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I vaguely remember a book with a rocketpropulsion cyborg guard dog in some cyberpunk setting, I just can't remember the book it was in. The concept terrifies me.

Snow Crash is a book by Neal Stephenson that has some nuclear-powered cyborg dogs in it.

Thanks! I can't believe i forgot about Snow Crash.

Yeah, Snow Crash and also Gibson's book Neuromancer has cyborg dogs and Count Zero had a robotic assassin dog which had nearly killed the character Turner.

I wonder what the oldest internet meme is? The oldest one I know of is "lemon chicken", but I think that possibly "kites" is older.

What about that weird dancing baby?

ETA: So I was thinking about my old Geek Code and realized that Kibo predates the dancing baby. If we go way back into Usenet, there are a lot of dead tree memes that became popular internet memes, Hitchhiker's Guide memes, Discordian memes, Python memes etc. There are some memes that were popular among the tech crowd, like the use of "Magic" from the "Magic/More Magic" switch story at MIT. Even old memes in coding like variables named foo, bar and baz... I guess it really depends on where we draw the line on defining a meme and defining what group it would need to be popular among; the general public (which would push the date forward) or old school geeks, which have loads of memes within that subculture (ala the Jargon File).

What the fuck is a Nazarene and how do you make them froth with rage? 

Nazarenes are a small sect, mostly in the American Southwest, who try to actually do what Jesus said.  They don't get mad, as far as I can tell.  The don't preach, they lead by example.  They consider hating ANYONE to be a sin.  They don't believe it's their place to get in your business.

I like 'em.  I had one for a neighbor for 2 years, nicest guy you'd ever want to meet.  My daughter and I checked out their church, and the pastor was giving them shit about charity on a day-to-day level.

Sermon drifted from there, but ended with "You can't hate and still be a Christian".

Ah, so there are genuine christians then... that's somehow refreshing to know.

They are considered an aberration in America.  EVERYONE hates their ass.   

Why? they sound lovely.

They make other Christians look bad, and they also make people who hate on Christians look bad. There's nothing worse than an exception when you're in the middle of screeching about how awful Christians are.

They're terribly inconvenient.

It also depends on the specific church. My grandma was a Nazrene and her church tended to be more judgmental (and generally mental) than the Nazerenes I knew from other churches. But overall, they seem kind of like the American version of the Church of England.

If you like that, you might like the main hook I've been using to bait christians with for years. It's best applied at the "tipping point" where they're starting to really lose their shit at you.

The great big, glaringly obvious logical fallacy - "Jesus died for our sins"

Thing is, Jesus never actually died. Given that Jesus was just an avatar for god, who is all powerful and blessed with cheat-code superpowers including infinite lives cheat and seeing into the future hack

So god sent himself to earth, knowing he was going to get nailed. He basically committed consequence-free suicide (consequence-free in that he didn't actually die for real) in order to balance the books on humanities wickedness. Who's books? Oh, yeah, that's right - his own books. So all he really had to do was write it off in the ledger and save himself all that passive aggressive grandstanding. I mean, he'd already chucked the rulebook out the window when he did the walking on water gag or when he got everyone drunk at the H2O kegger party so why did he have to do something totally fucking meaningless to scrub the sins score?

In my experience there is no more effective way to get a christian to throw a punch at you.

That's only true for the Christian sects that accept the Trinity specifically as Jesus = God. There are a number of different interpretations on this idea though. For example, when Jesus was baptized, he was in the water, the Holy Ghost/Holy Spirit was in the air in the form of a Dove and God's voice came from Heaven "This is my Son, The Beloved". So there are a number of interpretations which indicate that either they are equal but different, completely different or 3 different apsects of a whole.

JW's for example, don't accept the Trinity doctrine at all. They believe that there is God (Jehovah/YHVH), the first being created by God ("The Word"/"Michael"/"Jesus"), and God's Active Force (the Holy Spirit). In their view, Jesus came to earth as a perfect man (not born of man, thus not born of sin). This perfect man had no reason to die (death is the wage of sin, no death/no sin).

Now this is where you get into the whole type/anti-type thing. In the Mosaic Law, every Jew had to follow the law perfectly. This was, of course, not possible since they were all human and thus sinners. When they sinned, they had to offer blood to cover the sacrifice. The blood of doves, goats, sheep, cows etc based on the severity of the sin. However, since this was animal blood, it had to be offered again and again because animal blood isn't equal to human blood.

With Jesus, we have a perfect man who perfectly fulfilled the Mosaic Law and then was sacrificed. His perfect blood, was therefore a perfect ransom. Sin came through a perfect man (Adam) and only the blood of a perfect man (Jesus) could pay that price.

The Resurrection of Jesus, was not a resurrection of his flesh and blood. It was, instead a resurrection of his spirit, which explains why he could fuck with the Apostles afterward in a David Blane kind of way.

Ironically, JW's tend to use the same tactics against Christians that Atheists do... they tear apart the obvious bullshit. However, they tend to replace it with slightly less obvious or more convoluted BS which works really well for converting some kinds of people.

Its pretty easy to use the bible to prove that the Christian idea of Hell is not supported by the Bible. Instead of this being proof that the whole thing is BS, they use it as proof that the other versions of Christianity are BS.

Insidious Buggers...

As far as I can tell, there may have been a Jesus. It seems very likely that much of the biblical Jesus is an amalgam of non-fiction and fiction, but we simply don't have any sort of irrefutable proof at this point. Its kind of like the whole question of if there was a King David, King Solomon or even a nation of Israel before the return from Babylon. There could have been, but it appears that the biblical account is, at the very least a mishmash of fiction and non-fiction.

Either way, it seems credible to say that the Jesus of the Bible is fiction... perhaps based on some real dude, perhaps not. However, for Christianity, the biblical Jesus must be 100% true. If he isn't the Son of God, if he didn't perform miracles, if he didn't die as a perfect sacrifice to cover the sins of man with his perfect blood... well then he was just some Jewish dude and the whole thing falls apart. Indeed, if Moses, Abraham, David, Solomon etc aren't 100% real, then things equally fall apart. The whole religion is based on an intricate connection between the Hebrew and Greek scriptures, where the type (the historical stuff) are prophetic models for the anti type (the fulfillment of those prophecies through Jesus).

For example, Moses was the mediator of the Law covenant between YHVH and the nation of Israel. This, in the Christian view, is a model for the later New Covenant between God and all People with Jesus as the mediator. If Moses never existed, if he never climbed Mt. Sinai etc. then the whole thing is rubbish.

If David never existed then Jesus cannot be genealogically proven to be of the Tribe of Judah and therefore legitimate heir to the throne. 

To dismantle conservative Christianity, it doesn't matter if Jesus was a physical dude... everything in the Bible MUST be true. For the more liberal interpretations... well hell, he could just have been a groovy philosopher or fiction (ala Plato) and they'd be fine.

So I was raised as a crazy JW... at the age of 6, I was hospitalized with a kidney problem. I had an operation with no blood transfusion permitted. In the days following the operation, the Doctor said that my blood count was dangerously low and that without a transfusion I may die. My parents refused and I recall vividly, crying and telling the Doctor that I would die faithful to Jehovah and 'please don't give me blood'. That, among many other experiences should probably have made me a screaming atheist. It didn't. After I left the JW's, I became a pagan, studied Wicca and was looking at initiation... but I couldn't get past the obvious BS involved in that. I bounced around several systems, and fortunately for me, I read the PD and it all suddenly became completely clear. That was followed up by Quantum Psychology, Angel Tech, Prometheus Rising etc and it led me to the position I now hold. Which basically boils down to 'I don't know, you don't know... but these moldy old books and scrolls are full of contradictions, errors and outright lies... therefore, we can discount them.

Everything else, seems pretty easily explainable by God being a Crazy Woman. 

As for the believers, I figure they can believe what they want, its all about embracing their nonsense, as well as the scientific sense

Holy shit. I knew you were a JW but that's some fucked up shit.

Some of the most fucked up experiences I recall though were the people at the door. My parents and I were doing the door knocking thing one Saturday. My mom was about 6 months pregnant. The lady at the door was very rude and told us to leave. My mom smiled and said "OK, well have a nice day." The lady came flying out of the door screaming "I WILL NOT HAVE A GOOD DAY" and then pushed my mom off of the porch. My dad was about three or four steps down and caught her before she bounced down the stairs. We quickly headed back to the car. Then the woman's husband came out of the barn with a corn cutter and started chasing us, waving it around. We got into the car and he began hitting the tr4unk of the car with the cutter screaming and yelling.

They were well known as very good Christians.

Another time, I was in the car and a teenage girl with her mom were walking up to the door. Before they could get there, the man opened the door, released a doberman and shut the door. They tried running back to the car, but the girl got attacked and by the time the men in the car got her free we had to take her to the hospital and her face was scarred for the rest of her life.

He was a lay preacher for one of the local churches.

I think its difficult to decide which is worse, parents risking the life of their kids because of some idiot belief, or people so violently opposed to a different religion that they would risk harming or killing people over it.

I hope it's not against the JW religion to press charges, but I'm guessing that it is. Were any of those assholes punished at all for that shit?

Sadly no. JW's will often not press charges because they don't want to reflect badly on the religion in the community. Its not forbidden, and they may encourage it now, I dunno. I've been gone for over a decade.

In Peter Carrols model, he uses the metaphor of the 'Kia' which is a singularity.

Which is a what, now?

Taking SRS stab:

Singularity. As far as we can directly imagine it, it is infinity. The sum of absolutely everything, which is limitless. But, it is not necessarily really "infinity." It is "infinity" in the same sense that a block of cheese is infinitely tall from the perspective of a 2-dimensional being. There is no concept of height in two dimensions, so any height other than 0 is infinite. This kind of thing exists for us, too. For example, time. It goes on and on and on forever. There is no point before which time did not exist, from our perspective, because if there was no time then nothing would have begun. There is no point after which time will cease to exist, as far as we can easily comprehend, because if time was erased, then it would be impossible to experience it as the very act of experience is defined by noticing what changes from one moment to the next.

But, of course, just because it is hard to imagine doesn't mean it isn't real. Just like some 2-dimensional being might be unable to comprehend a block of cheese, and may try to evaluate that block of cheese based on a subset of experiences that can never really amount to an understanding it, we imagine a Singularity, which to us is infinite but may really be just another object somewhere, outside the reach of our experience and thus outside our comprehension.

Nice

In the model, Carrol basically refuses to detail the Kia, as any sort of description, identification or label is just more metaphor. But, for the term singularity, I think you nailed it.

In Peter Carrols model, he uses the metaphor of the 'Kia' which is a singularity.

Which is a what, now?

A metaphor which was created by a super dense pile of recycled automobiles, compacted to the point that they created a black hole.

In Peter Carrols model, he uses the metaphor of the 'Kia' which is a singularity. In order to experience, the Kia spins off bits of itself which become the duality of existing life. That life experiences and then at death, return to the Kia with the experiences.

The Kia is a metaphor, which can be further embellished like God or Source Energy or whatever. However, Kia itself is just a symbol to represent the whatever.

I find the failure of this model is the fact that I end up envisioning imported cars which look like ghosts driving human bodies around.

So I was raised as a crazy JW... at the age of 6, I was hospitalized with a kidney problem. I had an operation with no blood transfusion permitted. In the days following the operation, the Doctor said that my blood count was dangerously low and that without a transfusion I may die. My parents refused and I recall vividly, crying and telling the Doctor that I would die faithful to Jehovah and 'please don't give me blood'. That, among many other experiences should probably have made me a screaming atheist. It didn't. After I left the JW's, I became a pagan, studied Wicca and was looking at initiation... but I couldn't get past the obvious BS involved in that. I bounced around several systems, and fortunately for me, I read the PD and it all suddenly became completely clear. That was followed up by Quantum Psychology, Angel Tech, Prometheus Rising etc and it led me to the position I now hold. Which basically boils down to 'I don't know, you don't know... but these moldy old books and scrolls are full of contradictions, errors and outright lies... therefore, we can discount them.

Everything else, seems pretty easily explainable by God being a Crazy Woman. 

As for the believers, I figure they can believe what they want, its all about embracing their nonsense, as well as the scientific sense

Holy shit. I knew you were a JW but that's some fucked up shit.

Some of the most fucked up experiences I recall though were the people at the door. My parents and I were doing the door knocking thing one Saturday. My mom was about 6 months pregnant. The lady at the door was very rude and told us to leave. My mom smiled and said "OK, well have a nice day." The lady came flying out of the door screaming "I WILL NOT HAVE A GOOD DAY" and then pushed my mom off of the porch. My dad was about three or four steps down and caught her before she bounced down the stairs. We quickly headed back to the car. Then the woman's husband came out of the barn with a corn cutter and started chasing us, waving it around. We got into the car and he began hitting the tr4unk of the car with the cutter screaming and yelling.

They were well known as very good Christians.

Another time, I was in the car and a teenage girl with her mom were walking up to the door. Before they could get there, the man opened the door, released a doberman and shut the door. They tried running back to the car, but the girl got attacked and by the time the men in the car got her free we had to take her to the hospital and her face was scarred for the rest of her life.

He was a lay preacher for one of the local churches.

I think its difficult to decide which is worse, parents risking the life of their kids because of some idiot belief, or people so violently opposed to a different religion that they would risk harming or killing people over it.

So I was raised as a crazy JW... at the age of 6, I was hospitalized with a kidney problem. I had an operation with no blood transfusion permitted. In the days following the operation, the Doctor said that my blood count was dangerously low and that without a transfusion I may die. My parents refused and I recall vividly, crying and telling the Doctor that I would die faithful to Jehovah and 'please don't give me blood'. That, among many other experiences should probably have made me a screaming atheist. It didn't. After I left the JW's, I became a pagan, studied Wicca and was looking at initiation... but I couldn't get past the obvious BS involved in that. I bounced around several systems, and fortunately for me, I read the PD and it all suddenly became completely clear. That was followed up by Quantum Psychology, Angel Tech, Prometheus Rising etc and it led me to the position I now hold. Which basically boils down to 'I don't know, you don't know... but these moldy old books and scrolls are full of contradictions, errors and outright lies... therefore, we can discount them.

Everything else, seems pretty easily explainable by God being a Crazy Woman. 

As for the believers, I figure they can believe what they want, its all about embracing their nonsense, as well as the scientific sense

Huh, I was wrong too!

AWWW I MISSED IT 

I had no idea that he was still alive! I've loved Poisoning Pigeons since I was a kid listening to Dr Demento!

Hell Yes!

I think that is an excellent summation of the effect this damned thing has had on me as well. I think I still, on occasion, find myself being the SGitR or realizing that I'm wrong and still defending my position... but now, at least I seem to catch that shit and stop it.