About that pro-gun idiot in the other video... was anyone else curious about who he is shaking hands with in that framed photo in the background? I sure am lol

"BTW, liberals don't seem self-aware of how obsessed with penis size they are.

They bring it into discussions about everything, as if in liberal heaven, they'd all be sucking dicks constantly."

As opposed to conservatives who see sex and gays everywhere?

Watched all these episodes inna row...Some interesting gaps or cracks in the unknowable history of world affairs as filtered through his particular lens-And some never before mashed-up footage of evil white people from the last 100 years shaking hands and drinking blood and what not!

"A Real Snoozefest!"
-San Francisco Examiner

"I Ate Someone's Popcorn Next To Me!?"
-Elizabeth Burkit Cox , 2nd Wife

"Hey, That's My Popcorn!!"
-O.Stone

Reminds me of an old joke I heard around the time we went into Iraq after 9/11:


A U.S. military patrol is driving along a road north of Baghdad and spots a dead Iraqi on the side of the road, lying in a ditch. A few yards up, they spot a U.S. serviceman lying in the same ditch, clinging to life. The squad jumps out and starts to render assistance.

"What happened?" they ask the injured soldier.

"Well, I was patrolling up the road, when that Iraqi jumped out of nowhere and started screaming at me "George Bush is a moron and a fucking asshole!". So I yelled back at him "Oh yeah? Well Sadaam Hussein is a dickhead and a retard!"".

"Yeah? Did you shoot him?" one of the squad asks.

"No. We were in the middle of the road shaking hands when a truck came along and hit us..."

>> ^critical_d:

I would be very careful to have that guy buzzing about a jet I was flying. At those speeds you don't have the chance to say "oh shit" before you are gone.


It's not that bad really, I mean you are on a planet that is spinning like a thousand miles an hours, but shaking hands with someone isn't that big a deal. Once you are in formation, speed isn't as much of an issue. Relative velocities is what makes things crazy, so when you have 2 jets going head to head...ya, little room for mistake there

"You have figure like Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris who are religious illiterates and bigots whose right wing policies do not differ in any way from the christian fundamentalists they attack. They're all chanting for war in the middle east and demonizing muslims in the name of western civilization rather than in the name of satan."

Wow... not sure what to say here.

Edit:
Just learned that Hedges is the only person that Sam Harris will no longer speak to or shake hands with, because of his vehement dishonesty and hatred for those who possess a difference of opinion. Again wow.

He's not getting snubbed.

Watch the last two interactions. He isnt even close enough to shake hands. The first one, when they enter the room, is definitely a handshake. You can see Medvedev gesture (the same way Obama does later) towards those he wishes to introduce. It is then edited to a later stage where it appears Obama is the one doing the introducing.

If you look at the room they are all on one side so both the Russian and American delegation would be there. I would say that it was the Russians being introduced first and then vice-versa. Why would Medvedev be shaking hands and saying "hello" in a way that you do when you are first being introduced to multiple people to members of his own staff? Obama seems to extend his arm forward when ignored but he also steps back a little. I think this is just making up for a delay in Medvedevs shaking on the previous shake.

Either he was being snubbed and then converted it to a gesturing towards people he is introducing (a George Costanza type move) or he was gesturing from the edit onwards.

In my comments above, I was responding to your question, "Did you miss
me?" until the last part where I think I only addressed your arguments
about the video, and not very well. To be clear, I don't feel like I
was attacking your character rather than your arguments. I was
commenting on the way I perceive your arguments to often be illogical,
inconsistent, unprovable, or even demonstrably false. That's my
opinion of your arguments, not your character. As I said initially, I
like you, and think you're probably a really nice person of good
character, and I'd probably enjoy having a beer with you. If you mean
the bit about your psychotic break, that's because that's what I think
happened to you based on what you've told me about your conversion,
and I think it's affecting your judgement and perception, honestly and
sincerely. Put in my shoes (as you once were), you wouldn't accept
your own story at face value either, so I don't know why you expect
anyone else to.

I'm not offended by what you said, and after having read through this post, I have a much better idea of why you said the things you did. The reason I took issue is because I am frequently mischaracterized on the sift, and this seemed to be more of that. And no, I don't expect you to believe my story at face value. I wouldn't have believed me either, but neither would I totally dismiss it out of hand.

You're conflating at least two groups of people in your "90%", namely
people who claim religious faith (whether sincere or not, and to
whatever degree of devotion), and those who have actually had numinous
experiences.

I realize that not everyone who believes in God has had a spiritual experience, and I can see I failed to make a distinction in my reply.

When I say that you can't come to any other conclusion
because of your mental condition, I'm only referring to you and other
people who have actually had a serious numinous experience like yours,
which is an underwhelming minority of religious people, nothing like
90%.

My entire life is a numinous experience, and no, I wouldn't say the majority of religious people have had an experience like mine. I would say though that a large majority of them have had some kind of spiritual experience and many non-believers too. I have spoken to more than a few who will eventually admit to me that they have seen evidence of the supernatural, but suppress it because they don't like the implications.

This minority, and anybody else who claims to have seen ghosts,
or communicated with daemons, or been abducted by aliens, or been
levitated, or seen other locations in time/space, or communicated with
the dead, I view with equal scepticism. The first reason is that it's
very common among holders of all sorts of mystical beliefs to have
gained the belief following such an experience, and to have attributed
the belief to whichever mystical force is closest at hand, in your
case, Jesus.

In my case, that isn't true. I had no belief in God, nor was I looking for one when I found out that there is a higher power working in this world. Even after I was opened to the spiritual reality, I didn't immediately leap to a belief in God. There just came a point where I could no longer plausibly deny His existence, and that's when I started to believe. Even then I had no religion or belief system. From there, I explored many of the worlds belief systems and philosophies, religions and traditions, for many years, before being led to Christianity. To note, at the time, out of all the religions, I considered Christianity to be one of the least plausible. Again, because it had been uniquely confirmed to me, there was no way to deny it. The evidence was as plain as my reflection in the mirror.

The second is that there's no real reason to choose one
mystical explanation for the experience over another explanation, and
until there is, it's smartest to reserve judgement, and assume for the
moment that they're all wrong, as only one of them, maximum, could
possibly be right, no matter how fervently held they are.

Well you're correct that only one could be the truth, it doesn't mean that no one else is having a genuine experience. The solution to this puzzle is very simple. There are two powers in the supernatural realm. The first and greater power is from God. He is the only source of truth, and anyone in contact with Him has access to that truth. The second and lesser power is that of Satan. He is the source of all lies, and anyone in contact with him is deluded and in bondage. Satan is the ruler of the world system, and in general, the people who are enslaved to him are not aware of it. He can only really enslave someone who is ignorant of the truth. This is the default condition we're all born into, but God has put the truth out there, as a beacon for anyone who hungers for it, for anyone who is not satisified with lies. He is constantly giving people opportunities to accept that truth, but unless they do, they will choose to believe the lie and thus remain in bondage.

Just like 1+1 has an unlimited number of wrong answers, Satan has an unlimited number of lies about the truth. He also has a supernatural power that can reinforce these lies. So, in general, the people who are reporting supernatural experiences from the various religions are largely telling the truth. The only question is, are they from God or from Satan?

That was nearly twenty years ago, and I'm still not yet at the point where I can laugh
at how silly it was, and have just become comfortable enough to talk
openly about it.

Thanks for sharing that with me. I think it's a natural thought to have, that your life might be something like the Truman show, and everyone else is in on the conspiracy. A belief like that puts you in the very center of the Universe, and from there you could weave together any story you could imagine. I had an ex-girlfriend with bi-polar disorder who used to do this. She would start making connections between things which had no plausible connection, and pretty soon she was staring some kind of hideous reality square in the face, and living in absolute terror. To her it was absolutely real and everything that happened, perceived as it was through these filters, served to reinforce them.

So I understand the princple. I have had thoughts like this myself, and I had to stop myself from engaging them. For instance, I once had the idea that a very powerful and very malevolent entity might exist somewhere in the Universe that could potentially pick up on my thoughts, and if I ever drew his attention to me by thinking about him he would kill me (or worse). After living in fear of this for a little while, I decided that my best option was to doubt it was true and stop thinking about it, because that's what was going to get me killed in the first place.

The thing is, what I know now is, that everyone who falls into these traps has a little help. That you don't just fall into the abyss, you get pushed in. Satan fuels these types of experiences supernaturally. He can cause people to give you responses or engage you in dialogues which confirm the lies that he has planted and therefore reap a harvert of delusion. He will even give you these kinds of experience in order to debunk them later with the ultimate goal of getting you to doubt the real thing:

2 Corinthians 4:4

In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.

The "truth" that I received was unquestionably true, impossible to
consider denying since to me it was so obviously true, and
agonizingly, mindbendingly horrible. Depending on how you look at it,
this could be a good thing or a bad thing. If the "truth" that I saw
had been fulfilling, hopeful and beautiful like yours was, and not
horrible, dark, pessimistic and paranoid as it was, I would have had
far less motivation for questioning it, and may have just gone along
with it forever, especially if holding that view improved my life in
certain ways.

It seems to me that you think I am not very self-critical about what I believe. I suppose you have to believe that since you think Christianity is nonsense, but why not assume for a minute that my standard for the truth is not inferior to yours and let me try to explain:

I am not naturally inclined to believe anything in particular for any particular reason. I don't make choices about what I believe based on how those beliefs make me feel, or what kinds of rewards I might receive. To become convinced that something is true, there must be exquisite evidence which justifies that belief, and it must fit seamlessly into a logical framework with no contradiction. I admit some things I believe may seem counter-intuitive to you, but as you have admitted, our intuitions about what is correct are not always reliable. Quantum physics is a good example of this truth.

What I believe isn't about me. I only care about what is true and what is real; if the truth is that I am nothing more than an insignifcant fly speck that will die forever in a cold and indifferent Universe, then I wouldn't try to hide from it, I would in fact embrace it. It was in fact my original position before all this began, and I was okay with it. Was I happy that I had to die one day? Not as such, but it didn't really bother me. I accepted it as fact and knew it was out of my control. The only reason I changed my mind is because I encountered evidence good enough to convince me otherwise.

Everybody who has a break like this comes to a slightly different
conclusion as to its meaning. Mine was a very, very dark conclusion,
which is vastly different from yours, but similar to many other
people's, though probably not exactly the same as anybody else's, just
like yours probably isn't. Like Double Rainbow Guy was probably
experiencing a similar break right at that moment, and concluded
neither that Jesus was the saviour, nor that the world was evil, nor
that he himself was the new messiah.

It seems to me that you're still very much interpreting reality through your experience. You make the leap that since you were able to fool yourself to such an extent, and that your experience had the character of the supernatural, that everyone who has a supernatural experience is undergoing a similar process. Yet, this is a classic example of confirmation bias. How do you know that you're still not seeing things according to an unconscious paradigm you haven't yet questioned?

So I don't like the word "crazy" because of its negative connotations,
and wouldn't have appreciated it being flung at me during that time
nor now (and if I've ever used it about you, it was probably when I
thought you were a real troll, Poe's Law being what it is, and
definitely before I knew about your numinous experience). That said, I
have no issue pointing out to people that I don't believe they are
applying critical thought to their assertions, and that they don't
seem capable of doing so because of a story in their head that is so
powerful it renders contradictory input trivial. I've been there. I
get it. And if the story in your mind from your experience is the
truth, then so is mine, and so are millions of other people's, but
they can't all be the truth, and probably none are.

I think calling someone crazy is an easy way for skeptics to dismiss testimony that doesn't agree with their preconceived ideas. I also don't reject contradictory input. I investigate it to see if there is any conflict, and if there truly is, I will change my point of view. As far as truth, it is by nature, exclusive. There is no true for me, or true for you. Someone is right and someone is wrong. This world was either created with intention, or it manifested itself out of sheer happenstance. There either is a God or there isn't.

If nothing else, please take from this story that I'm not looking down
on you for having a mental injury. I'm identifying with you, and that
seems more important to me than debating the merits of any argument

Again, this is what you presume. You're not really identifying with me, you are putting me in a box you constructed and telling me you were once in that box and know what it is like to live in there. As I said earlier, you're still interpreting the world through your experience and making the world conform to your conclusions about it. What I think is that you threw the baby out with the bathwater, and missed the whole point. You believe you were just deceiving yourself. What I am telling you is that you had supernatural help, and that you're still in it.

People who cleave to a religion despite never having had any numinous
experiences are just following what everyone else is doing without
questioning it because they were raised to do so from birth. I don't
deride these people for it because it's natural for humans to accept
whatever they see being done all around them as normal. That's how we
socialise and learn. It is not evidence that what they're doing is
"correct" any more than shaking hands is the "correct" way to greet
people, and bowing is "incorrect". Children in Muslim environments
tend to grow up Muslim. Children of the Amazonian Pirahã tribe
believe their fellow villagers sometimes are spirits who are visiting
them with messages from other realms. Children of atheists tend to
grow up atheist. Children raised around racists tend to grow up
racist. Victims of childhood abuse tend to believe they are worthless
pieces of shit, deserving abuse. All this indicates that people tend
to believe what they're brought up to believe, not that what people
believe en masse is true.

I agree to a point, but I think the amount of people who believe without any supernatural evidence is much lower than you think. I have rarely met any Christians who haven't had a supernatural experience, and aren't constantly aware of the prescence of God.

This raises the question of why so many people believe in god/s/mystic
beings/supernatural events in the first place, and why it is such a
universal human trait. It's a good question. One answer is that there
is some kind of non-physical "force" we can't detect (yet) except in
numinous experiences, during which it somehow has an effect on our
physical bodies and causes us to know and wonder about its existence.
That's totally possible, even scientifically, and I'm open to it. The
problem is that there are thousands and thousands of systems of belief
which all claim to be the true one, the one that best or most
authoritatively explains the phenomenon of numinous experience. Worse
is that there's virtually nothing to choose between them in terms of
which one seems the best. They all have lore and deities, explanations
for natural phenomena, numinous experience, extremely fervent
adherents, and internal references and contradictions in number and
greatness in rough proportion to the number and greatness of the
claims they make about the universe.

Again, it's pretty easy to explain. There is one truth, and the rest are lies. Just as 1+1 only has one correct answer and infinite wrong answers. There is one truth because there is a God who created it, and many lies because there is a devil that created them. One a supernatural force of good, the other of evil.

So, please don't call me arrogant for saying that your strain of faith, among a long list of mutually
exclusive strains stretching back through human history is probably
not correct, nor any of the others, probably. There's a 1 in n chance
that any of them is correct, where n is the number of mutually
exclusive faith systems that have ever existed. From the point of view
of someone with no specific belief about any particular faith system,
deciding on one seems a fool's errand. Especially when you consider
the other possible answer.

There are many other ways to evaluate the probabilities here. First, you can rule out all the gods who make no creation claims. Two, you can rule out the creation claims that contradict the basic evidence. Right there, you have ruled out almost all of them. There are many ways to look at it. We both agree if any of the religions are true, only one of them could be. Whichever religion it was, we could expect that if it came from a powerful God, it would be the one that has had the most impact on our history. That's clearly Christianity, hands down. We could also expect Jesus, if He is God, to be the most famous and most influential person who has ever lived. Clearly, He is. We could also expect that religion to be the largest in terms of numbers. Again, that is Christianity. So based on those three factors, Christianity is the logical choice. There are many probabilities to consider.

Another answer to the good question about why so many people believe
in gods, etc. -and my best guess- is that it is part of human nature
to fear and mistrust the unknown, and be endlessly curious about it
too. Anything we don't know presents a threat, so we have to go and
examine it. If we can't examine it, then our imaginations are left to
wander unconstrained. This is quite taxing, and we yearn for answers.
It can also lead to dissent among communities. One very simple way to
solve both problems is to assert a god or a pantheon of gods who
control all things. For example, storm clouds are dark and scary and
change shape of their own will and look heavy, yet are way high up in
the sky, and they can send rain and lightning down and make some of
the loudest noises you've ever heard. Someone without any climatology
knowledge might be very scared by these things, and unable to
investigate or explain them. But if they were told they're controlled
by a god named Zeus who can be appeased by building a white marble
temple and killing goats there (or whatever they did), then it's much
more comforting, so much so, that people feel an incredible sense of
relief from the burden of having to know and understand everything.
From that point on, no matter what mysterious natural phenomenon
presents itself, they have merely to ascribe it to some god, and the
matter is solved. So the short answer is that mental and social peace
is the reason I believe so many people believe in gods. And again,
numbers of people believing similar things is no evidence that some
kind of god is real, just that believing in supernatural beings makes
humans feel good. Whether you believe in anything or not, that last
part is an objective fact that we both agree on, I think.

I agree to some extent about psychological motivations but reject the premise as a whole that people need religion to live in a scary Universe. Most atheists aren't aware of the vast intellectual and philosophical traditions of Christianity, or how self-critical it can be. Even Paul said that if Jesus is not resurrected that we are all fools. We're not just a bunch of ignoramouses who drank the kool-aid and are waiting for the UFO to arrive.

This also does not apply to me. When I first became aware that God existed I was very afraid of Him. According to your analysis I should have rejected this belief immediately and embraced my agnosticism because it was more pleasant. But I couldn't reject it just like I couldn't call the day night. I believed what i did because of evidence, and not personal preferences. I was also a man of science, and wasn't worried about how complex the Universe was. I thought science would eventually explain all of its mechanisms, so it didn't bother me that I didn't understand it. It's funny but science functions in the same way for atheists as you say a god does for theists.

Another part of the attraction to faith, I believe, is that many
people also have a hard time taking responsibility for their own
actions, and would prefer some parental guidance, but from perfect
parents, not their own. Belief that there is a father-like god
watching everything you do and communicating with you and telling you
what to do if you'll only listen is also a great relief from the
burden of being responsible yourself for all the important decisions
you make. Most people, I believe, know what the right thing to do is,
but don't always want to do it because it doesn't always meet what
they consider their best interests or motivations. So instead, they
invoke God (which I think is an impartial metaphysical moral version
of yourself), and know what God would think is the right thing to do,
and they do that, believing that it wasn't their conscious choice, but
God directing them

I won't speak for other religions but this isn't how it works for Christianity. You have more responsibility when you believe in God, not less. You are accountable to God for every idle word that you speak, and morally, you have to watch your thoughts and not just your actions. I'll quote Gilbert K Chesterton:

"Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried"

You apparently have no idea what it takes to live up to example Christ set for us. If you think it is just a bunch of empty platitudes then you are being pretty disingenuous here..have you ever tried loving your enemy, blessing those who curse you, going 2 miles with someone when they demand one, giving your jacket to someone who steals the shirt off your back? Could you forgive your worst enemy? Could you love the person who wronged you the most? And that is just the easy stuff.

As someone who did believe in God as a child, I can do it any time,
and often do when I have to really think about the right path in a
difficult situation. The difference is I don't believe I'm receiving
wisdom from another being anymore; I believe I'm putting my ego out of
the way and accessing my true "moral" self. This theory accounts for
the different interpretations of faith systems, since different people
even within the exact same strain of faith seem to have different
ideas of moral actions.

Ahh, so you do come to God for help after all, but you give yourself the credit for His help. That's what ego is, my friend. Man as his own god. Yet, there is no explanation for objective moral values without God. Atheists borrow them from Christianity, which is Frank Tureks point. You have to sit in Gods lap to slap His face.

There is also more agreement on basic moral values than disagreement, and this is because we all have a God given conscience which tells us right from wrong. God said He would write His laws on our hearts, which is why we have values which are nigh universal in human civilization.

Why did you abandon your faith in God, if I may ask?

Your arguments, in general
As to your inconsistencies, at least once on the Sift you claimed that
other people have the wrong faith. You appealed to reason and logic to
conclude that Muslims have it wrong by pointing out inconsistencies in
their faith. I can't remember the details, but you probably know what
I'm talking about. You can imagine how a devout Muslim might react to
your logical arguments. Well, you react the same way when presented
with equivalent logical arguments about your own faith. Again, I
haven't searched up any examples, but I will, if you like, or I can
point out some logical contradictions that I come up with. I'd also
appreciate it, as a gesture of good faith (ha ha), if you'd agree to
renounce the theology of your strain of Christianity if I can come up
with even one thing we both agree is a clear, undeniable logical
contradiction from it.

I'm not perfect, I am sure you could find something stupid that I've said and hang me with it. Let's just go from here. As far as other religions, I have explained my views about the deception in this world. This is a good verse:

1 Corinthians 2:14

"But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned."

As far as muslims, well I think their religion is just obviously inconsistant. They believe Jesus is a prophet, and that the New Testament is a holy book. As a prophet, Jesus would only speak the direct truth of God. Yet, they believe nothing that He said. I don't know how they deal with that, but I think most muslims just haven't read the New Testament.
So you raised the issue of my ego. I can see why you did, and
hopefully you see from the above why I consider that a
misinterpretation of my position. But while we're here, I openly claim
to know nothing for absolute truth. I hold that the nature of the
universe is probably not knowable, that all I can do is look at what
evidence is before me and decide how it all fits best together, reject
claims that don't make sense, follow ones that seem to bear out, and
plod on as well as my time- and capacity-limited mind and body allow.
I make no absolute metaphysical claims, nor do I think my knowledge is
that much superior or inferior to anybody's. I think you and I are
equal human beings, neither of us more special as humans in any way.

We have similar viewpoints here. I believe we're both equal, and I am no better than you are. I don't deserve my salvation anymore than you would deserve yourself. I don't deserve it at all, that is the point. I do not believe that I am in any way special. I wouldn't know up from down if God didn't let me know. So, whatever gifts I have came from Him and I can't take credit. When I was agnostic, I reasoned much the same way you do. Now that I know the truth is tangible, and can be grasped, I believe the Universe can be knowable, but only through the one who made it possible.

In contrast, if I'm not mistaken, you claim to have direct personal
communication with the single creator and director of the entire
universe; to know his nature, his will, and the "truth"; that he
specially chose you unsolicited to receive this intimate contact
rather than me; and that you will live forever by His side in heaven
in the afterlife. You also believe that if I humble myself to your
god, of whom you are a chosen favourite, he will tell me the "truth",
and if I don't, your god will send me to suffer eternally. Between the
two of us, in terms of faith, it's not me who's puffing himself up.
Seriously, go back and read this paragraph if you don't know what I'm
saying.
What I believe is thus:

That we, as human beings, are born into a fallen world and with a sin nature. That we are sinners by birth, by choice, and by conduct. Because of sin, humanity is spiritually separated from God. But God had a plan:

John 3:16

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

God humiliated Himself by taking on a human body, so that He could live a perfect life as one of us and pay off our sin debt. He was tried as a criminal, beaten and tortured, and nailed to a cross for our sake, even though He Himself had done nothing wrong. He took all of our sins upon Himself, past present and future, and nailed them to that cross along with Him. He made a way for humanity to be reconciled back to the Father, and to have eternal life, and the Father proved this by raising Him from the dead. He ascended to the right hand of the Father and to this day mediates for all who call upon His name.

When you make Jesus Lord of your life, you receive a new spirit. You become a new creation, justified before God and adopted into the family of God as a son. All Christians receive the Holy Spirit, and this is the reason I have a personal relationship with God. Gods Spirit dwells within me, and He is always guiding me towards a holy and sanctified life. He is the guaranteer of the promises, and the proof that everything Jesus said is true.

Religious people claim to "know" that they're right, that their God
exists, that their experiences prove it, that believers in any other
faith are wrong, and believers in no faith are also wrong. Believers
in no faith, however, are ready to believe whatever presents itself as
likely to be true, including the existence of gods, or whatever. Just
because claims from your particular faith don't stand up to critical
thinking doesn't make non-believers arrogant or deluded.

This isn't about being right, to me. I am just doing what God told me to do. It's not like I figured all of this out on my own. God led me to the truth, and that's the only reason I know what it is. I have nothing at all to prove to you, nor do I lord it over anyone. I love God, and I am grateful to Him for what He has done for me. I naturally want to share that, and to obey His will, but I don't need to prove anything. I just want to tell you that God loves you, and He is there for you, and if you asked Him for the truth He would show it to you.

Jesus
I'm sure if I sincerely and humbly gave myself up and prayed to my
conception of Jesus, I would feel God moving in me. Sure. But the same
holds for every single religion on Earth. If it didn't, the religions
wouldn't succeed. They all have roughly the same effect. I could
worship Allah, or the Roman Pantheon, or Kim Jong Il, and as long as
it was done sincerely and humbly, it would work. I know this, so I
wouldn't trust the feeling was anything but me deluding myself, no
matter how strong it was.

This is the mistake many people, even believers make. It isn't about a feeling. Trust me, when God is around you would have more chance of ignoring a comet that was plunging into the atmosphere about to destroy the Earth than you would the presence of Almighty God. What you have ruled out is that God would directly reveal Himself to you. What I can tell you is that He is bigger than your imagination of Him, so don't think you have Him figured out, because it is impossible for our finite minds to comprehend His greatness.

This video
I wrote down your comments on a piece of paper so I could refer to
them as I watch the video carefully through. I intend to do so, and
I'm game to talk about all the issues you brought up point by point.
Just not now. This is possibly the longest comment ever written on the
sift, and I'm tired of typing for now. And I'm definitely busy
tomorrow. Tuesday looks good. Hope you're not pissed.

Good deal..I look forward to exploring the issue more in depth. Take your time and I'll watch for your reply.

I won't be offended if you don't answer all of this in one sitting.

I decided not to risk it.

ps, is it just me or is the VS editor messed up?
>> ^messenger:
@shinyblurry
There's some meat on this bone.>I won't be offended if you don't answer all of this in one sitting. <IMG class=smiley src="http://cdn.videosift.com/cdm/emoticon/wink.gif">

@shinyblurry

There's some meat on this bone. I think we can make some progress here, you and I.

Clearing the air
In my comments above, I was responding to your question, "Did you miss me?" until the last part where I think I only addressed your arguments about the video, and not very well. To be clear, I don't feel like I was attacking your character rather than your arguments. I was commenting on the way I perceive your arguments to often be illogical, inconsistent, unprovable, or even demonstrably false. That's my opinion of your arguments, not your character. As I said initially, I like you, and think you're probably a really nice person of good character, and I'd probably enjoy having a beer with you. If you mean the bit about your psychotic break, that's because that's what I think happened to you based on what you've told me about your conversion, and I think it's affecting your judgement and perception, honestly and sincerely. Put in my shoes (as you once were), you wouldn't accept your own story at face value either, so I don't know why you expect anyone else to.

Before getting to the video, I also need to challenge one stat you presented, present my experience, describe basis of my opinions about spiritual faith systems at large. I think they mostly flow nicely together, so heregoes.

"90%"
You're conflating at least two groups of people in your "90%", namely people who claim religious faith (whether sincere or not, and to whatever degree of devotion), and those who have actually had numinous experiences. When I say that you can't come to any other conclusion because of your mental condition, I'm only referring to you and other people who have actually had a serious numinous experience like yours, which is an underwhelming minority of religious people, nothing like 90%. This minority, and anybody else who claims to have seen ghosts, or communicated with daemons, or been abducted by aliens, or been levitated, or seen other locations in time/space, or communicated with the dead, I view with equal scepticism. The first reason is that it's very common among holders of all sorts of mystical beliefs to have gained the belief following such an experience, and to have attributed the belief to whichever mystical force is closest at hand, in your case, Jesus. The second is that there's no real reason to choose one mystical explanation for the experience over another explanation, and until there is, it's smartest to reserve judgement, and assume for the moment that they're all wrong, as only one of them, maximum, could possibly be right, no matter how fervently held they are.

My psychological break
And I'm not speaking from a position of complete ignorance here. I had a psychological break myself, one which led me to believe that most people were evil, out to get me, part of a massive conspiracy of some sort that I soon realized was so complex I'd never be able to unravel it. Initially, any real-world inconsistency with my first version of the story I'd invented I was able to fit into it by adding more detail. This too was done unconsciously, faster than I could think. As this story that I was unconsciously weaving in my own head got more and more complicated, more and more sinister, I realized it was too much for my weak mind to solve, and since things were that clandestine, I'd never be allowed to know all of it anyway, so why bother. Instead, I gave up trying, gave up thinking about it, and removed myself from situations that would trigger those thoughts. It was probably a year later that I started to consider it might all be in my head. Believe me, I thought long and hard about that, hoping it was true. I didn't know for sure, of course, but I could live my life as if it weren't true, and face whatever the consequences of it was. Not long after, to my great relief, I determined it much more likely that the whole story was in my head, and had no bearing in real life whatsoever. I still suffered from the effects of it for a year or so, but I got better at reminding myself that it probably wasn't true, and in fact there was no sense in living as if it were. That was nearly twenty years ago, and I'm still not yet at the point where I can laugh at how silly it was, and have just become comfortable enough to talk openly about it.

The "truth" that I received was unquestionably true, impossible to consider denying since to me it was so obviously true, and agonizingly, mindbendingly horrible. Depending on how you look at it, this could be a good thing or a bad thing. If the "truth" that I saw had been fulfilling, hopeful and beautiful like yours was, and not horrible, dark, pessimistic and paranoid as it was, I would have had far less motivation for questioning it, and may have just gone along with it forever, especially if holding that view improved my life in certain ways.

Everybody who has a break like this comes to a slightly different conclusion as to its meaning. Mine was a very, very dark conclusion, which is vastly different from yours, but similar to many other people's, though probably not exactly the same as anybody else's, just like yours probably isn't. Like Double Rainbow Guy was probably experiencing a similar break right at that moment, and concluded neither that Jesus was the saviour, nor that the world was evil, nor that he himself was the new messiah.

So I don't like the word "crazy" because of its negative connotations, and wouldn't have appreciated it being flung at me during that time nor now (and if I've ever used it about you, it was probably when I thought you were a real troll, Poe's Law being what it is, and definitely before I knew about your numinous experience). That said, I have no issue pointing out to people that I don't believe they are applying critical thought to their assertions, and that they don't seem capable of doing so because of a story in their head that is so powerful it renders contradictory input trivial. I've been there. I get it. And if the story in your mind from your experience is the truth, then so is mine, and so are millions of other people's, but they can't all be the truth, and probably none are.

If nothing else, please take from this story that I'm not looking down on you for having a mental injury. I'm identifying with you, and that seems more important to me than debating the merits of any argument.

Back to "90%"
People who cleave to a religion despite never having had any numinous experiences are just following what everyone else is doing without questioning it because they were raised to do so from birth. I don't deride these people for it because it's natural for humans to accept whatever they see being done all around them as normal. That's how we socialise and learn. It is not evidence that what they're doing is "correct" any more than shaking hands is the "correct" way to greet people, and bowing is "incorrect". Children in Muslim environments tend to grow up Muslim. Children of the Amazonian Pirahã tribe believe their fellow villagers sometimes are spirits who are visiting them with messages from other realms. Children of atheists tend to grow up atheist. Children raised around racists tend to grow up racist. Victims of childhood abuse tend to believe they are worthless pieces of shit, deserving abuse. All this indicates that people tend to believe what they're brought up to believe, not that what people believe en masse is true.

An emergent question with (at least) two answers
This raises the question of why so many people believe in god/s/mystic beings/supernatural events in the first place, and why it is such a universal human trait. It's a good question. One answer is that there is some kind of non-physical "force" we can't detect (yet) except in numinous experiences, during which it somehow has an effect on our physical bodies and causes us to know and wonder about its existence. That's totally possible, even scientifically, and I'm open to it. The problem is that there are thousands and thousands of systems of belief which all claim to be the true one, the one that best or most authoritatively explains the phenomenon of numinous experience. Worse is that there's virtually nothing to choose between them in terms of which one seems the best. They all have lore and deities, explanations for natural phenomena, numinous experience, extremely fervent adherents, and internal references and contradictions in number and greatness in rough proportion to the number and greatness of the claims they make about the universe. So, please don't call me arrogant for saying that your strain of faith, among a long list of mutually exclusive strains stretching back through human history is probably not correct, nor any of the others, probably. There's a 1 in n chance that any of them is correct, where n is the number of mutually exclusive faith systems that have ever existed. From the point of view of someone with no specific belief about any particular faith system, deciding on one seems a fool's errand. Especially when you consider the other possible answer.

Another answer to the good question about why so many people believe in gods, etc. -and my best guess- is that it is part of human nature to fear and mistrust the unknown, and be endlessly curious about it too. Anything we don't know presents a threat, so we have to go and examine it. If we can't examine it, then our imaginations are left to wander unconstrained. This is quite taxing, and we yearn for answers. It can also lead to dissent among communities. One very simple way to solve both problems is to assert a god or a pantheon of gods who control all things. For example, storm clouds are dark and scary and change shape of their own will and look heavy, yet are way high up in the sky, and they can send rain and lightning down and make some of the loudest noises you've ever heard. Someone without any climatology knowledge might be very scared by these things, and unable to investigate or explain them. But if they were told they're controlled by a god named Zeus who can be appeased by building a white marble temple and killing goats there (or whatever they did), then it's much more comforting, so much so, that people feel an incredible sense of relief from the burden of having to know and understand everything. From that point on, no matter what mysterious natural phenomenon presents itself, they have merely to ascribe it to some god, and the matter is solved. So the short answer is that mental and social peace is the reason I believe so many people believe in gods. And again, numbers of people believing similar things is no evidence that some kind of god is real, just that believing in supernatural beings makes humans feel good. Whether you believe in anything or not, that last part is an objective fact that we both agree on, I think.

Another part of the attraction to faith, I believe, is that many people also have a hard time taking responsibility for their own actions, and would prefer some parental guidance, but from perfect parents, not their own. Belief that there is a father-like god watching everything you do and communicating with you and telling you what to do if you'll only listen is also a great relief from the burden of being responsible yourself for all the important decisions you make. Most people, I believe, know what the right thing to do is, but don't always want to do it because it doesn't always meet what they consider their best interests or motivations. So instead, they invoke God (which I think is an impartial metaphysical moral version of yourself), and know what God would think is the right thing to do, and they do that, believing that it wasn't their conscious choice, but God directing them.

As someone who did believe in God as a child, I can do it any time, and often do when I have to really think about the right path in a difficult situation. The difference is I don't believe I'm receiving wisdom from another being anymore; I believe I'm putting my ego out of the way and accessing my true "moral" self. This theory accounts for the different interpretations of faith systems, since different people even within the exact same strain of faith seem to have different ideas of moral actions.

Your arguments, in general
As to your inconsistencies, at least once on the Sift you claimed that other people have the wrong faith. You appealed to reason and logic to conclude that Muslims have it wrong by pointing out inconsistencies in their faith. I can't remember the details, but you probably know what I'm talking about. You can imagine how a devout Muslim might react to your logical arguments. Well, you react the same way when presented with equivalent logical arguments about your own faith. Again, I haven't searched up any examples, but I will, if you like, or I can point out some logical contradictions that I come up with. I'd also appreciate it, as a gesture of good faith (ha ha), if you'd agree to renounce the theology of your strain of Christianity if I can come up with even one thing we both agree is a clear, undeniable logical contradiction from it.

My ego
So you raised the issue of my ego. I can see why you did, and hopefully you see from the above why I consider that a misinterpretation of my position. But while we're here, I openly claim to know nothing for absolute truth. I hold that the nature of the universe is probably not knowable, that all I can do is look at what evidence is before me and decide how it all fits best together, reject claims that don't make sense, follow ones that seem to bear out, and plod on as well as my time- and capacity-limited mind and body allow. I make no absolute metaphysical claims, nor do I think my knowledge is that much superior or inferior to anybody's. I think you and I are equal human beings, neither of us more special as humans in any way. In contrast, if I'm not mistaken, you claim to have direct personal communication with the single creator and director of the entire universe; to know his nature, his will, and the "truth"; that he specially chose you unsolicited to receive this intimate contact rather than me; and that you will live forever by His side in heaven in the afterlife. You also believe that if I humble myself to your god, of whom you are a chosen favourite, he will tell me the "truth", and if I don't, your god will send me to suffer eternally. Between the two of us, in terms of faith, it's not me who's puffing himself up. Seriously, go back and read this paragraph if you don't know what I'm saying.

Religious people claim to "know" that they're right, that their God exists, that their experiences prove it, that believers in any other faith are wrong, and believers in no faith are also wrong. Believers in no faith, however, are ready to believe whatever presents itself as likely to be true, including the existence of gods, or whatever. Just because claims from your particular faith don't stand up to critical thinking doesn't make non-believers arrogant or deluded.

Jesus
I'm sure if I sincerely and humbly gave myself up and prayed to my conception of Jesus, I would feel God moving in me. Sure. But the same holds for every single religion on Earth. If it didn't, the religions wouldn't succeed. They all have roughly the same effect. I could worship Allah, or the Roman Pantheon, or Kim Jong Il, and as long as it was done sincerely and humbly, it would work. I know this, so I wouldn't trust the feeling was anything but me deluding myself, no matter how strong it was.

This video
I wrote down your comments on a piece of paper so I could refer to them as I watch the video carefully through. I intend to do so, and I'm game to talk about all the issues you brought up point by point. Just not now. This is possibly the longest comment ever written on the sift, and I'm tired of typing for now. And I'm definitely busy tomorrow. Tuesday looks good. Hope you're not pissed.

I won't be offended if you don't answer all of this in one sitting.

Good sportsmanship is great, and a good thing to encourage. However, this rule doesn't punish "bad" sportsmanship, unless your standards for "bad" sportsmanship are so ridiculously hair-triggered that you'd prefer to watch all sports being played by Robots versus Vulcans.

It is possible to be a gracious winner and yet remain visibly happy that you won. What does any any Olympic athlete do after winning a race, landing a tough jump, setting a new record, or having any other momentary success? They give themselves a little fist-pump, grin like idiots, puff out their chest and hold their head high -- and that is probably the bare minimum for even the most stoic competitor ever. Is that bad sportsmanship? No.

What happens at the end of every World Series, Superbowl, or Championship of any sport ever played? One team jumps up and down in a mass hug, acting like schoolgirls and completely unashamed of doing so, while the other team has their arms at their sides and stares blank-faced at the ground 3 feet in front of their feet. Is that bad sportsmanship by the winners? No.

I love the tradition in NHL hockey where at the end of any playoff series, the entire roster of both teams lines up and shakes hands with every member of the opposing team. This can happen after 7 games fueled by hatred and bad blood, bench clearing brawls, or whatever. They put that aside, line up, shake hands, and congratulate each other on a well-fought series. Is that good sportsmanship? Yes!

Encouraging good sportsmanship makes sense. Coming up with punishments that can potentially alter the outcome of games for some behavior that is arbitrarily decided is "bad" sportsmanship is crazy.

*shakes hand* Gingers!

Translation from http://www.channel-ai.com/about555.html

Every day, with you – POP!~
Every day, as a couple – POP!~
Aa! The evening sun won’t seem like it’s setting if it’s looked at upside-down - POP!~
Every day, for some reason or another – POP!~
Every day, with a motorcyle – POP!~
Aa! The foreboding smell of rain!
I have an umbrella that’s full of holes! POP!~

POP! POP! POP!~

If I open the bottles of beer – POP!~
From here it’s jumping – POP!~

[Indistinguishable drunken(?) noises] POP! POP! POP!~

RU – JI – KA – WO – KA – YU – RI - NA
[not sure of meaning, or even sounds themselves]

Aaaa! POP! POP! POP!~

Aa! I shake hands with the guy I hate
Aa! Today also I’m doing my best!

POP! POP! POP!~

Shake hands, kiss babies. Not the other way around.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Beautifully stated.
>> ^marbles:

>> ^MarineGunrock:
Someone tell me to STFU if I'm being a d-bag by saying this, but I think that more than (most) people here, I know what freedom really costs, and this isn't taking it away.
The original group was simply broken up. No arrest made. They caused enough of a disturbance there that other citizens were ...disturbed. They were asked to leave and they did. Then there was a law passed that said "No dancing within the memorial" - is this a violation of the first amendment? No. The first amendment protects written and verbal speech. There's nothing in there about dancing.
Was the law stupid? Sure it was. Was it chipping away at our freedoms? No. If you think it is, then why aren't you walking around inside the capitol building with a gun to protest your inability to lawfully carry there? There's a difference between taking away our freedoms and laws designed to bring civility to society. You want the right to dance there? What about the right to contemplate the inscriptions inside the memorial in peace without being disturbed?

This isn't taking away freedoms, it's just making sure that the majority of people (note: democracy works in favor of the majority) won't have to be disturbed.

You may know the true cost of war, but war =/= freedom. A thousand military bases around the world, a million civilian deaths, drones leveling buildings with a 90% civilian death rate, military check points for lawful citizens, house to house searches for resistance fighters--none of this protects freedom.
The only way to protect freedom is to fight those that encroach on the natural rights of individuals.
What if the new law was "No smiling" or "No laughing" or "No shaking hands with other visitors" or "No walking too fast" or "No picking your nose" or "No standing still for more than 5 seconds" or "No looking directly at Jefferson's backside", etc...
Would these laws violate the first amendment? Would they be ok with you too? You may think it's a trivial and insignificant law, but that's not the point. It's a clear violation of your natural rights.
The Supreme Court has held that dancing is a means of non-violent expression. The first amendment does protect freedom of expression. It's not explicitly written because it's implied and assumed. How can you have freedom of speech without freedom of expression? How can you be free to speak, but not free to smile or laugh or express your message through some other gesture... like dancing?

>> ^MarineGunrock:

Someone tell me to STFU if I'm being a d-bag by saying this, but I think that more than (most) people here, I know what freedom really costs, and this isn't taking it away.
The original group was simply broken up. No arrest made. They caused enough of a disturbance there that other citizens were ...disturbed. They were asked to leave and they did. Then there was a law passed that said "No dancing within the memorial" - is this a violation of the first amendment? No. The first amendment protects written and verbal speech. There's nothing in there about dancing.
Was the law stupid? Sure it was. Was it chipping away at our freedoms? No. If you think it is, then why aren't you walking around inside the capitol building with a gun to protest your inability to lawfully carry there? There's a difference between taking away our freedoms and laws designed to bring civility to society. You want the right to dance there? What about the right to contemplate the inscriptions inside the memorial in peace without being disturbed?

This isn't taking away freedoms, it's just making sure that the majority of people (note: democracy works in favor of the majority) won't have to be disturbed.

You may know the true cost of war, but war =/= freedom. A thousand military bases around the world, a million civilian deaths, drones leveling buildings with a 90% civilian death rate, military check points for lawful citizens, house to house searches for resistance fighters--none of this protects freedom.


The only way to protect freedom is to fight those that encroach on the natural rights of individuals.

What if the new law was "No smiling" or "No laughing" or "No shaking hands with other visitors" or "No walking too fast" or "No picking your nose" or "No standing still for more than 5 seconds" or "No looking directly at Jefferson's backside", etc...
Would these laws violate the first amendment? Would they be ok with you too? You may think it's a trivial and insignificant law, but that's not the point. It's a clear violation of your natural rights.

The Supreme Court has upheld that dancing is a means of non-violent expression. The first amendment does protect freedom of expression. It's not explicitly written because it's implied and assumed. How can you have freedom of speech without freedom of expression? How can you be free to speak, but not free to smile or laugh or express your message through some other gesture... like dancing?

Thank you for the quality! I appreciate it.
In reply to this comment by Skeeve:
quality