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Dear June,
I would tend to vouch for this view . . . having spent the better part of 30+ some odd years failing to do that very thing. The serendipitous practice of atheistic Budhhist meditation proved to be the missing ingredient. By judiciously developing my right brain skills to augment my already well-developed left brain ones . . . I gained access to the other half of the "information set" provided for our edification. Ironically enough . . . it was this right brain set that had dominated our earliest history and experiences skewing our understanding. The development of left brain cognitive skills and artificial rubrics (mathematics, empiricism) for understanding and testing our reality seriously began to skew our understanding in the opposite direction. Haviing probed the possibility for this kind of abstract thought here in the fora . . . I am not sanguine about either the number of those interested in it or the number that are capable of it. The failure of what I deemed to be fairly cognitively accessible analogies and metaphors leaves me skeptical.
Be well,
Mystic
Dear Mystic,
June is still waiting for her right brain and left brain skills to kick in. She's not quite sure she ever had them to begin with...Perhaps God forgot to dole them out to her?
1. Are Nathans hotdogs.. great hotdogs.. or the greatest hotdogs?
2. Brisket. Is it BBQ or not?
3. Ribs. Wet or Dry rub? Mustard or Tomato based sauce?
4. Say a man and his wife purchase new furniture. And the wife says.. "since we just spent money on furniture please don't get me something for my birthday". Advice?
5. Jack Daniels or a fine Scotch?
6. Mayo on a hamburger or "oh dear that is sick"
7. Finish this sentence: "I'd have to say that out of all the Star Wars movies ________ was the best"
8. Bottled water or straight from the tap
9. GCSTroop.. Way too smart for his age or bigthirsty is way too dumb for his?
10. I get physically sick when I watch my favorite college team play football. Is that normal?
11. Is it ok to teach my child that Krystal's hamburgers are the cats meow.. yet Vienna Sausages are satans evil fingers?
12. Who wins between a bear and a lion?
13. Who wins between the winner in bullet 12 and a shark.. assuming the shark can walk on land AND the shark has a gun.
14. Did we actually land on the moon?
15. Woody Woodpecker cartoon: Vastly under appreciated or not?
16. Cheese: A wonder of awesomeness or.. nasty mold colored yellow
17. I hate the beatles music with an undying passion. I find their music overrated and boring. I don't really have a question.. I just wanted to put that out there.
18. Finish this sentence: I don't care what anybody says about them from a corporate standpoint.. McDonalds makes the best ______?
19. Clowns: Innocent and fun OR horrifying and scary and do you remember that one clown in Poltergeist.. I had clown doll some aunt gave me at 10 years old that looked just like that!
20. Coke or Pepsi
Dear Bigthirsty,
Someone seems very curious. June suspects you are the antithesis of Oakback?
1- Nathans hot dogs are pretty darn good hot dogs.
2- June would sooner die than even sample 'brisket.'
3- June's not terribly big on ribs, either.
4- Take her to the place you first proposed to her, present her with flowers, and tell her you worship the ground she walks on and would marry her again in a heartbeat. Then take her to the ocean in her imagination...
5- Neither! June can't stand scotch much less Jack Daniels!
6- Just a plain burger for June. Definately no mayo.
7- June has not seen any of the Star Wars movies.
8- Bottled.
9- GCSTroop: Smart. Very smart. (Think 'Good Will Hunting' caliber smart!) -Which, compared to him, we are all way too dumb.
10- It's what we call a reaction formation.
11- Just teach that dear, sweet child manners and self respect.
12- Wins what?
13- June hasn't a clue.
14- Yes, we did. I was there.
15- Extremely underrated.
16- Cheese: Solid necter of the Gods...
17- Remember back in question ten, where you asked June whether or not you are "normal?" June has an answer now...
18- "..case for all that is unhealthy, if not downright evil about fast food in this world!"
19- June has no feelings about clowns one way or another.
20- Cabernet Souvignon, 1955.
I'm racking my pea brain, and can't remember the end of the movie.
Did he end up with minnie driver and go back to school?
Nah... He took off to California in the pile of junk car his friends bought him for his 21st birthday and went looking for Minnie Driver at UC Berkeley. No one knows what happened thereafter...
June does not think that religion is a 'cognitive strategy' at all. Speaking strictly for her 'just June' self, June can tell you that there is no way that she can 'think her way' into believing. June suspects if she could somehow manage to do that, she'd have done it by now. We also would not have the need for a 'believing mod' and thus, we'd have to give Miss Blue to boot. Either that or Miss Blue would have to undergo a 'crisis of faith' such that she ended up losing her faith, thereby switching mod roles. What a shame that would be. Would God really wish to sacrifice one of his children for the sake of another? -June thinks not! So June is therefore grateful of the fact that religion is not in any sense a 'collective cognitive strategy.' June suspects that your God is somehow 'intuited by' creation. To possess a spiritual aspect or nature does not in any real sense strike June as either cognitive or thus, 'rational.' P.S. June, like yourself, also hoped to find questions/threads like the questions you have asked her when she first signed onto this tour of duty. And actually, if memory serves her correctly, there was a time when in fact, there was some discussion similiar to the above...
I'm gonna weary you so this will be my last question, at least along these lines. To paraphrase Kierkegaard again, belief carries the sense that doubt and faith exist hand in hand, are coexisting forces that sweep like sciroccos through our minds. (In truth, I'm offended by the notion commonly expressed that faith is unthinking.) So I don't think there are absolutes for posters or mods!
I suppose I was taking a mechanical, practical view when I spoke of "cognitive strategies", rather than asking of the ultimate, existential perspective. BTW, that's one I understand so this isn't a post of contention or even disagreement. But, for example, there was the anecdote of Helen Keller who was deaf and blind yet still had a sense of God. Of course, we could argue she'd already been indoctrinated when she testified to it. There are threads that claim babies are born atheist, but I wonder, Is there proof? We have anthropology to account for the opposite. History. I have anecdotes from having attended funerals where hard atheists themselves begin to ponder The Other. An acquaintance of mine is a researcher in cognitive psychology and is still mystified by the God impulse. I guess the only way to scientific testability is, well, I don't suppose it would be within the scope of the thread to ask if you'd sacrifice a generation of babies to be raised isolated, to test the psychological inclination for belief... OT, though...might be "fun"... But if they're told they're wrong, that it's only animistic thinking, isn't that indoctrination too? Who isn't indoctrinated? I can only speak for myself that the thorough deconstruction through existential reasoning did not feel natural. For me, personally, it felt very contrived. So from that preamble and amble and amble, my real question is, Whereas I may struggle in that Kierkegaard sense of faith and doubt, though I unwaveringly believe in God, does your existential atheism ever become likewise a mental chore, though you remain unwaveringly an atheist?
Unless June needs to go back and brush up on her Shakespeare, it would appeareth that you saideth:
"I esteem you with much reverence."
June is concerned that a bacon overdose has taken place. Please either re-post, or go to your nearest detox. They (and June) can help you!
Take gentle Old English care,
-Juneth
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