Did Mr Deity fetch Shermer from Hell in the future? In an earlier episode, Shermer is tried before Deity, Jesse and Larry, and he clearly haven't met them before. But this Shermer didn't seem to have met Deity before either. So was he mindwiped at some point, or is Michael Shermer playing two different characters (both named Michael Shermer by coincidence), or is it simply a non-critical continuity error? :)
@misterdeity Yes, I know, hence my question if Deity fetched Shermer from the future. Presumably, Shermer is not an immortal, he is human isn't he? And he lived and died in the episode Mr. Deity and the Skeptic, so how did he turn up before the big bang?
In reality you can believe whatever you choose, but you can never CHANGE the truth. Regardless what you HOPE for. Some people think there's no reason for anything, while others believe in almost anything, that'll get them through the night. In reality we're beings, just tryin' to survive, & live another day, as we use the liberty that God has given us, to pursue our happiness. You can imagine a world that never was, and dream the impossible dream, while I live my life totally free, and easy!
@rynther Love the story that's been crafted about cthulhu, but in reality it's not the truth. R'lyeh is no city I know that exists, but Riley is my stepfather, while Mary is the godmother in my life, & that's no lie my friend.
That doesn't mean she's the mother of God, but in reality she's the godmother of my daughter. Do you believe it's Fate, or think it's Design? What that means is for me to know & you to find out - if you want to know the truth.
@rynther In reality what you describe is some sort of design naturally happening, but the truth is that it's our fate to desire more than that. What many don't know is that it's a natural flow, evolving, revolving, & progressing all the time. What we do is manipulate all that we find. Many believe they do it, to improve the situation, but if you take the time to think it through, you may reach a different conclusion.
strange how the brain can re-wire itself when we believe in something strong enough. Even if it's not true and provide solid evidence against the belief. I think that is why you can't talk sense to a theist, moon hoaxer, chem trail nut and so on...
Beliefs with no facts behind them? Like voting for Democrats thinking that's going to change anything or do any good? "Blasphemy! Blasphemy! Enemy of motherhood, goodness, and the people!" Oops, guess I alluded to the "wrong" facts! Funny how supporting the Democratic Party no matter how morally bankrupt they become is a lot like religion for so many people who claim to be atheists and agnostics, isn't it?
@misterdeity: What I'm talking about is how a lot of people who identify as atheists and agnostics often replace formal religion with a civic religion which is just as empty and contrived. (And for the record, I think far too many supporters of both parties check their brains at the door. Republicans are a lot worse of course, but in their case, one *expects* that sort of thing from people who get their worldview from Rush and Faux News!)
@venuspluto67 Yeah, I've long said that the real threat has always the relentless submission to ideology and/or dogma -- which is why I'm such a fan of skepticism and science. If you really know the principles behind those disciplines, you understand that everything is contingent -- that everything is up for grabs. There are no dogmas or ideologies which cannot be questioned. And everything is subject to revision -- and even dissolution. You have to remain intellectual agile.
Or to be more to the point, refusing to realize that both parties serve the same interests and demonizing those who try to point out the truth requires a willful gullibility that approaches religiosity.
@venuspluto67 I generally agree with that. I am not really fond of either political party in America. But at this juncture, one of those parties has gone completely off the deep end. Reagan wouldn't even recognize today's Republican party. For heaven's sake, I just watch a video today of Pat Robertson saying that the republicans are too extreme. PAT ROBERTSON!!!
@misterdeity: Pat Robertson???? Sir, you have just informed me of something that made slap my forehead and say, "Holy Shit!" That doesn't happen very often these days.
Well, the rev is right about one thing: Those who push for extremist purity for the sake of extremist purity usually turn out to be losers to the max.
@misterdeity Speaking of hair... I know that you've changed the appearence of Mr. Deity to fit in with the timeline of the show (like dying your hair darker when it was in the beginning of Mr. Deity's existence), why in the WORLD would you sport such a dorky haircut with matching shirt + bowtie?
SCIENCE SHOWS THAT THE UNIVERSE, because of entropy, couldn't have sustained itself from all eternity. Einstein confirmed that space, matter, and time had a beginning! That beginning had to be supernatural because natural laws have no ability to bring the universe into existence from nothing. The supernatural cannot be proved by science but science points to a supernatural intelligence for the origin and order of the universe ~ HOW FORENSIC SCIENCE REFUTES ATHEISM (Article)
@Mogley52 Let's say you're right. So what? We clearly can't know anything about a supernatural realm or supernatural beings. Even if you're right, we can infer nothing more than something we can't understand. None of this gets us to a personal God, let alone someone who actually cares for us. And if you accept evolution, there's absolutely no reason to think that humans are the intended end product. Anything beyond what you've stated is wishful thinking -- nothing more. What's the point?
@Mogley52 No, it doesn't. For example, there's a scenario, based on the Hartle-Hawking model, in which entropy increases in the opposite direction prior to the Big Bang; so, what we have is a model of a universe that always existed, but wouldn't suffer the entropy problem.
Also, general relativity breaks down at the Big Bang, so one can't know based on that whether there was a beginning or not. In fact, most scientists seem to believe that there wasn't.
...the universe can't come from nothing. Indeed, no laws of physics have to be violated in order for it to do so. For example, a symmetric water droplet will spontaneously (if the energy level is sufficiently low) freeze into a highly complex and unsymmetric ice droplet. Since "nothing" is presumably more symmetric, we would expect this state of non-existence to be unstable, and thus to decay or "freeze" into a universe. So, we can view the universe as a kind of "frozen nothing".
NATURAL LIMITS TO EVOLUTION: Only evolution within "kinds" is genetically possible (i.e. varieties of dogs, cats, etc.), but not evolution across "kinds" (i.e. from worm to human). How were species living and reproducing if their reproductive system and other vital organs hadn't evolved yet? Read my Pravda Internet article: WAR AMONG EVOLUTIONISTS! I discuss: Punctuated Equilibrium, "Junk DNA," genetics, mutations, natural selection, fossils, genetic/biological similarities between species.
ALTHOUGH I'M A CONSERVATIVE CHRISTIAN (Baptist), I no longer believe that the Bible teaches eternal torment. The Bible teaches eternal punishment, but it's not eternal torment. In my popular Internet article, TRADITIONAL DOCTRINE OF HELL EVOLVED FROM GREEK ROOTS, I explain how and why teaching of eternal torment entered early into Christianity and how Scriptures have been misinterpreted and taken out of context to support that teaching. ~Babu G. Ranganathan (B.A. theology/biology)
I knew it! Orville Redenbacher really is G-d! Michael Shermer is excellent. It would be great to get Thunderf00t to talk with Mr. Diety too! He's in the States right now... Hmm.... Mr. Diety?
@gr33nman TF and I were trying to connect up, but it was the worst possible timing -- right after TAM, and my 10 day vacation (the first in years), and right when I already had Michael and Christopher DiCarlo coming in to shoot episodes. Very narrow window, and we kept missing each other. D'oh!!!
@vineethkuruvath No. That's a bit out of my depth. I've read a lot about other religions, but have never been immersed in them. There are too many little nuances to know about in order to create something like this, and I think I'd end up making a fool of myself -- people even think I do that here. But I can generally defend myself pretty well when people call me out. I couldn't do that with the others.
I think Mike needs more acting lessons . . . or a pay raise? He . . . was not into the skit. He was just spitting out his lines without . . . thinking . . . or passion.
I don't care if he describes himself as an aetheist or not, my point is that he is doing a pretty good job of caricaturing and trivialising faith, and that is an indulgence that only the well off, well educated of the west can afford.
This kind of liberal aetheist satire is so smug and convinced of it's own superiority that it makes me want to plough through every religious text ever written and become a monk.
@Mrfriendlymilk Why? Do you enjoy genocide, murdering homosexuals, adulterers, sabbath breakers, etc... and thinking that anyone who doesn't believe as you do will burn in Hell forever and ever? If so, go for it! (BTW, don't you think it's so much more smug to think anyone who disagrees with you is a buddy of Satan -- or "children of the devil" if you're a Jew? See the word of God for scriptural references. Or email me directly.) XOXO!
@misterdeity Well I live in London, and as I watch our city burn and fall prey to mobile phone weilding teenage thugs and thieves, I think to myself "what is it that causes this dead eyed indifference to the feelings of others?" And I conclude that the insidious malaise of non-belief that has gathered momentum over the last half century has gradually corrupted our children: they are lazy, self-centred and materialistic. Why? because they have no faith in anything bigger than themselves.
Your type of satire is seductive to a middle class rationalist mindset, it is eloquent, deals with big questions and flatters the sceptic in his non-belief. All very well, but when these ideas filter down to people with less education and opportunities than yourself it undermines their faith, and faith to those with less is far more precious than it is to those whose lives are comfortable. I don't think that is something to laugh about.
You're aware that far worse rioting has happened in the past when there were more people with faith, right? Get off your high horse and stop putting blame in ridiculous places.
The past was bad. The present is better than the past. The only difference between the past and present is only that there are less people who believe in God. Therefore, the reason why the present is better is that less people believe in God than they did in the past. Therefore believing in God is a BAD THING. That's about the extent of your understanding is it? What do you know about History? what do you know about the London riots? Not much it would seem.
@Mrfriendlymilk Well, talk about smug!!! Holy crap! So, the poor need to be told what to think, how to behave, and that they need to give a percentage of their money to these charlatans who presume to know things about a supernatural realm and a supernatural Being based on the writings of bronze-age ignoramuses? I don't talk down to the poor. Sorry. I'm a jackass who believes that if anyone needs to jettison the life/mind-crippling effects of religion, it's the poor.
@Mrfriendlymilk That's obviously what it is. Believers never do anything terrible like fly planes into buildings, murder gays or doctors who perform abortions - they don't become terrorists, shoot kids, and write manifestos. And certainly, when the world was hip deep in Faith during the dark ages, everything was peachy! People weren't murdered for being witches. They weren't murdered for suggesting the Earth rotated around the sun. Nothing like that. Yours is a simple mind/believing brain.
@misterdeity Such cumbersome sarcasm Mr Deity, your "divine" comic touch has obviously deserted you. One of your countrymen wrote a sublime book on the nature of belief, one that actually tried to get to grips with the subtlety and variety of the subject rather than make silly jokes about it. His name was William James, the founder of modern psychology and the most eminent philosopher the U.S. has ever produced, do you think he had a simple "mind/believing brain"?
@Mrfriendlymilk Well, you're no William James, my friend. And to attribute the London riots and the corruption of the youth (hello, Socrates!) to a lack of faith is about as simple-minded as it gets. If that were the case, then places where faith is basically non-existent (like Sweden, Norway, Denmark, etc...) would be places of non-stop rioting. It's particularly stupid when we KNOW how many people have done pure evil specifically in the name of faith. You're just a very silly person.
@misterdeity I'm not your friend. I notice you didn't answer the question about whether you had read "The Varieties of Religious Experience". If you did it might temper your enthusiasm for dismissing those who are religious as "simple minded". I never said it was the sole cause of the riots, although I am sure that I - having lived and taught in Tottenham - have a better insight into the rioters than you.
The point about scandinavia is a red herring, and the reason why you can think of more examples of leaders who did evil deeds while professing to have a faith is because atheism is a recent phenomenon. Despite this I can think of a few nasty folk whose evil deeds were untrammelled by a belief in God: Pol Pot, Hitler, Stalin. You would have a job presenting these non-believers as rational democratic liberals. I'm not silly either. Though your wig and squeaky voice and arguments definately are.
@Mrfriendlymilk Well, I'm not silly enough to tie anyone's actions to whether they have faith or not. That was you're silly claim. The fact is -- as you have just demonstrated -- that both believers and non-believers have done terrible things. Faith doesn't make people good. And doubt doesn't make people bad. That's the utter bigotry you tried pushing here. You implied that youngsters of faith would never do such things, which is empirically false (see 9/11 or the Norway shooter). Again, silly.
@misterdeity Oh yeah so all believers fly planes into buildings, murder gays, shoot kids, like we're all one hive mind, right? You can group us all together, we all support the actions of other believers. If Christianity is all fable, how come everyone sins? There's no mandate in your blood or your DNA that makes you sin, but everyone does! Even while believing, people sin. You make the mistake of thinking that believers are perfect people. But we are aware enough to know that we need saving.
@RHT769 What do you mean, "everyone sins?" Are you not aware that's a religious idea, not a fact. "Sin" is merely a term defined by religions so that people feel they desperately need something from the religion -- absolution -- which they claim only their church can give (you've bought it hook, line, and sinker). And your definition of sin makes no sense to me. Not believing as you do makes me a sinner, as does working on the sabbath, homosexuality, eating milk with meat. Poppycock!
@Mrfriendlymilk What more effort is required? The Tories are embarking on economic policies - austerity, so-called - that have always and everywhere been detrimental to the national interest. Tories selling the national interest to corrupt banksters: How is that not treason, and why is that not legitimate grounds for revolution?
Tahrir, Sol, Canary Wharf: Democracy, coming to a plaza near you.
It's 1989 all over again. Too bad for the Tories that they're playing the part of the Russians.
@ThatIsNotDeadWhich Well this one was certainly longer I'll give you that, not much in the way of coherence though. Please try harder. By the way, I very much doubt that the people who have had their houses, businesses and lives ruined because of the rioters would have much sympathy with your call for revolution. Grow up son.
@Mrfriendlymilk Which factual point do you dispute? That austerity, so-called, is always and everywhere treasonous? Or that the Tories are embarking on a round of austerity, so-called, that lacks precedent even in Thatcher's terror in the '80s?
If you do not like places of business getting torched, do not create the objective conditions for riots. Property is a privilege, not a right, and British owners of property have, collectively speaking, been abusing that privilege. Blowback is natural.
@ThatIsNotDeadWhich I dispute that austerity is ever treasonous, especially when the policy is one that has been democratically chosen and is approved of, on the whole, by most of the country. The original use of the term to describe national policy came about during World War 2 when Britain really WAS suffering. To compare spoilt kids with Blackberries and Nike trainers looting TVs with the dignity and stoicism exhibited by the generation of the 1940's is absurd.
@Mrfriendlymilk Democratically chosen? The Tory traitors never campaigned on gutting British society. And that's leaving aside the fact that the British first-past-the-post electoral system is a weak facsimile of democracy in the first place.
The travesty here is not so much the poverty - though it is a travesty - as it is the wholly arbitrary cruelty of imposing neoliberal economic policies that deliberately drive the country's economy into a ditch while stomping on the faces of the poor.
@ThatIsNotDeadWhich People don't NEED TV's, Blackberries, designer sportswear, or even EMA grants and college educations; what they need is HOPE and jobs they can take pride in. Faith is one of the things that can offer the former, and the latter cannot be provided while our economy is crippled by debt, a debt which has come about through reckless borrowing and excessive state expenditure. The best elements of religions play down the importance of the acquisition of material goods...
@Mrfriendlymilk "Jobs they can take pride in" requires a functioning industrial society. Thirty years of uninterrupted Tory treason has murdered the shipyards, murdered the steel mills, murdered the textile industry, murdered the Northern cities and murdered the civil society that can channel dissent into useful activities.
Britain has no public debt problem and the state is not spending excessively by any sane definition. Britain has a problem with a Tory-crippled industrial plant.
@ThatIsNotDeadWhich You didn't even consider my reply did you? The tories are the DEVIL in your view, and any complexity is eschewed in favour of fiery, self righteous rhetoric. Your beliefs seem about as "fact based" and "irrational" as any religion. Our industrial decline has troubled historians for decades, it cannot blamed on any one cause, although the dwindling of our natural resources and reckless, ideologically motivated strikes of the 70's played their part. Do you actually live here?
@Mrfriendlymilk There is nothing wrong with ideologically motivated strikes. Strikes are a perfectly legitimate political weapon. Strikes are certainly not a valid excuse for murdering heavy industry for the short-term gain of City fatcats.
For all your hyperventilating about my motives, the fact remains that Keynesian policies create industry, and neoliberal policies creates nothing but a desolate wasteland, occasionally punctuated by the glittering displays of obscene wealth.
@ThatIsNotDeadWhich Our industries couldn't compete with those of other countries partly because costs were put up by legislation to protect workers rights and pay, whether such legislation is right or not, the fact remains that it undermined our ability to compete with nations who had no such laws. In fact manufacturing declined more under Labour than under "Thatcher's terror". My point is that the causes of our decline are complex, and shouldn't be reduced to simple ideas of "evil tories".
@Mrfriendlymilk In the economics profession, we have a technical term for the claim that Britain anno c. 1980 was "uncompetitive." The term is "bullshit." There was nothing wrong with Britain's competitiveness that couldn't have been fixed by floating the £.
Yeah, that would have been bad for the City. So cry me a river - the City was already too big a drain on the British economy in 1980, and it's only gotten worse since.
@Mrfriendlymilk Exporting labor to cheaper markets is an easy way increases profits. eg. NA free trade agreements with Mexico allowed the NA auto industry to move most heavy manufacturing (forge and stamping as example) from US and Canada to Mexico...a country with far cheaper labor costs ($65/hr labor package rate compared to $7/hr labor package rate) and eliminate almost all safety, environmental, overtime pay and worker protection expenses.
@TheHigherVoltage I was talking about Britain particularly but I guess the principle is the same. As I mentioned earlier in the discussion, higher working standards and wage legislation made us less competitive than other nations. I don't think it was the sole cause though, dwindling oil and coal reserves, expansion of the welfare state and social trends such as family break up and the decline of religion played their part too. I appreciate your point though.
@Mrfriendlymilk "higher working standards and wage legislation made us less competitive than other nations."
That's deceptive logic. $7/hour in Mexico gives a "better than slum" lifestyle for a family of 4. $7/hour in my country isn't even poverty level. The only way to compete with slave wage nations is to either become a slave nation ourselves...or impose tariffs until "competing" nations equal our standards. We had that...until politicians sold the workers out with free trade deals.
@Mrfriendlymilk (CONT) "I don't think it was the sole cause though, dwindling oil and coal reserves, expansion of the welfare state and social trends such as family break up and the decline of religion played their part too."
How are any of these things contributing factors to a loss in manufacturing? What does divorce rates, or people breaking away from superstitious non-sense have to do with corporate profit margins?
@TheHigherVoltage Oil and coal are self evidently connected with economic productivity. The family is a more efficient economic unit as well as being - broadly speaking - more conducive to the raising of stable, hard working citizens. The church serves to reinforce the importance of the family, while also emphasising virtues such as thrift, hard work and compassion for fellow citizens. Social trends are interwoven into the fabric of cause and effect which shape the economic fate of a nation.
@Mrfriendlymilk (1) "Oil and coal are self evidently connected with economic productivity." Add in solar, wind, nuclear, geothermal, ethanol, and just about everything that burns or produces heat. Availability of energy only effects economic productivity when there is none - and we'll never reach that point.
@Mrfriendlymilk "The family is a more efficient economic unit as well as being - broadly speaking - more conducive to the raising of stable, hard working citizens."
I don't see the connection. Most of my friends were raised in broken homes and work hard because they want a better life. I don't see the connection between having 2 parents, and the need for food, clothing and shelter. I don't see a connection between "a loving family" and children wanting expensive toys to play with.
@Mrfriendlymilk (2) "The church serves to reinforce the importance of the family, while also emphasising virtues such as thrift, hard work and compassion for fellow citizens."
They promote family and hard work(so do other, more worthwhile, organizations), however, they do not call "thrift" a virtue, nor do they practice it themselves. Besides, "thrift", in and of itself, is anti-economic development and anti-industry.
Churches begin with "love one another" before going on long-winded rants about how we're born flawed, and unworthy, and sinful garbage doomed to eternal punishment unless we convince ourselves they're not full of shit. Then pass the collection plate.
I've yet to hear any sermon of "love non-Christians"...I have heard more sermons than I can count, of how everyone outside my ex-church were agents of Satan and an evil to be destroyed.
@TheHigherVoltage Look, I find these subjects interesting but I am starting to get impatient with people who, on receiving a considered reply to a complex question, snatch a bit of that answer, trap it in inverted commas and proceed to coldly dissect it as though it were an unpleasant biological specimen. How about a bit of reciprocity? Having said that, I am sorry to learn you had an unfullfilling experience at the church you attended. That style of sermonising is not to my taste either...
...although in England the fire and brimstone approach is less common. There must be churches - of any denomination - who offer spiritual nourishment which is more suited to your tastes. Just don't join the ranks of the belligerant atheists, it won't do you any favours in the long run. I found a lot of wisdom in a book by the American Philosopher William James, it's called "The varieties of religious experience". It is a challenge to read but may offer some insight into the subject. Good Luck.
@Mrfriendlymilk I respond the way I do because it eliminates confusion and breaks a multi-point topic, into manageable, individual points.
Starting with the first : I asked you to expand on your claim coal/oil effect industrial productivity. As fossil fuels are used up/become more expensive, we've seen an increase in other energy producing technologies such as wind, nuclear, solar, and multi-fuel generators. So what's the 'self-evident' connection to productivity? I see no connection at all.
@Mrfriendlymilk (CONT) I had a very fulfilling experience in church. I was escaping hell and had my own personal Jesus watching over me. Ironically, I believed enough to want a career in ministry and/or apologetics. And like most people who look into their religion too deeply - I found out it was fictional, contradictory, man-made cultish non-sense. No different than the other theistic religions I subsequently researched.
And I couldn't be happier to know I'm no longer lying to myself.
@TheHigherVoltage Right. I only saw part 3 of your answer because youtube only displayed that one when I looked. Regarding resources: our country used to mine a lot of coal. This is a valuable resource both to sell and to use to power our own home grown industries. As the coal dwindled our wealth did too, in relation to countries who had more of the stuff. We still had enough energy but it was more expensive for us to produce. The mines shut down leading to high unemployment, which is obviously
.(2)... related to our "industrial decline", which is the phrase I originally used ok? The fact there are alternative energy sources available is A GOOD THING but they weren't and aren't as cheap as coal. Can you acknowledge that this had a detrimental impact on the wealth of our country? This is historical fact, not an ideological point. Sheesh. The family unit usually has one car, one house and uses less resources (food, power, furniture) than a broken home which has to use more of the above..
(3)...resources for the same amount of people. Make sense? Then the more delicate question of the effects a broken home can have on the up coming generation. You may have differing experiences but as a teacher I have noticed that those without fathers are often less confident than their peers, or they go the other way and lack self discipline and respect for staff. Religion, IRRESPECTIVE OF IT'S LITERAL VERACITY, can have the positive effect of binding families and communities. It''s decline...
(4)... can be indirectly implicated, both as a cause and an effect, in our industrial decline.
Nothing I have said, if you read it carefully, is particularly controversial. You may differ on the emphasis of each cause, or you may think of other causes too, my point is that it is not simply due to just ONE.
It IS possible to recognise the benefits of religion without being religious, and it's possible to be an atheist without attacking religion. And vice versa.
@FreddPepper "... they weren't and aren't as cheap as coal. Can you acknowledge that this had a detrimental impact on the wealth of our country? This is historical fact, not an ideological point."
It is an ideological point when all factors aren't considered. Coal is cheap because it's heavily subsidized, while green tech only receives a comparative fraction of coal's tax breaks and incentives. Same with petrol vs ethanol. Gas is more expensive...but the government subsidizes it more.
@TheHigherVoltage I'm not saying it was anyone's fault that coal production fell so rapidly, nor that for the future Green technologies shouldn't be used, I'm just pointing out that Historians are unanimous in their view that Britain has suffered a steady INDUSTRIAL decline since the start of the 1900's. In 1900 we produced 250 million tons, by 2000 it was about 40 million.This is a huge drop bearing in mind the population has increased by a third. This is NOT an ideological point, it is a fact.
@FreddPepper I get that coal mining is declining. According to Wiki, England peaked coal production in 1913.
However, in the 1910s - 1970s, England created an auto industry, increased it's ship building, got heavily into machining, tool and die making and metal work. Those industries only started migrating out of the UK during the 1970s n 80s. As soon as free trade agreements allow it. Till then, the workers, through their unions, had kept unfair, slave and child labor competition out.
@FreddPepper (CONT) In 15 minutes of searching so far, I can't find any information or correlation that coal as any economic factor in England's wealth or industrial decline. It's a fuel source and not much more than an industry onto itself. All information I find says Britain's wealth decline is marked by 3 major events : the great depression, ww1 and ww2...and not one mention of coal effecting any other industry.
The ideological point you made was based on facts, not a fact itself.
@TheHigherVoltage Fifteen whole minutes eh? well maybe I got it all wrong. I wonder if anyone has written any books on the subject. Nothing you wrote in your last reply conflicts with what I have said, yet you seem to think it does, it's like you are stuck in a kind of default disagreement mode. I blame Dawkin's influence. Take care fella, I can't keep saying the same thing over and over.
@FreddPepper I get what you're saying, but I'm reminded of when the automobile came into fashion. Sure the workforce in the horse industry died off, however, it was replaced by workers in the auto industry. Same, I would imagine, with coal. When the coal is gone, the miners lose their jobs, but it doesn't change the demand for energy. Coal miner jobs were replaced by jobs in nuclear, wind power, etc A coal town may die, but a nuclear town will be born.
...and encourage a robust attitude toward hardship, as well as a sense of compassion for our fellow citizens. Belief systems such as Marxism tend to breed divisiveness, antagonism and an arrogant sense of entitlement. Qualities very much in evidence in Tottenham High Rd on saturday night. Radical ideas can be seductive and exciting but they always give way to wisdom in the end. As for property, how would you feel if I entered your bedroom right now and stole your computer? Not too happy I bet.
@Mrfriendlymilk If you don't understand the difference between violating someone's home versus breaking a place of business, then you really don't understand much of anything.
But let me spell it out, using small words that even a right-wing nut can understand: Britain has no debt problem. Therefore, every single cut - every single one - currently being made is an illegitimate attack on the poorest people in society. That such unprovoked attacks cause IMF riots should surprise nobody.
@ThatIsNotDeadWhich Oh dear, you were doing quite well for bit now you have gone incoherent again. I don't think you fully understand some of the words you are using, in time you will and we - the wise majority - won't begrudge you your fashionable dalliance with Marxism. But if I find you trying to burn down the corner shop at the end my street (the owner of which lives in a flat above his shop), I will take a cut out of YOU and I won't care if you think it "illegitimate" or not.
@Mrfriendlymilk You're barking up the wrong tree: First, I'm not a Marxian. Never have been. Second, I don't condone riots. I just note that they are the inevitable consequence of spiraling inequality, injustice and disenfranchisement that always and everywhere accompany neoliberal policy. Blaming the rioters rather than the right-wing that forged the objective conditions for riots is akin to blaming an individual RAF pilot for blown-up Iraqi weddings, instead of Parliament for its warmongering.
Now, Milky, if you are going to defend Thatcherism on economic or ethical grounds, then educating you might actually be worthwhile. But if you plan to just bury your head in the sand and deny any connection between the current predicament and thirty years of deliberate thirdworldization policies, then I think this discussion is beginning to crowd out more productive uses of my time.
Go out and ask any of these rioters if their actions have anything to do with rational thought.
Better yet, ask how many of them DO believe in any gods. I bet you won't like the ansers of the typical rioters.
For that matter, ask an older generation about a time when London was REALLY burning on a regular basis, because a man in Germany thought a god called him to lead his people and to rid the world of the Jews.
@misterdeity See what I mean? even the people who who defend you haven't a clue what they are defending. They just enjoy the feeling that scepticism gives them, it doesn't matter what the are being sceptical about. As long as it chimes with their own personal sense of disillusionment about something or other they will support your subversive jokes. The irony! atheism has become as vulgarised, simplistic and populist as you no doubt think Christianity is. Better find something else to champion...
@Mrfriendlymilk I can't speak for anyone else, but I don't feel the least bit disillusioned. I feel awakened by my Atheism/Skepticism. It gives me the tools to live a better, deeper, more meaningful life -- to appreciate the natural world and the creatures who share this planet with me. I think you have very bigoted views of Atheists. Perhaps you should get out and meet some of us.
And I don't really care about such things as "populist." That's your own baggage. Reveal away!
@misterdeity I thought your original reply betrayed a rather bigoted view of those with a faith, so I fought fire with fire. This, though, is a great aspiration:
"to live a better, deeper, more meaningful life -- to appreciate the natural world and the creatures who share this planet with me"
I couldn't agree more, I just don't think it is incompatible with faith, nor an inevitable by-product of atheism. A sense of clear headed curiosity and wonder are qualities which are fostered by...
...religious practice in my view. This is one of the themes of James' book; that it is possible and desirable to make use of the empiricism and logic associated with scientific practice AND the spiritually nourishing attributes of religion depending on the nature of the problems life throws at us at any given time.
The religion/science dualism is a false one, most likely created to achieve a political aim. There is no need to choose between the two. All the best Mister D, no hard feelings :)
@Mrfriendlymilk "This kind of liberal aetheist satire is so smug and convinced of it's own superiority that it makes me want to plough through every religious text ever written and become a monk."
Just read the bible cover to cover. It doesn't take long to realize it's nothing more than bronze age cult mythology, and worth mocking.
Roman to friend: Later we ca-*Thunder clashes* *Turns do sky* Would you hold the hammering please? *To friend* anywa-*THUNDERCLASH* *Back to sky* Would you HOLD ...THE GODDAMN HAMMERING! PLEASE! *To friend* Later we can-*CLASHRUMBLE* *To sky again* WOULD YOU PLEASE...FOR THE LOVE OF ZEUSS.....HOLD THE HAMMERING! *Back to friend* As I was say-*THUNDERCLAP* *Back to sky* WOULD YOU PLEASE. HOLD THE THOR DAMN HAMMERING! NOW! Thor: "You got it" Thor:*Heavens collapse* Roman: I'm going to lunch
@misterdeity I watched it a little bit, but that was mostly when my younger brother was watching. I'm a '55 baby and I found Romper Room uninteresting (seems quaint for me to have thought of anything as childish when I was young). There were also some locally produced television programs for kids, such as the Old Rebel Show out of WFMY in Greensboro.
@FantasyClay One-time deal. I promise. It's gonna take weeks to recover from that cut. I'm writing this from the intensive care unit of the Vidal Sassoon Academy.
Very funny! But I want to introduce you to a concept regarding audio. It's called a hi-pass filter. Look into it. The pervasive low rumble is totally unacceptable, and totally avoidable. Cheers!
@ChadWork1 It's entirely intentional. I actually put that in. Go watch something like Star Trek TNG. The low frequency rumble of the warp engines is throughout. This is the same sound that you'll hear in Mr. Deity's universe and the omniverse they inhabit in this prequel. But thanks for assuming I'm such a novice as to not know how to filter audio -- been in music for 36 years.
@MD Sorry if I offended your experience level. That wasn't intended. It's just that a lot of people miss sub noise because their monitors can't reproduce much sub bass, and it gets by. It sounds like an air unit or some thing similar. Since its also in your other videos shot in the same space it's not really assuming anything on my part to offer a suggestion, as you're obviously letting it slide by. I don't buy the "intentional" line. The sarcasm is a good cover though! Enjoy your sub-bass!
@ChadWork1 No offense taken. I was just givin' you a hard time. I have some excellent, self-powered monitors running out of my 24-196 firewire unit. I hear everything!
making your believers stupid... that would assuredly work
zaxxxon 1 day ago
Wow, Michael Shermer looks great here. He looked awful in that last appearance, like he had a bad botox.
MisterTTG 4 days ago
Did Mr Deity fetch Shermer from Hell in the future? In an earlier episode, Shermer is tried before Deity, Jesse and Larry, and he clearly haven't met them before. But this Shermer didn't seem to have met Deity before either. So was he mindwiped at some point, or is Michael Shermer playing two different characters (both named Michael Shermer by coincidence), or is it simply a non-critical continuity error? :)
forger42 3 weeks ago
@forger42 This entire season (4) takes place before the big bang -- it's a prequel.
misterdeity 3 weeks ago 3
@misterdeity Yes, I know, hence my question if Deity fetched Shermer from the future. Presumably, Shermer is not an immortal, he is human isn't he? And he lived and died in the episode Mr. Deity and the Skeptic, so how did he turn up before the big bang?
forger42 3 weeks ago
@forger42 Time is not linear for Mr Deity, it's a common theme.
p0m1naus 6 days ago
Mr. Shermer's book "Why People Believe Weird Things" changed my whole outlook on life.
Alyenbird 4 weeks ago in playlist Mr. Deity Season Four
virtuallyjesuschrist 1 month ago in playlist Uploaded videos
@virtuallyjesuschrist
I totally agree, cthulhu saves. (but it's usually for a snack later)
rynther 3 weeks ago in playlist More videos from misterdeity
@rynther Love the story that's been crafted about cthulhu, but in reality it's not the truth. R'lyeh is no city I know that exists, but Riley is my stepfather, while Mary is the godmother in my life, & that's no lie my friend.
That doesn't mean she's the mother of God, but in reality she's the godmother of my daughter. Do you believe it's Fate, or think it's Design? What that means is for me to know & you to find out - if you want to know the truth.
virtuallyjesuschrist 3 weeks ago
@virtuallyjesuschrist
I think it's the non-random demise of randomly replicating organisms that is the cause.
No fate, no design, but opportunities for improvement.
rynther 3 weeks ago
@rynther In reality what you describe is some sort of design naturally happening, but the truth is that it's our fate to desire more than that. What many don't know is that it's a natural flow, evolving, revolving, & progressing all the time. What we do is manipulate all that we find. Many believe they do it, to improve the situation, but if you take the time to think it through, you may reach a different conclusion.
virtuallyjesuschrist 3 weeks ago
I love this guy.
CuteMcBeauty 1 month ago
Ah. The Saint of quality foot-wear.
UkkoTheIrish 1 month ago
What's up with Mr. Dee's hair?
Minkki82 1 month ago
strange how the brain can re-wire itself when we believe in something strong enough. Even if it's not true and provide solid evidence against the belief. I think that is why you can't talk sense to a theist, moon hoaxer, chem trail nut and so on...
redshift40 1 month ago
What episode was he talking about at the end he has to "law low" because of?
Tsteve08 1 month ago
Who's the guy in the black supposed to be? Just some guy up in heaven who mr.diety asks advice from?
Tsteve08 1 month ago
@Tsteve08 That's Michael Shermer of Skeptic Magazine. He also wrote "The Believing Brain."
misterdeity 1 month ago 12
@misterdeity Ah, thanks.
Tsteve08 1 month ago
@Tsteve08 His books are a great read mate. If you haven't read any check them out.
stramster1 1 month ago
Nice Spinal Tap joke at he beginning: 'St. Hubbins' Day'
cheapfeet 1 month ago 8
@cheapfeet Good catch!
misterdeity 1 month ago 4
@cheapfeet Also the needing to go to 11
rynther 3 weeks ago in playlist More videos from misterdeity
It's like a silver Prince Valiant, that haircut.
fohsiao 2 months ago
This video almost convinced me to become a christian. It just explains so much.
itsjustameme 2 months ago
How does belief work with knowledge... they seem nearly mutually exclusive.
TDKinTOKYO 3 months ago
So funny! Michael Shermer was great too, and his book the believing brain is awesome!
GodlessMorality 3 months ago
Beliefs with no facts behind them? Like voting for Democrats thinking that's going to change anything or do any good? "Blasphemy! Blasphemy! Enemy of motherhood, goodness, and the people!" Oops, guess I alluded to the "wrong" facts! Funny how supporting the Democratic Party no matter how morally bankrupt they become is a lot like religion for so many people who claim to be atheists and agnostics, isn't it?
venuspluto67 4 months ago
@venuspluto67 What the hell are you talking about? This is one of the most agenda-filled rants I've read. Who said anything about Democrats?
misterdeity 4 months ago
@misterdeity: What I'm talking about is how a lot of people who identify as atheists and agnostics often replace formal religion with a civic religion which is just as empty and contrived. (And for the record, I think far too many supporters of both parties check their brains at the door. Republicans are a lot worse of course, but in their case, one *expects* that sort of thing from people who get their worldview from Rush and Faux News!)
venuspluto67 4 months ago
@venuspluto67 Yeah, I've long said that the real threat has always the relentless submission to ideology and/or dogma -- which is why I'm such a fan of skepticism and science. If you really know the principles behind those disciplines, you understand that everything is contingent -- that everything is up for grabs. There are no dogmas or ideologies which cannot be questioned. And everything is subject to revision -- and even dissolution. You have to remain intellectual agile.
misterdeity 4 months ago
Or to be more to the point, refusing to realize that both parties serve the same interests and demonizing those who try to point out the truth requires a willful gullibility that approaches religiosity.
venuspluto67 4 months ago
@venuspluto67 I generally agree with that. I am not really fond of either political party in America. But at this juncture, one of those parties has gone completely off the deep end. Reagan wouldn't even recognize today's Republican party. For heaven's sake, I just watch a video today of Pat Robertson saying that the republicans are too extreme. PAT ROBERTSON!!!
misterdeity 4 months ago
@misterdeity: Pat Robertson???? Sir, you have just informed me of something that made slap my forehead and say, "Holy Shit!" That doesn't happen very often these days.
venuspluto67 4 months ago
@venuspluto67 Check it... Put YouTube dot com in front of this... /user/RWWBlog
misterdeity 4 months ago
Well, the rev is right about one thing: Those who push for extremist purity for the sake of extremist purity usually turn out to be losers to the max.
venuspluto67 4 months ago
you looked at your wrist while implying you would be a watchmaker god. loved it
OcelotPwns 4 months ago
"Donate or subscribe in whatever amount best suites me"
HAHAHA
Damn funny :)
TheReasonWhyGuy 4 months ago
This is how it actually happened :)
TheReasonWhyGuy 4 months ago
Mr D makes good vidoes. I would like to see more of the lovely Lucy
Big G
gerard1875 5 months ago
OMG, he's Colonel Sanders in this one -- not someone I'd ask to my room for coffee on an elevator. I didn't say that, did I?
DoctorNociceptor 5 months ago
Hahaha
Salger12 5 months ago
Horray for the Bob Keeshan shout-out! :) Nicely done!
stoutmaker72 6 months ago
free thinking is what i believe in. Mr D makes exceedingly good videos
gerard1875 6 months ago
What's with the hair?
rightherewaiting666 6 months ago
Admittedly, I have little experience in video shooting, but isn't wearing a black shirt against a black setting illegal or something?
ianmathwiz7 6 months ago
@ianmathwiz7 Not illegal, but difficult. You have to get enough backlight on them, and I probably missed it by a hair or two.
misterdeity 6 months ago 2
@misterdeity Speaking of hair... I know that you've changed the appearence of Mr. Deity to fit in with the timeline of the show (like dying your hair darker when it was in the beginning of Mr. Deity's existence), why in the WORLD would you sport such a dorky haircut with matching shirt + bowtie?
Fashion police incoming! D:
Squiglypig 6 months ago
@Squiglypig Mr. Deity was a really big Captain Kangaroo fan. That's why!
misterdeity 6 months ago 4
@Squiglypig The Doctor says bowties are cool.
Denamic 4 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
SCIENCE SHOWS THAT THE UNIVERSE, because of entropy, couldn't have sustained itself from all eternity. Einstein confirmed that space, matter, and time had a beginning! That beginning had to be supernatural because natural laws have no ability to bring the universe into existence from nothing. The supernatural cannot be proved by science but science points to a supernatural intelligence for the origin and order of the universe ~ HOW FORENSIC SCIENCE REFUTES ATHEISM (Article)
Mogley52 6 months ago
@Mogley52 Let's say you're right. So what? We clearly can't know anything about a supernatural realm or supernatural beings. Even if you're right, we can infer nothing more than something we can't understand. None of this gets us to a personal God, let alone someone who actually cares for us. And if you accept evolution, there's absolutely no reason to think that humans are the intended end product. Anything beyond what you've stated is wishful thinking -- nothing more. What's the point?
misterdeity 6 months ago
@Mogley52 No, it doesn't. For example, there's a scenario, based on the Hartle-Hawking model, in which entropy increases in the opposite direction prior to the Big Bang; so, what we have is a model of a universe that always existed, but wouldn't suffer the entropy problem.
Also, general relativity breaks down at the Big Bang, so one can't know based on that whether there was a beginning or not. In fact, most scientists seem to believe that there wasn't.
Finally, it's not true that...
ianmathwiz7 6 months ago
...the universe can't come from nothing. Indeed, no laws of physics have to be violated in order for it to do so. For example, a symmetric water droplet will spontaneously (if the energy level is sufficiently low) freeze into a highly complex and unsymmetric ice droplet. Since "nothing" is presumably more symmetric, we would expect this state of non-existence to be unstable, and thus to decay or "freeze" into a universe. So, we can view the universe as a kind of "frozen nothing".
ianmathwiz7 6 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
NATURAL LIMITS TO EVOLUTION: Only evolution within "kinds" is genetically possible (i.e. varieties of dogs, cats, etc.), but not evolution across "kinds" (i.e. from worm to human). How were species living and reproducing if their reproductive system and other vital organs hadn't evolved yet? Read my Pravda Internet article: WAR AMONG EVOLUTIONISTS! I discuss: Punctuated Equilibrium, "Junk DNA," genetics, mutations, natural selection, fossils, genetic/biological similarities between species.
Mogley52 6 months ago
@Mogley52 What exactly is a "kind"?
ianmathwiz7 6 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
ALTHOUGH I'M A CONSERVATIVE CHRISTIAN (Baptist), I no longer believe that the Bible teaches eternal torment. The Bible teaches eternal punishment, but it's not eternal torment. In my popular Internet article, TRADITIONAL DOCTRINE OF HELL EVOLVED FROM GREEK ROOTS, I explain how and why teaching of eternal torment entered early into Christianity and how Scriptures have been misinterpreted and taken out of context to support that teaching. ~Babu G. Ranganathan (B.A. theology/biology)
Mogley52 6 months ago
Comment removed
Mrfriendlymilk 6 months ago
I knew it! Orville Redenbacher really is G-d! Michael Shermer is excellent. It would be great to get Thunderf00t to talk with Mr. Diety too! He's in the States right now... Hmm.... Mr. Diety?
gr33nman 6 months ago 3
@gr33nman TF and I were trying to connect up, but it was the worst possible timing -- right after TAM, and my 10 day vacation (the first in years), and right when I already had Michael and Christopher DiCarlo coming in to shoot episodes. Very narrow window, and we kept missing each other. D'oh!!!
misterdeity 6 months ago
@misterdeity hey, i've just discovered your channel and am really enjoying the videos.
Have you made any video on non-abrahamic religions?
vineethkuruvath 6 months ago
@vineethkuruvath No. That's a bit out of my depth. I've read a lot about other religions, but have never been immersed in them. There are too many little nuances to know about in order to create something like this, and I think I'd end up making a fool of myself -- people even think I do that here. But I can generally defend myself pretty well when people call me out. I couldn't do that with the others.
misterdeity 6 months ago
The hair is proof that there's no God.
antiquefeminist 6 months ago 18
@antiquefeminist So true! That would have stumped Aquinas!
misterdeity 6 months ago 8
I think Mike needs more acting lessons . . . or a pay raise? He . . . was not into the skit. He was just spitting out his lines without . . . thinking . . . or passion.
enotstehw 6 months ago
What's with the hair, El? Good episode, but the hair...
MrianaTroi 6 months ago
I don't care if he describes himself as an aetheist or not, my point is that he is doing a pretty good job of caricaturing and trivialising faith, and that is an indulgence that only the well off, well educated of the west can afford.
Mrfriendlymilk 6 months ago
This kind of liberal aetheist satire is so smug and convinced of it's own superiority that it makes me want to plough through every religious text ever written and become a monk.
Mrfriendlymilk 6 months ago
@Mrfriendlymilk Why? Do you enjoy genocide, murdering homosexuals, adulterers, sabbath breakers, etc... and thinking that anyone who doesn't believe as you do will burn in Hell forever and ever? If so, go for it! (BTW, don't you think it's so much more smug to think anyone who disagrees with you is a buddy of Satan -- or "children of the devil" if you're a Jew? See the word of God for scriptural references. Or email me directly.) XOXO!
misterdeity 6 months ago 26
@misterdeity Well I live in London, and as I watch our city burn and fall prey to mobile phone weilding teenage thugs and thieves, I think to myself "what is it that causes this dead eyed indifference to the feelings of others?" And I conclude that the insidious malaise of non-belief that has gathered momentum over the last half century has gradually corrupted our children: they are lazy, self-centred and materialistic. Why? because they have no faith in anything bigger than themselves.
Mrfriendlymilk 6 months ago
Your type of satire is seductive to a middle class rationalist mindset, it is eloquent, deals with big questions and flatters the sceptic in his non-belief. All very well, but when these ideas filter down to people with less education and opportunities than yourself it undermines their faith, and faith to those with less is far more precious than it is to those whose lives are comfortable. I don't think that is something to laugh about.
Mrfriendlymilk 6 months ago
@Mrfriendlymilk
You're aware that far worse rioting has happened in the past when there were more people with faith, right? Get off your high horse and stop putting blame in ridiculous places.
rbogart123 6 months ago 3
The past was bad. The present is better than the past. The only difference between the past and present is only that there are less people who believe in God. Therefore, the reason why the present is better is that less people believe in God than they did in the past. Therefore believing in God is a BAD THING. That's about the extent of your understanding is it? What do you know about History? what do you know about the London riots? Not much it would seem.
Mrfriendlymilk 6 months ago
@Mrfriendlymilk Well, talk about smug!!! Holy crap! So, the poor need to be told what to think, how to behave, and that they need to give a percentage of their money to these charlatans who presume to know things about a supernatural realm and a supernatural Being based on the writings of bronze-age ignoramuses? I don't talk down to the poor. Sorry. I'm a jackass who believes that if anyone needs to jettison the life/mind-crippling effects of religion, it's the poor.
misterdeity 6 months ago
@Mrfriendlymilk That's obviously what it is. Believers never do anything terrible like fly planes into buildings, murder gays or doctors who perform abortions - they don't become terrorists, shoot kids, and write manifestos. And certainly, when the world was hip deep in Faith during the dark ages, everything was peachy! People weren't murdered for being witches. They weren't murdered for suggesting the Earth rotated around the sun. Nothing like that. Yours is a simple mind/believing brain.
misterdeity 6 months ago 36
@misterdeity Such cumbersome sarcasm Mr Deity, your "divine" comic touch has obviously deserted you. One of your countrymen wrote a sublime book on the nature of belief, one that actually tried to get to grips with the subtlety and variety of the subject rather than make silly jokes about it. His name was William James, the founder of modern psychology and the most eminent philosopher the U.S. has ever produced, do you think he had a simple "mind/believing brain"?
Mrfriendlymilk 6 months ago
@Mrfriendlymilk Well, you're no William James, my friend. And to attribute the London riots and the corruption of the youth (hello, Socrates!) to a lack of faith is about as simple-minded as it gets. If that were the case, then places where faith is basically non-existent (like Sweden, Norway, Denmark, etc...) would be places of non-stop rioting. It's particularly stupid when we KNOW how many people have done pure evil specifically in the name of faith. You're just a very silly person.
misterdeity 6 months ago
@misterdeity I'm not your friend. I notice you didn't answer the question about whether you had read "The Varieties of Religious Experience". If you did it might temper your enthusiasm for dismissing those who are religious as "simple minded". I never said it was the sole cause of the riots, although I am sure that I - having lived and taught in Tottenham - have a better insight into the rioters than you.
Mrfriendlymilk 6 months ago
The point about scandinavia is a red herring, and the reason why you can think of more examples of leaders who did evil deeds while professing to have a faith is because atheism is a recent phenomenon. Despite this I can think of a few nasty folk whose evil deeds were untrammelled by a belief in God: Pol Pot, Hitler, Stalin. You would have a job presenting these non-believers as rational democratic liberals. I'm not silly either. Though your wig and squeaky voice and arguments definately are.
Mrfriendlymilk 6 months ago
@Mrfriendlymilk Well, I'm not silly enough to tie anyone's actions to whether they have faith or not. That was you're silly claim. The fact is -- as you have just demonstrated -- that both believers and non-believers have done terrible things. Faith doesn't make people good. And doubt doesn't make people bad. That's the utter bigotry you tried pushing here. You implied that youngsters of faith would never do such things, which is empirically false (see 9/11 or the Norway shooter). Again, silly.
misterdeity 6 months ago
Comment removed
Mrfriendlymilk 6 months ago
@misterdeity Oh yeah so all believers fly planes into buildings, murder gays, shoot kids, like we're all one hive mind, right? You can group us all together, we all support the actions of other believers. If Christianity is all fable, how come everyone sins? There's no mandate in your blood or your DNA that makes you sin, but everyone does! Even while believing, people sin. You make the mistake of thinking that believers are perfect people. But we are aware enough to know that we need saving.
RHT769 5 months ago
@RHT769 What do you mean, "everyone sins?" Are you not aware that's a religious idea, not a fact. "Sin" is merely a term defined by religions so that people feel they desperately need something from the religion -- absolution -- which they claim only their church can give (you've bought it hook, line, and sinker). And your definition of sin makes no sense to me. Not believing as you do makes me a sinner, as does working on the sabbath, homosexuality, eating milk with meat. Poppycock!
misterdeity 5 months ago 2
@Mrfriendlymilk Obviously it can have nothing to do with the fact that Tory traitors are busy wrecking the country...
ThatIsNotDeadWhich 6 months ago
@ThatIsNotDeadWhich Is that the best you can do by way of a response? put some more effort in if you expect a reasoned reply. Lazy Boy.
Mrfriendlymilk 6 months ago
@Mrfriendlymilk What more effort is required? The Tories are embarking on economic policies - austerity, so-called - that have always and everywhere been detrimental to the national interest. Tories selling the national interest to corrupt banksters: How is that not treason, and why is that not legitimate grounds for revolution?
Tahrir, Sol, Canary Wharf: Democracy, coming to a plaza near you.
It's 1989 all over again. Too bad for the Tories that they're playing the part of the Russians.
ThatIsNotDeadWhich 6 months ago
@ThatIsNotDeadWhich Well this one was certainly longer I'll give you that, not much in the way of coherence though. Please try harder. By the way, I very much doubt that the people who have had their houses, businesses and lives ruined because of the rioters would have much sympathy with your call for revolution. Grow up son.
Mrfriendlymilk 6 months ago
@Mrfriendlymilk Which factual point do you dispute? That austerity, so-called, is always and everywhere treasonous? Or that the Tories are embarking on a round of austerity, so-called, that lacks precedent even in Thatcher's terror in the '80s?
If you do not like places of business getting torched, do not create the objective conditions for riots. Property is a privilege, not a right, and British owners of property have, collectively speaking, been abusing that privilege. Blowback is natural.
ThatIsNotDeadWhich 6 months ago
@ThatIsNotDeadWhich I dispute that austerity is ever treasonous, especially when the policy is one that has been democratically chosen and is approved of, on the whole, by most of the country. The original use of the term to describe national policy came about during World War 2 when Britain really WAS suffering. To compare spoilt kids with Blackberries and Nike trainers looting TVs with the dignity and stoicism exhibited by the generation of the 1940's is absurd.
Mrfriendlymilk 6 months ago
@Mrfriendlymilk Democratically chosen? The Tory traitors never campaigned on gutting British society. And that's leaving aside the fact that the British first-past-the-post electoral system is a weak facsimile of democracy in the first place.
The travesty here is not so much the poverty - though it is a travesty - as it is the wholly arbitrary cruelty of imposing neoliberal economic policies that deliberately drive the country's economy into a ditch while stomping on the faces of the poor.
ThatIsNotDeadWhich 6 months ago
@ThatIsNotDeadWhich People don't NEED TV's, Blackberries, designer sportswear, or even EMA grants and college educations; what they need is HOPE and jobs they can take pride in. Faith is one of the things that can offer the former, and the latter cannot be provided while our economy is crippled by debt, a debt which has come about through reckless borrowing and excessive state expenditure. The best elements of religions play down the importance of the acquisition of material goods...
Mrfriendlymilk 6 months ago
@Mrfriendlymilk "Jobs they can take pride in" requires a functioning industrial society. Thirty years of uninterrupted Tory treason has murdered the shipyards, murdered the steel mills, murdered the textile industry, murdered the Northern cities and murdered the civil society that can channel dissent into useful activities.
Britain has no public debt problem and the state is not spending excessively by any sane definition. Britain has a problem with a Tory-crippled industrial plant.
ThatIsNotDeadWhich 6 months ago
@ThatIsNotDeadWhich You didn't even consider my reply did you? The tories are the DEVIL in your view, and any complexity is eschewed in favour of fiery, self righteous rhetoric. Your beliefs seem about as "fact based" and "irrational" as any religion. Our industrial decline has troubled historians for decades, it cannot blamed on any one cause, although the dwindling of our natural resources and reckless, ideologically motivated strikes of the 70's played their part. Do you actually live here?
Mrfriendlymilk 6 months ago
@Mrfriendlymilk There is nothing wrong with ideologically motivated strikes. Strikes are a perfectly legitimate political weapon. Strikes are certainly not a valid excuse for murdering heavy industry for the short-term gain of City fatcats.
For all your hyperventilating about my motives, the fact remains that Keynesian policies create industry, and neoliberal policies creates nothing but a desolate wasteland, occasionally punctuated by the glittering displays of obscene wealth.
ThatIsNotDeadWhich 6 months ago
@ThatIsNotDeadWhich Our industries couldn't compete with those of other countries partly because costs were put up by legislation to protect workers rights and pay, whether such legislation is right or not, the fact remains that it undermined our ability to compete with nations who had no such laws. In fact manufacturing declined more under Labour than under "Thatcher's terror". My point is that the causes of our decline are complex, and shouldn't be reduced to simple ideas of "evil tories".
Mrfriendlymilk 6 months ago
@Mrfriendlymilk In the economics profession, we have a technical term for the claim that Britain anno c. 1980 was "uncompetitive." The term is "bullshit." There was nothing wrong with Britain's competitiveness that couldn't have been fixed by floating the £.
Yeah, that would have been bad for the City. So cry me a river - the City was already too big a drain on the British economy in 1980, and it's only gotten worse since.
ThatIsNotDeadWhich 6 months ago
@Mrfriendlymilk "Our industrial decline has troubled historians for decades, it cannot blamed on any one cause"
Sure it can. Free trade agreements with slave nations.
TheHigherVoltage 6 months ago
@TheHigherVoltage That's an interesting idea. Could you expand on that please?
Mrfriendlymilk 6 months ago
@Mrfriendlymilk Exporting labor to cheaper markets is an easy way increases profits. eg. NA free trade agreements with Mexico allowed the NA auto industry to move most heavy manufacturing (forge and stamping as example) from US and Canada to Mexico...a country with far cheaper labor costs ($65/hr labor package rate compared to $7/hr labor package rate) and eliminate almost all safety, environmental, overtime pay and worker protection expenses.
Capitalism at it's best...some would say.
TheHigherVoltage 6 months ago
@TheHigherVoltage I was talking about Britain particularly but I guess the principle is the same. As I mentioned earlier in the discussion, higher working standards and wage legislation made us less competitive than other nations. I don't think it was the sole cause though, dwindling oil and coal reserves, expansion of the welfare state and social trends such as family break up and the decline of religion played their part too. I appreciate your point though.
Mrfriendlymilk 6 months ago
@Mrfriendlymilk "higher working standards and wage legislation made us less competitive than other nations."
That's deceptive logic. $7/hour in Mexico gives a "better than slum" lifestyle for a family of 4. $7/hour in my country isn't even poverty level. The only way to compete with slave wage nations is to either become a slave nation ourselves...or impose tariffs until "competing" nations equal our standards. We had that...until politicians sold the workers out with free trade deals.
TheHigherVoltage 6 months ago
@Mrfriendlymilk (CONT) "I don't think it was the sole cause though, dwindling oil and coal reserves, expansion of the welfare state and social trends such as family break up and the decline of religion played their part too."
How are any of these things contributing factors to a loss in manufacturing? What does divorce rates, or people breaking away from superstitious non-sense have to do with corporate profit margins?
TheHigherVoltage 6 months ago
Comment removed
Mrfriendlymilk 6 months ago
@TheHigherVoltage Oil and coal are self evidently connected with economic productivity. The family is a more efficient economic unit as well as being - broadly speaking - more conducive to the raising of stable, hard working citizens. The church serves to reinforce the importance of the family, while also emphasising virtues such as thrift, hard work and compassion for fellow citizens. Social trends are interwoven into the fabric of cause and effect which shape the economic fate of a nation.
Mrfriendlymilk 6 months ago
@Mrfriendlymilk (1) "Oil and coal are self evidently connected with economic productivity." Add in solar, wind, nuclear, geothermal, ethanol, and just about everything that burns or produces heat. Availability of energy only effects economic productivity when there is none - and we'll never reach that point.
TheHigherVoltage 6 months ago
@Mrfriendlymilk "The family is a more efficient economic unit as well as being - broadly speaking - more conducive to the raising of stable, hard working citizens."
I don't see the connection. Most of my friends were raised in broken homes and work hard because they want a better life. I don't see the connection between having 2 parents, and the need for food, clothing and shelter. I don't see a connection between "a loving family" and children wanting expensive toys to play with.
TheHigherVoltage 6 months ago
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@Mrfriendlymilk (2) "The church serves to reinforce the importance of the family, while also emphasising virtues such as thrift, hard work and compassion for fellow citizens."
They promote family and hard work(so do other, more worthwhile, organizations), however, they do not call "thrift" a virtue, nor do they practice it themselves. Besides, "thrift", in and of itself, is anti-economic development and anti-industry.
TheHigherVoltage 6 months ago
@Mrfriendlymilk (3) "compassion for fellow citizens."
Churches begin with "love one another" before going on long-winded rants about how we're born flawed, and unworthy, and sinful garbage doomed to eternal punishment unless we convince ourselves they're not full of shit. Then pass the collection plate.
I've yet to hear any sermon of "love non-Christians"...I have heard more sermons than I can count, of how everyone outside my ex-church were agents of Satan and an evil to be destroyed.
TheHigherVoltage 6 months ago
@TheHigherVoltage Look, I find these subjects interesting but I am starting to get impatient with people who, on receiving a considered reply to a complex question, snatch a bit of that answer, trap it in inverted commas and proceed to coldly dissect it as though it were an unpleasant biological specimen. How about a bit of reciprocity? Having said that, I am sorry to learn you had an unfullfilling experience at the church you attended. That style of sermonising is not to my taste either...
Mrfriendlymilk 6 months ago
...although in England the fire and brimstone approach is less common. There must be churches - of any denomination - who offer spiritual nourishment which is more suited to your tastes. Just don't join the ranks of the belligerant atheists, it won't do you any favours in the long run. I found a lot of wisdom in a book by the American Philosopher William James, it's called "The varieties of religious experience". It is a challenge to read but may offer some insight into the subject. Good Luck.
Mrfriendlymilk 6 months ago
@Mrfriendlymilk I respond the way I do because it eliminates confusion and breaks a multi-point topic, into manageable, individual points.
Starting with the first : I asked you to expand on your claim coal/oil effect industrial productivity. As fossil fuels are used up/become more expensive, we've seen an increase in other energy producing technologies such as wind, nuclear, solar, and multi-fuel generators. So what's the 'self-evident' connection to productivity? I see no connection at all.
TheHigherVoltage 6 months ago
@Mrfriendlymilk (CONT) I had a very fulfilling experience in church. I was escaping hell and had my own personal Jesus watching over me. Ironically, I believed enough to want a career in ministry and/or apologetics. And like most people who look into their religion too deeply - I found out it was fictional, contradictory, man-made cultish non-sense. No different than the other theistic religions I subsequently researched.
And I couldn't be happier to know I'm no longer lying to myself.
TheHigherVoltage 6 months ago
@TheHigherVoltage Right. I only saw part 3 of your answer because youtube only displayed that one when I looked. Regarding resources: our country used to mine a lot of coal. This is a valuable resource both to sell and to use to power our own home grown industries. As the coal dwindled our wealth did too, in relation to countries who had more of the stuff. We still had enough energy but it was more expensive for us to produce. The mines shut down leading to high unemployment, which is obviously
FreddPepper 6 months ago
.(2)... related to our "industrial decline", which is the phrase I originally used ok? The fact there are alternative energy sources available is A GOOD THING but they weren't and aren't as cheap as coal. Can you acknowledge that this had a detrimental impact on the wealth of our country? This is historical fact, not an ideological point. Sheesh. The family unit usually has one car, one house and uses less resources (food, power, furniture) than a broken home which has to use more of the above..
FreddPepper 6 months ago
(3)...resources for the same amount of people. Make sense? Then the more delicate question of the effects a broken home can have on the up coming generation. You may have differing experiences but as a teacher I have noticed that those without fathers are often less confident than their peers, or they go the other way and lack self discipline and respect for staff. Religion, IRRESPECTIVE OF IT'S LITERAL VERACITY, can have the positive effect of binding families and communities. It''s decline...
FreddPepper 6 months ago
(4)... can be indirectly implicated, both as a cause and an effect, in our industrial decline.
Nothing I have said, if you read it carefully, is particularly controversial. You may differ on the emphasis of each cause, or you may think of other causes too, my point is that it is not simply due to just ONE.
It IS possible to recognise the benefits of religion without being religious, and it's possible to be an atheist without attacking religion. And vice versa.
FreddPepper 6 months ago
@FreddPepper "... they weren't and aren't as cheap as coal. Can you acknowledge that this had a detrimental impact on the wealth of our country? This is historical fact, not an ideological point."
It is an ideological point when all factors aren't considered. Coal is cheap because it's heavily subsidized, while green tech only receives a comparative fraction of coal's tax breaks and incentives. Same with petrol vs ethanol. Gas is more expensive...but the government subsidizes it more.
TheHigherVoltage 6 months ago
@TheHigherVoltage I'm not saying it was anyone's fault that coal production fell so rapidly, nor that for the future Green technologies shouldn't be used, I'm just pointing out that Historians are unanimous in their view that Britain has suffered a steady INDUSTRIAL decline since the start of the 1900's. In 1900 we produced 250 million tons, by 2000 it was about 40 million.This is a huge drop bearing in mind the population has increased by a third. This is NOT an ideological point, it is a fact.
FreddPepper 6 months ago
@FreddPepper I get that coal mining is declining. According to Wiki, England peaked coal production in 1913.
However, in the 1910s - 1970s, England created an auto industry, increased it's ship building, got heavily into machining, tool and die making and metal work. Those industries only started migrating out of the UK during the 1970s n 80s. As soon as free trade agreements allow it. Till then, the workers, through their unions, had kept unfair, slave and child labor competition out.
TheHigherVoltage 6 months ago
@FreddPepper (CONT) In 15 minutes of searching so far, I can't find any information or correlation that coal as any economic factor in England's wealth or industrial decline. It's a fuel source and not much more than an industry onto itself. All information I find says Britain's wealth decline is marked by 3 major events : the great depression, ww1 and ww2...and not one mention of coal effecting any other industry.
The ideological point you made was based on facts, not a fact itself.
TheHigherVoltage 6 months ago
@TheHigherVoltage Fifteen whole minutes eh? well maybe I got it all wrong. I wonder if anyone has written any books on the subject. Nothing you wrote in your last reply conflicts with what I have said, yet you seem to think it does, it's like you are stuck in a kind of default disagreement mode. I blame Dawkin's influence. Take care fella, I can't keep saying the same thing over and over.
FreddPepper 6 months ago
@FreddPepper I get what you're saying, but I'm reminded of when the automobile came into fashion. Sure the workforce in the horse industry died off, however, it was replaced by workers in the auto industry. Same, I would imagine, with coal. When the coal is gone, the miners lose their jobs, but it doesn't change the demand for energy. Coal miner jobs were replaced by jobs in nuclear, wind power, etc A coal town may die, but a nuclear town will be born.
Economic evolution I'd say.
TheHigherVoltage 6 months ago
...and encourage a robust attitude toward hardship, as well as a sense of compassion for our fellow citizens. Belief systems such as Marxism tend to breed divisiveness, antagonism and an arrogant sense of entitlement. Qualities very much in evidence in Tottenham High Rd on saturday night. Radical ideas can be seductive and exciting but they always give way to wisdom in the end. As for property, how would you feel if I entered your bedroom right now and stole your computer? Not too happy I bet.
Mrfriendlymilk 6 months ago
@Mrfriendlymilk If you don't understand the difference between violating someone's home versus breaking a place of business, then you really don't understand much of anything.
But let me spell it out, using small words that even a right-wing nut can understand: Britain has no debt problem. Therefore, every single cut - every single one - currently being made is an illegitimate attack on the poorest people in society. That such unprovoked attacks cause IMF riots should surprise nobody.
ThatIsNotDeadWhich 6 months ago
@ThatIsNotDeadWhich Oh dear, you were doing quite well for bit now you have gone incoherent again. I don't think you fully understand some of the words you are using, in time you will and we - the wise majority - won't begrudge you your fashionable dalliance with Marxism. But if I find you trying to burn down the corner shop at the end my street (the owner of which lives in a flat above his shop), I will take a cut out of YOU and I won't care if you think it "illegitimate" or not.
Mrfriendlymilk 6 months ago 2
@Mrfriendlymilk You're barking up the wrong tree: First, I'm not a Marxian. Never have been. Second, I don't condone riots. I just note that they are the inevitable consequence of spiraling inequality, injustice and disenfranchisement that always and everywhere accompany neoliberal policy. Blaming the rioters rather than the right-wing that forged the objective conditions for riots is akin to blaming an individual RAF pilot for blown-up Iraqi weddings, instead of Parliament for its warmongering.
ThatIsNotDeadWhich 6 months ago
Now, Milky, if you are going to defend Thatcherism on economic or ethical grounds, then educating you might actually be worthwhile. But if you plan to just bury your head in the sand and deny any connection between the current predicament and thirty years of deliberate thirdworldization policies, then I think this discussion is beginning to crowd out more productive uses of my time.
ThatIsNotDeadWhich 6 months ago
@ThatIsNotDeadWhich "thirdworldization" lol
FreddPepper 6 months ago
@Mrfriendlymilk Whoa, dude, if this is your take on youth, I'm praying for your soul.
wailinburnin 6 months ago
@Mrfriendlymilk Where's the connection?
Go out and ask any of these rioters if their actions have anything to do with rational thought.
Better yet, ask how many of them DO believe in any gods. I bet you won't like the ansers of the typical rioters.
For that matter, ask an older generation about a time when London was REALLY burning on a regular basis, because a man in Germany thought a god called him to lead his people and to rid the world of the Jews.
ksmartialarts 6 months ago
@Mrfriendlymilk Um, the guy behind Mr. Deity has already said he's not an aethiest.
deele 6 months ago
@deele When did I say that? I am, most definitely, and most proundly and Atheist!
misterdeity 6 months ago
@misterdeity See what I mean? even the people who who defend you haven't a clue what they are defending. They just enjoy the feeling that scepticism gives them, it doesn't matter what the are being sceptical about. As long as it chimes with their own personal sense of disillusionment about something or other they will support your subversive jokes. The irony! atheism has become as vulgarised, simplistic and populist as you no doubt think Christianity is. Better find something else to champion...
Mrfriendlymilk 6 months ago
@Mrfriendlymilk I can't speak for anyone else, but I don't feel the least bit disillusioned. I feel awakened by my Atheism/Skepticism. It gives me the tools to live a better, deeper, more meaningful life -- to appreciate the natural world and the creatures who share this planet with me. I think you have very bigoted views of Atheists. Perhaps you should get out and meet some of us.
And I don't really care about such things as "populist." That's your own baggage. Reveal away!
misterdeity 6 months ago
@misterdeity I thought your original reply betrayed a rather bigoted view of those with a faith, so I fought fire with fire. This, though, is a great aspiration:
"to live a better, deeper, more meaningful life -- to appreciate the natural world and the creatures who share this planet with me"
I couldn't agree more, I just don't think it is incompatible with faith, nor an inevitable by-product of atheism. A sense of clear headed curiosity and wonder are qualities which are fostered by...
Mrfriendlymilk 6 months ago
...religious practice in my view. This is one of the themes of James' book; that it is possible and desirable to make use of the empiricism and logic associated with scientific practice AND the spiritually nourishing attributes of religion depending on the nature of the problems life throws at us at any given time.
The religion/science dualism is a false one, most likely created to achieve a political aim. There is no need to choose between the two. All the best Mister D, no hard feelings :)
Mrfriendlymilk 6 months ago
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@Mrfriendlymilk "This kind of liberal aetheist satire is so smug and convinced of it's own superiority that it makes me want to plough through every religious text ever written and become a monk."
Just read the bible cover to cover. It doesn't take long to realize it's nothing more than bronze age cult mythology, and worth mocking.
TheHigherVoltage 6 months ago
@fuck192ass Exactly! Thank you!
misterdeity 6 months ago
@fuck192ass That's true, but philosophers have come up with far sillier ideas -- and with greater frequency.
misterdeity 6 months ago
Doesn't he know the nuclear apocalypse is going to happen in 1997? Oh wait...
TheOJDrinker 6 months ago
crocoshocker 6 months ago
@crocoshocker That's actually the opening to the Thor sequel. How'd you get that?
misterdeity 6 months ago
@misterdeity should get on twitter have a fight for the control of the unwashed masses with @TheTweetOfGod (that's a twiiter account).
nonindividual 6 months ago
who's the guy on the vid? please don't hang me for not knowing. i think i have seen him in documentaries.
vision4DaY 6 months ago
@vision4DaY Michael Shermer, publisher of Skeptic Magazine and the author of a bazillion great books (including, "The Believing Brain").
misterdeity 6 months ago
I'm of the Captain Kangaroo generation, and expected Jesse to appear as Mister Green Jeans, Lucy as Mr. Moose, and Larry as Mr. Bunny Rabbit.
aikimark1955 6 months ago
@aikimark1955 Did you watch Romper Room too?
misterdeity 6 months ago
@misterdeity I watched it a little bit, but that was mostly when my younger brother was watching. I'm a '55 baby and I found Romper Room uninteresting (seems quaint for me to have thought of anything as childish when I was young). There were also some locally produced television programs for kids, such as the Old Rebel Show out of WFMY in Greensboro.
aikimark1955 6 months ago
Another great episode! That Mr. Deity now looks like Captain Kangaroo only packs more comic goodness into each and every frame!
But just a reminder: All the very, VERY best episodes have Amy/Lucy in them!
BeefPies 6 months ago
@FantasyClay One-time deal. I promise. It's gonna take weeks to recover from that cut. I'm writing this from the intensive care unit of the Vidal Sassoon Academy.
misterdeity 6 months ago 6
You're a fucking genius bro! Love all your stuff!
thinkbig3000 6 months ago
@thinkbig3000 If only someone with power and money agreed with you.
misterdeity 6 months ago
11 people don't needs facts, because they've got FAITH!
stlPXjoh1 6 months ago
Very funny! But I want to introduce you to a concept regarding audio. It's called a hi-pass filter. Look into it. The pervasive low rumble is totally unacceptable, and totally avoidable. Cheers!
ChadWork1 6 months ago
@ChadWork1 It's entirely intentional. I actually put that in. Go watch something like Star Trek TNG. The low frequency rumble of the warp engines is throughout. This is the same sound that you'll hear in Mr. Deity's universe and the omniverse they inhabit in this prequel. But thanks for assuming I'm such a novice as to not know how to filter audio -- been in music for 36 years.
misterdeity 6 months ago 4
@MD Sorry if I offended your experience level. That wasn't intended. It's just that a lot of people miss sub noise because their monitors can't reproduce much sub bass, and it gets by. It sounds like an air unit or some thing similar. Since its also in your other videos shot in the same space it's not really assuming anything on my part to offer a suggestion, as you're obviously letting it slide by. I don't buy the "intentional" line. The sarcasm is a good cover though! Enjoy your sub-bass!
ChadWork1 6 months ago
@ChadWork1 No offense taken. I was just givin' you a hard time. I have some excellent, self-powered monitors running out of my 24-196 firewire unit. I hear everything!
misterdeity 6 months ago
aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh perfect finale!!!!
rocketair45 6 months ago
HELLO CLEVELAND!!!
eggius 6 months ago
My wife got me two of Shermer's books for fathers day. Nice to see him in the show!
N21X 6 months ago
@N21X Why do you think we did this episode now. Glad you liked it.
misterdeity 6 months ago 2