What did you once believe that you later found out was crap?

[Coito ergo sum]

I even wrote that last line with Dwight delivery.....

[Coito ergo sum]

No, IDIOT! Pluto was demoted, because Pluto's job performance was sub par. Now that this solar system is under my control, efficiency is top priority and we get rid of Planets that will not tow the line. Fact: Pluto had a highly eliptical orbit, and kept crossing over Neptune's orbit. Planets that don't have the discipline to stay in their orbits are cut loose.

Now I demand to know who put my calculator in jello. Whoever did it, confess and you'll be allowed to resign instead of being fired.





Disclaimer: I wasn't calling anyone an idiot - it's a Dwight quote.

[LaMont Cranston]

Coito ergo sum, Look, I don't give a rat's ass what they did with Pluto. However, if they mess with Uranus, Myanus or anybody else's Anus, they just might find that they're dealing with a world full of shit! That is, unless all the parties involved are consenting adults who are doing it, hopefully, behind closed doors.

[Bella Fortuna]

I even wrote that last line with Dwight delivery.....

I know; I heard it as exactly that.

[Coito ergo sum]

Other than wheatgrass juice, which I mentioned in the OP, I did once try to believe in god.

When I was a kid, it was like going to church with the parents made me think that everyone just believed in god, out of habit. I have a naturally inquisitive and analytical nature, however, and by the time I was around 10 or so, I was pissing off the Sunday school teachers by asking them uncomfortable questions about the flood and what happened to all the babies and children who weren't allowed on the ark, and about the physical dimensions of the ark etc.

By the time I was 13, I had not advanced to atheism yet, but I knew that Christianity was bullshit. Basically, during confirmation classes I entered into a discussion with a Sunday school teacher who was unable to provide a coherent answer to the issue of what happens to Buddhists and what happened to my ancestors in Norway who worshipped Odin and may never have even heard of Jesus. I knew there was something seriously wrong with the whole idea.

I began to hold priests mainly and to a lesser degree ministers in contempt because I came to the conclusion that they were posers, pretending to know that which they could not possibly know. Pretending to teach as truth that which they were only guessing at. I found it revolting that someone could scare the shit out of people, even children, with tales of an afterlife they only believed in based on authority. It seemed to me cruel and seemed more likely something that a money-making operation would do.

I also found the whole idea of an omnipotent creator of the universe desiring the worship and reverence, and even fear, of its puny creations to be absurd in the extreme. What sort of game would this sadistic creator be up to? Create the universe - require our allegiance - but require it be without any real or coherent knowledge of what it is we believe in. I mean, that's ludicrous. And, it is patently obvious that it is ludicrous based solely on the number of religious beliefs we have out there. Thousands - tens of thousands - of different religions through history. Man grappling after the "truth" out of pure and unadulterated wishful thinking.

It was relatively easy to see that "religion" was crap. The harder step was to admit to myself that gods were crap and that "God" was crap. Well, it's crap. The generalized belief in "god" or a "higher power" is not any more reasonable or enlightened than belief in the old school religions. It's all crap. The new "energy" and "universal force" beliefs and new age stuff are just religions made even more vague than the old school religions. People get around the nasty and inconvenient "facts" by defining their new gods into undetectable arenas - "higher planes" and all that stuff is no different than "heaven" and "hell" and other such concepts. Once one realizes that "spiritual but not religious" just means "I make my own line of bullshit up to replace the other bullshit I was raised on" - it's finally easy to do away with "god."

God isn't dead. It never was there in the first place. It was just a load of crap.

[Twoflower]

I used to believe that there were 9 planets in our solar system. Then, one day, I heard that some scientists or whover got together and downgraded Pluto, so we now only have 8 planets. Of course, there are the same number of objects flying around out there in the cosmos. A planet by any other designation would still be the same piece of rock...

The Pluto debate was nothing new. In the 1800's we had Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Vesta, Juno, Ceres, Pallas, Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus, and then Neptune in 1846. Pluto was just one of several objects that were briefly promoted to planet status and then demoted.

Fact! Pluto is no better than Vesta, Juno, Ceres and Pallas, so screw Pluto! Pluto needed to be fired!

[Coito ergo sum]

I used to believe that there were 9 planets in our solar system. Then, one day, I heard that some scientists or whover got together and downgraded Pluto, so we now only have 8 planets. Of course, there are the same number of objects flying around out there in the cosmos. A planet by any other designation would still be the same piece of rock...

The Pluto debate was nothing new. In the 1800's we had Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Vesta, Juno, Ceres, Pallas, Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus, and then Neptune in 1846. Pluto was just one of several objects that were briefly promoted to planet status and then demoted.

Fact! Pluto is no better than Vesta, Juno, Ceres and Pallas, so screw Pluto! Pluto needed to be fired!

Ahhhhhhh.....stop yer cryin' before I gives ya somethin' to cry about!

[Twoflower]

I used to believe that there were 9 planets in our solar system. Then, one day, I heard that some scientists or whover got together and downgraded Pluto, so we now only have 8 planets. Of course, there are the same number of objects flying around out there in the cosmos. A planet by any other designation would still be the same piece of rock...

The Pluto debate was nothing new. In the 1800's we had Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Vesta, Juno, Ceres, Pallas, Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus, and then Neptune in 1846. Pluto was just one of several objects that were briefly promoted to planet status and then demoted.

Fact! Pluto is no better than Vesta, Juno, Ceres and Pallas, so screw Pluto! Pluto needed to be fired!

Ahhhhhhh.....stop yer cryin' before I gives ya somethin' to cry about!

Don't make me warn you!

[Bella Fortuna]

Stop fighting, mummy and daddy!

[Pappa]

Coito ergo sum, Thank you for the information. I thought that Pluto was cancelled because tourism was down, and it's ratings were very low. Basically, Walt Disney did more with the name than the so-called planet ever did. It just never had the appeal of Saturn, Jupiter or let's not forget Uranus...

Hehehehehe hehe hehehehehehehehe hehe hehe hehe hehehehe...

hehehehe hehe hehehehehehehe...

hehehe hehe hehe hehe....

You said "Uranus"... hehe hehe hehe...

hehehe hehe hehe hehehe hehehe hehe hehe hehe hehe....

[Hermit]

Some people are asexual and some are not into being self-sexual. (I just made that term up, I know there must be a clinical term for it but I couldn't find it)

The clinical term for both is: Dead

HTH

That's a terrible and very insensitive thing of you to write Seraph. We have (or had) a member on this forum who is asexual. She has more life in her than a lot of people I know. I can't believe you would say something that cruel and ignorant.

Maiforpeace, I am aware that people are capable of seriously entertaining and advocating thoroughly absurd propositions, but I had always thought that once a certain degree of absurdity has been exceeded, it would be impossible for anyone to take such a proposition seriously for even a second. My suggestion, that the clinical term for the asexual as well as self-sexual is "dead" was, at least to my mind, one of the latter. I am sorry to see that you did not see the patent and utter absurdity of it immediately, and laughed it off as being the flippant remark that it was intended to be. I also hope that any and all asexual as well as self-sexual people who read my comment will immediately notice that contrary to what I said, they are not in fact dead, and that I must therefore have been joking.

Now, back on topic: One history course I did concerned itself with the fall of the Ancien Régime in France, and one of its strands focused on the philosophers of the Enlightenment, who apparently made the notion of "The Light of Reason" fashionable once again. (This course caused me to turn my study schedule upside down. I set out to do one year of history, two years of philosophy, three of sociology and four of anthropology and finished up jettisoning anthropology and sociology as soon as I was allowed to instead, but that is just an aside.) I was impressed by the rôle reason apparently played in history, but the more I studied, the more I had to revise that opinion. Eventually I came to the conclusion that Reason, while not ineffectual, is a vastly overrated factor in historical developments. That recognition also helped me realise that it is also a lot less of a determinant of our behaviour as individuals (and no, I am not excluding myself) than we would like to think.

[Ayaan]

Come clean everyone. What did you once believe was true, that you later found out was total crap.

I'll start: wheatgrass juice. I once believed that it was the best thing ever. I found out it holds almost no significant nutritional value at all. It doesn’t have much in the way of vitamins, minerals, or anything your body needs at all. I realized, after spending hundreds of dollars on the$3 and $4 a shot grass-tasting nonsense that I'd be far better off with a sprig of broccoli and an apple. Some people claim the chlorophyll in wheatgrass juice is salubrious, but that molecule breaks down in your stomach, so it really does nothing for you.

I fell for the bullshit hook, line and sinker because, for some reason, I did not do basic research into it before adopting it and even advocating it to others. I was embarrassed when I learned the lack of evidence for the efficacy of wheatgrass juice.

So, what have you folks fallen for? Yes, religion may be one of them. Therapeutic Touch? Reiki? Accupuncture? Homeopathy?

Let's hear the confessions!

Religion - in particular christianty, specifically catholicism, then fundamentalist christianty, then catholicism again. I was 35 before I figured it out. Yes, you read that right, 35.

[charlou]

'Reason' tangent split to a new thread here: http://rationalia.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=12192

[Bella Fortuna]

'Reason' tangent split to a new thread here: http://rationalia.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=12192

Yeah, we don't need no stinkin' reason in here! And stay out!

[FBM]