Justin K.

2bits, that is an excellent response an almost exactly the way I explain it in a chapter in my book. Hannabannana & a few others commented similar. However, Sal's response was actually what I was wondering about (& why I asked if anyone knew) because I don't want to publish the wrong thing. But if that post is correct than that means everyone who was so certain it was apopenia was wrong. Magnus get over yourself. I just meant b/c I'm new. Maybe it is the marketer in me but y'know, in used to like sending an email or writing a direct mail piece, you need a provocative headline to get opened. If you want your stuff read. You can change it up a bit after that. In fact that's a good half the emails or tweets you read. But again thank you to all who commented thoughtfully. Relating to normal synchronistic events in life, I concur with what 2bits posted exactly. Where it comes to the ratios of planetary orbits, I think there is actually a more logical reason for it. To lingum; Great response also. I'll just say that I mentioned earlier I had out in many other numbers that were obviously man made just for whoever may be interested in it & to strengthen the idea this is what religion really revolves around. Like 666 being the 36th triangular number or the sum of a magic square. I mean I did say right in the first post, I ask genuinely, non facetiously, I don't believe in God, that was all in the first post. Maybe when after giving all the moon trivia then adding "and science doesn't find any of this strange" was too the other way idk.

Guitarstring87 Sorry, but you are wildly misinformed. Now we are on to nutrition instead of morality, however u want it. The fact is there is not a single nutrient in meat not better supplied by vegetables. Every nutrient in meat started out in a vegetable and are hand me downs. 4 ounces of black beans has the same amount of protein as red meat with a third of the calories, minus the cholesterol & saturated fat while packed with fiber. B12 is neither present in meat nor vegetables but is a bacteria. Meat I a reliable source as it is "reliably contaminated with fecal matter". I'll stick nature made. There's big many myths invented by the meat industry, such as "complete protein", amino acids, B12, but none have any truth to them. All the strongest mammals are herbivores. Horses, elephants, gorillas, rhinos, hippos, and yes man. The Guinness book record holding strong man is vegan. Google "comparative anatomy chart" (vegan soul fest) homo Sapien sapiens share almost everything with fruit eating (frugivorous) animals, plenty with herbivores, very very little with omnivores, and zilch with carnivores. Even the carnivores, like lions, eat the guts first when they attack a gazelle going for the plant flora, then the fatty acids, and lastly they move to the muscle, if they eat it at all. Nature knows better. Meat is poison. They now know why. Red meat in particular they have now identified the sugar that is indigestible leading to an auto immune response that treats lamb, beef, bison, & pork as a foreign invader creating inflammation that causes cancer. We just didn't use to lie Lon enough. But meat has been linked to Alzheimer's, mad cow, heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, cancer, & is the Genesis of AIDS. Humans are herbivores and every disease we die from is in direct proportion to the degree we ignore this fact. Our teeth and the length as well as the chemical Make up of our digestive systems are dead give aways

Slightly off topic but I feel like if we are going to regulate the minimum wage, it should be consistent with the cost of certain commodities, like rolls of toilet paper, gallons of gas, gallons of juice, rent. We should have a base average of these things in units and an hour of work multiplied by 40 should be able a minimum standard of living. Sounds kind of commie I know but when I was a young man starting out making $7/hr. At McDonalds, I switched & started working in group homes for $8, I had to work very hard before they paid me 12, then 15, & when I was making 17 an hour, I was the coordinator who supervised a Vocational Center for people with disabilities, I had the behaviorist working underneath me, several managers and assistant managers below them, & beneath that the staff. The idea, that we just give who I was at McDonalds the same pay as what I had worked 10 years for devalues everything I worked to achieve, it makes my value to creditors less. It is insane. There is no way to raise the minimum wage that dramatically, & be fair about it unless you are raising everyone's wage while keeping the costs of goods the same which is impossible. Oh, you mean I don't have to deal with state inspections, payroll, family memebers, doctors, medical training, crisis management certification, I can just go sweep the lot make the same thing? Well why wouldn't everyone just do that then? They probably would, wherein the lower skilled people wouldn't have a job at all. 15 dollars an hour! Yeah sure. I know 30k doesn't sound like a lot, but the payscale is inextricably linked to the minimum. I do think that all salaries should keep pace with inflation in a fair world. That's the real scam.

Ok, fine. Because idk where my other comments went anyway, I'll try to be more polite. I'll endure all the caricatures of animal advocacy & pretend no one else has been condescending or obnoxious. Because you want to bring it back to Socratic reasoning... Even if I were to grant that should a man be starving in Africa with no vegetation available, that his eating a rabbit would be acceptable, how does that argue that it is a moral thing to do when vegetation is readily available. This is why people had a serious problem with Socrates: proving that a premise isn't inherently true because you can find an instance where it isn't true doesn't mean you can't find ten thousand places where it is. Ultimate sophistry. "If I throw a brick at a window & the glass doesn't break, it doesn't prove bricks don't break windows." That's all the Socratic method is. So now, as the window repair man I'll run around town throwing bricks through windows & should anyone call me on it, I'll lightly toss a piece of a brick off a thick paned window to prove my innocence. It's silly. Because in some alternate universe in no way relevant to the billions of animals who suffer daily, I may be able to come up with some scenario why I can eat meat, I'll do it everyday under whatever circumstance I feel like. Reductio ad absurdum isn't a substitute for tangible, real life choices. Guitar strings: You said your argument is "Man is alive> Man must eat to stay living> Animals are suitable for human consumption> Man can choose to eat animal OR man can die" In reality, it is man has a choice to eat plant or animal. Man's insistence upon eating an ungodly amount of animals is leading to the destruction of all plant and animal life in a completely unsustainable manner. ( ie, Man has eliminated 85% of all the large fish in the seas of the world since commercial fishing began in 1954) What is the moral choice man should be making? Your argument amounts to a false dilemma. The prospect of starving versus eating a rabbit we can easily move beyond. We have more more relevant and pertinent things to consider. This is what the animal rights issue is actually about, best practices. Just because if I were being chased by a deranged lunatic with a knife I may in an extreme circumstance drive on flat tires, doesn't mean that I do so in my daily commute.

& your YouTube video with random comments from whoever about whatever is hardly a relevant rebuttal to my argument, "Professor Philosophy" OMFG So your non argument is "man can eat animal or die"? No, Son. It's man can eat vegetable & live or man can eat animal and die along with destroying animal, vegetable, & man - case u missed it the first time. Nothing but a false dichotomy fallacy. Man neither needs to eat animal to live & is actually causing misery to both man & animal by doing so. BTW, you know why they killed Socrates? Because proving that a premise isn't inherently true just because you can find any instance where it isn't true doesn't mean you can't find ten thousand places where it is. Ultimate sophistry. "If I throw a brick at a window & the glass doesn't break, it proves bricks don't break windows." That's all the Socratic method is. So now, as the window repair man, I' get to run around town all day throwing bricks through windows & should anyone call me on it, I'll lightly toss a piece of a brick off a thickest pane of window to prove my innocence. It's nonsense. Oh, because in some alternate universe in no way relevant to the billions of animals who suffer daily, I may be able to come up with some scenario why I can eat meat, I'll do it everyday under whatever circumstance. I don't care whose forum it is. NONSENSE GETS IT RAW.

Your misrepresentation/biased caricature of animal activism was the last thing from polite. & no, sorry, it's not "man can choose to eat animal or die" (quick basic recap of your non-argument) in reality it is man can choose to eat vegetable & live or man can choose to be a selfish glutton & eat animal while destroying both man, animal & vegetable in most cowardly fashion. That's reality. The idea that somehow my being in a "philosophy forum" in any way negates this fact is laughable. Wrong dude. Dress it up how you want. You aren't making any sense.

I have this "eye Q" speed reading course. With computer training - I think I had some mild success with it years back. But I enjoy reading slow & contemplating. If you want to try it I'll give it to you. It was some kind if infomercial & you can find it on YouTube to give you an idea. It I called infinite mind Eye Q.

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I like shirgall's response. I also think people use religion frequently as a means of asking for tolerance while subscribing to a set of ideas that do not themselves foster tolerance. As an animal advocate I hear frequently that my dissenting opinion is intolerant of others. To me this is as silly as saying that at freedomain radio, those people are just intolerant of the State and it's opinion that you should give it money or it's religious right to go to war. I don't think all opinions or logic are equal. #2) sounds a lot like the wishy washy language of the past that places irrationality on the same plateau of rationality in the name of tolerance. We should at least hear everyone out though. Tolerate the existence of them? Sure. So long as by "tolerate" we do not mean that we don't criticize barbaric actions and real harm caused on their part by chalking it up to "cultural differences". I didn't find much else wrong with it.

Where do I get it? From reading the thread. From the gate it was "the jerk in me wants to ridicule you but instead..." Followed by nothing but ridicule. Then straw man central station. We post other coincidences nothing to do with the topic in no way pertinent or in any way as specific and act like it is the same thing. At least a half dozen times someone commented about it not proving God's existence when A) I never said it did B) I said pretty emphatically I didn't believe it did. I don't think it proves anything. It does however, circumstantially suggest an intelligent design - perhaps not of God the way theologians describe God, but an intelligent if not perfect entity, perhaps. It is funny to me just how spastic atheists will become even at the mere mention of it. Many, the same people who tell me I'm too harsh & not convincing them with vitriol when I talk about animal rights. Like on one hand, I must gently persuade them from horrifically cruel actions. But when it is their turn, no "catching more flies with honey than vinegar" necessary, intolerance full steam ahead. But there were a few responses like love prevails that made sense to me. And actually Labmath2 - you were fair, I apologize, I had read your response with many others in machine gun fashion that I kind of lumped it in with the others - but when I re-read it , I concur- that was wrong of me to do so. And to jer, that was funny I liked it. That is usually how I explain any but if synchronicity. It is just in this example there were several coincidences which I suppose is the same thing end of the day, just a probability, but I've done DMT when I was younger, & remember it being all math. Before I had ever done any drugs I had what I can only describe as a hallucination staring at the door one day, I saw rows & rows of moving numbers & then the next day I thought of Zeno's paradox in math class which stumped my teacher only to learn some years later that I certainly wasn't the first to do so. Since we do see numbers in nature like pi, golden ratio, Fibonacci - I wondered if the act of "creation" with or without God could be related to it.

Oh the plants argument. Sure never heard this before. Well for one plants don't have things like brains, offspring to care for. They don't need things like excercise. It's not even remotely comparable. Also, plants aren't being tortured before they are killed & have no awareness that it is about to happen. Third, you don't actually have to kill a plant to eat it. You can trim a plant and it will regenerate, unlike say, a leg. Eating fruit, like say an apple, kills not the tree nor even explicitly prevents the seeds from being planted. In the wild they are excreted & the feces acts as fertilizer. Fourth, when people say this they are being disengenuous in the first place as it isn't coming from a concern for plants. I'll watch a strawberry harvest if you watch factory farm footage. The idea that what I posted isn't common in factory farming is ludicrous. There is more testimony, video evidence from AMERICAN farms readily available to anyone who cares to look. To AncapFTW, I'm not putting words in your mouth. I'm saying they don't deserve it. If you don't feel they deserve it, but continue to support it, and argue against that it is wrong, that is your hypocrisy. I'm just pointing it out. Lastly, to whoever said about the guy in Africa, it is worth noting that modern agriculture & fishing is the leading cause of hunger and malnutrition worldwide. We take their grain to feed our cattle & ship Africa aide in the most ridiculously inefficient means of producing feed possible. 1 sonar fishing vessel of the coast of Africa catches in 2 weeks what it takes 7000 local fisherman a year. We steal their livelihood & food swallowing up all other forms of sea life they could eat & then that is thrown back over as "by catch" making it useless, all so westerners can eat prawns. It is well established & widely known in ecology that agriculture is the leading cause of environmental destruction, topsoil loss, water shortage, deforestation, hunger, disease, pollution, loss of biodiversity, carbon emissions, you name it, every major obstacle facing humanity can be layed at the foot of our appetite for flesh and in amounts that are absurdly unhealthy. For all these reasons, on top of being horrifically cruel to both animals and HUMANS, vegans and animal advocates aren't the "human haters", our actions benefit humans also. Unlike omnivores. Man it must suck being on the wrong side of such an obvious argument. Try thinking for yourselves, instead of acting like it is blasphemy to disagree with Stef on anything. No one is perfect. But you guys, and he, clearly haven't thought it through. Here is the real question. Is it ethical to support the leading cause of almost every major problem facing humanity? Peaceful parenting is fantastic. I'm a proponent. How about peaceful living, peaceful eating? It's hard to preach one without the other and expect to be taken seriously. It I as equally absurd as giving Hitler props for being a vegeterian. Selective compassion without logical consistency. Plus, on YouTube they say Stefan is a vegetarian, but not a vegan. I think vegetarians share far more in common with omnivores than vegans but I tend to associate with vegetarians because most vegans started out vegetarian and just hadn't made the connection yet that dairy supports the same industry - (Milk = Veal). But is this true? Does anyone know, & if he is, why? Is it for ethical or dietary reasons? (Dairy is actually far worse for you than meat in most cases.) Oh, & you put no "damper on my animals skinned alive" argument. A, I didn't say that but skinning animals alive is how almost ALL furs, like minks and rabbit is made. That is the least likely to be uncommon as anything suggested here. I just didn't bring it up because I was talking about eating animals. It does show however, just how little some know about animal welfare before they opine.

What part of factory farming is torture? Well, Pulling teeth out with pliers and without anesthetic. Being deprived of the ability to turn around. Having your beak or tail cut off. Having your children stolen at birth and then starving them in a veal crate. Force feeding ducks until their liver explodes (which is the definition of foie gras) sending cows down a conveyor belt to have their flesh ripped off while still conscious. Being hooked up to a milking machine & raped with metal rods until you've given birth so many times your hips give out. Keeping chicks in darkness for months on end and then blinding light to simulate spring. The actions of "moral agents". This is all quite routine in industrial agriculture. Educate yourself. What is the point of philosophy if doesn't cause you to even consider that supporting this is wrong. Impotent. What hope is there for anarchy and the idea that without law we would treat each other with dignity if we can't wrap our minds around the obvious & irrefutable truth that this is wrong. There is no chance. This is why it is so disappointing that people who claim reason, empathy, philosophy, can't be just so selectively deluded where mozzarella is concerned. Please. Everyone continues to argue that animals aren't moral agents. No one can give a reason why this means the they deserve the above living conditions.

Mathew M. Yeah that's a good point. Cuz I like being a provocateur. No I just didn't really think about it. I was definitely relating it to a creation vs. Natural occurrence argument. I came on, I saw the word atheism, I had read something about this moon thing, it was on my mind so I asked. I then immediately received a tide of psuedo intellectual snobbery. I did recieve a few thoughtful responses also. But I enjoy trying to argue positions the other way sometimes just to know I've really exhausted it and to see/test what kind of responses a group will give when not toeing the party line let's say. I'm not here as a substitute for my social life. I've read a lot of nasty things online about this group and how if you have any ideas that aren't Stefs you get shunned & ridiculed. I don't care about any of that. I admire Stef a great deal. My only real gripe is the animal issue.but I can compartmentalize how I feel about a person from their opinion on something I disagree with .i was told the message board was of much better civility & intelligence. Idk about that yet. I hope so, but it seems pretty much the same.just with less number of idiotic dissenting opinions.

AncapFTW I'm not trying to restrict what you are doing. I am pointing out that you have no ethical reason to do so. What irony. You are paying others to imprison sentient creatures but are concerned with "being restricted". Telling you, that your action of killing and torturing (which is 99% of all meat sold today as it is factory farmed) animals is violence on my part? I don't know if people think about how ridiculous they sound. Animals don't have to be our equals. You still have no right to kill and eat them. You are allowed to by law - but you aren't a philosopher with any kind of moral code if the best you can come up with is animals aren't moral agents. It is the most circular and ridiculous notion. I know right from wrong so I don't have to act right and should be allowed to kill things that don't think like me and do not cause me any harm, because I know right from wrong. Lunacy. Most people just say I don't care I like how they taste. This moral agency, philosophical rationale to do it is 100 times more offensive.

God did it may indeed not be an answer but that is what theists would say. I was asking how atheists explain it. To say apophenia is for me a loss of credibility. It was perhaps not the best title for this group: But it is actually that all the numbers are 99.9% accurate & not 100% that bothers me the most. You see, if it was 100% to the T accurate it lends itself in my mind at least more to a law of physics. When it is startling accurate & redundant but a km off, or 99.9% accurate it appears intentional & yet prone to, not error but just the imperfectability of... Idk art I guess. I've thought about this awhile & I think the 99.9% accuracy only makes it weirder.

AncapFTW Who cares? Let's say I grant you are right for a moment. Animals understand torture & ending their life isn't something they enjoy. Why is it okay for you to do this to them? It isn't up to me to prove what animals are capable in the first place. It is up to the people causing them agony to explain why this is a acceptable. Moral agency isn't a strong reason. In fact it isn't a reason at all. The whole premise is deeply flawed.

Labmath, Thank you for bringing it up. You may not be happy with your performance but you brought up the right questions & Stef didn't answer them. You did fine. I don't believe Stefan actually wants to be on the wrong side of history, but he's pragmatic & neither wants to alienate his audience nor back off from previous comments. If he was proud of your exchange they'd put it on YouTube. He doesn't want anything to do with this topic because it is either A) bad for business or B) bad for philosophy & credibility. They have no moral leg to stand on. Should Stef & I ever have this discussion, I've been a stage actor, a crisis management trainer, & currently an elite sales manager. I don't get nervous. I've seen how he tries to escape in these exchanges, I do it all day every day. On this topic, I would annihilate this nonsense. I just don't want to do it to him because I know what he's trying to do. He doesn't believe this crap. It is simple, there is no special interest free discussion. Everyone who knows their ass from a hole in the ground is a psychographic marketer. They know their audience. It is disappointing, but not surprising. The onus is on the people doing the killing. It is NOT my job to prove that animals have the capacity for this or that. The burden of proof rests on the people who are murdering them to explain an ethical reason why this is acceptable. That they do not have the capacity to reason in the way we do is... no other word for it "PATHETIC!" Primarily. IT MAKES NO SENSE. Absurd 2nd, disgraceful 3rd, absent in common sense 4th. I'm here because like you (& I want to thank you again for calling in) I recognize the problem isn't as much with Stef as the audience. If more people got it, maybe he'd have the balls. but the idea we don't "understand UPB" Or was it UBP??? (Sigh) is preposterous. Grow a set & then talk to me about UP/B There is no morality in selfish, gluttonous, senseless murder. Dress it up however you want. Why is aggression wrong in the 1st place? Why is aggression wrong in the 1st place? Why is aggression wrong in the 1st place? Why is aggression wrong in the 1st place? Why is it okay to kill things that don't want to die UNNECESSARILY - ever? They have no sufficient answer. Just lofty abstractions, red herrings, but no answer. We can kill anything we want. But unless we can explain why it there is a moral reason to do so, it isn't philosophy, & why Plato, Aristotle, Pythagoras, as well as Darwin, Tesla, Newton, Franklin, Edison, Shakespeare, Beethoven, Gandhi, Emerson, Thoreau, & DaVinci (just to name a few) didn't. & what?

If you are okay with calling it a coincidence. But that's a real hell of a coincidence. There has to be a physical reason why. I was hoping for something like a physical law as to why a ratio would have to be a certain way for a planet or star orbiting or being orbited by its neighbors to make it possible - because Venus & Mars have some odd 2:5 ratios & when you map their patterns they form things like pentagrams and hexagrams & stuff. I wanted a way to resolve the last glimmer of any notion we are all caught in some strange Archon experiment. I don't really believe that I was looking for the answer to how I know it isn't the case. There has to be a better answer than coincidence, it's just too many and too specific not to involve some kind of law.

Magnum PI It doesn't mean anything unless there were 9 other things that used precisely the same number. Does anyone understand a ratio is not "hand chosen" If I said a new full moon occurs every 29.5 days and it takes Saturn 29.5 years to orbit the sun (which are both true), I could understand everyone saying it's just a coincidence & you can do that with anything. But this much of something in relation to that much of something as a ratio will always be that ratio irrespective of what means you are using to measure it. When that ratio divided either way becomes a number that also precisely identifies the number of occurrences of something, like an orbit or a rotation, it matters not the language used to describe it, who is doing so, what their belief is, it is a universal. No cherry picking is either involved nor POSSIBLE. When the ratios as well as the occurrences are all poignantly related to each other in poetic & in some cases even ironic fashion That's why it becomes strange. neeel did say something true before though that I didn't address, when you said it's like a watch being right twice a day. I did post that the moon is moving away from earth. But to put it in perspective it would be like the time, the minute the watch was right - that minute being akin to all of recorded history. That doesn't really weaken the idea but strengthens it. Because of the moon making life on earth possible - that broken watch is set for when we would be here. And again I'm playing Devils advocate. If any of you knew me this goes against everything else I know, understand & believe. It just bugs me & was hoping one of you might be able to explain it in a perfectly rational fashion, but everyone is just saying all the same shit I said when I first heard it. But I kept looking into it, & it gets weirder & weirder. It's pissing me off actually.

Neeel What are you talking about? The number of times the earth spins while rotating around the sun is the same number ratio of the moon around the earth the number 3.66 or 366 or the inversion .2727 a three to eleven ratio comes up a significant number of times to be striking - that is the "justification" no one picked them, they did a calculation & it came up over & over again.

Kevin Beal, well no the assumption would be so that it would be so striking that we couldn't miss it. In the book, "Who built the moon" - God is only posited as one possibility, aliens, time traveling humans. It gets crazy, but the evidence the moon is not a natural object is fairly compelling. to neeeel: being a kilometer off doesn't change the general ratio of 3 to 11 (again it is 99.9% accurate) I didn't pick the numbers 3 & 11 That's is the ratio. People arguing with themselves & making assumptions. I didn't say it proves God, for the month time, just asked if anyone knew the answer. I know how theologians explain it, I'm asking how atheists do. I've heard back boos, but no explanation. It's a very precise & redundant anomolie.