MayorofOysterville
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User ID: 3800
MayorofOysterville
9hr ago
"yeah but just because you felt the presence of the Holy Spirit, that is more easily explained by [launch into neurochemistry, neurobiology, and psychology explanation]" as their standard of proof.
I've felt the Holy Spirit but I still don't believe. I used to but looking into other faiths it's clear a lot of people have sincere encounters with the divine. I don't think either Sufis or Pentecostals are lying when they felt that but there's legion of mutually exclusive religious experiences.
MayorofOysterville
1d ago
Ukraine also committing suicide, but faster?
Ukraine is being killed, not committing suicide.
MayorofOysterville
1d ago
Yes but it's a lot more flexible and you can run it at your own pace. You could decide you want to be a doctor at 40 do a post-bacc and build an application. If all your med school applications get rejected you can strengthen your application and try again. It's selective but less zero sum because you can always improve and try again.
MayorofOysterville
1d ago
I very much agree with this. Lukewarm believers, or even people who follow no tenants or like one. Don't make any sense to me, but I guess a lot of people treat religion totally different then other beliefs and also view it as something you are rather than a statement of the universe. As someone who was raised a conservative evangelical these views were railed against and I always agreed with that. If this stuff matters it really matters otherwise it's nothing. Episcopalians and the like make no sense to me but I'm happy they exist as someone who likes a secular world. I do view them as kind of useful idiots though.
If you believe, you ought to be acting like you believe. You should be giving away every cent you don't strictly need and praying until you can no longer stay upright, treating your eternal soul with at least the seriousness that most people reserve for their pension contributions.
No you don't that's what I meant when I started this. In most Christian denominations hell is fairly easy to avoid even if you sincerely believe in the premise. In most Evangelical denominations you just make a confession of faith or say the sinners prayer and your saved. Catholicism and Orthodoxy are a little more involved but not that much more. If you sincerely believe in the faith then you think you know the rules so hell shouldn't be an issue. None of the New Testament shows being saved as a particularly hard state to achieve.
MayorofOysterville
1d ago
I guess I meant believers when I was a believer I never had much worry, faith the size of a mustard seed and all that, and my faith was much stronger then that. When I stopped believing well I no longer feared hell. In Thomas' thread a lot of people were saying when they were Christians they were worried about hell. I dunno maybe it's my Protestant upbringing that believing in Jesus and accepting him into your heart was how you got to heaven and since I did that I was never too fussed about the whole thing.
Inspired by the fear the reaper thread, It's always been odd to me that so many Christians and ex-Christians report being scared of hell. It always seemed pretty easy to avoid to me absurdly easy in Protestant's case but even for Catholics and Orthodox you just need to go to a priest.
MayorofOysterville
3d ago
I have a lot of thoughts on this. I tried to connect them but I don't think they tie up neatly. So first I think you have way to much of an Asian perspective on Western education and are missing a few key things.
I observed that strict discipline turns out to be the easy part. It isn't hard to produce a quiet, orderly classroom through any number of methods, some humane and some less so.
But the issue is Western classrooms and Western pedagogy are are not doing that. You may say it's easy and for sure it is but if teachers are not allowed to use the methods that would produce that and are taught that doing so is wrong in teachers colleges, then it doesn't matter how easy it is. There are a whole bunch of factors that prevent Western teachers from establishing discipline in classrooms so until that is fixed it doesn't matter what teachers do. And prior to the collapse of discipline and tracking and all the things that Freddie DeBoer complains about there was quite a bit of learning going on in Western classrooms. AP courses are almost exactly what you describe for tutoring centers. They are advanced classes which give college credit and have an Exam at the end so there is an objective measure for the teacher.
And on that topic I think you are way off on tutoring centers. As someone who has been in the belly of the beast, they are not selecting for better teachers simply more entrepreneurial ones. The fact is that virtually any teacher except the bottom 10% will be much more effective in a tutoring center environment. Because of smaller class sizes, often even one on one tutoring, and a more motivated student and parent body. Regardless managing the constant shifting schedules of working in a tutoring center is very different then A school. Additionally while school admins are often apathetic bureaucrats training center admins are often just after the bottom dollar and have no particular concern for education
Do I think this is a good thing, something to advocate for? Oh god no. I find it depressing. I'd like to claim that better schooling inside the schools would help, but surely you've understood that this is another Red Queen race right? You run as fast as you can just to stay in place, and making everyone faster doesn't change the composition of those making a podium finish.
I think this is a function of the yawning chasm of Indian society in general, you could end up a shipbreaker or something equally horrible, and Asian education style in general. America. while the red queen race exists it's much less of an all or nothing proposition. Virtually any above average American can be a doctor. Don't have good grades in high school go to community college. Don't have good college grades do a post bac. Don't have money for school join the military as a medic get healthcare experience and a full ride. Still have only an ok application apply for DO schools instead of MD. There's just so much more flexibility then an all or nothing exam that determines your entire future. I think another aspect is that in general it's much easier to make money in America then India. Kids who are just after the bottom line do an MBA or study computer science or hell start a plumbing business the entrepreneurship and opportunities make it much less of a win lose zero sum propostion.
But he ALSO thinks the top need to pay in terms of giving the bottom wide leeway in annoying them, disrupting them, inconveniencing then, etc since it would be somehow unfair to ask anything of the poor benighted bottom and the glorious top can surely take the hit. He doesn't QUITE go as far as saying the top should grin and bear being beaten, raped, and killed in order to spare the bottom the indignity of being policed but he sure implies it.
He definitely does not believe this he has many articles arguing against this very idea. So no he doesn't think that and he's very opposed to the leftists that do.
He does, however, believe that a large number of people are effectively too stupid to participate in the modern economy in an economically productive way and thus the conservative pull yourself up by your bootstraps and the liberal educate everyone into smarts are both loosing propositions for a significant portion of the population.
MayorofOysterville
3d ago
I really don't think so. He spends most of his energy arguing against the standard progressive school reforms and wokeness. Though he's pulled back on the latter I think because he didn't like the type of fans he was getting.
MayorofOysterville
7d ago
Ah well it went over my head. After your adventures at the gay bar I thought this was going to be your next human interest post I gotta say I was looking forward to your adventures with the Mormons alas.
MayorofOysterville
8d ago
Trump 1 had very few Middle East adventures and started putting the kibosh on Afghanistan.
MayorofOysterville
8d ago
Interesting. The early Soviet period was incredibly experimental but I didn't know this bit.
MayorofOysterville
8d ago
I feel like Israel has really squandered their position. They've had total dominance and Western support for 50 years and been unable to forge a lasting peace. Mostly based on the idea they could keep a subjected Palestinian population indefinitely.
MayorofOysterville
8d ago
Are you going to pursue talking with them after your exams? I remember you said you might when I suggested you join Scientology.
MayorofOysterville
8d ago
I do believe that your current explanation is idiosyncratic, in the sense that the typical Mormon wouldn't see caffeine pills as an acceptable way of dodging their nominal religious obligations.
The Mormon prohibition of tea and coffee is much more akin to the prohibition of Jews eating pork than a prohibition of caffeine. There is official clarification from the church that the prohibition is about hot drinks not caffeine. This was done precisely because of the reasons you state. But it's totally kosher for Mormon teens to drink monster.
Out of curiosity, what would happen if someone were to get baptized, and then very conspicuously continue drinking coffee? Polite tutting?
Giving you the side eye plus not getting a temple recommend which would likely distress your buxom Mormon bride. Ironically if you weren't baptized but attended church people would tolerate it a lot better. As for Mormon doctors they are free to consume all manner of energy drinks, just no tea or coffee,
MayorofOysterville
9d ago
If we have faith, why would we presume that aliens don't have their own histories with and views on God, for good or for ill, which would make them, to us, angels or demons?
This is the Islamic view on Jinn. That they are alternate sentient beings with their own rules/relationship with God. And can do good or evil just as humans.
MayorofOysterville
9d ago
I'm really not trying to nitpick as you made a really good faith effort to answer my honest question. But I just can't see it, by this standard the family has been abolished in many Western European countries which I don't think I've ever heard anyone say.
MayorofOysterville
9d ago
Interesting, I didn't no about this. Though to modern eyes equalizing bastard children doesn't seem very radical.
MayorofOysterville
10d ago
As for why it is not the woman who pays, that is tradition. The law has not caught up to gender equality in the labor market, and I imagine feminist activists will work hard to keep things that way, considering this is something that disproportionately benefits women to the detriment of men.
The primary custodial parent receives child support this is usually but not always the woman and in general is determined by who was the child's primary caretaker during the marriage. A stay at home dad would be extremely likely to receive primary custody and child support.
MayorofOysterville
11d ago
No? but I'm happy to be corrected see my other post.
I don't know because I don't know how you'd even manage such a thing it seems fundamentally incompatible with human nature which I guess is why it works so well as an accusation. Actually I realize I might be totally wrong here and not understanding the criticism, so feel free for you or @JeSuisCharlie to correct me. I've only ever seen the allegation of abolishing the family in conservative fearmongering or Socialist apologists against the same. I know Marx wrote about abolishing the family in some 19th century context. But both the Soviet Union and Maoist China were full of families and maintained the institution of marriage and allowance for parental rights over children. If your going to say parents didn't have the right to educate their children themselves sure but that's true in many Western European countries and no one says they've abolished families. I guess just they fact that the Soviets and Maoist China were full of families and on a policy level they made no moves against this, I don't even understand how one would abolish the family but getting rid of marriage seems a basic first step but every socialist/communist country, except maybe Democratic Kampuchea, maintained the family as a basic unit of society. I suppose the Cultural Revolution had children denouncing parents which is an inversion of Confucian values and a deliberate effort to flatten the hierarchy but children denouncing parents often happens with mass hysteria the fundamental structure is still maintained. Again feel free to correct me I've always just seen it as a snarl accusation based on esoteric Marxist theory and self evidently false given that Communist societies were full of families.
MayorofOysterville
11d ago
Yeah abolish the family is essentially capitalist propaganda the Soviet Union and Maoist China never tried or planned anything like that.
MayorofOysterville
12d ago
Yes threw the 90s were apocalyptic in Russia and the poorer republics are still below where they were. The Soviet Union wasn't exactly prosperous but it wasn't exactly poverty either and the entire system was set up for their state run economy so much random stuff just stopped working in the 90s in the former USSR.
MayorofOysterville
13d ago
Do you still plan on getting to America one day? And if so where would you intend to settle?
And Islam, and the Yazidis and as others have pointed out the Zoroastrians. And then we get into what kind of Christianity anyway since plenty of denominations are mutually exclusive.
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