Dear Theists

[downbeatplumb]

Polaris! You seriously think Obama is center RIGHT?

In the UK he would be considered far right.

Over the last few years the right wing creep has led to a rather scary shift in where the US sits in relation to the rest of the world.

[Whateverist]

Polaris! You seriously think Obama is center RIGHT?

In the UK he would be considered far right.

Over the last few years the right wing creep has led to a rather scary shift in where the US sits in relation to the rest of the world.

The UK must be like .. heaven.  

[Spooky]

So you don't have any proof a guiding God doesn't exist but hold firmly that religion is all delusion. Doesn't seem logical.

[Ronkonkoma]

State something to me in this thread worthy of me giving you a rep, and I will do so.  

If you are unaware of who I am, I am quite the anti-theist who equate religion to being delusional.  

Please, by all means, surprise me in a way that no theist in the history of my life has been capable of doing.

The catch is that I have never given a theist a rep on this forum.

Sure boss, but what's a rep? 

And what do you want to hear about? Let me guess... Neurodevelopment? Ok!

The brain of infants grows incredibly in the first three years of life. At the end of 3 years the brain is 80% of the adult size brain. Because of this huge growth, infants are very susceptible to outside stimuli. Like ducklings that follow anything that moves, infants follow the face of their mothers. Joyful moments between mom and baby release dopamine, oxytocin and endorphins. All of these are neuromodulators of brain growth. Neurons grow out of the limbic system, to the cortex under the influence of these hormones. They structurally form the mesocortico-limbic system. Mother-infant bonding and mutual gaze communicates joy. This is the first emotion we all felt, and it formed the structure of our brains.

Have you ever been addicted to something? If so, youre activating the same dopaminergic "reward" pathways of the mesocorticolimbic system. Youre longing for joy. 

Think of a beautiful icon of the Virgin Mary and Infant Jesus.

Are they joyful? Be honest.

Are you joyful? Am I? 

Thanks for your rep. I demand that you give it to me. now.

[TheRocketSurgeon]

Sure boss, but what's a rep? 

And what do you want to hear about? Let me guess... Neurodevelopment? Ok!

The brain of infants grows incredibly in the first three years of life. At the end of 3 years the brain is 80% of the adult size brain. Because of this huge growth, infants are very susceptible to outside stimuli. Like ducklings that follow anything that moves, infants follow the face of their mothers. Joyful moments between mom and baby release dopamine, oxytocin and endorphins. All of these are neuromodulators of brain growth. Neurons grow out of the limbic system, to the cortex under the influence of these hormones. They structurally form the mesocortico-limbic system. Mother-infant bonding and mutual gaze communicates joy. This is the first emotion we all felt, and it formed the structure of our brains.

Have you ever been addicted to something? If so, youre activating the same dopaminergic "reward" pathways of the mesocorticolimbic system. Youre longing for joy. 

Think of a beautiful icon of the Virgin Mary and Infant Jesus.

Are they joyful? Be honest.

Are you joyful? Am I? 

Thanks for your rep. I demand that you give it to me. now.

Ha! I like this answer. Gave you a rep for it.

Though I know the Pope has recently stated that evolution is a reality that is "necessary" to Catholic doctrine, I would like to point out that the reason  the brain of the baby has to grow like it does is because we are (more than any of our cousin species) born neurologically premature. As our ancestors shifted from the splayed-leg gait still used by the chimpanzee to a bipedal gait, the pelvic bones "rotated" forward to allow our feet to point in the same direction when standing, a necessary adaptation for long-distance walking/running while upright. (Chimps can "dash" briefly on two legs, but it's tiring for them to do so because their feet point outward from the centerline.) We were bipedal for quite some time before the brains of the late Australopithecus began to enlarge to form the first Homo habilis, and the narrowing of the birth canal due to the change in hip location placed an "upper limit" on how large our heads could be at birth. As a result, we were born increasingly premature, there being a strong selection pressure (because the mothers would die in childbirth, killing both) for those born with the late-development genes. The architecture for the mother-child bonding you described was already there, as we see in chimp mothers with their young, but with the increasing dependency of premature neurological development, it made the mother-child bond more important and, evolutionary biologists hypothesize, led to the pressures that caused us to move away from the "free love" chimp model of sexuality and begin to form monogamous family units.

I find greater beauty in that overall picture than I do staring at a picture of one mother with one infant.

[Ronkonkoma]

Sure boss, but what's a rep? 

And what do you want to hear about? Let me guess... Neurodevelopment? Ok!

The brain of infants grows incredibly in the first three years of life. At the end of 3 years the brain is 80% of the adult size brain. Because of this huge growth, infants are very susceptible to outside stimuli. Like ducklings that follow anything that moves, infants follow the face of their mothers. Joyful moments between mom and baby release dopamine, oxytocin and endorphins. All of these are neuromodulators of brain growth. Neurons grow out of the limbic system, to the cortex under the influence of these hormones. They structurally form the mesocortico-limbic system. Mother-infant bonding and mutual gaze communicates joy. This is the first emotion we all felt, and it formed the structure of our brains.

Have you ever been addicted to something? If so, youre activating the same dopaminergic "reward" pathways of the mesocorticolimbic system. Youre longing for joy. 

Think of a beautiful icon of the Virgin Mary and Infant Jesus.

Are they joyful? Be honest.

Are you joyful? Am I? 

Thanks for your rep. I demand that you give it to me. now.

Ha! I like this answer. Gave you a rep for it.

Though I know the Pope has recently stated that evolution is a reality that is "necessary" to Catholic doctrine, I would like to point out that the reason  the brain of the baby has to grow like it does is because we are (more than any of our cousin species) born neurologically premature. As our ancestors shifted from the splayed-leg gait still used by the chimpanzee to a bipedal gait, the pelvic bones "rotated" forward to allow our feet to point in the same direction when standing, a necessary adaptation for long-distance walking/running while upright. (Chimps can "dash" briefly on two legs, but it's tiring for them to do so because their feet point outward from the centerline.) We were bipedal for quite some time before the brains of the late Australopithecus began to enlarge to form the first Homo habilis, and the narrowing of the birth canal due to the change in hip location placed an "upper limit" on how large our heads could be at birth. As a result, we were born increasingly premature, there being a strong selection pressure (because the mothers would die in childbirth, killing both) for those born with the late-development genes. The architecture for the mother-child bonding you described was already there, as we see in chimp mothers with their young, but with the increasing dependency of premature neurological development, it made the mother-child bond more important and, evolutionary biologists hypothesize, led to the pressures that caused us to move away from the "free love" chimp model of sexuality and begin to form monogamous family units.

I find greater beauty in that overall picture than I do staring at a picture of one mother with one infant.

Thanks for the rep Boss!

That's kind of what I tell moms during their well infant visits - "we humans are not like horses that can run as soon as we are born." They always seem to love it. Then I tell them about mutual gaze interactions. And the transmission of joy, in a way that is EPIGENETIC.

[Ronkonkoma]

Ha! I like this answer. Gave you a rep for it.

Though I know the Pope has recently stated that evolution is a reality that is "necessary" to Catholic doctrine, I would like to point out that the reason  the brain of the baby has to grow like it does is because we are (more than any of our cousin species) born neurologically premature. As our ancestors shifted from the splayed-leg gait still used by the chimpanzee to a bipedal gait, the pelvic bones "rotated" forward to allow our feet to point in the same direction when standing, a necessary adaptation for long-distance walking/running while upright. (Chimps can "dash" briefly on two legs, but it's tiring for them to do so because their feet point outward from the centerline.) We were bipedal for quite some time before the brains of the late Australopithecus began to enlarge to form the first Homo habilis, and the narrowing of the birth canal due to the change in hip location placed an "upper limit" on how large our heads could be at birth. As a result, we were born increasingly premature, there being a strong selection pressure (because the mothers would die in childbirth, killing both) for those born with the late-development genes. The architecture for the mother-child bonding you described was already there, as we see in chimp mothers with their young, but with the increasing dependency of premature neurological development, it made the mother-child bond more important and, evolutionary biologists hypothesize, led to the pressures that caused us to move away from the "free love" chimp model of sexuality and begin to form monogamous family units.

I find greater beauty in that overall picture than I do staring at a picture of one mother with one infant.

Thanks for the rep Boss!

That's kind of what I tell moms during their well infant visits - "we humans are not like horses that can run as soon as we are born." They always seem to love it. Then I tell them about mutual gaze interactions. And the transmission of joy between mothers and infants, in a way that is EPIGENETIC.

[Ronkonkoma]

Thanks for the rep Boss!

That's kind of what I tell moms during their well infant visits - "we humans are not like horses that can run as soon as we are born." They always seem to love it. Then I tell them about mutual gaze interactions. And the transmission of joy between mother and infant, in a way that is EPIGENETIC.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Polaris! You seriously think Obama is center RIGHT?

In the UK he would be considered far right.

Over the last few years the right wing creep has led to a rather scary shift in where the US sits in relation to the rest of the world.

You me the scary shift towards greater protection of individual liberties and constitutional governance? I'm just not seeing that shift. If anything the current administration of BHO has continued to undermine the rule of law and given the EPA, DOE, the FCC and the NSA to encroach on the private life of citizens. I say continue because this slow erosion has occurred under the unchecked reign of the Executive branch.

The principle at play is this: as government gets bigger the citizen gets smaller. Power is becoming increasingly centralized at the federal level and the influence of big business interests is growing. I believe the current concern over income inequality is not entirely unfounded, but the proposed solutions on the left (the right gives a shit) do not recognize the relationship between the two. The left is under the illusion that big government is a check on big business. The opposite is true. Big business and big government are in bed together against the general public. "To Big to Fail" institutions, like banks and auto companies, get bail-out money. Large aerospace firms and entities like Haliburton get sweet no-bid contracts and lucrative deals. Senators go in as well-to-do people, but come out as millionaires.

[downbeatplumb]

In the UK he would be considered far right.

Over the last few years the right wing creep has led to a rather scary shift in where the US sits in relation to the rest of the world.

You me the scary shift towards greater protection of individual liberties and constitutional governance? I'm just not seeing that shift. If anything the current administration of BHO has continued to undermine the rule of law and given the EPA, DOE, the FCC and the NSA to encroach on the private life of citizens. I say continue because this slow erosion has occurred under the unchecked reign of the Executive branch.

The principle at play is this: as government gets bigger the citizen gets smaller. Power is becoming increasingly centralized at the federal level and the influence of big business interests is growing. I believe the current concern over income inequality is not entirely unfounded, but the proposed solutions on the left (the right gives a shit) do not recognize the relationship between the two. The left is under the illusion that big government is a check on big business. The opposite is true. Big business and big government are in bed together against the general public. "To Big to Fail" institutions, like banks and auto companies, get bail-out money. Large aerospace firms and entities like Haliburton get sweet no-bid contracts and lucrative deals. Senators go in as well-to-do people, but come out as millionaires.

Firstly you think you have a left in US politics! I suppose all things are relative but your left is way right of any party in the UK even except possibly the National Front. You need an effective govenment to curb business. By ridding yourselves of government you unleash the hell of unrestricted businesses who do what they can to maximise profits, morality be damned. look at VW. Your gocenment and businesses are in bed together because of the stupid way you have allowed your parties to be funded and the obscene amounts needed for elections. Your system is corrupt, it seems by design, so when you get a decent man in office you don't know how to act, Obama seems decent and your best president for a long time  but he gets stick for everything he does for some reason.