'Religious' whackos

All things philosophical, related to belief and / or religions of any and all sorts.
Personal philosophy welcomed.
ex-khobar Andy
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'Religious' whackos

Post by ex-khobar Andy »

From Fox News:
A 4-year-old Missouri girl has been found dead after being attacked by two neighbors who claimed they wanted to remove a "demon" from her family, police say.

Ethan Mast, 35, and Kourtney Aumen, 21, are now facing second-degree murder and other charges following the discovery of the child’s body over the weekend at a home in Cole Camp, southeast of Kansas City.

"Based on what I know, I think this could be some kind of honest-to-goodness religious-type episode," Benton County Sheriff Eric Knox told the Associated Press.
Honest and goodness are not two words that occur to me in contemplating this horror.

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BoSoxGal
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Re: 'Religious' whackos

Post by BoSoxGal »

That’s a seriously fucked up story. Even more fucked up is that her father and mother allowed her to be beaten as well as their 2 year old, and apparently submitted to being beaten themselves. Stupid or not, they both should be charged with felony criminal endangerment (or whatever the equivalent in that jurisdiction) for allowing their children to be beaten, one of them to death.
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
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rubato
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Re: 'Religious' whackos

Post by rubato »

It is not as rare as you think and certainly not new. Many Christian cults have practiced this for generations. It is based on the idiotic notion of "demonic possession" combined with the idea that it is ok to torture a human being in order to drive out the demon by making it too painful. Demonic possession being a fantasy but mental illness being real they often discover no level of torture short of killing is ever effective.

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Re: 'Religious' whackos

Post by MajGenl.Meade »

BoSoxGal wrote:
Wed Dec 23, 2020 5:32 pm
That’s a seriously fucked up story. Even more fucked up is that her father and mother allowed her to be beaten as well as their 2 year old, and apparently submitted to being beaten themselves. Stupid or not, they both should be charged with felony criminal endangerment (or whatever the equivalent in that jurisdiction) for allowing their children to be beaten, one of them to death.
That

(Except for the gratuitous potty-talk)
For Christianity, by identifying truth with faith, must teach-and, properly understood, does teach-that any interference with the truth is immoral. A Christian with faith has nothing to fear from the facts

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BoSoxGal
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Re: 'Religious' whackos

Post by BoSoxGal »

I don’t buy into religious wacko notions that I can’t say fuck motherfuck cocksuck fuckity fuck cunt whenever the fuck I fucking please. Keep ALL your fucking religious twattery out of my fucking face, thank you very fucking much!

See User Control Panel for Foes list instructions and put me the fuck on it if some harmless swear words are gonna BURN your eyes. 🙄 Meantime, keep your fucking judgments to yourself, I’m fucking tired of you harping on it over and over and FUCKING over again.
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
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MajGenl.Meade
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Re: 'Religious' whackos

Post by MajGenl.Meade »

Another excellent essay from BSG! So erudite, so informed, magnificently expressed! :ok
For Christianity, by identifying truth with faith, must teach-and, properly understood, does teach-that any interference with the truth is immoral. A Christian with faith has nothing to fear from the facts

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BoSoxGal
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Re: 'Religious' whackos

Post by BoSoxGal »

Studies have proven a correlation between use of swear words and high IQ and highly developed vocabulary. And I’m not hung up on religious whackery/‘morality’.

Honestly, people who persistently laugh at other people’s simple requests for dignity, while judging the use of swear words in conversation? Wankers.
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
~ Carl Sagan

ex-khobar Andy
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Re: 'Religious' whackos

Post by ex-khobar Andy »

If we all put BSG on 'ignore' will she still make a sound?

Discuss.

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Re: 'Religious' whackos

Post by Bicycle Bill »

BoSoxGal wrote:
Sun Feb 21, 2021 2:19 pm
Studies have proven a correlation between use of swear words and high IQ and highly developed vocabulary.
I'd love to see some references to those studies, because if one has such a high IQ and a highly developed vocabulary, it would seem to me that one would not need to stoop to gutter talk to express oneself.

Unless this is BSG's way to try to level the playing field when engaging in a pissing contest with people who have REAL dicks.
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Re: 'Religious' whackos

Post by Guinevere »

You’re all a bunch of meatheads. If you’re so upset by language, why doesn’t the constant racist language from Liberty offend you? Why refuse to ignore him?

And if its about name-calling, lots of posters here engage in that device. What just call out one? And a female, at that. God forbid women say “fuck” much less engage in fucking, right? :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll:
“I ask no favor for my sex. All I ask of our brethren is that they take their feet off our necks.” ~ Ruth Bader Ginsburg, paraphrasing Sarah Moore Grimké

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BoSoxGal
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Re: 'Religious' whackos

Post by BoSoxGal »

Swearing Is Actually a Sign of More Intelligence - Not Less - Say Scientists

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The use of obscene or taboo language - or swearing, as it’s more commonly known - is often seen as a sign that the speaker lacks vocabulary, cannot express themselves in a less offensive way, or even lacks intelligence.

Studies have shown, however, that swearing may in fact display a more, rather than less, intelligent use of language.

While swearing can become a habit, we choose to swear in different contexts and for different purposes: for linguistic effect, to convey emotion, for laughs, or perhaps even to be deliberately nasty.

Psychologists interested in when and why people swear try to look past the stereotype that swearing is the language of the unintelligent and illiterate.

In fact, a study by psychologists from Marist College found links between how fluent a person is in the English language and how fluent they are in swearing.

The former - verbal fluency - can be measured by asking volunteers to think of as many words beginning with a certain letter of the alphabet as they can in 1 minute.

People with greater language skills can generally think of more examples in the allotted time. Based on this approach, the researchers created the swearing fluency task. This task requires volunteers to list as many different swear words as they can think of in 1 minute.

By comparing scores from both the verbal and swearing fluency tasks, it was found that the people who scored highest on the verbal fluency test also tended to do best on the swearing fluency task. The weakest in the verbal fluency test also did poorly on the swearing fluency task.

What this correlation suggests is that swearing isn’t simply a sign of language poverty, lack of general vocabulary, or low intelligence.

Instead, swearing appears to be a feature of language that an articulate speaker can use in order to communicate with maximum effectiveness. And actually, some uses of swearing go beyond just communication.

Natural pain relief

Research we conducted involved asking volunteers to hold their hand in iced water for as long as they could tolerate, while repeating a swear word.

The same set of participants underwent the iced water test on a separate occasion, but this time they repeated a neutral, non-swear word. The heart rate of both sets of participants was monitored.

What we found was that those who swore withstood the pain of the ice-cold water for longer, rated it as less painful, and showed a greater increase in heart rate when compared to those who repeated a neutral word.

This suggests they had an emotional response to swearing and an activation of the fight or flight response: a natural defence mechanism that not only releases adrenalin and quickens the pulse, but also includes a natural pain relief known as stress-induced analgesia.

This research was inspired by the birth of my daughter when my wife swore profusely during agonising contractions. The midwives were surprisingly unfazed, and told us that swearing is a normal and common occurrence during childbirth - perhaps for reasons similar to our iced water study.

Two-way emotional relationship

We wanted to further investigate how swearing and emotion are linked. Our most recent study aimed to assess the opposite of the original research, so instead of looking at whether swearing induced emotion in the speaker we examined whether emotion could cause an increase in swearing fluency.

Participants were asked to play a first person shooter video game in order to generate emotional arousal in the laboratory. They played for ten minutes, during which they explored a virtual environment and fought and shot at a variety of enemies.

We found that this was a successful way to arouse emotions, since the participants reported feeling more aggressive afterwards when compared with those who played a golf video game.

Next, the participants undertook the swearing fluency task. As predicted, the participants who played the shooting game were able to list a greater number of swear words than those who played the golf game.

This confirms a two-way relationship between swearing and emotion. Not only can swearing provoke an emotional response, as shown with the iced water study, but emotional arousal can also facilitate greater swearing fluency.

What this collection of studies shows is that there is more to swearing than simply causing offence, or a lack of verbal hygiene. Language is a sophisticated toolkit, and swearing is a part of it.

Unsurprisingly, many of the final words of pilots killed in air-crashes captured on the 'black box' flight recorder feature swearing. And this emphasises a crucial point, that swearing must be important given its prominence in matters of life and death.

The fact is that the size of your vocabulary of swear words is linked with your overall vocabulary, and swearing is inextricably linked to the experience and expression of feelings and emotions.

Richard Stephens, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, Keele University

This article was originally published by The Conversation. Read the original article.
Source with links to original research: https://www.sciencealert.com/swearing- ... scientists
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
~ Carl Sagan

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Bicycle Bill
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Re: 'Religious' whackos

Post by Bicycle Bill »

From the link you provided
In fact, a study by psychologists from Marist College found links between how fluent a person is in the English language and how fluent they are in swearing.

The former - verbal fluency - can be measured by asking volunteers to think of as many words beginning with a certain letter of the alphabet as they can in 1 minute.

People with greater language skills can generally think of more examples in the allotted time.  Based on this approach, the researchers created the swearing fluency task. This task requires volunteers to list as many different swear words as they can think of in 1 minute.

By comparing scores from both the verbal and swearing fluency tasks, it was found that the people who scored highest on the verbal fluency test also tended to do best on the swearing fluency task.
The claim is thus made that a large vocabulary of swear words equates to a fluency in the English language.  Fluency in a language is not, in and of itself, a proof of high intellect.  Show me some studies and results which show that Mensa members, for example, or five-time Jeopardy champions, or people who score in the 30s on their ACTs (or in the 160s on their LSATs) are highly prone to using vulgarisms, and maybe your argument will have some better grounds on which to stand.

BTW, according to my research, the average score for the LSATs is around 152.  Care to share yours?
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Re: 'Religious' whackos

Post by MajGenl.Meade »

Guinevere wrote:
Sun Feb 21, 2021 6:31 pm
You’re all a bunch of meatheads. If you’re so upset by language, why doesn’t the constant racist language from Liberty offend you? Why refuse to ignore him?

And if its about name-calling, lots of posters here engage in that device. What just call out one? And a female, at that. God forbid women say “fuck” much less engage in fucking, right? :roll: :roll: :roll: :roll:
Lib does upset me. That's why I frequently abuse him and his stupid ideas. Neither Lib nor BSG are (nor would she ever be) on my ignore list. BSG is in a class of her own when it comes to being a potty-mouth. Effort deserves reward. :ok
For Christianity, by identifying truth with faith, must teach-and, properly understood, does teach-that any interference with the truth is immoral. A Christian with faith has nothing to fear from the facts

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Joe Guy
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Re: 'Religious' whackos

Post by Joe Guy »

Studies have shown, however, that swearing may in fact display a more, rather than less, intelligent use of language.
That's some fucked up logic.

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BoSoxGal
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Re: 'Religious' whackos

Post by BoSoxGal »

Joe Guy wrote:
Sun Feb 21, 2021 8:40 pm
Studies have shown, however, that swearing may in fact display a more, rather than less, intelligent use of language.
That's some fucked up logic.
Fuck off. :fu
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
~ Carl Sagan

ex-khobar Andy
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Re: 'Religious' whackos

Post by ex-khobar Andy »

Yes but:

From Frank Giordano, Yale Review of Undergraduate Research in Psychology, 6 16-20 (2016) with my underlining.

The Relationship Between Profanity and Intelligence
ABSTRACT. Profanity and censorship are prevalent in our culture. Many negative opinions about
cursing exist, but there is little actually known about how harmful it can be. The purpose of this
experiment was to see if cursing is correlated with intelligence. The hypothesis is that there will
be no relationship between cursing and intelligence. A 28 question survey that assessed cursing
frequency was given to 46 college enrolled participants. After the survey, the participants were
asked to complete the Wonderlic Personnel Test in order to assess their Intelligence Quotient.
After running a linear regression analysis between the factors in the survey and the IQ scores, no
statistically significant relationship was found between cursing and intelligence.
There was a
statistically significant correlation found between IQ score and whether or not the participant
reported that he or she attempts to expand his or her vocabulary. These findings show that although
cursing may not be socially desirable, it is not a predictor of intelligence or the lack thereof. It
was shown that vocabulary and the desire to expand it may play a large role in intelligence. This
should be emphasized in scholastic environments, especially for children before the age of three.
Developing an extensive vocabulary as soon as possible seems to lead to higher intelligence
My point is not that swearing does or does not correlate with IQ. Purely anecdotally, I have known a lot of high IQ individuals (certified, if Mensa membership means anything) including a couple of Nobel prize winners (one of whom I would call a mentor/friend; the other more of a fellow activist with a common interest) and none of them spent a lot of time swearing, or at least not while they were with me. Different time of course for the Nobelists - 50-plus years ago - and attitudes were different. Correlations are difficult things: there is probably a good correlation between height and basketball ability. But while it is true to say that in general good basketballers are tall (with obvious exceptions) the opposite correlation (tall people are good bballers) is by no means true and it may be that because being good at basketball (NBA level) is much rarer than being tall, the correlation between height and ability is almost zero. (I have discussed Bayesian pitfalls in statistical studies elsewhere in the context of COVID. This is not much different.)

I went back to the original piece of research linked from BSG's post. I don't have access to the piece itself, just the abstract. To my surprise, the abstract does not say what BSG's secondary source says that it does. Here's the abstract:
A folk assumption about colloquial speech is that taboo words are used because speakers cannot find better words with which to express themselves: because speakers lack vocabulary. A competing possibility is that fluency is fluency regardless of subject matter—that there is no reason to propose a difference in lexicon size and ease of access for taboo as opposed to emotionally-neutral words. In order to test these hypotheses, we compared general verbal fluency via the Controlled Oral Word Association Test (COWAT) with taboo word fluency and animal word fluency in spoken and written formats. Both formats produced positive correlations between COWAT fluency, animal fluency, and taboo word fluency, supporting the fluency-is-fluency hypothesis. In each study, a set of 10 taboo words accounted for 55–60% of all taboo word data. Expressives were generated at higher rates than slurs. There was little sex-related variability in taboo word generation, and, consistent with findings that do not show a sex difference in taboo lexicon size, no overall sex difference in taboo word generation was obtained. Taboo fluency was positively correlated with the Big Five personality traits neuroticism and openness and negatively correlated with agreeableness and conscientiousness. Overall the findings suggest that, with the exception of female-sex-related slurs, taboo expressives and general pejoratives comprise the core of the category of taboo words while slurs tend to occupy the periphery, and the ability to generate taboo language is not an index of overall language poverty.


The test was designed to uncover the words that people knew, not what they used. To no-one's surprise, they decided that fluency was fluency: in other words if you have a good vocabulary of ordinary common words we use every day to our colleagues and friends and grannies, we probably also have available to us a good vocabulary of curse words. It says nothing about usage (again, I've seen only the abstract) but the second sentence of the piece BSG posted: "Studies have shown, however, that swearing may in fact display a more, rather than less, intelligent use of language." appears to be unsupported by the study.

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Joe Guy
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Re: 'Religious' whackos

Post by Joe Guy »

I suspect that clever usage of swear words would indicate the same level of intelligence as clever usage of non-swear words. Choosing the appropriate language for any given situation would also indicate some level of intelligence.

For example, if the Queen knighted me, I wouldn't say, "Thank the fuck you!" I'd probably say, "But I ain't even British!"

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BoSoxGal
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Re: 'Religious' whackos

Post by BoSoxGal »

Right there in the piece you posted it says:
the ability to generate taboo language is not an index of overall language poverty.
Which directly contradicts the nasty little denigrating comments from the small minded folks on this board who assert that my use of foul language evinces a poverty of language ability and/or rhetorical ability.

Never mind the two advanced degrees, one of them with a concentration in rhetoric and years of experience teaching rhetoric. I’m just a silly little cunt with the temerity to swear in so-called polite company.

Newsflash: I’m perfectly capable of moderating my use of foul language and have been for 48 years. My language choice is reflective of the opinion in which I hold the audience. Draw your own conclusions from there. Fuckers.
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
~ Carl Sagan

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Re: 'Religious' whackos

Post by Burning Petard »

There are various taboos. "Swearing" is something lawyers see regularly as people swear to tell the truth. Swearing in general is perhaps the flip side of cursing. I have to also work 'blasphemy' in there as well. They all depend on a shared belief system to be effective. Obsenity, vulgarity, are completely different and depend on a shared view of what is 'polite' language. Among a social group where f-bombs are common, they are nearly meaningless as an emotional communication tool. Context is everything. The actual event described in the bible citation of Isaiah 6:5 can honestly be described as " I was so scared I shit myself and had piss running down my leg" But I have heard only one professional religious practicioner declaim it that way--and that was a Rabbi in a classroom of fellow pros. As Jane Fonda said about the F-Bomb--I thought that was the nicest thing I could say to a person. Context is everything

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Re: 'Religious' whackos

Post by dales »

I’m just a silly little cunt with the temerity to swear in so-called polite company.
I don't entirely disagree with you on that one, BSG.

Your collective inability to acknowledge this obvious truth makes you all look like fools.


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