I see a future in bars - I mean, behind bars - for this guy. Abusing a medical trainer who has come out to tend to an injured person? “I’m human“ does not cover it.

The opening scene of Monty Python and the Holy Grail

McCarthy just lost again. 7th loss in a row. LOL

For the person who already has everything AND everything else, we bring you the connected coffee cup version 2.0!

In a future firmware update, its Bluetooth feature will be enabled so it can tell your phone the precise temperature of your beverage. Get yours today!

You are nothing in philosophy if you do not reference other philosophers. Almost as if you are not allowed to have thoughts of your own.

This issue was never raised by Hegel or Nietzsche though. (see what I did there)

Someone showed that cactus a video of TAFKAP playing his ‘symbol’ guitar, and the cactus was inspired

Not ok with it. Just unclear on the possibilities here. I leave it to you to come up with an alternative that works, given what our society - and that includes you - is willing to devote in terms of human & financial resources.

None. But refer back to my “protecting society“ comment… if a 15 year old has demonstrated antisocial behavior that is clearly dangerous to others, along with an abject refusal to learn anything different, there has to be a point at which that 15 year old, at least in the present moment, has to be locked up to protect society. Dunno about you, but I’m not willing to sacrifice multiple lives in the slim hope of rehabbing that one life.

I love that, in an ideal world

However. The existence of these unfortunate young people tells us we do not live in an ideal world. And at a certain point, protecting society from these people has to trump their rehabilitation if it’s been demonstrated that such rehabilitation is not working in the present moment.

Crappy choices all around. No right answer.

“…the fact of their direct personal communication with the Divine…”

REALLY? That is a fact??

You cannot put such a statement so early in a treatise, then build much of the rest of that treatise upon that statement, without calling the statement itself into question. There would in fact need to be a Divine in order for this statement to have any merit whatsoever. And as James has already strongly implied that god might not exist, and the Divine IS god, then he’s already demolishing his own supposed point.

This makes all the rest of his utterances into apologist gibberish.

If you want to argue that belief is comforting to many, that it gives many strength, go right ahead.

If you wish to claim that community that comes from shared belief has value, I’m listening. Provide data that supports your claim.

But do NOT say “the fact of their direct personal communication with the divine” without providing incontrovertible factual evidence of the existence of the divine. Otherwise, are these people who have had such ‘communication’ really anything other than the average lunatic, wrestling with the many voices in his own head?

​

From that point forward, some salient issues are covered. First is one I’ve raised since my own enlightenment: the idea of direct experience of the divine. If that is the foundation of all these religions, then how in the world does sitting in a pew - with the priest/rabbi/imam as intermediary - have a chance of getting you closer to god? Answer: no chance. Which is why James is forced to note the actual social role played by religion, which is largely about control.

Returning to Stephen Handel’s first remarks, he sounds like he was a mostly unthinking atheist. ‘Waving the flag” of ANYTHING is not a hallmark of critical consideration.

An entire region suddenly floods due to staggering rainfall. In the aftermath, rescuers in a boat spot a man on his roof. They cruise up, offer the man space on the boat. He replies:

”No thank you, The Lord will provide.”

I won’t belabor the point. You all Know this story ends with the man in Heaven demanding to know why the Lord did not provide, to which the Lord replies “I sent three boats and a helicopter“.

The pre-conclusion reached by the OP is hogwash. As demonstrated by this story. Belief in god that overrides rational naturalism leads to irrational behavior in this world. And the whole of the argument IS Pascal’s Wager, just in longer verbiage.

I kinda disagree with the conclusion drawn in your question. The mind is not exclusively the brain. There is no question that without the brain there is no mind, this is true…. but the mind is incomplete without the various other ‘messenger’ systems in the body.

They take up less storage space when neatly folded. Which makes it well worth the 90 seconds it takes to fold them after washing & drying them.

Atuk!

I never heard of the goonies

Nope. Doesn’t help. “Live the example” only works for the person living the example. Does nothing whatsoever to change the person you believe needs to change.

My solution: if there are people that I believe need to change, and they do not, they exit my life. If I cannot make them exit, I minimize them. There are too many people in the world who, as they are, I find perfectly acceptable for me to waste my time trying to transform someone who is NOT acceptable to me as they are into someone acceptable to me. Attempting to transform that person only makes that person AND myself less happy.

I never got the idea of the mosh pit.

By contrast, many who claim to be empathic are, in reality, anything but. I know one person who says she’s an empath, says she takes on the pain of everyone around her… yet she can never read the room to decipher the moods of the folks in it, and therefore often comes across as a clod. In reality she’s an emotional vampire, feeding off the pain of others.

So be sure that being too empathic is the actual issue before charging down this path.

So? They’re gonna hear my wife say “ooohhh yeah, right there hon’’ and… do what with it?

I’m not conspiring to bring down the republic, so they ain’t coming after me.

Matter of fact, they are barely going after folks who did in fact try to bring down the Republic!

So I don’t think any of us have much to worry about.

Problem is there are too many people clapping for themselves. With two deleterious effects:

1. they are impossible to compliment with any sincerity, because they’ve already proclaimed their own awesomeness. And then they complain that no one compliments them on their achievements!

2. they become impervious to legitimate and often necessary criticism. Think of the engineers of the building under construction in lower Manhattan that is tilting. Even with the example of the Millennium Tower in SanFrancisco that is tilting because they did not support it correctly, these Manhattan building engineers were likely high-fiving themselves for their ‘awesome’ work!

I know exactly what my woman’s ________ smells like, but it’s considered impolite to wander thru crowds sniffing women there to figure out which one is mine

Yep. For a guy who made his living kicking the shit out of other people, he seemed likable enough

Tell this to my workplace. lol

School - with its “500 word essay” requirements - trains us to ‘pad’ our writing. It takes significant effort to un-train ourselves.