Even in space

brentan comments on Dec 31, 2019:

Gross but funny!

Goodbye 2019

brentan comments on Dec 31, 2019:

Thank you! And the very best wishes to you too!

It's No Longer a Crime to Be Gay in Botswana

brentan comments on Dec 31, 2019:

I was pleased to read this: *'Botswana joins South Africa, Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, and São Tomé in decriminalising same-sex relationships'.* I thought things were going in the opposite direction.

I like this idea..

brentan comments on Dec 31, 2019:

Now that looks like a more effective form of trickle-down economics.

“I think we should stop treating as any kind of wisdom and recognize it as the transparently ...

brentan comments on Dec 31, 2019:

I guess the idea is to imply that there is a purpose to all the seemingly pointless suffering in the world. If i remember right, Nietzsche said people could cope with a ton of trouble if they thought there was a reason to it. Religion has been supplying a reason up to now. As a salve, an opium for the masses. We bring a lot of suffering on ourselves so I think Dennett is right in this way but what about the suffering that comes our way just by being a vulnerable human?

A gentle start to your New Year's Eve... [youtube.com]

brentan comments on Dec 31, 2019:

It sounds like a cross between folk and Handel. Very nice indeed! I thought it meant black flags. I wondered what the composer was thinking with that title. I wasn't sure so I put it into Google Translate and lo and behold, it said black breasts!

“There’s simply no polite way to tell people they’ve dedicated their lives to an illusion.

brentan comments on Dec 30, 2019:

I think we all do that.

Brings back old memories. Paris Island.

brentan comments on Dec 30, 2019:

The price of nostalgia. Worth every penny!

(LINK) Religious beliefs can be thought of as socially transmitted mental representations that ...

brentan comments on Dec 30, 2019:

I don't think religion was ever static but changed as we did, reflecting new ways of thinking about the intangible. If we just deal with Christianity, religion has merged with philosophy through Plotinus, Aquinas and many others. I think the problem with fundamentalism is that *it* is static. One obvious example is how it thinks in Old Testament terms while professing New Testament Christianity. I doubt that this is an indication of brain damage but rather an indication that some people want their bread buttered on both sides.

The 1619 Project and the falsification of history: An analysis of the New York Times’ reply to ...

brentan comments on Dec 30, 2019:

Apu gives it a try: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFwHQYDqf6c

"Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd." ----Voltaire

brentan comments on Dec 30, 2019:

I think the ideologies of our present day show up the folly of certainty. Doubt wouldn't close down the dialectic, that is, the conversations concerning the truth of things. Certainty feels no need to listen to alternatives - even worse, it feels a certain self-righteousness in silencing argument. I've read recently that the dialectic for Hegel was a theory of 'becoming', a process where individuals (and indeed God) came to self-knowledge. Another philosopher, Fichte, coined the terms of thesis, antithesis and synthesis that we're used to in terms of determining truth in discussion. If there is no doubt, there is no conversation, no synthesis, and from what we see today, no peace.

But but but ??????.... where is the fun in that?????? :)

brentan comments on Dec 30, 2019:

The effort!

Happy New Year!

brentan comments on Dec 30, 2019:

Sustained!

Well, I don't know why the posts about the Telegraph article [telegraph.

brentan comments on Dec 30, 2019:

There always have been pros and cons to religion. The thing is that there was no avoiding it. It is psychology in its developmental stage, without which we would not be where we are now. What I'm struggling to say is that there was never a choice back in primeval land about whether religion be accepted or not - it is in the very fabric of our consciousness and for that reason it will never disappear. It can only be transformed into psychology.

Is it???? 🤔

brentan comments on Dec 29, 2019:

I guess that day of 'you made your bed, now go and lie in it' are over.

Marriage is a three ring circus Engagement ring Wedding ring And suffering

brentan comments on Dec 29, 2019:

That's very clever!

Fortitude is the guard and support of the other virtues. - John Locke

brentan comments on Dec 29, 2019:

fortitude mental and emotional strength in facing difficulty, adversity, danger, or temptation courageously: Example: Never once did her fortitude waver during that long illness. Where the spiritual virtues were concerned, holy spirit was supposed to do that job.

Ezekiel 8:18 (NRSV): Therefore I will act in wrath; my eye will not spare, nor will I have pity; and...

brentan comments on Dec 29, 2019:

The deal was that if they were very good, he would give them all sorts of blessings. The catch was it was impossible to be that good.

"If you scoff at intellectuals, harass scientists and reward only athletic achievements, then the ...

brentan comments on Dec 29, 2019:

That's a very racist comment from JFK.

In three days we'll all have 2020 vision! :P

brentan comments on Dec 29, 2019:

The future's so bright we'll have to wear shades.

I wonder the advancements in store in 100 years. If mankind makes it that far.

brentan comments on Dec 29, 2019:

Learn from history. Get them on their taxes.

“There is no sin so great as ignorance. Remember this.” ― Rudyard Kipling, Kim

brentan comments on Dec 29, 2019:

I wonder what the context was for that statement.

Conspirators Claim Burger King's Impossible Whopper Giving Men Breasts Burger King’s ...

brentan comments on Dec 29, 2019:

I've been successfully growing breasts on copious pints of Guinness for years. It's great to hear I can now do it on a balanced diet.

"The meme for blind faith secures its own perpetuation by the simple unconscious expedient of ...

brentan comments on Dec 29, 2019:

He’s right, of course, in that statement but I think it’s a mistake to view human beings are rational creatures. They are much more complicated than that. When everything else was stripped away from people and only reason remained, life became empty, soulless and meaningless.

Have a logical new year

brentan comments on Dec 28, 2019:

Not too logical, I hope!

Hi, been away from the site for quite a while.

brentan comments on Dec 28, 2019:

I remember you from your photo. Welcome back to the forum!

The International Criminal Court [timesofisrael.com]

brentan comments on Dec 28, 2019:

*'Israel maintains the court has no jurisdiction because Israel has a functioning judicial system that can exercise proper oversight of its leaders'.* Boy oh boy - don't we all?

It was a miracle.

brentan comments on Dec 28, 2019:

All that white privilege can get you killed.

I laughed.

brentan comments on Dec 27, 2019:

Is it 0, 1, 2?

I swear I have seen weirder.

brentan comments on Dec 27, 2019:

I guess there have always been people with more money than sense. Perhaps this woman was going to a masque.

I have wondered for a long time why so many old people are content to sit in silence and not comment...

brentan comments on Dec 27, 2019:

I think I'm going to be silent for such a long time that I better speak out now.

Baidu has a new trick for teaching AI the meaning of language Inspired by a difference between ...

brentan comments on Dec 27, 2019:

My opinion on diversity is that it's trying to build another Tower of Babel and expecting better results this time.

I am definitely behind the times!

brentan comments on Dec 27, 2019:

Works for me!

Not going there.

brentan comments on Dec 27, 2019:

'and some people say that that ain't right (that ain't right) and some people say nothin' at all'.

Tech history

brentan comments on Dec 27, 2019:

It came with a pre-installed virus.

In my advancing years I have been asking myself this.

brentan comments on Dec 27, 2019:

I deal with it by living with the assumption that there is a lot more going on than I can know. In this state of ignorance, I go along with Jordan Peterson's idea that we make meaning by taking responsibility for ourselves and those around us.

The horror is real, folks

brentan comments on Dec 26, 2019:

The existential cookie.

Belfast, If it be your will, The Webb Sisters, / Leonard Cohen. [youtube.com]

brentan comments on Dec 26, 2019:

The 'sublime Webb sisters'. I got to see them play on their own in a tiny rural venue in Dublin. The harmonies are quite beautiful and the pair came across as extremely likeable characters.

A new original. Opinions?

brentan comments on Dec 26, 2019:

At least wait til they're 18.

Howdy all...to think freely is to be free from "them"

brentan comments on Dec 26, 2019:

Them are dreadful bastards!

Forget the game. I'm watching the dogs. :)

brentan comments on Dec 26, 2019:

Fetch, doggies, fetch!

Why I laugh so hard when people say Nazis have never been Christians....

brentan comments on Dec 26, 2019:

Albert Leo Schlagete, 12 August 1894 – 26 May 1923) was a member of the German Freikorps. Schlageter sabotaged a section of railroad track in the region of Germany that was under French occupation after World War I. He was arrested and executed by the French military. This led the German nationalists to proclaim him a hero. His way of death fostered an aura of martyrdom around him, which was cultivated by German nationalist groups, in particular the Nazi Party. During the Third Reich, he was widely commemorated as a national hero - Wiki.

Seasons greetings, you heathens.

brentan comments on Dec 26, 2019:

No cake for those bastards!

Mental illness by parasitic cognition?

brentan comments on Dec 26, 2019:

Well, there's a thought for the festive season! I don't think one creature can inhabit the mind of another. Schitzophrenic people, from what I've read, are troubled by the two halves of the brain communicating with each other in a disruptive way. They are said to be very left-brained and interpret the intuitions coming from the right-brain as intrusions from the external world.

[news.

brentan comments on Dec 26, 2019:

I read a long time ago that Mongols believed they had an obligation to make room for themselves in the world by taking another person out.

“In order to understand the world, one has to turn away from it on occasion." ---- Albert Camus

brentan comments on Dec 26, 2019:

The powers-that-be are doing their damnest to make sure no-one has a chance to step away anymore. It is a crying shame to watch the public chasing its tail instead of living.

Just imagine this nightmare scenario.

brentan comments on Dec 26, 2019:

One man's poison is another man's meat!

Trumpity trump trump

brentan comments on Dec 26, 2019:

I wonder how it's going to work out between politics and religion getting more extreme on the one hand and the public getting more 'none' at the same time.

Happy Holidays

brentan comments on Dec 25, 2019:

And to you too!

James Taylor The Water Is Wide [youtube.com]

brentan comments on Dec 25, 2019:

James often refers to what he calls 'the great folk-scare of the 1960s'.

That's where it's stashed.

brentan comments on Dec 25, 2019:

Perhaps wrong, but honest!

It’s all about acceptance...

brentan comments on Dec 24, 2019:

Bad Buddha.

The long guarded secret now revealed...

brentan comments on Dec 24, 2019:

I guess 3 out of 4 ain't bad.

Great exploration of the insanity of the spread of global leftist authoritarianism. [youtube.com]

brentan comments on Dec 24, 2019:

Darn lefty bastards! Let's wish them a Happy Christmas anyway!

Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house Everyone felt shitty.

brentan comments on Dec 24, 2019:

Christmas meets Shameless! That's very witty!

Well certainly took my time.

brentan comments on Dec 24, 2019:

Wow! I could only do it in audio.

Found this on a woman’s profile on POF.

brentan comments on Dec 24, 2019:

Me too! Compliments of alcohol.

My tiger inspired: The Tyger - Poem by William Blake .

brentan comments on Dec 24, 2019:

That's a super painting! They say Blake had only a vague idea from the media what a tiger looked like so he created this image for his poem:

"After the game the King and the pawn go into the same box". Italian proverb

brentan comments on Dec 24, 2019:

The trouble is it doesn't matter after the game.

BREAKING: Shots fired at Nakatomi Plaza in Los Angeles; possible hostage situation – Genesius ...

brentan comments on Dec 24, 2019:

Holleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Look at us now!

brentan comments on Dec 24, 2019:

Yes indeed. I couldn't wait to shave too.

When the white missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land.

brentan comments on Dec 24, 2019:

This was to fulfil the scripture that says "Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain," and "The worker deserves his wages." - 1 Timothy 5:18.

Present tense past tense

brentan comments on Dec 24, 2019:

Pheasn't.

Modern Guru

brentan comments on Dec 24, 2019:

I've always been appalled by the selfishness of it.

"Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious." George Orwell

brentan comments on Dec 24, 2019:

Patriotism: noun devoted love, support, and defense of one's country; national loyalty This is how it should be. I know, I know, it isn't this way.

"The amount of noise that anyone can bear undisturbed stands in inverse proportion to his mental ...

brentan comments on Dec 24, 2019:

That sounds a bit like 'empty barrels make more noise'.

Well, the perks of getting old.

brentan comments on Dec 23, 2019:

Thanks. All the best wishes for you too this Christmas!

Jimmy Carr [youtube.com]

brentan comments on Dec 23, 2019:

He pushes his luck and i love him for it!

Priorities matter. :P

brentan comments on Dec 23, 2019:

Snapped from the jaws of death!

Let's have those old fashioned festivities we remember from our youth.

brentan comments on Dec 23, 2019:

We should have Christmas dinner delivered by JustEat.

"Trees are sanctuaries.

brentan comments on Dec 23, 2019:

Wood (,) you believe it!

Is 'god' an impersonal force of nature, a 'universal consciousness' similar in quality to other ...

brentan comments on Dec 23, 2019:

I hope 'god' is universal consciousness and that we contribute to it in our small way. I think of it as having innate consciousness, like Gaia or the bodily (motor) intelligence of a human being. I think it is impersonal, having a way about it that works and we can fall in with it or not as we please.

Have you ever thought about why religions think they need to sacrifice a goat, a lamb, a virgin or a...

brentan comments on Dec 23, 2019:

I heard it comes from the notion of investing for the future, to voluntarily lose something now to gain in the future. The root of it was said to be the realisation by early man that using all your resources when you had them left you vulnerable in the future. So sacrifice was a form of protection against the unknown.

MESSENGER SURPRISE Today I suddenly have 184 messages in my private box, dated from May 2018 ...

brentan comments on Dec 22, 2019:

It's like you requested copies of all correspondence under the Data Protection Act and the site complied.

Mark 10:25 (NRSV) - It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who ...

brentan comments on Dec 22, 2019:

It doesn't really capture the sense of the sociopathic nature of rich people. Maybe that's because the meaning it wants to convey is that grace is a gift open to everybody.

What is one to do without a Santa this year🎅🤣😂

brentan comments on Dec 22, 2019:

The selfish bastard!

Jubus is in a Margarine Tub??

brentan comments on Dec 22, 2019:

That's very clever!

Why do religious types always associate the most pleasurable things in life with being negative.

brentan comments on Dec 22, 2019:

Here's a nice little poem by William Blake to capture that idea. It's called The Little Vagabond: Dear Mother, dear Mother, the Church is cold, But the Ale-house is healthy & pleasant & warm; Besides I can tell where I am use'd well, Such usage in heaven will never do well. But if at the Church they would give us some Ale. And a pleasant fire, our souls to regale; We'd sing and we'd pray, all the live-long day; Nor ever once wish from the Church to stray, Then the Parson might preach & drink & sing. And we'd be as happy as birds in the spring: And modest dame Lurch, who is always at Church, Would not have bandy children nor fasting nor birch. And God like a father rejoicing to see, His children as pleasant and happy as he: Would have no more quarrel with the Devil or the Barrel But kiss him & give him both drink and apparel.

Beware of Viagra congestion, my fellow Old Farts... 😂😂💀💀😂😂

brentan comments on Dec 22, 2019:

I'm on the way.... on the wane. Pity the libido doesn't drop in proportion.

I'm not talking to myself...

brentan comments on Dec 22, 2019:

You don't need to ever feel alone!

In the news:

brentan comments on Dec 22, 2019:

Trump makes fiction happen.

“Words were originally magic, and the word retains much of its old magical power even to-day.

brentan comments on Dec 22, 2019:

I see it as the power of the logos. It's amazing that ancient people even attributed the creation of the world to speech. I've read that speech is the most important psychotechnology that humans have. In other words, it's a tool we use to help us in to get a job done. It must have seemed as miraculous as Prometheus' fire. Perhaps the idea of rain dances came from this sense of magical power to affect the natural world as well as human interaction.

“Better by far that you should forget and smile than to remember and be sad”.

brentan comments on Dec 22, 2019:

Ah, the miracle cure of ECT!

Maybe he is recycling.

brentan comments on Dec 21, 2019:

Where trailer trash and modern art meet. Or just a good sense of humour.

“We’re losing an entire generation.

brentan comments on Dec 21, 2019:

They pushed their luck,and people's credulity, too far.

Happy solstice y'all!

brentan comments on Dec 21, 2019:

It deserves to be celebrated dancing nude around an oak tree but weather won't permit.

Must be a Trump voter

brentan comments on Dec 21, 2019:

Their, their now. It's nothing to get upset about!

Catholic Extremists Steal From the Vatican

brentan comments on Dec 21, 2019:

The righteous give themselves a lot of leeway.

Remember away back in the day? 4th of July 1968!

brentan comments on Dec 21, 2019:

That's so-Godspell! Pre-e-e-pare ye.....

I think Camus knew what he was talking about...... too bad his life got cut short too soon

brentan comments on Dec 21, 2019:

It's as if happiness is the result of something else and we need to know what that consists of. I guess he sees things different to Socrates on the meaning of life.

There are mainly 3 types of Hotel breakfast which are English Breakfast, Continental Breakfast and ...

brentan comments on Dec 21, 2019:

Ah. Breakfast at Denny's. Pancakes too. Bring your own gun.

“In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.

brentan comments on Dec 21, 2019:

We should all be so fortunate to have the resources to cope with all life can throw at us.

It can be a sad time of year for gay people if they are struggling with who they are, and do not ...

brentan comments on Dec 20, 2019:

There's a world of hurt out there.

ACE OF BASE - "THE SIGN" Great Swedish Band from the 90's ! [youtube.com]

brentan comments on Dec 20, 2019:

Traffic sign. Green light. Time to go.

Wow! That's really something!

brentan comments on Dec 19, 2019:

They must have ran out of bread.

The Argumentative Theory

brentan comments on Dec 19, 2019:

I thought this captured the core of the argument against reason as being the be all and end all of human evolution. Intuition has long been ignored. 'The evidence reviewed here shows not only that reasoning falls quite short of reliably delivering rational beliefs and rational decisions. It may even be, in a variety of cases, detrimental to rationality … the starting point of our theory was this contrast between all the results showing that reasoning doesn't work so well and the assumption that reasoning is supposed to help us make better decisions. But this assumption was not based on any evolutionary thinking, it was just an intuition that was probably cultural in the West, people think that reasoning is a great thing. And they never challenge that intuition. It's something that evolutionary psychology could have done a long time ago, and if people had perhaps taken more time and had taken evolutionary psychology more seriously, they might have been able to revise this likely faulty premise a while ago'.

. Carl Sagan

brentan comments on Dec 19, 2019:

A psychotechnology, as John Vervaeke says.

My starting premise on religion I do not believe in God.

brentan comments on Dec 19, 2019:

There is an opinion that the placing of reason on high has put us on the road to nihilism since the Axial Age. When it has been idolised in history, it has manifested itself in tyranny. I would argue for a better balance between reason and intuition, something the Eastern part of the world always seemed to acknowledge.

Weird pickup line

brentan comments on Dec 19, 2019:

Gosh yes - in batches of 72.

Having been the only one as a kid I know this is true...

brentan comments on Dec 19, 2019:

I think the trouble with atheists is that they are at the halfway stage and think they've finished the race. They realise that the old way of explaining things through the Bible doesn't hold up but think that's all there is to it.