The Problem with Religious Moderation

[32519]

Now we got Bitcoins also being traded on the stock exchange. Here is an extract from the article "In South Africa, the currency is being used for stock market speculation and payments."

You have been warned higher up in this thread: The stock market is a disaster waiting to happen.

[32519]

World trade is now flatlining

[32519]

Trouble coming as Bitcoin fever catches on.

[32519]

The Dark Continent giving you more options to lose your money.

[mike777]

32519 you seem to want to make speculation illegal or at best immoral as it serves no good/moral purpose.

 

I do agree that speculation can often lead to losing money. I do agree speculation is risky.

 

I look to trains where many many lose money in 1800's

I look to internet where many many lose money in 1900's

I predict many many lose money in computers/robots/medicine in 2000's.

 

and that is ok...failure is ok.....really ok.

I praise those that took the risk..praise.

[32519]

You may have forgotten why I am posting these links here.

 

Projects like the LHC are largely being funded with stock market speculations and crashes. The current bull run is being driven by all the cheep money the USA is printing and which can in many instances be borrowed for as little as 0.25%. Much of that cheep money is finding its way into the stock market and is driving up the prices.

 

On 9/11 (11 September) the market is going to fall further than what it did in 2008. How do I know that? It’s all in the Book of Revelation which Elohim is busy cracking wide open for me.

 

I am posting these links for the believers, giving them a chance to get out before the disaster strikes. Non-believers have written me off long ago so they wouldn’t pay any attention to this warning anyway. Also I have succeeded in getting myself onto most of their “Ignored User” list so they won’t be reading these posts anyway.

[gwnn]

On 9/11 (11 September) the market is going to fall further than what it did in 2008. How do I know that? It’s all in the Book of Revelation which Elohim is busy cracking wide open for me.

Where? Show your work please.

[Vampyr]

Where? Show your work please.

 

This would be a good idea, 325, if you want to be believed.

 

In the meantime, would you be so kind as to ask Elohim whether there are any stocks that will do really well, or if we'd all be better off sticking to bonds.

[helene_t]

it's a shame there was no bbf when Jesus lived. If there were, he could really have achieved something.

[ArtK78]

it's a shame there was no bbf when Jesus lived. If there were, he could really have achieved something.

Let alone facebook. His facebook page would have been very interesting.

[Vampyr]

If you'd come today you could have reached a whole nation.

Israel in 4 BC had no mass communication.

 

-Tim Rice

[Trinidad]

it's a shame there was no bbf when Jesus lived. If there were, he could really have achieved something.

Funny you say that. My son just got a homework assignment where he needed to tell the Christmas story and mix it with today's language and social media.

 

@Nerd Balthazar: This is a cool dude, man! Born with this animal stuff. #Bethlehem #Hotels_Overbooked.

 

Rik

[kenberg]

Funny you say that. My son just got a homework assignment where he needed to tell the Christmas story and mix it with today's language and social media.

 

@Nerd Balthazar: This is a cool dude, man! Born with this animal stuff. #Bethlehem #Hotels_Overbooked.

 

Rik

 

Hotels deny reports that a pregnant woman was turned away because of her religion.

[PassedOut]

Two articles about the disturbing results of a new Pew Research Poll:

 

Washington Post - Republicans growing more skeptical about evolution

 

A new Pew Research Center poll shows a widening political gap over theories about how humans came to be, with Republicans growing increasingly skeptical about the idea that humans evolved over time.

 

Over the last four years, the percentage of Democrats who said they believe in evolution has risen by three points, from 64 percent to 67 percent. But the percentage of Republicans who believe in the theory has dropped 11 points, from 54 percent to 43 percent.

 

So while there was a 10-point gap in 2009, there is now a 24-point gap.

 

Pew says similar shifts have not occurred for any other demographics, either racial or religious.

 

Slate - Republican Acceptance of Evolution Plummets

 

A poll released today by the Pew Research Center reveals that acceptance of evolution among Republicans has plummeted in recent years, from 54 percent in 2009 to a jarring 43 percent today. The poll also found that a startling 48 percent of Republicans believe that all living things today have existed in their present form since the start of time.

 

Democrats and independents fared much better: 67 percent of Democrats accept evolution today (up from 64 percent in 2009), while 65 percent of independents accept it (down from 67 percent in 2013). Overall, 60 percent of Americans accept the basic fact that “humans and other living things have evolved over time,” meaning 40 percent support, to varying degrees, creationism.

 

But there’s a twist buried in that 60 percent figure. Only half of Americans who accept evolution as fact also accept that it is “due to natural process such as natural selection.”

Somehow, we have got to take the educational system back from the religious whackos.

[billw55]

I often wonder who is getting polled. There seem to be a great many polls published, yet I have never once been polled on anything (not counting BBF polls obv).

 

I also wonder about response bias - are people with a certain opinion more likely to respond?

[ArtK78]

Perhaps some of the smarter Republicans have changed party affiliation over the events of the last year or two. That would leave the balance of the Republican party dumber on balance.

 

Another example of natural selection.

[kenberg]

Two articles about the disturbing results of a new Pew Research Poll:

 

Washington Post - Republicans growing more skeptical about evolution

 

 

 

Slate - Republican Acceptance of Evolution Plummets

 

 

Somehow, we have got to take the educational system back from the religious whackos.

 

Also, the Earth is flat. With monsters in the ocean to devour those who go too far out. A friend claims that there is a conspiracy afoot to make us all stupid. It seems to be succeeding.

[Winstonm]

Also, the Earth is flat. With monsters in the ocean to devour those who go too far out. A friend claims that there is a conspiracy afoot to make us all stupid. It seems to be succeeding.

 

Sea monsters, heh heh. Now everyone knows you sail off the edge of the earth long before you get to water deep enough to support sea monsters. What a kidder. :P

[nige1]

Perhaps some of the smarter Republicans have changed party affiliation over the events of the last year or two. That would leave the balance of the Republican party dumber on balance.

Maybe this would make both parties dumber :(

[hrothgar]

If you look at the cross tabs, its pretty apparent that political affiliation is serving as a proxy for religion.

 

The Republican party is collapsing down into a fundamentalist white evangelical Protestant core.

 

The poll states that

 

Differences in the racial and ethnic composition of Democrats and Republicans or differences in their levels of religious commitment do not wholly explain partisan differences in beliefs about evolution. Indeed, the partisan differences remain even when taking these other characteristics into account.

 

However, this does explain a lot of the variation.

[kenberg]

I was of course joking, sort of, about the Earth being flat. But the question of where all of this nonsense is coming from goes back to the original purpose of the thread. Growing up, I knew many people who were not interested in science. For that matter, I regarded my own high school biology class as even more boring than reading dead English poets. But I do not recall that there was any, or at least there was very little, of this crazy anrti-science hysteria. One neighbor did express some concern that my going to the University might turn me into an atheist but even she did not go on about the sin of evolution.

 

Mostly the way of life seemed to be this: If anyone were so rude or tactless as to ask whether you believed in God, everyone knew the correct answer to that quiz and then they would change the subject. In day-to-day living, people who talked about God were considered weird. We had a Bible in the house, my parents belonged to a church and sometimes went. But when my parents told me what was expected of me, it was always what they expected, not what God expected.

 

There seems to be a substantial shift taking place with regard to religion. It's not a good thing. I know that mikeh recommends that we all take a stand, even against religious moderation. But I grew up with religious moderation and I am fine with it. I have no need to convince people to believe as I do, but this subjugation of science to religious belief is bad stuff.

[Winstonm]

I was of course joking, sort of, about the Earth being flat. But the question of where all of this nonsense is coming from goes back to the original purpose of the thread. Growing up, I knew many people who were not interested in science. For that matter, I regarded my own high school biology class as even more boring than reading dead English poets. But I do not recall that there was any, or at least there was very little, of this crazy anrti-science hysteria. One neighbor did express some concern that my going to the University might turn me into an atheist but even she did not go on about the sin of evolution.

 

Mostly the way of life seemed to be this: If anyone were so rude or tactless as to ask whether you believed in God, everyone knew the correct answer to that quiz and then they would change the subject. In day-to-day living, people who talked about God were considered weird. We had a Bible in the house, my parents belonged to a church and sometimes went. But when my parents told me what was expected of me, it was always what they expected, not what God expected.

 

There seems to be a substantial shift taking place with regard to religion. It's not a good thing. I know that mikeh recommends that we all take a stand, even against religious moderation. But I grew up with religious moderation and I am fine with it. I have no need to convince people to believe as I do, but this subjugation of science to religious belief is bad stuff.

 

Sometimes humans can outsmart themselves and such seems to be the case with the GOP. The GOP actively recruited the religious right by adopting planks that were attractive to those individuals - anti-this and anti-that. Little did they realize how fast demographics would catch up and how profoundly the growing multicultural voting block would affect outcomes. By the time it became clear to all that living in the past was no way to address the future, the GOP had trapped itself into a dependency on the religious right and their fantasy-worldviews.

 

It is not so much that there is greater stupidity in the world but stupidity does have a louder voice, sponsored by the GOP. :P

[Scarabin]

I favour religious moderation because I am scared of "group-think" whether due to political correctness or herd mentality. It does not have to be due to either but all too often it seems to be.

 

"Group-think" is my understanding of group psychology where a group pressures its individual members into holding uniform views.

 

:rolleyes:

[32519]

I am quite happy to join with you in poking fun at both Jesus and Christianity. Why? Neither have any place with Elohim, the God of the Jews. Neither names occur in the ORIGINAL eye-witness accounts, letters and books which make up the New Covenant (calling it the New Testament is an attempt to distance Yahweh as its originator. The Old Covenant came through Abraham).

 

In the ORIGINAL documents, it was Judah Yehoshua (not Jesus) who was the chosen son of Yahweh, the son that Yahweh sacrificed to take upon him the transgressions of the entire human race. Judah was the fourth son of Jacob. Go and read Genesis Chapter 49 to see how Jacob blessed his 12 sons before he died. In the first 400 years directly after the resurrection there was a systematic carefully orchestrated movement to replace Judah’s Yehoshua's name, first with Joshua (Moses’ successor), which was then simplified to Jesus.

Ok, so I got this one wrong. The ORIGINAL name of Jesus is actually Yehoshua which means Yahweh-is-Salvation. You can read the article and this one to find out more.

[Vampyr]

Thanks for clearing that up.