GENIUS FORUMS

The next installment of the Reasoning Show is now on-line.

"Fundamentalism and Fear" - Dr Raman, Dan Rowden and Kevin Solway.

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Oh, Kevin. I must immediately react in a single act of passion to your comment regarding the ease with which nuclear weapons will become available to suicide bombers! Tell me, what are your thoughts (since any honest research on the subject is continually hijacked) on the karmic effects of the testing and use of depleted uranium in the Middle East by non-suicide bombers and your position regarding not allowing anything to stop rational people from crticising religion?

Leyla Shen wrote:Oh, Kevin. I must immediately react in a single act of passion to your comment regarding the ease with which nuclear weapons will become available to suicide bombers!

I must admit I almost choked when Kevin made that point. I think it's a little far fetched myself.

Leyla Shen wrote:Tell me, what are your thoughts (since any honest research on the subject is continually hijacked) on the karmic effects of the testing and use of depleted uranium in the Middle East by non-suicide bombers

Depleted urnanium rounds are completely safe. That hundreds or thousands of rounds lay in the sands of Kuwait, Iraq and who knows where else is not a problem for anyone other than smelly Greenpeace activists and maybe some soldiers with various syndromes...

Cite your source (or personal reasoning), please. I want to read it.

No need. I was being sarcastic. DU rounds are a barbaric armament if you ask me.

Leyla Shen wrote:Oh, Kevin. I must immediately react in a single act of passion to your comment regarding the ease with which nuclear weapons will become available to suicide bombers! Tell me, what are your thoughts (since any honest research on the subject is continually hijacked) on the karmic effects of the testing and use of depleted uranium in the Middle East by non-suicide bombers

I don't know enough about the effects of depleted uranium to comment.

and your position regarding not allowing anything to stop rational people from criticising religion?

Nothing should stop rational people from criticising religion, and all other dogmas.

Dan Rowden wrote:

Leyla Shen wrote:Oh, Kevin. I must immediately react in a single act of passion to your comment regarding the ease with which nuclear weapons will become available to suicide bombers!

I must admit I almost choked when Kevin made that point. I think it's a little far fetched myself.

What I had in mind was not so much an individual suicide bomber obtaining his own nuclear weapon, but something like the following scenario:

Let's say that Iran develops its own nuclear weapons and the Government is then overthrown by a more radical fundamentalist movement, a segment of whom are extremist activists, and a number of their member are hi-tech savvy Phd's like those who flew the planes into the twin towers. It is conceivable that they may be able to gain control of facilities which can fire the nuclear weapons. And if they have a suicidal mentality they may not care that their own country is entirely destroyed because of their actions, so there is little deterrent.

Kevin hypothesised (why, I don't know!):

Let's say that Iran develops its own nuclear weapons and the Government is then overthrown by a more radical fundamentalist movement, a segment of whom are extremist activists, and a number of their member are hi-tech savvy Phd's like those who flew the planes into the twin towers.

Oh, you mean America? Yes, that is a problem...

(Sorry, Dan. I momentarily lost my sense of humour, but I see Kevin's working on that!)

Leyla Shen wrote:Oh, you mean America? Yes, that is a problem...

While the American people and government are a significant fundamentalist and dogmatic force, I don't think they are quite ready to blow-up their own country for the sake of their religious beliefs. Fear for their own skins is preventing them from using nuclear weapons to obliterate Islamic countries.

I have to say the QRS are doing good work on getting the Reasoning Show up and running. It's moving faster than I expected, and to be honest they are getting more highly recognised people than I would have expected at this stage. Never underestimate the skills of the enlightened!

I personally would not list this forum on the site, but I would certainly link to Genius News, from which people could find this forum if they so wished. Why? well I think the edited discussions on Genius News is more likely to spark interest, than the freeform discussion on the forum.

I did have trouble downloading the latest on the link on the actual topic page, but it is currently downloading OK from the main page.

Well, where the main page says "brought to you by Genius Forum etc etc - I'm going to change that to Genius Realms. I had to go with what's there as at the time I hadn't done a main page for the domain.

We have one now: Genius Realms

Plus, getting some discussion going of the shows themselves is part of the idea. I did contemplate creating a forum specifically for them but thought better of it.

To my mind, the most globally relevant Reasoning Show to date. Outstanding words, Kevin, Dan.

THE AXIS OF EVIL

I am going to have to do this in parts. So, here’s part 1.

Once again, the G Dubbya “axis of evil” mentality surfaces under the guise of wisdom and the understanding of the nature of reality (enlightenment). So many illusory borders vying for attention; for the classification of truth--one hardly knows how to re-dissect; how to cast the proverbial beam out of another’s eye when he claims its in yours. But the wise one knows!

Let us examine his borders--his intellectual finitude--in reasoning. His beginnings and endings.

The beginning and end of Islam: the fallacious borders of a wise man

Let's say that Iran develops its own nuclear weapons and the Government is then overthrown by a more radical fundamentalist movement, a segment of whom are extremist activists, and a number of their member are hi-tech savvy Phd's like those who flew the planes into the twin towers.

While the American people and government are a significant fundamentalist and dogmatic force, I don't think they are quite ready to blow-up their own country for the sake of their religious beliefs. Fear for their own skins is preventing them from using nuclear weapons to obliterate Islamic countries.

(For the record, I am not convinced that the twin towers were blown up by Muslim fundamentalists. It is nothing more than a possibility assumed by you to make a flimsy case against an entire group of people.)

Now, implicit in your hypothetical is that Iran would be sane and well enough to progress to nuclear power (as an energy resource) but not sane and well enough to avoid being overthrown by a bunch of ignorant yet hi-tech savvy “extremist activists” within a more radical fundamentalist movement who would then blow up their own country. And all this because you assume the likes of such people flew planes not into their own country, as you say they would, but into the twin towers. Of course, this is assumed to be the greatest act of evil in current times and, well, we’ll just brush off all the deformities and contamination caused by depleted uranium used in both Gulf wars by the Americans and the British, because, well we know nothing about that, do we? (Border.) Such a harsh reality couldn’t possibly cause in the masses a sheer hopelessness and lack of faith in reason, could it? No. Let’s just forget about that altogether because it we can see that the twin towers came down, but we can’t see any of that, so we won’t ask any questions--we won’t consider it at all. Yes, we’ll just conveniently chalk everything down to the existing internally warring factions of Islam and the inherently evil nature of Islam which, as far as you know, does not contain any "wisdom."

Christianity, on the other hand, is not inherently evil because it contains wisdom. Therefore, Christian nations are necessarily not evil and Muslim ones are. Christian nations are not capable of acts of stupidity such that they would endanger their own populations, since this would imply the possibility of same as a causal factor in the matter--and we can't have that, can we? It must, not by reason but by dogma, be that Muslim nations are the only ones who cannot be trusted not to endanger their own publics.

Jamesh wrote:I did have trouble downloading the latest on the link on the actual topic page, but it is currently downloading OK from the main page.

Thanks for this tip. I had trouble getting it to play from the menu, but the V.V. page seems to be working fine.
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edit - crud - that isn't working either. Trying the download button...
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edit again - download gives me a bit more, but I'm still not getting much of the podcast. It quits only a few minutes into the program. I've tried download and play and download and save, and the most I can get is 17 minutes and 42 seconds, and that seems to be the entire quantity that was downloaded rather than "just stopping."
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Elizabeth Isabelle wrote:I've tried download and play and download and save, and the most I can get is 17 minutes and 42 seconds, and that seems to be the entire quantity that was downloaded rather than "just stopping.".

Try using the following direct link:

http://geniusrealms.com/reasoningshow/podcast05.mp3

(Right-click on it then "save as"). This one should be resumable if it doesn't complete the first time, unlike the other link.

Leyla Shen wrote: . . . who would then blow up their own country.

They wouldn't directly blow up their own country, but by firing nuclear missiles at others they would assure the destruction of their own country as well, since whoever they fire missiles at, will fire back.

twin towers. Of course, this is assumed to be the greatest act of evil in current times

I don't assume that. Ignorance and dogmatism are the greatest evil of our times.

the inherently evil nature of Islam which, as far as you know, does not contain any "wisdom."

It does contain some, if you have an extremely good imagination. Very few people on the planet, however, have a creative enough mind.

Christianity, on the other hand, is not inherently evil because it contains wisdom.

Christianity doesn't contain much more wisdom than Islam. Some parts of the old testament are just as bad as Islamic teachings.

Therefore, Christian nations are necessarily not evil and Muslim ones are.

I don't agree with that. Everyone on the planet is heavily deluded, but I am more concerned about mass destruction coming from Islam than from any other religion, because it seems more likely.

Thank you. At least this one seems to have downloaded the whole program (the other one was only even downloading that smaller amount of time).
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I got more of it, but it thinks it's done at 36 minutes and 52 seconds. So far, the show is really interesting. Do you have any more suggestions, please?
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Maybe downloading an updated version of whatever application you're using to listen to it? I know this kind of problem improved for me after I got a newer version of Quicktime (free).

However I'm not actually downloading the podcast, just listening to it without saving it. I don't know enough about computers to know what difference (if any) that makes.
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The domain host was doing work on the server last night (my time). I'd just keep trying. If you're using Firefox for your downloads it should be resumable if the connections fails. This might be true of IE also but I'm not sure.

Kevin wrote:

I don't agree with that. Everyone on the planet is heavily deluded, but I am more concerned about mass destruction coming from Islam than from any other religion, because it seems more likely.

Of course it seems more likely, given popular news. But I doubt it would seem that way if you were living in Iraq; or experimenting with the effects of nuclear radiation. So, let’s have a further look at why I maintain this position against you.

Firstly, so far, it is clear that nuclear offensive has actually been delivered by the West (sometimes even risking its own people). And, secondly, I assume, since you haven’t provided a percentage, that by mass destruction you mean a relatively sudden and worldwide loss of many people due to a single event in time: an event of nuclear holocaust. Thirdly, on the basis that everyone on the planet is heavily deluded and not everyone is “from Islam,” religion, in fact, becomes irrelevant. I question, therefore, why you think it wise to reduce such a complex thing arbitrarily to a particular religion. It must be, Kevin, that you think the West (and therefore by default, Christianity) is worth preserving because it is not as deluded, despite your protestations to the contrary. Your comments, fundamentally, do not make sense, otherwise.

I see no wisdom in believing that the origin/cause of such an event as nuclear holocaust should be pinned down as more likely to "come from Islam.” In fact, I see such a thing as counter-wisdom.

It’s abundantly clear that the actual origin of nuclear technology comes from (or through) those who develop it. To ignore this glaringly obvious factual and absolute cause is to appeal to people’s emotions, particularly fear. And this has the effect of completely ignoring the part that developing such technologies has, and continues to have, on the possibility of nuclear holocaust.

So, Kevin, it does not seem likely to me that mass destruction will come from any religion. And, on the above grounds, I think my way of thinking is in accord with emptiness--in accord with the absolute--and yours is not.

One cannot promote the valuing of wise living with a devaluing of it; not credibly, anyway.

To be honest, I'm not even sure why Kevin employs Iran to make his hypothetical case when we have Pakistan, which contains fanatical Islamic elements in its political culture, already with nuclear weapons at its disposal. Despite the rhetoric of some of its leaders (which I find no more threatening or inappropriate than that of the leaders of the West), Iran, somewhat like Turkey, actually has a significant secular momentum. In Iran's case, if that gets screwed up it will probably be our fault.

Leyla,

Perhaps Kevin's view is correct. You seem very biased.

Yes, Scott, I am biased towards wisdom and not the ignorance your opinions have to offer.

Kevin is not correct to anyone but the ignorantly biased.