Human Nature

[micca]

I'm not too familiar with Buddhism, but Jesus had to speak in parables to get his points across, and yet the New Testament is full of passages with the phrase "his disciples did not understand". If only Jesus could have found a way to dumb it down a little more.

Maybe we should have found the courage to meet him half way.

[Ignignokt]

I'm not too familiar with Buddhism, but Jesus had to speak in parables to get his points across, and yet the New Testament is full of passages with the phrase "his disciples did not understand". If only Jesus could have found a way to dumb it down a little more.

I think the former followed the latter in that regard.

[PixelPusher]

Maybe we should have found the courage to meet him half way.

Is that like making an effort to try and understand someone even if they use them there fancy, big words and whatnot?

I have no respect for anyone who promotes the fallacy that they are "truly" intelligent and wise, by virtue of not polluting themselves with higher education - they're just lazy.

[Ignignokt]

Is that like making an effort to try and understand someone even if they use them there fancy, big words and whatnot?

I have no respect for anyone who promotes the fallacy that they are "truly" intelligent and wise, by virtue of not polluting themselves with higher education - they're just lazy.

why is it a fallacy? maybe in some cases they are wise, wisdom is not measured in linguistic and grammatical muscle. And in some cases, you're right, some people are just lazy.

[micca]

Is that like making an effort to try and understand someone even if they use them there fancy, big words and whatnot?

I have no respect for anyone who promotes the fallacy that they are "truly" intelligent and wise, by virtue of not polluting themselves with higher education - they're just lazy.

No, It"s not like that at all. I think Jesus dumbed it down as far as he could for people some people got it and some didn't.

[PixelPusher]

No, It"s not like that at all. I think Jesus dumbed it down as far as he could for people some people got it and some didn't.

I agree, but I wasn't really talking about Jesus, I was talking about people who take pride in their lack of intellectual curiosity, and pretends it gives them special access to virtue and wisdom that is unavailable to anyone who's ever read a book or attended a lecture.

Back to your original point about Jesus and Buddha being "simple" enough to enlighten...again I don't know enough about Buddhism to comment, but as for Christianity, if it really is so simple, there wouldn't be schools offering graduate and post-graduate degrees in theology, or the myriad of different church denominations.

[Blake]

I somehow skipped this earlier

Thats not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying that going to an ins ution of higher learning isn't about getting making more money but rather becoming educated.

College [instutution of higher learning] is whatever you want or need it to be.
It's a tool to use and it's not free.
If someone wants to go for the simple reason of increasing their earning power, looking at it as a financial investment, then so be it. At least they are doing their part in moving society forward.

I'm not sure why anyone would lament that.

Yes, I want my doctor to go to med school and get adequate training but I would also rather go to a doctor who spent time during his undergrad taking classes outside of Biology.

Last I checked, they do take classes outside of biology.

[Blake]

I have no respect for anyone who promotes the fallacy that they are "truly" intelligent and wise, by virtue of not polluting themselves with higher education - they're just lazy.

why don't you have respect for Jesus?

[PixelPusher]

why don't you have respect for Jesus?

I don't count Jesus among those described in that quote. In fact, I was trying (and doing a crappy job, apparently) to make the point that Jesus wasn't as "aw, shucks" simple as micca implied, based on the numerous accounts of his closest disciples not understanding what the talking about.

[Blake]

I don't count Jesus among those described in that quote.

well you said "I have no respect for anyone who promotes the fallacy that they are "truly" intelligent and wise, by virtue of not polluting themselves with higher education" and if the Pharisees/Saducees/etc were the higher education of the day, then that would pretty much put Jesus in that category.

if you don't count Jesus in that quote, then on what grounds can you say that someone else does not deserve your respect in this same regard?

In fact, I was trying (and doing a crappy job, apparently) to make the point that Jesus wasn't as "aw, shucks" simple as micca implied, based on the numerous accounts of his closest disciples not understanding what the talking about.

maybe you weren't using big enough words that people could easily highlight, right click and then use the search function.

[Supergirl]

By the way, where does PITA stand on Chimp-on-Chimp violence and murder?

Pita does not tend to stand on its own at all, unless it's in particularly stiff hummus.

[MannyIsGod]

I somehow skipped this earlier



College [instutution of higher learning] is whatever you want or need it to be.
It's a tool to use and it's not free.
If someone wants to go for the simple reason of increasing their earning power, looking at it as a financial investment, then so be it. At least they are doing their part in moving society forward.

I'm not sure why anyone would lament that.

Because colleges are now overcrowded and tuition rates are sky rocketing yet we're producing graduates who have lower education levels because they are now glorified trade schools. I expressly stated this. A college education today is not what it once was, which is evidenced by the number of students returning to school for graduate degrees where undergrads once sufficed.

More college graduates =/= a more educated society.

Last I checked, they do take classes outside of biology.

You apparently didn't take the course where you learned about hyperbole.

[micca]

I don't count Jesus among those described in that quote. In fact, I was trying (and doing a crappy job, apparently) to make the point that Jesus wasn't as "aw, shucks" simple as micca implied, based on the numerous accounts of his closest disciples not understanding what the talking about.

that's not what I'm saying at all your putting words in my mouth

[PixelPusher]

well you said "I have no respect for anyone who promotes the fallacy that they are "truly" intelligent and wise, by virtue of not polluting themselves with higher education" and if the Pharisees/Saducees/etc were the higher education of the day, then that would pretty much put Jesus in that category.

if you don't count Jesus in that quote, then on what grounds can you say that someone else does not deserve your respect in this same regard?

Maybe you weren't using big enough words that people could easily highlight, right click and then use the search function.

...or maybe you can stop projecting your populist disdain for education and actually, you know, read your Bible.

Luke 2:41-51

41 His parents went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover.

42 And when He was twelve years old, they went up to Jerusalem according to the custom of the feast.

43 When they had finished the days, as they returned, the Boy Jesus lingered behind in Jerusalem. And Joseph and His mother did not know it;

44 but supposing Him to have been in the company, they went a day's journey, and sought Him among their relatives and acquaintances.

45 So when they did not find Him, they returned to Jerusalem, seeking Him.

46 Now so it was that after three days they found Him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, both listening to them and asking them questions.

47 And all who heard Him were astonished at His understanding and answers.

48 So when they saw Him, they were amazed; and His mother said to Him, "Son, why have You done this to us? Look, Your father and I have sought You anxiously."

49 And He said to them, "Why did you seek Me? Did you not know that I must be about My Father's business?"

50 But they did not understand the statement which He spoke to them.

51 Then He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was subject to them, but His mother kept all these things in her heart.

Jesus, at the tender age of 12, was a student of scripture to such an extent that he could engage in religious debates with much older Rabbis.

So, which one of us was "disrespecting" Jesus again?

[Blake]

Because colleges are now overcrowded and tuition rates are sky rocketing yet we're producing graduates who have lower education levels because they are now glorified trade schools. I expressly stated this.

I expressly read it. I'm wondering what your source is that says "we're producing graduates who have lower education levels"

than who? our ancestors? the rest of the world?

A college education today is not what it once was, which is evidenced by the number of students returning to school for graduate degrees where undergrads once sufficed.

Graduates actually are going back to school to learn more?

more lamentations...

More college graduates =/= a more educated society.

so what do less college graduates equal or not equal?

You apparently didn't take the course where you learned about hyperbole.

You apparently failed that course.

[micca]

...or maybe you can stop projecting your populist disdain for education and actually, you know, read your Bible.

Jesus, at the tender age of 12, was a student of scripture to such an extent that he could engage in religious debates with much older Rabbis.

So, which one of us was "disrespecting" Jesus again?

well what I was saying was that it doesn't matter how well you spell or that your grammer is flawless and you like to use innaproprate but important sounding words, that's not intellegence, sometimes it's just a really articulate way of saying you don't know . except for grammer of course.

[Blake]

...or maybe you can stop projecting your populist disdain for education and actually, you know, read your Bible.

I applaud education. I never said otherwise.

If you misread that maybe you should actually, you know, read what I wrote.

Jesus, at the tender age of 12, was a student of scripture to such an extent that he could engage in religious debates with much older Rabbis.

So, which one of us was "disrespecting" Jesus again?

That would be you.

If you actually, you know, read your Bible, you would know that Jesus made a career out of denouncing the scribes of the day while at the same time touting himself as the Son of God.

[PixelPusher]

I applaud education. I never said otherwise.

If you misread that maybe you should actually, you know, read what I wrote.



That would be you.

If you actually, you know, read your Bible, you would know that Jesus made a career out of denouncing the scribes of the day while at the same time touting himself as the Son of God.

I did read what you wrote:

well you said "I have no respect for anyone who promotes the fallacy that they are "truly" intelligent and wise, by virtue of not polluting themselves with higher education" and if the Pharisees/Saducees/etc were the higher education of the day, then that would pretty much put Jesus in that category.

...and I just illustrated that Jesus had a comparable education in scripture to those Pharisees and Saducees, so Jesus wasn't objecting to the their education or knowledge, but their hypocrisy and elitism. Jesus objected to the very idea of a religious caste who used their "access to God" to exploit the "unclean" to their gain.

If you can't differentiate between those two concepts, then there isn't anything left to talk about.

[Winehole23]

In some (if not most) european countries, they test you around age 14 or so, and then either send you to some kind of trade school, or start preparing you for higher education.

It's a system that suits common sense and the common experience, but it's fundamentally *not egalitarian,* hence *unAmerican* and con uously European: the students get through by demonstrating mastery of the curriculum, or they get a goddam trade. No faking it in school or trade guild.

We oughta try it again. Not everybody is meant to go to school, like Blake pointed out. And by the age of 18, they ought to know something useful to do with themselves, so as to be self-regulating and very possibly to contribute to the general prosperity. When you give them the luggage it should be for real.

[baseline bum]

The wealthiest man in the world dropped out of college. A lot of people are far too creative to suffer through academia.

I think, for the most part, all a college degree proves is that you can commit to a long-term goal. I've met a lot of people that have gone to graduate school who have very little REAL WORLD experience.

Bill Gates and creativity?

Gates stole Windows from Apple, who stole all their ideas from Xerox. I'll give Gates credit for being smart enough to see personal computers were going to be huge, but he's more a successful raider than the creative genius he's hyped to be. The only reason there even is a Microsoft is that Xerox all had their collective heads up their asses and didn't realize what they had at PARC. If you ever see the stuff Xerox PARC was doing in the '70s, it's mind-blowing. They had an operating system and libraries that were so user friendly, they had 12-13 year-old kids programming high-quality applications in SmallTalk.

When has Microsoft ever done anything creative? They bought DOS. They stole Windows. They bought IE. BASIC was garbage. C# is a rip-off of Java. Then they try to on anything standards-conforming. I was ing blown away when Visual Studio Professional was telling me all the STL functions I use to do LISP-style programming in C++ were deprecated, and to use their "safe" functions (lmao that the C++ Standard Template Library is deprecated!).

I can't believe they can get idiots to line up and bend over for a word processor, a spreadsheet, an email client that's been one of the most insecure pieces of in the history of computing, and a weak database by slapping it in a box and charging $500 for it.

I honestly think it's been pretty bad for computing that all our software has been dominated by groups started by a couple of young and dumb hobbyists (Jobs and Gates), instead of experts. Almost all the major advances in computing over the past 30 years have come from the mind-blowing efficiency and creativity of the people making hardware: the Intels, the Nvidias, and so on. All Microsoft and Apple have done to keep pace is to bloat their systems to so that you need all that computational power from newer hardware to run their products.

[baseline bum]

It's a system that suits common sense and the common experience, but it's fundamentally *not egalitarian,* hence *unAmerican* and con uously European: the students get through by demonstrating mastery of the curriculum, or they get a goddam trade. No faking it in school or trade guild.

We oughta try it again. Not everybody is meant to go to school, like Blake pointed out. And by the age of 18, they ought to know something useful to do with themselves, so as to be self-regulating and very possibly to contribute to the general prosperity. When you give them the luggage it should be for real.

By the age of 14 we start seeing tons of students dropping out. So many people leave freshman year when they hate or cannot handle high school, so I think it's a good time to try something different. Part of me thinks it might be bad for skilled labor to have the market flooded with new workers, but our economy would be so much more efficient if this huge chunk of people our schools fail are doing valuable work rather than flipping burgers, collecting welfare, selling drugs for pennies, and wasting away in prisons.

[Blake]

I did read what you wrote:


...and I just illustrated that Jesus had a comparable education in scripture to those Pharisees and Saducees, so Jesus wasn't objecting to the their education or knowledge, but their hypocrisy and elitism. Jesus objected to the very idea of a religious caste who used their "access to God" to exploit the "unclean" to their gain.

He denounced the formal teachers of the time and said he knows more than they do.

If you can't differentiate between those two concepts, then there isn't anything left to talk about.

don't bother. It's not worth it.

[PixelPusher]

He denounced the formal teachers of the time and said he knows more than they do.

Exactly.

Thanks for thoroughly debunking the idea that Jesus was an simple, uneducated populist who railed against intellectuals.

[Blake]

Exactly.

Thanks for thoroughly debunking the idea that Jesus was an simple, uneducated populist who railed against intellectuals.

what I said would not be considered a debunking by anyone other than you.

I'm not even sure what or why you are trying to argue any more.

[Cant_Be_Faded]

Manny, graduate degree seekers are not on the rise because they are not properly educated as undergrads.

They are growing in numbers because of compe ion for the positions they seek. If you have 1000 applicants with a BS, but only 10 of those also have a grad degree.....