Evidence for God from Science

Don't know why you're wasting your time, Rick. DB is like Eddy and other uber-leftists. He's letting his emotions control him and isn't interested in having a rational discussion. Your exchange here is as good an illustration as any, and his use of "racist" is a further example of the shear stupidity he's bought into. Perhaps he can be rational on other matters, but he's literally incapable of seeing your point. And that's not to say he couldn't parrot your point. He can't see it. Too much cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias. If he were to see it, it would challenge him at a very deep level at which he's not comfortable being challenged (and to be clear, in that regard, he's no different from the rest of us). You'd do better arguing with an ostrich.

RickD wrote: Please try to understand my point. I'm not saying McMuffin is racist. I'm saying that the irony lies in the fact that he's a Mormon fighting for the equality of all races. And Mormonism is inherently racist against blacks.

You don't see that as at least a little bit ironic?

Not really... and here's why...

As a Mormon, McMullin is part of a religious minority in the United States. And as a member of a cultural minority in this country I think he is painfully aware of the social marginalization and mischaracterization that minorities in this country face on a regular basis.
I think this makes McMullin more empathetic and sensitive to the attacks that other minority cultures in this country have faced during this election cycle. And thus I believe he has a genuine desire to reach out to other cultural minorities in our country.

So I have a hunch that the principle that all men are created equal probably means more to a member of a cultural minority in this country like McMullin than it does to a white Protestant male like myself.
However, with the way our culture is headed, it probably won't be too long before Christians also become a cultural minority that is marginalized by our society (if we aren't already there).

So I have no problem supporting a truly Conservative movement that reaches out to all people and embraces the principle that all men and women are created equal.

Jac wrote:
Your exchange here is as good an illustration as any, and his use of "racist" is a further example of the shear stupidity he's bought into.

Isn't it sheer stupidity to use "shear" incorrectly?

DBowling wrote:


So I have no problem supporting a truly Conservative movement that reaches out to all people and embraces the principle that all men and women are created equal.

And I have no problem lmao at the irony of someone who believes in an inherently racist religion, embracing the equality of all men and women, including blacks, who his religion doesn't find equal with whites.

If McMuffin truly cared like you say he does, and it isn't just a political move, then he'd distance himself from a religion that is in stark contrast to what he says he believes.

RickD wrote:

Jac wrote:
Your exchange here is as good an illustration as any, and his use of "racist" is a further example of the shear stupidity he's bought into.

Isn't it sheer stupidity to use "shear" incorrectly?

Uhm, pun intended?

Anyone who has "alternative media" as their main sources for reporting issues, rather than "mainstream" will know Trump is no racist, misogynist, homophobic, and whatever other labels are thrown his way.

Removing Hillary from the picture, I went from laughing at Trump running for president, then he elaborated on some policies during speeches where he sounded quite logical, to no this is someone I'd vote for rather than just a case of voting for the lesser of two evils. You also felt like he really depended upon his team through his campaign and appreciated them, whether it was Carson when developing policies to help African-Americans, his daughter and her team of women in coming up with policies to support families, mothers and children, and many others.

Now the mainstream media, especially in other countries (which just regurgitates US mainstream). have just kept the same anti-Trump and pro-Clinton narratives throughout. People like to think themselves open and well-researched, but they're not, many are just sheep following their shepherd (MSM) to whatever next pastures (narratives) they're led to and fed. Some in my family believe Trump is just the worst, and Hillary was so good. Many are in disbelief that Trump somehow won against all odds, against the polls. You know who they were listening to, right?

The differences between people who think Trump is bad and those who think Trump is good, is that one side truly doesn't listen to the news networks on their television and gives little credence to articles by such, instead they prefer to go looking for their information online outside of controlled mainstream news. Perhaps such have regular YouTube channels, websites they see report on issues a lot sooner than the mainstream media who they then discover appear to always selective pick and play anti-Trump and pro-Hillary narratives.

When you see the mainstream media twisting stories here, and only feeding one side of the information to the masses, you come to see how evil and poor they are than even the extreme conspiracy sites you have to filter out. I'm just surprised at how many people in the US must have switched off to mainstream media and gone online, allowing them to see through all the anti-Trump banter, seen the lies, and voted Trump in.

What's interesting, is the popular vote results.

Trump got less votes than Romney did in 2012.

But the really interesting thing, is that Clinton got far less votes than Obama in 2012.

That could mean one of two things.

Either Clinton was really unpopular with democrats, or the media who was supposed to help Clinton, got so many people overconfident, that they didn't think they needed to vote.

Kurieuo wrote:Anyone who has "alternative media" as their main sources for reporting issues, rather than "mainstream" will know Trump is no racist, misogynist, homophobic, and whatever other labels are thrown his way.

Anyone who thinks Trump is racist and so forth is very literally brainwashed.

http://blog.dilbert.com/post/1521158889 ... he-monster
http://blog.dilbert.com/post/1455606127 ... obot-judge
http://blog.dilbert.com/post/1391192230 ... ify-people

And so on. Seriously, people who think Trump is a racist just are letting others do the thinking for them, where that thinking is in the political interest of the professional liars.

The guy I work with has a friend whose mother converted to Islam when she was younger. She is an American citizen.

This person asked my co-worker if he should be afraid that Trump will deport his mom.

Where do people come up with this crap?

Because they're lying to themselves and don't know it. They believe the stupidity that comes from the likes of CNN and MSNBC (and Fox, too). So Trump saying that in a time of war that we should not permit Muslims from coming here until we can vet them and ensure they are not part of an extremist Muslim terrorist group becomes "Trump wants a ban on Muslim immigration" which turns into "Trump wants to get rid of Muslims" which turns into "Trump is a racist who hates Muslims." That turns personal: "My so and so (friend, mom, husband, me, whatever) is Muslim, so Trump hates my so and so and wants to deport them!" Can't blame somebody for being afraid who believes that nonsense.

The real question is why they believe it in the first place, and that gets into what I've been talking about all year. It's confirmation bias. There is a narrative that was sold to people about the man--that he's a racist, sexist, etc. It was promoted by Fox and others during the primary. It was pushed even harder during the campaign. Once the narrative is out there, people start seeing things as evidence for it that aren't because they start interpreting every action in light of the narrative. They twist things to see it in that light. The media pushes the twisting, and the more you push and twist, the deeper the narrative gets embedded. That's what I was getting at above. These people are very literally brainwashed. They are incapable of seeing things the way they are because it conflicts with the way they've been told to see it.

And yes, it happens on both sides of the discussion. Trump supporters can get so focused on the media lies and the bias that they create their own confirmation bias. And that's highlighted by the confirmation bias in seeing Clinton as a criminal mastermind. Their arguments make the Trump haters more defensive, so they end up with the wrong view of Clinton and that only further reinforces the Trump narrative--it's a yin/yang kind of thing. Each illusion (better, delusion) needs each other to really survive.

Agree with most of what you say Jac, but it's not just far out Trump supporters who'd call Hillary corrupt. I was anti-Clinton for other reasons before supporting Trump, in fact, I first got drawn into examining Middle Eastern issues and Syria first, and then saw Trump saying stuff that no doubt he realised for himself. Her war crimes and what-not. She is corrupt. Leaked emails show it. Clinton Foundation shows it. Evidence is in plain sight to corroborate. The investigations and prosecutions that will happen in 2017 ought to cement it.

HOWEVER, it goes way beyond Hillary, and back to Bill, the Bushes, and no doubt further but I've not looked that far back. It's good the current established order has been turned upside-down, I just hope Trump doesn't get absorbed into it with all the buttering up people are now be doing e.g., Paul Ryan, what a joke. There are also many players in the Republican party who have a seat in the house who aren't supportive of Trump e.g., neocons.

Sure, but there's a difference in corrupt and criminal mastermind. "Corrupt" and "crooked" are fantastic words, politically speaking, because they take something that is true and actually not very harmful and let people load it up with ideas that scare them to death and let them persuade themselves. Of course she's corrupt. Most politicians are. I suspect she's not that much more corrupt than most. What she is, is better connected than most, and so her corruption goes further. But you take legitimate claims of corruption and then that primes you to believe the worst possible things in the area of corruption, and so people work themselves up.

They did the same thing with Trump on the other side. So because he made genuinely sexist remarks and because he made remarks that were genuinely divisive on the basis of nationality (which quickly reduces to race in people's minds), he is regarded as a racist and sexist. Once you are primed to see him that way, everything starts getting seen that way, and the echo chamber creates a feedback loop that gets louder and louder.

Again, both sides did it to the each other. Clinton is corrupt, but not nearly as corrupt as Trump supporters make her out to be. Nor did she need to be that corrupt to justify not vote for her. And Trump made some truly awful remarks about women and really is nationlistic if not nativist, but nothing like the racist and fascist Clinton supporters make him out to be. And here's the thing--you don't need a fascist Trump to justify voting against him. If you believe in open borders and that presidents ought to be of a certain moral character to lead, you're perfectly justified as far as that goes to not vote of him, either. The problem is that neither of those positions are very emotionally charged and so don't have a lot of "weight" with ourselves or with those we're trying to persuade. So we press the positions further until suddenly it matters so much that we have to fight against the great evil before us!!!

Meh. I'm not terribly impressed by any of that. Chicken Little isn't taken seriously for good reason.

I think Clintons are just part of the establishment, and the establishment is full of corruption and corrupt people and such has been normalised over time. Books were out long before the election about such, news reports here and there one can read and gather together.

On another note though, regarding Trump being a racist and such... here's a video I found quite touching. I'm sure it never made its way into mainstream. Didn't fit the anti-Trump narrative.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxaKUo5naoY

RickD wrote:

DBowling wrote:
So I have no problem supporting a truly Conservative movement that reaches out to all people and embraces the principle that all men and women are created equal.

If McMuffin truly cared like you say he does, and it isn't just a political move, then he'd distance himself from a religion that is in stark contrast to what he says he believes.

Another option could be that McMullin...
"...disavows the theories advanced in the past that black skin is a sign of divine disfavor or curse, or that it reflects unrighteous actions in a premortal life; that mixed-race marriages are a sin; or that blacks or people of any other race or ethnicity are inferior in any way to anyone else."
and maybe...
"... unequivocally condemns all racism, past and present, in any form."

I have seen no evidence that McMullin embraces any of the discredited and morally repugnant racist teachings that the Mormon religion has advocated in the past.
So I am not inclined to make racist presumptions about a person who has demonstrated no racist tendencies in any way shape or form.
And until some real evidence shows me otherwise, I have no reason to doubt that McMullin truly and genuinely believes the following.

Our basic rights are God-given. Every American is created equal and has the same right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The fundamental purpose of government is to secure, not define, these rights for every member of our diverse society.

I also have no reason to believe McMuffin is a racist.

But it's still ironic that he belongs to a religion that is built on racism.

And it's still freaking hilarious that a man championing the cause against racism, still belongs to a racist religion.

You can't make this stuff up!