If thou gazest long into the Pit, the Pit will also gaze into thee

jimhabegger wrote:And the place I most wanted to avoid in these forums was this thread.

This thread is the Slymepit. It's free form and chaotic and that's why it's special.

Ericb wrote:

jimhabegger wrote:And the place I most wanted to avoid in these forums was this thread.

This thread is the Slymepit. It's free form and chaotic and that's why it's special.

http://stream1.gifsoup.com/view/112473/ ... lbow-o.gif

comhcinc wrote: I grew up in the bible belt and those friends of yours just sound like pussies to me. When people talk aboot the south like this it just makes you look stupid.

Ha ha - commie is a Canadian. :twatson:

I expect an increase in hockey and maple syrup gifs.

blitzem wrote:

AndrewV69 wrote: So, you appear to be a fellow traveler. I have posted this one before but to as I recall no response. My number one favorite in the genre is follows. To me this version was better than any other I have heard including the original by A.R.Rahman himself.

[youtube]Pam8tXa6pkM[/youtube]

I thought that the movie was pretty good too, despite omitting some significant historical facts. But eh, was supposed to be a love story.

That was fantastic, Andrew. I must have missed it the last time you posted it. What are they singing about?

The lyrics are below. Bear in mind that a certain something ... "quality"? ... gets lost in translation:

Khwajaji, khwaja (O saint khwaja)
Khwajaji, khwaja, khwaja ji (O saint khwaja) , (O saint khwaja)
Ya gharib nawaz (The one who cherishes/soothes the poor)
Ya moinuddin, ya khwaja ji (O moinuddin chisti), (O khwaja saint)
Khwaja mere khwaja (O saint khwaja)
Dil mein sama ja (Reside in my heart)
Shaho ka shah tu (You are the king of kings)
Ali ka dulara (Ali's beloved)
Khwaja mere khwaja dil mein sama ja (O saint khwaja); (Reside in my heart)
Beqaso ki taqdeer, tune hai sawari (The destiny of the ones in despair, you have changed for the better)
Khwaja mere khwaja (O saint khwaja)
Tere darbar mein khwaja (At your door, o khwaja)
Door toh hai dekha (Ive seen it from far)
Sar jhuka te hai auliya (Your confidents/protectors/confessors bow down to you)
Tu hai Hindalwali khwaja (You are the hindalwali Khwaja)
Rutba hai pyara (Your status is glorious/great)
Chahne se tujhko khwaja ji mustafa ko paya (By wishing/worshipping you Khwaja, I have found muhammed [the chosen one]

Incidentally this is music would be considered haram (forbidden) to many Muslims by the Wahabi/Salafi & Takfaris (you are not a real Muslim because deviation/innovation etc.).

This song may also be considered shirk (Polytheism/Idoltory) by the usual suspects who invent traditions that never existed because, it praises and requests intercession by a Saint, and this comes close to rivaling Allah (swt)* for them to be comfortable with it.




*Sorry Phil, I know it irritates you, but it comes too close to hypocrisy for me to omit the swt on one forum and use it on another. And yes I do it in real life too.

Rather than go through that paragraph of that message of the Baha'i Universal House of Justice, sentence by sentence, trying to explain it without the God metaphors, as I started to do; I've decided to try to explain, in my own words, the community-building process that I see being promoted by the House of Justice.

It revolves around people in a neighborhood or village encouraging and supporting each other in systematic and sustained self-improvement and community service, motivated by love of God, using what they learn from studying His words and the stories surrounding them. What I mean by "love of God" is, roughly, a kind of love that brings out the best in people, and inspires warm feelings and friendly intentions for all people and all of nature, and a burning desire to do all the good we can do and be the best people we can be. A person may or may not see the object of that love as something they call "God." They might not even see it as having any specific object, or even have a name for it or be conscious of it at all.

What I mean by "God's words" are the words of the people that Baha'u'llah calls "Manifestations of God," which include Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, the Bab and Baha'u'llah. In the programs being promoted by the House of Justice, the words and stories at the center of the studying are those of the Bab and Baha'u'llah. I'm not sure that the process could work as well without that. I'm not sure it couldn't.

The studying is mostly in the form of "study circles," small groups of people who are following a plan of study designed to nurture their love of God, their desire to serve, and their capacities for service. The acts of service can vary widely, according to the needs and possibilities in the neighborhood or village, and the capacities and interests of the people. They always include devotional meetings, study circles, children's classes, junior youth programs and people visiting each other in their homes.

Periodically people in larger areas, a few counties for example, gather together to exchange news, ideas and experiences about what's happening in their neighborhoods and villages, and what to do next.

There are cycles of expansion and consolidation, most often three months, attracting more people into the process. Sometimes the expansion phase lasts a few weeks. The actus of service multiply, and eventually reach out to wider areas and higher levels of society.

There's a lot more to it than that, but those are some of the most essential elements.

Billie from Ockham wrote:

Kirbmarc wrote:

I must admit, that its very difficult for most Westerners to understand the cultural milieu of say Iran or India/Pakistan. It almost as if a particular organ of cognition is missing, and often the effort to explain what one finds extraordinary in these cultures is like trying to describe subtle colors of a sunset to a blind man. Some success towards this has been, for example, in translation of the poetry of Rumi or Fariduddin Attar. However, these poems are almost invariable misunderstood and the subtle meaning of highly specialized Sufi vocabulary used by these Sufi poets gets lost. Their depth is probably lost to most people not raised in those cultures.

This is, quite frankly, a baseless assumption. It'd even go as far as to call it an anti-reductionist myth. What you're saying is that there is some cognitive special property given to people simply by belonging to a culture. Cultural contexts can affect tastes and the understanding of references, but I don't think that there is room to support the idea of "extra organs of cognition" or "other ways of knowing".

Not only baseless, but close to demonstrably wrong. The key distinction is between modular and non-modular faculties. The former are abilities that correspond to separate "chunks" of brain that have no other function; the latter are abilities that rely on multiple "chunks" of brain that are also used for other abilities. The only known modular systems in primates are vision, audition, tactile sensation, and motor control. Nothing as "higher-order" as processing metaphors and/or poetry is modular.

It so sad that one is unable to understand the difference between metaphor and scientific correctness. It not a contradiction to say that neither of you two posses the "cognitive ability for metaphor" but at the same time maintain that you have the same biological structures as those that do. Don't take the word "cognitive ability" too literally.

As I said, I find this obsession to name and tag funny. Its no doubt useful and needs to be done, but lets not treat it as if it is the end all of everything. Often, naming, tagging and making lists is not useful. Yet, some like you like to name and tag and listify, and, having done so feel smug and proud.

In some sense you both display, by your responses, exactly what I said, i.e. most Westerns have very little ability to understand what people find fascinating in religion, specially the mystical and devotional types found in certain forms of Islam (and Hinduism), in particular Sufism and branches of Shi'a Islam. Statistically, one can also see this as the more mystical branches of Christianity have all but vanished in the West, replaced by decadent gospel of material well being. On the contrary, very large populations, in fact, the majority, continue to indulge in some form of devotional forms of religion in places like India, for example, while at the same time spending their working hours doing exacting and careful work. These are not contradictions, but to some, like yourselves, its inconceivable how one could simultaneously live in such two, apparently self-contradictory, manner.

A great Sufi "qutub" once said that one needs to go crazy to understand the metaphor of love in the poetry of Rumi and Attar. This same person was a psychiatrist, a professor of psychiatry at Tehran University through retirement, director of the Iranian Medical Council, head of a Psychiatric hospital, wrote several papers on the subject and, from his boundless energy started a global movement of Sufism, with over a 100 Sufi centers, including one here in Seattle. These may seem like a complete contradiction, specially as both these prolific activities stem from the passion of the same person.

In any case, as I said. I can't explain the subtle colors of sunset to blind people.

The next to last paragraph, in my post above, should have been:

"There are cycles of expansion and consolidation, most often three months, attracting more people into the process. Sometimes the expansion phase lasts a few weeks. I don't know how much it varies from that. The acts of service multiply, and eventually reach out to wider areas and higher levels of society."

comhcinc wrote:

jet_lagg wrote: I believe that's the bulk of it. I grew up in the suburbs in the north east U.S. Every single one of my inner circle friends was an atheist, and we'd have friendly, if sometimes heated, debates with the leaders at our church's youth group. The story is very different according friends of mine who grew up in the bible belt. Religion is fully entrenched in the culture there, and the phrase "coming out" is entirely apt. I know people, grown and with children of their own, who still won't tell their parents.

The internet means more and more of my culture coming into contact with theirs, and it allows kids with doubts to "meet" with like minds. It's prying open religion's death grip, and has made the conferences largely obsolete IMO (unless cons are your excuse to drink like a fish and increase your social standing in an ever shrinking and increasingly incestuous cesspool).

I grew up in the bible belt and those friends of yours just sound like pussies to me. When people talk aboot the south like this it just makes you look stupid.

Somebody's got sand in s/h/its vagina today :orcs-buttshake:

Ape+lust wrote:For whatever reason, Zvan was joking about going pantless where people are eating. Flame-seared steaks and Zvan's fly-blown caboose, what a wonderful pairing. Thanks, Stephanie.

http://imgur.com/qx5SgES.png

I am disappointed that Steffalump would solicit an establishment with such a sexist name, making money off of the oppression of women.

I am also disappointed that she is celebrating a week of the Orbit with only a handful of posts.

May I infer, Jim, that when your "study circles" get together, the meetings are either the entire fucking weekend or only one person speaks at a given meeting? Because if your explanation was typical....

nb. if that post was just a way to warm up your typing fingers before actually saying something, then apologies

The first concert I went to was "Seals and Crofts" in 1977. I remember two things. One was that they had a paraplegic mandolin player. He was really good and they propped him up on a table for him to play. The other was that after the concert they wanted everyone to stay and hear about Baha'i. I fucking split. Good show otherwise.

[youtube]DImAcL1ea8g[/youtube]

Kirbmarc wrote:

AndrewV69 wrote:

Kirbmarc wrote: Do you also believe that there is an organ of cognition that you need in order to understand or appreciate Shakespeare's poetry as non-English or Dante's Divine Comedy as a non-Italian? Or are the cultures of Iran and India/Pakistan somewhat "special" and superior, beyond the grasp of mere Westerners? If so, why?

He never said that. He said almost if. Go back and re-read.

So was it just metaphor? ;)

:o :o :o

comhcinc wrote:

jet_lagg wrote: I believe that's the bulk of it. I grew up in the suburbs in the north east U.S. Every single one of my inner circle friends was an atheist, and we'd have friendly, if sometimes heated, debates with the leaders at our church's youth group. The story is very different according friends of mine who grew up in the bible belt. Religion is fully entrenched in the culture there, and the phrase "coming out" is entirely apt. I know people, grown and with children of their own, who still won't tell their parents.

The internet means more and more of my culture coming into contact with theirs, and it allows kids with doubts to "meet" with like minds. It's prying open religion's death grip, and has made the conferences largely obsolete IMO (unless cons are your excuse to drink like a fish and increase your social standing in an ever shrinking and increasingly incestuous cesspool).

I grew up in the bible belt and those friends of yours just sound like pussies to me. When people talk aboot the south like this it just makes you look stupid.

Your experience was different so theirs didn't happen as they say. Makes perfect sense. :cdc:

AndrewV69 wrote: The lyrics are below. Bear in mind that a certain something ... "quality"? ... gets lost in translation:

Khwajaji, khwaja (O saint khwaja)
Khwajaji, khwaja, khwaja ji (O saint khwaja) , (O saint khwaja)
Ya gharib nawaz (The one who cherishes/soothes the poor)
Ya moinuddin, ya khwaja ji (O moinuddin chisti), (O khwaja saint)
Khwaja mere khwaja (O saint khwaja)
Dil mein sama ja (Reside in my heart)
Shaho ka shah tu (You are the king of kings)
Ali ka dulara (Ali's beloved)
Khwaja mere khwaja dil mein sama ja (O saint khwaja); (Reside in my heart)
Beqaso ki taqdeer, tune hai sawari (The destiny of the ones in despair, you have changed for the better)
Khwaja mere khwaja (O saint khwaja)
Tere darbar mein khwaja (At your door, o khwaja)
Door toh hai dekha (Ive seen it from far)
Sar jhuka te hai auliya (Your confidents/protectors/confessors bow down to you)
Tu hai Hindalwali khwaja (You are the hindalwali Khwaja)
Rutba hai pyara (Your status is glorious/great)
Chahne se tujhko khwaja ji mustafa ko paya (By wishing/worshipping you Khwaja, I have found muhammed [the chosen one]

Incidentally this is music would be considered haram (forbidden) to many Muslims by the Wahabi/Salafi & Takfaris (you are not a real Muslim because deviation/innovation etc.).

This song may also be considered shirk (Polytheism/Idoltory) by the usual suspects who invent traditions that never existed because, it praises and requests intercession by a Saint, and this comes close to rivaling Allah (swt)* for them to be comfortable with it.




*Sorry Phil, I know it irritates you, but it comes too close to hypocrisy for me to omit the swt on one forum and use it on another. And yes I do it in real life too.

That's awesome. TYVM. I find myself more and more getting into the sounds of the Middle East, even if I don't understand it, including the songs used by insurgents in their propaganda videos. Even if I could understand what they were promoting, I am not a supporter, I just like the music.

Also, if the Ali mentioned in the lyrics is Ali ibn Abi Talib, I should send this link to a Shia buddy of mine. He might like it. And yes, I can only imagine the aneurysms these lyrics would cause in certain Sunni sects.

Attention Steersman, Niki has taken the gloves off.

(Content note: I’m going to be using a racial slur here. A lot. And no, I will not be entertaining any bullshit discussions on whether it’s right or wrong or who can say it. Take that basic shit somewhere else)

There’s this video that has gone viral about a black teen punching a white teen for calling her a nigger.

I’ve sat on this for a few days, trying to organize my thoughts about it before I spew them on the Internet. I’ve considered my usual stance of non-actual-violence. I’ve considered my stance on what I would do if I were to be called a nigger to my face.

The conclusion came to me in the wee hours of the evening: I want to shake Ms. Aleeyah’s hand. The exact one she used to knock this girl to the ground.

http://the-orbit.net/seriously/2016/03/ ... -to-swing/

jimhabegger wrote:The next to last paragraph, in my post above, should have been:

"There are cycles of expansion and consolidation, most often three months, attracting more people into the process. Sometimes the expansion phase lasts a few weeks. I don't know how much it varies from that. The acts of service multiply, and eventually reach out to wider areas and higher levels of society."

Reminds me of this:

http://i447.photobucket.com/albums/qq19 ... joe6-1.jpg

H. Korban wrote:As I said, I find this obsession to name and tag funny. Its no doubt useful and needs to be done, but lets not treat it as if it is the end all of everything. Often, naming, tagging and making lists is not useful. Yet, some like you like to name and tag and listify, and, having done so feel smug and proud.

Just like mystics non-Westerns feel smug and proud when they talk about the "corrupt, decadent West". But the Westerns are limited and blind, while the non-Westerners are awesome and superior. Got it.

In some sense you both display, by your responses, exactly what I said, i.e. most Westerns have very little ability to understand what people find fascinating in religion, specially the mystical and devotional types found in certain forms of Islam (and Hinduism), in particular Sufism and branches of Shi'a Islam. Statistically, one can also see this as the more mystical branches of Christianity have all but vanished in the West, replaced by decadent gospel of material well being.

The "decadent gospel of material well being" is so decadent that Western countries are rotten, and impure, etc. etc. I've heard this argument before, many times. Strangely enough these Western countries, so rotten and impure, also managed to have economic development and social development and relatively stable democracies, while the pure, perfect mystic cultures of Iran and India/Pakistan have struggled with authoritarianism and/or have lagged behind.

Maybe, just maybe, the "West" for all its flaws (and it has many, I won't deny it) isn't so disgusting. Maybe, just maybe, the "decadent gospel of material well being" gave a substantial contribution to technological, economic and social development. while the mystical detachment from reality, while no doubts rich of chances for personal moral development, philosophical speculations and other good things, might have stopped some or hindered certain cultural developments, not necessarily on a personal level, but probably at the level of society).

I'm not giving judgment of value about the "West" or the "non-West". The economic and social developments of the "West" aren't necessarily or all positive. They're not necessarily negative, either. And the fact that many of these developments are being exported to "non-Western" countries tells us that the "Western" models is pretty successful. Is it a good thing? Is it a bad thing? It depends on what you value.

But what's happening that (for example) "Western" business models (capitalism) and "Western" technology are being adopted even in non-Western countries. The cultural landscape is dominated by "Western" ideas and products. Again, this isn't a judgment of value, but it's something that happened.

Also, is the "West" "decadent" and dying off or are non-Western traditional cultures being reshaped by the contact with "Western" ideas, like democracy and secularism? This is an open question.

On the contrary, very large populations, in fact, the majority, continue to indulge in some form of devotional forms of religion in places like India, for example, while at the same time spending their working hours doing exacting and careful work. These are not contradictions, but to some, like yourselves, its inconceivable how one could simultaneously live in such two, apparently self-contradictory, manner.

It's not inconceivable at all. Human beings aren't Star Trek robot caricatures (with the notable exception of Steersman), they don't explode by holding two contradictory, or simply contrasting ideas. Humans can compartmentalize very well: there are many strategies by which we deal with cognitive dissonance.

There are even plenty of excellent, top notch scientists, not simply practical people, who believe in woo. Kary Mullis was a Nobel Prize winner and believed in everything from alien abductions to AIDS denialism. These bizarre (to say the least) opinion of his don't mean that his research in other fields isn't valid, just like the validity of his research in other fields doesn't give automatic credibility to his woo-friendly opinions.

A great Sufi "qutub" once said that one needs to go crazy to understand the metaphor of love in the poetry of Rumi and Attar. This same person was a psychiatrist, a professor of psychiatry at Tehran University through retirement, director of the Iranian Medical Council, head of a Psychiatric hospital, wrote several papers on the subject and, from his boundless energy started a global movement of Sufism, with over a 100 Sufi centers, including one here in Seattle. These may seem like a complete contradiction, specially as both these prolific activities stem from the passion of the same person.

It's a contradiction, yes, but as I wrote, humans handle contradictions very well.

In any case, as I said. I can't explain the subtle colors of sunset to blind people.

You also can't be sure about whether what you see is the sunset or simply a mirage.

The video in question.

deLurch wrote:

The goal in the US isn't so much to convert more people to atheism, as much as it is to get the public to not see atheists as evil scary people.

Too bad they didn't have codes of conduct at their conventions to stop the rampant raping and harassment of women. It really would have helped their PR. :(

Ericb wrote:

jimhabegger wrote:The next to last paragraph, in my post above, should have been:

"There are cycles of expansion and consolidation, most often three months, attracting more people into the process. Sometimes the expansion phase lasts a few weeks. I don't know how much it varies from that. The acts of service multiply, and eventually reach out to wider areas and higher levels of society."

Reminds me of this:

[.img]http://i447.photobucket.com/albums/qq19 ... joe6-1.jpg[/img]

:lol: "Pod-people"? :-)

jimhabegger wrote:Rather than go through that paragraph of that message of the Baha'i Universal House of Justice, sentence by sentence, trying to explain it without the God metaphors, as I started to do; I've decided to try to explain, in my own words, the community-building process that I see being promoted by the House of Justice.

https://veuwer.com/i/3pwr.jpg

Sulman wrote:

rayshul wrote: It's a joke.

Steersbot 9000 wrote:Just a moment... Just a moment... I've just picked up a fault in the AE-35 unit. It's going to go 100% failure within 72 hours.
[.img]http://i.imgur.com/ihgossj.jpg[/img]

:lol: Someone is going to need to do some extravehicular activity, to go outside the protective cocoon of the Pit - Dave? ;-)

ffs wrote:

I lurked here, so I knew about SJWs ... but GG exposed me to a larger venn-diagram of narcism, ignorance and stupidity; where those three meet is where SJW's live, and that center area is larger than I would have believed.

Of all of the morally reprehensible individuals GG has made me aware of, there is literally not one person worse than Brianna Fucking Wu. She is the bottom of the barrel, as far as I am concerned.

I oscillate between feeling genuine sympathy (because 'she' is fucking nuts) and disgust.

Even now, years after elevatorgate, I do not understand how people can look at someone like Wu and think - Yes, this kook is credible... let's put it on television.

I can only come up with virtue signaling, i.e. - some hopped up snowflake promotes these assholes so they can brag about it at hipster parties and get 'progressive snowflake' credit.

screwtape wrote:

InfraRedBucket wrote:

fuzzy wrote:Apparently you're supposed to fuck them in the ear.

So is that aural sex? =

Since female octopi have ovaries, they are women (per Steersman) ....

:-) But technically, not the case. I've argued, as per most if not all dictionaries - curious, and amusing, that "we" stand on them when it comes to the definition for "atheism" but suddenly become blind to them when "our" own oxen are being gored - "women" are adult female humans.

Not sure whether there's a term for "female octopi" but wouldn't be surprised - there are, after all, analogous terms for animals other than humans. But "woman" certainly isn't applicable. So PZ is off the hook - on that score at least. :-)

Is it Week-In-Woo at the Pit? Between the muslim, not-muslim-but-trying-to-sound-like-one and followers of YoBaBa or whatever, I'm starting to wonder...

H. Korban wrote:In any case, as I said. I can't explain the subtle colors of sunset to blind people.

I can't put it any better than Douglas Adams, so I shan't.

Douglas Adams wrote:Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?

OK. So I was wondering why on earth you were blathering on and on about some "God-centered community building" called the House of Justice built by the Baha'i religion, so I looked back at your prior post to try and tease out the information from the flood of words.

jimhabegger wrote:I'm planning to start a thread about the God-centered community building I see being promoted by the Baha'i Universal House of Justice.

jimhabegger wrote:One of my special interests is helping to develop and promote some kinds of God-centered community building

jimhabegger wrote:promote the kinds of community building that I see being promoted by the Baha'i Universal House of Justice.

If you are here to try an promote your religious building and the Baha'i faith here, you would have better luck selling refrigerators to Eskimos in igloos. Skeptics & Atheists here. Neither set are going to be even lightly inclined to go for something like that.

If you still want to go on about it, I would recommend starting a thread here:
viewforum.php?f=34

jet_lagg wrote:

comhcinc wrote:

jet_lagg wrote: I believe that's the bulk of it. I grew up in the suburbs in the north east U.S. Every single one of my inner circle friends was an atheist, and we'd have friendly, if sometimes heated, debates with the leaders at our church's youth group. The story is very different according friends of mine who grew up in the bible belt. Religion is fully entrenched in the culture there, and the phrase "coming out" is entirely apt. I know people, grown and with children of their own, who still won't tell their parents.

The internet means more and more of my culture coming into contact with theirs, and it allows kids with doubts to "meet" with like minds. It's prying open religion's death grip, and has made the conferences largely obsolete IMO (unless cons are your excuse to drink like a fish and increase your social standing in an ever shrinking and increasingly incestuous cesspool).

I grew up in the bible belt and those friends of yours just sound like pussies to me. When people talk aboot the south like this it just makes you look stupid.

Your experience was different so theirs didn't happen as they say. Makes perfect sense. :cdc:

My point is you made yourself out to be an expert based off the stories of some friends. "Religion is fully entrenched in the culture there...", that's a board statement which frankly having lived here most of my life I don't find to be true. Or at least any truer than it is in any other part of the country. I mean my kids are not getting out of school for any religious holidays in Georgia, but they would if we lived in New York City.

I am not saying that the south is actually some secular basion, just that it's no better or worse off than other parts of the country. Most of the people I know and grew up with were never religious. My best friend from high school for example. He father is non practicing (I don't know what he believes) his mother was part of some crazy shit (I actually think it might be the same thing as shithead here but I am not sure) he and his siblings are all atheist. In fact most of the people I have known have not be church goers.

Again I am not pretending myself and the people I am talking aboot represent everyone in the south. I am just saying that frankly it's just like everywhere else and has been that way for a long time.

Billie from Ockham wrote:

Aneris wrote:

rayshul wrote:
Steersman "Ah so. Though you might consider using a smiley to telegraph ahead your intent. Otherwise it kind of looks like a post hoc rationalization."

oh sweet god

People should not use “post hoc rationalization”. It became fashionable among atheists, rationalists or skeptics, but it is wrong. Rationalization is always post hoc, after the fact.

If you limit "rationalization" to conscious processing and/or allow "post hoc" to include after the decision but before the action, then I agree. But under other uses of "rationalization" the modifier of "post hoc" is not redundant and is, therefore, useful. It tells you that the rationalizing occurred after the action was performed, which is distinct from "a priori rationalizing" (aka "talking yourself into doing something").

Billie: Thanks: first they came for the Jews; ounce of prevention; silence like a cancer grows - and all that. :-)

Aneris: Yea - put that in your pipe and smoke it! ;-) While I will concede that there's some justification for your interpretation - this Wikipedia article for example, you might note that I had also provided a link to another Wikipedia article that used, and provided some justification, for the phrase. In addition, you might also note the primary definitions for the word itself and its root, i.e., rationalize:

ra·tion·al·i·za·tion (răsh′ə-nə-lĭ-zā′shən)
n.
1. The act, process, or practice of rationalizing.
2. An instance of rationalizing.

ra·tion·al·ize (răsh′ə-nə-līz′)
v. ra·tion·al·ized, ra·tion·al·iz·ing, ra·tion·al·iz·es
v.tr.
1. To explain rationally: "Philosophy ... is essentially the endeavor of the human mind to rationalize the universe" (Francis E. Abbot).
2.
a. To explain or justify (one's behavior) with incorrect reasons or excuses, often without conscious awareness: rationalized his poor academic performance by claiming the teacher was incompetent. ....

Phil_Giordana_FCD wrote:Is it Week-In-Woo at the Pit? Between the muslim, not-muslim-but-trying-to-sound-like-one and followers of YoBaBa or whatever, I'm starting to wonder...

Maybe we should schedule one of those every year? ;-)

Xenu wrote:Attention Steersman, Niki has taken the gloves off.

(Content note: I’m going to be using a racial slur here. A lot. And no, I will not be entertaining any bullshit discussions on whether it’s right or wrong or who can say it. Take that basic shit somewhere else)

There’s this video that has gone viral about a black teen punching a white teen for calling her a nigger.

I’ve sat on this for a few days, trying to organize my thoughts about it before I spew them on the Internet. I’ve considered my usual stance of non-actual-violence. I’ve considered my stance on what I would do if I were to be called a nigger to my face.

The conclusion came to me in the wee hours of the evening: I want to shake Ms. Aleeyah’s hand. The exact one she used to knock this girl to the ground.

http://the-orbit.net/seriously/2016/03/ ... -to-swing/

What a fantastic way to confront the unfair stereotype that African Americans are especially prone to committing acts of violence.

Really? wrote:

Xenu wrote:Attention Steersman, Niki has taken the gloves off.

(Content note: I’m going to be using a racial slur here. A lot. And no, I will not be entertaining any bullshit discussions on whether it’s right or wrong or who can say it. Take that basic shit somewhere else)

There’s this video that has gone viral about a black teen punching a white teen for calling her a nigger.

I’ve sat on this for a few days, trying to organize my thoughts about it before I spew them on the Internet. I’ve considered my usual stance of non-actual-violence. I’ve considered my stance on what I would do if I were to be called a nigger to my face.

The conclusion came to me in the wee hours of the evening: I want to shake Ms. Aleeyah’s hand. The exact one she used to knock this girl to the ground.

http://the-orbit.net/seriously/2016/03/ ... -to-swing/

What a fantastic way to confront the unfair stereotype that African Americans are especially prone to committing acts of violence.

In other news, the girl (puncher) has been kicked out of her house by her parents in reaction to seeing the video, and says she is in "legal shit"

Xenu wrote:[.tweet][/tweet]

The video in question.

Seems the supposed source of the insult is about as "black" as the supposed victim. And maybe she, like Chris Rock - have I posted that video (recently? ;-) ) - had some justification for the epithet?

But it's an interesting question, I think, the extent to which verbal insults are justifications for physical assaults. Reminds me of the Pope saying that anyone insulting someone's mother - or the "Mother Church" - deserves a poke in the nose. And then there's the analogous, and rather odious if not barbaric, responses of dickhead Muslims to a bunch of cartoons. Hard not to see all of those cases as entirely equivalent - at least in their fundamentals: if we reject the responses in the latter cases then, by rights, we should be doing so in the former.

Kirbmarc wrote: The "decadent gospel of material well being" is so decadent that Western countries are rotten, and impure, etc. etc. I've heard this argument before, many times. Strangely enough these Western countries, so rotten and impure, also managed to have economic development and social development and relatively stable democracies, while the pure, perfect mystic cultures of Iran and India/Pakistan have struggled with authoritarianism and/or have lagged behind.

Maybe, just maybe, the "West" for all its flaws (and it has many, I won't deny it) isn't so disgusting. Maybe, just maybe, the "decadent gospel of material well being" gave a substantial contribution to technological, economic and social development. while the mystical detachment from reality, while no doubts rich of chances for personal moral development, philosophical speculations and other good things, might have stopped some or hindered certain cultural developments, not necessarily on a personal level, but probably at the level of society).

Would be nice if we could have both. Perhaps we can not have one without the other? In other words the conditions that lead to one set of "good" outcomes have also baked in a guarantee that there will be less than optimal results in other aspects.

During this rehearsal period, synapses between nerve cells are generated in great excess, to be pruned back during later development. The elimination of synaptic connections, which results in the constant refinement of neural circuits, like the soldering and resoldering of wires on a circuit board, is not a feature unique to the visual system. Throughout the brain—particularly in the parts involved in cognition, memory, and learning—synapse pruning continues into our first three decades, which suggests that it may be responsible, in part, for the starburst of adaptive learning that characterizes the first decades of human life. We are hardwired not to be hardwired, and this anatomical plasticity may be the key to the plasticity of our minds.

The above is from an article in The New Yorker titled Runs in the Family where the author Siddhartha Mukerjee talks about "New findings about schizophrenia rekindle old questions about genes and identity" and talks about the impact the illness schizophrenia has had on his family among other things.

So plasticity, pruning, focus. Why it may currently be impossible to have all the nice things, because only a subset is possible.

Whatever man. Fuck. (Die Antwoord)

Aneris wrote:

jimhabegger wrote:Kirbmarc, I do think it's a good exercise to try to say the same things without the metaphors, periodically. That's been one of the benefits for me in following atheist blogs and discussions. It stimulates me to try to explain to myself what I'm doing, without the God metaphors.

Metaphors are a fascinating subject to cognitive scientists, too. Atheists often go too far with dismissing information because it's deemed metaphorical. You'll find writing on this here, when you search, but the short version is: humans create metaphorical analogies all the time to understand some circumstance. The poetic metaphors are merely a subset of that, but serve a similar purpose. The interesting thing is: what is the referent "out there" in reality. Is the metaphor really referring to something, is it:

• ...a way to grasp that thing, which seems to lie at the core of cognition.
• ... or merely wordplay, deepity etc. ("Love is Just A Word"),
• ... or referring to wishful thinking not supported by anything

Metaphors aren't the problem, but wordplay and wishful thinking are where religious claims break down. For example, when theologians say that Adam & Eve were meant metaphorical: then what exactly (which referent = real thing, in reality "out there") do they represent, and more importantly, how do these theologians know this?

A millenia of theology can be summed up in a single, two-word sentence:

Because: reasons.

deLurch wrote:OK. So I was wondering why on earth you were blathering on and on about some "God-centered community building" called the House of Justice built by the Baha'i religion, so I looked back at your prior post to try and tease out the information from the flood of words.

jimhabegger wrote:I'm planning to start a thread about the God-centered community building I see being promoted by the Baha'i Universal House of Justice.

jimhabegger wrote:One of my special interests is helping to develop and promote some kinds of God-centered community building

If the Baha'i hired him to proselytise for their religion, they're going to be big I tell you.

Xenu wrote:

The video in question.

Fair enough, but a single well-place thump should have sufficed.

That girl's in trouble. She instigates physical assault, then goes with a punch to the face, then continues hitting while the other one is down. In front of a video.

Kids these days...

H. Korban wrote: Statistically, one can also see this as the more mystical branches of Christianity have all but vanished in the West, replaced by decadent gospel of material well being.

It's terrible, isn't it. We Westerners need to unlearn what we have learned. Because that is why we fail, as we do not believe: do or do not, there is no try. Luminous beings are we - not this crude matter. Minimalist decor and Apple branded products - a sufi craves not these things.

Sufi's are totes the jedis of islam. We should be more like them cos they're cool n shit.

AndrewV69 wrote:

Steersman wrote:My mistake (it's late) as I thought you were referring to her dissertation and not her resume. Though I find it hard to see how you could get "Decline and Fall" out of the latter.

Because people are what make a culture and here we have yet another person ruined by an expensive education devoted to Women’s Studies and Intersectionality.

Fair enough - I've thrown enough stones at "Women's Studies" to have no justification for touting it now. However, that wasn't the core of my argument - which was that her resume included, apparently, a substantial number of real and credible accomplishments. Just because one subscribes to wooish beliefs in one area doesn't necessarily mean that all of their other actions and beliefs can be similarly thrown overboard.

AndrewV69 wrote:Imagine a society sufficiently infested with people who behave in destructive ways because of certain beliefs? What would that look like? How would that affect say ... Skepticism?

Just a thought, but maybe, perchance, like most Muslim societies and cultures? As for what it would look like, might I suggest Pakistan where they refuse to condemn child marriage because it conflicts with the Quran and the sayings of the Prophet [piss on his name and all of his ilk], and where they condone and promote killing apostates and gays? You support that?

AndrewV69 wrote:Extrapolate from there. History is littered with examples of civilizations that "failed". Usually for multiple cascading reasons.

Indeed. Reminds me of something that Irshad Manji said in her "The Trouble With Islam Today" - highly recommended, although I think Anjuli wasn't too impressed - something to the effect that Spain publishes more new books every year than does all of the Islamic world. While many of those are arguably crap, I would prefer that to the situation where only one book holds sway: "hominem unius libri timeo" ("I fear the man of a single book").

The Orbit officially endorses violence against women.

The girl's are 16, throwing a punch over insults and threats is not that unheard of in highschool. She should get suspended from school upon return from springbreak and get in some minor legal trouble.

It's the adult bloggers and folks on twitter trumpeting this as some sort of great victory for the black race that are......"problematic".

Phil_Giordana_FCD wrote:That girl's in trouble. She instigates physical assault, then goes with a punch to the face, then continues hitting while the other one is down. In front of a video.

Kids these days...

Still, in a country where it's perfectly acceptable in some places to shoot someone entering your premises, this should be no problem at all. Anything else would be hypocritical.

Xenu wrote:The girl's are 16, throwing a punch over insults and threats is not that unheard of in highschool. She should get suspended from school upon return from springbreak and get in some minor legal trouble.

It's the adult bloggers and folks on twitter trumpeting this as some sort of great victory for the black race that are......"problematic".

Agreed. This should be treated as a kid doing something dumb. You make her pay the medical bills and you ground the shit out of her until she understands that you can't hit or push people.

I am guessing it is safe to say that she said some unpleasant things to the victim as well.

feathers wrote:

Phil_Giordana_FCD wrote:That girl's in trouble. She instigates physical assault, then goes with a punch to the face, then continues hitting while the other one is down. In front of a video.

Kids these days...

Still, in a country where it's perfectly acceptable in some places to shoot someone entering your premises, this should be no problem at all. Anything else would be hypocritical.

Almost all 'shooting' exemptions no matter the state (and they do vary widely across the USA) are based at least in some part on the right to self defense. I don't know a single state in the US where you can shoot or punch someone for mere words alone unaccompanied by at least some threatening actions. The presumption in home burglaries (and most cases involve people already being at home, usually in bed and then hearing something or else stumbling into an intruder in the dark) is that the Burgler may be armed and violent, and to be fair, they quite often are.

Xenu wrote:The girl's are 16, throwing a punch over insults and threats is not that unheard of in highschool. She should get suspended from school upon return from springbreak and get in some minor legal trouble.

It's the adult bloggers and folks on twitter trumpeting this as some sort of great victory for the black race that are......"problematic".

Did it happen at school?

I don't really have any issue with what the girl did, but then again I also feel that a punch in the nose is a viable way to deal with issues sometimes.

I would sentence her to 20 hours community service and call it a day.

Xenu wrote:The girl's are 16, throwing a punch over insults and threats is not that unheard of in highschool. She should get suspended from school upon return from springbreak and get in some minor legal trouble.

It's the adult bloggers and folks on twitter trumpeting this as some sort of great victory for the black race that are......"problematic".

Indeed. Somewhat apropos of which, while I haven't read all of this article from Quillette, it seems to underline your "problematic":

Ferguson Effect Detractors Are Wrong by Heather MacDonald

Violent crime in many American cities began rising in the second half of 2014, after two decades of decline. .... I dubbed this latest outbreak of depolicing and the resulting emboldening of criminals the “Ferguson effect,” picking up on a term first used by St. Louis police chief Sam Dotson. The police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., in August 2014 had triggered riots, die-ins, and cop assassinations. .....

In short, it is in high-crime black neighborhoods where the police are backing off the most under the relentless charge that they are racist. And it is in high-crime neighborhoods where a fall-off in proactive policing is going to produce the biggest negative impact. It is in those neighborhoods where informal social controls — above all families — have most broken down and where policing most critically takes up the slack. The per capita rate of shootings, for example, is 81 times higher in predominantly black Brownsville, Brooklyn, than in nearby Bay Ridge. ....

After struggle and drama, the harassment panel moderated by Brianna Wu happened at SXSW last week. Most news reports have pics that look like these:

http://imgur.com/dffpdnn.jpg

There is one set of pics though, you won't find in too many places:

http://imgur.com/t0lwdIS.jpg



Journalists still can't get enough of playing chumps for Brianna Wu.

Ape+lust wrote:After struggle and drama, the harassment panel moderated by Brianna Wu happened at SXSW last week. Most news reports have pics that look like these:

http://imgur.com/dffpdnn.jpg

There is one set of pics though, you won't find in too many places:

http://imgur.com/t0lwdIS.jpg



Journalists still can't get enough of playing chumps for Brianna Wu.

Looks like Skepticon.

Really? wrote:

Xenu wrote:Attention Steersman, Niki has taken the gloves off.

(Content note: I’m going to be using a racial slur here. A lot. And no, I will not be entertaining any bullshit discussions on whether it’s right or wrong or who can say it. Take that basic shit somewhere else)

There’s this video that has gone viral about a black teen punching a white teen for calling her a nigger.

I’ve sat on this for a few days, trying to organize my thoughts about it before I spew them on the Internet. I’ve considered my usual stance of non-actual-violence. I’ve considered my stance on what I would do if I were to be called a nigger to my face.

The conclusion came to me in the wee hours of the evening: I want to shake Ms. Aleeyah’s hand. The exact one she used to knock this girl to the ground.

http://the-orbit.net/seriously/2016/03/ ... -to-swing/

What a fantastic way to confront the unfair stereotype that African Americans are especially prone to committing acts of violence.

Violence is fine when it's directed at someone who calls you names.

It's just violence against terrorists that's bad.

comhcinc wrote:

Xenu wrote:The girl's are 16, throwing a punch over insults and threats is not that unheard of in highschool. She should get suspended from school upon return from springbreak and get in some minor legal trouble.

It's the adult bloggers and folks on twitter trumpeting this as some sort of great victory for the black race that are......"problematic".

Did it happen at school?

I don't really have any issue with what the girl did, but then again I also feel that a punch in the nose is a viable way to deal with issues sometimes.

I would sentence her to 20 hours community service and call it a day.

It happened while on spring break, outside the white girl's house. The black girl alleged that the white girl (prior to this incident) said she was going to "blow her head off", so the black girl had someone drive her over to the white girls house and confronted her.

Schools frequently suspend students for misconduct outside of school property and outside of school hours, especially if it is documented on video and becomes newsworthy.

comhcinc wrote: My point is you made yourself out to be an expert based off the stories of some friends.

You really do have sand in your vagina today. I summarized what several friends have detailed to me about coming up in the bible belt, and I said that's what I was doing. That's not making myself out to be an expert by any reasonable reading.

Again I am not pretending myself and the people I am talking aboot represent everyone in the south. I am just saying that frankly it's just like everywhere else and has been that way for a long time.

Bull-fucking-shit, dude. The bible belt is not some misnomer. This is the bible belt.

http://i.imgur.com/9yaSEB3.png

This is a map of the states ranked by religiosity.

http://i.imgur.com/a4oWOx2.png

And that's just the foundation. Start looking at attitudes, state by state, toward homosexual marriage, evolution, and the rest of the Christians' hot button topics it's going to get even worse. Combine that with the accounts I read about and get first hand from friends, and it gets worse still.

Really? wrote:

Ape+lust wrote:After struggle and drama, the harassment panel moderated by Brianna Wu happened at SXSW last week. Most news reports have pics that look like these:

http://imgur.com/dffpdnn.jpg

There is one set of pics though, you won't find in too many places:

http://imgur.com/t0lwdIS.jpg



Journalists still can't get enough of playing chumps for Brianna Wu.

Looks like Skepticon.

Yeah, which looked like the crushing masses that came to see Jen McCreight after she birthed Atheism Plus. It's almost like there's a pattern here.

Xenu wrote:
It happened while on spring break, outside the white girl's house. The black girl alleged that the white girl (prior to this incident) said she was going to "blow her head off", so the black girl had someone drive her over to the white girls house and confronted her.

Schools frequently suspend students for misconduct outside of school property and outside of school hours, especially if it is documented on video and becomes newsworthy.

Thanks for the info. Since it didn't happen at school then I don't feel the school should get involved. It's frankly none of their business.

Clarence wrote:Almost all 'shooting' exemptions no matter the state (and they do vary widely across the USA) are based at least in some part on the right to self defense. I don't know a single state in the US where you can shoot or punch someone for mere words alone unaccompanied by at least some threatening actions. The presumption in home burglaries (and most cases involve people already being at home, usually in bed and then hearing something or else stumbling into an intruder in the dark) is that the Burgler may be armed and violent, and to be fair, they quite often are.

Burglars are armed because home owners are armed. Home owners are armed because burglars are armed.

But if advice: if you hear burglars you should should storm down the stairs with an erection rather than a gun. There's less chance the burglar will come back.

jet_lagg wrote:

comhcinc wrote: My point is you made yourself out to be an expert based off the stories of some friends.

You really do have sand in your vagina today. I summarized what several friends have detailed to me about coming up in the bible belt, and I said that's what I was doing. That's not making myself out to be an expert by any reasonable reading.

Again I am not pretending myself and the people I am talking aboot represent everyone in the south. I am just saying that frankly it's just like everywhere else and has been that way for a long time.

Bull-fucking-shit, dude. The bible belt is not some misnomer. This is the bible belt.

http://i.imgur.com/9yaSEB3.png

This is a map of the states ranked by religiosity.

http://i.imgur.com/a4oWOx2.png

And that's just the foundation. Start looking at attitudes, state by state, toward homosexual marriage, evolution, and the rest of the Christians' hot button topics it's going to get even worse. Combine that with the accounts I read about and get first hand from friends, and it gets worse still.

Yawn. You still don't know what you are talking about and your unsourced maps doesn't change that fact.

Xenu wrote:The girl's are 16, throwing a punch over insults and threats is not that unheard of in highschool. She should get suspended from school upon return from springbreak and get in some minor legal trouble.

It's the adult bloggers and folks on twitter trumpeting this as some sort of great victory for the black race that are......"problematic".

Welcome to identity politics, where it's possible to get a bunch of feminists to cheer at beating a skinny little girl if the circumstances are just right.

Ape+lust wrote:

Really? wrote:

Ape+lust wrote:After struggle and drama, the harassment panel moderated by Brianna Wu happened at SXSW last week. Most news reports have pics that look like these:

http://imgur.com/dffpdnn.jpg

There is one set of pics though, you won't find in too many places:

http://imgur.com/t0lwdIS.jpg



Journalists still can't get enough of playing chumps for Brianna Wu.

Looks like Skepticon.

Yeah, which looked like the crushing masses that came to see Jen McCreight after she birthed Atheism Plus. It's almost like there's a pattern here.

I am sure there are no musicians or other performers who needed a SXSW platform and would have made better use of it.

Xenu wrote:It happened while on spring break, outside the white girl's house. The black girl alleged that the white girl (prior to this incident) said she was going to "blow her head off", so the black girl had someone drive her over to the white girls house and confronted her.

Schools frequently suspend students for misconduct outside of school property and outside of school hours, especially if it is documented on video and becomes newsworthy.

I am with com on this one. Schools are now over reaching in my view to police student's beyond their school grounds and off time. They are sniffing around their social media accounts and they are going too far. By all means, educate them on appropriate usage. But their authority should end at their property line.

The police was the correct route to go with this.

As far as punishment goes? There are juvenile courts that deal with these issues, and I have no reason to believe that the judge or prosecutor will go overboard.

Sunder wrote:

Xenu wrote:The girl's are 16, throwing a punch over insults and threats is not that unheard of in highschool. She should get suspended from school upon return from springbreak and get in some minor legal trouble.

It's the adult bloggers and folks on twitter trumpeting this as some sort of great victory for the black race that are......"problematic".

Welcome to identity politics, where it's possible to get a bunch of feminists to cheer at beating a skinny little girl if the circumstances are just right.

I'm cool with it but again I think violence can solve a lot of issues.

I am yet convinced that dueling is really that bad of a thing.

[youtube]HmvSgvy7a34[/youtube]