Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 493126)

Thomas Friedman has written a little synthesis of the board's discussions over the last week.

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy (Post 493082)

It's probably a mistake to reply to a middle of the night rant on religion.

This is part of why I enjoy reading the early Christians. Back in Nicene times, I think the Holy Spirit was actually the easy-to-understand one of the three. Look, there was all this talk about a God off in a heaven, no longer the dude who hung out and chatted with Abraham and his kin but some far off omniscient being. Then there's this guy who died a couple centuries before born with weird stars and angels around and a Mom who was probably not just a virgin but veiled and secluded. Both are pretty distant concepts.

On the other hand, they were telling every good Greek in Constantinople that there was a third part of the divine that was that bit of divine spirit in each person. The Greeks had a concept of the breath being what gave us life, and that bit of breath or spirit in us was the divine, what separated the living from the dead. So the Holy Spirit was the part of the divine that we all knew - a parent can see the spirit in their children, a lover in their spouse.

All this was set in the First Council of Nicaea in the context of the debate against Arianism, which saw God as far off and distant, and Christ as just another guy with nothing particularly divine about him.

But telling every petty soldier and citizen out there that they had a bit of the divine in them might have worked for Constantine, who was busy reaching beyond the old Roman Senate for support from more common people, but it sure as hell wasn't going to work for a bunch of Popes, Patriarchs, and Emperors trying to attract the widest group of aristocrats and petty warlords to their banners in the middle ages. So they obfuscated, and the Holy Spirit became some disembodied abstract concept that the common folk weren't supposed to grasp.

I think calling it an "abandoned plot point" is right on target, but in its original concept I actually think it was a pretty cool, buddhist-democratic kind of idea.

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 493131)

Having studied organized religions as much as you have, and realizing this is all the hand of man - in most cases, very flawed and opportunistic men - how can you persist in having any respect for the thing?

The history of religion, and the psychological delusion process that has made it such a constant in people's lives for so long, is fascinating. But only fascinating the same way any general history, or any study of biological processes, or anthropology, is interesting. Judged on intrinsic value, religion has no gravitas or credibility beyond that of great works of literature. There is no way for me to separate the analysis given Paradise Lost, Ulysses, Orwell's essays, etc. dissected in college from the scrutiny given organized religion's texts, or its history (what men have done under its influence or in abuse of it to achieve their almost always craven ends).

The favored device of so many political whores, despots, and mass murderers, admittedly fictionalized if not entirely fictional, which today primarily serves to needlessly divide and harm, seems to me the last thing anyone has any business calling "divine."

In other words, I just don't get how the study of religion could lead to anything but agnosticism or atheism.

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 493130)

Rand Paul's assessment of disability claim abuse is off in terms of degree (it's not half of SS claimants). But the phenomenon he's describing is very real. Having seen this close up, and having known people with serious disability claims who had to fight to get and keep them because the system is clogged with fraudulent claims for dubious maladies (bipolar, fibromyalgia, anxiety disorder, etc.), it's pretty cool someone finally had the balls to touch this third rail issue: http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/14/politi...ul-disability/

In 2008-2010, when the safety net was needed, suddenly claims were all rubber stamped by the govt. Previous scrutiny was abandoned. Then in 2011, when the SS disability program was criticized for having been lenient, and acting as a stealth welfare/unemployment avoidance device, claims became difficult again. The problem, however, is those rubber stamped claimants didn't just go away. Once on SS disability usually means permanently on it.

I've seen guys with serious heart ailments held up in the claims process, simply because the backlog is so enormous. While people claiming depression and anxiety and amorphous "general pain disorder" have gotten benefits due to luck of timing. There ought to be an across the board audit and every claimant asserting anxiety or mild bipolar disorder (another favorite) be removed from the rolls. Docs backing up these dubious anxiety and bipolar claims ought to be subject to investigation by state medical boards. (It's always the same guys, giving these same diagnoses, with near identical language in each of their records.)

Of course, his comment appearing mean to perceived down on their luck sorts, Paul is being attacked for it.

End rant here.

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 493136)

A couple of thoughts:

(1) I have no doubt that there are dubious claims, but I also have seen people with clear issues struggle to get their claims recognized.

(2) This is anything but a third-rail issue. You are talking about people who don't have money and who aren't politically organized. Which Republican is going to lose his seat for trying to cut disability insurance?

(3) The reason the GOP is going after SSDI is not to reform SSDI (which would be a different conversation) but to engineer a crisis over SSDI's fiscal health to go after Social Security again.

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 493133)

Is religion really filling a void caused by our lack of understanding? Wouldn't the alternative to religion, which seeks to explain with fantastic stories, be science, which seeks to find out the answers to the things we don't know, and has been doing a really good job of it for a long time?

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 493140)

Courtesy of LinkedIn, this shows just how much big data is changing the world:

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 493142)

Why the drop in crime? Pb.

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 493140)

Courtesy of LinkedIn, this shows just how much big data is changing the world:

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 493142)

Why the drop in crime? Pb.

Originally Posted by Sidd Finch (Post 493144)

Did other countries that used, and then moved away from, leaded gasoline see similar trends?