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Post by lonelocust on Sept 23, 2011 18:12:27 GMT -5
The problem with using pot to deal with mental health issues is that it's impossible to predict how someone is going to react to it. For some people, it can actually exacerbate the symptoms, and different strains of the plant (or even the same strain from different growers) can have varying effects -- and given that it's illegal, it's rather difficult to pick and choose which strain you want (just ask all of the stoners who have tried to find Purple Kush, and got freezer-burned basement weed instead). I don't oppose the recreational use of pot anymore than I oppose people drinking alcohol (honestly, I'd rather deal with a pothead neighbour than one who gets drunk every night), and I'm supportive of those who already use it and find that it genuinely helps, but I'd be very hesitant about recommending that someone try it for that purpose, unless they're able to access it through a doctor -- and even then, caution is warranted. Medical marijuana is legal in California, and is very often prescribed here for anxiety especially. And as I understand it you can in fact do that searching for strains thing.
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Post by lonelocust on Sept 23, 2011 17:48:13 GMT -5
In the mid-nineteenth century, swarms of locusts were so prevalent in the midwest and Great Plains that they rendered the region virtually uninhabitable. Seriously, there was debate about forbidding settlement. Then, without warning, the critters went practically extinct in the span of about ten years, and actually extinct about 1902. The cause? Irrigation by the farmers disrupted the breeding habitat of the locust. I declare this tidbit iiiiiiinteresting!
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Post by lonelocust on Sept 23, 2011 16:17:42 GMT -5
Hi guys! What's up! Tell me something amusing.
*eats some crops*
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Post by lonelocust on May 1, 2011 1:27:57 GMT -5
What's the worst fundie quote you've heard about the tornados?
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Post by lonelocust on Apr 5, 2011 19:09:45 GMT -5
Aww, sad (but understandable) about us being unable to use Amazon reviews. I thought I was just SO CLEVER for discovering that one. Oh well, it's still amusing to peruse.
Thanks for all the WBs. I started a much more demanding job about a year ago and just don't have the online screwin' around time I used to. But after a few Amazon reviews I just had to pop in and share. I'll try to not be such a stranger though. ;-)
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Post by lonelocust on Apr 4, 2011 18:26:31 GMT -5
Go to Amazon, find books that are academic treatments of religious topics. Go to 1-star reviews. Step N: Profit.
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Post by lonelocust on Jan 31, 2010 2:25:28 GMT -5
I sort of float between atheism, deism and a sort of quazi-gnosticism. So, I'm kind of a part-time, half-hearted deist. Maybe not the best person to answer your questions, and I might not be able to get as deep into the "nitty gritty" as you'd like, but I'll drop my two cents off. First of all, I do NOT accept the Argument from Design. I find it to be pretty weak and based on semantics as much as anything. "Creation needs a creator," only works if you call the universe "creation." Doesn't follow if you call it "existence" or "reality." As for the first cause argument, this I think is the best argument for god I've heard, but it can really only take you as far as agnostic deism before you start making huge leaps of faith based on speculation. The way I see it, it just doesn't make sense (to me) that the universe just happened without any cause, and that it takes a bigger leap to say that reality has no cause than to say that something probably caused it. What is that something, though? We don't know, and may never know, but whatever it was, if it created the universe, either consciously or not, it would probably be appropriate to call it "god." Long story short, it seems likely that something (which can be called god but might or might not fit any of our notions about god) caused the creation of reality as we know it, but there's no way of knowing just what it was. Agnostic deism. P.S. I recognize that all my inclinations toward belief in god, spirituality and an afterlife are more emotional and intuitive than logical. I don't see this as a problem, as long as those inclinations don't contradict logic and evidence and I don't try to push those inclinations on people who don't share them. ^this. Also other hypothesis could be: - The powerful consciousness evolved just like we did and only directed the order of things later - the way humans breed animals for certain traits; we don't 'create' the animals but we can certainly change circumstance to allow them to be more docile - smarter - or glow in the dark. - The being in charge changes hands and is actually just a position; like Pope or president or king. Maybe old gods die and new ones are born, just like us. - Maybe the Universe is created like a biological cell, that splits into it's twin and there is another universe much like ours - and that whole universe is the 'real' one and ours is only a shadow that reflects the original (like resonance). - Reality is just a dream and we are all part of the Matrix, a machine that gained sentience and took over the human race, which was created by our own ancestors...well you get the idea. I admit this is more of an agnostics argument than a deists, but the fact is we don't really know right now, and probably never will know what 'caused' reality as we know it. We will probably have to go on faith and supposition no matter what we believe about The Beginning Of Everything. I probably wouldn't classify that into the sort of deism I'm curious about unless there's a belief that one of those origins being ultimate seemed like the most likely explanation. I appreciate your feedback! If our universe is part of another universe's single cell or whatever, you're really not trying to push back the need for a cause or whathaveyou.
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Post by lonelocust on Jan 31, 2010 2:15:06 GMT -5
Thanks for the response. So I guess my question is, given that "it takes a bigger leap to say that reality has no cause than to say that something probably caused it" why does the same not apply for the thing that created the universe and then the thing that created that and the thing that created that, etc.?
I think that cause-speaking, it might be turtles all the way down. Maybe the universe was caused by the uncertainty principle, and the uncertainty principle was caused by something else that fits the physics outside spacetime but not inside the universe, and that was caused by was caused by was caused by...
Or maybe there's just one cause. But at any rate, it seems to me that nothing answers the question "why is there something instead of nothing". It is. Now if you're willing to call the uncertainty principle for example "god" if it caused the universe, then I'm probably with you there. However, if it seems like there might be a "someone" and not just a "something" that caused the universe, is there a reason that it seems like that someone doesn't also need to be caused?
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Post by lonelocust on Jan 31, 2010 0:25:40 GMT -5
I've really been wanting to ask a deist what their view is on the argument that if there is something like a conscious being out there to create the universe that that thing needs to itself be more complicated than the universe, so it doesn't really answer any questions as to how a complex universe could always be or come from nothing.
It's something I always really want to ask the sorts of theists who accept the First Cause Argument and/or Argument from Design, but they tend to not be down for discussing the nitty gritty of why they find those answers reasonable.
So, if we have an deists, I'd love to hear your thoughts on it.
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Post by lonelocust on Jan 10, 2010 1:01:51 GMT -5
There are a disturbing number of highly sexualized versions of what the RR people are going to do with Jesus. So, in answer to your question, I'm going to have to say "yes", though I think they'd consciously utterly deny the sexualization that they clearly are putting into their ideas in that realm.
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Post by lonelocust on Dec 27, 2009 22:53:22 GMT -5
A lot of fundiedoodles who aren't mormons like to go on about how Mormons aren't Christians. Often the same evangelicals who like to say that Catholics aren't Christians, but maybe a few more than that. Even though it branched off of Protestantism.
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Post by lonelocust on Dec 14, 2009 22:13:56 GMT -5
Does anyone want to summarize this for those of us without a long enough attention span to watch twenty full minutes of poorly recorded crazy? Summary: The anti-christ will be a clone, since clones have no souls. He will be a clone of Jesus since Jesus had magic god DNA and also he needs to have the DNA from the royal line of David (since like, we totally have King David's DNA apparently, so people will want to test it.), and will be cloned from the Shroud of Turin. And this cloned Jesus from the shroud of Turin antichrist is already alive, and it's... Prince William. Uhm, and something about Princess Di being involved in the Masons because they're all descendants of King David or something which is why she had to be the mother of antichrist clone Jesus Prince William.
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Post by lonelocust on Dec 14, 2009 0:15:30 GMT -5
This is religiously eschatological, but it's more of a conspiracy theory. I'm not sure if it really belongs in Religion and Philosophy, but it seemed close enough. This is one of the funniest things I have seen in forever. And you really just do not see where it is going when it starts.
And I have to say... this plot is way better than any of Dan Brown's shit.
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Post by lonelocust on Nov 28, 2009 13:55:34 GMT -5
I did find the limited seating in heaven weird, and that they believed all the seats to have been taken, and that if you were to have a seat/golden ticket, it was assigned to you before you were born. Weird. I keep hearing all sorts of competing things about what current JW philosophy is. I've been told previously that at the point that their all-time membership had gone over 144,000 that official dogma changed to only JWs go to heaven, and the 144,000 will just be extra-super-helpers to Jesus when he returns to rule.
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Post by lonelocust on Nov 28, 2009 13:52:41 GMT -5
I actually really wanted to be visited by JWs and/or Mormons and really talk to them, because I'm terribly interested in finding out why people believe the things that they do. All of my friends told me I would be sorely disappointed, and that they would refuse to talk about it. They were basically right.
About 3 years ago, I was finally accosted by JWs, at the bus stop. The gist of the conversation was:
"Why do you believe that." "It's in the Bible." "Why do you believe the Bible?" "It's the Word of God." "How do you know that?" "So you don't believe in the Bible?" "No, I don't, but I'd like to know why you do." "Thank you for your time." *leaves*
So I was indeed disappointed. I always want to think that people have what they believe to be solid reasons behind their faith, but I'm generally handing out too much credit.
Beyond that, my only interaction was that when I was a kid, the JWs would come by, and my mother would have them in for tea and try to save them (she was Southern Baptist and thought they were a cult and not-saved) and they would try to save her.
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