Fat is a type of crazy

One reason it's not as bad as it might be is that borrowing funds is so cheap it's not such a big deal for Government's to borrow - easy to pay back .. until interest rates go up. 

Australia had a full on lock down but now is mostly back to normal with stock market high because government kept economy turning with lots of welfare.. iron doing well helps too.

As people say the government money in Thailand doesn't seem to be going a lot to the poor and average though.. the payments are fairly small so it must be seriously tough

I suppose one response could be, that the point is, who cares how I or others feel about there being so much pain required in the rolling out of god's plan. I am putting too much importance in the human experience and we are like ants compared to the bigger picture.

However a believer in the god's plan theory is in my opinion the one putting too much importance on the individual.

To say that an ant was killed for the bigger picture of a hospital, or World War 2 lead to rethinking of the world by humanity, is to give each death an importance in the fulfillment of god's plan. 

In my theory people aren't important in that sense - they are important because in the real world each of us wants to be treated fairly and to live with freedom, and politically and socially it might work best as a community to see that this happens. Suggesting that all that pain is in a sense progress towards god's plan is to justify and give credence to such events and to complicate how humans might do better in the for the future.  

Individuals, for example,  who cause pain and horror should be responsible, full stop, so we can live in reality and have a better future. This is more sensible in my opinion than the  belief that we are disposable but important cogs in a wheel of god's progress and that in a sense all events are god's doing and are perfect.  

8 hours ago, chickenslegs said:

When he's banned we usually hear from his French pal.

It's even odds that he's run off with the hat lady.

I think the powers that be had at some point looked to close a certain loophole such that banned means banned. I don't think Owl's  special close friend  Voulez Vouz has been seen for a while but I could be wrong.

7 hours ago, Sunmaster said:

The way I see it, it's a simple logical deduction. 

 

And yes, I think Hitler, the eruption of a volcano or a pandemic are all part of this perfection. The attributes of "good" and "bad/evil" are human and are irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. They simply happen, just like an ant colony is destroyed to make space for a children's hospital, which gets destroyed during a war, and this war was the trigger for great technological advancement, which created a terrible weapon killing millions of people, which in turn was the necessary step for global peace... 
So, which event was bad? Which one was good? Were the bad ones necessary for the good ones to arise? Could they have arisen without them? 

Could a global consciousness for the protection of the environment arise without first being threatened by the destruction of said environment? I doubt it.

This post has been said before but here I go.

I appreciate that bad things, or bad things for humans, can and have lead to good things for humans or the world. To believe that such happenings are part of god's plan, that we cannot understand, can help people feel better about the world and its future. It can also help people move on and get on with the job of making the world a better place without being too down struck by the effect of the world events. 

But, rather than lead to a love of god and humanity,  it can lead to a nihilistic callous view of world events such that what ever happens, it is shocking but for a moment, but then deemed perfect -  what is meant to be, will be, and everything is just a means to an ends. I am not suggesting this is your feeling but that's where it leads in my opinion.

A child who died in a pandemic and died a long slow death is a cog in the wheel of perfect universal progress. It's hard to take and it doesn't make a lot of sense and is at odds with the notion of a free will. It is justifying the unjustifiable. Saying god knows best is a cop out in my opinion. 

1 hour ago, Odysseus123 said:

Going okay..

I hope that I will get a photo of the 'Grandis Ode' tomorrow-tho' the weather has been rather cold and rainy..still, hopefully the vertically enhanced gum tree will stay on it's best behaviour for the occasion..

 

How are things going over there?

We are back in lockdown here so it's a bit strange. Cold here too. I love working from home though. Nice to go to Thailand .. maybe 2022 now

2 hours ago, Sunmaster said:

Like I said, the world appears grim if we only focus on those things that don't yet work as they should. The good thing is that we have a choice on what we want to focus on. 
Change doesn't happen overnight, especially on a global scale. 

If we extend the argument to include the "God Factor", then it gets even more interesting. If you accept that God is another word for Absolute Perfection, then it follows that everything God creates is perfect as it is, even though we are sometimes unable to see it. God then must be perfection all the time, for everything....otherwise he wouldn't deserve the title of God, right? Ok, if God is All There Is, at any given moment = then everything there is, is always perfect. It's not logical to say "God created a perfect world, but then made a mistake and put humans on it. Once they die out, the world will be perfect again."

But no problem if you don't agree. ???? 

Is it interesting to see an opinion but it cannot be argued as it is a statement of faith.

It is saying I have faith that god exists and is perfection and therefore everything he does and creates is perfect no matter whether it's Hitler, a volcano or a pandemic.

You can debate what Yodsak or Thai Beach Lovers say but not this. You can't debate faith.

I am back in lockdown in Australia. I always hope meetings are by phone and not video so you can be dressed any how and do the dishes or sit in the sun or whatever as people talk. No less productive. Kids may be different. 

17 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Almost every woman I became close to used me and dumped me when they no longer had use for me.

I think learning not to trust women means that I did acquire wisdom- the wisdom to see females for what they are and not what I'd like them to be.

 

NB, I'm not saying every woman is untrustworthy, but seems that most I had affection for were.

`If you had no use for your women would you keep her - if she was ugly, didn't do house work, didn't make you smile  - probably not . We sometimes become less desirable and if we haven't got something to compensate for that we have  to cop it. 

When I was 20 I was loved by many girls and by 30 not so much. Cop it. 

24 minutes ago, RobMuir said:

That is true, I would always qualify them by firstly asking what they did for a living. Then slag off the dirty hookers and tell them how disgusting it was, just to be sure.

At all the full moon parties I probably did more tourists to be honest. I found the English lasses the easiest, followed by the kiwis.

 

 

 

So you approach a girl and ask her what she does and if the girl tells you she is a prostitute you 'slag the dirty hookers off and tell them how disgusting it was'.  You're behaviour is appalling. Stop trying to bring others down who found happiness and take a look at yourself. 

13 hours ago, Frankie072 said:

Yes, I've been knocked down by pussy power. Weak I know but fun. very nice smooth pussy too.

 

Pre-nups don't really work in aussie land - all they do is make the settlement easier because it's know what you started with. been thru the divorce thing with ex-wife and i know the system well, lucky there were no kids. there are other things to do to protect your assets from a money grabber,

My pre nup saved my bacon. I had a fun but difficult marriage to a girl 18 years my junior.  If not for my pre nup completed in Australia  I may not have come out of it reasonably bitterness free. Not sure how hard it would've been otherwise but it did get a bit ugly at times.  We are good friends now and talk each day. So please always get a pre nup. 

7 hours ago, covidiot said:

never heard of them.

be sure to check out The Pogues.

If I should fall from grace with god ...

 

Pogues are cool. You might know the Devo song 'Whip it' where there wore the red energy domes. But they had a long career. Their lead singer Mark Mothersbaugh has done many many movie soundtracks including most movies for Wes Anderson if that adds a bit of credibility.

Their concept of deevolution is slightly toungue in cheek and slightly serious but they had a lot to say about society and people in general. One of their songs, around the time of Whip It, is Freedom of Choice which asks whether we really have too much choice now and we want freedom from choice. Has religious implications too. The best stuff is the early albums though - you could argue they were one of the first punk bands based on the early guitar stuff. At the same time they had some similarities with Kraftwerk with their use of technology and their outlook and appearance. 

3 hours ago, mauGR1 said:

 

I appreciate your reasoning,  i can't really find any flaw in that.

Yet, i think you have a rather low opinion of what is regarded as "feelings ".

In fact, the whole range of feelings is very important in shaping and directing our thoughts and lives, at least as important as physical matter, if not even more.

If i and you are looking at the same red flower, we are getting totally different feelings, that's the evidence of the existence of a soul, which surely one cannot see with the physical eyes, yet exists, and it's not less real than the physical body.

I think when we think of having a lightness and freedom of the  soul we have a similar concept. The opposite of feeling weighed down..by life, guilt, etc. Why can't that feeling be part of the human body rather than some etheric religious concept. Maybe when we feel bad, or feel we've done the wrong thing,  we tighten ourselves up, and when we feel good, happy, in love, and that we've been morally good, we don't. The first feeling is a soulless feeling and the latter feeling is a soulful feeling.  

The religious can take that concept  to scare an intimidate. Creating a heaven and hell where you will keep or lose your soul.   

Humans are subject to suggestion like Pavlov's dog. If someone tells us we'll lose our soul if we are bad we have the same tightening up. But the notion or feeling of  soul could be purely human and physical. The way you react to a rose could be subject to different factors but could be about how you feel about yourself - how tightened up you are.

21 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

I agree, but I was commenting on your claim that science is my "friend". IMO it's used far more for evil than good.

It's no friend of mine.

Science has surely added to your life more than it's taken away.  

Without science we would just hope for the best. Volcano or plague happens. Have no idea why..don't care..it's god's will.   

Same with proving god..you can say god does exist and that's that, or you can say I feel it exists, and hope one day I can prove it, but in the meantime I'll live a certain way and associate with certain  people as I feel good doing so ..proof or not. 

2 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Huh? Science has developed all the weapons used to kill each other. Is mustard gas "on my side"?

Science isn't a person. It's a method of finding truth. What people do with that truth can be bad. 

1 hour ago, mauGR1 said:

But, would you concede that what you see as random could be instead very well reasoned ?

Otherwise you should assume that humans are the highest form of consciousness in the universe, which is highly unlikely. 

Thing is, we can see and study just a little part of the visible universe, just imagine what is invisible for us at the moment.

Moreover,  I've noticed that "science" has become a dogma in too many people's heads, doesn't that go against the very notion of science?

Science to me is every possibility considered but just provable concepts accepted. I think it is scientific to accept that we know only a bit about what is going on out there e.g. dark matter,  and are statistically not likely to be the highest form of consciousness in the universe, and that based on what we know there could be a god but no proof at this time. 

Science by definition is your friend and is on your side. You could say  I feel strongly there is a god due to my personal experiences but I accept that that feeling is not sufficient to say there is proof of god. I am not belittling believers by saying it is a feeling but am just looking for a word that equates to human experience. Is there a human thought process or mind process  that is more than a feeling and can be deemed objective proof. Not as far as I am concerned. 

1 hour ago, covidiot said:

For one thing, dogs don't contemplate the existence of God. At least I don't think they do. 

 

I am sometimes surprised by dogs - their level of awareness, there ability to understand what is wanted, they dream, they work stuff out. In the process of doing what they do they must think and in a sense question what's going on - why something is happening - if they rationalise then they probably do explain things to themselves as being due to this and that..it's not a big step for them to wonder if say, if  their dog or human  friend dies, or if something is hard to understand like a TV screen, that they might have some concept of a bigger thing making it happen. A  dog's thought process may be different but they may have some conceptual mind process  to deal with the unexplained ... a dog  god. Is it smarter to put things down to god than just dealing with them as they happen as best you can. 

4 hours ago, covidiot said:

http://web.mnstate.edu/gracyk/courses/web publishing/aquinasfiveways_argumentanalysis.htm

St. Thomas Aquinas:  The Existence of God can be proved in five ways.

Argument Analysis of the Five Ways     The Fifth Way: Argument from Design We see that natural bodies work toward some goal, and do not do so by chance. Most natural things lack knowledge.   But as an arrow reaches its target because it is directed by an archer, what lacks intelligence achieves goals by being directed by something intelligence. Therefore some intelligent being exists by whom all natural things are directed to their end; and this being we call God.

One of my favourite bands is Devo. They were horrified by what they saw in America, including the Kent State University killings in the 70's, and came up with the concept of Devolution i.e. that most things in nature don't get 'better' or 'smarter' but just fall apart and devolve. People thought the theory might be true with recent Presidents and such. Movies like Idiocracy look at similar ideas. 

But, as has been said here more than once, the way to think of evolution isn't that things are becoming smarter or more evolved as some necessary path,  that could be being   lead by an intelligent god.

It's just that DNA throws out mutations and every now and then a mutation is born that has a characteristic that either helps or hinders its survival. One baby is less smart or has worse eyesight or whatever and is less likely to reproduce. The smarter one survives. 

In terms of intelligence and thoughts I don't see those evolutionary concepts as unique to say eyesight or coordination. You get dumb dogs and smart dogs and it's the same for humans. I don't think the fact that we can communicate and think more effectively distinguishes us that much from apes or dogs or suggests we are on a special path lead by a god.

To reply to a few post in one:

You are correct that statistically there are likely to be life forms more advanced than us. But  the probability that such a life form is a type of god that created and or control humans is not likely. I assume by power you mean living thing.

I hope you get better Sunmaster. If your parents are still alive you must be still pretty youngish.

In defence of Yodsak I like the way his posts cut to the chase and get to the interesting part of what is behind a religion or belief.

I had a Taoist girlfriend and it was a fairly normal religion except they had some unusual ceremonies and were strict on what she could eat - not even garlic or onions. I have had a few seriously religious girlfriends including my current one. Not sure why that is. Maybe I am a bit serious too.

People who have to wear masks all day in their job. That would suck. 

Many professional low paid Thai workers. If on holiday in the before times I would stay at a nice hotel and there would be this beautiful professional receptionist. Because it's a nice hotel you assume she is on a good pay but often they would actually have really low  pay. 

3 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Interesting that you bring those up and ignore the far worse crimes of hatred, greed and warmaking. Does a good man keep billions in the bank, while children starve for want of a $ for food? Not for nothing did the Christ teach that it is difficult for a rich man to enter heaven.

There is nothing inherently evil about paying for sex, gambling, or using drugs. It is what people do with such that can be wrong eg stealing to buy drugs, sexual slavery or impoverishing a family to gamble.

I wasn't looking at them as being  criminal  but being things that can possibly hurt us. 

He put the picture in a discussion of god which I thought was cheeky so I thought I could point out the obvious being that that religion has something to say about certain vices - and some will benefit by what they say. 

Religious figures might argue that for girls of the night, drugs, and gambling the pleasure will be fleeting and can lead to confusion and to a bad path. For some I think it's true. 

That doesn't mean these things are necessarily inherently bad or that some people can't partake with no ill effect. We all know people who can partake in some of these activities and seem unchanged. We also know people  though who can be affected adversely if they partake in these in an indulgent manner. Some will be affected, maybe for ever,  even after a little bit due to their personality.

Know thyself. Religion and spirituality can make us more aware of ourselves - strengths and weaknesses - and can help us move forward and can point out potential traps along the way.

Drugs and gambling are more clear cut. The issue of ladies of the night is an interesting one and I suppose it's up to each person to decide what is best. 

17 hours ago, Surelynot said:

Shopping can be fun....

You make some flippant comments on this topic but I think the issue of 'sin' is pertinent.

You could define religion as dealing with the unknowables of the time. As others pointed out scientists and others have struggled to explain physics and chemistry and medicine over the centuries. Religions took a position that has been found to be incorrect. 

Living with volcanoes and disease etc would have been hard to take and religion brought comfort. It was also  a way to scare the masses into paying up and being obedient.

So what's left. Morality is one thing. Paying girls for services, gambling and drugs are all things that can bring a good man down. It could simply be that they are too intoxicating and humans lose control.  There is something unknowable still about human emotions of love, lust, the desire to please etc - psychiatry is still limited. 

 Why do some people avoid paying for services with girls  like this. Pride. Lack of courage. Or a sense that they will lose something - part of their heart and soul. You could argue that even if men do not walk into a bar and pay they usually pay in any case. 

Religion may have failed when it comes to the formal sciences but still may have a role in dealing with the remaining unknowables - telling us that we are not as strong as we like to think we are and that we should consider that in relation to certain vices. Calling such indulgences 'sin' in gods eyes, is a cop out in my opinion, but the fact that humans need to think twice before indulging in vices, and need help along the way, is a good message. You don't need religion or spirituality to come to this conclusion but it can help some have a better life. 

The result can be that many christians and the spiritual do lead good lives, help charities, are part of the community, and such. Other's don't. There could be something good in the message though. 

The Shaggs Philosophy of the World

Oh, the rich people want what the poor people's got
And the poor people want what the rich people's got
And the skinny people want what the fat people's got
And the fat people want what the skinny people's got

You can never please anybody in this world

The short people want what the tall people's got
And the tall people want what the short people's got
The little kids want what the big kid's got
And the big kids want what the little kid's got

You can never please anybody in this world

Oh, the girls with short hair want long hair
And the girls with long hair want short hair
Oh, the boys with cars want motorcycles
And the boys with motorcycles want cars

You can never please anybody in this world

It doesn't matter what you do
It doesn't matter what you say
There will always be
One who wants things the opposite way
It doesn't matter where you go
It doesn't matter who you see
There will always be
Someone who disagrees
We do our best
We try to please
But we're like the rest
We are never at ease

Oh, the rich people want what the poor people's got
And the poor people want what the rich people's got
And the skinny people want what the fat people's got
And the fat people want what the skinny people's got

You can never please anybody in this world