You all realize if Bill had stayed active here he would probably have already reached level 10?

brentan comments on Aug 27, 2019:

I don't know who Bill is but maybe he got a life.

Macron must take back 'insults' for Brazil to accept G7 Amazon aid: Bolsonaro

brentan comments on Aug 27, 2019:

There is a notion that sharing communications means transferring salience landscapes from one person to another. Pictures, we might say. If I understand correctly, autism misinterprets salience landscapes through a fault in the amygdala. The details in the landscape are not correct. Salience landscaping also involves filling the space not necessarily with incorrect details, but with irrelevant details to create an impression something valid is being said. In the vernacular, we call this bullshit.

"With reasonable men, I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no ...

brentan comments on Aug 27, 2019:

The arguments certainly would be lost on tyrants.

Get your hands up

brentan comments on Aug 27, 2019:

I really like that picture!

A plane just went overhead. reminded me of Joni Mitchell and her masterpiece Amelia [youtu.be]

brentan comments on Aug 27, 2019:

Absolutely wonderful lyrics. I think she paid a huge price for her talent.

I literally was wrong.

brentan comments on Aug 27, 2019:

I think stop that now before you do it with someone who counts and fuck things up.

[youtu.be] She could sing anything this is a good one by her

brentan comments on Aug 27, 2019:

Lovely! I had Hasten Down The Wind for years. Lots of passionate songs by Karla Bonoff, if I have her name right.

It's the best feeling!

brentan comments on Aug 27, 2019:

What is wrong with you, Bee? I'm sure a good analyst could sort that out!

Since many of us have done this poorly before

brentan comments on Aug 27, 2019:

I wanted to see if marriage could be compared to a fifth base in baseball but I didn't know how many bases there are. I looked it up and found out, of course, but in the meantime got a shock to see there is already an urban dictionary meaning for fifth base. That was a surprise!

Cameo - Word Up [youtube.com]

brentan comments on Aug 27, 2019:

That's a great song!

What did Marx mean by "religion is the opium of the people"?

brentan comments on Aug 27, 2019:

Religion was about fairness but it dealt with it over the span of two worlds, this one and the next. That's not much use to an atheist. The socialist/communist approach was a total perversion of fairness. Social democracy seems good to me in theory but it isn't working so well in a neoliberal economy.

meretricious adjective mer·​e·​tri·​cious | \ ˌmer-ə-ˈtri-shəs \ 1 : of or ...

brentan comments on Aug 27, 2019:

I thought it would mean deserving - oh well.

Are you wasting your time being here?

brentan comments on Aug 27, 2019:

We can get the context here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Open-Society-Enemies-Routledge-Classics/dp/0415610214/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2IUEDBOB70FRF=karl+popper+the+open+society+and+its+enemies=1566902866&s=gateway=karl+popper%2Caps%2C142&sr=8-1

As a child, I really enjoyed church, Sunday school, and Vacation Bible School--the dressing up, the ...

brentan comments on Aug 27, 2019:

I loved the gospel stories, the idea of a guy creating a revolution, turning all the traditional values upside-down in a peaceful way.

Going job hunting today, wish me luck!

brentan comments on Aug 27, 2019:

Are you sure you want to do this? Work sucks! Anyway, if your mind is set on it, the very best of luck!

Come on Jason! Get it together!

brentan comments on Aug 27, 2019:

Probably did Strategic Management in college.

Who wrote, "Time is the enly thing that doesn't change--it is always now"

brentan comments on Aug 27, 2019:

Was it Father Time?

Life is an Illusion, a Dream, a Bubble, a Shadow.

brentan comments on Aug 26, 2019:

He would have been useless in the fight against the Nazis! Seriously though, I wonder could an argument be made that those soldiers wasted their time?

The end...

brentan comments on Aug 26, 2019:

The end is dead. Long live the sequel.

It's not just me then?

brentan comments on Aug 26, 2019:

'One law for the lion and the ox is oppression'. - William Blake

No, I'm not presenting Paul as the chosen Beatle.

brentan comments on Aug 26, 2019:

Super! I feel the earth move.

. Live each day as if it were your Last Someday it will be.

brentan comments on Aug 26, 2019:

But, but, but..... that's the only day you'll be right!

Your perspective makes all the difference.

brentan comments on Aug 26, 2019:

A Reverend John Trusler employed the poet William Blake to illustrate one of his books but was unhappy with the work, calling it 'weird and of an exaggerated extravagance'. Blake writes back: I feel that a man may be happy in this world. And I know that this world is a world of imagination and vision. I see every thing I paint in this world, but everybody does not see alike. To the eyes of a miser, a guinea is far more beautiful than the Sun, and a bag worn with the use of money has more beautiful proportions than a vine filled with grapes. The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing which stands in the way. Some see nature all ridicule and deformity, and by these, I shall not regulate my proportions; and some scarce see nature at all. But to the eyes of the man of imagination, nature is imagination itself. As a man is, so he sees. […] You certainly mistake, when you say that the visions of fancy are not to be found in this world. To me, this world is all one continued vision of fancy or imagination…

While reading the book "Stony the Road" , a book about Jim Crow, Reconstruction and Redemption, I ...

brentan comments on Aug 26, 2019:

I had only understood the idea of locus communis in terms of commonplace books, which I see as early forms of personal diaries. I looked at Wiki and apparently John Locke wrote a treatise about how to use these books "in which techniques for entering proverbs, quotations, ideas, speeches were formulated". I don't know anything about plantation literature but maybe you can say if it conforms to this idea.

"The only reliable love is one promised by choice rather than propelled by emotion".

brentan comments on Aug 26, 2019:

I'm thinking about it in terms of creating your own reality. I'm also thinking that Kant seems to be saying only God can do that and we lesser mortals just respond to stimuli. Maybe it's more natural, for want of a better word, for Christians to do that because they (the good ones) do their best to live in an alternative reality.

I got fired from my job at Home Depot. Why?

brentan comments on Aug 26, 2019:

'They'll take your soul if you let them Oh yeah, but don't you let them' Carole King's You've Got A Friend.

Don’t worry about getting old.

brentan comments on Aug 26, 2019:

Well said. I think a lot of old people give up on the world.

How do you determine who you follow here?

brentan comments on Aug 26, 2019:

I had to look at my profile to see who I follow. I picked people who I thought might be interesting and/or challenging. There are 5 people and it turns out that I haven't had an exchange with any of them for a long time.

Religion in a nutshell.

brentan comments on Aug 26, 2019:

It's sad that such a noble and sophisticated search for understanding has come down to this.

The Band Down South in New Orleans From the Last Waltz album [m.youtube.com]

brentan comments on Aug 26, 2019:

That rocks along very nicely! I love the results from fusing rock with other types of music.

We are supposed to not work on Sunday and give thanks to the Lord.

brentan comments on Aug 25, 2019:

The Moody Blues take me back to the notion of the quintessential 1960s Sunday in England. I had no trouble relating to it in Ireland too. How they managed to express something so depressing in such an elegiac manner is, I guess, a measure of their great talent. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLgyGxBsL1U

Name that speech....

brentan comments on Aug 25, 2019:

I must agree that the words of earlier leaders shine brightly compared to the Twitter comments of Trump but we must remember the horrors that accompanied such well-constructed rhetoric.

I know someone will be offended.

brentan comments on Aug 25, 2019:

It's a celebration and I think it's expressed really well.

churchill, "when you're going through hell, keep going"

brentan comments on Aug 25, 2019:

No good in peacetime and found his strength in war.

Thoughts about abortion

brentan comments on Aug 25, 2019:

I'm pro choice. I'm so much in awe of life in the making that it makes me pro life too. When my wife gave birth, I thought I was watching the closest thing to a miracle I would ever see. Perhaps the miracle of childbirth needs to be balanced with the miracle of life already born and coping with the complexities of survival, dignity, mental health etc.

Connie Francis- Where The Boys Are [youtube.com]

brentan comments on Aug 25, 2019:

If I was that soldier.......

Seems she found a good spot...

brentan comments on Aug 25, 2019:

I don't like Mondays. Relax, I'm unarmed.

Bachman Turner Overdrive - You Aint Seen Nothing Yet [youtube.com]

brentan comments on Aug 25, 2019:

That's a great song! I'm probably spoiling it by thinking about it too deeply but that's me.

Religious oopsie

brentan comments on Aug 25, 2019:

It must be a Harry Clarke window: https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/art-and-design/visual-art/scandalous-harry-clarke-window-goes-on-display-in-dublin-gallery-1.2135844

Religion vs science

brentan comments on Aug 25, 2019:

I think the scientific method in the West started within the Church. If that's true, the scientific method had to develop in tandem with Church dogma. It's curious that the Crusades introduced so much thought from Muslim scholarship into European thought but I think that means two religions contributed so much to the development of science.

"It takes a long time to build a viable society when you start with sticks and stones".

brentan comments on Aug 25, 2019:

I wonder what he was thinking. I'm thinking get food and cook it. Then maybe tell a story.

No surprise really...

brentan comments on Aug 25, 2019:

I wondered about that and was afraid to say it because it seems so extreme. Like Trump, I would think Bolsonaro is more criminal than religious. But I guess crime and religion can use each other well these days. Well, not just these days, I guess they always did.

Today's word:

brentan comments on Aug 25, 2019:

Are they the new Irish or the new Poles for WASPs to look down on?

Where are the MeToo cries of approbation at Epstein's death?

brentan comments on Aug 25, 2019:

Maybe there's a lack of leadership and clear goals in the feminist movement these days. I must admit I don't really know where they're at.

Who is wiping who off the map?

brentan comments on Aug 25, 2019:

I think this is one of those times when a picture doesn't paint a thousand words.

Anything becomes interesting if you look at it long enough. -Gustave Flaubert

brentan comments on Aug 25, 2019:

My father would have called that 'a good complaint'.

Learn as though you would never be able to master it; Hold it as though you would be in fear of ...

brentan comments on Aug 25, 2019:

The old bossy boots!

2 Kings 17:24-25 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV): The king of Assyria brought people from ...

brentan comments on Aug 25, 2019:

The Israeli army does that job these days.

Good Morning My Hippies.

brentan comments on Aug 25, 2019:

I enjoyed season 1. I watched the first episode of the second season and then thought I couldn't go on with it. I might get back to it if I'm feeling strong.

sere adjective \ ˈsir \ variants: or less commonly sear Definition of sere (Entry 1 of 2) 1 : ...

brentan comments on Aug 25, 2019:

That's a good one. I thought the archaic definition of sere - threadbare- would go well with the archaic definition of weeds - clothes. I looked up sere weeds and found it was a type of actual weed.

Sunday morning. Got coffee?

brentan comments on Aug 25, 2019:

That's how you do it. Pace yourself.

After listening to "hidden brain" and how we bias EVERYTHING we see, I came across this quote and it...

brentan comments on Aug 25, 2019:

To see a World in a Grain of Sand And a Heaven in a Wild Flower Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand And Eternity in an hour - from William Blake's Auguries of Innocence

A truck loaded with thousands of copies of Roget's Thesaurus crashed yesterday losing its entire ...

brentan comments on Aug 24, 2019:

That covers a lot of ground.

disconsolate adjective dis·​con·​so·​late | \ dis-ˈkän(t)-sə-lət \ 1 : CHEERLESS ...

brentan comments on Aug 24, 2019:

As opposed to dat consulate.

An astonishing revelation!

brentan comments on Aug 24, 2019:

Especially when things are going well.

Court delivers brutal ruling against Kim Davis — the Kentucky clerk who blocked same-sex marriages...

brentan comments on Aug 24, 2019:

That's a relief!

Not a meme...found this in the news.

brentan comments on Aug 24, 2019:

It's good to know they're learning about sexual freedom while learning how to deal with strikers.

The World/Earth seen from any direction from outer space is a disk.

brentan comments on Aug 24, 2019:

I'm wondering if there is a connection between Kant's Critique of Pure Reason and the belief in a flat earth. What I mean is the idea that our brain gives us a representation of our universe that many people feel is fortunately an exact replica of what is out there. Some think our brains allow for a practical interaction with our surroundings that probably does not reflect reality. So our perception of reality might see things in one way and pictures from outer space see it another way.

Then and Now. Feel Free to post your favorite tunes of Neil Young.

brentan comments on Aug 24, 2019:

Here's a strange one from a strange album. I really like it. Hope you do too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9CkvAQkQLs

I'm really disappointed in a lot of people on this site.

brentan comments on Aug 24, 2019:

I guess we disappoint each other all the time. Maybe the topics are sometimes better than FB but the responses often the same.

[alternet.

brentan comments on Aug 24, 2019:

Music to my ears.

Stupid, stupid, stupid! Appeals Court: It’s Legal for PA House to Block Atheists from Giving ...

brentan comments on Aug 24, 2019:

Interesting. I guess you need a spirit creature to call on to make an invocation prayer valid. Maybe that means Satanists qualify but atheists don't.

Brazil's indigenous people: 'We fight for the right to exist' - BBC News

brentan comments on Aug 24, 2019:

It's not easy to be shocked anymore but this does it.

Interesting instrument; & beautiful music. Guilhem Desq - Cicatrices - Hurdy Gurdy [youtu.be]

brentan comments on Aug 24, 2019:

Ok, that was bizarre. Very nice too!

Love this joke

brentan comments on Aug 24, 2019:

LOL. He's not bothered with 'return evil for evil to noone'.

effrontery noun ef·​fron·​tery | \ i-ˈfrən-tə-rē : shameless boldness : INSOLENCE

brentan comments on Aug 24, 2019:

I like the modern way of using 'front' as a noun or a verb.

Relationships never die a natural death, they are murdered by ego, attitude and ignorance.

brentan comments on Aug 24, 2019:

I just knew it was her fault!

" For mankind is ever the same and nothing is lost out of nature though everything is altered" ...

brentan comments on Aug 24, 2019:

That's a good one - there's a few things that might be 'lost out of nature' and not be missed!

Just because you're paranoid...

brentan comments on Aug 23, 2019:

That says it so well!

"There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been.

brentan comments on Aug 23, 2019:

It just might be that these days, the ignorant and the educated are two sides of the same useless coin.

The wonderful world of Disney

brentan comments on Aug 23, 2019:

I don't think it's too important what we worry about. The main thing is to have something.

"People who are spiritually minded tend to suffer from anxiety and depression more.You know why?

brentan comments on Aug 21, 2019:

So much, then, for finding the peace of the Lord in our part of the world,

Can someone explain to me how a pro-socialism/communism lefty can even remotely consider themselves ...

brentan comments on Aug 21, 2019:

It comes from bowing down to an ideology - just like right-wingers do. Free thinkers are independent thinkers.

😳Poor Alexa!

brentan comments on Aug 21, 2019:

When they add a camera to it, you can take pictures of the journey,

Ben looks disappointed he didnt think of it

brentan comments on Aug 20, 2019:

We must be mad bastards!

It was a lousy, very bad day for me.

brentan comments on Aug 20, 2019:

Bummer. I hope you recover from it soon!

At eight years of age Helen Keller had some deep questions that she wrote down for her teacher: ...

brentan comments on Aug 20, 2019:

I'm coming across the idea a lot recently that consciousness creates reality. I first read it in William Blake's poetry. Then Iain McGilchrist chose the topic for a book he is now writing. Kant, if I understand properly, also talked about reality being a manifestation of how we think.

Some in the Jewish religious community is now pushing their agenda on our right-to-die programs.

brentan comments on Aug 20, 2019:

I suspect their fear is valid but my heart goes out to people whose lives really are of no value to them, just endless distress.

Texas Baptist pastor who advocated executing women for abortion faces child sexual assault charges ...

brentan comments on Aug 20, 2019:

Perhaps the common denominator is control.

Morning, everyone.

brentan comments on Aug 20, 2019:

Herr! Herr!

I've often wished believers would understand what's going to happen in Heaven.

brentan comments on Aug 19, 2019:

It comes across like sucking God's dick for all eternity and loving it. No offense to anyone who enjoys sucking dick but I can't help thinking the novelty might wear off after a bit. Maybe I just don't understand heaven.

I Called 911 On My Neighbors. The Police Showed Up In My Home With Guns Drawn.

brentan comments on Aug 19, 2019:

I guess this isn't a good time to be doing the right thing.

Why does Trump lie that Rashida Tlaib hates all Jews?

brentan comments on Aug 19, 2019:

It's this stupid idea that constructive criticism is antisemitism.

Our autocorrect feature is really fun, if you don't take it too seriously.

brentan comments on Aug 19, 2019:

It's the thought that counts.

French Catholics increasingly asking to be de-baptised - France - RFI

brentan comments on Aug 19, 2019:

I say why not tell them you're leaving and the reasons why. I'm pretty sure they have no bureaucratic mechanism, for want of a better term, for removing anyone's name from the register but at least you've expressed your feelings about them.

You're right!

brentan comments on Aug 19, 2019:

I have a kind of 'whatever', 'agree to disagree' mentality but I can understand how you can feel cynical enough to deal with some people this way.

Perv who snapped pics of woman in dressing room is Mormon church official.

brentan comments on Aug 19, 2019:

That's not just wrong, it's kinda lame too!

Exodus 20:4.

brentan comments on Aug 19, 2019:

Welcome to the forum. I hope you enjoy being here! This picture is supposed to be a good representation of how people in the world of that time thought of the earth. It doesn't show the pillars at the sides that connect the metal firmament to the earth.

Enough Said

brentan comments on Aug 19, 2019:

Where's the kudos in that?

Antifa circa 1945

brentan comments on Aug 19, 2019:

A better class of people.

Sorry to say I laughed out loud

brentan comments on Aug 19, 2019:

He's thinking "Soon, I'm going to return to earth soon".

For what is your friend that you should seek him with hours to kill ?

brentan comments on Aug 18, 2019:

What about a friend in need?

Psalms 144:5 (NRSV): Bow your heavens, O Lord, and come down; touch the mountains so that they ...

brentan comments on Aug 18, 2019:

That crosses over into the mythical.

Yet again, religion is the excuse and weapon for bald-faced hate.

brentan comments on Aug 18, 2019:

How's that for Christian sentiment, denying a person employment or ending their employment because of their orientation!

“ Have a blessed day”.

brentan comments on Aug 18, 2019:

If you have a bad day was it cursed?

Better read that again.

brentan comments on Aug 18, 2019:

We'll make sense of it no matter what.

There's an idea.

brentan comments on Aug 18, 2019:

"Hey teacher, leave them kids alone!"

hapax legomenon Do not use it again here.

brentan comments on Aug 18, 2019:

The French Resistance catchphrase in Allo Allo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4I9DMSvJxg

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. Tenth Avenue freeze-out. [youtu.be]

brentan comments on Aug 17, 2019:

I always liked that song. I never knew what the hell it was about but it sure packs a punch!

"As he has made very clear, Richard Dawkins would far rather have dealings with an honest-to-God ...

brentan comments on Aug 17, 2019:

Richard is wrong, I think. Religion's power is diminished but it isn't going away. I think accommodation is needed for two things: the ecology because the religious think the solution to ecology lies in God's kingdom, and the Western world isn't taking up humanism as the alternative to faith values.