Phi for All

That's why I went on to give examples of how our views determine how we handle death. So your question is answered, yes?

It's no secret she loves Putin. Her party borrowed 9M Euros from a Russian bank to fund local elections in 2014: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/apr/08/vladimir-putin-viktor-orban-eu-marine-le-pen If she could withdraw from NATO, she'd be forced to buy weapons from Russian arms dealers to plug the gaps in French defense. Like Boris in the UK, Le Pen seems to want to ruin publicly funded programs in favor of capitalist opportunities for the wealthy. As an American, it looks all too familiar. Russian will certainly use international hackers to pollute the French elections with praise for Le Putin.

The process of death is the same all over, but how we view death has a cultural context. Muslims believe their god ordains the time of death for each individual, and other cultures believe death can follow death unless certain traditions are observed (iirc, Russians cover their mirrors and stop their clocks when someone dies to keep the living safe). Society's rules don't have to follow scientific methodology. Most of those rules on death concern the transfer of possessions, public safety, and investigating irregularities. Science isn't always the template societies use. Btw - if you plan on copying your own previous posts and pasting them as replies to anything I've said (the way you just did with Peterkin), you can enjoy the conversation without me. I didn't join this discussion for the intellectual laziness.

Literally wrote it yourself, or not an advocate and just using some of their arguments, which is it? Is this an example of a person of faith using bad faith arguments? Or are you beginning to see why all these points were refuted quite some time ago?

As for the first couple that seem to be in your own words: Energy is a property of matter, not a thing in and of itself. DNA is not a molecule, it's a polymer. Your reasoning is that this polymer is really a code, so magically it stops being a part of chemistry and becomes rigidly defined as being created by a conscious mind, therefore blah blah bullshit. It's proof of nothing except that you don't understand what you're criticizing. Are you kidding me? You're cherry-picking terms that fit your argument, while leaving out the rest. Plenty of business, technology, and societal aspects "evolve" without being specifically designed to do so, so they don't "always refers to an intelligent process". What makes you think language evolves according to some kind of overarching design? If this is true, then you should read everything at the talkorigins.org link iNow gave earlier. It's the best source for debunking all those tired, ignorant arguments made by the creationists you plagiarized.

You've plagiarized several already refuted websites to stitch this bullshit together. Why should anyone respond to your idiot copypasta? Great example of how ID has to cheat, deceive, and lie to gain traction with the uneducated.

It might have set a poor tone, but it's not the reason you're viewed as a troll. I don't think you understand the purpose of a science discussion forum. We can't possibly help you with your mental health, other than to help you learn some science through discussion. Constantly bringing up problems we can't help with is frustrating for EVERYONE. If you're looking for more internet friends, it's not a good tactic to start out complaining about how you were stalked on the internet and lost all your friends. It's not a good tactic to join a conversation and then make it all about you. It's not a good tactic to base your whole forum style on things we can't possibly know or check on. If you actually listened to the feedback you've gotten in various threads, you wouldn't need to make threads like these. You could read the room and realize nobody wants to discuss "the work of the Lord" on a science discussion forum. Unless your life experiences give context to the science discussion you've chosen to join, you don't need to mention it. Focus. Stay on topic. Remember that this is like sitting around a table talking. What you've been doing is jumping up on the table and screaming, "But what about THIS!"

This is certainly misinformation being pushed on us by you. There are two FB posts mentioned in this Wikipedia article, and one is allegedly fake. The translation doesn't mention "Russians" (but you know that better than I do), but instead it calls out the "inhumans" (or the perpetrators of observed attrocities). It can't be "murder", because this is a war, no matter what Putin says. Russia has been using foreign troops known for their inhumane approach to warfare. Given the overall hatchet-job look of that Wiki (more scandals space than bio space), I'd say this is more Russian propaganda. What makes it even more insulting is trying to hide obvious genocide (bombing maternity hospitals and train stations full of fleeing families) with your manufactured version. Fuck you, Putin!

! Moderator Note You need to stop putting words in other people's mouths. It's a bad faith argument tactic, it's intellectually dishonest, and it makes it very difficult to discuss science with you in an amicable manner. If you can't use actual quotes from other members, perhaps focusing on your own arguments would be best.

koti has been suspended for 3 days for bad faith posts encouraging personal attacks.

mistermack has been suspended for two weeks for continuing to violate our rule against disparaging whole groups of people.

! Moderator Note If we could discuss complicated issues with you within the rules, it would be best. Since you continue to thumb your nose at our rule against disparaging groups, we're going to carry on without your input for a couple of weeks.

Yes, the oppressors would prefer it if their victims would just shoot themselves, too, to save money. How much does being a disinformant pay?

You make so many bad assumptions while praising your own "logic"! Nobody said "worthless reading". The comments are only "unnecessary" because you disagree with them and refuse to consider them. The comments aren't "offensive" since they're attacking your idea and your writing style, NOT YOU PERSONALLY. One of the situations we face a lot here is robot posters. As I mentioned, you have an overly verbose style that tends to clutter up what you're trying to convey, and we're instantly suspicious. You've made up a lot of terms which you don't bother to explain, and it makes reading your ideas a bit of a slog. You make claims about software that needs to be developed but it's clear you're assuming it hasn't been already. Coupled with your assumptions that nobody had done what you're suggesting, you've developed this idea that we need to test something until it gives us the results we're hoping for, and that's really questionable methodology.

Let's not send the wrong message. It's not a wall of text that represents a lengthy commitment to learning. It's a wall of leafy green word salad that's difficult to chew because it has very few recognizable scientific definitions in it. And many of the words don't really go together, or were perhaps abused by a thesaurus, like "indelible dogma".

It looks like, when we can take your assertions one at a time instead of dealing with a shit-flooded zone, they're much easier to deconstruct.

Can we have a brief overview, please? If you only had two fairly short sentences to describe your idea as clearly as you can, or if I gave you twenty seconds to give me your best elevator pitch, what would you tell me? Edit to add: There's a 5 post limit on your first day to weed out robot spammers, so thanks in advance for coming back tomorrow.

What's happened to your objectivity? Of course many of them had a basis in rational thought. The creators of Gobekli Tepe constructed a place of pilgrimage that must have required an unprecedented amount of cooperation and skill for Stone Age humans 12,000 years ago. They used the knowledge they had at the time to explain their world in the form of stone pillars and megaliths carved with wild animals. Every damn bit of what they were doing AT THE TIME was rooted in rational thought.

That sounds like "brainwashing". Ritual has nothing intrinsic to do with untruths. Ritual is just a ceremonial form of conduct, usually repeating the same words/movements in unison or along with a speaker. They're usually special words and movements, words everybody wants to get right, sacred words that aren't supposed to change based on individuals (not sacred in a religious sense). Weddings, swearing-in ceremonies, pledges of allegiance, vows & oaths, clubs, leagues, lots of non-religious folks use ritual to mark the importance of an event. Memorizing the words and saying them together ideally creates unity and brotherhood. Like any tool, ritual can be misused. Any form of teaching can be misused. Doesn't mean the tool is evil.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60736185 I'm waiting for your hands to start waving this away. https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/understanding-russian-oligarchs Clearly these are people you admire as leaders?

The purchase of the Sibneft oil and gas company through the rigged Russian government auction in 1995 is a great example of rape and robbery of assets that were once owned by socialist soviets. Or do you contend that someone who can snatch a company like that for $250M and sell it 10 years later BACK to the state for $13B is just a good businessman? Are you proud of the accomplishments of the Russian oligarchs who preyed on their own? Does that make them enviable wolves taking their just share from the sheep?

I can argue the rationality of ritual fairly well. For people who can't read, ritual repetition is one of the best ways to learn. It's how most of our oral stories were passed down. You see early religious individuals trying to "control" their group, but it probably just started out as teaching what they though was right, in the right way. You repeat the chant, and if you get it wrong you get corrected. Most teaching progressed like this, and still does.

So a rich murderer is better than a poor murderer? I would argue that Abramovich is not only a bigger robber and murderer, but he has the wealth to also be a source of corruption, something the poor lack. You're ignoring the scale of his corruption because there's only one of him, but look how he raped Russians of assets from the former Soviet Union. Do you admire him for this?

I think you're completely wrong here, because there were a LOT of folks who had Jada's reaction. And as far as "just doing his job" goes, I'll ask you to think about this. What if Will had stood up just the way he did, walked up on stage just the way he did, but instead of acting like an animal and striking a fellow human, imagine if he used his words instead, and said, "Shame on your hypocrisy, joking about a black woman's medical condition! If you can't be an ally, Chris Rock, then keep my wife's name out of your fucking mouth!"? Rock would have had the choice then to acknowledge him or treat him like another heckler. Either way, this situation would have a better framework for discussion. Without the slap, it's more about whether comedians should be encouraged to make fun of medical conditions or not. Without the slap, it's just Chris Rock trying to justify why he in particular would joke about a black woman's hair in the first place.

Staff split his first comment off of a larger thread about a different subject, so mistermack didn't "start" this thread. The post was deemed off-topic for the other subject and threatened to take it off course, but mistermack seemed like he wanted to make the point that poor people get everything handed to them and rich people get all the blame, so this post was set as the OP for it's own thread. I think it gives people the opportunity to respond specifically to assertions made that would likely derail the main conversation. I'd like to use splits more often, especially when the comments seem like they're made specifically to drag a good talk into the mud. It gives us a chance to really drill down and find out where someone is coming from.