Has Intelligent Thought Become A Lost Art at ATS ?

I am learning though. To find your true, real self, you have to be original.

reply to post by Deetermined

That depends on what you mean by "witnessed" because many truths have been uncovered through dreams of which there was no "eye account witness"

It is impossible to dream something which does not exist within the zeitgeist of your life. This includes colors, figures, speeches, objects, and so on. While we may think we "uncover" some truth in a dream, the reality of it is, that same "truth" exists in some form within the world already.

Regardless of the number of women at the tomb, there were plenty of witnesses to the death of Jesus and over 500 witnesses to seeing him after his death.

Approach this from the eyes of a court.

Witness one takes the stand and tells the judge that three people participated in the heist.
Witness two takes the stand and tells the judge that only one person participated in the heist.

Do you honestly think that the judge is just going to say: "oh, well, how many people performed it is not important, as long as we know that a crime was committed" in this situation? Of course not. Knowing the facts is of the utmost importance.

So, if witness 1 says 2 people were present when the miracle happened; and witness 2 says only 1 person was present; then a judge could not say that there is no doubt of the miracle occurring. Saying there are [X] amount of people does not make something more valid, if every account does not corroborate the exact same number.

~ Wandering Scribe

Truth to tell, my friend, the quality of the rhetoric rises and falls directly with the age and situation of the OP.
I dont know how many threads ive wandered away from shaking my head......then again, these same posters will come up with stuff that does grab you at times......Its really a matter of the average age of the posters present on site at any one time.....not really but.....
Come back on the summer holidays and see the inanity then, or check out the sloppy sentimental Christmas (easter, end of the world etc)threads....the same tired sentiments repeated endlessly by new posters whio think their angle is so origonal they just have to post......
Theres a reason theres a mighty engine here...its called the search engine, and few if any really use it well.....
If they did, wed have a lot fewer OPs and a helluva lot longer threads from way back......
Remember, people come and go, but the conversations keep right on going........threads are lost and restarted all the time....check it out in search and youll see we were discussing a whole lot of the same stuff years ago...and still are getting "new" threads about....
There are threads about video gaming, stupid movies and all kinds of inanity......nobody over 40 is interested in that stuff usually.....but they get flagged and starred too....SOMEBODY enjoys them....
As a rule it seems theres a lot of duplication over time.
Did i wander there?.....solly bout dat

It's only a reflection of the world really. The bigger ATS becomes, the more people that don't have an interest in really thinking will show up. A majority of people are so boring, they only regurgitate what they see on the idiotbox, or what they hear on the radio. Not many people know how to hold a real conversation anymore. Talking about reality television, and sports is boring as hell to me, I have no interest in crap like that. Probably why I enjoy coming here, there are some people here that make me think almost every time they post, even if I may not agree with their point of view or whatnot.

I'm afraid I am a disappointment to you posters looking for intelligent conversation. I've tried, really I have. just like all of you, I've started what I thought were substantive threads. Perhaps not surprisingly, my threads which were big hits were the ones discussing gremlins stealing ladies' underwear in Africa, and a new fabric designed to trap the odor of farts and perspiration.

We live in a strange world.

So I've started another thread which I expect will be popular, it concerns bacon brownies. You may witness my humiliation here: www.abovetopsecret.com...

Any suggestions you may have (not to the brownie thread, but intelligent conversation) would be appreciated.

With respect,
Charles1952

reply to post by Stormdancer777


Well, let's be honest here. Fire is the primary reason we, as a species, exist.

Our discovery of fire allowed us to protect ourselves from our predators, helped us cook the game we hunted, and with said game befriend wolves which became our companions against new threats. In addition, our use of fire allowed us to cook meet, discover new proteins and nutrients which contributed to our enlarged brains and basically made us the most intellectually advanced species on the Earth. Fire is also the way in which we kept warm, navigated caves which we lived in, and were able to kick start any type of industry (such as smelting and metallurgy). Fire is everything to us as a species.

As for weapons, communication, and travel... that is just because of the profit we can make off of these things. If money were without value, we'd have less technological advancements because no one would care about competition, or advancing the way we do things. The drive to provide the best, which in turn allows us, as consumers and employers, to live the best, is the most human thing anyone can point to about us. No other species strives so hard for comfort, safety, familiarity, and continuous advancement the way we do.

It's a good thing we're concerned with those avenues of life; they are the roads by which will blaze a future which touches unimaginable heights.

~ Scribe

reply to post by winterkill


my thought is that we learned to speak from others and we learn from others. free thought is fee as long as it is true to us. it does not need to be completely original, but rather completely sincere.

reply to post by winterkill


ONLY If YOu BELIEVE What Your Told Here ............Ignore Ramisses.....

Thank you for actual intelligent responses (most at least) It was actually interesting to read a thread that did not make me feel like a little bit of my life fled away with nothing to show for it.

reply to post by Wandering Scribe

It is impossible to dream something which does not exist within the zeitgeist of your life. This includes colors, figures, speeches, objects, and so on. While we may think we "uncover" some truth in a dream, the reality of it is, that same "truth" exists in some form within the world already.

Then explain to me how this fits in with precognitive dreams.

reply to post by Deetermined


Point to one instance of a precognitive dream where the dreamer dreamed an event which had not occurred anywhere else in the world during their lifetime. It will be impossible to do. I'll even show you an example, as I know someone who get's frequent precognitive dreams.

One of her more recent precognitive dreams was of a school shooting. About two weeks later, at Northern Illinois University, the college she attended, a gunman shot and killed five people. This same situation, a school shooting, had occurred nine years prior at Columbine High School.

Her dream, while precognitive, was not original.

~ Wandering Scribe

reply to post by Wandering Scribe


Interesting stuff. I've had precognitive dreams. One was of my daughter being assaulted. She was 3000 miles away visiting her father. I called her and told her my dream. 2 days later she called me hysterically out of control. She was alone in house, parents at work, and a man was trying to break in through the sliding glass door where she had been working out to music.

Long story short, 4 way conference call with her and 2 police stations, dogs and sirens, the whole sheebang. But, she was safe and unharmed. Scared man runs away.

Now, I don't think that I saw the future, but felt the festering intent of this perve, as it was occurring.

I think a lot of what we invent comes from a collective pool of thought available to us all at any given time.

reply to post by windword


Exactly. The idea of a man breaking in to a girl alone in her house to harm her... that's not original at all. It can be found all over the place on TV, during movies, in books, and across the news nearly every week. It doesn't negate the experience, or somehow make it acceptable, not in the slightest. But the dream was not an original, unheard of, unseen thought. As you said, it was part of the zeitgeist of our current culture. As I've said since the beginning: there's not an original thought left.

~ Wandering Scribe

reply to post by Wandering Scribe


So said Plato and so it is written in Ecclesiastes.

What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.

reply to post by Wandering Scribe

Adam and Eve suffered many punishments, but they did carry a reminder of their stay, they were colored bright green. After they left the Garden, they and their offspring enjoyed "physical intimacy" immensely. In the course of time, because this was so pleasurable, some of their offspring combined into four legged creatures, merging the male and female. They went off by themselves to make a different life on their own. They produced many children and frolicked in the woods. Unfortunately, they were still bright green. That is not a survival trait in the land of tree trunks. They found themselves the target of many predators. In order to survive, evolution kicked in again and they developed vertical stripes.

That's how we got Zebras.

reply to post by charles1952


Been there. Done that!





Just kidding! I couldn't resist.

reply to post by windword

Dear windword,

Thanks a lot for the laugh. Welcome to my mind. Just another twisted ATSer.

With respect,
Charles1952

Not just ATS. Everywhere. Free thought is being snuffed out slowly and surely. Those with genuine information to share about a topic feel discouraged to post when they realize the crowd they are attempting to convey information to. At times it feels like a lost cause but that is their plan, so I try not to think this way. Just continue to be you and provide genuine information and intellect and be apart of the population that refuses to be another drone.

Originally posted by Wandering Scribe
reply to post by Deetermined

 

I'm still reading through the 17 pages of the thread you linked. However, 5 pages in, and so far this is all I have seen concerning that thread's sixth question concerning how many women were at the tomb on Sunday:

- "depends on the gospel" (page 2)
- "I really hope the rest of the questions are more intelligent" (page 3)
- "depends on your favorite account" (page 3)
- "who cares?" (page 5)

And other cop-out answers like that. The reason such a "trivial" question is important being: if the gospels, and God himself, cannot correctly count their witnesses, why should their accounts of other things be trusted? If you can directly link to a post which clarifies how 1, 2, 3, and more than three women could have all been to the tomb; or one where it is explained how Judas both hung himself, and simultaneously fell to the ground gutted I'd be much obliged.

~ Wandering Scribe

Emphasis added.

Great job misrepresenting my answers. It may be true that I did not entirely directly address that question specifically, as I had been hoping to move on to more intelligent questions. However, since most of the questions that followed were based on the same dumb premise of irrelevant biblical inconsistencies, I did address the issue of biblical inconsistencies at length maybe you just skipped that part. Feel free to go back and check out my answer. I did address this issue in multiple posts, I believe.

Now, as to the OP:

I agree that "parrots" are everywhere around here (he says, somewhat ironically )

I think there are all kinds of reasons for this. Honestly I think some people post opinions they think will be well-liked or popular just to get stars or something dumb like that.

I also find people like to mock others, or find issues to fight over, or become angry about... and these are some of the conversations with the most repetitive and sickening "parroting." I think some of this comes out of a desire to feel superior, or for others to see them as good and morally upstanding people. The recent thread about the woman who made the dumb facebook post I think is a decent example of some of this.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

As I pointed out in my post above, the thread regarding the 20 questions for christians is another great example. Christian-bashing atheists can be some of the most repetitive sheep I've ever seen. You can tell most of them have stolen all of their poorly thought-out objections from the work of others. Rarely do I see good and original-sounding questions. That, I think, is how you can tell the difference between someone who genuinely wants to learn or debate intelligently, and someone who is just out to mock and belittle those who they feel are inferior to themselves because of their beliefs, or otherwise "get off" on showing how "superior" and "intelligent" they are

Intellectual prejudice is rampant. These were just some easy examples...