I'd like to relate two separate coincidence involving my daughter and jewellery.

The first involved her identity bracelet which she had previously lost. My mother-in-law was in a haberdashery shop in Inverness when she overheard a conversation. The shop assistant having overheard a woman with a young girl calling her by name, asked if she had lost a bracelet as one with the name "Kerry" engraved on it had been found in the shop and that is the name she used. After hearing the woman say that it didn't belomg to them my mother-in-law told the shop assistant that her granddaughter's name was Kerry and that she used to own a bracelet just like the one in question. It did indeed turn out to be my daughter's bracelet. Between losing and finding it must have been at least six months. My mother-in-law had knitted a few things for our kids but sewing and knitting was not something that she did all the time and she was very rarely in that shop, if at all, before this incident.

The second incident happened during the community centre open day at our local school. The school role consisted of around 1700 pupils at the time and the event was very popular and well attended. A young lady was tasked with mingling in the crowd as a mobile lucky dip. She was wearing a long flowing dress which consisted of very many pockets stitched all over it. My wife paid for a go and our daughter thrust her hand into one of the pockets and pulled out a small package. She opened it and declared to us, "That's my ring". She had lost a silver signet ring about a year before this event. It was very distinctive and was distorted to fit over her knuckle. We didn't believe her at first but on closer examination we had to admit that it was indeed her ring. She had been extremely upset on losing it and was overjoyed when she found it again. My wife spoke to the school and it turned out that in among the lucky dip items they had used lost property that they had kept for a long period without being claimed.

DavidMcC wrote:

SpeedOfSound wrote:
...I think I wrote a lot of text trying to communicate the idea. Then you wrote a lot of text trying to illuminate your religious indoctrination and bias. Shucks.
...

I was not aware that Graham had "religious ... bias". You could be imagining it.

We all do. That's the project. Identifying it, sifting what's real from what is due to our cultural bias. We can start by not adding religious connotations back into the words we are trying to make free from it, while we are attempting it. Pretty much describes all of my exchanges with atheists around here. Me trying to get out from under and they trying to jam it back up my ass with a wooden spoon.

SpeedOfSound wrote:Look at the hidden presumptions in all of this. What's really going on is that some are promoting the idea of anthropic tinkering with the universe to create the patterns. Others are vehemently rejecting it.

And many are saying 'I'll believe it when I see it' or 'where is the evidence'?

tolman wrote:

SpeedOfSound wrote:Look at the hidden presumptions in all of this. What's really going on is that some are promoting the idea of anthropic tinkering with the universe to create the patterns. Others are vehemently rejecting it.

And many are saying 'where is the evidence'?

Evidence for what? That this is a sore spot? That UE is promoting the idea of anthropic tinkering?

SpeedOfSound wrote:

DavidMcC wrote:

SpeedOfSound wrote:
...I think I wrote a lot of text trying to communicate the idea. Then you wrote a lot of text trying to illuminate your religious indoctrination and bias. Shucks.
...

I was not aware that Graham had "religious ... bias". You could be imagining it.

We all do. That's the project. Identifying it, sifting what's real from what is due to our cultural bias. We can start by not adding religious connotations back into the words we are trying to make free from it, while we are attempting it. Pretty much describes all of my exchanges with atheists around here. Me trying to get out from under and they trying to jam it back up my ass with a wooden spoon.

That sounds more like my experience on this site than yours! Think of hackenslash, with his irrational conclusion at one time , that I was somehow a crypto-religious nut, based solely on my openly criticising his rather poor arguments and bad language against a theist a long time ago. I don't even remember any details now, but it was obvious that he was suspicious of anyone who thought he might not make the best protagonist for atheism. He then went on to use even worse language against me.

DavidMcC wrote:

SpeedOfSound wrote:

DavidMcC wrote:

SpeedOfSound wrote:
...I think I wrote a lot of text trying to communicate the idea. Then you wrote a lot of text trying to illuminate your religious indoctrination and bias. Shucks.
...

I was not aware that Graham had "religious ... bias". You could be imagining it.

We all do. That's the project. Identifying it, sifting what's real from what is due to our cultural bias. We can start by not adding religious connotations back into the words we are trying to make free from it, while we are attempting it. Pretty much describes all of my exchanges with atheists around here. Me trying to get out from under and they trying to jam it back up my ass with a wooden spoon.

That sounds more like my experience on this site than yours! Think of hackenslash, with his irrational conclusion at one time , that I was somehow a crypto-religious nut, based solely on my openly criticising his rather poor arguments and bad language against a theist a long time ago. I don't even remember any details now, but it was obvious that he was suspicious of anyone who thought he might not make the best protagonist for atheism. He then went on to use even worse language against me.

yup. You know what i am talking about.