I had just come home from work after doing 24 hours in two days, no one can be "on" all the time. In the context of the question- why do people believe in g-d?, my respond, while hazy on the details- no one can know everything- does demonstrate an appropriate response as illustrated by the Aurelius quote. While my favourite professor used to call Jung- "Junk", my second favourite professor was a worshipper of "the great Assagoli", who tends toward Jung more than Freud.
People like Assagoli and Frankl, who have had experiences of human suffering have developed more holistic approaches. For example, while considering Adler, Assagoli wrote:


The will is not merely assertive, aggressive, and controlling. There is the accepting will, yielding will, the dedicated will. You might say that there is a feminine polarity to the will – the willing surrender, the joyful acceptance of the other functions of the personality.

My own main technique is Psychiatric Rehabilitation which actually tends more toward the old Soviet approach. and speaking of Soviets, just because I feel that implementing the foolishness of Friedman economics on a national scale is immoral is no reason to get your panties in a bunch.

I have now obtained 4 hours of sleep

Lawyers should never ask a Georgia grandma a question if they aren't prepared for the answer.

In a trial, a Southern small-town prosecuting attorney called his first witness, a grandmotherly, elderly woman to the stand. He approached her and asked, 'Mrs. Jones, do you know me?' She responded, 'Why, yes, I do know you, Mr. Williams. I've known you since you were a boy, and frankly, you've been a big disappointment to me. You lie, you cheat on your wife, and you manipulate people and talk about them behind their backs. You think you're a big shot when you haven't the brains to realize you'll never amount to anything more than a two-bit paper pusher. Yes, I know you.'

The lawyer was stunned. Not knowing what else to do, he pointed across the room and asked, 'Mrs. Jones, do you know the defense attorney?'

She again replied, 'Why yes, I do. I've known Mr. Bradley since he was a
youngster, too. He's lazy, bigoted, and he has a drinking problem. He can't build a normal relationship with anyone, and his law practice is one of the worst in the entire state. Not to mention he cheated on his wife with three different women. One of them was your wife. Yes, I know him.'

The defense attorney nearly died.

The judge asked both counselors to approach the bench and, in a very quiet voice, said,

'If either of you idiots asks her if she knows me, I'll send you both to the electric chair.

Your lack of scientific knowledge appears to be only matched by your ignorance of the bible:


Neanderthals (Neander-thal, the ‘th’ pronounced as ‘t’) are our closest extinct human relative. Some defining features of their skulls include the large middle part of the face, angled cheek bones, and a huge nose for humidifying and warming cold, dry air. Their bodies were shorter and stockier than ours, another adaptation to living in cold environments. But their brains were just as large as ours and often larger - proportional to their brawnier bodies.

Neanderthals made and used a diverse set of sophisticated tools, controlled fire, lived in shelters, made and wore clothing, were skilled hunters of large animals and also ate plant foods, and occasionally made symbolic or ornamental objects. There is evidence that Neanderthals deliberately buried their dead and occasionally even marked their graves with offerings, such as flowers. No other primates, and no earlier human species, had ever practiced this sophisticated and symbolic behavior.

DNA has been recovered from more than a dozen Neanderthal fossils, all from Europe; the Neanderthal Genome Project is one of the exciting new areas of human origins research.

Your lack of scientific knowledge appears to be only matched by your ignorance of the bible:


Neanderthals (Neander-thal, the ‘th’ pronounced as ‘t’) are our closest extinct human relative. Some defining features of their skulls include the large middle part of the face, angled cheek bones, and a huge nose for humidifying and warming cold, dry air. Their bodies were shorter and stockier than ours, another adaptation to living in cold environments. But their brains were just as large as ours and often larger - proportional to their brawnier bodies.

Neanderthals made and used a diverse set of sophisticated tools, controlled fire, lived in shelters, made and wore clothing, were skilled hunters of large animals and also ate plant foods, and occasionally made symbolic or ornamental objects. There is evidence that Neanderthals deliberately buried their dead and occasionally even marked their graves with offerings, such as flowers. No other primates, and no earlier human species, had ever practiced this sophisticated and symbolic behavior.

DNA has been recovered from more than a dozen Neanderthal fossils, all from Europe; the Neanderthal Genome Project is one of the exciting new areas of human origins research.

Goodness you are ****, if I shoved a lump of coal up you azz would you **** out a diamond? The general message in the context of the question is therefore accurate, while the details are hazy, as I am not an alcoholic with limited experience outside of dating them.
CJ Jung used : Spiritus contra Spiritum
Marcus Aurelius used: Espiritum vinci espiritus

Isn't it always wonderful in the beginning? I remember how I proposed to my first wife: I was to pick her for dinner at 7pm, as a workaholic, I was running late. I pull into her driveway at 7:45pm, her dad was on the porch waiting.
Dad: Hey now
Me: Hey
Dad: you're late
Me: Yeah, sorry
Dad: Guess who else is late

Of course not; but studies show that most cops who fire their weapon tend to be so hyped up that they will empty the clip, modern training would help with that

How about with a fox in a box? On a train, in the rain?

I once worked out at a dojo with a 395lb cop; I could consistently submit him by wearing him out; he would often joke that I should wait until he saw me on the streets, because- his training was to always first radio for back-up: I couldn't take on 7 cops at once, nor he said no one could out-run 7 cops swarming. I would hate to think if his training was to first pull his gun out

Excellent I try to get people to think for themselves and question authority;

I think the point was that at his first job, he was exposed to a lot of bad police training as a role model

May I suggest learning to love yourself first

Learning to Think in a Society Ruled by Absurd Religion and Other Dogma
Children should be prepared to question everyone and everything.
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August 22, 2014 |




The following is an excerpt from Parenting Without God by Dan Arel.

One important thing to teach our children is how to think critically. It is easy to tell them they should, but it is not as easy to teach them how, mainly because we may not be that great at it ourselves.

How many atheists do you know who are anti-GMO or anti-vaccination? We know these can be smart people who took on a position that is full of emotion, misinformation or bad research methods.

Think back to earlier discussions about vaccinations when those opposed were flooding you with links, not links to scientific studies, but to blogs or “information” sites by doctors who seemed to be selling a cure-all at the same time they were telling you to avoid modern medicine.

This is a failure in critical thinking, and it's usually the result of confirmation bias. If you start off with the notion that vaccines are dangerous you will be drawn to articles that confirm your position. Instead, a position should be started from a clean slate. This is not easy to do but it is crucial.

Ask the question, “Are vaccines safe?” Then look for information from trustworthy sources and see what they say. What do medical peer review journals have to say? What do medical organizations say? What do opponents think and what are their sources? Are their sources reliable?

This same method applies to religion. Who is making the claim, and does the claim defy the laws of nature that we understand? Is there a simpler explanation for what happened? Is it possible this claim ever happened at all?

Look at Noah’s flood, with two of every single animal on the planet and a handful of human beings on a single boat. First look at the logistics. How big would the boat need to be and how much food would be required? What about the carnivorous animals? If you only brought two of each, what did the lions eat for an entire trip?

This alone makes the story seem implausible, but then look at the scientific evidence. Have we found a boat that could have done this? Surely a boat of this size must have some rather impressive remains somewhere in the world. How about the placement of animals; did Noah go around and drop each animal off at its particular continent after the flood subsided? How did he do this?

Then we can look at the archeological evidence. Fossils form best in wet conditions. So just imagine the archeological goldmine left behind from this massive flood that would have drowned billions of creatures. What have we found? To date we have found nothing suggesting a flood of this magnitude. It seems fairly reasonable to conclude there was no flood. No mass killings of people and animals. This is nothing but a myth, and can be treated as such.

Thinking critically about such an issue is rather simple to find a logical conclusion. This can be used for every tale in the Bible. From talking snakes to virgin births, we can look at these stories and apply the same critical thinking skills to them.

Our children should be using this method every day in all matters of life. With claims from friends, family, parents, and teachers, they should be well prepared to question everyone and everything. Doing this also allows them to become their own person and not simply a carbon copy of what people are telling them to be.

Many of us, especially those who grew up in religion, had it engrained that the questioning of claims is frowned upon and God has an exact plan for who we should be. Many never break out of that cycle and allow those they consider authorities to dictate how their lives should be led. The generation we want to raise would be a generation that questions everything, from religion to government and even science.

We often imagine we cannot question science, but the core of scientific research is questioning. That is what peer-review is all about. Theists, especially creationists, often claim we all have faith in science, or call science a religion because we simply accept what scientists say. This could not be further from the truth. However, this is something important we should be teaching our children. The method in which we apply critical thinking to science, the scientific method and the rigorous testing scientific ideas are put through ensures that only sound ideas come out the other end as scientifically valid. All the others are discarded as nonsense or failures.

Pseudoscience exists because some people lack the ability to discard disproven or untestable ideas. From homeopathy to astrology, science discards claims, yet people insist on continuing to believe these claims. People who hold onto these ideas and continue to believe them lack critical thinking skills.

Pseudoscience is a strong example of the dangers of not applying critical thinking skills to real life. Many people lose the battle with treatable cancer because they believe nonsense claims by alternative medicine practitioners who have a "cure" that has never been tested, or if it has, failed.

The Burzynski Clinic in Texas offers such a service, despite FDA warning that its treatments are not only unproven, but its advertising and claims are deemed to be unlawful. It has been sued for misleading patients, insurance fraud and not being up to state medical standards. Yet it remains open for business, offering a cure that is too good to be true, while people who are not using critical thinking skills continue to throw all their money at this fraud, no matter the results.

How many TV evangelists have we seen in our lifetime who can heal those who cannot walk or see, or help someone overcome addiction, by placing their hands on someone’s head, yelling prayers or speaking in incoherent tongues? Then boom, the people are healed, up walking and dancing, while the audience goes crazy and throws money at the pastor and church to continue this miraculous healing.

This is all a fraud: everyone involved is in on the secret. Faith healers know that people want to believe in miracles; they want to believe so badly they will suspend reality to do so. We are eager to believe in things outside the laws of nature, like the paranormal, even though we know that no evidence ever supports such claims.

It may be crazy, but think about it. How many people do you know who do not believe in God, yet seem to think ghosts are possible Maybe even you. But think about it: you don’t believe in a soul or an afterlife, yet you believe we somehow stay alive after death, or some or our energy sticks around. Even skeptical thinkers can fall victim to thoughts like this. We seemed to be evolutionarily primed for it.

Dan Arel is the author of Parenting Without God and blogs at Danthropology. Follow him on Twitter @danarel.

Darren Wilson’s Former Police Force Was Disbanded for Excessive Force and Corruption
The Washington Post gives additional insight into the background of the officer who killed Michael Brown.
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Police advance through a cloud of tear gas toward demonstrators protesting the killing of teenager Michael Brown, in Ferguson, Missouri, on August 17, 2014
Photo Credit: AFP

August 24, 2014 |




While news outlets and commentators have attempted analyze every action of Michael Brown, the unarmed black teen shot to death six times in Ferguson, Missouri two weeks ago, we seem to know very little about his shooter, Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson. Wilson, who just months ago won a commendation in a Town Council ceremony, now remains under the police’s protection and hasn’t spoken about the incident.

But as the public continues to search for answers, the Washington Post has published a report on Wilson’s career, including a brief biography, that offers some insight into Wilson’s past.

According to officials interviewed by the Post, Wilson maintained a clean record, but the Post reports that his first job “was not an ideal place to learn how to police.” He entered the police force in 2009, joining a nearly all-white, 45-member task force that patrolled Jennings, Missouri, a small, impoverished city of 14,000 where the residents were 89 percent African-American. The racial tension was high, and the police were accused of using excessive force against its residents:

Racial tension was endemic in Jennings, said Rodney Epps, an African American city council member.

“You’re dealing with white cops, and they don’t know how to address black people,” Epps said. “The straw that broke the camel’s back, an officer shot at a female. She was stopped for a traffic violation. She had a child in the back [of the] car and was probably worried about getting locked up. And this officer chased her down Highway 70, past city limits, and took a shot at her. Just ridiculous.”

Police faced a series of lawsuits for using unnecessary force, Stichnote said. One black resident, Cassandra Fuller, sued the department claiming a white Jennings police officer beat her in June 2009 on her own porch after she made a joke. A car had smashed into her van, which was parked in front of her home, and she called police. The responding officer asked her to move the van. “It don’t run. You can take it home with you if you want,” she answered. She said the officer became enraged, threw her off the porch, knocked her to the ground and kicked her in the stomach.

The department paid Fuller a confidential sum to settle the case, she said.

The department also endured a corruption scandal. In 2011, city council members voted 6-1 to shut down the force and start over, bringing in a new set of officers. Everyone was let go, including Wilson, but he soon found a job at the Ferguson police department, where he has been since.

Lt. Jeff Fuesting, who took over command of the Jennings force, assessed the problems of the former task force like this:

“There was a disconnect between the community and the police department. There were just too many instances of police tactics which put the credibility of the police department in jeopardy. Complaints against officers. There was a communication breakdown between the police and the community. There were allegations involving use of force that raised questions.”

Prachi Gupta is an Assistant News Editor for Salon, focusing on pop culture. Follow her on Twitter at @prachigu or email her at pgupta@salon.com.

“Worrying about scarcity is our culture’s version of post-traumatic stress. It happens when you’ve been through too much, and rather than coming together to heal (which requires vulnerability), we’re angry and scared and at each other’s throats.”

-Brene Brown

I don't know about pretty girls being boring, but I do remember once-

When I became of age, my mother called me to her side
She said, "Son you're growing up now
Pretty soon you'll take a bride"
And then she said

"Just because you've become a young man now
There's still some things that you don't understand now
Before you ask some girl for her hand now
Keep your freedom for as long as you can now"

My mama told me, you better shop around
Oh yeah, you better shop around

Oh, there's some things that I want you to know now
Just as sure as the wind's gonna blow now
The women come and the women are gonna go now
Before you tell 'em that you love 'em so now

My mama told me, you better shop around
Oh yeah, you better shop around

Don't try to get yourself a bargain, son
Don't be sold on the very first one
Pretty girls come a dime a dozen
I try to find you one who's gonna give you true loving

Before you take a girl and say, "I do" now
Make sure that her love is true now

My mama told me, you better shop around

Oh hey, hey
Try to get yourself a bargain, son
Don't be sold on the very first one
Pretty girls come a dime a dozen
I try to find you one who's gonna give you true loving

Before you take a girl and say, "I do" now
Make sure she's in love with you now
Make sure that her love is true now
I hate to see you feeling sad and blue now

My mama told me, you better shop around
Oh yeah you better shop around

Oh don't let the first one get you
Oh no 'cause I don't wanna see her with you
Oh before you let 'em hold you tight
Oh make sure she's alright
Oh before you let 'em take your hand my son
Understand my son, be a man my son
I know you can my son, I love you



Read more: Smokey Robinson - Shop Around Lyrics | MetroLyrics

1Kings 12:16

I am 5'7" and have dated many taller women

Was it not Solomon's taxes which caused the split into two nations?

Was it not Solomon's taxes which caused the split into two nations?