"Peer Reviewed" Research

[steve]

Yes and no.

 

Yes it is fluff because most Zen masters are pussies (speaking from some personal experience, as I've seen them online and wasn't impressed). I would say that out of 100 people who claim to be Zen masters only about 1 really is. I'm including people with the denpo/inka into this. I've personally met some Zen masters online whom I've considered idiots, who had significant following of students, whom I considered lost and mislead dittoheads. It was a devastating sight to observe. So why would people follow these folks? It's thanks to convention. It's because of denpo/inka. They have a formal transmission, so that makes it OK to follow them.

 

No, it is not fluff because once in a while there is a Zen master who can challenge you to the very core of your being. This kind of challenge is not what the scientist do to one another or like I said, they'd not be able to tie their shoelaces and get on with work.

The "pussies" are not masters. Credentials, transmissions, and lineage mean nothing. The master will rock your world.

In the scientific community, most folks use the method as a tool, nothing more. And a very effective tool it is.

Don't you think the real criticism occurs at a more philosophical and phenomenological level?

How efficient would it be for the "foot soldiers" to spend their time examining the core paradigm?

Not a worthwhile use of their time and expertise.

 

 

I will not do so right now.

Shame - I'm up for it. The last book that rocked my scientific world was Time's Arrow and Archimedes Point by Huw Price. Good stuff!

 

But never the scientific method. See, Steve, you don't quite get it. When I say the religious people are criticized, I mean the core of the religious worldview is criticized. God. Theology. The fundamental underpinnings are what's criticized. So the religious people are used to deep and profound criticism. As a result, religious people tend to have a degree of humility that's completely absent in science. I don't mean humility in a conventional sense. I mean it in a philosophic sense.

 

The scientists are not used to serious, deep, profound and sustained challenge of their very fundamentals, such as materialism, scientific method and the sacred basic laws like the conservation of energy principle. And by sacred I don't mean it in a superficial sense. I know the scientists don't build shrines to the conservation of energy principle. So please let's not warp my words.

 

 

 

Yes, friendly and shallow criticism that stays comfortably within the bounds of the scientific dogma. It's the same way Zen students criticize each other, or the same way Tai-chi students criticize each other's form, etc... It's all shallow and non-metaphysical criticism.

 

 

 

That isn't the point. Maybe the scientific paradigm is absolutely the best. If anything this just proves my point. When you think your stuff is the best, or very powerful, you naturally have no reason to exercise philosophic modesty. It just makes no sense to be small about something that you truly and sincerely believe is huge.

 

 

 

Yes. Faster change isn't my goal. Honesty is. It's when you say, "yes, I assume my method rocks, I don't question it much, or at all, and yes, that's my dogma." That's honesty.

I do get it and thanks for clarifying your argument. Again, the worker bees do make effective use of their talents exploiting the tool. The tool is damn effective. It's important for each of us to focus on our strengths. We can't all know it all. The foundation is best questioned by those with the expertise and inclination to challenge the method itself.

 

As for me, I work in the field every day. It is my tool. I know how to use it to effect meaningful change in my world. I help people to the best of my ability every day. I am blessed with a "right occupation." When I'm done using the tool, I unwind by immersing myself in the spiritual realm for balance, nourishment, and healing. Is the scientific paradigm the best? Apples and oranges.

 

I see a huge difference between the two. Someone is religious when that someone is part of an organized group. That group prizes ritual and dogma above all else. The group prizes group conformity. Being religious is a formal matter. You can produce some kind of identification or proof. For example, you can demonstrate financial records indicating consistent tithing, documents indicating baptism and other ceremonies, transmission documents, formal clothing and paraphernalia, such as robes and a bowl and so on, ritualistic scarring, such as a circumcised penis and others. Perhaps one or two such things is not enough evidence, but put a few of these together and you get the preponderance of evidence that proves religiosity.

 

And you can be religious withing being the slightest bit spiritual. In other words, you can attend the rituals and follow all the standards of religion without having spiritual experience, without having spiritual beliefs of any kind, and so on.

 

To be spiritual above all else means to be non-dogmatic. Spiritual people are open-minded, and dogma indicates a closed mind. Spiritual people often have experiences which can be classified as spiritual. Spiritual people are often genuinely thoughtful and curious, rather than dogmatic. Spiritual people leave no stone unturned when searching for the truth. Spiritual people by their very nature are not likely to belong to a religion, considering that religion has mind-numbing and spirit-dullifying effects. Spiritual people do not insist on group affiliation and they also do not insist on conformity. Conformity is either a very low value or even a non-value to the spiritual person. Rituals are seen as either useless or as personal in meaning. This means the rituals can be created by oneself, if needed, without dogmatically copying them from elsewhere. The meaning is what's important, not the outer shell.

 

Spiritual people look into the heart of the matter whereas religious people are caught up in the dog and pony show, the display, the social jockeying game, social positioning, group jockeying, etc... All kinds of bullshit that spiritual people actually detest and warn about.

We are saying the same thing but just defining our terms differently.

I have adopted religious as a term I use to define someone that you would call spiritual.

Why? Because those you call religious consider it a powerful word and I take that from them.

I fell in love with Osho's quote about "true religion" and decided to take back the word for my purpose.

Kind of like the African-American and hip-hop community did.

I have used the term "observant" to connote those you are calling religious.

I'm happy to adopt your convention for discussion purposes.

[steve]

So, will you answer my question? You know which one. The one you've been silent about so far.

If you mean the value of macroevolutionary theory in my life?

Then the answer is a big fat zero.

 

That is not completely true as I alluded to earlier because I imagine it would not be difficult to find examples of practical value of related experimentation and research.

 

But in terms of the big picture - it's pretty much irrelevant.

Sort of like the existence vs non-existence of God.

Whether you postulate God or not, makes no difference.

 

Or the existence vs non-existence of self - same principle.

Buddha used the idea of non-self as a criticism of the Hindu concept of Atman and Brahman to teach people not to cling to such concepts, not because he felt the concept of non-self was necessarily more correct than self.

He viewed it as unknowable and a source of dukkha to become attached to such efforts to distinguish between the two. That's the irony about these long winded self or non-self debates. That's exactly what he was trying to get ride of.

I think that's what the Heart Sutra is all about, but I digress.

 

What really counts is application of the method.

And when there is a better method - I'm all ears.

Edited May 27, 2011 by steve f

[goldisheavy]

The "pussies" are not masters. Credentials, transmissions, and lineage mean nothing. The master will rock your world.

 

Right. So there is a difference between convention and reality, right? So with this difference in mind, it's not hard to see how most of the criticism within a Zen abbey can be shallow and/or dead criticism.

 

I won't even mention non-Zen monasteries where dogma is expected before you even enter the door. At least the Zen tradition is nominally non-dogmatic.

 

In the scientific community, most folks use the method as a tool, nothing more. And a very effective tool it is.

Don't you think the real criticism occurs at a more philosophical and phenomenological level?

How efficient would it be for the "foot soldiers" to spend their time examining the core paradigm?

 

Exactly my point!! Doh.

 

So for example, Christians don't go around challenging each other's fundamentals. So how is it they get challenged so much? Well, in our society secularism and scientific materialism rule the roost. Christians have no choice but to constantly bump up against some intelligent and cogent critics who will challenge the very core of the Christian dogma.

 

The reverse isn't true. When Christians set out to criticize the scientists, they don't offer much or even anything of value. So the scientific community is kind of used to being in a philosophically privileged position where the only critics who dare to criticize the fundamentals of science are simply idiots who can be easily dismissed. This naturally leads to philosophic immodesty. And indeed this is what I observe.

 

Not a worthwhile use of their time and expertise.

 

 

 

Shame - I'm up for it. The last book that rocked my scientific world was Time's Arrow and Archimedes Point by Huw Price. Good stuff!

 

Well, you're kind of exceptional in my view, so if you're not exactly like the crowd, that doesn't exactly prove anything.

 

Here's a good sample of how scientists think:

 

http://www.edge.org/q2005/q05_print.html

 

I've read many many essays there and I think I am very fair in saying that 99% of the scientists subscribe to physicalism as their metaphysical dogma. I've found maybe a few essays total that appear to contradict physicalism in some way.

 

We can't all know it all.

 

Yes we can. But we can't do it against our own will or despite ourselves. If half of your own mind is playing for one team and half for another, you're going nowhere fast.

 

As for me, I work in the field every day. It is my tool. I know how to use it to effect meaningful change in my world. I help people to the best of my ability every day. I am blessed with a "right occupation." When I'm done using the tool, I unwind by immersing myself in the spiritual realm for balance, nourishment, and healing. Is the scientific paradigm the best? Apples and oranges.

 

I think for some tasks and within some domains the scientific method is the best method.

 

Physicalism, which is an implicit dogma in science is a bad dogma in almost every situation, in my view.

 

Obviously I make a distinction between the method, which is limited and subject to criticism, but isn't all that terrible, and the underlying metaphysical dogma, which is terrible.

 

We are saying the same thing but just defining our terms differently.

I have adopted religious as a term I use to define someone that you would call spiritual.

Why? Because those you call religious consider it a powerful word and I take that from them.

 

I let them have their word. I get my own word.

 

I fell in love with Osho's quote about "true religion" and decided to take back the word for my purpose.

 

Good luck. I won't be with you on this one. It's not worth the effort in my view. Religious people have a very good grasp on their word and I am not going to fight over it.

 

Besides, I want to honor people's self-report. If they say they are religious, I don't want to say, "no you aren't." I'm just going to say, "OK, if you call that 'religious' then I am spiritual" when it comes my time to self-report.

 

Kind of like the African-American and hip-hop community did.

I have used the term "observant" to connote those you are calling religious.

 

To me observant means something close to 'terrorist' and Osama bin Laden and to the crazy and disgusting Jews in Israel who keep harping about God's gift of land to them, with the only basis being dogma and nothing else. Those guys are observant. They are the true believers.

 

So if you describe yourself as 'observant' to me, you should understand I feel like vomiting at that word. It's a disgusting word.

 

There is another huge reason why I will never like the word observant. It means you observe dogma. It means you can't challenge the dogma, or can, but will not, or did, but failed in your challenge. Etc... It means you are a failure, a dogmatist. What is one observant of? Dogma. Rituals. That's it.

 

And besides, can a person be religious without actually being affiliated with a religion? It's nonsense.

Edited May 27, 2011 by goldisheavy

[goldisheavy]

If you mean the value of macroevolutionary theory in my life?

Then the answer is a big fat zero.

 

Yes, that's what I mean. I am surprised you decided to go with zero. Can you do better than that?

 

That is not completely true as I alluded to earlier because I imagine it would not be difficult to find examples of practical value of related experimentation and research.

 

Yes, if it's not difficult, can I ask just one example of how macroevolution has directly or indirectly benefited your life? I specifically mean macro here, and not micro.

 

But in terms of the big picture - it's pretty much irrelevant.

Sort of like the existence vs non-existence of God.

Whether you postulate God or not, makes no difference.

 

We're getting warmer. So what is the value of the God idea? How do you benefit from it personally?

 

Or the existence vs non-existence of self - same principle.

Buddha used the idea of non-self as a criticism of the Hindu concept of Atman and Brahman to teach people not to cling to such concepts, not because he felt the concept of non-self was necessarily more correct than self.

 

I agree.

 

He viewed it as unknowable and a source of dukkha to become attached to such efforts to distinguish between the two. That's the irony about these long winded self or non-self debates. That's exactly what he was trying to get ride of.

I think that's what the Heart Sutra is all about, but I digress.

 

What really counts is application of the method.

And when there is a better method - I'm all ears.

 

Yes, of course. Contemplation is a good method to improve your reasoning faculty. Contemplation is not a scientific method. Neither is plain old athletic exercise, for that matter. There are lots of good non-scientific methods. Trial and error is another good one.

[steve]

 

 

To me observant means something close to 'terrorist' and Osama bin Laden and to the crazy and disgusting Jews in Israel who keep harping about God's gift of land to them, with the only basis being dogma and nothing else. Those guys are observant. They are the true believers.

 

 

Whatever little intellectual value you bring to the table is negated by your ugliness for me.

You're simply not worth my time and energy.

Rather than go behind your back as you've accused me recently, I will appeal openly to the moderators with this post to hold you accountable for violating the forum rules against insults with your above comments.

Goodbye.

Edited May 27, 2011 by steve f

[Apech]

To me observant means something close to 'terrorist' and Osama bin Laden and to the crazy and disgusting Jews in Israel who keep harping about God's gift of land to them, with the only basis being dogma and nothing else. Those guys are observant. They are the true believers.

 

 

Whatever little intellectual value you bring to the table is negated by your ugliness for me.

You're simply not worth my time and energy.

Rather than go behind your back as you've accused me recently, I will appeal openly to the moderators with this post to hold you accountable for violating the forum rules against insults with your above comments.

Goodbye.

 

*** Moderator Message ***

 

Well I guess I should respond directly to this appeal. I'm sorry that this discussion has come to this as I was enjoying reading it. I felt that people were actually putting energy into debate rather than insult.

 

I assume the problem is the phrase "crazy, disgusting Jews in Israel" and is this statement either an insult or a form of racism. I had taken it to be an anti-Zionist sentiment on behalf of GiH or perhaps a criticism of their policy/activity of taking land off the Palestinians, erecting defensive (?) walls round Jerusalem and so on. As they are included with our ex-friend/fiend Mr. Bin Laden I think it is the extremist fundamentalist outlook which GiH is against and that he is not being antisemitic. Obviously I don't know if I am right about this unless GiH himself would like to clarify what he meant.

 

Since I think an antisemitic comment would not be acceptable and we would have to moderate it - I am appealing to GiH to clear this issue up. Then I hope you will both be able to continue your illuminating discussion on peer review and challenges within science and religion.

 

I will wait a short while, as there are time differences (I am in Europe) before doing anything else.

 

Thanks.

 

**** Apech for Mod Team ****

[Marblehead]

In all matters of life it is important to know when to stop.

[Sloppy Zhang]

Knowing GIH, I'd say it's a critique of extremism.

 

 

As to the overarching theme, I took an INCREDIBLY interesting class on the development of astronomy from the middle ages to the present. It was taught by a physics professor who found the subject interesting, and wanted to reach out to non-astronomy majors. The class was very much steeped in history and a critique not only of the scientific process, but on the development of that very method.

 

Development of scientific theories have always been subject to the culture, passions, and prejudices of the times. Even today, some research is given more leeway to progress than others. Certain institutions are given funding for the types of research that their sponsors think are going to be worthwhile. Statistics are presented or ignored based on what argument they are supporting. Popular research gets more funding, even if it's not showing anything new, and new theories have to work harder even if they are showing interesting statistics.

 

For instance, some may remember that records taken of cooling temperatures of the polar regions were suppressed because they contradicted the supposed "global warming".

 

Another story, it was Kepler who come up with the theory that the planets orbited the sun in an elliptical orbit. Prior to that, it was always assumed that the planets orbited in circles, because, duh, circles are perfect! Kepler had years worth of data charts taken by the most advanced telescopes that had been built at the time. There were only a handful of planetary orbits which did not match the model created by the circular orbits. Rather than disregard that data, he created a model that explained ALL of the data, come up with the elliptical model, and lo and behold, that not only accounted for ALL the data, it also accurately predicted the positions of the planets in the future, and would go on to be confirmed by direct observation.

 

So the lessons to be taken away are that while the scientific method may be highly refined and precise, people are not. In ALL periods of time, "fierce debate" is, more often than not, held within the bounds of commonly accepted social bounds.

 

True challenges are rigorous, unforgiving, and uncomfortable. People don't LIKE to have their base assumptions questioned. In that sense, it's very like cultivation. We like to think we are self critical, until a question gets asked that is too close to an issue- then we back off.

 

So we might like to think that we are open to new ideas in the scientific realm. But how many universities and top research institutions are doing research into energy healing? How many research institutions are actually comparing the rates of energetic healing success to the rates of drugs on the market? And how many of those researchers think they "already know what the answer is" so don't even bother to do any research? How many of them had a professor in med school who told them a funny anecdote about acupuncture or reiki working, but would never seriously consider it as a viable alternative to modern medicine, and so hey, prof says so, so why bother?

Edited May 27, 2011 by Sloppy Zhang

[steve]

*** Moderator Message ***

 

Well I guess I should respond directly to this appeal. I'm sorry that this discussion has come to this as I was enjoying reading it. I felt that people were actually putting energy into debate rather than insult.

 

I assume the problem is the phrase "crazy, disgusting Jews in Israel" and is this statement either an insult or a form of racism. I had taken it to be an anti-Zionist sentiment on behalf of GiH or perhaps a criticism of their policy/activity of taking land off the Palestinians, erecting defensive (?) walls round Jerusalem and so on. As they are included with our ex-friend/fiend Mr. Bin Laden I think it is the extremist fundamentalist outlook which GiH is against and that he is not being antisemitic. Obviously I don't know if I am right about this unless GiH himself would like to clarify what he meant.

 

Since I think an antisemitic comment would not be acceptable and we would have to moderate it - I am appealing to GiH to clear this issue up. Then I hope you will both be able to continue your illuminating discussion on peer review and challenges within science and religion.

 

I will wait a short while, as there are time differences (I am in Europe) before doing anything else.

 

Thanks.

 

**** Apech for Mod Team ****

Apech -

Thank you for your intervention.

Irrespective of the moderators' decision I have no interest in participating any further and will simply take advantage of the ignore function moving forward.

[Immortal4life]

goldisheavy has contributed a lot to this forum recently, and I am not offended by his comments. I am not offended by people's opinions, even if they are stated emotionally or harshly.

[Immortal4life]

That was a good post by Sloppy Zhang +1

[goldisheavy]

Apech -

Thank you for your intervention.

Irrespective of the moderators' decision I have no interest in participating any further and will simply take advantage of the ignore function moving forward.

 

Steve, you need to stop being a baby and listen.

 

Most of the settlers in Israel who aggressively expand into the Palestinian land are... who? They are zealous fundamentalist Jews. They use religion as the main reason to conduct some dastardly deeds.

 

Now, I've been known to criticize Islam for its doctrine. When people try to follow Islam literally and completely, all kinds of crazy things often result. Is Judaism so different from Islam that it's not subject to this criticism? Personally, I don't think so. I think the Judaic doctrine is pretty ugly and backward and when followed closely and zealously it results in craziness and in offensive behavior, especially in and around Israel.

 

At the same time, there is Reform Judaism, which I have little to nothing against.

 

However, as the Jews get more conservative, I like them less and less. Why is that? It's because I don't like the underlying doctrine.

 

I also feel like Jews are some of the least tolerant people when it comes to criticism like this. They pull the "antisemitism" card at the slightest opportunity, and just like with the boy who cried "wolf", no one is paying any attention anymore.

 

I am emphatically not an anti-semite. In what sense? If some establishment is owned by Jews, I don't avoid it. If someone is Jewish and is a decent person, I am OK becoming friends. I own many books written by Jews in my home. At one point I even had an entire stack of Zohar books I was studying. So obviously I am not hostile to the Jews. However, when I observe what's going on with the settlers in Israel, I feel like it's not so easy to remain silent.

 

In general I feel all Abrahamic religions are ugly when it comes to their doctrines. This includes Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Why do I think so? They are all either imperialistic and expansionist (Christianity and Islam) or elitist (Judaism), while they hardly offer people the spiritual tools to deal with life's problems. They are huge on fear mongering, on hell and heaven. They are huge, huge on authoritarianism. They contain hideous relics of the past, such as condoning slavery, treating women as something less than human, and other insanities that are not compatible with the decent living.

 

When people read these doctrines and say, "OK, let's mine this thing and let's just take the best parts, and the ones that are not immoral like slavery, and practice the best non-immoral parts" that's fine with me. The problem is that any time someone wants to get serious about a crazy doctrine the chances of becoming crazy are high. And not everyone is willing to filter things out in a responsible manner. Some people adopt a literal and an all-inclusive interpretation.

 

Further, when it comes to the religious crazies I partially blame the moderates as well. Why so? Because often the moderates provide a friendly and sustainable atmosphere/environment for the fundamentalists/literalists/dogmatists/crazies. The moderates often fail to say a critical word to the insane Rabbis. Why so? Well, just think!!! Just me sharing how disgusted I am by religion is causing good old "tolerant" Steve to pull an antisemitism card. So how would someone like Steve find the courage and the righteousness needed to criticize an ultra-orthodox Rabbi? It's highly unlikely. The same is of course true in every religion, and especially every Abrahamic one.

 

Yes, I am not happy with the Abrahamic doctrines. I believe all three Abrahamic doctrines are less than good, to put it mildly, and have resulted in many problems for humanity in the past. I am not singling Jews out for this criticism.

 

So it's nothing personal and it's nothing to do with the ethnicity. I love bagels, matza or humus as food. I'll gladly hire 100 Jews or 100 Arabs if I am hiring. The genetic make up is not the problem. Food is obviously not the problem. What is? Well, in my opinion, doctrine is. Doctrine is definitely a problem. And then strict and literal adherence to it is also a problem. So could I be friend with an ultra-orthodox Jew? Well, that's highly unlikely, as we'd probably argue all day long and have no time to do anything other than to argue at all times.

 

You know, I think all religion in general is a bad thing. It's all dogmatic and rule-oriented for the most part. Sure there are exceptions. Not all religions are equally dogmatic. At the same time, I've seen people develop into huge dogmatists with strict hierarchies even in ostensibly non-dogmatic religions such as Buddhism. So where does this leave Judaism which is dogmatic and elitist on its face?

 

I oppose all religions. All of them. The only thing I support is wisdom and spirituality.

 

Out of the religions, the worst ones, the ones that are doing most damage to the world are the three Abrahamic ones.

 

Well, I hope this clarifies things. I don't believe I am antisemitic because the word implies irrational prejudice against semitic people on the basis of ethnicity/genes. I don't have any such quality. When I judge people I ignore race, color, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age, gene make up, etc. But I don't ignore their beliefs! I do judge people based on their beliefs. I tolerate a huge array of crazy beliefs. For example, do you find me railing about Voodoo? No you do not. I don't like Scientology either, but am I railing about it often? No I am not. I single out Abrahamic religions not only for their doctrines but for how urgent I believe the problems they are causing are. I include impact on the global society into my "suck" function as a variable.

 

Generally I have no problem with Judaism, but specifically in Israel it appears to me that Judaism shows an ugly and intolerant face. There are not enough Jews in the world to cause too many problems, but those that live in Israel are creating some difficulties for the whole world, and they are doing so largely with support or in some ultra-orthodox cases because of their religious doctrine. And I am not willing to overlook that.

 

Thank you. Now, if you think I am a bad person on the account of this statement, please moderate me or do whatever you think is right, but whatever you choose:

 

1. Please make all the facts of moderating actions public.

2. Please explain what is wrong with what I am saying, at least briefly.

 

I believe I am completely justified in my dislike of religion and I believe I am completely justified in singling out Abrahamic religions specifically.

Edited May 27, 2011 by goldisheavy

[goldisheavy]

Sloppy,

 

Well said!!

[Immortal4life]

I hate Voodoo. They kill animals. I saw a documentary about Voodoo in Africa and they sacrificed a puppy and a kitten. So from that just there, I hate Voodoo. I'm sure people can say things like I'm judging based on a biased documentary, it's a diverse belief and they dont all kill puppies, blah, blah, blah. I don't care. One puppy was enough for me not to care about any alleged benefits such a superstition could possibly pretend to have. I don't respect people who believe Voodoo, it's superstiiton. I also heard of a guy from Africa who would have to cut a chicken's head off each time before he would compete in sports. Ridiculous. Voodoo gives me the creeps, and not because I believe it has any validity. Voodoo should disappear like so many other ancient superstitions in other parts of the world have disappeared.

Edited May 27, 2011 by Immortal4life

[Taomeow]

I hate Voodoo. They kill animals. I saw a documentary about Voodoo in Africa and they sacrificed a puppy and a kitten. So from that just there, I hate Voodoo. I'm sure people can say things like I'm judging based on a biased documentary, it's a diverse belief and they dont all kill puppies, blah, blah, blah. I don't care. One puppy was enough for me not to care about any alleged benefits such a superstition could possibly pretend to have. I don't respect people who believe Voodoo, it's superstiiton. I also heard of a guy from Africa who would have to cut a chicken's head off each time before he would compete in sports. Ridiculous. Voodoo gives me the creeps, and not because I believe it has any validity. Voodoo should disappear like so many other ancient superstitions in other parts of the world have disappeared.

 

Am I being too politically incorrect or aggressive for a discussion forum with these words?

 

Voodoo in Africa, hmm... You say "I hate Voodoo." You don't say "I hate Blacks because they are crazy and disgusting practitioners of Voodoo." Do you see the difference, pal?

 

There's two kinds of hoses used to brainwash people into utter manipulability. The first washes out their brains and hearts. The second one fills the space thus created with hate-mongering lies.

 

Anyone who thinks any people is worthy of hatred for any reason is a completely co-opted zombie created by this process -- and voodoo had nothing to do with the making of this zombie.

 

I don't know what to do about zombies. I just wish I didn't have to share a forum with them -- or a planet.

[Apech]

 

 

Thank you. Now, if you think I am a bad person on the account of this statement, please moderate me or do whatever you think is right, but whatever you choose:

 

1. Please make all the facts of moderating actions public.

2. Please explain what is wrong with what I am saying, at least briefly.

 

I believe I am completely justified in my dislike of religion and I believe I am completely justified in singling out Abrahamic religions specifically.

 

I think you may have misunderstood the moderation rules. The relevant ones are no racism and no insults. We do not judge whether people are bad or not - that's impossible on here and is a common mistake among some posters who start attacking the person as if they know them, rather than the ideas. This is when they fall foul of moderation because they usually, through frustration or whatever start to give out insults.

 

A good example is where you at the beginning of this post - where you decided to reply to Steve (and not to me for some reason) by saying stop being a baby. How do you know he is being a baby? - maybe he's just exercising free will in deciding not to engage with you anymore.

 

As far as I know moderation actions are made for either blazingly obvious reasons or are explained. So no problem there at all. The Mod Team are discussing if there is a need to take action - not sure how long this will take given different time zones etc.

 

Apech for Mod Team

[goldisheavy]

As far as I know moderation actions are made for either blazingly obvious reasons or are explained. So no problem there at all. The Mod Team are discussing if there is a need to take action - not sure how long this will take given different time zones etc.

 

Apech for Mod Team

 

It would be nice if you made your discussion public.

[Marblehead]

Well Folks. Wu Wei slapped me aside the head so I feel the need to say something.

 

In the post that aroused emotions Gold was only stating his opinion based on his understanding and he presented an example of why he feels the way he does. His example, I am sure, was not intended for the purpose of pointing out one specific religion/belief system.

 

Gold does not hold back on his expressiveness. This is good but it can also get him in trouble now and then. But to deny him the same right that everyone else has, self-expression, would be very unfair.

 

Each and every one of us members have access to the "ignore" button.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if a couple of my Buddhist friends have already zapped me. Hehehe.

 

I think it is important that this board allow everyone self-expression regardless of our belief system. I think that this is one of the things that makes this board such a wonderful place to communicate with others.

 

This is my point of view and I do understand opposing points of view but we should ask if we want the same restrictions placed on us as we sometimes wish were placed on others.

 

Let us not destroy what has made this board the great place it is.

 

(I, personally, was just reminded of this recently.)

[Apech]

It would be nice if you made your discussion public.

 

Would it be nice? Its not meant for entertainment you know.

[Apech]

Well Folks. Wu Wei slapped me aside the head so I feel the need to say something.

 

In the post that aroused emotions Gold was only stating his opinion based on his understanding and he presented an example of why he feels the way he does. His example, I am sure, was not intended for the purpose of pointing out one specific religion/belief system.

 

Gold does not hold back on his expressiveness. This is good but it can also get him in trouble now and then. But to deny him the same right that everyone else has, self-expression, would be very unfair.

 

Each and every one of us members have access to the "ignore" button.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if a couple of my Buddhist friends have already zapped me. Hehehe.

 

I think it is important that this board allow everyone self-expression regardless of our belief system. I think that this is one of the things that makes this board such a wonderful place to communicate with others.

 

This is my point of view and I do understand opposing points of view but we should ask if we want the same restrictions placed on us as we sometimes wish were placed on others.

 

Let us not destroy what has made this board the great place it is.

 

(I, personally, was just reminded of this recently.)

 

Thank you for taking the time to comment Marblehead.

[goldisheavy]

Would it be nice? Its not meant for entertainment you know.

 

That's insulting.

[Marblehead]

That's insulting.

 

Behave yourself Gold. Hehehe.

[sean]

most Zen masters are pussies

crazy and disgusting Jews in Israel

Steve, you need to stop being a baby and listen.

goldisheavy, you are pushing the envelope on the rules again.

 

it will be a shame to lose your contributions here if you can't find a way to flow within this context.

 

you don't have to agree with or like the rules. but if you want to participate in this forum you have to abide by them.

 

consider this is your last warning.

 

sean

[JustARandomPanda]

Physicalism, which is an implicit dogma in science is a bad dogma in almost every situation, in my view.

 

Obviously I make a distinction between the method, which is limited and subject to criticism, but isn't all that terrible, and the underlying metaphysical dogma, which is terrible.

 

Bad in what way? What precisely makes Physicalism a terrible dogma?

[Immortal4life]

If physicalism were true it would mean there is no spirituality. It would mean there is no objective meaning, purpose, beauty, or morality in the Universe.