quote:I believe that these are its thoughts manifest, if it did not think, nothing would exist or be able to exist or occur.

That is the claim that you can not back up, why would there be nothing?? Why is it necessary for it to be conscious??

You are going to answer 'because occurrances and existance are it's thoughts' - and then i'm going to say that these are our thoughts, maybe not consciously generated by us but ours non-the less.

You will say that these are given to us by 'God' and then i will say that you can not prove that these were given to us by 'god'.

quote:I believe the Qur'an speaks the truth

My point was that you claimed the Qu'ran was written by 'God' and then elsewhere you claimed that "God is not a man who does things but is the reason things are able to be done".

quote:but if you want to say it "thinks" but it is not "self aware"

More acceptable, especially if the definition of "thinks" is skewed a little.

quote:that truly "knows all" completely

Do you mean this in an omniscient way?? It knows everything that is happening and will happen?? Therefore destroying freewill. If, of course, you subscribe to freewill to begin with.

quote:There are lyrics to a song in the Curious George soundtrack "It's only true, if you believe"

When did song lyrics become a reliable source of information?? If belief is a criterion for truth then anything and everything becomes true; including contradictions etc... Belief is not a criterion of truth, despite what Jack Johnson may think.

quote:Give me something better along with a feeling of safety and protection.

You would forsake the truth if it didn't provide safety and protection?? You accept a lie just to gain a false sense of safety and protection?? Isn't a false sense of security just wrapping yourself in cotton wool and lieing on a traintrack?? Atleast the truth lets you know that the train is coming.

It is too little for most, perhaps, to live with only one certain truth "There are thoughts" because they believe there is Wind, and Water, and a Universe full of galaxies.

"It Knows Everything" because absolutely everything including the possible things that can possibly happen and whatever there is subjectively or objectively is, according to me, made of it and existing by it, within it...Knows it truly in the sense that since everything is made of it and existing by it that nothing can know it more thoroughly. Like to say you can never know a rock as well as a rock, to be a rock, to feel as a rock, to know completely a rock (lol yes of course we don't believe a rock has any consciousness it is just an example.)

What train is coming? The Death Train...So then I die, and I don't return, big deal, the scary part is if I do, and then I don't feel it is sufficient to say "Oh Daz told me it couldn't be proven true".

You already know how it goes, I repeat the same old stuff about God, you repeat the same old stuff about knowing nothing.

Its fun though despite, and makes this topic full of meat.

quote:Originally posted by Abrahim:



Who has said you can't have a personal relationship with God just because God is Ultimate Reality all Encompassing?



Personal means just that, a person to person relationship, how does one have that with your version of "Ultimate Reality" -- 'it's not a person, it's not self aware? It's not anything within reality, it is what contains reality or is the ground of being' -- if I understand you correctly, the above are your thoughts, how does one have a person to person relationship with "Ultimate Reality"

quote:Originally posted by Abrahim:



I believe all those quantum particles are within Reality, the ripe base plain of knowledge which the universe is existing by, and that that is, if not the ultimate, within the Ultimate Reality which contains all possible realities and universes and possibilities.

.....

All the possible things that can possibly exist, past present and future, and all the possible things you can possibly think even, are only possible because the possibility exists, those possibilities are within the realm of Reality which is my word for what encompasses the subjective and objective possibilities of this Universe.



Apart form you illogical acceptance and preaching of Islam, you sound like a pantheist, or panentheist:

The belief statement of the WPM

1. We revere and celebrate the Universe as the totality of being, past, present and future. It is self-organizing, ever-evolving and inexhaustibly diverse. Its overwhelming power, beauty and fundamental mystery compel the deepest human reverence and wonder.

2. All matter, energy, and life are an interconnected unity of which we are an inseparable part. We rejoice in our existence and seek to participate ever more deeply in this unity through knowledge, celebration, meditation, empathy, love, ethical action and art.

3. We are an integral part of Nature, which we should cherish, revere and preserve in all its magnificent beauty and diversity. We should strive to live in harmony with Nature locally and globally. We acknowledge the inherent value of all life, human and non-human, and strive to treat all living beings with compassion and respect.

4. All humans are equal centers of awareness of the Universe and nature, and all deserve a life of equal dignity and mutual respect. To this end we support and work towards freedom, democracy, justice, and non-discrimination, and a world community based on peace, sustainable ways of life, full respect for human rights and an end to poverty.

5. There is a single kind of substance, energy/matter, which is vibrant and infinitely creative in all its forms. Body and mind are indivisibly united.

6. We see death as the return to nature of our elements, and the end of our existence as individuals. The forms of "afterlife" available to humans are natural ones, in the natural world. Our actions, our ideas and memories of us live on, according to what we do in our lives. Our genes live on in our families, and our elements are endlessly recycled in nature.

7. We honor reality, and keep our minds open to the evidence of the senses and of science's unending quest for deeper understanding. These are our best means of coming to know the Universe, and on them we base our aesthetic and religious feelings about reality.

8. Every individual has direct access through perception, emotion and meditation to ultimate reality, which is the Universe and Nature. There is no need for mediation by priests, gurus or revealed scriptures.

9. We uphold the separation of religion and state, and the universal human right of freedom of religion. We recognize the freedom of all pantheists to express and celebrate their beliefs, as individuals or in groups, in any non-harmful ritual, symbol or vocabulary that is meaningful to them. http://www.pantheism.net/manifest.htm

Anything sound familiar? Do you agree or disagree with the above?

quote:Originally posted by Abrahim:



You the individual are the only one who can save yourself in this life by doing right and sending forth positivity.

"Namaste http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif)"



Yes, however by your preaching of reliance on Allah and the alleged words of Allah, are in you, in "reality", relying on the teachings of Islam to save you? http://www.totse.com/bbs/confused.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/confused.gif)

Namaste http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif)

quote:Originally posted by redzed:

Yes, however by your preaching of reliance on Allah and the alleged words of Allah, are in you, in "reality", relying on the teachings of Islam to save you? http://www.totse.com/bbs/confused.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/confused.gif)

Namaste http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif)

My beliefs can be found in a number of religions including Islam: I find Islam to be the most complete and easy guide, the Qur'an to be pretty straightforward, so that is why I reccomend it to people as it tells you what to do and what not to do and how to include spirituality in your life while not going too far in any direction.

Allah is described as the same thing as The Brahman, The Tao, and more!

If it helps, you can think of it as "The Force" in Star Wars, how did they have a personal relationship with it?

quote:Originally posted by Abrahim:



There are lyrics to a song in the Curious George soundtrack "It's only true, if you believe"





Funniest argument ever.

quote:Originally posted by Abrahim:

Allah is described as the same thing as The Brahman, The Tao, and more!

Abrahim, you seem to continue in twisting things to match with your skewed version of reality. Allah cannot be seen as Tao if one considers the words of Lao-Tzu:

The Tao that can be trodden is not the enduring and unchanging Tao. The name that can be named is not the enduring and unchanging name.

(Conceived of as) having no name, it is the Originator of heaven

and earth; (conceived of as) having a name, it is the Mother of all

things.

Always without desire we must be found,

If its deep mystery we would sound;

But if desire always within us be,

Its outer fringe is all that we shall see. (v. 1)

*

The Tao is (like) the emptiness of a vessel; and in our employment of it we must be on our guard against all fullness. How deep and unfathomable it is, as if it were the Honoured Ancestor of all things!

We should blunt our sharp points, and unravel the complications of things; we should attemper our brightness, and bring ourselves into agreement with the obscurity of others. How pure and still the Tao is, as if it would ever so continue!

I do not know whose son it is. It might appear to have been before God. (v. 4)



Two major contradictions to your assertion that Allah/God = Tao.

1."The name that can be named is not the enduring and unchanging name."

2."It might appear to have been before God."

Namaste http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif)

quote:Originally posted by imperfectcircle:

That's something else, the points that I made in the B&M thread were based on three subjects:

- the correspondence theory of truth

- the coherence theory of truth

- aspects of kantian metaphysics, specifically his theory of judgement

the response I mentioned earlier is still being written, I'm simply expanding my previous points in terms of their formal arguments. It's taking a little longer to write than your average post.

Edit: btw I'm studying philosophy in university, so this won't be a copy and paste

Edit2: I'm not fucking around, if I don't have the response up by this time next week I'll post my password in SG.

Rust is going to get an ass fucking.

K.

Well I was working on a response to Rust, but I've spent the last two weeks heavily drunk and stoned due to the World Cup.

However, to be fair, circumstances are irrelevant. I said I'd respond to Rust in a week or post my password in SG.

And if nothing else, I value honor. I failed my promise, so my word means nothing (don't try and convince me otherwise, this is how I was raised).

So I'll take this opportunity to say farewell to TOTSE, I don't plan on returning but there are a number of you that I greatly appreciated and shall be emailing in the near future.

There are one or two of you who might miss me, but don't bother trying to convince me and whatnot. I broke my word. Might not seem like much, but to me the fact that I've broken it is as serious an event as if I'd shot a slug through my palm.

That's life!

I'll be in touch with those of you that mattered to me. As for the rest, rock on, etc. http://www.totse.com/bbs/tongue.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/tongue.gif)

Btw!

I'll post my password in SG on friday. The reason I'm not posting it now is that I have to email a few people whose opinion is important to me, so they know that it's not mr who's posting after I give up my password.

If you want to nab my account you'll have to refresh SG regularly on friday, I'll post it at a random time, but I've calculated a 2 hour window when the number of posts hits a maximum. Meh I'm going out in a mess, I'll make it as messy as possible bitches! I'M IRISH!!!!

http://www.totse.com/bbs/biggrin.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/biggrin.gif) : D http://www.totse.com/bbs/biggrin.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/biggrin.gif): D: D http://www.totse.com/bbs/biggrin.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/biggrin.gif) lol jimbean

Rust hasn't had his ass fucking... You fail.

[This message has been edited by Overman (edited 07-13-2006).]

quote:Originally posted by redzed:

Abrahim, you seem to continue in twisting things to match with your skewed version of reality. Allah cannot be seen as Tao if one considers the words of Lao-Tzu:

The Tao that can be trodden is not the enduring and unchanging Tao. The name that can be named is not the enduring and unchanging name.

(Conceived of as) having no name, it is the Originator of heaven

and earth; (conceived of as) having a name, it is the Mother of all

things.

Always without desire we must be found,

If its deep mystery we would sound;

But if desire always within us be,

Its outer fringe is all that we shall see. (v. 1)

*

The Tao is (like) the emptiness of a vessel; and in our employment of it we must be on our guard against all fullness. How deep and unfathomable it is, as if it were the Honoured Ancestor of all things!

We should blunt our sharp points, and unravel the complications of things; we should attemper our brightness, and bring ourselves into agreement with the obscurity of others. How pure and still the Tao is, as if it would ever so continue!

I do not know whose son it is. It might appear to have been before God. (v. 4)



Two major contradictions to your assertion that Allah/God = Tao.

1."The name that can be named is not the enduring and unchanging name."

2."It might appear to have been before God."

Namaste http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif)

"Before God" is a reference to a conceptualized humanized God which yes, there can be a before. The Tao is a reference to the same power I speak of, the names are fleeting and mean little. So is calling it the Tao, Allah, God, The Brahman, these names are fleeting.

quote:Originally posted by Overman:

Rust hasn't had his ass fucking... You fail.



Welcome to reading comprehension 101. Professor Nietzsche has declared you a fail.

quote:Originally posted by imperfectcircle:

Welcome to reading comprehension 101. Professor Nietzsche has declared you a fail.

Going out in a bang! If I could get you to get MSN Messenger and possibly if you could please email me at abrahimesker@hotmail.com I'd really appreciate it...

Also, feel free to, before you go, post a response if you will to Rust, no harm in it!

I don't think anyone here actually feels much in that you are keeping your word, nor would people perhaps remember it for long if you didnt, also...if you were me, and I were you, I'd post my old password after changing to a new password THUS KEEPING MY WORD AND TRICKING PEOPLE TOO, RIGHT? RIGHT?

Besides all that I want to keep in contact with YOU!

imperfectcircle, I must say that I respect your integrity. People of character are few and far between these days.

You shall be missed.

quote:Originally posted by Abrahim:

[BI don't think anyone here actually feels much in that you are keeping your word, nor would people perhaps remember it for long if you didnt[/B]

I know what you're saying, but it's not about anyone else, for me it's an internal issue. I made a promise, and I didn't meet it. It doesn't matter what anyone else says, I've never broken my word and I won't start now.

I may post the reponse to Rust in the B&M forum, I have to decide whether it would be petty or a good parting shot.

Anyhow, I'll be keeping in contact with you my friend. http://www.totse.com/bbs/biggrin.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/biggrin.gif)

quote:Originally posted by imperfectcircle:

I know what you're saying, but it's not about anyone else, for me it's an internal issue. I made a promise, and I didn't meet it. It doesn't matter what anyone else says, I've never broken my word and I won't start now.

I may post the reponse to Rust in the B&M forum, I have to decide whether it would be petty or a good parting shot.

Anyhow, I'll be keeping in contact with you my friend. http://www.totse.com/bbs/biggrin.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/biggrin.gif)

Alrighty thanks, also keep in mind that you can keep your word without losing your account by changing your password and posting your old password thus outsmarting the promise!

So that's the story of this wonderful topic, it was fun! Special thanks to all who participated in the debate, it was very enjoyable and full of information, I hope others learn from the various perspectives and ideas put out there.

quote:Originally posted by Abrahim:

Alrighty thanks, also keep in mind that you can keep your word without losing your account by changing your password and posting your old password thus outsmarting the promise!

Or he can just not post his password, as I don't think anyone was going to hold him to that idiotic "promise" of his.

Not that it will change anything, as he can make another account whenever he wants...and we all know he's not opposed to that in the least.

quote:Originally posted by Rust:

and we all know he's not opposed to that in the least.

We do?

quote:Originally posted by Twisted_Ferret:



We do?

Well, you do now.

Go read this thread:

http://www.totse.com/bbs/Forum31/HTML/004239.html

You'll see that imperfectcircle finally admits that he's Deep_Anger after having praised himself by using another account through out the whole thread.

He was caught red-handed using another account in the same thread Deep_Anger (i.e. imperfectcircle) was allegedly coming clean about having used multiple accounts in the past.

Like I said, it's obvious he's not opposed to creating other accounts, making his "fulfillment" of this idiotic promise of his completely meaningless.

There truly is no integrity to be had, after all that. Could imperfectcircle be Abrahim, as well?

What an eye-opener this is.

http://www.totse.com/bbs/frown.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/frown.gif)

Suddenly it all becomes so clear.

quote:Originally posted by AngryFemme:

Could imperfectcircle be Abrahim, as well?



I wouldn't be surprised.

quote:Originally posted by Twisted_Ferret:

instead I'll have it changed and emailed to Twisted_Ferret, he can vouch for it.

Wait... you're Twisted_Ferret also?

This is ridiculous.

... but it's definitely a stretch of the imagination to somehow think that he's been using different accounts! http://www.totse.com/bbs/rolleyes.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/rolleyes.gif)



Regardless of whether he does or not (although I still don't believe his bullshit explanation), he's shattered any integrity he had to begin with. He's also proven my point: his "fulfillment" of that ridiculous promise of his is meaningless; he's not only still reading totse but also replying to posts well after he had supposedly left. Pathetic.

It is completely unfathomable to me how one could manage to put that effort much into a trick, for their own amusement. I could live to be a thousand and would still not understand it.

*shakes head*

So he deleted his post now? I wonder what his explanation is going to be.

quote:Originally posted by Rust:

So he deleted his post now? I wonder what his explanation is going to be.

wtf? is this a joke? no fucking way... Rust = AngryFemme = imperfectcircle?!?!

quote:Originally posted by Twisted_Ferret:

Originally posted by Rust:

So he deleted his post now? I wonder what his explanation is going to be.

wtf? is this a joke? no fucking way... Rust = AngryFemme = imperfectcircle?!?!

Wait till you find out everyone on Totse is one person.

quote:Originally posted by Twisted_Ferret:



wtf? is this a joke? no fucking way... Rust = AngryFemme = imperfectcircle?!?!

It ceased to be funny a long time ago, now it's just pathetic. http://www.totse.com/bbs/frown.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/frown.gif)

quote:Originally posted by truckfixr:



imperfectcircle, I must say that I respect your integrity. People of character are few and far between these days.

You shall be missed.



It appears that people of character are fewer and farther between than I thought.

Obviously, my earlier opinion was wrong, and he is not deserving of any respect.



[This message has been edited by truckfixr (edited 07-21-2006).]

Why is everyone talking about people other than me! It's my birthday and I'll cry if I want to, cry if I want to, you'd cry too if it happened you!

*lightening strikes, thunder booms, and smoke erupts out of thin air*

It is I! ImperfectAbraFerreMerchenGoldenAngerETC!!!

Time to let the cat out of the bag.

I am the poster formerly known as imperfectcircle, PFKAIC to friends (pronounceable only by Slavic friends unfortunately)

As amusing as all of this has been, I did not orchestrate an elaborate spiderweb of alternate egos that Rust masterfully exposed.

But part of that last sentence is true. Rust *did* expose something. But it wasn’t the kind of unveiling he intended.

In the following post I’ll give the reasons why I have only ever been imperfectcircle to settle the controversy, both to exonerate the other posters implicated in this affair but equally to rectify the mistaken beliefs of those totes members that I have grown to respect.

When I’ve gotten that out of the way, I’ll explain what’s been going on. http://www.totse.com/bbs/cool.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/cool.gif)

-> The defense

OK, so here are a few of the ways I can prove that I am not Abrahim/Twisted_Ferret/Dark_Merchant/Deep_Anger/Jake_golding

1) I invite any mod to a group MSN chat where I will be present along with Abrahim and Twisted_Ferret. I know that at least these two will be happy to participate, because they’ve been open about sharing their MSN nicknames on totse in the past. I recall Deep_Anger mentioning MSN before, he might be willing to join in too. And if necessary I can track down Jake_golding to invite him too.

2) I invite any mod to phone me here in Ireland, I’ll email the phone number so you see the international access code locates me in Ireland. Again, I expect Abrahim and Ferret would do the same thing, simply to preclude any further accusations that we are all alter egos of one person. I know already that Ferret lives in America, and although I’m not sure where Abrahim is from I highly doubt it happens to be Ireland.

3) If there is *any* question of Ferret being banned on the basis of being a double account, I’ll happily give any admin access to my gmail account. In it they will first of all see our dialogue over 15 messages or so when I asked him to post a message of mine using his screenname, which was purposefully organized. They’ll also see that we’ve been emailing each other a whole lot in the past couple of months. Not only that, but I happen to seriously like and respect Ferret, which is reflected in my emails to him. Nobody could possibly believe that we are on person just fucking around, after reading through my gmail account.

4) Naturally checking the IP addresses of the various accounts in question would be the simplest method. I’ve been on totse a year and a half, Ferret has been here longer, even though the other accounts are newer, the IPs could be checked at any point in time. And not just that, but using our IP addresses it’s easy to check what country that IP originated in. At least in my case I’ve never used a proxy to post on totse, so my IP no matter when you check it should always originate in Ireland. Ferret’s in America, Deep_Anger/Deep_Merchant is in Canada, and I’ve no idea where Abrahim is from, but ask him and he’ll say it. Even if we were all just alternate accounts for one person, and that person used proxies, why would any person go to the lengths of using account-specific proxies linked to each account *every* single time they posted, and not just that but they *never* fucked up? You can search my posts as imperfectcircle back as far as you like, and 100% of them should be from Ireland.

Well those are the 4 best ways I could think of, but I’m open to any other suggestions.

In fact I explained point number 4 in the message I got Twisted_Ferret to post for me, and then delete as soon as Rust replied. It fucking backfired on me again, just like the “That Crazy Man” thread, because this time I *did* expect Rust to make a screenshot but apparently he didn’t. http://www.totse.com/bbs/mad.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/mad.gif)

In the next post, I’ll copy the entire email I sent him asking to do that. The part in italics wasn’t posted, only the part in bold. As I said before, I’ll let an admin access my gmail account to verify that I really emailed this to him before he posted it on totse.

-> The email

quote: Yeah, shame about that. But I made the promise, however minor the circumstances, and I can't break my word about it. If I did anything else I'd lose credibility with myself every time I posted.

Which makes Rust's final accusations deliciously amusing. Or frustrating, to tell the truth. Because I most definitely am *not* Deep_Anger, nor any of his alternate accounts.

Based on what I've told you in emails and stuff I hope you've gotten a sense that I haven't bullshitted you about anything. So maybe you can just take my word that I'm honest about the Deep_Anger thing. And if not, thats OK.

But I'd really appreciate it if you do me a favor, kind of a farewell present from totse. Post this following message in the "My dear Abrahim, your theories are flawed" thread, and delete it as soon as Rust either replies or anybody else replies and quotes you. I want to fuck with people's heads a little bit on the way out. Here's the message:

The truth is that I posted the message saying "Nope, I already told you that I only use one ego at a time. I most certainly am not Imperfect Circle" I was fucking around. My idea was to wait until somebody quoted me in a reply, and then I'd delete my post and accuse them of being Deep_Anger, like I'd accused Jake_golding..

If you look at the words I used:

"Nope," was used by Deep_Anger

" I most certainly am not" was used by Jake_golding

"Imperfect Circle" was the name Jake_golding spelled my name

Also look back on the first page at 00:54 , and the post I made when Jake_golding accused me of being Deep_Anger.

When I quoted Jake_golding, I edited his name to say "jake_Golding". I did that to insinuate that he was Dark_Merchant/Deep_Anger, because when Deep_Anger referred to that alter ego at 21:21 he spelled it "Deep_merchant". Since Jake_golding is spelled in the same style, with a capital first letter on the first word and a lower case first letter on the second word, I drew attention to Jake_golding's name by inverting the order.

I did this because I figured Jake_golding really *is* Dark_Merchant, but didn't want this secret to be revelead, so I trying to send him a signal saying "I know, but I won't bust you".

You can try and come up with an explanation that makes more sense than that, but good luck.

Anyhow I left the response up for a while but nobody seemed to notice so I deleted it and went to bed, I knew I couldn't leave it up for too long without checking in case more than one person quoted it in a reply.

Then I thought that was the end of it, until Rust appeared with a screenshot, anal retentive as he is. Well I called him Deep_Anger anyway, although I'd been counting on a quote rather than screenshot. If anybody reads the joking tone of my replies from that point on, they won't be surprised when I say that I thought it was obvious I was joking around.

But you can never underestimate Rust's innate lack of a sense of humor. He's like the Tin Man in the Wizard of Oz, except instead of JUST lacking a heart he also lacks humor. I guess the rust is from all the times I've pissed on his robotic face.

If he had any human contact with the other mods he could have easily gotten them to check the IPs of Jake_golding, Dark_Merchant, Deep_Anger and myself in the various threads we've spoken as well as other places. Straight away he'd have seen I'm the only one who has ever used this IP.

And yes, people can use proxies, but is this conceivable:

- I've racked up over 5 thousand posts on totse, and the other 3 names have about a thousand posts between them. Would one person use a particular different proxy EVERY SINGLE TIME they posted, without ever making a mistake?

- I'm from Ireland, and if you do a whois on my IP you'll see it originates in Ireland. DA/DM say they come from Canada, do a whois on their IP. JG says he comes from the UK, do a whois in his IP. If you show me a screenshot of our IPS ever coming from the same country, I'll give you a hundred bucks.

So I wouldn't have gone to this bother, except this is my farewell note and I wanted to settle the score rather than leave people with the mistaken idea that I ever posted under those accounts or am still posting on totse under a different name.

I decided not to post my password in SG, because I don't want to make my last action something that just pisses off the mods who manage SG, so instead I'll have it changed and emailed to Twisted_Ferret, he can vouch for it.

Cya totse, I'll miss some of you, had a blast

Edit: formatting



[This message has been edited by fullcircle (edited 07-22-2006).]

-> Why did I ask Twisted_Ferret to do that?

First of all, and it’s important that some of you believe this, but it was not to deceive anyone in a sadistic or cavalier way. Frankly I don’t really know AngryFemme, so when she followed Rust’s lead it didn’t bother me too much. But I knew truckfixr from lurking in the Gearheads forum, my impression of him was that of a fellow truth-seeker, and I’d also appreciated his warm words when I announced my departure; so when I read his cold retraction, it bothered me and I realized some other posters who I also respect might have felt similarly. It made me almost doubt my plan. And if anybody who I’ve gotten on well with feels pissed at me, I seriously apologize, please email me.

Essentially I saw an opportunity to make my totse swansong humorous, and also let Rust demonstrate the reasons why he has singularly pissed me off more than any other totse member. Now in saying that, Rust has also been one of my favorite posters on totse. He reminds me of an old friend of mine that years ago was like a brother to me. Quite possibly I’ve just been giving him too much credit, but as much as Rust has FUCKING pissed me off, I’ve always seen an actual person inside that steel shell just waiting to be freed.

Hell I remember the first major flamewar we had, it was in a thread about communism, splitting semantic hairs about what Marx really predicted for something like 6 fucking pages. I respected him even though the argument was ridiculous, because he appeared very intelligent and gave elaborate logical arguments for why he was right. Basically the intellectual equivalent of a mate you’d want with you in a street fight.

But as I saw more and more of his posts, I started to dislike him. It built up for a while, until I saw a B&M thread someone made about Rust being constantly on his period. So it all unleashed, and I raped him without lube for pages on end until he wet his pants not from piss, but from the torrent of tears flowing from his eyes.

He’s a potentially cool guy. But he behaves like a faggot.

-> My masterplan

So what was my plan in this thread?

Two things:

1) Let Rust demonstrate his *mind boggling* lack of humor

2) Let Rust demonstrate all the reasons why I hate his behavior on totse.

OK so in more detail:

1) I’m consistently amazed by Rust’s posts when humor is involved, because he’s living proof of at least one thing: either a human being can be born without a sense of humor, or the military has developed a cyborg that somehow gained access to the internet.

As I explained in the message I got Twisted_Ferret to post, I genuinely believed it was obvious I was joking around in the “That Crazy Man” thread:

- When Jake_golding accused me of being Deep_Anger I replied “Shh... they mustn't know!”

- When Rust posted his screenshot, I replied

“Lies! Scandalous! Etc!

Rust = Deep_Anger”.

Not only was the tone obviously playful, but anybody familiar with my posts will see that I posted it with the sunglasses icon at the top of the post, which I only do when I’m either saying something bad ass or saying something totally ludicrous.

- I then also said

“Well spotted though. I left that post up for a few days but nobody noticed.

Or did I http://www.totse.com/bbs/cool.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/cool.gif) “

And *again* I even used the sunglasses icon.

Now frankly I thought Rust had enough wit to recognise I was clearly joking around. But I realized otherwise when I saw him post in this thread, after I announced my departure from totse, that I use other accounts and linking to the “That Crazy Man” thread. Honestly it was a surprise. But then intelligence and humor are not necessarily linked. And ON TOP of that, he accused me of being Abrahim.

Well I had a good laugh, but obviously I also had to take action.

So I asked Twisted_Ferret to post that message for me. On the one hand, it was a logical explanation for my posts in the “That Crazy Man” thread and should have settled the issue. And it was also a perfect test of Rust’s humor, because the accusations of me using all the alternate accounts was bordering on ludicrous, so I expected this would tip things over into the domain of the impossible.

Apparently not.

But even then, when Rust replied to the ruse seriously, I pushed things EVEN further. Here is my email to Twisted_Ferret about it, again I’ll happily let an admin verify this on my gmail account:

quote: Idea - quote Rust saying "so he deleted his post now etc", and say something like "wtf? is this a joke? no fucking way... Rust = AngryFemme = imperfectcircle?!?! "

Do you think using the sunglasses icon at the top of the post would be pushing it too far? Because that's what I did in the "That Crazy Man" thread when I was accused of being Deep_Anger.

On the one hand I think it would be making things just TOO fucking obvious, but on the other hand Rust's lack of a sense of humor verges on legendary.

Btw I'm going to make a surprise reappearance soon to settle this whole laugh riot.

But… He still didn’t get it.

2) So… why has Rust consistently pissed me off on totse?

It’s very simple, once you see through the illusionary identity he maintains.

The best way to dispel that illusion is to ask the following questions:

Does Rust ever convey emotion? Does Rust ever present an original idea of his own to defend? Does Rust ever help or encourage the efforts of those less capable than him? Does Rust ever encourage debate itself, when it has nothing to do with his own views? Does Rust ever make friendly comments to other posters? When another poster presents a belief different to Rusts, does he ever acknowledge that it might be valid even though he personally disagrees with it? Does Rust argue with people like someone interested in discovering something new?

No… no… no… NO!

He doesn’t interact personally with anyone, and his standard method of interaction is to become a mechanical debating machine. And god help you if you thought he liked you, because when the debating machine comes out you’ll feel the temperature drop.

He only berates, attacks, and clinically dissects other peoples beliefs, he never positively supplies anything new himself.

He barely recognizes ANY poster unless they are an ally or an enemy. I know of at least one popular poster who used to practically worship him, always back him up in arguments, even made a thread or two about him. But when I raped Rust in the B&M thread, and that poster came to Rust’s defense, he didn’t even have a clue who they were.

But worst of all, he only pulls other people down when he argues, and the only apparent motive is to *win* arguments. He appears to be a textbook narcissist (clinically, not pejoratively). A bully who cloaks himself in a self-righteous garb, though in reality his motives are narcissistic and lacking in virtue.

He just attacks other people, that’s all he does.

Occasionally it benefits the totse community indirectly, when he attacks people like Digital Saviour. But these clashes are analogous to society benefiting when one sociopathic gang member attacks a rival. Because Rust is essentially identical to Digital Saviour and her kind, he just happens to be armed with logic and scientific knowledge.

And his illusory persona is convincing, because his application of logic and scientific knowledge often appears to be done out of the selfless pursuit of truth. The selfless part is right, since he lacks any discernable personality. But pursuit of truth? No.

Again, and again, and again, someone presents a belief and Rust attacks THE WAY IT’S EXPRESSED, not the content of the belief. He locates some semantic ambiguity, and he refuses to discuss anything further until his opponent has responded to his linguistic nitpicking. Most of the time people just give up, because they can’t match the relentless assault of verbose (though typically frivolous) objections. It’s just no fun debating when he joins in, he’s like one of those kids who never understood how to *play* with others.

The other ugly side of Rusts attitude is the hypocrisy. How often he makes reference to something like Occam’s razor when he argues why he is right and his opponent is wrong. And yet in my case, he was willing to believe in a ludicrously elaborate scenario rather than the vastly more probably case that I was just one person joking around. It’s a perfect illustration of his approach. He decides what he believes before he engages in debate.

There is a whole shitload more I could elaborate on here, but it wouldn’t be interesting, I’ve basically stated my general feelings already. Rust, I’m sorry for being so harsh but I sincerely want to get through to you. You’re a person just like everybody else. Try acting like one. Or maybe I should say that others are just as real as you. I don’t fucking know. Just stop acting like a douche for your sake, you’d be cool.

-> In conclusion

Hope you guys now understand my point of view. And if any of you understood before I had to explain things, rock on.

Obviously I could stick around totse but frankly it’s time to move on, and I think this is a good note to do it on, as long as the people who mattered understand that I’ve told the truth here.

I’ve genuinely observed myself growing in certain ways from my time on totse. It’s a fucking wonderful haven for strangeness, and it hasn’t just been some internet forum to me. I’ll stop posting, but I’ll still be reading. http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif)

1. I have a sense of humor. I only wish you could be here so that you could see me laughing my ass off at this whole childish debacle.

2. I frankly never gave a shit whether you used multiple accounts or not. Though I did believe it was a good possibility that you had done so, it was ultimately meaningless to me. That's why I didn't ask other moderators to check your IP, why I never sent that thread to the administration, and why I didn't keep pressing the issue in that thread (or any other thread besides this one). In fact, I was playing along with your joke, which is evident from my reply in that thread of yours - yet you conveniently ignore this.

The reason why I brought it up here was to emphasize the uselessness of fulfilling this "promise" of yours. You can make new accounts whenever you wish making your "promise" ultimately trivial - and the remote possibility that you had used multiple accounts in the past was worth mentioning.

Also, there is no proper way to apply Occam's Razor in this case which makes your ad-hominem all the more amusing. Occam's Razor asks us to find the simplest explanation that fits the evidence. The only evidence we have is that you posted a message that seemed to indicate that you were someone else. That it might be a joke? Certainly, but it's not conclusive in the least. Someone who has just been caught using multiple accounts might do that as well - which apparently was the impression AngryFemme has after reading that thread.

Now, if you're going to accuse me of not having a sense of humor, then please accuse AngryFemme and truckfixr of the same (you can probably add Real.PUA to the list as well). They had the same evidence that I had at their disposal, and it seems they reached the conclusion that you were using multiple accounts.

3. It's funny that you bring up that thread in B&M (where you supposedly raped me) since it was basically just you incessantly whining about my persona for the whole thread. Why would you be so preoccupied with me, how I handle myself, and whether or not I have a sense of humor, is beyond me.

Moreover, it ended with a silly comment about being high or drunk (which is your own special way of excusing your stupidity. You can see the thread in Humanities for an example - a thread in which you still owe me a reply... do you only feel the need to updhold certain promises?) and wanting to be friends, making this notion of you "raping" me pretty much hilarious.

As for the poster who "worshiped me" I assume you mean Paradise Lost, who participated in the thread in question. If that's who you are talking about, then I don't see what the problem was. I remember quite well that there was no problem between us, and that she explicitly stated such, after I asked her if what I said (which I don't recall that well) offended her since I didn't mean it that way. She replied that it did not.

Anything else you want me to deal with?

--

Since you analyzed me then please allow me to do the same:

The whole reason why you have your panties up in a bunch is because I offended you after you were under the impression that we were friends or on good terms. You even started defending me in B&M, and not because I had magically changed my evil ways - I hadn't - but probably because I hadn't offended you in some time. So when I attacked you in Humanities/My God... your precious feelings were hurt. You now had the childish impulse of getting me back no matter what; even to the point of boasting in other threads about how you had 'kicked my ass'. But you felt disgusted that I had gotten to you so deeply that you decided to leave. It has nothing to do with your honor. Nobody had noticed that silly "promise" of yours (not even I) and more importantly, nobody was going to hold you up to it. You left because you felt awful. You're an idealist who feels self-loathing any time you feel angry about something - although not immediately of course, only after the anger subsides enough.

Anyway, I can't imagine how anyone here can see you in a positive light after having proven yourself to be not only childish, but obsessed about me to such an extent that you're willing to plot a silly "prank" (which didn't even work) via e-mail, so I don't think you succeeded, but who knows.

P.S. I did take a picture of Ferret's post, but I was expecting you to be waiting for me to post the picture, which is why I didn't post it. http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif) If you want, I can post it now.

[This message has been edited by Rust (edited 07-22-2006).]

I fail to see any humor in it, and believe me - I've tried. Perhaps it's only funny to those who were in the loop of this hare-brained scheme to begin with.

I realize you don't know me, thus you really don't care how I perceived the ruse, but from one poster to another, I tell you: to an outsider, your "swansong" wasn't the least bit humorous. I'm not sure how the posters whose screen monikers you were linked to feel about this, but don't you think it's kinda wrong to implicate them in the "game" you created that makes so glaringly obvious your internet obsession with Rust?

You've made it apparent that you harbour serious issues towards Rust, and if anyone stands to be the slightest bit shaken by all this tomfoolery, it's him. Not because you *raped* him, not because you *tricked* him, and not because you plotted all this tomfoolery around him - but because it appears as though you're genuinely obsessed with cracking his personna. No one can say that you didn't try, though. Unfortunately, it backfired on you.

Rust must have a sense of humor to reply to you in such a level-headed, matter-of-fact fashion ... just about anyone else would probably take offense - even be a little freaked out - at you putting forth so much time and effort trying to pick them apart.

You failed, because he doesn't seem at all shaken by it. Him not getting bent over all this silliness you created must have been the straw that broke the camel's back, and why you decided to say farewell to totse. You could have saved yourself a few thousand keystrokes trying to explain yourself. Anyone with an ounce of reading comprehension can clearly see that your professed loathing of him really translates into a kind of neurotic infatuation.

And that's how you'll always be remembered: "that guy who had a severely unhealthy obsession with Rust".

http://www.totse.com/bbs/rolleyes.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/rolleyes.gif)

quote:Originally posted by AngryFemme:

I'm not sure how the posters whose screen monikers you were linked to feel about this, but don't you think it's kinda wrong to implicate them in the "game" you created that makes so glaringly obvious your internet obsession with Rust?

I for one don't mind. imperfectcircle is someone I'd consider a good friend of mine, and I was glad to help him in his final "game" on Totse.

quote: Anyone with an ounce of reading comprehension can clearly see that your professed loathing of him really translates into a kind of neurotic infatuation.

Perhaps so, but I can tell you that his e-mails display no such infatuation - merely a kind of bewilderment and frustration with Rust's inability to be anything other than a humorless debating machine. I, personally, like and admire Rust as well; however, I'd noticed that he tends to be rather cold as well. But maybe you're right... it's just the internet. If he has a fault here, it's caring too much about others and trying to help them even if they profess to neither want nor need any help.

quote:Originally posted by Twisted_Ferret:

- merely a kind of bewilderment and frustration with Rust's inability to be anything other than a humorless debating machine.

I have a sense of humor. That I don't show it to you or others here on totse, doesn't mean that I don't have one. Maybe your life is different than mine, but I speak with my friends pretty much on a daily basis. If I'm not talking to them in real life, then I'm doing so in WoW, e-mails, on the phone or IM. So when I come to totse, I don't come to prove that I have a sense of humor. I don't come to make more friends and I don't come to make jokes for your amusement; I do enough of that outside of totse. I come to totse because I can get a chance to do what I don't get enough of outside of it, which is not humor, but serious debate. Discussions of politics, economics, law and religion.

Your reason for being on totse might be completly different. Great! That's why I don't go whining about what I may feel to be a "bad" use of Totse, why I don't go around plotting my revenge in such a childish manner, and why I frankly don't give a fuck about your posting habits or mannerisms.



quote: If he has a fault here, it's caring too much about others and trying to help them even if they profess to neither want nor need any help.

http://www.totse.com/bbs/rolleyes.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/rolleyes.gif)

Plotting a childish prank via e-mail in order to hummilate someone else is "caring too much about others"? Please. I know you two might be friends, but don't try to sugar-coat this sick behaviour of his as "caring for others".

[This message has been edited by Rust (edited 07-22-2006).]

God damnit! Riverdance is stealing my show!

I've gotta save this sucker before its too late *runs to loud speaker*

"Hey Everyone, God isn't some Maaan in the sky, God isn't some Wooooman in the Earth, man, God aint your Momma or Your Papa, God aint some bearded due, tho that'd be sweet...God aint any of that shizzle, but God is the knowledge that makes up all things including this reality, this possibility playing itself out, God is what encompasses everything, essentially the only thing, and OREO cookies are 50% off in isle 5 thank you." *click*

I guess Rust sends out the "Stank" what I mean by that is apparently he somehow manages to get people to admire him and respect him through his Totse personality. One of my first encounters with Rust was when he said something like "Your God is Disgusting for allowing such atrocities" to a Christian and I responded "Your Reality is disgusting for allowing such atrocities" and he told me (Something like) "Never fucking direct any reply to him again" lol I don't remember the exact words I think it was in that one thread about the lion that killed the guy who claimed God would save him.

I don't know, I guess its ok that people develop emotional attachments to other members on this forum, good or bad.

Since everyone is telling their motivations and life stories I might as well tell you all why I'm on Totse too.

I actually never intended to be a member of Totse, nor did I ever want to join. A guy named FourMullatoes made me an account and had planned to steal it from me to post under my name and post my comedy article about "How to deal with Flamingz". I let 4m make the account but then decided to post the article myself so that other things wouldnt be posted under my name.

So I posted my article in HB and SG, and then posted a self promotional post in Found on the Web about all my different comedy websites. Then someone suggested I visit this God forum because most people on my MSN call me Jesus.

I posted 3 topics here which you might all be familiar with "What is God?" "The True Religion" and "Interested in Islam?"

I posted them with the intention of not only educating people but also finding those who would be willing to learn more or adopt my views, people to add to MSN Messenger also, and also the underlying intention of finding girls because boy o boy do I love girls. Rrrricooo Suaveee.

Anyway, All 3 of those topics seemed to set on fire, and I loved the activity and the attention and I wanted to keep them alive for a long time so I kept bumping them and fishing for more people to add to them.

I feel lots of people, even Muslims have a very non Qur'anically based view on Isam and wanted to provide a Qur'an only kind of session in "Interested in Islam?".

Eventually I got into the whole energy of self righteous posting, it feels so darn good, and started to heavilly preach my God is Reality beliefs to bring an (old) new idea to these forums which seemed obsessed with the Christian idea of God.

Here was my wishlist priority list

1.Find Gurlz.

2.Read my own posts and smile.

3.Read replies and smile.

4.Convert people.

5.Educate people.

The last two would switch from up and down, at first it was about education, but then it became much more fun and exciting to preach which I love to do on MSN too sometimes.

I didn't actually expect to convert anyone but even getting through to one person even a little bit or to see "I agree" feels nice sometimes!

So thats my story! I had planned on leaving totse after my promotional posts but decided to stay. Sometimes totse gets a wee bit repetative and boring especially in here, its like almost everything has been discussed over and over and over but I'm still sticking around a bit for new people and to try to see if I can get them on MSN.

Hey Rust, what do you play as in WoW?

quote:Originally posted by Rust:

1. I have a sense of humor.

There is also a china teapot in orbit around the Sun.

quote:In fact, I was playing along with your joke, which is evident from my reply in that thread of yours - yet you conveniently ignore this.

"That" thread of mine?

Not only am I unaware of which thread you are referring to, I am unaware of you ever "evidently" playing along with anything. Quote the instances to which you are referring and then I'll comment on them.

quote:The reason why I brought it up here was to emphasize the uselessness of fulfilling this "promise" of yours. You can make new accounts whenever you wish making your "promise" ultimately trivial - and the remote possibility that you had used multiple accounts in the past was worth mentioning.

For my promise to be useless, it must have failed to live up to its intended goal. The goal was to give credibility to my post when I said I was working on a philosophically robust rebuttal in Abrahim's B+M thread.

I did so after AngryFemme ignorantly quoted my allusion to that rebuttal, then quoted me withdrawing from *this* thread, and implied a connection between the two comments, to which Rust replied that he had beaten me in both arguments (which all occured on page 2 of this thread).

When I made that promise I had no reason to expect I'd break it, so it was a better choice of response than either not objecting to their foolish claims or alternatively making a statement lacking credibility that I would respond to Abrahim's B+M thread at a later point in time. However I wasn't thinking of the World Cup when I made that promise, which started a few days later, resulting in a solid two weeks of alcohol and drug fuelled debauchery.

But even though the promise was trivial, I staked my credibility when I made the promise and then I broke it. What anyone else thinks is irrelevant, my word is something I never break. So I kept my word, even though it saddened me to lose the only account I've had on totse in my year and a half as a member.

Anyone who thinks that decision was stupid and meaningless must have no respect for integrity.

And obviously I could still stay on totse, that wasn't on the line. Throwing away my account wasn't something "meaningless" for me, and I doubt anyone who's used the same account regularly for over a year would feel otherwise. The fact that I'm leaving totse just happens to coincide with all of this. I'd been planning to leave for a while, as much as I've loved this place it's been quite an addiction and has taken up *way* too much of my time. I may end up posting on the odd occasion now and then, but my time here as a regular is over.

quote:Also, there is no proper way to apply Occam's Razor in this case which makes your ad-hominem all the more amusing.

You're wrong on two counts.

First of all there certainly is a proper way to apply Occam's razor here. Not as formulated ontologically by Occam to support his nominalist views, not as formulated by philosophers of science to evaluate rival scientific theories, but formulated for epistemic simplicity to choose the most reasonable explanation among competitors.You were confronted with two possible explanations of what you had seen.

The first explanation: I was a single poster, who was fucking around and not being serious. I had in given this explanation myself, and although I was still fucking around when I did so with the help of Twisted_Ferret, I left plenty of clues to show that I was still playing (which can be illustrated if you somehow fail to recognise them even now), on top of the fact that my explanation was both simple and plausible.

The second explanation: I was pretending to be half a dozen people with distinct personalities, who collectively had about 6,000 posts between them, some of whom had been active here for over a year and chatted regularly with other totse users on MSN and so on, that I had used individual proxies for at all times, in a number of cases I had posted lengthy replies to myself while pretending to be all these people, and so on, and so on, and so on.

One of those explanations is staggeringly more complex and unneccessarily speculative than the other, no points for guessing which one it is.

Secondly you incorrectly labeled my comment as an ad hominem. Were it guilty of containing an ad hominem fallacy, it would have criticised your character instead of criticising your argument. But instead I criticised your argument, and used the example as support for criticising your character. This is yet another example of how you incorrectly but conspicuously use intellectual language to make vacuous statements that less intelligent people will assume to be correct.

quote: Occam's Razor asks us to find the simplest explanation that fits the evidence.

Of course the explanation must fit the evidence, it is frivolous to emphasise that point since it is a basic condition. What use would the simplest explanation be if it *didn't* fit the evidence?

Occam's razor assumes that there are an infinite number of possible explanations for some given data. But it goes without saying that any optimal explanation rendered by it must fit the data. The point of Occam's razor is that among the explanations that fit the data, the one requiring a minimum of hypothetical entities is the preferable one.

quote: The only evidence we have is that you posted a message that seemed to indicate that you were someone else. That it might be a joke? Certainly, but it's not conclusive in the least.

Yes, this is a valid conclusion if you're *only* considering the "That Crazy Man" thread.

quote: Someone who has just been caught using multiple accounts might do that as well - which apparently was the impression AngryFemme has after reading that thread.

After a cursory glance how AngryFemme comments in a thread where you have posted, she appears to be a cheerleader for you. So I'm sceptical about whether she got that impression "after reading that thread", or after reading *your* comments in this one. In any case, her impressions are irrelevant to the validity of your arguments.

quote:Now, if you're going to accuse me of not having a sense of humor, then please accuse AngryFemme and truckfixr of the same (you can probably add Real.PUA to the list as well). They had the same evidence that I had at their disposal, and it seems they reached the conclusion that you were using multiple accounts.

Would they have reached the same conclusion without reading your own previous allegations? Since I don't know what they would have independently concluded, I won't accuse them of lacking a sense of humor. Naturally if someone sees a member who they respect (despite the fact that I believe you to be a pseudointellectual narcissist) making ostensibly valid claims, they will take those claims at face value. They'll be even more likely to do so if they see those claims endorsed by another established poster (AngryFemme). I don't blame them for it, I could have made the same mistake in different circumstances.

quote:3. It's funny that you bring up that thread in B&M (where you supposedly raped me) since it was basically just you incessantly whining about my persona for the whole thread.

Nice try. One poster referred to my verbal assassination as "hardcore ownage", none save Paradise Lost criticised my posts, and you yourself said my words were cruel.

Magilla Gorilla's posts in that thread were certainly wining. But mine were razor sharp knives that carved your contrived mask to shreds.

quote: Why would you be so preoccupied with me, how I handle myself, and whether or not I have a sense of humor, is beyond me.

I've mocked and attacked you because you fucking pissed me off, is that so hard to understand? Though you flatter yourself thinking that I was ever preoccupied with *you*. I've only ever been focused on how you *behave*, partially because your cultivated image is a fraud, but mostly because you bully those who are less intelligent than you, and on the balance you have taken far more from totse than you have ever added to it.

Any spontaneous amicability on my part was because I always thought you reminded me of the old friend that I've mentioned. I never got an idea of what you're like as a person, but in retrospect the comparison may have been an insult to him. It definitely was an insult to his sense of humor at least, ha!

quote:Moreover, it ended with a silly comment about being high or drunk (which is your own special way of excusing your stupidity.

No, I said that the Sun was coming up, I'd been drinking whisky and smoking spliff while arguing with you solidly for hours, so I'd had enough and was going to sleep. In fact it *ended* with me saying to take it easy, and I don't hate you or anything you just act like a flaming bastard.

Being drunk, high, or stoned has seldomly been mentioned to explain my stupidity, and even then I have always proclaimed my foolishness as the main factor. The only two times I recall apologising for acting like an idiot when I was seriously shitfaced was after I called pillpig a narc in BLTC, and when I flamed Glitterpunk in S&A after confusing her with someone else, and both times I made it up to them later. But I have no problem accepting responsability after fucking up, since *I'm* the one to blame, not some chemical substance. And under normal circumstances I can hold my shit together remarkably well when I'm high/etc.

Hell I rarely posted on totse when I *wasn't* drunk, high, stoned, or some combination of the three. Last summer I even posted on totse a few times while I was tripping on mushrooms.

For that matter I was high and drunk when I wrote the previous stuff that I later posted as "fullcircle". I then smoked a joint before revising it, and in a stoned haze decided to make it less harsh than before, the first draft was more brutal. And I've been high the entire time writing this, how the fuck do you think I pump out these monster posts in one night?

I've always been open about my love of mind altering substances, but they have nothing to do with the merit of my arguments. Look up something called the "ad hominem fallacy", and pay attention this time.

quote: You can see the thread in Humanities for an example - a thread in which you still owe me a reply... do you only feel the need to updhold certain promises?)

Presumably you're referring to the thread on sexual selection.

I "owe" you a reply? Excuse me? At one point in the thread I promised to reply at a later date once I'd found a book that I wanted to quote from, and I kept my word about that. I never promised anything else though.

As for why I didn't continue the argument afterwards, it's because I lost interest. It would have been easy to carry on since your arguments were weaker than a moist Kleenex, but it's just no fun arguing with you.

You really want a reply? Here is the condensed version:

My source was an evolutionary psychologist, who got an undergrad degree from Columbia and PhD from Stanford in 1993, and I quoted passages from a book he wrote about sexual selection in 2000, "The Mating Mind".

Your sources were:

- No author specified. You quoted a passage from a website designed to teach high school teachers about evolution.

- An entomologist who got his PhD from the University of Kansas in 1957. You quoted a passage from a bird watchers guide that he co-wrote in 1988, "The Birders Handbook".

- A lecture handout

- A lecture handout

Of those four sources, only the last two are remotely respectable. But they remain irrelevant, as they are for biology students (see my first point below).

You were arguing against me because of two things I had said:

1) That sexual selection is generally treated as a minor aspect of evolution. Its lack of mainstream acceptance was supported by my quote from the book saying that despite its recent rediscovery sexual selection remains " hidden from most areas of psychology and the humanities, and largely unrecognized by the public".

2) That you were wrong about sexual selection when you said that you "consider it (rightfully so) an aspect of Natural Selection". However I quoted a passage from the same book showing it was Darwin's view that it is an autonomous process of at least as much importance as natural selection. This was also the very thesis of thesis of the book I cited from. You never defended why this point is incorrect, you just changed the subject to how it is taught currently in universities.

quote:and wanting to be friends, making this notion of you "raping" me pretty much hilarious.

When did I say I wanted to be friends?

I said I thought you were cool at first, though my opinion rapidly changed after seeing that you behave like an egotistical bully.

I said you *remind me* of a guy who is an old and very good friend of mine, though he wouldn't be pleased to hear it. But I never said I wanted to be friends with you.

In fact I find it strange that you even suggest it, you won't be surprised to hear that you're not the kind of person I socialise with based on how I've seen you post. I'd be curious what you're like shitface drunk on a night out, since that's the only way I can imagine you dropping all the fake egoistic bullshit and acting like a person, but I have yet to witness some kind of actual personality that you possess.

quote:As for the poster who "worshiped me" I assume you mean Paradise Lost, who participated in the thread in question. If that's who you are talking about, then I don't see what the problem was. I remember quite well that there was no problem between us, and that she explicitly stated such, after I asked her if what I said (which I don't recall that well) offended her since I didn't mean it that way. She replied that it did not.

Even if that happened privately, it has nothing to do with my point.

In that thread I gave you shit because you didn't even acknowledge her despite the fact that she stood up in your defense. When you replied you didn't even know who she was.



quote:Since you analyzed me then please allow me to do the same:

Finally, a personal point of view!

quote:The whole reason why you have your panties up in a bunch is because I offended you after you were under the impression that we were friends or on good terms. You even started defending me in B&M, and not because I had magically changed my evil ways - I hadn't - but probably because I hadn't offended you in some time.

I certainly was not under the impression that we were friends, nor that we were on good terms, simply that we had avoided contact whether intentionally or not since the B+M thread. However I *was* under the mistaken impression that you had changed. I even said as much in the B+M thread made by "book em dano" where I defended you, I said you *used* to have permanent PMS but that was back in the day.

And here is part of an email I sent Twisted_Ferret, which again can be verified by an admin if necessary:

quote:About a year ago I used to clash swords with him a lot, until things finally melted down in a B&M thread someone started about why he was such a cranky bitch. It was the mother of all flame wars, I was writing my posts in Word because they were so long that I was afraid of the computer crashing and losing a thousand words or so.

Ever since then we've kept our distance from each other, didn't even acknowledge each others posts until a few weeks back. Looks like we're back to the old animosities again, lol.

My opinion of him is that I respect his intellect a lot, but I despise his attitude.



quote: So when I attacked you in Humanities/My God... your precious feelings were hurt.

No, it pissed me off though.

quote:You now had the childish impulse of getting me back no matter what; even to the point of boasting in other threads about how you had 'kicked my ass'.

I did kick your ass. Repeatedly.

quote:But you felt disgusted that I had gotten to you so deeply that you decided to leave.

Wow... that's mind-blowingly egotistical even for *you*.

You honestly think that after being on totse a year and a half, despite the fact that I've only spoken to you in a dozen or so threads at most in that time, and those occasions consisted of arguing, that I spontaneously decided to leave because you argued with me now?

You need to turn down the narcissism dial a notch or twelve.

quote: It has nothing to do with your honor. Nobody had noticed that silly "promise" of yours (not even I) and more importantly, nobody was going to hold you up to it.

I know nobody mentioned it, and I expect nobody would have made an issue out of it.

That's why I brought the issue up *myself*.

Because the fact that I broke a promise mattered to *me*, not anyone else.

quote:You're an idealist

That is the only correct thing you said in your entire "analysis".

quote: who feels self-loathing any time you feel angry about something - although not immediately of course, only after the anger subsides enough.

I like the fact that you ended a third-rate attempt at analysis with a statement so ludicrously unfounded yet suspiciously particular.

How the fuck did you come up with that?

quote:Anyway, I can't imagine how anyone here can see you in a positive light after having proven yourself to be not only childish, but obsessed about me to such an extent that you're willing to plot a silly "prank" (which didn't even work) via e-mail, so I don't think you succeeded, but who knows.

You think that getting Ferret pretend to post as me is evidence of me being obsessed with you? My god, there's no end to your narcissism.

I was going to post that message myself (which took about 10 minutes to write), and while I was writing it I got the idea to involve Twisted Ferret. How much effort did that take on my behalf? It took more time and energy when I went and bought a pack of cigarettes a few hours ago.

And even if it had been planned from the start, it wouldn't have been an elaborate plan.

It is amusing that someone with such delusions of grandeur should be mod of a forum called Paranoid Delusions.

quote:Originally posted by AngryFemme:

I fail to see any humor in it, and believe me - I've tried.

You're under the mistaken assumption that it was supposed to be for your benefit.

quote:You've made it apparent that you harbour serious issues towards Rust

Serious issues? No.

He seriously pisses me off? Yes.

quote:Rust must have a sense of humor to reply to you in such a level-headed, matter-of-fact fashion

He must have a sense of humor... because he replied to me in a serious way. That makes no sense.

quote:just about anyone else would probably take offense - even be a little freaked out - at you putting forth so much time and effort trying to pick them apart.

So much effort?

The only effort I put into this thread has been for my posts as "fullcircle".

I'll show you a couple more examples of what I'm like when I make an effort:

1) In this very forum, have a look at my response to one of Digital Saviours threads: http://www.totse.com/bbs/Forum15/HTML/005167-2.html

It's a 2,500 word detailed analysis of her claim that the Bible accurately calculated Pi.

2) In the Humanities forum, have a look at my response to a thread Spockcarolla made about his schizophrenia and desire for alternative treatments: http://www.totse.com/bbs/Forum31/HTML/004142.html

It's a 4,000 word explanation of two alternative theories of schizophrenia, detailing the dysfunction at a neuronal level, explaining why one of the theories might explain his particular case based on the information he gave, and presenting a dozen research abstracts on the theory to give to his doctor since it's relatively unknown. I didn't even know the guy who made this thread. But when a poster who I like a lot joined the thread, and said they have a similar but different problem, I wrote another thousand words or so and researched a new set of research abstracts that would be useful to him.

3) In the S&A forum, go ask arquin how much I've written to him giving advice about the girl of his dreams. Again, I didn't know him before I started posting in one of his threads, but his story struck a chord with me and I don't even know how many thousand words I've written in his threads (advice which incidentally got him from friend, to friends with benefits, to relationship). Here is one example of such a thread, the first one isn't there anymore: http://www.totse.com/bbs/Forum4/HTML/020376.html



When I'm interested enough in a debate, or high enough, I put a lot of thought into it. Sometimes it's lengthy pieces of advice for people in S&A, sometimes it's explanations of the psychopharmacology of drugs or the functioning of the brain for peope in BLTC, but generally I have no idea who the poster is that I'm writing it to. For someone less intelligent and articulate (and with less of a predeliction for stimulants) posting at a similar level probably would require effort. But personally I don't make an effort very often.

quote:Anyone with an ounce of reading comprehension can clearly see that your professed loathing of him really translates into a kind of neurotic infatuation.

What a generic accusation.

If you had come up with something more original, it might have amused me. And if I had any idea who you are, I might have been insulted that you put so little thought into your criticism.

In fact CarbonB leveled exactly the same charge against me. Any regulars of the S&A forum, where I spent most of my time, will laugh at that notion. Anybody who doesn't know him, his photos are on the totse gallery http://www.ekahn.com/totsepics/thumbnails-4.html and he has a personality that matches his looks.

CarbonB is one of the top 3 posters who pissed me off on totse, the other two being Rust and The_Rabbi, in each case because I have no tolerance for people who shit on others simply to fuel their narcissistic needs. Here is an example of me flaming The_Rabbi by the way, not much different from the way I've flamed Rust, I just flamed The_Rabbi reguarly instead of flaming Rust intensely on 2 occasions. http://www.totse.com/bbs/Forum4/HTML/020327.html

I flamed CarbonB a hundred times more than I ever flamed Rust (apart from this thread and the B&M thread months ago I don't recall ever flaming him elsewhere, the rest of my encounters were arguing over some topic or other). Why? Because he acts like a douche. A serious fucking douche.

But just like I said to Rust, I don't hate him as a person, I just hate the way he acts. I don't hate *anyone* as a person for that matter, I think everyone has a good heart. I even told him as much too, here's a screenshot:

http://img80.imageshack.us/my.php?image=carbonb1mx4.png http://www.totse.com/bbs/Forum4/HTML/020405.html

And here's a screenshot of when he accused me of a similar infatuation, followed by my response:

http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/8962/carbonb2va2.png http://img206.imageshack.us/img206/1617/carbonb3it5.png http://www.totse.com/bbs/Forum4/HTML/021211.html



quote:And that's how you'll always be remembered: "that guy who had a severely unhealthy obsession with Rust".

Good God, that would be depressing if it were true of the posters that I like.

But since I have no idea who you are, and you've demonstrated a comparable understanding of who I am, your opinion of me isn't a big concern.

While you're here do you want to give that mondo super duper rust remover reply that you had promised, you kept the promise that you would give up the account for the delay, but what is it you were going to say! I can't wait for the citrus smell!

quote:Originally posted by fullcircle:

But since I have no idea who you are, and you've demonstrated a comparable understanding of who I am, your opinion of me isn't a big concern.

If you aren't concerned, why did you feel the need to post a lengthy illustration of who you really are, by giving examples of your *exemplary* posting methods in other threads?

Then you accuse someone else of being a narcissist. That's funny. I change my mind... this is starting to become amusing, after all!

quote:Originally posted by AngryFemme:

If you aren't concerned, why did you feel the need to post a lengthy illustration of who you really are

I wrote my posts to refute your defamatory accusations, for the benefit of everyone who read them.

I wasn't making all that effort because of *you*, don't cry though.

quote: by giving examples of your *exemplary* posting methods in other threads?



Why thank you for the complement. But "exemplary" is not the way I described those examples myself, not just because "exemplary example" sounds weird.

You may recall claiming that the "amount of time and effort" I put into my previous posts was shocking. In reponse, I denied making any such effort, and cited examples of how I post when I *am* making an effort.

Let's have a wander down memory lane, to way back when I explained it to you earlier:

quote:Originally posted by fullcircle:

So much effort?

The only effort I put into this thread has been for my posts as "fullcircle".

I'll show you a couple more examples of what I'm like when I make an effort

Got any other questions I can answer by quoting myself? It makes responding so much easier for me.

Well, there's the B&M thread too, alot of effort seemed to have placed there as well.

Color me interested, but I do have one more question ...

Why is it so important for everyone here to know how you feel about Rust? I just wondered what it meant to you, is all. I don't know him personally, so I certainly don't *cheerlead* for him - but just for the sake of satisfying an onlooker's curiosity - why does it matter so much?

Edit: Ditto, to what Abrahim requested. I too am curious to read that.

[This message has been edited by AngryFemme (edited 07-24-2006).]

quote:Originally posted by fullcircle:

There is also a china teapot in orbit around the Sun.

Thank you for setting the tone of your reply since the beginning: childishness.

quote:"That" thread of mine?

Not only am I unaware of which thread you are referring to, I am unaware of you ever "evidently" playing along with anything. Quote the instances to which you are referring and then I'll comment on them.

The thread in humanities. I'm sorry, I mistakenly called it "that thread of yours".

I made a joke after I had posted the picture of you, when I could just as easily decided to press the issue of you using multiple account harder if I actually believed that was the case.

quote:For my promise to be useless, it must have failed to live up to its intended goal. The goal was to give credibility to my post when I said I was working on a philosophically robust rebuttal in Abrahim's B+M thread.

Then it was useless, because it did fail in that regard. Or are you suggesting that a promise, which you yourself admitted nobody cared about, was somehow successful in giving your post some credibility?

Moreover, you did end up breaking both promises. You failed to post the password in SG.

quote:Presumably you're referring to the thread on sexual selection.

I "owe" you a reply? Excuse me? At one point in the thread I promised to reply at a later date once I'd found a book that I wanted to quote from, and I kept my word about that. I never promised anything else though.

As for why I didn't continue the argument afterwards, it's because I lost interest. It would have been easy to carry on since your arguments were weaker than a moist Kleenex, but it's just no fun arguing with you.

You really want a reply? Here is the condensed version:

My source was an evolutionary psychologist, who got an undergrad degree from Columbia and PhD from Stanford in 1993, and I quoted passages from a book he wrote about sexual selection in 2000, "The Mating Mind".

Your sources were:

- No author specified. You quoted a passage from a website designed to teach high school teachers about evolution.

- An entomologist who got his PhD from the University of Kansas in 1957. You quoted a passage from a bird watchers guide that he co-wrote in 1988, "The Birders Handbook".

- A lecture handout

- A lecture handout

Of those four sources, only the last two are remotely respectable. But they remain irrelevant, as they are for biology students (see my first point below).

You were arguing against me because of two things I had said:

1) That sexual selection is generally treated as a minor aspect of evolution. Its lack of mainstream acceptance was supported by my quote from the book saying that despite its recent rediscovery sexual selection remains " hidden from most areas of psychology and the humanities, and largely unrecognized by the public".

2) That you were wrong about sexual selection when you said that you "consider it (rightfully so) an aspect of Natural Selection". However I quoted a passage from the same book showing it was Darwin's view that it is an autonomous process of at least as much importance as natural selection. This was also the very thesis of thesis of the book I cited from. You never defended why this point is incorrect, you just changed the subject to how it is taught currently in universities.

1. I said you "owe" me the reply because you said that you were going to make it. Was I wrong in taking your word?

2. Deliberately underplaying my sources isn't going to make your point any more valid.

The sources:

a. Paul Ralph Ehrlich. The Bing Professor of Population Studies in the department of Biological Sciences at Stanford University.

His awards:

* The John Muir Award of the Sierra Club

* The Gold Medal Award of the World Wildlife Fund International

* A MacArthur Prize Fellowship

* The Crafoord Prize of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences

* ECI Prize winner in terrestrial ecology in 1993

* A World Ecology Award from the International Center for Tropical Ecology, University of Missouri in 1993

* The Volvo Environmental Prize in 1993

* The United Nations Sasakawa Environment Prize in 1994

* The Heinz Award for the Environment in 1995

* The Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement in 1998

* The Dr. A. H. Heineken Prize for Environmental Sciences in 1998

* The Blue Planet Prize in 1999

* The Eminent Ecologist Award of the Ecological Society of America in 2001

* The Distinguished Scientist Award of the American Institute of Biological Sciences in 2001

b. Nicola S. Clayton

Professor of Comparative Cognition

Director of Studies in Natural Sciences (Biological) for Clare College (Cambridge).

c. Dr. Bruce Goldman

Professor, Physiology and Neurobiology

University of Connecticut

d. Dr. Kevin M. O'Neill, Department of Land Resources and Environmental Sciences

3. Where those statements come from is irrelevant. They could be written in toilet paper and found on the ground, and that would still not mean they are wrong. So unless you're suggesting that these professors are deliberately lying to their students, you have absolutely no point.

4. You're creating a strawman. I agreed through out the thread that it was less understood than the general definition of Natural Selection. What I was arguing against was the notion that it was currently being neglected in Academia. You've yet to prove otherwise.

5. I already dealt with your quote from Darwin. Like I said in the Sexual Selection thread itself, what Darwin said is ultimately irrelevant. I never said that Darwin agreed with what I said, and more importantly, the theory of evolution is much more than just what Darwin said.

So I don't need to defend myself against that quote, because Darwin doesn't govern how a term is defined now. If anyone was changing the subject, it was you; you were creating a strawman by claiming that somhow Darwin's belief refuted what I said when it

If this was that "rape" of yours, then you should be ashamed; I didn't feel a thing!

quote:When did I say I wanted to be friends?



You said it at the end of that thread in B&M after you made the usual comment of being drunk/high (after making a fool out of yourself of course). I even remember other posters commenting on the fact that the thread was you whining through all the thread, only to have it end that way.

quote:Even if that happened privately, it has nothing to do with my point.

In that thread I gave you shit because you didn't even acknowledge her despite the fact that she stood up in your defense. When you replied you didn't even know who she was.

Pray tell, how the fuck do you know who I know and who I don't? Please spare me your bullshit allegations.

I was quite aware of who she was; in fact, I liked her posts a lot. She posted mainly in Humanities and My God (not in Politics because she wasn't into politics that much) and she was quite apt at refuting the usual bullshit posted in those forums.

The fact that I didn't acknowledge her defense doesn't mean that I didn't know who she was. I suppose you should stupidly claim that I don't know who AngryFemme is because I haven't acknowledge her posts here... http://www.totse.com/bbs/rolleyes.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/rolleyes.gif)

quote:Finally, a personal point of view!

More childishness? http://www.totse.com/bbs/frown.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/frown.gif)

quote: However I *was* under the mistaken impression that you had changed. I even said as much in the B+M thread made by "book em dano" where I defended you, I said you *used* to have permanent PMS but that was back in the day.



Same shit. You got pissed because I didn't follow your friendly exchanges and feigned kindness.

quote:Wow... that's mind-blowingly egotistical even for *you*.



Sorry, but it's not my problem that you readily admit that I am among the top 3 people who "piss you off". It's not egotistical if it's the truth. You were pissed off and you were angry with yourself because it had gotten to you that much (that you had gotten pissed off so strongly).

quote:I did kick your ass. Repeatedly.

Even more childishness?

quote:You think that getting Ferret pretend to post as me is evidence of me being obsessed with you? My god, there's no end to your narcissism.

Again, it's not narcissism if it's the truth.

You not only planned a "prank" via-email on someone who posts on a message board, but you conversed about how that person made you feel more than once. You were also bothered with his mannerisms and supposed lack of humor. Hell, the fact that someone on the internet "pisses you off" alone is disturbing. What should we call that? An obsession. And it seems I'm not the only one who sees it that way.

quote:It is amusing that someone with such delusions of grandeur should be mod of a forum called Paranoid Delusions.

You've opened with childishness, and you've ended with childishness. Bravo!

[This message has been edited by Rust (edited 07-24-2006).]

quote:Originally posted by Abrahim:

While you're here do you want to give that mondo super duper rust remover reply that you had promised, you kept the promise that you would give up the account for the delay, but what is it you were going to say! I can't wait for the citrus smell!

I wasn't going to bother finishing it since my promise was to either post it or get rid of my account. And as I said recently in this thread, I don't bother making an effort for something unless there's a good reason, I have a PhD in being a lazy motherfucker.

But since I think you're cool I'll to post it anyway. It should be finished by tomorrow night.

quote:Originally posted by fullcircle:

I wasn't going to bother finishing it since my promise was to either post it or get rid of my account. And as I said recently in this thread, I don't bother making an effort for something unless there's a good reason, I have a PhD in being a lazy motherfucker.

But since I think you're cool I'll to post it anyway. It should be finished by tomorrow night.

Thanks a million man!

If its not too much trouble http://messenger.msn.com

quote:Originally posted by AngryFemme:

Well, there's the B&M thread too, alot of effort seemed to have placed there as well.

Not really, I'm familiar with the philosophical reasons behind my arguments from lectures on epistemology I had last year and a basic grasp of Kant from personal reading. However expanding those arguments with explicit reference to the theories requires sitting down and laboring on it for a few hours.

quote:Color me interested, but I do have one more question ...

Why is it so important for everyone here to know how you feel about Rust? I just wondered what it meant to you, is all. I don't know him personally, so I certainly don't *cheerlead* for him - but just for the sake of satisfying an onlooker's curiosity - why does it matter so much?

At first I was going to just give the following answer:

I never intended for my exit music to be a tune about my opinion of Rust.

Originally I was going to just post my password in SG and exit stage left.

But then when Rust accused me of using multiple accounts I decided to post one last message to refute that, because I didn't want certain people's memories of me to be tainted by such an untruth.

And then it turned out that not only did nobody recognise my ploy, but it only seemed to reinforce Rust's accusations, and on top of that Abrahim became implicated. So instead of posting a short message to say it had been a joke, I decided to sit down and write a comprehensive explanation to conclusively settle the entire issue.

But I got a bit too fucked up while I was writing it, and while I meant 100% of what I said, I went into more detail than necessary and essentially rehashed the B&M thread where I owned him months ago.

However

I prepared that response in my head yesterday after logging on briefly to check this thread. But today when I was thinking about it again, I started thinking about it from another angle - why *does* Rust piss me off so much?

This is a valid question. Because seriously he *pisses* *me* *off*, but I realised how odd that is considering that I don't even know him.

So I genuinely tried to figure out what it is.

Pretty much, he represents a lot of the things I find most contemptable about human nature. I remember saying something similar in the B&M thread when Paradise Lost asked me a similar question, there was something else about how he exemplifies the obstacles that are holding back our species from living in a much better world. As I have already said, I am an idealist, and I passionately want our descendents to overcome the petty ego games which have held us back from achieving utopia. And I am equally passionate about my hatred of the self-serving mentalities that whisper “fuck over your brothers and sisters man, you’ve gotta get yours”.

Basically my hatred of Rust isn’t a hatred of *Rust*, it’s a hatred of everything he represents to me. How could it be anything more personal, since he has never displayed a personality on totse? All I’ve seen is a persona that epitomises ego, and ego is *not* the source of humanity, humanity comes from the soul. To be human is to feel, not to think.

Does anyone else find it immensely amusing that he dares accuse someone else of epitomizing "ego" when he has essentially littered totse with his ego-caressing remarks?

He claims that he is capable of "boning" others, he goes around boasting of having "owned" other people, and he so callously (and egotistically) compares one of his posts to "raping" someone else. Apparently, the idealism that makes him want humanity 'to overcome the petty ego games which have held us back from achieving utopia', goes right out the window when he feels the need to boast about his (alleged) "ownage".

[This message has been edited by Rust (edited 07-26-2006).]

quote:Originally posted by fullcircle:

seriously he *pisses* *me* *off*, but I realised how odd that is considering that I don't even know him.

You should recognize that that is indeed your ego that causes you to get so pissed at Rust for not being the feeling, caring, warmfuzzy person you think he has the potential to be. You let him disappoint you. Your ego can't take it that he won't bond with you, or act sensitive like you do. Therefore you lash out at him.

quote:All I’ve seen is a persona that epitomises ego, and ego is *not* the source of humanity, humanity comes from the soul. To be human is to feel, not to think.

That's all we've seen from your personna! You orchestrate your "exit", you create ploys, and calculate drama centered around yourself ... is that not a bit egotistical? You made a spectacle out of what could have been a well thought-out parting, and managed to center Abrahim's thread around all this you have concocted.

quote: To be human is to feel, not to think.

But it's not always good to just let your feelings (ego) think FOR you. Sometimes you have to not wear your emotions on your sleeve. Appreciate Rust for who he is, not who your ego romanticizes him to be.

I stand firm by the statement that I am not *cheerleading* for Rust. A rhesus monkey on crack could recognize that it is your ego at work here - not his.

quote:Originally posted by Rust:

Thank you for setting the tone of your reply since the beginning: childishness.

No. Thank YOU for opening the post with an illustration of your superficial knowledge of philosophy, as well as offering an example of how you label anything I say as childish when you don’t understand it or can’t refute it.

"There is also a china teapot in orbit around the Sun" refers to an analogy made by Bertrand Russell, known as "Russell's teapot".

quote: Bertrand Russell:

If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense.

Need me to explain the joke for you? Need me to explain who Bertrand Russell is?

Is water wet?

quote:The thread in humanities. I'm sorry, I mistakenly called it "that thread of yours".

I made a joke after I had posted the picture of you, when I could just as easily decided to press the issue of you using multiple account harder if I actually believed that was the case.

Aha. So you *were* making a joke then? That's what I had thought at first, that you *had* in fact understood I was playing around.

Then explain why you said the exact opposite in this thread:

quote: Originally posted by Rust:

You'll see that imperfectcircle finally admits that he's Deep_Anger after having praised himself by using another account through out the whole thread.

He was caught red-handed using another account in the same thread Deep_Anger (i.e. imperfectcircle) was allegedly coming clean about having used multiple accounts in the past.

That's what they call a "glaring contradiction".

quote:Then it was useless, because it did fail in that regard. Or are you suggesting that a promise, which you yourself admitted nobody cared about, was somehow successful in giving your post some credibility?

If you insist on claiming it was useless, and you've implicitly accepted my definition of its intended use, you have to support your claim by proving that the majority of people who read it did not believe I was sincere in saying that I would write a rebuttal at a later point in time.

Ugh... this is an example of why it's so tiresome and boring to debate with you. What's the purpose of arguing this particular issue? You cannot realistically prove that it was useless, and I cannot realistically prove that it served its purpose, since neither of us could conceivably take a survey of people's responses.

This is an intractable disagreement, and since it's not even an interesting or important point most people wouldn't bother making an issue out of it. But it's exactly the kind of tactic you use in an argument, you focus on tiny inconsequential details one after the other, I don't know why you do it but if it's to wear your opponent down it's very effective.

Who gives a shit about whether my promise was "useful" according to my definition or not? What significance does this have?

It has no significance, which is the point. It’s a very subtle strategy that I’ve seen you use regularly. When you make a line of argument that is successfully refuted, you rarely concede the point. Instead you resume the issue, but focus on another aspect of what your opponent said, typically something semantic about the way they phrased their statement rather than its meaning. And you can repeat the process if you’re refuted once again.

On the surface it appears to be a continuous argument, which is why most people think they are solid arguments; and at the same time most opponents will give up, either because it looks as if you keep attacking anything they say, or they just give up because you‘re willing to keep arguing the point until the end of time. As a strategy, I must admit it’s very effective, it’s the linguistic equivalent of krav maga. But dirty tactics should only be used in desperate situations, not as standard.

I’m willing to bet that a *lot* of people read what I’m saying and realised that I just articulated something they observed too, but just felt something was sketchy about your debating style although they weren’t sure what it is. I’ll use this thread as a perfect example.

At first, you said this:

quote:He was caught red-handed using another account in the same thread Deep_Anger (i.e. imperfectcircle) was allegedly coming clean about having used multiple accounts in the past.

Like I said, it's obvious he's not opposed to creating other accounts, making his "fulfillment" of this idiotic promise of his completely meaningless.

You called my promise “meaningless” because I was using multiple accounts.

Then I proved you were wrong, because I have never used multiple accounts.

So you pretended your argument had been about something else, when you said this:

quote:The reason why I brought it up here was to emphasize the uselessness of fulfilling this "promise" of yours. You can make new accounts whenever you wish making your "promise" ultimately trivial

Now you pretended my promise was “useless” because I could create another account.

Then I explained why your objection was bullshit, because nobody who has used the same account for over a year would say it’s meaningless to lose that account.

So you pretended your argument had been about something else, when you said this:

quote:Then it was useless, because it did fail in that regard. Or are you suggesting that a promise, which you yourself admitted nobody cared about, was somehow successful in giving your post some credibility?

Now you are pretending that my promise was “useless” because it didn’t lend credibility to my claim that I genuinely intended to post a philosophically detailed rebuttal later on.

It’s like the scam where street hustlers shuffle three shells around and you have to guess which one has the pea under it, but they‘ve actually removed the pea so it‘s impossible for you to win. He keeps pretending that his objection is about something else, until you just give up, but on the surface it looks like he was arguing fairly.

quote:Moreover, you did end up breaking both promises. You failed to post the password in SG.

Only the most petty and pedantic person would claim that I failed to keep my promise when the fact of the matter is that I no longer have access to my account. Are you saying I didn’t fulfil the meaning of my promise just because I didn’t literally post the password in SG?

It's out of my hands now, I can't access my old account even if I want to. I didn't want to potentially cause problems for Ferret by making my imperfectcircle profile have the same email address as his in case you went crying to the admins, so I changed my email address to a disposable hushmail account that I was going to give him access to when I was ready to say goodbye to the account.

But the password never arrived in the inbox, I've used totse's "forgotten your password?" form twice but the inbox remains empty. I even created a random account to make sure I hadn't mistyped the email address before, the account is called circularimperfection, same address, and the password never arrived there either.

You can check for yourself, as a mod I presume you can see the email address registered for imperfectcircle. The address is auto474635@hushmail.com and you can have the password, I created the account simply for transferring imperfectcircle.

quote:1. I said you "owe" me the reply because you said that you were going to make it. Was I wrong in taking your word?

I didn't give my word, I said I'd explain in the next 24 hours when I had nothing better to do. Turned out I had better stuff to do.

quote:2. Deliberately underplaying my sources isn't going to make your point any more valid.

On the contrary, your sources were so lacking in value that you never had a valid point in the first place.

quote:

a. Paul Ralph Ehrlich. The Bing Professor of Population Studies in the department of Biological Sciences at Stanford University.

His awards:

* The John Muir Award of the Sierra Club

* The Gold Medal Award of the World Wildlife Fund International

* A MacArthur Prize Fellowship

* The Crafoord Prize of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences

* ECI Prize winner in terrestrial ecology in 1993

* A World Ecology Award from the International Center for Tropical Ecology, University of Missouri in 1993

* The Volvo Environmental Prize in 1993

* The United Nations Sasakawa Environment Prize in 1994

* The Heinz Award for the Environment in 1995

* The Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement in 1998

* The Dr. A. H. Heineken Prize for Environmental Sciences in 1998

* The Blue Planet Prize in 1999

* The Eminent Ecologist Award of the Ecological Society of America in 2001

* The Distinguished Scientist Award of the American Institute of Biological Sciences in 2001

I never contested his achievements outside of evolutionary biology. They have nothing to do with the following problems:

1) You quoted a tiny little one page note about sexual selection from a book that has nothing to do with the subject

2) That book was a fucking *bird watcher’s guide*

3) The book was written in 18 years ago in 1988, but sexual selection only *started* getting taken seriously in the 80s, and only became properly established in the last decade.

quote:

b. Nicola S. Clayton

Professor of Comparative Cognition

Director of Studies in Natural Sciences (Biological) for Clare College (Cambridge).

c. Dr. Bruce Goldman

Professor, Physiology and Neurobiology

University of Connecticut

d. Dr. Kevin M. O'Neill, Department of Land Resources and Environmental Sciences

Who these people are has *nothing* to do with anything I said. You are playing the shell game again.

They are all biology professors, and I never said that sexual selection is neglected in university biology teaching. I said it is neglected in the mainstream, which you have not so much as commented on. In fact, *you* are the only person who ever brought up the idea that it is neglected in modern day biology, I never said otherwise. I’ve pointed this out to you twice already, in the original thread *and* in this one:

quote:Originally posted by imperfectcircle:

No, you said that it's what YOU believe: "Sexual Selection, is a specific aspect of the greater concept we call Natural Selection."

quote:Originally posted by fullcircle:

2) That you were wrong about sexual selection when you said that you "consider it (rightfully so) an aspect of Natural Selection". However I quoted a passage from the same book showing it was Darwin's view that it is an autonomous process of at least as much importance as natural selection. This was also the very thesis of thesis of the book I cited from. You never defended why this point is incorrect, you just changed the subject to how it is taught currently in universities.

You might have missed me saying it the first time, but it’s very unlikely that you missed me saying it twice. So I suspect you conveniently ignored it, and kept repeating an objection that I never made in the first place so that you’d appear credible to other posters.

quote:3. Where those statements come from is irrelevant. They could be written in toilet paper and found on the ground, and that would still not mean they are wrong. So unless you're suggesting that these professors are deliberately lying to their students, you have absolutely no point.

What a ludicrous thing to say! If those statements were “written in toilet paper and found on the ground” they would not prove *you* are right, yet you’re using them as evidence for your argument.

Where those statements come from is *absolutely* relevant, because a minimum of one other poster took them at face value as supporting your case, obviously because they did not give them much inspection.

I made two points that you had to respond to: that sexual selection is a distinct process from natural selection, and that sexual selection is neglected by the mainstream outside of biology.

One source is not only 20 years old, but was written at a time when the theory *was* neglected by the mainstream even within biology. And the other sources are not from the mainstream outside of biology.

If those biology professors described sexual selection as a type of natural selection, it has nothing to do with either of my points. You have simply conjoined the two and distorted them, then pretended it’s what I said. To prove that sexual selection is *not* a distinct process from natural selection, give an argument for why that is the case. Because Darwin gave solid arguments for why it *is* a distinct process, and they have never been refuted, they were just ignored because academics preferred the idea that sexual selection is a part of natural selection even though nobody ever presented a reason why. The fact that some modern day academics still hold the same position is not an argument.

The thing is, you can’t respond to either of my points honestly because no evidence to the contrary exists. That’s why you have to pretend my points were talking about something else, otherwise you’d have nothing to say.



quote:4. You're creating a strawman. I agreed through out the thread that it was less understood than the general definition of Natural Selection. What I was arguing against was the notion that it was currently being neglected in Academia. You've yet to prove otherwise.

You were arguing against that? Then why were you the one who suggested it, and I never said such a thing?

Here’s your own words, which I’ve already quoted in this post:

quote:Originally posted by Rust:

Or are you suggesting that Sexual Selection is treated as trivial in academia or the current scientific community?

quote:5. I already dealt with your quote from Darwin. Like I said in the Sexual Selection thread itself, what Darwin said is ultimately irrelevant. I never said that Darwin agreed with what I said, and more importantly, the theory of evolution is much more than just what Darwin said.

If what Darwin said is “irrelevant“, explain why. And if the theory of evolution is “much more than just what” he said, explain why. They are very big claims, so justify them.

quote:So I don't need to defend myself against that quote, because Darwin doesn't govern how a term is defined now. If anyone was changing the subject, it was you; you were creating a strawman by claiming that somhow Darwin's belief refuted what I said when it

You still haven’t given any reasons for why Darwin’s arguments are flawed.

And you did contradict Darwin when you said that sexual selection is “rightfully so” an aspect of natural selection, so how was I being misleading exactly?

quote:If this was that "rape" of yours, then you should be ashamed; I didn't feel a thing!

Not my fault you have a twelve gauge asshole.

quote:You said it at the end of that thread in B&M

Didn‘t happen.

quote:after you made the usual comment of being drunk/high

Happened.

quote:(after making a fool out of yourself of course).

Your opinion.

quote: I even remember other posters commenting on the fact that the thread was you whining through all the thread, only to have it end that way.

Didn’t happen.

What happened at the end of the thread was that I called it a night, then said that you should take it easy and that I don’t hate you etc, and said some cheerful shit to end on a positive note. Partly it was to fuck with your head because immediately prior to that we‘d been in full flame battle, partly it was because I had no more anger left to burn and in any case I don’t hate you personally.

The next day I read three comments that were made after I had left. The first one was you saying “WTF just happened?”, next someone said they didn’t know either, and the last was Paradise Lost saying something to the effect of “Yay, a happy ending after all that negativity”.

quote:Pray tell, how the fuck do you know who I know and who I don't?

It’s not rocket science, when I berated you for not even acknowledging Paradise Lost you called her a *him*, and said I was pathetic for resorting to a comment about your response to what “he“ or anybody else happens to say about you. Only after I berated you even more harshly for being so heartless towards a *15 year old girl*, who clearly admired you, did you address her directly. Of course she said it was no big deal, but for fuck‘s sake have you never even gone out with a girl or something? In any case she stopped flaming me in your defense.

I felt guilty for playing that card, because I *knew* damn well you probably wouldn’t have a clue who she was, I had even told her as much previously. She had made a thread in HB about you being her hero for “defending her” in some My God/Humanities thread because you’d started attacking someone who had been flaming her. I posted in her thread that I doubted you had intended to defend her, you just attacked the guy because he seemed fair game. She didn’t believe me though.

I didn’t dislike her, but in the B+M thread she was constantly posting against me and I didn’t have the energy to keep arguing on two fronts the whole time, so I had to get rid of her the only way I could think of. She stopped posting in the thread right after your response to my barb made it overwhelmingly obvious that you had no idea who she was. I felt guilty straight away though, because it wasn’t worth it.

You disappeared from totse when the server melted down Paradise Lost, but I strongly suspect you just started fresh with a new account since you always expressed regret at letting people know you were a girl. If you happen to be reading this, I’m sorry about that.

quote:Sorry, but it's not my problem that you readily admit that I am among the top 3 people who "piss you off". It's not egotistical if it's the truth.

No, it’s not your problem that you piss me off.

But the fact that you piss me off so much doesn’t mean your opinion of me is *more* likely to matter, it means it’s *less* likely to matter.

And the fact that you piss me off so much doesn’t mean I’m *more* likely to be deeply affected by fighting with you, it means I’m *less* likely to be affected.

So when you claimed I wanted to leave totse as a result of fighting with you, the fact that you piss me off so much is not an explanation. The only other conceivable reason would be that the fighting affected me because of how *important you are*. And *that* is egotistical.

Which argument were you referring to by the way? Because the only recent ones I can remember involved me not only beating you, but demonstrating that you had no idea what you were talking about.

quote:You were pissed off and you were angry with yourself because it had gotten to you that much (that you had gotten pissed off so strongly).

So you’re saying that:

I was very angry with… myself… because I had gotten very angry with… you.

What possible reason would cause me to feel that way? Either I would need to have a deep psychological aversion to anger, or else have an aversion getting angry with *you*.

Obviously I have no qualms about losing my temper, so that leaves the other alternative.

But what would explain having an aversion to getting angry with *you*, unless you were someone fantastically special and important? Again, *that* is egotistical.

I’m chilled out 90% of the time, but I have a godawful temper and I don’t have much control over it. Even still, it’s impossible to experience full on anger sitting in front of a computer screen, you certainly do piss me off but if you want to find out what it’s like when I’m *really* angry first you’d have to visit Dublin and second you’d have to push me very far.

quote:You not only planned a "prank" via-email on someone who posts on a message board

Planning a prank via email is evidence of obsession?

If it been a sophisticated prank that required extensive planning and preparation, then it might have supported such a charge, though frankly it‘d be more a sign that someone has too much spare time on their hands.

However I already demonstrated how trivial it was to organise. I emailed the suggestion to Ferret, he replied to double check the instructions, and I replied to give the go ahead. After that the dialogue consisted of us laughing our asses off about it, and one suggestion about what he should post after deleting the original message. Sounds like a genius fucking masterplan, huh?

As I have demonstrated in this thread already, I have put astronomically more effort into posts for other totse members on a number of occasions when I didn’t even *know who they were*.

quote:but you conversed about how that person made you feel more than once.

The only relevant time you could be referring to was the quote I posted from one of my emails to Ferret, saying that I thought you had changed, but now you were pissing me off again.

I was replying to an email *he* sent *me*, saying he had noticed I was debating with you, and asked me what my opinion of you was. As usual this can be verified by an admin if you want to be childish about it, and Ferret will tell you that it’s the truth as well.

And as I told CarbonB, don’t flatter yourself.

quote: You were also bothered with his mannerisms and supposed lack of humor.

I was bothered by his *shitty attitude*. As for his lack of humor, it was only ever a source of amusement and bewilderment.

Btw, do you regularly talk about yourself in the third person?

quote:Hell, the fact that someone on the internet "pisses you off" alone is disturbing.

LOL! I see you’re new to the intarwebs.

And a number of people on the internet piss me off, while I really like a number of people on the internet. In fact if anyone who spent much time on totse claimed that *nobody* either pisses them off or is liked a lot by them, I’d wonder if they were a psychopath.

quote: What should we call that? An obsession.

No, that’s what *I* call yet another very weak attempt to justify your wish, to believe that someone is obsessed with you.

You keep trying to prove that I’m obsessed with you, even though I’ve repeatedly refuted your irrational fantasy, and what’s more I’ve laughed at the idea.

How could I conceivably be OBSESSED with someone I have shown to be intellectually inferior, quite possibly emotionally retarded judging by their grasp of humor, who as far as I know seems to lack a human personality, and who I’ve only ever had contact with through the exchange of written words on an internet discussion forum?

Why are you trying so hard to argue that I'm obsessed with you? Are you that lonely? Wish for at least someone who is obsessed about you, to replace a lack of friends? It would explain why you pretended I ever wanted to be friends with you.

Maybe you’re so desperate to believe it because you’re not getting pussy and kisses in real life, and crave some form of personal attention? Though since I'm a guy that would mean you're not getting wang and kisses in real life, personally I'm straight but you can be as gay as Christmas I don't give a shit.

But for fuck's sake, find someone else to paint your delusions onto. There’s probably someone just right for you in that forum you moderate.

quote:Originally posted by AngryFemme:

You should recognize that that is indeed your ego that causes you to get so pissed at Rust for not being the feeling, caring, warmfuzzy person you think he has the potential to be.

I'd ask if you even *read* my post, but since it wasn't very long I'll assume you just didn't process it.

quote:You let him disappoint you. Your ego can't take it that he won't bond with you, or act sensitive like you do. Therefore you lash out at him.

I see now, suddenly it all becomes clear. http://www.totse.com/bbs/rolleyes.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/rolleyes.gif)

If this attempt to explain my mental processes was any less simplistic and amateurish I'd mock you, but after your cringeworthy attempt to interpret my posts any further insults to your intelligence would be redundant.

Here's an idea to save us a bit of typing: you can reply to this with a quote from one of your Dr Phil books, and I'll quote this post back to you, repeat ad infinitum.

quote:That's all we've seen from your personna!

I haven't fabricated a persona on totse, I've just been myself. Maybe you should look up the meaning of "persona"? I'll save you a few days of confused searching in the dictionary, it's spelled with only one "n".

quote:You orchestrate your "exit", you create ploys, and calculate drama centered around yourself ... is that not a bit egotistical? You made a spectacle out of what could have been a well thought-out parting, and managed to center Abrahim's thread around all this you have concocted.

quote:Originally posted by fullcircle:

I'd ask if you even *read* my post, but since it wasn't very long I'll assume you just didn't process it.

quote:Originally posted by fullcircle:

Got any other questions I can answer by quoting myself? It makes responding so much easier for me.

quote: But it's not always good to just let your feelings (ego) think FOR you. Sometimes you have to not wear your emotions on your sleeve. Appreciate Rust for who he is, not who your ego romanticizes him to be.



Christ, how fucking stupid are you?

Feelings are not the same as ego, never mind the fact that anyone with a 4th grade reading level would have understood I explained that in my last post, but it's not even a complicated concept.

As for the rest:

quote:Originally posted by fullcircle:

Basically my hatred of Rust isn’t a hatred of *Rust*, it’s a hatred of everything he represents to me. How could it be anything more personal, since he has never displayed a personality on totse?

quote:Originally posted by fullcircle:

Got any other questions I can answer by quoting myself? It makes responding so much easier for me.

quote:Originally posted by Rust:

Does anyone else find it immensely amusing that he dares accuse someone else of epitomizing "ego" when he has essentially littered totse with his ego-caressing remarks?

Ego caressing remarks? I don't make ego caressing remarks. If you want to understand the words I use, look them up in more detail instead of ignorantly applying their popular connotations.

I'm not egotistical, I'm *cocky*. And you'd be fucking cocky if you were me too.

You want to hear the reasons why? The reasons are shit I never bring up, because I don't boast.

But here's what I'm like being *egotistical*: I can guarantee you that my IQ is higher than yours, based on statistics, though also based on the intellectual content of your posts. I can also guarantee you that my dick is bigger than yours, based on statistics. And even though I have no idea what you look like, I'm probably better looking than you too. And those are just the *physical* aspects about me that make me cocky.

I predict AngryFemme will make a dumb fucking comment about how this is proof that I'm egotistical, etc, yawn. Don't bother, you'll just embarrass yourself again.

quote:Originally posted by fullcircle:

No. Thank YOU for opening the post with an illustration of your superficial knowledge of philosophy, as well as offering an example of how you label anything I say as childish when you don’t understand it or can’t refute it

What part of what I said suggested that I didn't know where the analogy came from? Absolutely none.

I know where analogy comes from, which is why I know that it is ultimately an insult. In case you didn't know, Russell suggests that it is ridiculous to believe that a teapot orbits around the Sun, which you equate to believing that I have a sense of humor. Thus, to say that "There is also a china teapot in orbit around the Sun" in reply to me saying that I have a sense of humor, is a childish insult.

Thanks for this sad attempt at a reply; it only showed how you have absolutely no aversion to using logical fallacies which ends up being an endless source of amusement as you dare quote Bertrand Russell in the same breath you use them.



quote:Aha. So you *were* making a joke then? That's what I had thought at first, that you *had* in fact understood I was playing around.

Then explain why you said the exact opposite in this thread:

That's what they call a "glaring contradiction".

That's not a contradiction. I said I made a joke, which I did. I also said that I didn't really give a shit if you actually were using two accounts or not, which is why I made a joke and didn't press the issue. I didn't say that I held any position one way or another, just that I didn't give a shit one way or another. I later linked to that thread in humanities in here in order to point out that you might have done so. There is no contradiction, just a glaring lack of reading comprehension on your part.

quote:Ugh... this is an example of why it's so tiresome and boring to debate with you. What's the purpose of arguing this particular issue? You cannot realistically prove that it was useless, and I cannot realistically prove that it served its purpose, since neither of us could conceivably take a survey of people's responses.

If you don't like this sort of discussion, them you shouldn't have started it with a reply about how your promise was useful in that it gave credibility to your claim. I never questioned that possible "use".

When I used the word "useless" I was obviously referring to the meaningless act of carrying out the promise. Since you can create another account, it is meaningless or "useless" to me.

quote:It’s like the scam where street hustlers shuffle three shells around and you have to guess which one has the pea under it, but they‘ve actually removed the pea so it‘s impossible for you to win. He keeps pretending that his objection is about something else, until you just give up, but on the surface it looks like he was arguing fairly.

There is no scam, just your inability to to follow what I meant.

1. I made the statement suggesting that you had used multiple accounts, because there was evidence suggesting that you had. Whether you actually had or not was unimportant to me since the point was valid nonetheless.

2. Since you then started claiming that you hadn't, I pointed out that even if you truly had not used multiple accounts, the possibility alone - now tangible by the "evidence" there was - would be worth mentioning. The possibility of you making an another account still makes your "promise" meaningless.

That you consider your username meaningful doesn't change this opinion of mine, because I don't, and I don't quite trust that you do either. A username is meaningless to me.

3. I only mentioned that it might not have gave credibility to your claim because you said that it did first in the same thread where you suggest that nobody took your promise seriously.

quote:Only the most petty and pedantic person would claim that I failed to keep my promise when the fact of the matter is that I no longer have access to my account. Are you saying I didn’t fulfil the meaning of my promise just because I didn’t literally post the password in SG?

Again, I don't give a shit about your promise. I was merely pointing out a fact, which it undoubtedly is a fact.

quote:I didn't give my word, I said I'd explain in the next 24 hours when I had nothing better to do. Turned out I had better stuff to do.

This isn't petty and pedantic? You said that you would post a reply. Was I wrong in taking that as a implicit promise that you would?

quote:On the contrary, your sources were so lacking in value that you never had a valid point in the first place.

So you're suggesting that the numerous professors I've provided are have less value than your lonely professor? How ridiculous.

quote:I never contested his achievements outside of evolutionary biology. They have nothing to do with the following problems:

1) You quoted a tiny little one page note about sexual selection from a book that has nothing to do with the subject

2) That book was a fucking *bird watcher’s guide*

3) The book was written in 18 years ago in 1988, but sexual selection only *started* getting taken seriously in the 80s, and only became properly established in the last decade.

1. His achievements are not outside of evolutionary biology, at least not all of them.

2. Like I said, whether it was in a bird watchers guide or not is irrelevant. It could be written in the ground or tattooed on somebody's asshole. The fact of the matter is that simply because it is in a bird watchers guide doesn't mean that the information is wrong. Again I ask, you dare quote Bertrand Russell when you use that piss-poor logic of yours?

3. Only knowledge of what Sexual Selection entails is what is needed in order to define what it is. That had been known for decades; long before 1988. The date is irrelevant.

quote:They are all biology professors, and I never said that sexual selection is neglected in university biology teaching. I said it is neglected in the mainstream, which you have not so much as commented on. In fact, *you* are the only person who ever brought up the idea that it is neglected in modern day biology, I never said otherwise. I’ve pointed this out to you twice already, in the original thread *and* in this one:

1. The fact that they are biology professors already shows that Sexual Selection is defined as an aspect of Natural Selection, which was my main argument.

2. I did in fact comment on Sexual Selection in the mainstream. In fact, I said that I agreed that the mainstream audience understands the general definition of Natural Selection, more than they do the definition of specific aspects of Natural Selection, like Sexual Selection:

"The same could be said for many other scientific concepts. It's not that they are neglected per se, but that they are not crucial to teach in the curriculum basic High School courses.

Understanding the concept of Natural Selection is absolutely crucial to understanding evolution, understanding Sexual Selection is not."

The fact is that I have manage to substantiate my claim that Sexual Selection is defined as an aspect of Natural Selection.

quote:What a ludicrous thing to say! If those statements were “written in toilet paper and found on the ground” they would not prove *you* are right, yet you’re using them as evidence for your argument.

Where those statements come from is *absolutely* relevant, because a minimum of one other poster took them at face value as supporting your case, obviously because they did not give them much inspection.

There is a humongous difference between examining where they come from to get credibility (or a lack of it) from the text, and actually dismissing what is said as untrue as you are doing.

Like I said, unless you are suggesting that these Professors are deliberately lying to their students, then where they come from doesn't change the validity of the statements made.

quote:I made two points that you had to respond to: that sexual selection is a distinct process from natural selection, and that sexual selection is neglected by the mainstream outside of biology.

I did respond to those points.

1. I responded in agreement that sexual selection was not as known in the mainstream as Natural Selection, thought stating that it did not necessarily mean a "neglect":

"The same could be said for many other scientific concepts. It's not that they are neglected per se, but that they are not crucial to teach in the curriculum basic High School courses.

Understanding the concept of Natural Selection is absolutely crucial to understanding evolution, understanding Sexual Selection is not."

2. I provided evidence supporting the claim that Sexual Selection is considered an aspect of Natural Selection;, thus not a "distinct process". Sexual Selection is still Natural Selection at work.

quote:You were arguing against that? Then why were you the one who suggested it, and I never said such a thing?



If you actually bothered reading the thread, and not taking things out of context, you would know why.

You said, "The point isn't that sexual selection isn't taught in classrooms, the point is that sexual selection is still treated as an almost trivial aspect of evolution."

I responded by saying that while it might me treated trivially in High school, it isn't treated that way in Academia. By doing so, I'm agreeing that it is treated that way in certain venues, but not others. That's where Academia came into play.

quote:If what Darwin said is “irrelevant“, explain why. And if the theory of evolution is “much more than just what” he said, explain why. They are very big claims, so justify them.

I'm not here to do your homework for you. You made the appeal to authority by citing Darwin as a refutation of what I had said. Prove that what Darwin said in the past must be how a concept is defined now or shut up.

quote:ou still haven’t given any reasons for why Darwin’s arguments are flawed.

And you did contradict Darwin when you said that sexual selection is “rightfully so” an aspect of natural selection, so how was I being misleading exactly?

You're being misleading by making Darwin the ruler of the theory of evolution. You are suggesting that how the scientific community defines a particular concept cannot change from what Darwin said. Prove that. If you fail to do so, and admit that it can definitely change, then what Darwin says refutes nothing.

quote:Not my fault you have a twelve gauge asshole.

Childish as always.

quote:Didn‘t happen....Happened....Your opinion. [...]



I'm not going to bother with this bullshit.

You and I have very different recollections of what happened because I remember you saying something to that effect. I also don't remember confusing Paradise Lost with a "him" (which only proves that I wasn't familiar with her gender, if that was indeed the case, and not that I wasn't familiar with her as a poster on totse).

If you happen to have that thread saved, the by all means post it. If you don't, then this only serves to highlight the irony of your previous complaints about "intractable disagreements".

quote:So when you claimed I wanted to leave totse as a result of fighting with you, the fact that you piss me off so much is not an explanation. The only other conceivable reason would be that the fighting affected me because of how *important you are*. And *that* is egotistical.

It is an explanation if you, like any sane person would, consider "being pissed off by" related to "being affected by". Or do you not consider the fact that what I say/do causes those feelings in you to mean that what I say/do "affects" you...

quote:What possible reason would cause me to feel that way? Either I would need to have a deep psychological aversion to anger, or else have an aversion getting angry with *you*.

Obviously I have no qualms about losing my temper, so that leaves the other alternative.

It's not just "losing your temper" but losing it in such a manner that you actually end up feeling "hatred" for someone. That's what I meant. You've said numerous times that "hatred" isn't justified, hence my observation.

quote:Planning a prank via email is evidence of obsession?

It's part of it yes. I'm not claiming that it was elaborate. Even a trivially set up prank suggests an obsession when coupled with the rest of the evidence.

quote:I was bothered by his *shitty attitude*. As for his lack of humor, it was only ever a source of amusement and bewilderment.

The point still stands.

quote:

Btw, do you regularly talk about yourself in the third person?

I was doing so to prevent you from jumping to the idiotic conclusion that I'm an egomaniac; since you've prove you have no aversion to logical fallacies, I'm trying to prevent you being an idiot all by yourself. I was making this apply to anyone, because it would apply to anyone if you had demonstrated the same level of obsessive behavior.

quote:LOL! I see you’re new to the intarwebs.

And a number of people on the internet piss me off, while I really like a number of people on the internet. In fact if anyone who spent much time on totse claimed that *nobody* either pisses them off or is liked a lot by them, I’d wonder if they were a psychopath

Then by all means, call my a psychopath by that piss-poor psychological analysis. I don't get "pissed off" by what someone on the Internet says. At worse, I'd get annoyed; but pissed off? Not really; their opinions of me are ultimately meaningless.

quote:No, that’s what *I* call yet another very weak attempt to justify your wish, to believe that someone is obsessed with you.

I'm not trying to justify anything. I'm trying to point out how it looks.

Being pissed off by someone on totse to the level that you plan a prank (however trivial) against that person because, and de-railing a whole thread to center the discussion around that person, certainly does look like an obsession. Like I said, I'm not the only one who sees it that way.

[This message has been edited by Rust (edited 07-26-2006).]

quote:Originally posted by Rust:



Yawn.

I'll read through your post later, though purely out of curiosity, because I'm done debating with you in this thread.

Hey here's a suggestion: declare it a victory.

Oh! I know what you decided to do after reading my suggestion, now you have to call my decision childish as well.

One more! Gotta call it all meaningless too.

I won't bother explaining why I have no further interest in communicating with you, since anyone who has read through the past page or two either is intelligent and can figure it out for themselves, or is an idiot and I don't mind what they think.

I'll still post that response to Abrahim's B+M thread though, and if anything you said in your reply was uncharacteristically interesting I may reply to it but I don't expect it will be required.

Etc, bla, so on.

quote:Originally posted by fullcircle:

Ego caressing remarks? I don't make ego caressing remarks. If you want to understand the words I use, look them up in more detail instead of ignorantly applying their popular connotations.

I'm not egotistical, I'm *cocky*. And you'd be fucking cocky if you were me too.

You want to hear the reasons why? The reasons are shit I never bring up, because I don't boast.

But here's what I'm like being *egotistical*: I can guarantee you that my IQ is higher than yours, based on statistics, though also based on the intellectual content of your posts. I can also guarantee you that my dick is bigger than yours, based on statistics. And even though I have no idea what you look like, I'm probably better looking than you too. And those are just the *physical* aspects about me that make me cocky.



Notice how you ignore the fact that all that I mentioned were instances of you boasting. You boasted that you had "raped" me, you boasted that you were going to "bone" me, and you boasted that you had "owned" me.

You do in fact boast and that is evident in this very own thread, even before this pathetic response of yours.

But I really need to thank you for making this hilarious post. This is all I needed to hear. If anyone still respects anything you've said - if the people that "matter" to you still see you in a positively light after reading this spectacle - then there is no reason in pointing out your stupidity anymore.

quote:Originally posted by fullcircle:



I predict AngryFemme will make a dumb fucking comment about how this is proof that I'm egotistical, etc, yawn. Don't bother, you'll just embarrass yourself again.

Worse than you've embarrassed yourself? I doubt it. I don't think any further comments need to be made about you being egotistical to a fault. Everything you've posted here has clearly illustrated that.

Here's you:

"I am intellectually superior to Rust! My cock is bigger than Rust's! Everyone likes me better than Rust!"

...(long, self-serving explanation)...

"I am not egotistical!"

http://www.totse.com/bbs/rolleyes.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/rolleyes.gif)

Who would need to crack a psychology book to figure that one out?!

Once I was typing in pink font telling everyone how I loved decorating in The Sims, and someone ELSE got called gay!

quote:Originally posted by AngryFemme:

Here's you:

"I am intellectually superior to Rust! My cock is bigger than Rust's! Everyone likes me better than Rust!"

Here's you:

"I didn't actually read any of fullcircle's posts! I like to use personal attacks and meaningless psychobabble to make my 'points'! Rust is perfect and anyone who disagrees with him must be mentally ill!"

quote:Originally posted by Rust:

But I really need to thank you for making this hilarious post. This is all I needed to hear. If anyone still respects anything you've said - if the people that "matter" to you still see you in a positively light after reading this spectacle - then there is no reason in pointing out your stupidity anymore.

Do I think that imperfect probably should've just dropped the whole thing? Yes. Do I think he could benefit from being more objective and less emotional? Sure. Do I still like and admire him? Of course! Nearly every post of his that I've seen has been well-written and entertaining in some way, and in every debate I've seen him engage in he acquits himself remarkably well. He's a good friend, a good person, and a good debater as well.

Thank you for proving my point. There is no real reason to continue pointing out his stupidity because no matter how stupid, unreasonable or childish his posts become (and we've seen first hand how he is willing to go deep into the depths of childishness) you'd still praise and "admire" his posts, even to the point of delving into similar childishness in the quest of defending him, as your post to AngryFemme shows.

Sticks and stones, Twisted_Ferret!

It's both sweet and noble that you stick up for your boy fullcircle to help him try to scrap some dignity out of this whole botched spectacle. Friends like you surely are a rarity.

quote:Originally posted by Rust:

Thank you for proving my point. There is no real reason to continue pointing out his stupidity because no matter how stupid, unreasonable or childish his posts become (and we've seen first hand how he is willing to go deep into the depths of childishness) you'd still praise and "admire" his posts, even to the point of delving into similar childishness in the quest of defending him, as your post to AngryFemme shows.

What, your only reason for arguing with him was to point out his stupidity to me? If his posts truly became stupid or childish, though, of course I wouldn't admire them; however, I'd still admire the man himself (if only for his awesome displays of intellectual might in other threads http://www.totse.com/bbs/tongue.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/tongue.gif)). Besides, I don't even see any stupid posts; I think he should've let the whole thing go, but I can understand why he'd be unwilling to leave without defending himself, and though you may think you have refuted everything he said - and I make no judgement here - I don't think you can deny that the posts were well-written and display at least some knowledge of philosophy and debating skill. Or actually, you can; but I wouldn't agree, and not because I'm a mindless imperfectcircle fanboy (which is apparently what you think I am http://www.totse.com/bbs/tongue.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/tongue.gif)).

quote:Originally posted by AngryFemme:

Sticks and stones, Twisted_Ferret!

It's both sweet and noble that you stick up for your boy fullcircle to help him try to scrap some dignity out of this whole botched spectacle. Friends like you surely are a rarity.

Botched spectacle is right! Even imperfectcircle admitted in an email that he shouldn't just said what he wanted to and left instead of dragging it out like this. Anyway, though, I would suspect mockery in this post... but since I'm feeling good at the moment, I'll take it and face value and thank you. http://www.totse.com/bbs/biggrin.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/biggrin.gif) I am surprised and gratified that you did not respond with vemon, and - if you're sincere - apologize for my harsh post(s?) earlier.

[This message has been edited by Twisted_Ferret (edited 07-28-2006).]

Bloated ego? Maybe, but at least a few other people like him enough to notice his absense... (http://www.totse.com/bbs/Forum4/HTML/022000.html)

quote:Originally posted by Twisted_Ferret:

What, your only reason for arguing with him was to point out his stupidity to me?

Not at first, and not only to you but to others who might hold him in high regard.

It was pretty clear to me that he'd end up leaving the discussion (he has done so in the past numerous times) so following the discussion took a back seat to showing how he himself was egotistical and childish.

quote: If his posts truly became stupid or childish, though, of course I wouldn't admire them; however, I'd still admire the man himself (if only for his awesome displays of intellectual might in other threads http://www.totse.com/bbs/tongue.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/tongue.gif)). Besides, I don't even see any stupid posts; I think he should've let the whole thing go, but I can understand why he'd be unwilling to leave without defending himself, and though you may think you have refuted everything he said - and I make no judgement here - I don't think you can deny that the posts were well-written and display at least some knowledge of philosophy and debating skill. Or actually, you can; but I wouldn't agree, and not because I'm a mindless imperfectcircle fanboy (which is apparently what you think I am http://www.totse.com/bbs/tongue.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/tongue.gif)).

If you cannot concede that bringing up penis size, his "good looks", and I.Q. is stupid, or that claiming that his posts amount to "raping", "boning" or "owning" someone else is equally stupid and childish, then what else should we call you instead of a 'mindless fan-boy'?

I'm not saying that every single thing he has ever posted is stupid, far from it, I am, however, stating that he acted stupidly and in an immature manner in this thread; that should be obvious to anyone who bothers reading his ridiculous remarks.

quote:Bloated ego? Maybe, but at least a few other people like him enough to notice his absense...

I don't remember anyone claiming that nobody would notice his absence, or that nobody could possibly like his posts. You bringing this up for no apparent reason isn't really helping your "I'm not a mindless fanboy" argument...

quote:Originally posted by Rust:

If you cannot concede that bringing up penis size, his "good looks", and I.Q. is stupid, or that claiming that his posts amount to "raping", "boning" or "owning" someone else is equally stupid and childish, then what else should we call you instead of a 'mindless fan-boy'?

I would call it pretty stupid if all of his arguments rested upon such things; however, I doubt that his mention of any of that was supposed to win an argument. Without seeing the posts wherein he mentions all of that, I might even go so far as to say he was being facetious and/or trying to illustrate your percieved lack of humor.

As for "raping", "boning", etc. - it's crude, but I wouldn't dismiss an entire post just for his method of referring to previous victories (though, obviously, you don't consider them victories at all; I can't offer an opinion, since this is the only Rust vs. IC thread I've looked at).

quote: I don't remember anyone claiming that nobody would notice his absence, or that nobody could possibly like his posts.

Not in so many words, but when he brought up that he was a well-liked and respected poster I recall that being sneered at. You several times claimed that no one would really care what he did. Or was that just referring to his password thing? No matter; I was trying to illustrate his helpful postings elsewhere to show anyone else who might be reading this.

quote:Originally posted by Twisted_Ferret:

Bloated ego? Maybe, but at least a few other people like him enough to notice his absense... (http://www.totse.com/bbs/Forum4/HTML/022000.html)

Waitttt! Risky P.R. move on your part! Why would you direct his thrall of admirers to the one thread where he really let's his self-induced drama get the best of him?

quote:Originally posted by Twisted_Ferret:



[...]

As for "raping", "boning", etc. - it's crude, but I wouldn't dismiss an entire post just for his method of referring to previous victories (though, obviously, you don't consider them victories at all; I can't offer an opinion, since this is the only Rust vs. IC thread I've looked at).



I'm not dismissing his posts because of these completely idiotic and ridiculously childish statements, nor am I saying that you (or anyone else for that matter) should do so; what I am doing is noticing that they are idiotic, and that they are childish. It seems that you're even incapable of even doing that.

quote:

Not in so many words, but when he brought up that he was a well-liked and respected poster I recall that being sneered at. You several times claimed that no one would really care what he did. Or was that just referring to his password thing? No matter; I was trying to illustrate his helpful postings elsewhere to show anyone else who might be reading this.

Could you please quote where someone sneered at the notion that the was a well-liked poster? Making these statements (which are untrue as far as I know), is not helping your "I'm not a mindless fanboy" case either.

I said that he fulfilling his promise (which, as he himself points out, does not include leaving totse for good - which is how someone would end up missing his posts) was meaningless. I said it was meaningless because losing an username is a trivial thing, at least for me. Sure, he might actually feel other wise, but I'm not going to judge how I personally perceive a silly promise by whether or not he would actually lose some sleep over a name on the Internet.

[This message has been edited by Rust (edited 07-28-2006).]

http://www.totse.com/bbs/frown.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/frown.gif)

Anyway I reread some of this and here is a rundown.

Potentgirt says: You aren't a Catholic, Abrahim!

Abrahim says: Your idea of God is limited and blasphemous.

Potentgirt says: Your idea of God is useless and impersonal.

Abrahim says: I don't think so. What's more personal?

Potentgirt says: Jesus Christ died for our sins, is our Lord and Savior.

Abrahim says: Jesus Christ agrees with me, there is only one God to worship and its not Jesus!

Potentgirt says: If God was the Universe then God would be nothing before the Universe!

Abrahim says: The Universe and Reality and Absolutely everything is within God and made of God entirely.

Potentgirt: No! Your Pantheistic views are wrong.

Imperfectcircle says: God is infinite and therefor, if God doesn't include everything then God is not infinite. Abrahim is saying that God is infinite and singular, that everything is included inside, that there is nothing and nowhere that God is not. Infinity is not expanding, it is one infinite stable thing.

Rust says: Abrahim your definition of God doesn't fit into the the widely accepted definition of what a God is or should be and therefor doesn't qualify as a God. Furthermore you have offered no proof to your claims.

Daz says: Abrahim, you fail to provide evidence to your claims. All we KNOW for sure is that "there are thoughts" anything else we can not know beyond a reasonable doubt.

Abrahim says: Then those thoughts, the thoughts that make up absolutely everything are what I'm calling God.

Truckfixr: You keep repeating the same stuff and you never offer proof.

Abrahim says: What proof do you want? My proof is everything. That if there was ever absolute true nothing, that there still would be absolute true nothing, because nothing can't have anything occur within it, or by it. Nothing is and will always be nothing, and has never existed! The proof is us!

Red says: Saying what you said is not proof of anything.

Abrahim says: What proof do you want?

Rust says: Provide evidence.

Imperfectcircle says: I'm going to blow you out of the water Rust! Or I'll post my password.

Rust says: Claiming that adds nothing to what you say nor does it help anyone to respect you.

Imperfectcircle says: I got drunk and wasn't able to blow you out of the water as planned, I could, but I have to keep my promise so I'm posting my password.

Abrahim says: You don't need to. Just change your password and post the old password.

Rust says: No One Cares.

Imperfectcircle says: I care.

Rust says: You have multiple accounts its not even a substantial loss for you.

Angryfemme says: Maybe he's Abrahim!? Is he Abrahim?!

Rust says: Wouldn't surprise me.

Fullcircle says: I'm back! I'm not Abrahim, I only use one account at a time. I think Rust should get a sense of humor and be nicer.

Rust says: No one cares.

Angryfemme says: I think you're obsessed with Rust.

Abrahim says: Talk about me!

Fullcircle says: Rust is a jerk.

Rust says: You're childish.

Twistedferret says: Imperfectcircle is a nice guy.

Abrahim says: I'm going to give you all a rundown of this topic here.

TO PUT IT SIMPLY I WILL STATE MY INTERPRETATION OF EVERYONES PERSONAL BELIEFS WHICH I DONT ACTUALLY KNOW.

Abrahim: God is all encompassing and infinite, not a man or a woman or a thing in a sky, but rather, the Ultimate Reality, all powerful, all are dependant. I believe in Judgement, that negative/destructive things and positive/productive things get reflected back on the performer after death.

Potentgirt: There is One God, Jesus Christ is his Son, and his vessle on Earth. Jesus died for our sins and is our savior, the only way to get to heaven is to believe in Jesus and be a Christian.

Imperfectcircle: I'm starting to understand Abrahim's concept of God and what he is trying to say.

Rust: There is no God, there is no proof of God, there is no proof of life after death. I don't believe in God or an afterlife. I believe in what has sufficient evidence. God was invented by Man.

Daz: I do not believe in God because there is no proof of God or what Abrahim claims. All that I can say with sureness is that There are thoughts.

Truckfixr: There is no God, there is no proof of God, there is no proof of an afterlife.

Red: I have come to the conclusion that there is no God, it is an invention of people. I do not believe there is any proof of a God or an afterlife.

Angryfemme: There is no proof of any God, it is an invention of people. I don't believe in any afterlife.

quote:Originally posted by Abrahim:

TO PUT IT SIMPLY I WILL STATE MY INTERPRETATION OF EVERYONES PERSONAL BELIEFS WHICH I DONT ACTUALLY KNOW.



Can't speak for everyone else, but that seemed like a pretty fair assessment of my beliefs, in a nutshell. I am glad to know that all of our swapped dialogue did not result in you misunderstanding me. http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif)

No fair to you that the topic got off-subject. I truly wish potentgirt would join back in and the two of you could hammer it out point-by-point. I really could use something to read during my downtime at work today.

quote:Originally posted by AngryFemme:

Can't speak for everyone else, but that seemed like a pretty fair assessment of my beliefs, in a nutshell. I am glad to know that all of our swapped dialogue did not result in you misunderstanding me. http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif)

No fair to you that the topic got off-subject. I truly wish potentgirt would join back in and the two of you could hammer it out point-by-point. I really could use something to read during my downtime at work today.

What work do you do? Do I have you on my MSN Messenger, AIM, or Yahoo Messenger yet?!

Accounting. And shame on you for not remembering!

quote:Originally posted by AngryFemme:

Accounting. And shame on you for not remembering!

What the! I remembered! For some reason I thought your post was Redzed's post!?

I think I saw the smile and thought he wrote it. lol

I remember your job! I thought I was talking to Redzed, I read your post thinking it was him at around 6 AM in the morning!

Does anyone have anything to add to the general debate?

If we've gotten off track here is a basically what it is about:

The Topic's title is My dear, Abrahim, you are flawed in your theories, and was written by potentgirt. This is a continuation in a way of the original bitch and moan topic about me by another user.

The Original user claimed that my definition of God can not and does not fit into the generally accepted definition of God, and thus does not qualify as God.

Potentgirt's argument is that my definition of God does not fit into the generally accepted definition of God, and can not be included in a Christian belief system.

My definition of God can be found in the thread entitled "What is God?" and many more topics.

To put it basically it is that God is one, singular, infinite, all encompassing. That everything is made of it, existing only by it, and is completely dependant on it. Furthermore that it is the Ultimate Reality, encompassing all possible universes, realities, alternatives, possibilities that we can't even imagine. That this is what limits our reality and is what has provided all the possibilities of what we can possibly think or do.

I believe my definition is a proper definition of God and my intention is to remove the "God in Man's Image" God from people's imagination and replace it with this much more ancient idea.

Religions didn't start out polytheistic, in my belief, people started out with a basic understanding of Reality, and appointed eventually, names and aspects to the one Reality in order to explain things. Each of those names were later given metaphorical images in order to better explain their meaning, those images were given names and in later generations thought to be individual dieties.

The history of this process can be found in the history of the development of Hinduism, where originally starting out with The Brahman (my God, the One Reality in which everything) it developed into an entire army of Gods based on aspects of the One God. Hinduism is still considered Monotheistic by many educated members because they explain that all the Gods are simply aspects or manifestations of the One God.

Add to the debate? Sure thing.

You said:

quote:Originally posted by Abrahim:

...by Reality... I don't mean the universe only, or what you can feel and touch, but also everything you know and don't know, can possibly think and can never even imagine...



To which I replied:

"I can think that God doesn't exist. Therefore, "God not existing" is part of reality according to your definition. God doesn't exist."

You've yet to answer this. You've also yet to answer in this thread. (http://www.totse.com/bbs/Forum15/HTML/005708.html)

quote:Originally posted by Rust:

Add to the debate? Sure thing.

You said:

To which I replied:

"I can think that God doesn't exist. Therefore, "God not existing" is part of reality according to your definition. God doesn't exist."

You've yet to answer this. You've also yet to answer in this thread. (http://www.totse.com/bbs/Forum15/HTML/005708.html)



The possibility for you to think that God doesn't exist, as well as the possibility for you to first imagine what a God might be in order to imagine it not existing all exist as possible things you can think in this universe, which is within this reality. Obviouslaaay!

Since you might imagine God as some being within Reality (not real but if it did exist) then it makes sense to you to say "since I can think of the possibility that God doesn't exist, then God doesn't exist". But I'm saying that God is the Ultimate Reality encompassing all realities including this which provides you the possibility to think that thought, that you thought, if God didn't exist, there would be nothing, because I say God is what absolutely everything is made of and dependant on entirely, what all realities, possibilities, universes exist within.

The one possibility that doesn't exist is "Nothing exists" because there is no such thing as nothing, nor do I believe nothing could have ever existed! If there was ever absolute/true nothing, since nothing can't allow anything to happen within it, then there would still be nothing always. Something can't happen in or with absolute nothing. I don't believe in time exactly, I believe that with God, the ever existing, infinite, there was never a beginning and will never be an end, that with God came the ripe and infinite plain of knowledge which allows for all possibilities to occur, the one possibility that can not, is Nothingness, it has never existed and can not exist. I believe that forever this universe and all universes, and all things have been collapsing, and expanding and collapsing and expanding, and that infinite possibilities mean that there is no limite. For us to imagine it we would follow lines in all directions never ending. God the infinite is not expanding, even though the universe might be (for its next collapse and re expansion) but I don't mean to state God is the universe, but rather this universe, this reality, and all realities, are within God the infinite all encompassing.

As always, you failed to answer the problem at hand and instead replied with your usual convoluted bullshit.

You did not say that the possibility of it being true exists in reality, but that what I think of exists in reality.

You said that "everything you know and don't know, can possibly think and can never even imagine" exists in reality. That not only includes the possibility of me thinking 'X', but that 'X' itself.

quote:Originally posted by Rust:

As always, you failed to answer the problem at hand and instead replied with your usual convoluted bullshit.

You did not say that the possibility of it being true exists in reality, but that what I think of exists in reality.

You said that "everything you know and don't know, can possibly think and can never even imagine" exists in reality. That not only includes the possibility of me thinking 'X', but that 'X' itself.

Everything you know right now, and those things that you don't know yet and may never know, what you can possibly think and can never even imagine, exist within Ultimate Reality. I don't see what the big deal about that is?

Everything that you know

Things you don't know

What you can possibly think

What you can never imagine

All exist within Ultimate Reality.

When I say what you POSSIBLY THINK I mean literally, the thoughts you can possibly think. If the possibility for you to think those thoughts didn't exist, you wouldn't be able to think them. Perhaps you took that as meaning what you can imagine will manifest into this physical reality, but I never intended to say that to you! I literally meant the thoughts themselves.

I believe Ultimate Reality encompasses absolutely every possibility, possible reality, things we can't image, and this Reality is just one of an infinite number. The one possibility that can't and doesn't obviously exist is "no possibilities" or "nothing".

Also the thing about your thoughts is talking specifically about this Reality, in which I believe that whatever you can possibly think and possibly do is available for you to think and available for you to do within this Reality. There are thoughts you can't think and those thoughts you will never know, but this is because they are not available options to think of in this reality. Some things you might be able to think of, but can't do, that is because the option for you to be able to do them isn't available in this reality.

So I hope that clearified what I was saying a little bit.

When I say what you can possibly think, I literally mean the possible thoughts you can possibly have.

Well, that does resolve that problem; not the convoluted rambling you provided earlier.

Next time though, you should be more clear. There were a number of people who agreed with what I said, which suggests others were also interpreting that the same way I was.

quote:Originally posted by Abrahim:

I believe Ultimate Reality encompasses absolutely every possibility, possible reality, things we can't image, and this Reality is just one of an infinite number. The one possibility that can't and doesn't obviously exist is "no possibilities" or "nothing".



Therefore the xian 'triune' god must exist in one of those infinite realities! How about Zeus, Isis,etc.?

Namaste http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif)

Why not, red? Anything you could manifest in your head could exist. And since the ideas connected with it could shape your policies, your morals and alter your lifestyle on many, many levels - it makes it just as equally powerful as Abrahim's God.

He will argue that your imagined God exists within his God, but you could argue and say no, HIS God exists within YOUR God. Don't worry about offering any evidence of it, because he doesn't. So all is fair. He who is most long-winded and full of dogged tenacity alone wins this argument.

quote:Originally posted by Rust:

Well, that does resolve that problem; not the convoluted rambling you provided earlier.

Next time though, you should be more clear. There were a number of people who agreed with what I said, which suggests others were also interpreting that the same way I was.

Yes, alot of people also were under the impression that I worship the Universe among other misinterpreted things.

Also to Red and Angry the reason God's like Isis and the Christian triune are denied by me is because they have singular images and forms, if they existed, it would be my God that allows them to exist, since they would be within and dependant on whatever reality in order to exist. What I try to describe as God is what all Realities are dependant on and existing by and within, not a form within a reality.



[This message has been edited by Abrahim (edited 07-29-2006).]

quote:Originally posted by AngryFemme:

Why not, red? Anything you could manifest in your head could exist. And since the ideas connected with it could shape your policies, your morals and alter your lifestyle on many, many levels - it makes it just as equally powerful as Abrahim's God.

He will argue that your imagined God exists within his God, but you could argue and say no, HIS God exists within YOUR God. Don't worry about offering any evidence of it, because he doesn't. So all is fair. He who is most long-winded and full of dogged tenacity alone wins this argument.

What kind of evidence are you looking for? Could you give some examples of evidence that could possibly be provided (if it could) I mean what would be evidence?

That's just it. There is no "evidence". It's an idea. They are abstract thoughts and you could no more prove them to me than I could prove to you the different hues of red and orange I can imagine in my head at any given time.

You use the Qur'an to validate your beliefs, and others may use the Bible. It's a recommended guide for living, is it not? So you believe in a certain standard of living and red believes in another standard. You believe in your version of the afterlife, and red believes in his (if any).

They are ideas, manifested inside your heads. They would not exist without a human head to reside in. How could they? You will say that Reality makes it possible for these ideas to exist in someone's head, but how do you know that definitively? How do you know that the idea, first thought by man and manifested into a *belief*, did not come first?

I'll tell you what I think came first: The belief in belief did. Not the thing believed in.

quote:Originally posted by AngryFemme:

That's just it. There is no "evidence". It's an idea. They are abstract thoughts and you could no more prove them to me than I could prove to you the different hues of red and orange I can imagine in my head at any given time.

You use the Qur'an to validate your beliefs, and others may use the Bible. It's a recommended guide for living, is it not? So you believe in a certain standard of living and red believes in another standard. You believe in your version of the afterlife, and red believes in his (if any).

They are ideas, manifested inside your heads. They would not exist without a human head to reside in. How could they? You will say that Reality makes it possible for these ideas to exist in someone's head, but how do you know that definitively? How do you know that the idea, first thought by man and manifested into a *belief*, did not come first?

I'll tell you what I think came first: The belief in belief did. Not the thing believed in.

I think you might have misunderstood what I mean when I talk about thoughts. I am not saying that all thoughts you can think of literally physically exist in this reality, alot of things you can imagine don't exist in a form more than a thought. I am saying that every thought you can possibly think, is available to think, if it wasn't, you wouldn't be able to think it. I am saying if this Reality doesn't have the option to think it, you can't think it, if you can then obviously this reality has the option for you to think of it. Not all the things one can think are manifest in this physical reality.

Okay. Everything exists within reality. Isn't it quite a leap to tie that to the Qur'an, the ressurection, and an afterlife? Really and truly. Why even call it God?

Abrahim, you have made post after post asserting that all that exists , does so within reality. That all things exist within reality has never been the problem with your assertions. No reasoning individual could disagree with this idea.

Claiming that reality is god is where the problems arise. You have yet to show any legitimate logical argument to support your belief.

That "we exist", or "something doesn't come from nothing" are not valid arguments supporting your claim , as the origin of matter/energy cannot possibly be determined. Attributing existance to a god is an emotional, not a logical proposition.

Your definition of god has no more to support it than does that of the Christian God.

[This message has been edited by truckfixr (edited 07-30-2006).]

quote:Originally posted by AngryFemme:

Okay. Everything exists within reality. Isn't it quite a leap to tie that to the Qur'an, the ressurection, and an afterlife? Really and truly. Why even call it God?

Because in my belief there is absolutely no God greater than that all encompassing, and nothing else is worthy of being called a God, that is the original definition of God from even the ancient times, it can even be found in ancient hinduism and more. All I wanted to do was clearify something to people, especially believers, that this humanized idea of a being is somewhat more modern and in my opinion not accurate for the reason that if it is existing in a singular seperate form WITHIN Reality, it is not the greatest all encompassing One. Also other reason of how all is one and more.

http://www.apostatesofislam.com

http://www.faithfreedom.org

http://www.apostatesofislam.com/forum/index.php

http://www.faithfreedom.org/forum/index.php

http://www.faithfreedom.org/holiday/phpBB2/index.php

http://www.activistchat.com/phpBB2/index.php

http://www.masada2000.org/islam.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2829059.stm

http://www.fomi.nu/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1627

http://www.homestead.com/prosites-prs/

http://www.atcoalition.net/

http://www.tellthechildrenthetruth.com/gallery/

http://www.tellthechildrenthetruth.com/gallery/pages/6-Mein%20Kampf_jpg_jpg_jpg.htm

http://www.papillonsartpalace.com/moslem.htm

http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/

http://atheism.about.com/cs/islamandviolence/

http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/asiapcf/southeast/08/17/martyr.culture/index.html

http://muslim-quotes.netfirms.com/jihad.html

http://www.domini.org/openbook/home.htm

http://www.persecution.org

http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=9583

http://www.danielpipes.org/

http://www.angelfire.com/hi5/kafirdomunity/action.htm

http://www.geocities.com/khola_mon/BTaliban/Bangla_Taliban_Photos.html

http://www.bwoi.cjb.net

http://www.chechentruth.cjb.net/

http://www.anti-cair-net.org/

http://www.arabsforisrael.com/pages/1/index.htm

http://www.rotter.net/israel/

http://www.geocities.com/khola_mon/Islam.html

http://www.geocities.com/milkmandan2003/TalibanOnline1.html

http://www.truthtree.com/Debating/posts/755.html

http://www.isralert.com/archives/2005/03/deceit_thy_name.php

http://www.factsandlogic.org

http://massgraves.info/

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d191/zakirnaik/zakicaptured.gif

http://www.prophetofdoom.net/

http://www.venusproject.com/prophet_of_doom/toc.html

http://www.venusproject.com/prophet_of_doom/quotes1.html#terrorism

http://www.pmw.org.il/

Abrahim, remember the Muslims that rioted over the depiction of Mohammed in the comics ?

Funny, that. (http://tinyurl.com/d38gv)

Also, remember when you claimed that Islam wasn't sexist and oppressive to women, calling me a blasphemer for believing that to be true ? These paintings, done by Muslims, really contradict my opinion of the Qur'an....don't they ? http://www.totse.com/bbs/wink.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/wink.gif)

quote:Originally posted by Digital_Savior:

Abrahim, remember the Muslims that rioted over the depiction of Mohammed in the comics ?

Funny, that. (http://tinyurl.com/d38gv)

Also, remember when you claimed that Islam wasn't sexist and oppressive to women, calling me a blasphemer for believing that to be true ? These paintings, done by Muslims, really contradict my opinion of the Qur'an....don't they ? http://www.totse.com/bbs/wink.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/wink.gif)

Thanks for that link I enjoyed viewing all the various pages! I don't understand the connection you were making though! There is a tremendous amount of Medieval Christian artwork as well depicting various things including hell, I don't believe Medieval Christian artwork really accurate reflects on the teachings of the Old or New Testament.

What individuals do is their own business, people had no need to riot over drawings but if they chose to then so they did. If artists claiming to be one religion or another created artwork, so they did.

The Qur'an is not sexist or oppressive towards women, it gives women a tremendous amount of individual rights which Judaism and Christianity do not. A woman has total freedom and equal rights with a man. She has the right to choose who she marries, if she wants a divorce, and all other legal rights equal with men. The Qur'an is not sexist, it does not even hold human beings as any greatly superior creature nor does it differentiate much between men and women except in specific laws and dictations related to one sex or the other such as when it prescribes that women cover their breasts and private parts.

I don't really see what those paintings prove by your standards but they were produced several centuries after Muhammed in Turkey and Baghdad and other nations like Persia, have heavy asian influences, and are not at all based on the Qur'an. I reccomend you actually read the Qur'an with an opened mind and realize that it is not a sinful book in the least, nor does it blasphemy against God, nor is it confusing or hard to understand.

The paintings are artwork not based on the Qur'an and barely based on Arab/Asian/Zoroastrian/Hadith mythology and stories. I don't know what point you were attempting to illustrate! Please clearify your point!

If your point is "Look they used to make Muhammed's face" my response is "Ya."

If your point is "Look at those paintings they are so sexist and oppressive!" I'll say "Ya?"

If your point is "Muslims Rioted over depictions of Muhammed why don't they riot about century old turkish and persian artwork!" my answer is "I dunno"

But the Qur'an never asks people to riot over drawings, nor was it the inspiring force behind the depictions in those paintings.

But you already know that since you've read the Qur'an!

In Ancient Persia, while Islam was taking hold, Christians and Zoroastrians replaced Christ and Zoroaster with images of Muhammed (looking like Zoroaster). The Christians of Persia soon converted and created the Shi'a Sect of Islam. Many Shi'ites become Christians when moving from Iran. If you were to look up art of Zoroaster you would see the similarity between him and the Muhammed paintings from Persia, just how you would see a similarity in art depicting Mithra and Jesus.

ht tp://www.n ear-death. com/experiences/origen048.html (http: //www.near -death.com /experienc es/origen0 48.html)



[This message has been edited by Abrahim (edited 08-02-2006).]

Does anyone else have anything to add? Any questions? Comments?

scratches chin

thinks to self: "is *she* fucking with *my* head now? Does she have a sense of humor after all?"

scans through the thread

quote:Originally posted by Abrahim:

What work do you do?

quote:Originally posted by AngryFemme:

Accounting.

thinks to self: "no, she really is that fucking stupid"

PmsBitch, you really you should have taken my advice when I advised you not to further embarass yourself.

quote:Originally posted by AngryFemme:

Here's you:

"I am intellectually superior to Rust! My cock is bigger than Rust's! Everyone likes me better than Rust!"

There's really no sport in this. Your attacks are so fucking weak that it's like shooting fish in a barrel.

1) I *am* intellectually superior to Rust, that's simply a fact. As if further proof were necessary, wait til I post my rebuttal to Abrahim's thread (which I haven't posted yet because I've been out of the country, and additionally it's turning into more of an essay than a mere post, I've spent quite a few hours in the Trinity library researching various subjects to support my case). And unless Rust has a 10 inch dick, I *do* have a bigger cock than he does. As for how well liked he is, I have no idea.

2) While it was flattering that you went to the effort of assembling all 17 of the neurons in your brain to attempt the task of paraphrasing my posts in this thread, you should have saved yourself such strenuous exertion.

I'll explain it to you slowly, perhaps you'll understand it if I do that although I'm not overly optomistic. There are two different parts of your mimickery that must be addressed separately:

quote:"I am intellectually superior to Rust! My cock is bigger than Rust's! "

I'll try and use as few polysyllabic words as possible (that means words that "ain't 2 long").

You were commenting on my previous post, where I made such claims. I *did* make such claims, good job on reading that part of my post properly, you stupid bitch! But you clearly failed to read the entire post, so here it is again, I suggest pointing at each word on the screen and reading it out loud so you process them better this time:

quote:Originally posted by fullcircle:

You want to hear the reasons why? The reasons are shit I never bring up, because I don't boast.

But here's what I'm like being *egotistical*: I can guarantee you that my IQ is higher than yours, based on statistics, though also based on the intellectual content of your posts. I can also guarantee you that my dick is bigger than yours, based on statistics. And even though I have no idea what you look like, I'm probably better looking than you too. And those are just the *physical* aspects about me that make me cocky.

K, now do you see the part that is blacker than the rest? It's right before the part that's all "forward slanty-like". That part in bold was when I explained the following words were going to be intentionally egotistical in nature, in the aim of contrasting them with the tone I had adopted previously.

Do you understand now? Maybe the words I used were too long? I can't explain things in more simple terms.

quote:"Everyone likes me better than Rust!"

Why the hell did you say *this*? When the fuck did I ever suggest that I am more popular than Rust?

The first part of your comment that I quoted was at least comprehensible, since you had simply failed to turn on your brain when your read the words of my post.

But the second part of your comment you just plucked from thin air. That would be stupid enough on it's own, but what makes it worse is that you didn't even realise I would notice it and call you on it. Weak effort.

quote:"I am not egotistical!"

http://www.totse.com/bbs/rolleyes.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/rolleyes.gif)

Who would need to crack a psychology book to figure that one out?!

YOU obviously need to crack a fucking psychology book to figure my posts out, because you've repeatedly displayed a complete ignorance of psychological theory.

In fact you've not only displayed your ignorance of psychology, you've trumpeted it! Shall I explain why I say that? Obviously I need to, since you lack the cognitive capabilities to figure it out on your own.

Once again, I'll explain it slowly piece by piece in the hope that you manage to grasp what I'm saying in even a general sense.

1) You called me egotistical, but you cited me... saying... that I was going to speak... in an intentionally... egotistical manner. Do you comprehend why that was a meaningless example to refer to?

I expect that you don't. Because you made *exactly the same error* earlier in this thread. I also expect you can't remember. So I'll refresh your memory.

Go back to page 6 of this thread, and look at the post I made at 07:27. You had claimed that I had put "so much time and effort" into commenting about Rust. I responded to your claim by explaining how trivial the effort had been, and gave examples of times when I have put *far* more time and effort into commenting on posters who were unknown to me at the time.

Then at 13:40 you answered me. Read your post, showing that you had completely failed to understand the simple point I had made. You asked me:

quote:why did you feel the need to post a lengthy illustration of who you really are, by giving examples of your *exemplary* posting methods in other threads?

It wasn't a complex fucking point I had made, but you somehow managed to miss it. And you just did the *exact same thing* again. Fucking hell... I have better reading comprehension than you when I'm so drunk that I'm seeing triple.

2) I'm *not* egotistical. Once again... I already explained this. I'm *cocky*.

Did I ever say that a person should *lack* ego to be a good person? Did I ever say that I am *without* ego? Do you actually understand what "ego" means as a psychological term?

Try cracking a psychology textbook and reading about the terms that I'm using, it's a much better strategy than responding to my words when you're using a vague and ignorant conception of what they mean.

Here are a few suggestions to start off with, if you don't have access to a library that has introductory psychological texts, Jungian psychology in particular:

http://tinyurl.com/gbmee

http://tinyurl.com/cbpj8

http://tinyurl.com/hwfol

http://tinyurl.com/kxyae

Make your next post at least *vaguely* informed and competent, for both our sakes. http://www.totse.com/bbs/rolleyes.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/rolleyes.gif)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

I had no intention of picking a fight with you, in fact if you read back over the end of page 6 I mistakenly believed your tone had changed to a civil one, and I responded non-agressively because I don't wish to fight with anyone. I wish you hadn't been so petulant and anagonistic, but there you have it.

This is fucking hilarious! Thank You. Please continue making a fool out of yourself.

[This message has been edited by Rust (edited 08-02-2006).]

quote:Originally posted by Rust:

This is fucking hilarious! Thank You.

No problem.

I really look forward to the essay! While Fullcircle makes his essay, does anyone else have anything to comment on or add to this topic?

quote:Originally posted by fullcircle:

Go back to page 6 of this thread, and look at the post I made at 07:27.

No. This is so last week. Your story is tired. Your drama is boring. Everyone has exhausted their enthusiasm at discussing your exploits. Can't you see that?

quote:Originally posted by AngryFemme:

No. This is so last week. Your story is tired. Your drama is boring. Everyone has exhausted their enthusiasm at discussing your exploits. Can't you see that?

This topic IS about me afterall! *smiles + tooth sparkle + pin drop sound effect*

ha ha Abrahim you're wrong...i just wanted to be cool http://www.totse.com/bbs/frown.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/frown.gif)

quote:Originally posted by Graemy:

ha ha Abrahim you're wrong...i just wanted to be cool http://www.totse.com/bbs/frown.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/frown.gif)

lol! Thanks for that!

quote:Originally posted by Abrahim:

I really look forward to the essay! While Fullcircle makes his essay, does anyone else have anything to comment on or add to this topic?

Sorry for derailing your thread Abrahim. But I'll make that essay worth all the inconvenience. For one thing, it should silence a few of the criticisms I've seen people make about your ideas.

In the meantime I just have one minor comment to make, it's about your paraprasing of the thread (which was quite humorous btw):

quote:Imperfectcircle: I'm starting to understand Abrahim's concept of God and what he is trying to say.

That's not quite accurate. I already understood your concept of God in the first place, because it's very similar to my concept of God. I recognised that similarity first time I read you talking about God, in your wonderfully written "Interested in Islam?" thread.

quote:Originally posted by fullcircle:

That's not quite accurate. I already understood your concept of God in the first place, because it's very similar to my concept of God. I recognised that similarity first time I read you talking about God, in your wonderfully written "Interested in Islam?" thread.

I'm glad you understand the concept! Have you managed to aquire http://messenger.msn.com yet?

I based my impression off of the quote "So infinity must be unchanging. It must simply be everything - this is the hardest thought I have EVER wrapped by head around."

I'm extremely pleased that you completely grasp the concept and have helped to defend it very well! Thank you so much for all of what you said throughout this topic. I hope to talk to you on msn someday soon hopefully!

[This message has been edited by Abrahim (edited 08-04-2006).]

Abrahim, have you heard of Spinoza? From glancing over your posts, your idea of God is very similar. To quote: "Spinoza argued that God and Nature were two names for the same reality, namely the single substance (meaning "to stand beneath" rather than "matter") that underlies the universe and of which all lesser "entities" are actually modes or modifications. The argument for this single substance runs something as follows:

1. Substance exists and cannot be dependent on anything else for its existence.

2. No two substances can share an attribute.

Proof: If they share an attribute, they would be identical. Therefore they can only be individuated by their modes. But then they would depend on their modes for their identity. This would have the substance being dependent on its mode, in violation of premise 1. Therefore, two substances cannot share the same attribute.

3. A substance can only be caused by something similar to itself (something that shares its attribute).

4. Substance cannot be caused.

Proof: Something can only be caused by something which is similar to itself, in other words something that shares its attribute. But according to premise 2, no two substances can share an attribute. Therefore substance cannot be caused.

5. Substance is infinite.

Proof: If substance were not infinite, it would be finite and limited by something. But to be limited by something is to be dependent on it. However, substance cannot be dependent on anything else (premise 1), therefore substance is infinite.

Conclusion: There can only be one substance.

Proof: If there were two infinite substances, they would limit each other. But this would act as a restraint, and they would be dependent on each other. But they cannot be dependent on each other (premise 1), therefore there cannot be two substances.

Spinoza contended that "Deus sive Natura" ("God or Nature") was a being of infinitely many attributes, of which extension and thought were two. His account of the nature of reality, then, seems to treat the physical and mental worlds as two different, parallel "subworlds" that neither overlap nor interact. This formulation is a historically significant panpsychist solution to the mind-body problem known as neutral monism. The consequences of Spinoza's system also envisage a God that does not rule over the universe by providence, but a God which itself is part of the deterministic system of which everything in nature is a part. Thus, God is the natural world and has no personality." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinoz..._his_philosophy

Of course, Spinoza and all the other theologisms concerning God are merely speculation. Nothing we have gained through knowledge has lead to anything conclusive ot the nature of such a God if he does exist, nor has it been proven that he, indeed, exists at all. All I've been trying to illustrate is that there are many possibilities. To further name some of the general ones for added specificity:

1.)The universe sprung from energy that has always existed/is infinite/random came from nothing

2.)The universe IS God. He is some sort of galactic conciousness.

3.)God is a sentient entity residing outside the universe.

4.) We are in the matrix(For lols)

None of which can be substantiated, thus, neutrality is my position on such things.

quote:Originally posted by Zinkovich:

Abrahim, have you heard of Spinoza? From glancing over your posts, your idea of God is very similar. To quote: "Spinoza argued that God and Nature were two names for the same reality, namely the single substance (meaning "to stand beneath" rather than "matter") that underlies the universe and of which all lesser "entities" are actually modes or modifications. The argument for this single substance runs something as follows:

1. Substance exists and cannot be dependent on anything else for its existence.

2. No two substances can share an attribute.

Proof: If they share an attribute, they would be identical. Therefore they can only be individuated by their modes. But then they would depend on their modes for their identity. This would have the substance being dependent on its mode, in violation of premise 1. Therefore, two substances cannot share the same attribute.

3. A substance can only be caused by something similar to itself (something that shares its attribute).

4. Substance cannot be caused.

Proof: Something can only be caused by something which is similar to itself, in other words something that shares its attribute. But according to premise 2, no two substances can share an attribute. Therefore substance cannot be caused.

5. Substance is infinite.

Proof: If substance were not infinite, it would be finite and limited by something. But to be limited by something is to be dependent on it. However, substance cannot be dependent on anything else (premise 1), therefore substance is infinite.

Conclusion: There can only be one substance.

Proof: If there were two infinite substances, they would limit each other. But this would act as a restraint, and they would be dependent on each other. But they cannot be dependent on each other (premise 1), therefore there cannot be two substances.

Spinoza contended that "Deus sive Natura" ("God or Nature") was a being of infinitely many attributes, of which extension and thought were two. His account of the nature of reality, then, seems to treat the physical and mental worlds as two different, parallel "subworlds" that neither overlap nor interact. This formulation is a historically significant panpsychist solution to the mind-body problem known as neutral monism. The consequences of Spinoza's system also envisage a God that does not rule over the universe by providence, but a God which itself is part of the deterministic system of which everything in nature is a part. Thus, God is the natural world and has no personality." h ttp://en.w ikipedia.o rg/wiki/Spinoz..._his_philosophy (http: //en.wikip edia.org/w iki/Spinoz ..._his_ph ilosophy)

Of course, Spinoza and all the other theologisms concerning God are merely speculation. Nothing we have gained through knowledge has lead to anything conclusive ot the nature of such a God if he does exist, nor has it been proven that he, indeed, exists at all. All I've been trying to illustrate is that there are many possibilities. To further name some of the general ones for added specificity:

1.)The universe sprung from energy that has always existed/is infinite/random came from nothing

2.)The universe IS God. He is some sort of galactic conciousness.

3.)God is a sentient entity residing outside the universe.

4.) We are in the matrix(For lols)

None of which can be substantiated, thus, neutrality is my position on such things.

I go a little bit further than Spinoza with my ideas, that not only is this universe, nature and reality within God, but all natures, realities, possibilities, and realities, unknown to us, are within God, made of God entirely, completely dependant on God. That God is essentially the Ultimate All Encompassing Reality encompassing absolutely everything infinitely and is without beginning or end but is what there was is and always will be: One Singular.

I don't limit my idea of God to this nature or universe alone, furthermore I make sure to not say that this nature and universe IS God, but that this nature and universe and reality is PART of God, Within God, Made of God, Existing By God, and so are all possible others (and the possibilities are infinite).

Perhaps someone already asked this question, but why do you call your concept God?

My apologies if I am making you repeat yourself. This thread is a bit of a mess and is difficult to scan through.

quote:Originally posted by Zinkovich:

Perhaps someone already asked this question, but why do you call your concept God?

My apologies if I am making you repeat yourself. This thread is a bit of a mess and is difficult to scan through.

I find that it is the original explanation and definition of God and also that there is nothing greater than Ultimate Reality All Encompassing nor could God or should God be anything else, furthermore I dislike people imagining some sort of man like being in some alternate dimension as compared to my concept which can be found in Islam, Hinduism, and was often the original God in ancient religions which later developed into polytheistic religions.

quote:Originally posted by Zinkovich:

Perhaps someone already asked this question, but why do you call your concept God?

I'll be explaining this in pretty extensive detail soon, he's got a valid basis for doing it.

!Does anyone else have any questions or anything they would like to ask about my ideas or anything they would like me to clear up?

[This message has been edited by Abrahim (edited 08-04-2006).]

I'm interested in what you've been saying but it's 2:00 am and I'm having trouble understanding this... please explain this like you would to a two year old, in simple sentences. I will pose a question and answer it in parentheses. Please show me where I am wrong.



1.) What is Reality vs. Ultimate Reality (I only know what Reality is. Reality is different for every person. There is no one 'reality.' each thought, experience and memory that goes through me is what reality is made up of. You have your own reality. Many people believe that there is a being, GOD, that can perceive each person's reality. [all the thoughts that ever were, etc.] but you have stated that your god is not sentient, therefor cannot perceive)

quote:Originally posted by W:

I'm interested in what you've been saying but it's 2:00 am and I'm having trouble understanding this... please explain this like you would to a two year old, in simple sentences. I will pose a question and answer it in parentheses. Please show me where I am wrong.



1.) What is Reality vs. Ultimate Reality (I only know what Reality is. Reality is different for every person. There is no one 'reality.' each thought, experience and memory that goes through me is what reality is made up of. You have your own reality. Many people believe that there is a being, GOD, that can perceive each person's reality. [all the thoughts that ever were, etc.] but you have stated that your god is not sentient, therefor cannot perceive)

Hi little W, you're looking good today, that's a nice hat you have there, what is your favorite color?

Wow that's a mighty big question for a boy your age, only 2, wondering about the meaning of all things! You're awesome little W!

Reality vs. Ultimate Reality:

Abrahim's Definitions:

When I say Reality I mean what this Universe and all the possible things we can possibly think and possibly do are within.

When I say Ultimate Reality I mean what ever other possible Reality, Universe, and Possibility is within, the Ultimate All Encompassing Reality that is infinite and Encompasses this Reality which is only one possibility.

My God is not Sentient in the way human beings are sentient, but I've explained that it is alive and active, if it were not, nothing would exist or be active.

My God is the one thing that could truly know absolutely everything in every possible way. Truly "Know", "Be". Because everything is a part of it, within it, made of it, existing by it, dependant on it.

So Basically Reality = Our Everything, Ultimate Reality = Truly Everything Infinite and never ending in possibilities.

quote:Originally posted by Abrahim:

!Does anyone else have any questions or anything they would like to ask about my ideas or anything they would like me to clear up?



Yes. Why do you use the term "My God", surely this ought to be OurGod? That is, if what you are saying can be physically, scientifically, demonstrated to be true, in reality that is http://www.totse.com/bbs/biggrin.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/biggrin.gif)

As has been said(by truckfxr?) there is no problem with accepting what you are saying of reality(it is not very different to Hermeticism), however when you connect it to Islam/Koran/Allah, and try to proselitise for that anthropomorphic vision of God, you lose credibility -- IMHO.

Namaste http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif)

quote:Originally posted by redzed:

Yes. Why do you use the term "My God", surely this ought to be OurGod? That is, if what you are saying can be physically, scientifically, demonstrated to be true, in reality that is http://www.totse.com/bbs/biggrin.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/biggrin.gif)

As has been said(by truckfxr?) there is no problem with accepting what you are saying of reality(it is not very different to Hermeticism), however when you connect it to Islam/Koran/Allah, and try to proselitise for that anthropomorphic vision of God, you lose credibility -- IMHO.

Namaste http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif)

I mention Islam and Hinduism as well as Taoism in some of my posts to show that the ideas occur elsewhere, it is mainly for informational purposes.

My God as in My concept of God which I promote as compared to other ideas of God which others promote, since not everyone agrees with my idea of God, such as Potentgirt, but perhaps he doesn't yet understand it.

Does anyone else have anything to add to this topic or does anyone have any questions for me about my ideas and theories?

quote:Originally posted by redzed:

however when you connect it to Islam/Koran/Allah, and try to proselitise for that anthropomorphic vision of God, you lose credibility -- IMHO.

Anthropomorphic vision of God?

quote:Originally posted by Abrahim:

God is not a man, nor is God in the image of Man

Edit: btw the reason my rebuttal is taking so long is that I'm currently reading through a SHITLOAD of stuff about it, it's becoming a much more complex post than I previously intended.

There are four entire books I'm reading through at the moment:

God, the mind's desire : reference, reason and Christian thinking / Paul D. Janz.

God in the act of reference : debating religious realism and non-realism / Erica Appelros.

Philosophical relativity / Peter Unger.

Correspondence and disquotation : an essay on the nature of truth / Marian David.

And I've got somewhere around 100 pages of photocopies on other subjects on top of that.

Believe me, my response is going to shut down a lot of the objections people have made to Abrahim's beliefs.

[This message has been edited by fullcircle (edited 08-08-2006).]

quote:Originally posted by fullcircle:

Anthropomorphic vision of god?

Collins Concise Dictionary:

Anthropomorphic 1. of or relating to anthropomorphism

Anthropomorphism = the attribution of human form or behaviour to a deity

Koranic descriptions of the behaviour of the god depicted therein are obviously anthropomorphic. This is not restricted to the Koran however, it seems apparent that all human descriptions of god are made from the subjective human experience and thus the attribution of human behaviour to the deity seems to be an inevitable consequence. Personally, the behaviours attributed to god by the koran, anger, retribution, punishment, reward, etc., are so obviously human that it beggars the mind to believe that the being described can be anything other than a human construct.

Namaste http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif)

quote:Originally posted by redzed:

Collins Concise Dictionary:

Anthropomorphic 1. of or relating to anthropomorphism

Anthropomorphism = the attribution of human form or behaviour to a deity

Koranic descriptions of the behaviour of the god depicted therein are obviously anthropomorphic. This is not restricted to the Koran however, it seems apparent that all human descriptions of god are made from the subjective human experience and thus the attribution of human behaviour to the deity seems to be an inevitable consequence. Personally, the behaviours attributed to god by the koran, anger, retribution, punishment, reward, etc., are so obviously human that it beggars the mind to believe that the being described can be anything other than a human construct.

Namaste http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif)

"What big ears you have Grandma!"

"The better to hear you with!"

quote:Originally posted by redzed:

it seems apparent that all human descriptions of god are made from the subjective human experience and thus the attribution of human behaviour to the deity seems to be an inevitable consequence.

That is true of theism.

But that is untrue of the monistic conceptions of divinity, which Abrahim has explicitly identified his "God" with a number of times, for example:

quote:Originally posted by Abrahim:

Allah is my God, Ahuramazda, The Brahman, The Tao, God, there is no God but this.

His beliefs are essentially pantheistic, and this is not incompatible with Islam in the sense he has spoken of Allah:

quote:Originally posted by Abrahim:

[quote]"Ishvara (ईश्वर in devanagari script, pronunciation /ī:sh vərə/), also variously transliterated (romanized) as Īshvara, Īshwara, Īshwar, Īśvara, etc. (Sanskrit: "the Supreme Lord, and hence the Cosmic Controller") is a Hindu philosophical concept of God meaning that entity or the Supreme Being which is the lord and the ruler of everything. It is also used in Buddhism to mean 'lord' or 'master', eg, Avalokiteshvara."

The same goes for "The Tao" in Taoism.

The same with "Allah" in Islam, it is a description of Ultimate Reality.

He also identified his "God" with Spinoza's "Nature", another pantheistic conception. In fact in his "Ethics", Spinoza raised the same point that you did. He said that since we must use our imagination to conceive of "God", we must anthropomorphise him to some extent in doing so. So in formulating his conception of "God", he used reason, and sought to describe an impersonal entity. He used the term "God", but it has a meaning very different to traditional theistic conceptions. God need not necessarily be anthropomorphised, and Abrahim has been very explicit that his use of the term “God” does not refer to a personal being.

quote: Personally, the behaviours attributed to god by the koran, anger, retribution, punishment, reward, etc., are so obviously human that it beggars the mind to believe that the being described can be anything other than a human construct.

But Abrahim has not claimed to hold such a literalist interpretation of the Koran.

If he was claiming to be Christian, you could level the same charges against him based on the God of the Old Testament. On the Christian God described by the gnostics and in the Gospel of Thomas is vastly different.

The question really is how he conceives of Allah. I have never seen him say he believes Allah is a personal God, even if that is how most Muslims conceive of him. Rather, he has said that his notion of Allah *comes from the Koran*, which is not the same thing. In his references to the Koran, the has cited conceptions of Allah as the same Absolute Reality/etc that he says he believes in, rather than any personal deity:

[quote]Originally posted by Abrahim:

My Personal Concept of God comes from the Qur'an. God is Reality. God is Encompassing Everything. Surrounding Everything.

022.006

This is so, because Allah is the Reality: it is He Who gives life to the dead, and it is He Who has power over all things.

022.062

That is because Allah - He is the Reality; and those besides Him whom they invoke,- they are but vain Falsehood: verily Allah is He, Most High, Most Great.

023.116

Therefore exalted be Allah, the King, the Reality: there is no god but He, the Lord of the Throne of Honour!

031.030

That is because Allah is the (only) Reality, and because whatever else they invoke besides Him is Falsehood; and because Allah,- He is the Most High, Most Great.

069.001

The Reality!

069.002

What is the Reality?

069.003

Ah, what will convey unto thee what the Reality is?

003.120

If aught that is good befalls you, it grieves them; but if some misfortune overtakes you, they rejoice at it. But if ye are constant and do right, not the least harm will their cunning do to you; for Allah Compasseth round about all that they do.

008.047

Be not as those who came forth from their dwellings boastfully and to be seen of men, and debar (men) from the way of Allah, while Allah is surrounding all they do.

041.054

How! Are they still in doubt about the meeting with their Lord? Lo! Is not He surrounding all things?

004.126

But to Allah belong all things in the heavens and on earth: And He it is that Encompasseth all things.

005.054

O ye who believe! if any from among you turn back from his Faith, soon will Allah produce a people whom He will love as they will love Him,- lowly with the believers, mighty against the rejecters, fighting in the way of Allah, and never afraid of the reproaches of such as find fault. That is the grace of Allah, which He will bestow on whom He pleaseth. And Allah encompasseth all, and He knoweth all things.

011.092

He said: "O my people! is then my family of more consideration with you than Allah? For ye cast Him away behind your backs (with contempt). But verily my Lord encompasseth on all sides all that ye do!

017.060

Behold! We told thee that thy Lord doth encompass mankind round about: We granted the vision which We showed thee, but as a trial for men,- as also the Cursed Tree (mentioned) in the Qur'an: We put terror (and warning) into them, but it only increases their inordinate transgression!

quote:Originally posted by Abrahim:

"What big ears you have Grandma!"

"The better to hear you with!"



What the? http://www.totse.com/bbs/confused.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/confused.gif)

quote:Originally posted by fullcircle:

If he was claiming to be Christian, you could level the same charges against him based on the God of the Old Testament. On the Christian God described by the gnostics and in the Gospel of Thomas is vastly different.

The question really is how he conceives of Allah. I have never seen him say he believes Allah is a personal God, even if that is how most Muslims conceive of him. Rather, he has said that his notion of Allah *comes from the Koran*, which is not the same thing. In his references to the Koran, the has cited conceptions of Allah as the same Absolute Reality/etc that he says he believes in, rather than any personal deity:



I'm not levelling any charges at Abrahim. I am questioning why he would associate any ideas of god with Allah. You(and he) produce evidence from the Koran to support your assertions, however that evidence will only have validity to someone who believes in the Koran, and they will be accepting what it says on faith alone without a shred of actual physical evidence to prove the existence of this version of god.

My question to Abrahim is why does he need to confuse the issue by tying his theory of ultimate reality to Allah and the Koran?

Namaste http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif)

quote:Originally posted by redzed:

I'm not levelling any charges at Abrahim. I am questioning why he would associate any ideas of god with Allah. You(and he) produce evidence from the Koran to support your assertions, however that evidence will only have validity to someone who believes in the Koran, and they will be accepting what it says on faith alone without a shred of actual physical evidence to prove the existence of this version of god.

My question to Abrahim is why does he need to confuse the issue by tying his theory of ultimate reality to Allah and the Koran?

Namaste http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif)

I wanted to mention how my concept can be found in Islam and Hinduism as well as Taoism. My concept might only pick up with the religiously or philosophically inclined. I don't find that it is confusing the issue as the issue is God, What I believe God is, and how other religions and philosophies have come to similar conclusions.

Any Other Comments? Questions about my ideas? Anything you would like clearified?