I think it normally depends on the mountain. As I see it, most people have an issue with destroying mountains for things like mining because 1) they disagree with the reasoning for it, 2)it's in places where people can see the damage, and more importantly 3) those 'mountains' are often much lower altitude and are decent habitats for critters with significant water runoff that's contaminated by 'mountain top removal'. When you're talking 9-10K feet up, beyond the tree line, there's far less habitat being destroyed (granted, something likely lives there that's now dead or displaced). That means it's not 0 damage done, but far less damage to what most people consider important. Very few people care about damaging the rock itself, mostly Shinto and Buddhists I would guess. Personally I find this a good trade off of damage vs possible gain, but of course I don't live there.
I'm wondering how this is better than the VLTA http://www.eso.org/public/teles-instr/vlt/
I expected there to be no more giant telescopes made now that they know how to combine smaller ones to simulate large ones. I wonder why they went this way on this project?

"The other day I saw a film called The Edge, which I regarded as the best thing to come out of Hollywood since The Silence of the Lambs. Perhaps not coincidentally, this flick also starred Anthony Hopkins. In one scene, Hopkins and his co-star, Alec Baldwin, seem in an absolutely hopeless situation, lost in the Arctic, stalked by a hungry bear, without weapons, seemingly doomed. Baldwin collapses, and Hopkins has a magnificent monologue, talking Baldwin out of his despair. The speech runs, roughly, like this: "Did you know you can make fire out of ice? You can, you know. Fire out of ice. Think about it. Fire out of ice. Think. Think."

This riddle has both a pragmatic and symbolic (alchemical) answer. The pragmatic answer you can find in the film, explicitly; and it might prove useful if you ever get lost in the north woods; and the alchemical, or Zen Buddhist, answer is also in the film, implicitly, and only perceptible to those who understand the dense character Hopkins plays in the story. It might prove useful whenever despair seems to overwhelm you. So, to those who at the end of this book still can't understand or sympathize with my Nietzschean yea-saying, I quote again: "Fire out of ice. Think. Think."

Who was that Prometheus guy and why did he give us fire in the first place?"

~Robert Anton Wilson

Fighting is the operative word. Regardless of their motivation, they're doing something inherently dangerous to their physical well-being.

I think it sucks when a Buddhist monk self-immolates. It happens usually to take a stand against oppression, and with any luck it helps the cause, but I can't feel bad that burns result from someone pouring gasoline over themselves and lighting a match.

Those girls poured the gasoline and danced around a lit match.

You can't force a group of violent enforcers to allow you to do something they don't want you to do, despite that there's probably a very good reason you're doing it. (That goes double if you're in a country where you have no rights.)

One's spiritual path is simply that-One's. Seekers and non-seekers-All paths lead to all paths, it's one's imprints and socialization that fucks everyone up their own asses-Western-oriented Buddhists can appear as more whack than any Mormon-When someone reads the words, "I am the way, the truth, and the life" for instance, the words are still with god and of god...Takes' a human to fuck up anything righteous when they think to hard-

One persons love may look like shit to another-Jesus hung out with thieves, whores, idolators, etc-Try to get a born-again asshole to do THAT!

Because they're crazy, emotionally-dependent, and in their own little reality-tunnels. Can almost guarantee it's not because they are practicing Buddhists or Hare Krishna.

Buddhists would concur with you grinter, A10anis, though they simply couldn't give a fuck

@A10anis-No, youre wrong, it's neither pointless nor terribly cruel. As to necessity, maybe.

Of bankers and Nazi's?? The Tibetan Buddhist would simply say of these illusions that life in this incarnation is suffering, lumping thievery and murder no matter the scale into a similar karmic bowl of inevitability, and give it a stir...all the while mumbling the Dharma.

Why does the Dali Llama smile all the time?
Why do bad things happen to good people?
Good Drugs.

He's quite a character, he is. He does seem to fit well with what I know of Buddhism. It's not really a religion, like any other...more of an attitude (or life-philosophy, if you prefer). Most of the things that "churches" teach are not really relevant to the Buddhist philosophy.

The basic rules seem to match the basic rules of most religions, but I'm curious about how they/he propose to deal with the more difficult issues. How does he recommend dealing with the Wall Street crowd buying and corrupting the government for their own benefit (and to the detriment of everyone else)? What would he have recommended (to bring out the hoary old question) to deal with Hitler and Nazi Germany?

The little things are easy and obvious, if too often forgotten. The harder things are still important, if for no other reason than that they provide the foundation that we all must grow from.

There are also sects of Buddhism that advocate torture, execution and public humiliation (The former Tibetan ruling class springing firmly to mind). Sadly it seems even the most peaceful of philosophies can still be trumped by psychotic self righteousness & mindless tradition .

I'm not aware of any specific Sufi sects having executed or tortured people for blasphemy, adultery etc. but I fear such groups likely exist somewhere if one were to go looking for them.

In general I have a healthy degree of respect for "Sufism" because it follows the same kind of esoteric approach to religion/spirituality/knowledge as it's western (Gnostic) and far eastern (Tao, Hindu*, Buddhist etc.) counterparts.

Very roughly "Esoteric religion" is based around looking inwards for knowledge and lends itself naturally to scientific enquiry, considered ethics, critical thinking etc.
When they speak of a higher power it is almost always in terms of something fundamentally connected to and embodied by yourself.
They almost never suggest one need feel threatened by divine judgement, or that some should be privileged over others (*hence the Hindu caste system being not being truly esoteric)

"Exoteric religion" (most of Islam, Judaism, Christianity etc.) is by contrast based around looking outside oneself for knowledge. Truth is revealed by outside agents, divinity and true power always lie outside of oneself. etc. etc. (I'm sure I don't need to further elucidate the negative qualities of such belief systems )


In truth all of the major denominations appear to have at least some some esoteric and exoteric variations even if most fall mostly into one or the other. There are bad Buddhists & Gnostics and there are good Muslims and Christians the only difference really is whether or not they are genuinely applying their own minds and judgement, or hopelessly enslaved to another's.
Or in "someone" else's terms Logos and Mythos.

Back on topic: Bill Maher is Mythos masquerading as Logos.

I will get to what is wrong with strongly denouncing Islam in a second....

As for the article, I hadn't actually read the whole thing but rather had heard coverage about it along with an article on Al Jazeera. Specifically, I take issue with Harris and his stance on the 'war on terror' (and aren't you essentially advocating for religious profiling by condemning Islam and its practitioners? Or is it rather that you identify it as a threat but wish to see no action taken?) I also have problems with Hitchens and his enthusiasm for the invasion of Iraq.

As for the quote I posted, after re-reading it, I think that I saw something that wasn't there. I believe that trying to prove that one religion is more evil than another is pointless. Reading history books, which oddly I have done, will not disprove that belief but rather reinforce it as the tragedy of all religions would be laid bare.

Finally, I would gladly take up your 'snidely', non-issued challenge. As a matter of fact, I've already done it. I lived in Indonesia for a year both in Muslim dominated areas and tribal, animist Christian dominated areas. While I am by no means an atheist activist, I nonetheless lived openly as an atheist and honestly answered the question of my religion (I have none) when it was asked of me. Nothing happened to me. Furthermore, I currently live on the Thai-Burma border in a Buddhist dominated country and do not hide my lack of belief when asked about it.

And that is where I come back to the problem of denouncing Islam. Just last month there were pogroms against Muslims by Buddhists in Burma (a smaller conflict than that which occurred last year against the Rohingya in Rakhine state). The proximate cause of this pogrom was a Muslim jeweler refusing to pay for damaged jewelry of a Buddhist woman. But more generally, it is a result of a campaign of extremist Buddhist monks issuing edicts about the evils of Islam and the dangers it represents to Burmese culture. Unequivocally condemning an entire religion invariably leads to this type of violence, and therein lies my concern.

Obviously, the brain is being tricked into something. What that is, is yes an astounding mystery. See, as I said before there is only one way to test your theory is to invest ten minutes and find out. But, I am sure you would want to pussy foot around with 10mg for a long while until you got to the 40mg, "breakthrough" dose. Which, no one is ever prepared for.

It is not like any other drug. Two seconds in and the person is in a trance. The first time I did it, I really was not expecting what it felt like to go into trance as your mind slips through some sort of portal into the unknown. Seeing pure energy, geometry, with eyes closed. I remember before I did it, I was interested in many aspects of it, seven foot tall black entities were never something I thought about or fantasized about. It is not some fear of mine. I was interested in seeing the afterlife.... and on the way maybe I would see that all the geometric mayan/eastern mandala stuff was bullshit. I wanted to discount the experience as well. But, I could not. And in fact I can see where the influence comes from even if the patterns one sees on this are far more intricate beyond the human imagination. Surely, this is a state the yogi, the buddhist, hindu monks spend their lives trying to get to.

I have given this to close friends. Afterwards, I give it some time and eventually I ask do you think that came from your imagination? And no one believes it does. A lot of what they saw came from absolutely no pop culture references. It came from nothing except knowing very little about it and trusting that I was not going to pop them to the other side of the universe. I still do not know where you are getting your assumptions from? No one knows of anything for sure. We hardly know anything about anything. Repeat that in your head.

I believe in Science first and foremost. But, whatever this is challenges just about all preconceived notions we have of what we actually are to the core. And even if it all proves to be just a trip. It would still challenge the preconceived notions we have of what we actually are.

I love World Order and I love dubstep. Together its like my eyes and ears just had sex.

I think this excerpt from Wikipedia about World Orders founder may be interesting to all of you -

Genki Sudo is a retired Japanese mixed martial artist and a kickboxer who, until December 31, 2006 competed in the Japanese fighting organization HERO'S and before that, the Ultimate Fighting Championship. He is notable for his elaborate ring entrances and unorthodox fighting style. His philosophy is "We are all one." He is a practicing Buddhist. Signature moves include the flying triangle and spinning backfist

>> ^shinyblurry:

I'm not talking about technicalities, though. If atheists are really so incensed about the evils of religion, they would be concentrating on religions, countries and cultures that had the most egregious examples of perceived evils. Instead, 99 percent of it concentrates on the God of the bible.

I'm only speaking for myself, not for The Atheists™. I do not generally go around condemning religions, individually or as a whole; I condemn when it is called for or when my opinion on something is requested. When Catholics rape children, I condemn. When Muslims throw acid in the faces of "immodestly" dressed women, I condemn. When Catholics deny their employees access to healthcare, I condemn. When Scientologists destroy the lives of people who want to leave their organization, I condemn. The squeaky wheel gets the grease, as they say, and there are no Buddhists or Hindus lecturing me on the meaninglessness of my life. I tend to argue mostly with Christians and so I tend to argue mostly against Christianity.

>> ^shinyblurry:
That is not what he was arguing, by any stretch of the imagination. He argued that to be free = meaningless, and that no one can live that way, on top of all of the logical, emotional, psychological and philosophical convolutions that this truth entails. He proposed Christianity as a solution to this problem, but he did not make it the thrust of his argument.

Nay, he proposed Jesus as the solution to this problem, a problem that I don't even necessarily accept is a problem as defined. It is entirely the thrust of his argument. Let me quote...

Nobody can live that way. To really believe that life is meaningless gets you into convolutions that are emotional, convolutions that are psychological, convolutions that are logical, convolutions that are philosophical, and you can't even live that way because life does have meaning and both freedom and meaning are found in Jesus Christ. That's the argument.

>> ^shinyblurry:
The argument is, though, that if you're free to make up your own meaning, then there is no actual meaning.

Agree. There is no inherent meaning in life; we find meaning as we go.

>> ^shinyblurry:
No, he is saying that there is no way to live that way and be logically consistent with your own knowledge and experience.

That's an even worse argument. I would argue that, at some level, every person who has ever lived has/had logical inconsistencies if you dig far enough. They're on the surface for some and deeply buried for others but we all have elements of contradiction in us.

>> ^shinyblurry:
Give a specific example.

Well there's a half-hour video at the top of this page. Will that do?

>> ^shinyblurry:
I think you might need to rewatch the video because I don't think you understood the point to these sections, or how they were supported by his overall argument.

I've watched it 3x now. If his argument is so poorly constructed/stated that it cannot be understood after 3 listens, that is his fault.

Oh man this is ironic. I've never seen the Celtic cross being used that way before. For Irish and Scottish Gaelics the Celtic cross is just a Celtic cross, symbolizing their religion and culture. While the Hooligans in Poland are using it as a symbol of racial supremacy, kind of like how the Swastika from India came to be known as a Nazi symbol, which also changes meaning in different cultures as in Hinduism it's a good luck charm, while in buddhist context it symbolizes circle of life or eternity.

@shinyblurry:

Your characterization of bible literalists as "idiots" and people with "sheep-like" credulity and the "so-called" faithful, not-withstanding, I will agree that a disagreement on origins doesn't necessarily make someone less Christian. It doesn't say anywhere in the bible that you must agree on a literal interpretation of Genesis to follow Jesus Christ.

Calling the literal interpretation of Genesis a "quasi-heretical" doctrine of "19th century upstarts" is completely ridiculous, though. Almost as ridiculous as quoting Origen and Augustrine and claiming they represented the majority viewpoint of the early church. If you think the early church didn't believe in a literal Genesis, how do you explain Ephraim the syrian, or Basil of Caesarea? What about Ambrose of Milan, who was the mentor of Augustine? They all believed in a young earth, as did many others throughout the centuries.

Let us not also forget that Christ Himself was a bible literalist, who spoke about the narrative in the Old Testament, including Genesis, as literal history, and literally fulfilled the prophecies of the Messiah.


Could you perhaps refer me to some documents wherein St. Ephrem or St. Basil averred that the literal interpretation of the Bible is primary? Ephrem appears to have struck a middle ground between literalism and pure metaphorical interpretation, and St. Basil was a student of Origen's writings. Granted, St. Basil assiduously avoided the bizarre flights of fancy that plagued some of the Christian writers in the 4th century, but he was hardly a literalist in a strict sense--the literal sense was only one important sense in which to take the sacred writings.

If you want to support your point, a particular reference to Genesis will do best.

As far as Ambrose goes, it stretches the truth to say that he was a "mentor" of Augustine. Certainly, Augustine speaks rather highly of Ambrose in the Confessions. But Augustine writes with rather rose-colored glasses. A sober-minded approach to the life of Ambrose reveals that he was as much a political animal as he was spiritual. And even in the Confessions it is not recorded that Ambrose paid much attention to Augustine. If I recall correctly, Augustine doesn't record a single word that Ambrose said to Augustine outside of a public sermon in which Augustine was a member of the congregation.

In regards to Christianity, there is a mimimum requirement of belief, such as that Jesus was raised from the dead, to be a Christian.


In the traditional sense, certainly. There are other senses by which one might claim to be Christian--pointing out the tradition from which one derives one's moral compass, for instance. In this sense, many atheists can probably claim to be Christian atheists, rather than, e.g., Muslim atheists.

Simple observation shows most people, probably near the 99.9 percent mark, to be liars. There is no claim in Christianity that Christians are perfect. Far from it. Jesus was the only perfect man to ever live. Christians still sin, but hopefully they sin much less than usual. Christians living sanctified lives are comparitively rare, unfortunately. When you consider that half of the American church does not believe in a literal Holy Spirit or Satan, it isn't surprising.


Do they sin much less than usual? I haven't seen any sign of it. The statistics don't seem to bear it out. Nor does my personal experience. Of the best and most morally astute people I know, only one was Christian. The rest were Buddhist, Muslim, or Pagan.

In Christianity, it is to know God personally. Christianity is about Jesus Christ and nothing else. If you subtract Jesus, you don't have anything. You automatically get a new state of being; when you accept Christ you are a new creature, and you receive the Holy Spirit. You also have your sins forgiven and obtain eternal life.


To worship and devote yourself to a single God, like Jesus Christ, has a specific term in Hinduism--bhakhti yoga. It is the path of love and devotion.

No matter which god you pursue with this ardent and holy love, you will achieve the same result--sanctification, rebirth, and the descending dove of the Holy Spirit.

The forgiveness of sins is a psychological projection. Eternal life is yours regardless of what any god says.


Which spirit? Satan can make you feel ecstacy and love; it wouldn't be a very good deception if it wasn't deceiving. The question you should ask is, where is this coming from, and who gave me a spirit in the first place?

As far as intolerance goes, Jesus made it clear:

John 14:6

Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

Those are His words, not mine. A Christian is only telling you what He said, which is that you will face judgment for your sins. If you reject Jesus, you are telling God you want to stand trial for your sins on your own merit. If you are rejecting Jesus, it's for a reason that has nothing to do with anything you have written here.


As far as deception goes, I will quote to you the Gospels, Luke 11:17-19: 'But He knew their thoughts and said to them, “Any kingdom divided against itself is laid waste; and a house divided against itself falls. If Satan also is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand? For you say that I cast out demons by Beelzebul. And if I by Beelzebul cast out demons, by whom do your sons cast them out? So they will be your judges.'

How can a demon bring holy ecstasy? How can a devil cast out division and hatred, and bring in such divine love?

And with regard to intolerance, it's almost entirely pointless to quote to me the first apocryphon of John--the so-called Gospel of John. I'm well aware of what it says. I've spent a lot of time considering it. That's why I think it's incorrect.

It does no good at all to suggest that it's someone else who's being intolerant. On the one hand, it looks like you're blame-shifting, too much the coward to take responsibility for the statement. On the other hand, you are providing no reason to think that the quotation provides any authority whatsoever, and undermining your position by your own indolence.