Brother Mario

[Brothermario]

I don’t know if this is The Lion’s Den. I could only choose as a forum Rants and Replies.

 

My years of experience on a skeptic forum is that it is no different than a religious forum—it’s turtles in hard shells of opinionated groupthink all the way down. Nothing really gets accomplished beyond posters gathering together to support like-minds or to attack different-minds. It’s all rather insignificant and unproductive, really.

 

And the fault lies in the need to see one’s thoughts in print. One writes a concoction of shoddy research and opinionated drivel with a slight touch of originality into large unreadable paragraphs, which one will read back to himself or herself and feel pleasure from both the writing and reading of it. It’s a vigorous intellectual masturbation of one’s mind.

 

I came here and told you a true story from experience about God.

 

But you, like all skeptics, equated God with religion. And you, like all skeptics, don’t understand God or religion very well to begin. So, like clockwork, your needy groupthink and intellectual masturbation judged it to be a religious psychological story, and me to be a delusional narcissist for telling it.

 

What you didn’t do is research monastic experience, the books I mentioned that were instrumental to my story, Aristotle and other great thinkers I mentioned, or anything else that was part of my story.

 

No. You asked questions according to every skeptic talking point you could come up with. And you gave each other badges for it.

 

For the record, I replied in your thread that sprung up about narcissistic people because you very badly tried to hide that it didn’t spring up to make yourselves feel better about me. But Redneck immediately deleted my response, and then wrote some time after that on the same thread that I ran away from here. alreadyGone and I also had a conversation that was deleted by someone.

 

I didn’t run away anywhere.

 

If this is not The Lions Den, please move this thread over there.

 

This will be the only thread I’ll be on if you want to talk to me. And I’ll be able comment on stuff on other threads without derailing them away from your needs.

 

But you’ll have to get past this thread’s title first, which  I don’t think you’ll be able to.

[WarriorPoet]

1 hour ago, Brothermario said:

And the fault lies in the need to see one’s thoughts in print. One writes a concoction of shoddy research and opinionated drivel with a slight touch of originality into large unreadable paragraphs, which one will read back to himself or herself and feel pleasure from both the writing and reading of it. It’s a vigorous intellectual masturbation of one’s mind.

Think about what you wrote here.  Take all the time you need.

 

The rest of your post is also a little confusing for one reason.  If nothing gets accomplished in forums like this, then what exactly are you trying to do here?  If this is such an exercise in futility, then why don’t you treat our “mental masturbation” as the physical sort and leave the practitioners in peace?  

[Brothermario]

Because I changed “here” to this thread and away from the rest of the forum, which always happens in groupthink forums such as this one. Modern thinking, which has rooted itself in nothing but opinions, cannot help itself but to seek out like-minded opinions. Without a firm foundation, any structure crumbles from poor construction.

 

And since you have already declared yourself as simply part of a group and not an individual “warrior”, then there’s nothing left for you to do but go join that group for a gooey good time.

 

You won’t find any comfort for your needs “here”.

[WarriorPoet]

Not looking to have any of my needs met.  Just pointing out the very obvious projection.  The fact that some of what you said in your OP may be correct* doesn’t change that you are accusing us of the very type of behavior that you are engaging in.

 

In regards to your  little swipe at my username, thanks for that, a bit of a laugh is good everyday.  First of all, that name was simply chosen because Braveheart was on TV when I made my account here.  Secondly, despite what you might see in movies, warriors don’t act as individuals, the entire group works together to achieve their objectives.  An individual doing their own thing in that environment generally results in disaster.

 

 

*I’m in a generous mood today.

[Brothermario]

I guess you missed the chants of “Wallace! Wallace!”, and that Scotland’s Warriors followed a single man who sacrificed himself so others would be free. And I’m sure you’ve drawn the similarities to Jesus.

 

Dont be generous. I’m not religious or a born again Christian.

 

Let’s see your arguments against scholastic philosophical reasoning and theological traditions ... and EXPERIENCES.

 

My guess is you haven’t anything more to say than any other skeptic says.

 

Well, my “experience” tells me that is the measure of your wit.

 

 

 

 

[WarriorPoet]

They fought like warrior poets.  They fought like Scotsmen, and won their freedom.  (Emphasis obviously mine.)

 

Still perplexed here.  You expressed your certainty in the futility of engaging with us, or me personally.  So I ask again, if it is futile, why are you wasting your time?  Is there possibly something that you know that none of the other believers that ventured into this forum didn’t?  Please, regale us with your wisdom.

My guess is that you haven’t anything more to say than any other theist says.

 

 

[midniterider]

3 hours ago, Brothermario said:

It’s a vigorous intellectual masturbation of one’s mind.

 

 

Masturbation should always been done vigorously, imo.

[Brothermario]

Poets don’t write poetry as a group, so a Warrior Poet would be a reference to an individual. Your wit needs sophistication.

 

And I couldn’t have been more clear that I’m staying put on one thread to talk with anyone with the will and heart to come here.

 

You’re doing that undergraduate lame skeptic thing where you think you found a contradiction (or a logical fallacy, or a myth, etc.) in a theist’s argument that your fantastic logical mind detected and just can’t accept.

 

You’re going to have to do better than that here. I don’t give out badges.

 

Do you have a question for a former CATHOLIC mystic?

 

Or do you plan to keep showing me how fantastically logical your mind works?

[florduh]

4 hours ago, Brothermario said:

But you, like all skeptics, equated God with religion. And you, like all skeptics, don’t understand God or religion very well to begin.

This may come as a shock, at least to you, but you have no fucking idea what you're talking about. Most people coming out of Christianity, and I suspect other religions, quickly separate any possible gods from religion. Generally, the search for a god ramps up after leaving religion.

 

What your accusations really mean is that we don't agree with you and therefore we must lack your unique understanding and are slavishly adhering to some agenda born of ignorance. 

 

Many people claim to have had the "mystical experience" and none of them brag, accuse and belittle others. Perhaps you really did have some sort of "experience" but it seems as though it was merely the result of an overactive ego.

 

 

[Wertbag]

3 hours ago, Brothermario said:

And you, like all skeptics, don’t understand God or religion very well to begin

You seem to have the problem of thinking of large groups of very diverse people in very black and white ways. Any gross generalisation like "all skeptics" will be wrong. My personal experience with these forums has been of massive variety, with people from many countries, religions, age ranges, sexes and life experiences. There is certainly not agreement on every subject and there are pages filled with debates showing this. There is a wealth of knowledge on both religious and scientific study here, and getting in depth answers to complex questions is possible if asked from a place of genuine interest. 

 

A deistic position is not unique here and we have members who are spiritual without being religious. We also have hundreds of accounts of "experiences" but while those are individually important events, they are not useful for others as there is no way for them to have that same thing occur for them. They will often convince that person of supernatural involvement, but on the flip side many ex-theists have had experiences and still moved away from religion as the answer. 

 

If you come here with a preconceived idea and look to confirm a negative view without engaging with the people then I'm sure you can leave with that bias confirmed. However if you actually want to talk then conversation is the reason we are here. 

[Brothermario]

florduh, the very act of you pluralizing GOD is you equating God with religion.

 

There is only one God. The highest philosophical reasoning and theological traditions attest to it being so.

 

You’ve run around looking all over the place for God instead of stopping for a moment in the place you’re already at.

 

Even a crazy Christian holding a snake knows there’s only one God.

 

You’re simply confused, which is fine.

 

But you take your confusion for intellectual superiority, don’t you?

[Brothermario]

Wertbag, so talk.

 

I haven’t seen much of it around here, only skeptical gatherings of people certain about things they could not possibly know.

[florduh]

4 minutes ago, Brothermario said:

But you take your confusion for intellectual superiority, don’t you?

What is wrong with you?

[WarriorPoet]

You came here to start this thread.

 

You insulted what we do here saying that it isn’t productive.

 

You proceeded to engage in the same behavior that you accused us of.

 

You made sweeping and unfounded generalizations about us.

 

I pointed out that you said that having a conversation in this forum wouldn’t accomplish anything.  You haven’t addressed that.  Seriously, did you simply misspeak?  If so, then I am happy to let it go.  Or did you mean that it was pointless and unproductive until you came along? Instead of responding to my direct query, you decided to take me into a nit picking rabbit hole.

I do have questions for a former catholic mystic, but all I am seeing from you is that you desire the type of mental masturbation that you accuse us of engaging in.  Your apparent obsessive need to feel superior to our “group” probably doesn’t encourage anyone to meaningfully communicate with you.

 

 

[TheRedneckProfessor]

[Brothermario]

Yes, you all have so many questions that you just can’t seem to ask them.

 

Me telling you what I have experienced in groupthink forums and with modern skeptics is wrong, but what you think about theism and theists is okay?

 

I know I’m different than the theists you’ve met.

 

And I have hopes that some of you are different than the skeptics I’ve met.

 

But so far, not so much.

 

And most of you actually think that you’re going to teach me something about God and religion, and won’t have it any other way. But there is another way, an opposite way you will fight against together by accusing me of doing things you do to theists without blinking an eye.

 

Stop whining. I don’t care what you say about me.

 

But all you’re doing is saying something about me. Do something else.

[florduh]

1 hour ago, Brothermario said:

florduh, the very act of you pluralizing GOD is you equating God with religion.

 

You are proving to be much more an idiot than you ever suspected.

[Wertbag]

6 minutes ago, Brothermario said:

Yes, you all have so many questions that you just can’t seem to ask them.

Well there is a section of this forum called Questions with over 5k posts, so it seems plenty of people have been able to ask. 

 

8 minutes ago, Brothermario said:

I know I’m different than the theists you’ve met

That reads as a very arrogant statement. "I'm so special no one could be like me". You have no way to know the beliefs of the thousands of people we have all met in our lives and with billions of believers do you really think no one has ever came to the same conclusions as you? 

 

1 hour ago, Brothermario said:

Wertbag, so talk

Not a normal way to start a conversation but I'll bite. How about telling me what it is you believe and what convinced you of your position? 

1 hour ago, Brothermario said:

There is only one God. The highest philosophical reasoning and theological traditions attest to it being so.

Philosophy doesn't reach conclusions, it creates debates around often impossible questions. There is no end to philosophy and pretty much every question has been debated as far back as history records. To claim philosophy proves a god in any way is simply not so. 

Theological traditions are wide ranging and not exclusively monotheistic. There are tons of polytheistic religions with traditions, writings and teachings older than anything we commonly hear about in the Western world. It is quite likely polytheistic religions predate monotheism. 

[midniterider]

He had a Jesus experience .... just like the other 2 billion believers.

[TheRedneckProfessor]

2 minutes ago, midniterider said:

He had a Jesus experience .... just like the other 2 billion believers.

Indeed.  He is unique... just like everybody else.

[Brothermario]

Wertbag, a scientist couldn’t reach a single discovery without the use of philosophical conclusions, i.e., principles.

 

“No two contradictory statements in the same sentence can both be true” is a philosophical principle, and the first principle a scientist will use to determine which direction he should go.

 

Even Einstein said that his imagination was more important to his work than mathematics.

 

He said this because training our intellect to employ one philosophical principle leads to another principle, and then another, until our intellect becomes advanced and works with a greater efficiency.

 

(Aristotle’s philosophical “proofs” for the existence of God cannot be understood and appreciated by an untrained intellect that has purposely avoided abstraction beyond the second degree, mathematics.)

 

So, for example, when scientists fail to answer great questions—such as the beginning of life or the nature of a thought—the skeptic’s untrained intellect will shrug it off and trust science to answer these questions sooner or later. And any immediate further thoughts that claim further knowledge about such great questions are labeled by the skeptic as the “God of the gaps” argument.

 

In fact, it is a prerequisite today that a skeptic have no philosophical training at all.

 

Here’s the advanced philosophical principle that further answers all the great questions science cannot, and will not by simply using mathematics:

 

”No combination of lesser things can create a greater thing unless something even greater than the greater thing is added to the lesser things.”

 

Now watch what happens when a philosophical principle meets an untrained intellect.

 

 

[Wertbag]

8 minutes ago, Brothermario said:

any immediate further thoughts that claim further knowledge about such great questions are labeled by the skeptic as the “God of the gaps” argument.

The god of the gaps label should only be applied to questions for which there are no answers, things we cannot currently know. When we do not know it is fine to admit our ignorance, but there are some people who look to use that gap in our knowledge to insert God. Some ancient religions have claimed god(s) controlled many natural things because they weren't willing to admit their ignorance. A tribal priest may not feel able to say "I don't know", as his position may revolve around claiming knowledge others lack. Personally I am no religious expert, I've never read the bible cover to cover, I only speak one language and have only travelled a tiny bit of our world. I accept my knowledge is limited, as everyones must be. 

 

17 minutes ago, Brothermario said:

No combination of lesser things can create a greater thing unless something even greater than the greater thing is added to the lesser things.”

 

Now watch what happens when a philosophical principle meets an untrained intellect.

An interesting thought. My first thought was elements joining to form molecules and needing an energy source to allow that to happen. It that way it is quite true. I guess my concern would be with the term "Greater", as you would need a standard for which to judge greatness against. In my example is an energy source greater than physical matter? Is it greater than the water molecules created? How are we judging that? Is greatness subjective? 

[Joshpantera]

7 hours ago, Brothermario said:

My years of experience on a skeptic forum is that it is no different than a religious forum—it’s turtles in hard shells of opinionated groupthink all the way down. Nothing really gets accomplished beyond posters gathering together to support like-minds or to attack different-minds. It’s all rather insignificant and unproductive, really.

 

Groupthink? Sure. It's everywhere. Skeptic forums not withstanding. Christian forums, first and foremost.

 

So what point are you trying to get across about this?

 

I obviously am invested in calling out groupthink, D-K effect (you are apparently guilty), and various other forms of narcissistic thinking across the spectrum of human thought - political, scientific, religious, and otherwise. 

 

7 hours ago, Brothermario said:

I came here and told you a true story from experience about God.

 

But you, like all skeptics, equated God with religion. And you, like all skeptics, don’t understand God or religion very well to begin. So, like clockwork, your needy groupthink and intellectual masturbation judged it to be a religious psychological story, and me to be a delusional narcissist for telling it.

 

It doesn't matter very much whether it's religious, spiritual - not religious, or any other variety of "subjective" experience. The fact is that you disclosed a "subjective" experience outside of objectively proving in any way.

 

That's not the problem of skeptics, it's your problem. Their groupthink doesn't matter one bit against the fact that you are talking about things which have no basis in proving objectively.

 

And you can not shift the situation around otherwise. It's not possible. So you're stuck in a situation where if you try and make claims from a subjective foundation, whether true or not, they aren't provable. You may be a former catholic mystic with anecdotal stories of personal (subjective) experiences. That does nothing to give you any winning arguments of your opinion based claims. Everything that you are accusing others of, you yourself prove guilty of when you start typing. 

 

Do you want to try and work out this problem or not? I'm attempting to help you understand the problem from a broader perspective. 

 

7 hours ago, Brothermario said:

What you didn’t do is research monastic experience, the books I mentioned that were instrumental to my story, Aristotle and other great thinkers I mentioned, or anything else that was part of my story.

 

What would that matter against the above situation? Do you think that monastic experience changes your situation? If so, how does it change your situation? I can try and walk you through the errors you're facing. 

 

5 hours ago, Brothermario said:

Because I changed “here” to this thread and away from the rest of the forum, which always happens in groupthink forums such as this one. Modern thinking, which has rooted itself in nothing but opinions, cannot help itself but to seek out like-minded opinions. Without a firm foundation, any structure crumbles from poor construction.

 

Why don't you start by elaborating on what you mean by, "Without a firm foundation, any structure crumbles from poor construction." What do you propose is a "firm foundation" from which to build upon? 

[WarriorPoet]

44 minutes ago, Brothermario said:

 

”No combination of lesser things can create a greater thing unless something even greater than the greater thing is added to the lesser things.”

I’m in agreement with Wertbag here, greatness would need to be defined in this specific context.  For example, oxygen+hydrogen+a little gamma radiation makes water.  What would be the greatest thing in that combination, or are they all equal in greatness?

 

My guess is that you are leading us to some kind of a “first cause” argument, but I’m happy to admit that guess could be wrong.  Either way, I will pop the popcorn and watch you getting wherever it is you’re going.

[Brothermario]

Wertbag, the understanding of what is a greater or lesser reality is one of the sure signs of how trained our intellects truly are.

 

Joining molecules together to create a different thing, but still a thing made up of only molecules, is not to create a greater thing but only a different thing.

 

Joining molecules together to create the first ancient living bacteria is to create a greater thing, for to be alive is greater for a thing than to be not alive.

 

To be able to make this judgment of a greater and lesser thing is one of the first steps in training our intellects. There are many steps to follow. But an untrained intellect is often attached to a human personality that refuses to take even the first steps, choosing instead to undeservingly place itself at the head of the class.

 

This decision is often made on a toilet seat.