Is Rationality All That And A Bag of Chips?

by metatron 7 Replies latest jw friends

metatron

I watched a recent performance by comedian Ralphie Mays and was struck by his humorous insight. As a boy, he played with a friend who happened to be retarded and he raised objections to the word "retarded" ................... in regard to its going out of vogue, so to speak
Don't we all want to be "retarded"? Why do we drink alcohol? Smoke weed? Have sex, anticipating the moment when le petit morte takes place and we are free from thought? Why do we meditate and try to banish all thought?
Have you ever seen the mentally handicapped smile? And, while they did that, you were feeling what, exactly....?
There's a guy in The Matrix who turns traitor and says he doesn't care if it's an illusion, just get him OUT of reality!
Rationality must be a burden. If it wasn't, we would stop trying to get away from it. Se le vie, folks.
metatron
Perry

I understand your point. They both hurt though, illusion and reality. But, reality hurts less.
wobble

And the Cognitive Dissonance one has while vaguely aware that the life you are living, and its hopes and fears, are not real, tends to cause a terrific strain that you cannot put a name on, or identify, until you come in to the real world.
Just look at the faces of JW's in a K.H and you will see what I mean.
Love
Wobble
Terry

When we face daily problems, obstacles and difficulty we either know what to do or we don't.
If we guess wrong the results are often disastrous.
People get themselves into credit card debt.
People manage their finances poorly.
They buy the wrong things and pay too much for them.
They eat the wrong foods and ruin their health.
Kids get each other pregnant and raise new generations of poor, ignorant and desperate souls grasping at life with little success.
Everything we attempt to do requires knowledge of a practical sort and specific information to get it done right without mishap.
Only RATIONAL thinking and CRITICAL thinking can get that for us.
For a couple of thousand years a large part of humanity has been persuaded to develop the wrong skills!
Yes, I'm talking about RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTIONS.
Religion gives a ridiculous false view of the world and how it works.
Instead of doing something practical in an emergency people are encouraged to PRAY. Prayer is doing nothing but mumbling and yet calling it a powerful aid in time of trouble.
Instead of learning science, mathematics, chemistry, physics, technology, health, logic and critical thinking---mankind has been persuaded to believe in talking animals, giants fathered by angels, big boats full of animals escaping a deluge and demi-gods who come back from the dead.
Everyday life is practical. It requires practical skills.
Try driving a car without knowledge of the machine or road signs!
Life has always been a fight to the death with or against nature.
99.99% of every species has gone extinct!
Nobody gets outta here alive. The goal, then, is to delay the inevitable as along as possible by being smart about it.
Alcohol, drugs, flights of fancy, fantasy, wishful-thinking, illogic and superstition are the FALLBACK position of ignorant people with no grasp of the alternative: KNOWLEDGE.
Perry

Religion gives a ridiculous false view of the world and how it works.
"The fact that life evolved out of nearly nothing, some 10 billion years after the universe evolved out of literally nothing - is a fact so staggering that I would be mad to attempt words to do it justice."
-Richard Dawkins
How do atheists know this? Atheists' religion takes far more faith than I'll ever be able to muster.
Crux

Atheism isn't a religion. (inb4 semantics argument!) ...anyway.
Interesting fact. Some neuroscientist agree that one reason we dream is to keep the brain preoccupied while other parts of the brain are shutdown to rest. One of those is the critical thinking part. So rationality and ignorance both have their place.
"Nobody gets outta here alive. The goal, then, is to delay the inevitable as along as possible by being smart about it.
Alcohol, drugs, flights of fancy, fantasy, wishful-thinking, illogic and superstition are the FALLBACK position of ignorant people with no grasp of the alternative: KNOWLEDGE."
I could argue the other side of that. If we are going to die and disappear and there is nothing we can do about it, what good is knowledge over ignorance in the end anyway. I'll take my flights of fancy, fantasy and wishful-thinking, a life of trying to (pointlessly) delay the inevitable sounds boring and uneventful. It makes sense mankind would create God. Simply accepting the inevitable is bleak.
Nathan Natas

Perry said, "...Atheists' religion takes far more faith than I'll ever be able to muster."
I doubt that, since you're 99% there already. You believe that some invisible guy in the sky came out of nothing and then he built the universe from nothing. All the atheist does is take the invisible guy in the sky out of the equation.
You already reject as false all the many gods worshipped by man thru history except one - most likely the one your parents worshipped (or one very similar to the one your parents worshipped).
As atheists, we invite you to lighten your load further. Get rid of that one last false god.
During the Victorian age, the Bible was considered to be THE AUTHORITY on the origin of life, ancient history and the development of mankind.
Since then, no scientific evidence has accumulated to verify the Victorian view.
We learn that every creature from the oldest bacteria to man share a common blueprint - DNA.
We learn of the existence of parasites that eat their way through their living hosts - how delightful!
We understand how the nuclear chemistry in a star gives rise to all of the elements.
We learn that the glorious expanse of the heavens is a tableau of cosmic collisions, star birth and star death, black holes and gamma ray bursts that can sterilize entire solar systems.
We know that plate tectonics and folding planetary crusts explain how seashells are found at the top of some of the highest mountains.
The chemical code for DNA is CGAT, not YHWH. We find no part of man that is not found in so called "lower life forms."
Evidence of a Creator grows slimmer by the second.
Perry

I doubt that, since you're 99% there already. You believe that some invisible guy in the sky came out of nothing and then he built the universe from nothing. All the atheist does is take the invisible guy in the sky out of the equation.
Not True. This is not what the bible states. The bible claims that God is self-existing. Real scientists (unlike the phoney Dawkins) claim that the universe had a beginning. If you are going to critique Christians... at least do so correctly. Facts more align with the Bible than they do Dawkins in this instance.
You already reject as false all the many gods worshipped by man thru history except one - most likely the one your parents worshipped (or one very similar to the one your parents worshipped).
As atheists, we invite you to lighten your load further. Get rid of that one last false god.
And you know he is false? How do you know? He lives inside Christians silly. How could you possibly take away PROOF like that? Jesus is alive Nathan.
During the Victorian age, the Bible was considered to be THE AUTHORITY on the origin of life, ancient history and the development of mankind.
Since then, no scientific evidence has accumulated to verify the Victorian view.
All of true science agrees with a biblical view. On a few points, arguments are raised as to what those biblical views are. There are even more questions raised as to what constitutes true science. You would do well to review the latest global scientific fraud called CLIMATEGATE. Science doesn't lie.... but people do.
We learn that every creature from the oldest bacteria to man share a common blueprint - DNA.
Yes, isn't that amazing how God puts everything down in writing. Ps. 139 - in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.
17 How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them!
18 If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand: when I awake, I am still with thee.
Look how infatuated the writer is with God. I have experienced this closeness, perfect peace and adoration....it is soooo Sweet! You can have it too Nathan.
We learn of the existence of parasites that eat their way through their living hosts - how delightful!
Earth is under a curse as are humans
We understand how the nuclear chemistry in a star gives rise to all of the elements.
Interesting isn't it?
We learn that the glorious expanse of the heavens is a tableau of cosmic collisions, star birth and star death, black holes and gamma ray bursts that can sterilize entire solar systems.
We know that plate tectonics and folding planetary crusts explain how seashells are found at the top of some of the highest mountains.
We do? There are other theories that explain seashells on mountain-tops as well.
The chemical code for DNA is CGAT, not YHWH. We find no part of man that is not found in so called "lower life forms."
Yes, that intricate coding is found in all life forms. Amazing isn't it? It's the same with any intricate construction like a building or a car....all require units of measurments and complex geometric designs.
Evidence of a Creator grows slimmer by the second.
What? You just perfectly described the manafestations of a Master Designer.

Is Rationality All That And A Bag of Chips?

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