Mystic Force

Why is it that Tiffany never gets any love?

If I have a book that says that nothing in the bible is true does that work as evidence? Because that the level of proof being offered in the "pro" camp

Yet to see any evidence that this god fellow is real yet except from a book that could have been made up.....

Its all true or some of it true and you get to choose which bits to follow at which point all of it is up for grabs and you can do what ever you want which makes it a bit pointless as a guide book. By our current moral standings a lot of it is reprehensible making it a difficult to argue it should be our basis of morals. I can drive 2 1/2 hours from where I sit know to go see where someone built an Ark to try to persuade people that it literally happened like is written in a book. In England you have largely shrugged of the everyday influence of this nonscence but here it is a very real presence. They passed a law to allow bible classes in schools here, you can be sure it is not to point out the errors, omissions and contradictions and no one will be showing how the Torah is different, or what is in the Quran or Guru Granth Sahib but an attempt to further the aims of one specific religious group, and a narrow interpretation at that, not the more liberal Methodist version, or the mainstream catholic, Anglican or Lutheran version, but the evangelical absolutist version. So when you say what harm does a little old lady do when she prays, not much but its the compulsion element, when its passed down. The shunning and cover ups of the Jehovas witnesses, the collecting 10% of your income for Mormons, not for helping people but to put aside for some unknown future purpose and differing of elected officials not to their constituents but their church leaders. These are the problems that are faced here, that thankfully you are spared.

I get angrier and angrier sitting here going through this whole experience, with the incompetence and out right lying. Now the stimulus bill is passed small businesses are not receiving help, but lobbyists are descending on DC to get their snout in the trough ignoring all social distancing. People getting paper checks for their funds have to wait longer so they get the privilege of seeing Donald's signature rather than timely funds if you don't have direct deposit you are likely to be in the group most needing this. Trump continues to find enemies to blame instead of being a leader, if he simply took responsibility and told people what they need to do to keep safe and get things back to normal his supporters would all listen and join the program. But to have the guy in charge keep up this constant BS show is insufferable. If the US stops being the leading world power it will be this moment that will be pointed to for when it occurred. For the supposedly most advanced country in the world there is certainly a lot of dump people. I am not sure if you removed the coasts the inhabitants could send a man to the moon, they might be hard pressed to send that man to Albuquerque.

Near universal consensus, but not a lot of actual evidence. At a minimum the all powerful magician version didn't exist, no one outside the bible seems to have noticed him except this weird bit of text stuck in Josephus that looks like the clumsiest of insertions. Even the new testament authors cannot agree on where he is born or in what year. The version of the nativity we are all familiar with is an amalgamation of two mutually exclusive stories that cannot be reconciled. 3 versions of the story have him wandering around for 1 year and the other version 3 years. The crucifixion takes place on different days. seems a little lax to get so many details wrong for something so important. I am on the fence if this guy existed or did this character take on several different individuals stories to make a composite figure. The teachings are done in parables maybe the whole thing is meant to be a parable and some people got the wrong end of the stick. Some of the people in the stories are real people attested to independently (like Pontius Pilot) but if you read a Sharpe novel or Philippa Gregory you would see the same thing in historic fiction.

The bit I get stuck on and I have never been able to square this circle is how are you tolerant towards intolerance? I believe that being tolerant of others is a virtue, but how can you then tolerate intolerance. By allowing people that will not tolerate you or your way of life or opinions use their position to impose their will because if there is enough of them that is what happens. It happens on forums where if there is to much permitted the quality of the experience is diminished as to make it worthless using (say spam postings, constant attacks on others etc) or drowns out someone who has a different point of view until they are hounded out. All this is fine while the tolerant is in the majority, when the intolerant are in the ascendancy all sorts of bad things can happen and one danger we face is allowing the intolerant to use the leavers of tolerance to achieve there aims.

Well they had this idea about freedom of religion and a separation of church and state, the problem seems to be an ascendant minority group wishes to ignore the constitution and these ideas and use state policies to impose their particular type of religion on all. Freedom of religion must also include freedom from religion. Pray all you want in your own spaces the problem is when it starts creeping into schools, or other public spaces which precludes other of a different perspective from being welcomed or being allowed to take part. Say for example the football coach for a school prays before games with the team but one or two don't want to join in, then those players do not get to play. This is an issue largely irrelevant in the UK because apathy has basically won and religious adherence is quite low. But to be an atheist in this area is seen as basically satan worship, rather than an intellectual choice.

I think the simple explantion is on the whole Germans like following rules, so when told to do something they generally do, unlike other cultures that value individuality more and those countries (Cough, Cough USA) have had a larger outbreak.

Welcome to America (especially the bit I just moved to) and you will see exactly why this can be a problem. It is not about people live and let live its about imposing one groups will on all, specifically a right wing nationalist version of Christianity where anyone who deviates is evil.

Actually reading the book leads to some unfortunate findings, some contradictions and many logical difficulties. It even advices you on how to do slavery right.

Oh FFS, the WHO is a group for sharing information and coordinating international action, not singlehandedly fighting every disease known to man. In the above comment about human to human was not proven this is scientist speak aimed at other scientist. This is how we speak to each other, what it says is we do not know, not that it does not occur, it would be interpreted by another scientist who understands the terms of art and communicated into language that non professionals can understand to inform there actions. For people to take scientifically accurate statements and then take the everyday meaning of those words is part of the problem. Like how the word theory has a different definition when used in a science context than what the average person understands by the term, hence all the problem with the anti evolution rhetoric "its just a theory".

I have noticed how quiet many different forums have been over the last few weeks, I am guessing all those non essential workers had to fill up their non essential time with something. Now they are home they have probably found something interesting to do.

What is interesting around the people I know is that the kinds of people who would be ok being stuck at home are the people with the essential jobs still going out to work and the people who find having a quiet sit down at home intolerable are the ones locked up inside. I think there are some interesting dynamics about what temperament attracts people to certain occupations.

If Boris doesn't pull through you can take the thread about him in the lounge and rearrange the title words. Hopefully he pulls through as I don't want anyone to have to lose a loved one, even one I don't agree much with. Will be interesting to see how this changes the people who are in charge's perception of the pandemic.

Sorry, That should say enlightenment not entitlement.

I think my Trump loving office mate finally gets it. He told me that his brothers neighbor in his 40s with no underlying health issues succumbed to the virus. With it occurring within someone's sphere of personal knowledge, who was initially denying it was serious, the realization that this was bungled might be dawning, how sad that this is the cost of entitlement.

When people at the bottom get assistance they are scroungers, when people a the top get assistance its called business.

The players will all be taking a haircut when the ordinary people start cancelling the expensive TV packages that pay their wages. It might be a good idea to earn some goodwill.

Any victory will be down to the Governors who wagged the fight in the absence of a centralized response. Places like Ohio and New York have had governors very active in their response. they have been decisive, not always right but doing what they thought had to be done. In West Virginia even though there were barely any cases, but surrounded by states where it was growing, took pro active steps to prevent the spread into the area. I am worried about those states (like my old state Iowa) that did not act promptly, being a reservoir to re-infect the other states that went through the economic pain of stringent measures. And then on the sacrifice and leadership of others Trump will claim he did it all himself.

What's suddenly wrong with telling other people what to do?

Not sure if you in the UK got to hear this gem. The presidents re-election campaign has been sending cease and desist letters to TV stations that have been airing an advert playing Trump talking about the outbreak alongside a timeline of cases. No comments, no one elses words. Trying to intimididate media from playing his own words back breaks all kinds of things. I talk to people here who agreed with him when he said it was false and a hoax and overblown and now deny he ever said these things. He said the US was going to keep winning, so much winning we would get tired of winning. Right now USA is No 1 in infection cases and I am sick of all the winning.

That is my frequent hope that in all this the willingly ignorant will eliminate themselves. But I share an office with one and we are both "essential"

Overall I thought it was a pretty terrible book, with barely any real insight. Lots of statistics to back up a point they had already decided on rather than one that fell out of the numbers and conclusions based on faulty assumptions. Often the suggestions would not have the desired outcome because systems are dynamic and adjust. We had a temporary advantage in finding upcoming talent for a short while, until others copied or stole from us and it evaporated. The anyone can beat anyone section was particularly stupid.

Rand Paul