Religiously unaffiliated subjects had significantly more lifetime suicide attempts and more first-degree relatives who committed suicide than subjects who endorsed a religious affiliation. Unaffiliated subjects were younger, less often married, less often had children, and had less contact with family members. Furthermore, subjects with no religious affiliation perceived fewer reasons for living, particularly fewer moral objections to suicide. In terms of clinical characteristics, religiously unaffiliated subjects had more lifetime impulsivity, aggression, and past substance use disorder. - Religious Affiliation and Suicide Attempt, American Journal of Psychiatry, December, 2004
Atheists claim to have all the answers, but I have all the questions. If they are so smart, why are 20% of Nobel Prize Laureates of the Jewish faith when its adherents constitute only .2% of the world population; 65% of Laureates are Christians; only about 10% are atheists and theirs are disproportionately in literature, not any science? Why are they so depressed? Why are they so bitter? Why do they marry so much less frequently than people of faith when marriage has scientifically been associated with better mental and physical health compared to remaining single? Why do they have so few children when the Darwinian Imperative is to maximize offspring? Why don’t they know that high I.Q. is not wisdom (take the Unabomber, please)?
Good things come from ennobling thoughts, from positive and uplifting thinking, from expecting wonderful results which spread across time and the world like waves on the ocean.
Knowledge has at least two and possibly three components to its successful implementation.
1. Knowing all of the salient facts
2. Understanding and interpreting them properly and sometimes,
3. Utilizing them. Knowing exactly what to do is useless if you fail to utilize them correctly.
I was seconds from death in a Cessna 152 departing Santa Monica Airport when fatigue and nervousness interfered with my normal piloting skills in IMC (Instrument Meteorological Conditions) of an incoming ground layer (fog). Only my last-ditch desperate move saved me from the 96% of pilots who do not survive IMC. I’m in the 4% of survivors.
Bad things, EvIL things, come from a LIE, which is the opposite of Scientia, science, truth. Small LIES may produce less EvIL than big LIEs, but do not let them grow by feeding them.
I ask our Creator to give me work to do every day to help and encourage others, and while it seemed I did not have enough work, I felt almost unemployed relative to my desired potential, for example to save someone’s life, things put in motion seem like they are about to overwhelm me with responsibility and wonderful duty.
Encouraged by the Brilliant Message of the late Pastor D. James Kennedy of Florida, that worry is a sin, I am forging ahead with ideas that never before entered my mind.
Do something good every day that you have never done before, if you can. Then you can incorporate that good into your actions again and again in the future, and become more proficient in it, more comfortable with it, and let your light shine like the single candle of St. Francis of Assisi.
Compliment and encourage a stranger, every day. It costs nothing but accomplishes much, building bridges and fostering brotherhood the world needs now so desperately, as our “science” has far outpaced our humanity.
Does BLM build bridges, promote love and good and harmony? Does WOKE? Do the denial of *science*, viz., men can become women, and unborn babies with beating hearts can be murdered? Clearly the answer is that all these are destructive, EvIL LIEs that are tearing us apart as EvIL doubles down on itself. The more extreme the LIE, the more damaging its effects, even to the extent that too much of a good thing becomes a bad thing, even deadly. (Woman killed by drinking water.)
The truth is sometimes painful. Lies can be comforting.
Which do you want to hear?
Good can be perverted by lies into evil.
For example, faith healers, cultists (Jim Jones), charlatans, feminists
A common talking point is “We only believe in one less god than you do.”
We only believe in one less lie than you do.
The most prominent atheist leaders are generally hateful, bitter and angry. The most prominent religious leaders (the late Billy Graham, D. James Kennedy) are honest, loving and gentle.
Discernment
What is wrong with this page from August 1991 National Geographic?
https://imagetolink.com/ib/0nFlCAmsfNNational Geographic photo turned 180 degrees:
https://imagetolink.com/ib/tajZymLLkS If you didn't see the mistake, don't feel bad. Neither did 10,000,000 NG readers.
I have a letter acknowledging the mistake but they never published it.
Erroneous statements are usually good faith errors, and they are common. Bad faith rears its head when an antagonist accuses believers (“Bible thumpers”) of a “lie” when it is only a good faith error. This is not the case in what I call plausible lies. They often come from a source who is well educated and/or well known to the public.
Carl Sagan was both when he penned “If you want to save your child from polio, you can pray or you can inoculate.” - (Demon Haunted World, page 30)
Here Sagan offered a false choice, an “either or” fallacy, in order to ridicule people of faith. He was agnostic. While some extremists may avoid inoculations, the overwhelming majority get their children proper medical care and pray when and if they get ill, which nobody expects after an inoculation.
Popular and photogenic as he was, Carl Sagan no doubt had most heads wagging, to the left, in condescending agreement over their intellectual superiority to those ignorant Bible thumpers. Using a plausible lie was cynical, unprofessional, and unscientific. It is a very common practice by atheists/agnostics. Believers are not so preoccupied with feigning intellectual superiority and tend to focus on ideas. Quoting atheists as they present their ideas and beliefs is not an ad hominem fallacy. It is addressing the issues they have presented.
Leftists display their personal conviction of being smugly superior by:
1. Calling others “racist” and “homophobes” and “sexist” and “greedy/mean-spirited,” intimating that they themselves are none of these things and are therefore morally superior,
2. Proclaiming loudly and repeatedly “Black Lives Matter” of recent,
3. Embracing climate change extremism under the guise of scientific/intellectual superiority,
4. Embracing Darwinism under the guise of scientific/intellectual superiority,
5. Driving a Tesla, thus ‘saving the earth,’
6. Wearing a mask, thus ‘saving lives,’
7. Denouncing Nature’s God, Christianity, and embracing atheism under the guise of scientific/intellectual superiority.
Will Democrats begin awarding Hero of Amurika Medals to them, with Raspberry Clusters for repeat awards?
That’s like comparing apples and oranges. – Originated About 1889
Apples and Oranges -- A Comparison
by Scott A. Sandford, NASA Ames Research Center, Mountain View, California
We have all been present at discussions (or arguments) in which one of the combatants attempts to clarify or strengthen a point by comparing the subject at hand with another item or situation more familiar to the audience or opponent. More often than not, this stratagem instantly results in the protest that "you're comparing apples and oranges!" This is generally perceived as being a telling blow to the analogy, since it is generally understood that apples and oranges cannot be compared. However, after being the recipient of just such an accusation, it occurred to me that there are several problems with dismissing analogies with the comparing apples and oranges defense.
First, the statement that something is like comparing apples and oranges is a kind of analogy itself. That is, denigrating an analogy by accusing it of comparing apples and oranges is, in and of itself, comparing apples and oranges. More importantly, it is not difficult to demonstrate that apples and oranges can, in fact, be compared (see figure 1).
Figure 1. Granny Smith Apple and Sunkist Orange
Materials and Methods
Both samples were prepared by gently desiccating them in a convection oven at low temperature over the course of several days. The dried samples were then mixed with potassium bromide and ground in a small ball-bearing mill for two minutes. One hundred milligrams of each of the resulting powders were then pressed into a circular pellet having a diameter of 1 cm and a thickness of approximately 1 mm. Spectra were taken at a resolution of 1 cm-1 using a Nicolet 740 FTIR spectrometer. Figure 2 shows a comparison of the 4000-400 cm-1 (2.5-25 mm) infrared transmission spectra of a Granny Smith apple and a Sunkist Navel orange.
Figure. 2
https://imagetolink.com/ib/EgLlyIC8MIConclusions
Not only was this comparison easy to make, but it is apparent from the figure that apples and oranges are very similar. Thus, it would appear that the comparing apples and oranges defense should no longer be considered valid. This is a somewhat startling revelation. It can be anticipated to have a dramatic effect on the strategies used in arguments and discussions in the future.
NOTE: This article is included in the book The Best of Annals of Improbable Research
© Copyright 1995 Annals of Improbable Research (AIR)
________________________________________
Improbable Research is powered by WordPress and
Improbable Research (archive.org)
"Comparing apples and oranges: a randomised prospective study," by James Barone, which appeared in the British Medical Journal in 2000. Here are just a few characteristics:
APPLES ORANGES
GROWN ON FRUIT TREE Yes Yes
COLOR OF FRUIT Depends on variety orange
FRUIT SKIN TEXTURE smooth knobby
VISIBLE SEEDS IN FRUIT Yes Depends on variety
MEAN CIRCUMFERENCE OF FRUIT (cm) 25.6 24.4
MEAN DIAMETER OF FRUIT (cm) 7.9 7.6
MEAN WEIGHT OF FRUIT (g) 340 357
CAN BE EATEN Yes Yes
SWEETNESS 2+ 2+
FIBER IN A LARGE FRUIT (g) 4.5 2.4
CAN BE JUICED Yes Yes
CALORIES (per 8 oz. serving juice) 117 112
POTASSIUM (mg, per 8 oz. serving juice) 295 496
VITAMIN C (mg, per 8 oz. serving juice) 103 124
FOLATE (mcg, per 8 oz. serving juice) 0 74
[Smithsonianmag.com]
The pot calling the kettle black is a saying which means “to criticize someone for a fault you also possess.”
Thomas Shelton’s 1620 translation of Don Quixote contained the line, “You are like what is said that the frying-pan said to the kettle, ‘Avant, black-browes.’ ”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3fy0RYpU8QCreative people are extremely rare. There is no relationship between being smart and being wise. There is no quick pathway from smart to wise. Some people are intellectually impaired and are wise. It’s the arrogance that brings up the block. There isn’t a straight line between being intelligent and being wise. If the intellects would drop their moral superiority, then this divide between the elite and the working class would resolve. They can’t compete outside the intellectual realm and that makes them very bitter. It’s very annoying to people with an IQ of 160 that they can be completely useless but it happens a lot. - Jordan Peterson
