanna and Jesus both travel to a big city, where they are arrested by soldiers, put on trial, convicted, sentenced to death, stripped of their clothes, tortured, hung up on a stake, and die. And then, after 3 days, they are resurrected from the dead. Now […]
reminds me of…. something…
Death is unnatural You’re special Bad things shouldn’t happen to you. Pain is wrong Life should not hurt. It’s a Whiffle World. Tragedy is a synonym for calamity Bad things are never consequences of one’s own action or inaction. There will be justice Bad people get punished. You, however, will be forgiven. Principles of the […]
obama and hell and christianity today
as i’ve spoken of before, the “hell” topic was one of the main bones of contention i ended up having with what most evangelical christians consider “orthodox”. i did a big study on it in 2004, and abandoned the idea of hell once i actually got my mind around what the bible actually does and […]
is this true: “all these things will be given to you”
recently i had reason to go back and examine the teachings of jesus in the book of matthew, chapter six: Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, […]
lovely article on “magical thinking”
No, at some level they believed that their insurance helped keep the plane aloft, according to psychologists with new experimental evidence of just how weirdly superstitious people can be. We buy insurance not just for peace of mind or to protect ourselves financially, but because we share the ancient Greeks’ instinct for appeasing the gods. […]
nice one god
The top U.S. diplomat in Myanmar says 100,000 may have died in the cyclone and that 95 percent of buildings in the affected area are demolished. US diplomat says 100,000 may have died in cyclone
The Daily Detour: Does freedom require religion?
in response to The Daily Detour: Does freedom require religion?, i have a couple points to make: We must be sure to separate the misapplication of a religious worldview from that worldview itself. it seems to me that it is usually those who disagree with the truthiness of a specific worldview who say that actions […]
six months without any water?
A meditating teenage boy in south-central Nepal is drawing the attention of scientists after attracting huge crowds in the past six months and earning himself the name Buddha-reincarnate. They are mulling over how to examine him without disturbing his meditation. Ram Bahadur Bamjan’s friends, relatives and managers say he has been meditating without drinking water […]
Plankeye (follow up)
There’s been some contention as to my post on “plankeye”. I will concede that we are indeed to “make judgement” — even about people and what they are up to. But the context of the verse you pulled out shows the difference between what Jesus was referring to in John 7 and what he is […]
test everything, hold fast to what is good
i have been asked to post on my practice of exposing this board to beliefs or lines of thinking that i myself do not hold to. this thread is meant to be an answer to that request. in the interest of keeping it clear for those who won’t read more than a few sentences, i’ll […]
seven views of truth
tonight, whilst doing some “light” reading, i came across these seven things that people tend to mean when they speak of “truth”: 1. Reality – Sometimes, we use truth to mean “what’s out there,†or “what’s really, really, real.†2. A human perception of reality – Sometimes we use the term to mean how an […]
Plankeye
A friend of mine recently wrote: This is the very reason I stopped attending my youth group. It was so unwelcoming. And, there’s something else, too. It seems to me, that rejection from the church crowd holds a bigger emotional consequence than rejection from other crowds. These are, after all, the people with whom you […]