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Not in Christianity... Jesus is totally virtuous and God is literally godlike in his character. @Mishi2 can probably explain more for details. Brotha; ever heard of Venus and Mars? Two most widely worshiped gods of Rome before Christ and one was a whore who cheated on her husband with a man young enough to be her son. Aristotle was (probably) an atheist; Augustus might also have been an atheist or at least "different" as he wasn't big on his own pantheon and deified his adoptive father/uncle. Kaiser Barbarossa was a Christian King and Emperor. Literally "Holy Roman Kaiser".

I think the way Harris is talking is very similar to the way people on the left in general tend to talk about Trump (pointing out perceived flaws, comparisons to Hitler, etc) but I personally don't see the value in trying to reframe what Harris sees as problems with Trump as good things. liberal: "Trump did A. A is bad." conservative: "No, A was good for this reason." I think it actually complicates having a productive conversation. If Trump rescued a box full of kittens from in front of a speeding truck, liberals would more than likely still think he was pure evil, and if Trump shoved a box of kittens away from him conservatives would more than likely still think he was pure good. If someone in a debate can't ever concede any point (liberals think Trump is good in this way, conservatives think Trump is bad in that way) then you just have a verbal chess game motivated by desire, (including the desire to win) and not a conversation with the goal of listening and trying to understand why the other person thinks the way that they do. I haven't seen a single instance where someone says "trump is Hitler cause of this thing he did" and someone goes "No, that thing he did was good cause of this" and the first person responds "Holy crap you're right. I've changed my mind" and if they did respond that way that quickly it would either be because they were 1.) being snarky, or 2.) have genuinely changed their mind in the moment and are thus the exception to the rule. Most people don't arrive at life changing conclusions about themselves, their thoughts, their opinions until they put in a lot of work. I think it's difficult for anyone to get to that place when almost every conversation is unproductive.

For those who don't check the link it's The Psychology of Self Esteem. Nathaniel Branden also wrote The Six Pillars of Self Esteem which I have not yet read but I imagine is also worth a look.

If Adam says that Trump is a master persuader does that mean that the people who voted for him are dupes?

Sam looses his cool early on in the conversation and constantly goes on tangents and talks over Scott a lot of the time. Basically Sam bitches about how A, B, and C makes Trump look like literally Hitler (he goes for that argument btw early on) and Scott calmly reframes A, B, and C in a manner that makes Trump look like a master persuader. At which point Sam starts saying "but also D, E, and F" and Scott does the same thing with D, E, and F. And so on. At no point does Sam ever give any ground to Scott, he just moves on to something else. Scott said that it's a tell for cognitive dissonance when people start claiming knowledge of other people's inner lives and Sam retorted by saying that the Trump University scandal was proof enough for him. That that tells Sam everything he needs to know of how morally bankrupt DRUMPF is (he literally is screaming at Scott at this point). Scott asks him how Trump should have handled the situation in that regard so as to redeem himself in Sam's eyes. Sam says he should've given recompense to the affected parties at which point Scott points out Trump did exactly that even though Trump wasn't at fault. This is when Sam starts complaining that it's not about the recompense per se, it's about how the whole matter was settled, that it shouldn't have been settled in a court. The guy is as typical of an SJW as you can imagine. I am in shock.

The language of the universe is written in photons, as they are the tiniest amount of information transmitted from any place to another. I think constructions like Boss's post are poetic, but I would instead say Math being the language of the universe lends too much substance to an abstraction. One could say that the rules of math are solid and physical phenomena can be modeled with constructs that follow those rules, and that has led us to wonderful confirmed predictions in the past. In my experience, atheists don't ask the question in the original post. But since I don't hang with atheists that are collectivists, I'm not exactly dealing with the majority. The question I ear asked is "What evidence led you to believe what you believe?" and "What would convince you otherwise?"

https://discord.gg/CqGqEEK A little over a year ago there was a group of regulars who met up on Skype and had many a successful and productive conversations. It was great fun overall and I felt a nice connection with other members who frequented there. So I've undertaken the process of setting up a discord server for FDR, a voice chat client originally made for gaming enthusiasts which has become a very respectable piece of software in its own right. What advantages would this setup have over a Skype/Google group? Multiple Text and Voice Channels: This lets us organize our thoughts into sub-categories so if we want to focus on issues such a interpersonal or daily occurrences, we can do so without flooding other conversations people might want to have such as parenting. (Which would be less frequent and require more thought) Easily Accessible: You don't even have to install a client to your computer if you don't want to, it can run through a browser same as the FDR chat (Though you will need your own account) A tiered permission system which allows for more troll-pruning (Typically not an issue but as FDR grows it might come to be so.) And personally I find it preferable to Skype due to a lack of ads as well as less memory bloat. The downsides I'd note are that it's unfamiliar to the majority of people as well as a slightly lower quality than something like Skype. The Channels I think of being useful for the start as are follows. General Chat - Where daily ordeals will be discussed Introductions, Timezone, age, main life ventures Philosophical Discussion: For those who want to dissect and disprove UPB! Peaceful Parenting: Parenting can be tough, so lets make it easier as a community Note that this doesn't seek to replace the FDR forums even if it borrows some inspiration from its setup. Instead I hope it can compliment the community by allowing us to connect through an easy to understand application which also has smartphone integration for those who are so inclined.

Are you saying the reason for not including it is "There are alternatives" and "Not many people use it"? I could say the same thing about use in regards to several sub-boards on this site. This site in general has alternatives (ex: Twitter, Facebook, other message boards, etc) "There are alternatives" is something you could say about just about anything. Now if the reason it didn't come back is because "We didn't specifically want to include that feature anymore", then that's a reason.

I received a phone call from a friend in 2005. We had met on a meditation course a year or so before and had stayed in loose contact since. (I've since stopped meditation). When when she called I was pleased to hear from her. She asked about my life etc for a while then chatted about hers. Then she told me about the Landmark forum and how it was changing her life, she felt amazing and finally had clarity about what she wanted. Something inside me though was saying 'this is not right'. There was something odd about the way she was raving about the course. So I asked her, 'Did you call me on your own or have you been asked to call and recruit people?' Turned out it was a recruiting call. That turned me off the whole thing. If she had been honest from the start then that would have been acceptable with me. So it may be good material on the Landmark course, but it is marketed in a bullying way which I don't like.

Huh, you can join in this discord chat I created then since i used to host the old Skype calls anyways. https://discord.gg/CqGqEEK

Hi Coleman. I've had some friends do the Landmark Forum who say that it's improved their lives immensely, but I'm torn about it for the following reasons. Firstly, what I've heard from my friends and what I've read suggests that it's about enforcing personal responsibility, stopping your history from determining your future, and not projecting your past onto your relationships. All of that sounds damn good. In fact, it sounds like the call-ins to Stef about relationship or self-knowledge questions. Back when I first started listening to FDR Stef would go in in deep with these callers for an hour or more. Stef's approach is to question the caller thoroughly about their question, situation, personal history and childhood, draw parallels between the past and the decisions the caller is making today, and discuss how to overcome those patterns of behavior. Importantly, Stef insists on absolute personal responsibility and honesty. He unhesitatingly calls out lies, contradictions, evasions, minimizations, and any attempt to avoid answering questions. Through this, the caller comes to realizations they may not have otherwise. The Forum's method includes something of this, so that appeals to me. On the other hand, Stef counters the caller's resistance with reason and evidence (usually by pointing out something the caller said but then tried to gloss over). Some reading I've done suggests that when Forum participants make excuses, and especially if they criticize Landmark's methods, they are met with abuse, mockery, and public shaming in front of a group that has been primed to police your and each other's behavior. Less correcting factual errors via logic and more silencing dissent via emotion. The other reason I don't like the Forum is also the reason I didn't join; the ferocious, manipulative, borderline-abusive hard-sell. I attended a home introduction to Landmark, and went through one of these for two hours, and it was miserable. I almost caved but thankfully another friend who was there (and didn't sign up) gave me the social backing I needed to refuse. My memory of that event has kept me away ever since. On top of that, my reading suggests you get called on throughout the Forum to sign up for the advanced course, and are required to bring a friend or family member to the "graduation ceremony". There, your guest is surrounded by Landmark sales reps and pressured to sign up for the Forum. This is exactly what happened when my sister attended the graduation of a Forum-going friend. I don't want that again; not for me, sure as hell not for anyone I care about. So that's a big and enduring turn-off. And just to put the cherry on it, the friends who did the course seem to have cut me off, and I think it's because of my persistent refusal to follow them. Here are the sources I've been referring to. Have a look and see what you think. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/karin-badt/inside-the-landmark-forum_b_90028.html https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2003/dec/14/ameliahill.theobserver http://www.xojane.com/newagey/landmark-forum-cult http://www.gq.com/story/landmark-forum-get-confident-stupid-gq-may-2005 http://www.philosophyforlife.org/category/landmark-forum/ http://www.mypracticalphilosophy.com/shelp/landmarkforum.htm EDIT: Mentioned the personal experience of Landmark's hard-sell to one of my siblings.