JoeWeber

That fits with my understanding of my experiences. So said the bee as he tended his Queen. Your very words describe a frightening obliviousness to the world around you. Clearly, in the Ron-centric universe, there is no room for the views of others lest they meld perfectly with your own; your mind is closed for business as you seek this state of "everpresentness and timelessness". What do you hope to achieve next? Omniscience?

That's the difference between you and me; I don't have a side. I think and act independently. My opinion is swayed only by facts and logic. That is what I call ego linear thinking. Dr. David R Hawkins and A Course In Miracles discuss this at length. I have spent a good portion of my life leaning to think spherically. Especially, I try and am now focusing on thinking without thought itself to the infinite beyond the boundary of the sphere. Be that as it may, my wife, my mother and those who know me personally believe I am independent. I have never fit the mold. A good portion of your life? Hardly. Spherical thinking is relatively recent woo-woo. Go to the back of the class, again. Here's a dose of that nonsense: "Spherical thinking, as it relates to time, is a measure of how far consciousness has come from linearity and its embeddedness in three-dimensional reality. A true measure of spherical thinking has to do with the experience of 'everpresentness', a state in which all events are felt to be taking place simultaneously rather than being divided into past, present, and future. Already, some have had a taste of this quality of timelessness during near-death experiences, life-reviews, and dream states. However, for the majority, this type of awareness is not yet a reality."

Bad phrase on my part. I meant to say everything gets deemed not worthy of charges. Plenty of others have gone to prison for far less. I will say this though, fuck Hillary. I'm glad she lost. Why? She's still bitching to this day about losing the election. The worst sore loser I've ever seen. She makes Al Gore look like a saint. There are valid reason things are "deemed not worthy of charges." Apparently you've never been accused of false charges. Until you have, why not take a slightly more circumspect view? Out of curiosity, why do you take "triathlon" spelled backwards as your handle? Better, why not use your real name?

So he kept all his old phones (presumably with all his old contacts), and tied together a bunch of his seperate shady deals by using the same shell company to process all of them? Does he even get what a shell company is for? I don't know whether it's more offensive that so many of Trump's advisors and appointees are corrupt, or that they're not even competent at being corrupt. Only the best... I think it more offensive that he has so many supporters who just don't care. Bingo. Separately, I think Yoink is right about banning some folks from this forum. They sing the same song over and over and only screw up the conversation.

Psychopath is a word that even professionals argue about the definition of. And there are several types of them. Very few people have no qualms about killing. Those who kill in the line of duty are no exception. At least if they kill up close and in person. Mass killers are very rarely psychopaths. But serials killers often are. Psychopaths do not want to be caught and they do not tend to kill themselves to avoid capture. It is far easier on the mind to kill a large number of people from afar, as in dropping a bomb on them from an airplane then it is to look them in the eye and watch them die. Infantry soldiers suffer from PTSD, bombardiers do not. one of us is capable of killing. Very few of us want to kill. Very few of us actually do kill is, I think, closer to our circumstance. Many pathologies of the brain can and do cause aberrant behaviors. Pathologies of our neural pathways are far less understood. The advent of Fmri is offering suggestive insights, for sure. But no one has a real clue yet, for example, as to what happens in our connectomes: the wiring, if you will, that connects our neurons. If your refrigerator wiring is too small a gage, for example, you'll have compressor problems or something. I cannot recall right now the title but I remember first wondering about this when I saw a movie where this poor fellow was driven to kill and he told someone that when the urge struck he smelled something that to him was like pig shit and turpentine. In the end they killed him from a helicopter, I think. The point is that we have very little understanding about what controls our actions, mass murderers included.

Things that make you go hmmmm..... WASHINGTON A husband-and-wife legal team from Miami is joining President Donald Trump’s personal legal team in the special counsel's Russia investigation. Jane Serene Raskin and Marty Raskin, two former federal prosecutors and veteran defense lawyers who have a private practice in Coral Gables, are joining Trump’s team along with former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Weinstein said the community of former federal prosecutors in Miami is small and it was known that the Raskins supported Trump. He was not surprised they were picked, but found it curious that Trump would pick lawyers from South Florida as opposed to New York or Washington. “It raises the question that he might be looking at vulnerabilities in South Florida,” Weinstein said.

Here's a thread you started in 2013 with a link to Alex Jones's Infowars site. When someone said they didn't read anything from Infowars you said "Your loss". Here is a thread from 2014 you started with an Infowars link, where someone tells you that Infowars is a conspiracy theory site led by Alex Jones. Here's one from 2015 where you post another Infowars link and several people respond to you, and you to them, with Alex Jones' name. And here is another thread from exactly a year ago where you start pretending not to know who Alex Jones is, despite having swallowed his nonsense hook, line and sinker on numerous occasions. Why the lies, Rush? Why all of the stupid, obvious, easily proven lies? Marc's sayings are not reasoned opinions as much as they are regurgitations from a belief system. Until FOX and the whole right wing media enterprise gave them ostensible experts to quote and follow it was usually easy to defeat their claims and gain their silence for a while. Now they have mail order medical degrees in cutting and pasting and are as expert as their experts, so there! Like Ron and Jaybird he can not give a millimeter or the whole thing starts falling apart. Those who subscribe to Marc's way of thinking (who are, apparently, an astonishing 63 million in number), in the same way as the devoutly religious, can not by reason or fact be persuaded otherwise. Without realizing it they simply follow Stephen Jay Gould's, quite wrong I think, theory that our domains of thinking and theirs are non-overlapping magisteria. In the end, their delusions and their tribes are all they have. And, like the devoutly religious, they believe the end times are nigh and the evidence, in the form of Obama/Satan's and Clinton/Benghazi's and yada, yada, yada is everywhere if only we would open our dumb progressive science gay loving liberal eye's and just look. Hence my belief that there is absolutely zero to be gained by engaging them in conversation. It will never, ever go anywhere but to back the where it began.

With the help of cheating and to the detriment of the country. Why do you hate your country, Ron? That's the Gold Star question. Good luck, Ron.

I am not concerned with his moral defects. I don't know for certain if we have ever had a totally moral POTUS. FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, JFK, LBJ, Nixon, Ford (Maybe), Carter (Maybe), Reagan, HWBush, Clinton, GWBush, Obama and President Trump are questionable. Those are the ones in my lifetime. NBD As ever, your tortured logic and false morality are on full display. Most humorous, to me at least, is how your views are as blindered as they are unexceptional, except of course, amongst certain groups who identify as Christian. I trolled you, Ron. I knew you'd do the Christian/Trump lover two step and I sucked you in for my own amusement. Thank you.

I heard it was someone on DZ.com who regularly posts on SC.

Which would be legitimate if they were purely political partisan attacks. But concealing payoffs to porn stars and other high crimes. Should be paid for by trump personally. Not by tax-deductible political donations. The alleged payoff came from President Trump's attorney and the incident allegedly took place in 2006. President Trump was simply a business tycoon at that time. I know that fake news has a different account. NBD ETA: Are you concerned about the $15M Congressional Hush Fund? When you wrote this, did you actually believe it was 2006? Yes, it is the only time frame I've heard. You must now recognize that your information is inaccurate, to put it mildly. Given that it is your information that forms your political views, are you now prepared to concede, at the minimum, that President Trump has certain severe moral defects?

Which would be legitimate if they were purely political partisan attacks. But concealing payoffs to porn stars and other high crimes. Should be paid for by trump personally. Not by tax-deductible political donations. The alleged payoff came from President Trump's attorney and the incident allegedly took place in 2006. President Trump was simply a business tycoon at that time. I know that fake news has a different account. NBD ETA: Are you concerned about the $15M Congressional Hush Fund? When you wrote this, did you actually believe it was 2006?

Interesting Law School Cohen chose. Certainly, he might be the cleverest lawyer Cooley Law School ever produced and there could be any number of reasons he ended up where he did. But I doubt his CV has Mueller and team up at nights. Western Michigan University Cooley Law School is an American Bar Association accredited law school. WMU-Cooley has four campuses. Its main campus is in Lansing, Michigan and its satellite campuses are in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Auburn Hills, Michigan, and Tampa, Florida.[3][4] First year courses may be taken at Western Michigan University's Kalamazoo campus.[5] An affiliation between Cooley and Western Michigan University went into effect on August 13, 2014. According to Cooley's ABA required disclosures, only 27.4% of graduates from the class of 2015 obtained full-time, long term, bar passage required employment 9 months after graduation.[6] 23.8% of graduates were unemployed 9 months after graduation.[7] Only 51.86% of graduates managed to pass a state bar exam in 2015, a requirement to practice law.[8] In 2017, the school was one of ten American law schools found to be out of compliance with the American Bar Association's requirement that schools only admit students who appear capable of earning a J.D. degree and passing the bar examination.[9] The school was recently ranked the worst law school in the country by Above the Law.[10]

Were you an agnostic atheist would you still vote boobies? If cats had no opinion on religion or Harvard would you care? Please be gentle with me as you are one of the few people, outside of Billvon occasionally, whose opinions I respect here.

There had better be a damn good reason for impeachment with broad support from both parties if that is what happens. As bad as Trump is a clearer picture will emerge on the future after the mid-terms. If the House changes hands and Trump is impeached with D only action it will be very bad for America. And it will be futile because there will be no conviction in the Senate. Elections have consequences. Agreed. But it is not outside the realm of plausibility that the running-mate was involved in campaign shenanigans, like so many others closely involved the campaign. If that turn out to be the case, I expect him to be held accountable. I reckon gowlerk's got it right. Douchebags are douchebags. All of the R's, whose triangulating could put Hillary to shame, will hang tight in ass save mode. I personally believe Mike Pence (whose anagram nick name is Emcee Pink, curiously enough) is along for the Christian Coup ride and could not give a holy poop about what is going on beyond judgeships. Unless Trump resigns we ought to be resigned to Trump as President until 2020. That, I think, is what Pence wants. Attached is a map of assholes in the US. Washington DC is out of the blue and into the green indicating a moderate possibility of two assholes being in immediate proximity lowering the probability of Pence also being a complete asshole. Now, if they were in New York... Edited to correct Chicago for New York. It's cocktail hour....

Agreed. We've given Jay way more attention than he deserves.

Dude. I am 0% frustrated. Are you? What it meant was that you don't prove everything like you would a science experiment. Et tu? Likewise. Et Tu? In this fantasy am I your Caeser?

I guess we can add stress to the frustration you are feeling. Remember this? It's your quote. "I think the point in all this is, despite it not being a calculable "proof," that it is a reasonable "wager." More reasonable than the atheistic alternative, in my opinion. I know you disagree." That, Jay, was tacit admission that you have no proofs. You are now down to games and insults about the intelligence and education of your adversaries. What is abundantly clear is that neither you or Ron have any practice arguing your case. All of your experience is explaining your case to willing listeners and it shows. Here is different. Here those who disagree with you don't give a rat's ass how awesome you feel about things. Here you need to man up and own what you say. Today it means giving facts and not feelings or conceding the field. If you have no facts just say so and let's all move on.

No. There's plenty of evidence for God's existence. I tried to put it in legal terms as in a trial. Standard of proofs as in preponderance of the evidence vs. proof beyond a reasonable doubt. I put forth matter, energy, particularly information, and your conscience as general evidence of God. I might also add time. I believe all of those things had an origin and, specifically with information, an intelligent source. Again, I know you disagree. I'm ok with that. You just place your faith differently. You merely wrote four words: - Matter - Energy - Information - Conscience Now develop why each of those words is proof of God or the supposed Gods omniscience. And please do not refer to what secularists believe as faith. That's just another silly trick to put our positions on an equal footing with yours. It's no different from the "polite society card". What I believe has factual, scientific support. You have in no way offered anything that can be called a preponderance of evidence. You quote the Bible. You quote interpretations of the Bible. Science and Religion are not co-equal domains. One demands proof the other demands blind faith. You have no proof and you well know it.

Joe, No amount of evidence would ever satisfy you. That's some weak shit, Jay. You are holding an empty bag and you know it.

If someone claimed they found Ghengis Khan's grave, and as a consequence you now needed to organize your life around it, you'd ask them to prove it, yes? Don't make yourself a martyr or a victim here, Jay. Either prove that you can factually assert the existence of God and that this God is omniscient or retract the statement.

Is your faith strong enough to allow you to accept that Genesis is not literal truth? Many people can keep their Christian faith without holding on to this like a rock in the sea of disorder. Those are the people I see as having strong faith. After listening to Dr Kent Hovind's lectures I see no reason to consider that possibility. https://www.google.com/search?q=kent+hovind+debate&rlz=1C1SQJL_enUS789US789&oq=kent+hovind&aqs=chrome.2.69i57j0l5.16159j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 Impressive CV, the good Doctor has. Well, at least he's out of prison and now on probation for tax no-no's. Education Patriot University In 1971, he graduated from East Peoria Community High School in East Peoria, Illinois. He entered the accredited Illinois Central College, then transferred to the unaccredited Midwestern Baptist College in 1972, attaining a Bachelor of Religious Education in 1974.[1] In 1988 and 1991 respectively, Hovind received a master's degree and doctorate in Christian Education through correspondence from (also unaccredited) Patriot University in Colorado Springs, Colorado.[notes 1][9][10] Having a website called "Dr. Dino" has provoked some academics to look closely at how Hovind presents his education and credentials. All his known degrees are from unaccredited institutions, and he has no training in paleontology.[11] Barbara Forrest, a professor of philosophy, expert on the history of creationism and activist in the creation-evolution controversy, wrote that Hovind's lack of training makes academic discussion impossible[10] and has said that his understanding of historical and scientific research is deficient.[12] Patriot University is a diploma mill.[12][13] Karen Bartelt, an organic chemistry professor who debated Hovind,[10] examined Hovind's dissertation and found it is incomplete,[notes 2] contains numerous spelling errors, lacks references, shows flawed reasoning, and states that it does not present any original research.[11][14][15]

Yet, even so, you were smart enough to get the point I was trying to make. Bravo gowlerk! Bravo!! You might recall my making this suggestion earlier in the conversation: Jay, No one here begrudges your beliefs. Why not take a different tack? The truth is that you read the bible and you also read many scholarly works by theologians who are doing their best to make sense of the bible. Why not simply tell us that those readings resonate with you on a very deep and spiritual level. And that's that. The thing is that you claim evidence and proof and so on. When you are pressed nothing materializes. Why not just say that you have no proof or evidence that would satisfy a secularist and that you were mistaken to make the claim? Then tell us that the truth arena that we play in is different from yours and that you hope us the best. I say this because the more you argue ineffectively the less I believe you have no doubts. No reply. Later, in a reply to Bill, you opened with this: "God is in fact omniscient". That's the nuts and bolts of it, man. Your antagonists here maintain that you can not make that statement in honesty. You can say that you believe in God. You can also say that you believe the God you believe in is omniscient. But you can not claim it as fact. And when asked for facts to support your beliefs you default to defending belief with belief, not facts. Evolution is a fact. Gravity is a fact. That the Exodus did not happen is a fact. That water could not have preceded light is a fact. That there is a God or that the presupposed God is omniscient are simply not facts. Ron recently blasted me for derision. Well, the solution is to make statements that are not risible. I further submit that were you and Ron to speak about what you believe more factually you might start to see that you are running on a Mobius strip. Please think about that. Could you have actually written: I personally believe the God I worship is omniscient although, in truth, I have no proof?

So I guess we won't be seeing each other again.

There is so little reason, given the knowledge we have, to believe in the story of Genesis or Noah, that enumerating the evidence is pointless. It is sufficient to merely say that only faith demonstrated by suspension of disbelief could lead anyone to accept these stories as literal truths. But genetic theory does teach us that any mammal species numbering less than a few dozen is doomed. That has been well known for quite some time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_viable_population This is interesting. The study suggests that, "damage to particular areas of the prefrontal cortex indirectly promotes religious fundamentalism by diminishing cognitive flexibility and openness—a psychology term that describes a personality trait which involves dimensions like curiosity, creativity, and open-mindedness." Neuropsychologia. 2017 Jun;100:18-25. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2017.04.009. Epub 2017 Apr 6. Biological and cognitive underpinnings of religious fundamentalism. Zhong W1, Cristofori I1, Bulbulia J2, Krueger F3, Grafman J4. Author information Abstract Beliefs profoundly affect people's lives, but their cognitive and neural pathways are poorly understood. Although previous research has identified the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) as critical to representing religious beliefs, the means by which vmPFC enables religious belief is uncertain. We hypothesized that the vmPFC represents diverse religious beliefs and that a vmPFC lesion would be associated with religious fundamentalism, or the narrowing of religious beliefs. To test this prediction, we assessed religious adherence with a widely-used religious fundamentalism scale in a large sample of 119 patients with penetrating traumatic brain injury (pTBI). If the vmPFC is crucial to modulating diverse personal religious beliefs, we predicted that pTBI patients with lesions to the vmPFC would exhibit greater fundamentalism, and that this would be modulated by cognitive flexibility and trait openness. Instead, we found that participants with dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) lesions have fundamentalist beliefs similar to patients with vmPFC lesions and that the effect of a dlPFC lesion on fundamentalism was significantly mediated by decreased cognitive flexibility and openness. These findings indicate that cognitive flexibility and openness are necessary for flexible and adaptive religious commitment, and that such diversity of religious thought is dependent on dlPFC functionality. Your best thinking got you and the others to this point. And yet, something is just not right. You come here to debate, castigate, shame and ridicule but satisfaction cannot be found. Agreement among each other, yes. Still peace of mind eludes you. There is that one thing in your life or your past that holds you guilty. You know it is there and you can't find complete relief. You are held captive. Jesus came to set the captives free. The problem here, and it is your problem not mine, is that you guy's are accustomed to people pussy footing around when you make outrageous claims or avoid answering questions because the topic is religion. Your trick is to play the polite society card so as to keep the conversation, your side of it in particular, sounding reasonable. The problem is that what you and Jay are saying is anything but reasonable and some of us are flat out of polite society cards. Consider only what wolfriverjoe just observed: he's out in the world and you are fearfully holed up in the woods. Who is likely to have a more realistic world view? Jay get's damn touchy as a way of getting people to go away. He's called me a snowflake and an ass. Ignoring that only one of those claims is true, isn't name calling a sin?