Obey me

[Underseer]

What does the government have to do with my criticism of the use of religion as a political control mechanism?

I was noting the "Obey me" theme in your post and saw an obvious parallel to the more pernicious control the government places on us.

And what pernicious control are you referring to?

Does it involve the Jade Helm 15 conspiracy? The fact that evolution is taught in some government-run schools? Government-mandated vaccines? A gun confiscation conspiracy theory? A GMO conspiracy imposed on us by the government through the pernicious control of Monsanto? Belief in anthropogenic climate change? 9/11? Benghazi? I'm assuming that whatever it is involves some kind of highly entertaining conspiracy theory, I'm just curious about which one prompted you to say this.

 

[bilby]

bilby I went to public school in West Virginia. this is a public school thing you wouldn't understand, but you're a good person for trying.

Fuck off.

We should be saying the pledge in our front yards every morning. That is just my opinion.

And it's just fucking stupid. You should consider changing it.

Neighborhoods with flagpoles have 27% less crime btw. Random, unreal statistic that is probably right.

OK, clearly you and reality are not interested in interacting. The problem in that for you is that reality doesn't change to fit your futile guesswork - so if you want to achieve anything at all, you need to respond to the world as it is, not as you imagine it to be.

I understand why they all want to abandon a flag, but abandoning a child with strangers in a filthy building guarded by nothing more than a "cop" demoted to school patrol because he is a drunk... unacceptable. Public schools are dangerous for kids physically. Too many psycho pervs and whatnot. The bell I was talking about is more like... the whole idea. The structure in it. You can't learn that way. They only people who learn and succeed that way are robots. They learn like robots and they behave like robots when they apply what they learned in "work" as grownups. That is just my opinion. It may be obnoxiously ignorant to some, but it isn't intended to be rude to anyone.

The solution to crappy schools is to fix the schools. Abandoning the idea because your district has done a seriously fucked up, half-assed job of implementing it is just stupid. It's like abandoning the goal of ever owning a car, because your soap-box racer could only go downhill.

 

[another1]

No no I wasn't being facetious. I look now and see how it could be interpreted as that. I'm sorry. All I meant was that you didn't go to a public school in America. That is why you couldn't understand part of what I was saying. But most of what you're saying checks out, so nobody could be right or wrong. You commented on imagining the world to be anything other than futile guesswork. I'm still contemplating that. You may have a point, and my instinct is 85% right, so I'll do some checking.

I will tell you a problem I have with public school. Schools assemble too many children in one place. Schools are a sparkling candy dish for the sick among you. In the hearts of cities with every evil thing imaginable are 500 children, packed in a sardine can of spooky, repetitive "learning" rituals. I'm surprised I survived, come to think of it. Google map some public school locations. They're all waiting to get snatched by a puppy waving pervert. All of them. Get them out of there. Just no good. I'd let no child of mine go anywhere near there. Buildings from the past telling kids how to think like people of the past and marching them to bells and molding them with the hands of strangers instead of loving parents and and etc. Schools may have changed since I went. Maybe they are more like learning and less like practice, now.

I don't know a lot of the current situations with schools. They may have Skittles fountains and clowns now, but when I went... I felt like a was in a dungeon. It was a bad place, full of bad thoughts. Bad ways to think them. Bad ways all around.

Kids don't need it, bilby, because kids teach themselves. Teach a kid to count to ten, and how to spell it's name. Then set it free to learn in a safe environment, free of questionable janitors, optimal sniping ranges and statistics that spell inevitability. I'd give public schools another 50 years and they will be a thing of the past. There is a 44% likelihood so I can't call anything just yet.

 

[Underseer]

No no I wasn't being facetious. I look now and see how it could be interpreted as that. [...]

Wouldn't that be an ad hoc fallacy, also known as a just-so story?

 

[Random Person]

I was noting the "Obey me" theme in your post and saw an obvious parallel to the more pernicious control the government places on us.

And what pernicious control are you referring to?

Does it involve the Jade Helm 15 conspiracy? The fact that evolution is taught in some government-run schools? Government-mandated vaccines? A gun confiscation conspiracy theory? A GMO conspiracy imposed on us by the government through the pernicious control of Monsanto? Belief in anthropogenic climate change? 9/11? Benghazi? I'm assuming that whatever it is involves some kind of highly entertaining conspiracy theory, I'm just curious about which one prompted you to say this.

I have no idea what you're going on about. I already mentioned what I was referring to:

It seems to me that the government requires more obedience. You don't give them money, they take it. If you violate their rules you will be imprisoned. At birth you are sentenced to 12 years of indoctrination.

 

[Random Person]

The government expects you to pay for your share of joint expenditure, and not to fuck up your fellow citizens.

That's hardly onerous.

And how onerous a government is depends upon how much it run by or is similar to a religion. Theocracies are totalitarian because monotheistic religions are the most authoritarian worldview and power structure you can have. Governments that want to supplant monotheistic religions and mimic their control are totalitarian and would typically seek to eliminate religions they view as competition for authority (e.g., communist states).

This is the central point to my argument I have made elsewhere that Abrahamic religion is at its very core the anti-thesis of the Enlightenment values that undermine liberal democracy. In fact, the whole point of the Enlightenment was to remove the shackles of oppression (not just government but ideological, intellectual, and moral) that had come to dominate Europe under Christianity. So long as people maintain a near certain belief in and worship of the authoritarian God of Abraham and consider his intolerant violent deeds and commands of the Bible to be anything but grossly immoral, they will not be able to embrace those post-Enlightenment values. That is why the danger of religion is not limited to the most extreme fundamentalism or to those who endorse the use terrorist methods (in the case of Islam), which are more about desperate efforts to fight a much stronger military power than about religion itself (although religious ideas of evil and inherent sin enable the targeting killing of civilians).

If you don't want to obey the church you can just not go.

 

[Random Person]

I was noting the "Obey me" theme in your post and saw an obvious parallel to the more pernicious control the government places on us.

The government expects you to pay for your share of joint expenditure, and not to fuck up your fellow citizens.

That's hardly onerous.

I put in quite a bit of cash into the government's collection plate. When I say "put in" I actually mean they take it from me.

I put nothing into the church collection plate and suffer no arrest or sanctions for it.

 

[bilby]

The government expects you to pay for your share of joint expenditure, and not to fuck up your fellow citizens.

That's hardly onerous.

I put in quite a bit of cash into the government's collection plate. When I say "put in" I actually mean they take it from me.

I put nothing into the church collection plate and suffer no arrest or sanctions for it.

Given that the church does not provide any essential infrastructure or services, while the government provides a wide range of services upon which you are reliant, that seems perfectly reasonable to me.

Hell, even the cash you put in is in itself a service provided by the government. Money doesn't grow on trees; It is not a feature of the natural world. It is a service, that allows you to trade without having the massive inconvenience associated with a barter economy.

If you think that the government does nothing for you, then you are not thinking hard enough. Fish don't realize that they are wet either.

 

[Random Person]

I put in quite a bit of cash into the government's collection plate. When I say "put in" I actually mean they take it from me.

I put nothing into the church collection plate and suffer no arrest or sanctions for it.

Given that the church does not provide any essential infrastructure or services, while the government provides a wide range of services upon which you are reliant, that seems perfectly reasonable to me.

Hell, even the cash you put in is in itself a service provided by the government. Money doesn't grow on trees; It is not a feature of the natural world. It is a service, that allows you to trade without having the massive inconvenience associated with a barter economy.

If you think that the government does nothing for you, then you are not thinking hard enough. Fish don't realize that they are wet either.

I suppose that if you are eager to obey the government there is no harm.

 

[bilby]

Given that the church does not provide any essential infrastructure or services, while the government provides a wide range of services upon which you are reliant, that seems perfectly reasonable to me.

Hell, even the cash you put in is in itself a service provided by the government. Money doesn't grow on trees; It is not a feature of the natural world. It is a service, that allows you to trade without having the massive inconvenience associated with a barter economy.

If you think that the government does nothing for you, then you are not thinking hard enough. Fish don't realize that they are wet either.

I suppose that if you are eager to obey the government there is no harm.

Or, indeed, if like me you are not eager at all to obey anyone, but are happy to pay for essential services provided to you.

If you think that government is inherently harmful, take a look at places where there isn't one.

Government can be harmful. But that doesn't mean that it MUST be. If you think that the government does nothing for you, then you are not thinking hard enough.

 

[Random Person]

I suppose that if you are eager to obey the government there is no harm.

Or, indeed, if like me you are not eager at all to obey anyone, but are happy to pay for essential services provided to you.

If you think that government is inherently harmful, take a look at places where there isn't one.

Government can be harmful. But that doesn't mean that it MUST be. If you think that the government does nothing for you, then you are not thinking hard enough.

I didn't say that the government does nothing for me. It seems like you are looking for an argument.

 

[bilby]

Or, indeed, if like me you are not eager at all to obey anyone, but are happy to pay for essential services provided to you.

If you think that government is inherently harmful, take a look at places where there isn't one.

Government can be harmful. But that doesn't mean that it MUST be. If you think that the government does nothing for you, then you are not thinking hard enough.

I didn't say that the government does nothing for me. It seems like you are looking for an argument.

I didn't say that I was eager to obey the government. It seems to me that you are the one looking for an argument.

 

[Random Person]

I didn't say that the government does nothing for me. It seems like you are looking for an argument.

I didn't say that I was eager to obey the government. It seems to me that you are the one looking for an argument.

You seem pretty eager.

 

[bilby]

I didn't say that I was eager to obey the government. It seems to me that you are the one looking for an argument.

You seem pretty eager.

And you seem like a freeloader, who takes the services provided by your government, but complains about being 'forced' to pay.

I have no interest in arguing with you, as I consider it to be unsporting to engage in a battle of wits against an unarmed opponent. But I am eager to call you on your self-contradictory bullshit.

 

[another1]

Twelve years inside a sardine can, random person. A lice-ridden, staph infection smeared pedophile carnival, where a kid's only hope to make it out unraped (mind body and soul) is to LEAVE. I accidentally mentioned school, because that is where the indoctrination occurs. Nobody said a word about the who, or the why. You didn't. You just made a simple and real point. The 12 years are hard. They thrust you into it as soon as you can pee on your own. The most magical period of life is interrupted by that ridiculous nightmare we call school.

There goes any hope of having an actual self. People have nothing left of themselves once they have been put through public school. I'm past the need to debate anything about it because I lived it, and it has taken decades to undo what they did to me.

Now the means of indoctrination exist as a living animal. There is no need to use public school to do it nowadays. It can be done in a fraction of the time by using computers. Parents are still running the old program, which will make easy to convince. They will submit their children to a heavily structured online classroom and it will do the same thing that was done to them. Less chance of being snatched up by Buffalo Bill's van, but still every bit as horrifying. To me anyway.

 

[Random Person]

You seem pretty eager.

And you seem like a freeloader, who takes the services provided by your government, but complains about being 'forced' to pay.

I have no interest in arguing with you, as I consider it to be unsporting to engage in a battle of wits against an unarmed opponent. But I am eager to call you on your self-contradictory bullshit.

A freeloader could be a person that benefits from the tax dollars the government plucks from me.

The OP is complaining about what churches force him or her to do when in reality they don't force anyone, unlike the government that does under the threat of imprisonment.

You have no interest in arguing because you have flung yourself in an untenable position couple with an unoriginal insult.


Why so afraid of opinions other than yours?

- - - Updated - - -

Twelve years inside a sardine can, random person. A lice-ridden, staph infection smeared pedophile carnival, where a kid's only hope to make it out unraped (mind body and soul) is to LEAVE. I accidentally mentioned school, because that is where the indoctrination occurs. Nobody said a word about the who, or the why. You didn't. You just made a simple and real point. The 12 years are hard. They thrust you into it as soon as you can pee on your own. The most magical period of life is interrupted by that ridiculous nightmare we call school.

There goes any hope of having an actual self. People have nothing left of themselves once they have been put through public school. I'm past the need to debate anything about it because I lived it, and it has taken decades to undo what they did to me.

Now the means of indoctrination exist as a living animal. There is no need to use public school to do it nowadays. It can be done in a fraction of the time by using computers. Parents are still running the old program, which will make easy to convince. They will submit their children to a heavily structured online classroom and it will do the same thing that was done to them. Less chance of being snatched up by Buffalo Bill's van, but still every bit as horrifying. To me anyway.

That's what I'm sayin'.

 

[beero1000]

Twelve years inside a sardine can, random person. A lice-ridden, staph infection smeared pedophile carnival, where a kid's only hope to make it out unraped (mind body and soul) is to LEAVE. I accidentally mentioned school, because that is where the indoctrination occurs. Nobody said a word about the who, or the why. You didn't. You just made a simple and real point. The 12 years are hard. They thrust you into it as soon as you can pee on your own. The most magical period of life is interrupted by that ridiculous nightmare we call school.

There goes any hope of having an actual self. People have nothing left of themselves once they have been put through public school. I'm past the need to debate anything about it because I lived it, and it has taken decades to undo what they did to me.

Now the means of indoctrination exist as a living animal. There is no need to use public school to do it nowadays. It can be done in a fraction of the time by using computers. Parents are still running the old program, which will make easy to convince. They will submit their children to a heavily structured online classroom and it will do the same thing that was done to them. Less chance of being snatched up by Buffalo Bill's van, but still every bit as horrifying. To me anyway.

I'm noticing a theme here.

And you seem like a freeloader, who takes the services provided by your government, but complains about being 'forced' to pay.

I have no interest in arguing with you, as I consider it to be unsporting to engage in a battle of wits against an unarmed opponent. But I am eager to call you on your self-contradictory bullshit.

A freeloader could be a person that benefits from the tax dollars the government plucks from me.

The OP is complaining about what churches force him or her to do when in reality they don't force anyone, unlike the government that does under the threat of imprisonment.

You have no interest in arguing because you have flung yourself in an untenable position couple with an unoriginal insult.


Why so afraid of opinions other than yours?

You. You benefit from the tax dollars the government plucks from you. How is that not obvious? The money doesn't disappear down a magical vortex, never to be seen again. It buys stuff. Stuff that you use and rely on every day, services that you want around in case you need them, things that help you in innumerable ways.

Apparently, the government needs to collect taxes using the threat of imprisonment because some people are too ignorant to act in their own long-term self-interest without an explicit threat looming overhead.

 

[Random Person]

I'm noticing a theme here.

And you seem like a freeloader, who takes the services provided by your government, but complains about being 'forced' to pay.

I have no interest in arguing with you, as I consider it to be unsporting to engage in a battle of wits against an unarmed opponent. But I am eager to call you on your self-contradictory bullshit.

A freeloader could be a person that benefits from the tax dollars the government plucks from me.

The OP is complaining about what churches force him or her to do when in reality they don't force anyone, unlike the government that does under the threat of imprisonment.

You have no interest in arguing because you have flung yourself in an untenable position couple with an unoriginal insult.


Why so afraid of opinions other than yours?

You. You benefit from the tax dollars the government plucks from you. How is that not obvious? The money doesn't disappear down a magical vortex, never to be seen again. It buys stuff. Stuff that you use and rely on every day, services that you want around in case you need them, things that help you in innumerable ways.

Apparently, the government needs to collect taxes using the threat of imprisonment because some people are too ignorant to act in their own long-term self-interest without an explicit threat looming overhead.

Calculating the value proposition from my end tells me the government is falling short.

The government takes huge sums of money from me and churches take zero.

You have issues around this that I'm not seeing.

 

[bilby]

I'm noticing a theme here.

And you seem like a freeloader, who takes the services provided by your government, but complains about being 'forced' to pay.

I have no interest in arguing with you, as I consider it to be unsporting to engage in a battle of wits against an unarmed opponent. But I am eager to call you on your self-contradictory bullshit.

A freeloader could be a person that benefits from the tax dollars the government plucks from me.

The OP is complaining about what churches force him or her to do when in reality they don't force anyone, unlike the government that does under the threat of imprisonment.

You have no interest in arguing because you have flung yourself in an untenable position couple with an unoriginal insult.


Why so afraid of opinions other than yours?

You. You benefit from the tax dollars the government plucks from you. How is that not obvious? The money doesn't disappear down a magical vortex, never to be seen again. It buys stuff. Stuff that you use and rely on every day, services that you want around in case you need them, things that help you in innumerable ways.

Apparently, the government needs to collect taxes using the threat of imprisonment because some people are too ignorant to act in their own long-term self-interest without an explicit threat looming overhead.

Calculating the value proposition from my end tells me the government is falling short.

LOL. It is precicely your inability to make that calculation in an accurate and unbiased way that makes it necessary for the government to make payment of your share mandatory.

You benefit, but like a spoiled child, you imagine that all you have been given was yours by right. So you would refuse to pay your share unless forced. So you are forced.

The result is that you feel bad about something (paying taxes) that you cannot avoid. I, on the other hand, feel good about paying my share. I'm a top rate taxpayer, and damn proud of the fact that I contribute to making my country a better place.

It makes life dramatically better when you feel good about the inevitable.

Sucks to be stupid, I guess.

 

[another1]

While you're on the subject of everyone is someone else's (non-derogatory) nigger because of imaginary politics, how about the fact that water costs money? Can someone take a moment to break this one down in a few sentences?

Water is everywhere. My dog could dig up some water for you right now. And I can create electricity by simply stroking my cat's fur. Electricity doesn't belong to anyone lol. It is so silly just to think about it. The term nigger should be redefined as anyone who pays money for water. I'll use it only when referring to those people, just to be politically correct.

I guess the indoctrination process starts early, with our first sip of water. We're convinced that inexhaustible materials on a thriving planet are scarce and difficult to gather. It of course takes some doing, but come on. Only assholes would make a monopoly out of it, and bigger assholes let them get away with it. Imaginary politics allow it all to go down. Stupid. Complex brackets of pipes snake under our cities and up though our walls to rob us of everything we have. We have to feed them, just to protect our families from the elements. What elements you ask? There are several brands of electricity and everything else. So we pay to do exactly what now? Please clarify this for me because I sincerely don't get it.