BellaOnline Forums Religion and Spirituality Atheist Random Thoughts

Hello Les and all,

Will read the article posted above again, but yes, going with the flow seems to be the easy and probably sensible way out for many a 'non believer' unless they are made of 'Giles Cory" stuff.

Presentism as I know it means judging something that happened in an age or ages past by today's mores and standards of practice and knowledge.

It helps with a lot of cogent argument and for me it promotes a real understanding of an issue once more research has or may have been done.

Presentism cannot be used to condone or accept or write off or... or...or... everything just becasue it happened in the past. Understanding (or trying to) any actions of any dictator from Idi Amin to Stalin to Pol Pot is not presentism.

But judging something on modern day bases helps explain the whys and wherefores of 'them thar days'.

We laugh at our Moms in the 50's who were taught to 'be sweet and kind and welcoming ... after all he has had a hard and difficult day ... make sure the children are quiet, clean and fed by the time he gets home ... pretty yourself up, fix your makeup and speak in a gentle and sweet manner ... don't bother him with your silly little problems ... make sure his pipe and slippers are ready and that there is a wholesome meal for him too...and so on.

We laugh today about fashions past, silly 18th century French court wigs and face patches.

We judge smokers, hunters, inventions. We are homophobic, we still distrust strangers in our midst or visitors to our villages.

Sometimes we yearn to go back to the days when there was no canned lion hunting, when Ritalin was not an option (if 'invented'), when life seemed more genteel somehow, when Lady Gaga was not someone to be entertained or feted by the press, when the harshest expletives heard were darn and damn maybe.

I am writing off the cuff so there is a lot more to say and think about but that is it. Essentially presentism is judging something 'past' on modern standards and out of time.

And so to your random thought of Baden Powell and the Boy Scouts movement with its principles, rules and regulations.

No one would have questioned the 'Christian' base of the movement as the greater picture was one of encouraging good clean youthful activities for young boys etc etc and so on. I was too young to know what being agnostic or atheistic was so no thought would have been given to people of those thought systems/beliefs and persuasions.

I think a lot of children were just discovering God as presented to them by whichever system they were a part of and quite frankly saying "So help me God" (and any words to that effect) wouldn't have made much of anything when there was a super duper hike, picnic and swimming weekend coming up with a competition for camping badges.

Anyway, I have to get on now, am neglecting so much, have to get back to my busy coalface. Think I am going to develop my idea of having a TW-OH to swear to ... I swear by TW-OH, this action is right and true and fine and no animals were harmed in the making of this movie.

What are those four concept-beliefs of Rotary International? They are good to live by as a daily creed.

Cheers

Hi Lestie and all,

Perhaps instead of "Random Thoughts," I/we could start a new thread
and call it "Lestie's and Les' MORE WEIGHT!"

Thanks for the info on "presentism." Makes a lot of sense in trying to understand the source of anachronistic thought and actions. How I do yearn for professional basketball players of days long ago like Bill Russell, Bob Cousy John Havlicek, Elgin Baylor, Jerry West, Oscar Robertson and even though I hate to admit it, Wilt Chamberlain as opposed to the current crop of prima donas such as Kobie Bryant, Lebron James, Alan Iverson, Dwayne Wade, and Carlos Boozer (at least there are some throw backs still left like Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen, and Dirk Nowitski).

Somewhat a source of contention between myself and my father was that for decades he was a member of the ELKS.

Integrity as I have written before is something that can never be taken away from you, it can only be given away. So "on my honor I will do my best to do my duty to all worthy sentient and non-sentient beings regardless of where they exist." That is something that I could pledge but as for the official oath...

Now there I can say nothing about - basketball and names. They could be champion anybodies - from anything to anywhere. Their names mean little as would what those names conjure up. Still I guess that would be the same wherever you go unless we are talking about international sport like golf or er ... golf or formula one motor racing maybe. Tennis possibly what with Wimbeldon etc.

Anyway dare I ask who are the ELKS? Are they sort of like the Redsox or similar? Dunno why I am asking, what would I do with your answer? File it I suppose.

Cheers now

Hi Lestie and all,

Oh my goodness! Not knowing who is Bill Russell is like not knowing who was Babe Ruth or Jim Thorpe. The team that wins the National Basketball Association's championship is referred to as being WORLD CHAMPIONS so doesn't that make it an international sport? LOL Doesn't the rest of the world revolve around the U.S., particularly its sports teams. At any rate, I was a real admirer of SA's Gary Player and Cliff Drysdale.

The reason why I mentioned the ELKs was in reference to your mentioning Rotary International. The ELKs are officially known as the Benevolent and Protective Order of the Elks and are a fraternal organization and social club.
My father who was very much a liberal Democrat was a member of that organization that depending on the specific lodge and its charter (they are a national org.) had been known to discriminate/bar such individuals belonging to such entities as women, Mexican-Americans, Afro-Americans, and irony of irony Jews. For the sake of having a place to drink, to socialize, and to hangout my father some how or another could rationalize belonging to such an organization.

Am I being too harsh? I don't think so. The point was that it is exigent to be true to your principles/values no matter what.
As a member of a minority, agnostics in this case (I don't know if white, male, heterosexual would qualify me as such), that is necessarily true on a day-to-day basis.

A fellow editor, Ian from the Pagan site, has been kind enough to send to me information that he thought that I would be interested in and he was right on. One thing that he sent to me was a link to Scott Adams' blog; he is the creator of the "Dilbert" comic strip and describes himself as being an atheist (but I am not so sure).

Below you will find an essay that he wrote which from my perspective best describes the major difference between atheists (and theists) and many agnostics. Please take a look at it and see what you think.

The Atheist Who Thought He Was God

Can we ever be sure about anything in life?

Is a feeling of 99% certainty enough to say you �know� something? Or do you need to feel 99.9999999999% certain before you�re willing to commit?

If you say you need to be 100% certain, you don�t understand how human brains work. It�s common for the human brain to be certain about things that later turn out to be completely false. It happens all the time, to everyone. If it has ever happened to you, then you know you can�t trust your own powers of certainty.

This brings me to atheists. In order to be certain that God doesn�t exist, you have to possess a godlike mental capacity � the ability to be 100% certain. A human can�t be 100% certain about anything. Our brains aren�t that reliable. Therefore, to be a true atheist, you have to believe you are the very thing that you argue doesn�t exist: God.

Perhaps you will argue that being 99.999999% certain God doesn�t exist is just as good as being 100% sure. That strikes me as bad math. As other philosotainers have famously noted, a small chance of spending eternity in Hell has to be taken seriously. Eternity is a long time.

Let me put this in perspective. You might be willing to accept a 10% risk of going skiing and getting hurt, but you wouldn�t accept a 10% risk of a nuclear war. The larger the potential problem, the less risk you are willing to tolerate.

An eternity in Hell is the largest penalty there could ever be. So while you might not worry about a .00000000001% chance of ending up in Hell, you can�t deny the math. .00000000001% of eternity is a lot longer than your entire mortal life. Infinitely longer.

I sometimes call myself an atheist because it�s too hard to explain Spinoza�s version of god. And it�s too hard to explain that agnosticism is the only intellectually defensible position.

Are there any atheists out there?

I am an atheist...meaning that I do not believe in a 'higher' power, bearded sky daddy, santa clause, easter bunny, tooth fairy.
Oh, I am a good person too.....honest, hard worker, good friend, faithful,and true to myself. I am respectful of others beliefs, and hope they are respectful of mine.

Hi cream pie and all.

Thank you so much for telling us about yourself as with very few exceptions I have no idea what the belief systems are of the people who view this forum.

I am going to do something a bit untraditional (what wlse is new!). I am providing a link to an article that I wrote for the Mexico site that will be released next week. I am not going to tell you anything about it except for the fact that in the article there is no mention of religion or belief systems as that would have not been appropriate for that site in this instance.

However, if I were to have written it for this site, perhaps I would have called it "EL DISCONNECT MUY GRANDE." If any of you do read it, why do you think that I would have titled it that way? Just one hint: A slight knowledge of Mexico's demographics would be helpful in coming up with the answer.

Here's the link to directly access the article:

Mexico site

The only connection to agnosticism for the following that I can come up with is that at one time I was "without knowledge" of the answers to these questions, the first of which I just learned yesterday.

1. What is the opposite of misogyny?

2. What is the opposite of utopia?

3. What is the opposite of hate?

All of the above have one word answers.

Lestie posted the following in the Mexico Forum and with her permission I am reposting it here. It refers back to a previous post of mine here in which I mentioned an article that I wrote for the Mexico site and it's title is "Bribes in Mexico." After Lestie's comments are going to appear the results of a study conducted by Transparency International which showed where countries ranked in regards to public sector corruption. See if you can or cannot make any conclusions about countries and their religosity after looking at the results. You might want to look at the results prior to reading what Lestie had to say.

Here's Lestie's remarks:

Goodness me Les!

If all those countries are worse than South Africa then the mind just switches off - it has to. There is just no room for understanding or money or implications or domino effect of such international corruption.

Guess we just have to skate across the top and keep on pretending and hope that on an individual basis we can each make a different to our circles of influence as they say in network marketing.

Another rhetorical question for us to think about. Would you bribe to get something done? Would you offer a pay off for being awarded something or for avoiding a jail sentence? Is there a difference between cheating at school or stealing term papers or plagiarism?

What do the people in the soapies do? Are only the 'good' characters good and the 'bad' characters bad?

Dunno what I would do until faced with the real deal and context. Anyway.

It does not say much for the 'Thou shalt nots..." or commandments or lifestyle principles found in all the good books!

Cheers

My apologies if you have already seen the below in the Mexico Forum.

Here are the full RESULTS of the Corruption Perceptios Index 2010 with an explanation:

The Corruption Index is always controversial.

Transparency International's 2010 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) is the world's most credible measure of domestic, public sector corruption.

The CPI scores countries on a scale of zero to 10, with zero indicating high levels of corruption and 10, low levels. And the most corrupt places in the world are not the most surprising. Unstable governments, often with a legacy of conflict, continue to dominate the bottom rungs of the CPI. Afghanistan and Myanmar share second to last place with a score of 1.4, with Somalia coming in last with a score of 1.1.

The world's most peaceful countries score the best. In the 2010 CPI, Denmark, New Zealand and Singapore tie for first place with scores of 9.3.
Countries sized by rank. Get the fullscreen version

The ranking is based on data from country experts and business leaders at 10 independent institutions, including the World Bank, Economist Intelligence Unit and World Economic Forum.

Transparency International says that it has seen improvements in scores
from 2009 to 2010 for Bhutan, Chile, Ecuador, FYR Macedonia, Gambia, Haiti, Jamaica, Kuwait, and Qatar.

The scores of the Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Madagascar, Niger and the United States have all gone down.

The full data is below - and download the complete version for background scores and all the indicators. What can you do with it?
Country summary
Transparency international world corruption index

Click heading to sort
Country Rank

Country / Territory
CPI 2010 Score

SOURCE: CPI
1 Denmark 9.3
1 New Zealand 9.3
1 Singapore 9.3
4 Finland 9.2
4 Sweden 9.2
6 Canada 8.7
7 Netherlands 8.7
8 Australia 8.7
8 Switzerland 8.7
10 Norway 8.6
11 Iceland 8.5
11 Luxembourg 8.5
13 Hong Kong 8.4
14 Ireland 8
15 Austria 7.9
15 Germany 7.9
17 Barbados 7.8
17 Japan 7.7
19 Qatar 7.7
20 United Kingdom 7.6
21 Chile 7.2
22 Belgium 7.1
22 United States 7.1
24 Uruguay 6.9
25 France 6.9
26 Estonia 6.5
27 Slovenia 6.4
28 Cyprus 6.3
28 United Arab Emirates
30 Israel 6.1
30 Spain 6.1
32 Portugal 6
33 Botswana 5.8
33 Puerto Rico 5.8
33 Taiwan 5.8
36 Bhutan 5.7
37 Malta 5.6
38 Brunei 5.5
39 Korea (South) 5.4
39 Mauritius 5.4
41 Costa Rica 5.3
41 Oman 5.3
41 Poland 5.3
44 Dominica 5.2
45 Cape Verde 5.1
46 Lithuania 5
46 Macau 5
48 Bahrain 4.9
49 Seychelles 4.8
50 Hungary 4.7
50 Jordan 4.7
50 Saudi Arabia 4.7
53 Czech Republic 4.6
54 Kuwait 4.5
54 South Africa 4.5
56 Malaysia 4.4
56 Namibia 4.4
56 Turkey 4.4
59 Latvia 4.3
59 Slovakia 4.3
59 Tunisia 4.3
62 Croatia 4.1
62 Macedonia, FYR 4.1
62 Ghana 4.1
62 Samoa 4.1
66 Rwanda 4
67 Italy 3.9
68 Georgia 3.8
69 Brazil 3.7
69 Cuba 3.7
69 Montenegro 3.7
69 Romania 3.7
73 Bulgaria 3.6
73 El Salvador 3.6
73 Panama 3.4
73 Trinidad and Tobago 3.4
73 Vanuatu 3.6
78 China 3.5
78 Colombia 3.5
78 Greece 3.5
78 Lesotho 3.5
78 Peru 3.5
78 Serbia 3.5
78 Thailand 3.5
85 Malawi 3.4
85 Morocco 3.4
87 Albania 3.3
87 India 3.3
87 Jamaica 3.3
87 Liberia 3.3
91 Bosnia and Herzegovina 3.2
91 Djibouti 3.2
91 Gambia 3.2
91 Guatemala 3.2
91 Kiribati 3.2
91 Sri Lanka 3.2
91 Swaziland 3.2
98 Burkina Faso 3.1
98 Egypt 3.1
98 Mexico 3.1
101 Dominican Republic 3
101 Sao Tome and Principe 3
101 Tonga 3
101 Zambia 3
105 Algeria 2.9
105 Argentina 2.9
105 Kazakhstan 2.9
105 Moldova 2.9
105 Senegal 2.9
110 Benin 2.8
110 Bolivia 2.8
110 Gabon 2.8
110 Indonesia 2.8
110 Kosovo 2.8
110 Solomon Islands 2.8
116 Ethiopia 2.7
116 Guyana 2.7
116 Mali 2.7
116 Mongolia 2.7
116 Mozambique 2.7
116 Tanzania 2.7
116 Vietnam 2.7
123 Armenia 2.6
123 Eritrea 2.6
123 Madagascar 2.6
123 Niger 2.6
127 Belarus 2.5
127 Ecuador 2.5
127 Lebanon 2.5
127 Nicaragua 2.5
127 Syria 2.5
127 Timor-Leste 2.5
127 Uganda 2.5
134 Azerbaijan 2.4
134 Bangladesh 2.4
134 Honduras 2.4
134 Nigeria 2.4
134 Philippines 2.4
134 Sierra Leone 2.4
134 Togo 2.4
134 Ukraine 2.4
134 Zimbabwe 2.4
143 Maldives 2.3
143 Mauritania 2.3
143 Pakistan 2.3
146 Cameroon 2.2
146 C�te d�Ivoire 2.2
146 Haiti 2.2
146 Iran 2.2
146 Libya 2.2
146 Nepal 2.2
146 Paraguay 2.2
154 Cambodia 2.1
154 Central African Republic 2.1
154 Comoros 2.1
154 Congo 2.1
154 Guinea-Bissau 2.1
154 Kenya 2.1
154 Laos 2.1
154 Papua New Guinea 2.1
154 Russia 2.1
154 Tajikistan 2.1
164 Congo, Dem Rep 2
164 Guinea 2
164 Kyrgyzstan 2
164 Venezuela 2
168 Angola 1.9
168 Equatorial Guinea 1.9
170 Burundi 1.8
171 Chad 1.7
172 Sudan 1.6
172 Turkmenistan 1.6
172 Uzbekistan 1.6
175 Iraq 1.5
176 Afghanistan 1.4
176 Burma 1.4
178 Somalia 1.1
[b][/b]

Lestie posted this on the Mexico Site and since I feel that it is more appropriate for the A/A site, I removed it from there and am placing it below:

Hi Les and all,,
Of course you may - no fuss at all.

A friend of mine saw this and won't post her thoughts so I will do so here.

She has been following the general conversation about A/A as well as some of the Random Toughts and says you guys are mad to take on such subjects, you can never solve anything by your tweeny opinions. I was thrilled at being call a tweeny (?) opinion holder but let her carry on (and on and on) Anyway, somehwere in amongst what she was protesting too much about methinks she said something I thought more useful than not about the weakness in organised religion. Two things actually that I remember in the tirade.

One is her perception of the weakness of the GOD/NO GOD thinking. She said that the virgin birth belief, Darwinism and the Ascension were okay for her - "I have enough imagination for this, but what I can't see as making any of this stuff real is that you just have to go and tell some guy in a booth what you think you did wrong once a week, he 'forgives' you, tells you to say some prayers and try not to do the wrong thing again and well there you are, you can just carry on as before. "When did you hear of the 'one week' adulterous affair?' was her point she used for this. Just carry on being stupid and mean and misbehaved and greedy and generally horrible and get free forgiveness here weekly! All you need to do is pay regularly with your guilt and wrong actions. She was brought up a Catholic actually but gave that up when she was aroud 20. She is now 45 ish.

The second idea she had went around self righteous indignation surrounding my religion is the only religion and yours is nothing in comparison. Everyone fusses about what they do best to get to 'GOD' is the best way and are intolerant of what is actually going on. It seems it is okay to ban the bible and the word God in the Chrisian sense of it all but to not say anything about the traffic being stopped while huge groups of people put down mats in the middle of the city and 'pray'. Or for greetings not to be allowed like Happy Christmas but other faith based greetings are okay. Just who are we kidding? Not me! Intolerance rules.

When I asked her what she thought about it all she said nothing! De nada! Tosh (and I include A/A here). I am my own benchmark. I know when I have done wrong. I am the one who is responsbbile for myself. I will take steps to say I am sorry if sorry I must be. I am the one that has to put up with me so I am the one to whom I will report.

She is a lovely person who keeps on disappearing into the Game Reserve to commune with Gaia and no, before you say anything, she is not a God and she does not live on Olympus and no she has no set of rules I can break except littering.

I eat what I like, how I like it and if I don't like it well then if it does not hurt another I stop it or do it. Me. I am in charge of me. Yes I do stop at the red light, yes I do renew my drivers licence and yes I do what is expected of me when it comes to living with in and around people. I do not believe in anything as a God or Leader or bible-like book of instructions. I am a citizen of the world.

I asked her if she thought about if everyone behaved like she did what sort of world would we have. See there you go again, setting me up to defend myself against your programming and brain washing and system thinking. No I won't have it. Just leave me be and stop asking what I think. It doesn't matter what I think and I do not care about what you think in general about religion or lifestyle or systems or whatever, you go and have your silly arguments and defend yourselves against yourselves. Go and pray to your own Gods and non-Gods. It is a waste of energy time and space to try to convert me to your ways. Let it be, that is what the people should say, let it be. I can't wait to evolve and become as intelligent as a Grandma Elephant or a bird. We have so much to learn, wish we could just learn it faster and move up the scale.

Well maybe this would interest you? I am not going to get drawn into any sort of chatter as I cannot say much about what she thinks. She is a really nice person, caring and kind and loving.

Cheers now
_________________________
"Walk to the beat of your own drum."

Lestie Mulholland
Container Gardening Editor

Container Gardening Site
Container Gardening Forum