[Plutodog]

It was going nowhere fast and an embarrassment. I'm not clear what Marc wants to do about it but he's obviously free to take appropriate action.

Woof

[Plutodog]

OK the topic is re-opened, for now at least--mostly because there's some good ideas on how to make things better that I would hope we can all keep talking about. Marc's taken other action that I'll leave to him to discuss if at all.

Woof

[Plutodog]

New thread, fine with me. The three suggestions I put forward and I believe there were some others put forward by others and some insight on passive agression that maybe we could benefit from on this RDL.

It would no doubt be cleaner, less contentious if we stick to the subject and leave out the personalities on what would improve the RDL forum for the benefit of all realists here gathered or yet to come. Haven't had time to deal with it since. Weather and stuff.

Woof Woof

[Darabe]

We are that we are

.

[Jim]

Elder Norm, on Jan 16 2007, 08:10 PM, said:

OK, Hmmmmm. Let me ask you what is the exact question or topic for this thread?

(And if you say "Who are we?" just who do you mean by who? )

PS, maybe you mean "Who do we want to become?" or "What actions do we want to accomplish?" etc

Elder Norm

Hey Norm as with Marc, you need a new connection for your weed, someone ask's what time it is and you reply "well what is time, lets examine it, do you mean time or thyme, the more I read on this site the more I think weed is really fucking you guys up, I been smoking weed since 1959 and you guys are just taking this reality shit a little to seriously..................

[Poor Richard]

Jim, on Aug 27 2009, 12:17 AM, said:

Hey Norm as with Marc, you need a new connection for your weed, someone ask's what time it is and you reply "well what is time, lets examine it, do you mean time or thyme, the more I read on this site the more I think weed is really fucking you guys up, I been smoking weed since 1959 and you guys are just taking this reality shit a little to seriously..................

Jim, you can save your money because obviously weed is wasted on you, dude. I say this strictly in the spirit of your ad hominem attack. I think this web site is wasted on you as well, so don't feel like you have to give it any more of your time.

What Norm was getting at, before he apparently died or abandoned the forum, was that "who we are" may not be highly germane to the intrinsic value of what we have to say. Sure, it probably influences what we have to say, but it is not the best criteria by which to evaluate the content of our posts.

The CoR is more about ideas than persons.

BTW, I think your ideas are crap.

Richard

[Jim]

Poor Richard, on Oct 23 2009, 06:54 PM, said:

What Norm was getting at, before he apparently died or abandoned the forum, was that "who we are" may not be highly germane to the intrinsic value of what we have to say. Sure, it probably influences what we have to say, but it is not the best criteria by which to evaluate the content of our posts.

The CoR is more about ideas than persons.

BTW, I think your ideas are crap.

Richard

YEAH YEAH YEAH keep sucking your crap off your buddies cock Richard, your fucking wisdom shows with every post, you can think what the fuck you want but your ideas are just that, and have zero validity, you can believe the fucking sky is mauve thats just the woman in you posting

[Poor Richard]

Jim, on Oct 23 2009, 11:28 PM, said:

you can think what the fuck you want but your ideas are just that, and have zero validity

Which ideas? Have zero validity because...?

Quote

thats just the woman in you posting

Jim, can you see past the woman in me long enough to express something other than your rage?

Or if rage is all you have, show me you can discuss it like a grown adult. Otherwise your posts are about as interesting as the porn spam.

Richard

[Qrystal]

The first post here mentioned something about embarrassment...

You mean like how I feel about having stumbled on this thread as my first impression of this forum? Is this what passes for thoughtful discourse around here? Maybe I'm in the wrong place.

[Ocelot]

Qrystal, on Dec 17 2009, 12:49 PM, said:

Maybe I'm in the wrong place.

Maybe, I rather hope that it's certain embarrasing parties who are in the wrong place. But then again, what's the point in preaching to the converted. Perhaps we can demonstrate the value of rational discourse to them, and that's why they should be here.

[krosbowe]

Wow, that "Jim" guy sounds like he has quite a chip on his shoulder, or had. Maybe he's not around anymore since he hasn't posted anything in 7 months, good riddance IMHO.

If this thread is effectively dead, then I think it should be expunged. However, on the off-chance that it might continue, I'll give the topic a shot.

I'm going to interpret the question as meaning, "what do we want to accomplish?", since usually in our culture, "one is what one does". The idea of a Church of Reality is worthy, I think. In so far as churches generally serve useful social purposes, there should be at least one that is not trying to pass off a lot of ancient fairy tales as "revealed truth"--along with whatever benefit they might provide--and threatening people with eternal punishment if they don't swallow it all "hook-line-and-sinker". Now the UU church is all well and good, but they're all mushy about the metaphysical/super-natural B.S. that many people in our society want to pass off as legitimate and valid parts of Reality, where as the CoR hits the nail on the head (IMHO), philosophically speaking. I think that deserves to be promoted and that to the degree that we in the CoR can attract more members and grow the organization, this can be a very "Win-Win" thing for society in general and for the CoR in particular.

One key thing though, is that we should not to try to tell folks we know exactly "what is reality". However, that's not to say that Reality is whatever someone believes it is. For example, my firm belief that the earth is flat has no effect on the earth's shape. The heart of the matter is that any idea we hold as true about any aspect of The Universe is only ever, at best, a near approximation of the way it actually is, in Reality. So, the best humanity can ever do is to improve their approximation of something, get closer to the truth. That's what scientific inquiry is about. In other words, pursuing the truth is terrific, but capturing it is impossible. No matter how fondly (& for how long) an idea is thought to be perfect (e.g. Newton's equations of motion), there is always room for improvement (e.g. Einstein's equations of motion that superseded Newton's). Enough about what not to do.

Here's my concrete suggestion about one thing we, of the CoR, could do. It's about personal happiness, or the lack thereof. Who doesn't want to be happy? Can CoR help in that regard? I think the answer is YES! We can start by endorsing the notion that "getting real" (i.e. accepting Reality as it is) is a lot less emotionally painful than wishing it were not what it is.

There is a awesome book about this way of thinking called "Loving What Is", by Byron Katie. I found reading together with my wife to be very inspiring, kinda like spiritual (if you'll pardon the expression). The philosophy totally fits with what CoR is all about and, interestingly, it does not conflict with other wise philosophical teachings on the subject of happiness, like in Budhism, Taoism, etc. So, I propose that CoR folks consider endorsing the philosophy of "Loving What Is". Anyone interested in it can check out the website: ( www.thework.com ). By the way, "Loving What Is" does not advocate passively accepting all things as they are, only the things you can't do anything about that make you miserable.

One more concrete suggestion I'd like to make is about CoR folks working towards getting "Realism" to become just as acceptable as "Christianity" in politics. Could a Senator or even a President be elected who is a "Bright" or a member of the CoR? Certainly not yet, but at one time it was thought that a black man could never be president or before that that only a Protestant Christian could ever be an American president, then JFK (a Catholic) got elected. So, why not a Realist or a Bright then? I think we CoR folks might be able to help shake things up a bit in this regard. Let's figure out how to get in America's "face" about this!! Can CoR get into "The News", become relevant, get back onto Wikipedia, etc? Why not!

[Poor Richard]

krosbowe, on 28 May 2010 - 05:31 PM, said:

Wow, that "Jim" guy sounds like he has quite a chip on his shoulder, or had. Maybe he's not around anymore since he hasn't posted anything in 7 months, good riddance IMHO.

I'll take some of the credit for running his sorry ass off.

krosbowe said:

Now the UU church is all well and good, but they're all mushy about the metaphysical/super-natural B.S. that many people in our society want to pass off as legitimate and valid parts of Reality

I agree. The "spiritual" is the new supernatural.

krosbowe said:

One key thing though, is that we should not to try to tell folks we know exactly "what is reality". However, that's not to say that Reality is whatever someone believes it is. For example, my firm belief that the earth is flat has no effect on the earth's shape. The heart of the matter is that any idea we hold as true about any aspect of The Universe is only ever, at best, a near approximation of the way it actually is, in Reality.

Scientific probability and consensus are our best approximations of reality. One of my personal crusades is information quality.

krosbowe said:

I propose that CoR folks consider endorsing the philosophy of "Loving What Is".

Without objection, the motion passes.

[Jim]

Poor Richard, on 29 May 2010 - 12:51 AM, said:

I'll take some of the credit for running his sorry ass off.



I agree. The "spiritual" is the new supernatural.



Scientific probability and consensus are our best approximations of reality. One of my personal crusades is information quality.



Without objection, the motion passes.

[Jim]

Poor Richard, on 29 May 2010 - 12:51 AM, said:

I'll take some of the credit for running his sorry ass off.

Hahahah lets not go suckin each others dicks just yet richard, you can take some credit for being a idiot thats about it, you had nothing to do with my sorry ass not hanging out in fact out of all the dumbfucks on this site I think you take the cake......... I just got tired of the rubbish you morons post, plus I couldn't possibly get high enough to swallow your Koolaid, you gotta be really high to post the ruble you guys spout

[krosbowe]

Jim, on 29 May 2010 - 12:12 AM, said:

Hahahah lets not go suckin each others dicks just yet richard, you can take some credit for being a idiot thats about it, you had nothing to do with my sorry ass not hanging out in fact out of all the dumbfucks on this site I think you take the cake......... I just got tired of the rubbish you morons post, plus I couldn't possibly get high enough to swallow your Koolaid, you gotta be really high to post the ruble you guys spout

Well, Jim, if you actually think that the things I've said are postings of "rubbish" from a moron, then I would be open to hearing from you, some of the ideas you hold to be the opposite of that. Is there something other than vulgar, ad hominem, attacks that you could say? Do you merely want to try to slap-down people who speak as I do, because you think we are only being intellectually elitist, egotistical, etc? Are you willing to share where you're coming from about that?

I'm interested to know if you can share some ideas that you think are of value or are true and worthwhile for others, like us, to consider? Is there some world view you hold that is very different from you see expressed on this forum about which you want to persuade us? Like for example, "who needs to hear a bunch of smarty-pants gobbeldy-gook from 'ivory-tower', pinko, egg heads, when all that we-all really need is 'common sense' (what those mortar-board-heads don't have), like good sense only god-fearing, salt-of-the-earth, working folks do have."

For my part, I'm here because I'm interested in "dialoging" with other reasonable, rational, open-minded, civil people. I'm talking about dialog in the sense of what David Bohm proposed in his treatise "On Dialog", where there is a cultural benefit from people engaging in the sharing of ideas without personal investment and/or emotional attachment to the promotion of their own ideas or deprecation of alternative ideas merely for the purposes of "winning" at the expense of others. That kind of dialog is almost the opposite of a competitive debate or an argument.

[krosbowe]

krosbowe, on 29 May 2010 - 10:55 AM, said:

Well, Jim, if you actually think that the things I've said are postings of "rubbish" from a moron, then I would be open to hearing from you, some of the ideas you hold to be the opposite of that. Is there something other than vulgar, ad hominem, attacks that you could say?

There is something I'd like to add here.

I just read the entire "Hi all, I'm Jim (I believe in God)" introduction debate thread from December 2009. Now, I understand better where you're coming from. You claimed to be open to hearing ideas that didn't already believe in, just in case some of them might make sense or you might find them convincing. If that's just B.S. and you just want to try to shout us down, then I think you are in the wrong place. In that same way, it would be counter productive for me to join the congregation of a "Church of Christ" and start shouting at people that they are a bunch of fucking idiots and so on. It just would do the opposite of convincing all of them that the ideas I (and my like minded fellows) hold as valid are worthwhile. I would just be an embarrassment to my kind and be demonstrating to them that what they are afraid of about us is true, that we are all unreasonable, close minded jerks.

Since this is not the place for it, I'll add a posting to that introduction thread of yours and if you're interested in further discussion about whether or not Christian teachings are true versus atheistic ideas, you can reply. I'm willing to try going head-to-head with you there, on this subject as long as we can keep it civil, I'm up for that. Other CoR members are invited to be ring-side, by following that thread, but I would request they not chime in (at least for a while) as I would prefer this be a one-on-one kind of thing.

Hope to see you there.

Krosbowe