Comments by hightrekker

Comment #38836 by hightrekker on May 9, 2007 at 9:30 am

From Heinberg---

"With religion we have come to believe absurdities, and hallucinated gods and demons have become central to people's lives. Here in America in the early 21st century it is considered normal for people to talk regularly with a shared imaginary friend, and to believe that this particular imaginary friend is uniquely efficacious�to believe, in fact, that to talk to any other imaginary friend is blasphemy. While this behavior appears more than a tad daft to non-participants, the latter rarely comment on it publicly because to do so would be impolite, and because the believers are so numerous and so vehement in the defense and promotion of their practices. Now, talking to imaginary friends may serve a useful purpose: back in the early 1980s, Julian Jaynes theorized that conversing with hallucinated gods provides a way for otherwise walled-off verbal and non-verbal areas of the brain to interact with one another. Nevertheless, the practice clearly risks personal and societal disengagement from reality. Many people have been killed simply because they talked to the wrong imaginary friend, or refused to talk to the right one."

52. The New Atheists loathe religion far too much to plausibly challenge it

Comment #38467 by hightrekker on May 8, 2007 at 7:51 am

More Cabbage for Christ Babbling---
The poor meme infected hosts.
From Heinberg:
"Here in America in the early 21st century it is considered normal for people to talk regularly with a shared imaginary friend, and to believe that this particular imaginary friend is uniquely efficacious�to believe, in fact, that to talk to any other imaginary friend is blasphemy. While this behavior appears more than a tad daft to non-participants, the latter rarely comment on it publicly because to do so would be impolite, and because the believers are so numerous and so vehement in the defense and promotion of their practices. Now, talking to imaginary friends may serve a useful purpose: back in the early 1980s, Julian Jaynes theorized that conversing with hallucinated gods provides a way for otherwise walled-off verbal and non-verbal areas of the brain to interact with one another. Nevertheless, the practice clearly risks personal and societal disengagement from reality. Many people have been killed simply because they talked to the wrong imaginary friend, or refused to talk to the right one."

53. The New Atheists loathe religion far too much to plausibly challenge it

Comment #38201 by hightrekker on May 7, 2007 at 8:01 am

We must realize the toxic parasites (religion) that are colonizing these poor hosts (believers) will not let them think critically, as it threatens their replication and survival.
Look at some religions (Judaism for example)-- One cannot even mention the name of the God (parasite), so it cannot be discussed or analyzed- hence a very effective survival trait.
The infected are not capable of truth, without massive education through science, and possibly meditation to watch their mind reactions.
This author is incapable of reason or analysis.

54. Richard Dawkins in the Time 100

Comment #37079 by hightrekker on May 3, 2007 at 10:47 am

Michael Behe?--
That's where they have the advantage-- they (Michael Behe) have no ethical or moral foundation to get in the way. While a reality based person, making decisions on science, observation, and developed analysis, would hold their nose while reading this, the superstition based person has both hands free.
Shame on you Time! Have you no ethics?

55. Pundit Christopher Hitchens picks a fight in book, 'God is Not Great'

Comment #36008 by hightrekker on April 29, 2007 at 9:27 pm

Nietzsche said it best a long time ago- 'Christianity is voluntary stupidity.'

And that applies to all of the Bronze Age fiction, or New Age Delusion

56. Pope abolishes limbo

Comment #35140 by hightrekker on April 26, 2007 at 10:23 am

A quick summary----
No More Limbo for Bimbo
Apr 21, 2007
Limbo, the Catholic answer to where unbaptized babies go when they die, has gone the way of other antiquated notions such as geocentrism, the belief that the sun and all the planets revolve around the earth.

A Vatican committe, authorized by Pope Benedict XVI [Ratzinger], spent years determining where little babies go when they die, coming to the conclusion, in its 41-page report, that it's Heaven.

Conservative Catholics are protesting the decision, fearing that parents will delay their children's christenings. They fear it would also encourage abortion, as Catholic activists often tell women considering abortions that their fetuses will not go to Heaven.

The Vatican decision is in line with the church's growing vision of a feto-centric universe.

* "Bimbo" is Italian for baby.

Posted by: miss_poppy on Apr 21

57. Shout your doubt out loud, my fellow unbelievers

Comment #34990 by hightrekker on April 25, 2007 at 8:53 pm

Intervention for religious friends--
It's time for an intervention!
By Naomi
This is a follow-up to my post on the much-quoted Karl Marx "�It is the opium of the people�"

When Religion is an Addiction

I remember hearing popular psychological speaker and writer John Bradshaw say that the "high" one gets from being righteous was similar to the high of cocaine. As both a former monk and addict, he knew the feelings personally.

As the religious right pushes its anti-gay, anti-women's reproductive rights, anti-science, pro-profit agenda nationally and in state capitals across the nation and wins, that high is a sweet fix for the addicted. It gives them a comforting feeling of relief that they're really right, okay, worthwhile, and acceptable.

�Like all fixes, though, it doesn't last. So, the addict is driven to seek another and another � another issue, another evil, another paranoiac threat to defeat. It can't ever end. Like the need for heavier doses, the causes have to become bigger and more evil in the addict's mind to provide the fix.

This mind-altering fix of righteousness covers their paranoid shame-based feelings about the internal and external dangers stalking them. The victim-role language of their dealers, right-wing religious leaders, feeds it. Like alcoholism and drug addiction, the fix numbs the religious addict against any feelings about how their addiction affects others�

If you're an enabler or the addict yourself, the above must sound over the top. You'd prefer to deny or soften the reality of the addiction�

Addicts reinforce each other. Fundamentalist religious organizations and media are their supportive co-users. So the person who deals with someone's addiction cannot do it alone. They must have support from others outside the addiction�

You can't argue with an addict�

You can't buy into the addict's view of reality�

Never say, even to reject it or with "so-called" before it: "partial-birth abortion," "gay rights," "intelligent design," "gay marriage," etc�

Don't let the addict get you off topic�

Never argue about whether sexual orientation is a choice�

Never argue about sex�

It's okay to affirm that you don't care or these aren't the issues. You don't need to justify your beliefs to a drunk or druggie�

Get your message on target and repeat it�

Don't nag addicts�

Don't accept that the addiction needs equal time�

Model what it is to be a healthy human being without the addiction. Addicts must see people living outside the addiction, happy, confident, proud, and free from the effects of the disease. In spite of the fact that we're a nation that supports both substance and process addictions so people don't threaten the institutions and values that pursue profits over humanity, live as if that has no ultimate control over you.

Don't believe that you, your friends, children, relationships, hopes, and dreams, are any less valuable or legitimate because they aren't sanctioned by a government, politicians, or religious leaders that are in a coping, rather than healing, mode of life.

Dealing with addictions takes an emotional toll on everyone. Yet, recognizing religious addiction as an addiction demystifies its dynamics and maintains our sanity.

This is an excellent primer for talking to the religious-addicted. Please link and read the complete article (which is part of a soon-to-be released book).

If you've ever been through addiction recovery, you'll recognize most of the "empowering ways" to speak to the addict. If you have been lucky enough to escape the curse of addiction (chemical and otherwise), you can still appreciate how important it is to set up and maintain the conversation, and keep YOUR focus on THEIR problem. If you even once sound sympathetic and/or defensive, you've lost your power. End the encounter immediately. That allows you to come back later, having shown your control of the issue by walking away from it on your terms. It's not complicated but it requires self-control.

Reminder: "Model what it is to be a healthy human being without the addiction. Addicts must see people living outside the addiction, happy, confident, proud, and free from the effects of the disease."

(Dr. Minor is a Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Kansas. Through his Fairness Project, he is an advocate for, and lecturer on, LGBT issues.)

58. Fighting Words: A wartime lexicon

Comment #34954 by hightrekker on April 25, 2007 at 5:24 pm

Yes, he can write-
Yes, he is right on with this analysis--
I have been listing to Hitchens for years (he was on the radio frequently with Marc Cooper on KPFK in LA), and watched his swings in ideology and political direction. His problem with alcohol may be a factor, but for a long term perspective, he appears ethically challenged, and could be Christopher Khomeini in the near future.
Just a warning-- He is smart, a good writer, but not to be trusted-
Just my opinion from 15 years with Hitchens

59. Shout your doubt out loud, my fellow unbelievers

Comment #34653 by hightrekker on April 24, 2007 at 7:53 pm

All I can say, in frustration to this superstition based reality--
So many Christians, so few Lions

60. Here Comes the Fourth Musketeer.

Comment #33706 by hightrekker on April 21, 2007 at 8:38 am

We need to accept Hitchens for what he is---
A drunken opportunist, who writes very well.
This is someone who rolled the dice and got some
bad luck on the Iraq adventure, and may be trying to redeem himself now.
This guy is in the ethical shallow end of the pool.

61. Here Comes the Fourth Musketeer.

Comment #33609 by hightrekker on April 20, 2007 at 5:40 pm

While I have some real issues with Hitchens (his support of the war in Iraq or one thing, along with his complicity to take down Pacifica Radio), I am in complete agreement with him on this one-
I think Marx nailed it over 150 years ago (a contemporary of Darwin)-
"Religious distress is at the same time the expression of real distress and the protest against real distress. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusion about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions."
Karl Marx, Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right

62. The Genetics of Brain Wiring: From Molecule to Mind

Comment #33271 by hightrekker on April 19, 2007 at 7:04 pm

Bremas--
Matt Ridley has 2 great books dealing with genetics-
1. The Agile Gene (if you are in the US)
2. Genome

I would recommend both

63. NEXT MONDAY: Bill O'Reilly interviews Richard Dawkins

Comment #33231 by hightrekker on April 19, 2007 at 4:28 pm

I can't see anything good coming of this one---
This will break down to shouting one liners to the sheeple
who watch this freak show. Rational discourse is not welcome or possible.
Richard, go to a good library instead-- Radical Democracy in action.

64. Christians at Bible publishers have their throats cut

Comment #32959 by hightrekker on April 18, 2007 at 8:37 pm

Killing over which version of Bronze Age Fiction (or Iron Age in the case of the con man Mohammed) is correct is sheer madness.
When one man is delusional, they call him mentally ill and give him care. When a whole group of people are delusional it is called religion.

65. Kadra attacked in public

Comment #32026 by hightrekker on April 15, 2007 at 9:26 am

Vile and disgusting, and if I hear one more post modernist relativist mumble and shout about the equality of culture, I'll puke.
Genital mutilation is horrific, no matter what a group of barbaric primitives fearing the power of women and sexuality think.

66. Even non-believers must recognise the moral necessity of Christianity

Comment #30665 by hightrekker on April 9, 2007 at 9:18 am

Let us be honest---
If you take out all the "Thee" and Tho" there really is not much left
with Christianity.
The Cabbages for Christ cling to a mythical and perverted moral superiority--
Bad Bronze Age Fiction.
Very sad really.

67. The Most Hated Family in America

Comment #29643 by hightrekker on April 3, 2007 at 6:57 pm

Just more Cabbages for Christ------
The poor sheep are so meme infested, they are beyond help.
Just faithful followers of a psychopathic Bronze Age Fiction text--

68. How Many Scientists?

Comment #28914 by hightrekker on March 31, 2007 at 3:04 pm

Scooter--
Anyone with a reasonably large forebrain at this point can see Earth is warming, and is in a mass extinction. As how much these are related, needs further examination. We don't live in a post modern relativists world when it comes to science. What you think
has no relation with the Second Law of Thermodynamics--
It always has the last word--
O course, we could wait a few "Friedman Units" and see if this really critical to our species survival--
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedman_(unit)>CLICK HERE

69. How Many Scientists?

Comment #28912 by hightrekker on March 31, 2007 at 3:01 pm

Scooter--
Anyone with a reasonably large forebrain at this point can see Earth is warming, and is in a mass extinction. As how much these are related, needs further examination. We don't live in a post modern relativists world when it comes to science. What you think has no relation with the Second Law of Thermodynamics--
It always has the last word--
O course, we could wait a few "Friedman Units" and see if this really critical to our species survival--
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedman_(unit)

70. How Many Scientists?

Comment #28911 by hightrekker on March 31, 2007 at 3:00 pm

71. How Many Scientists?

Comment #28909 by hightrekker on March 31, 2007 at 2:59 pm

72. In the Beginning

Comment #28863 by hightrekker on March 31, 2007 at 11:30 am

I have also always been suspicious of Paul Davies---
He has always seemed a closet Cabbage for Christ-
His New Age appeal resonated a shallow chord.

73. Orr vs. Dennett/Dawkins

Comment #27143 by hightrekker on March 23, 2007 at 9:23 am

J Dore--
Here is the full paper--
http://www.bbsonline.org/documents/a/00/00/04/99/bbs00000499-00/bbs.pinker.html

74. Orr vs. Dennett/Dawkins

Comment #27116 by hightrekker on March 23, 2007 at 7:24 am

Zaphod--
The point is, it is probably less about the 747 and religion, and more about discrediting Dawkins of Dennitt on any level while
fighting this war. Orr's roll is to minimize and discredit any position taken by Dawkins, Dennett or Pinker.
There are political and social implications that cannot be accepted
from the Gould side if Dawkins and Pinker's science becomes validated.

75. Orr vs. Dennett/Dawkins

Comment #27026 by hightrekker on March 22, 2007 at 10:59 pm

What the War is About------

Abstract

Many people have argued that the evolution of the human language faculty cannot be explained by Darwinian natural selection. Chomsky and Gould have suggested that language may have evolved as the by-product of selection for other abilities or as a consequence of as-yet unknown laws of growth and form. Others have argued that a biological specialization for grammar is incompatible with every tenet of Darwinian theory -- that it shows no genetic variation, could not exist in any intermediate forms, confers no selective advantage, and would require more evolutionary time and genomic space than is available. We examine these arguments and show that they depend on inaccurate assumptions about biology or language or both. Evolutionary theory offers clear criteria for when a trait should be attributed to natural selection: complex design for some function, and the absence of alternative processes capable of explaining such complexity. Human language meets this criterion: grammar is a complex mechanism tailored to the transmission of propositional structures through a serial interface. Autonomous and arbitrary grammatical phenomena have been offered as counterexamples to the position that language is an adaptation, but this reasoning is unsound: communication protocols depend on arbitrary conventions that are adaptive as long as they are shared. Consequently, language acquisition in the child should systematically differ from language evolution in the species and attempts to analogize them are misleading. Reviewing other arguments and data, we conclude that there is every reason to believe that a specialization for grammar evolved by a conventional neo-Darwinian process.
Keywords: Language, Evolution, Language Acquisition, Natural Selection, Grammatical Theory, Biology of Language, Language Universals, Psycholinguistics, Origin of Language

76. Orr vs. Dennett/Dawkins

Comment #27024 by hightrekker on March 22, 2007 at 10:19 pm

This like Stalin reviewing Trotsky---
The GOULD,LEWONTIN, ROSE VS DAWKINS,DENNETT,PINKER
war has been going on for years, and Orr is a lackey for the Gould side--
Coming from a Marxist background, I have been rooting for the Gould side, but the evidence is fully with Dennett, Pinker and Dawkins--
One must fold the cards sometime, but with Orr being the major reviewer for the Eastern Media Establishment, they will not give up---

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