O- I am beginning to think that you have mafia connections…
PM146- I am trying to make the Athiests an, “Offer they can’t refuse.”
O- So what we have so far is a COTA front that creates a consumer good. While the COTA is NPO, retail stores are opened to sell products based on the COTA. While these are profitable and taxable, profit, which would be whatever you have left after the operating costs are deducted, are then funneled or donated back into the COTA, thereby avoiding the tax liability. What then? What happens to the revenew once it is added to the coffers of the COTA?
PM146- Almost. Retail stores would not be, “Opened,” to sell the goods as such stores as Hot Topic and Spencer’s already have a tendency to appeal to the general target market. The money would be made mostly on the manufacturing end of the spectrum, of course, if a retailer wants to pay a little bit more for exclusivity (Nationally, of course, that way we could target individual clothing stores in locations not covered by the major retailer) then the retailer can do that.
After the revenue is added to the coffers of the COTA it is basically going to be a simple matter of money laundering from that point forward. In fact, you don’t even really have to launder it if you just reward very liberal bonuses from the manufacturer, in fact, you don’t even need to donate it all then.
You still have to donate the 10% though to keep up appearances.
O- Yes, there is an atheist market, just as there is a religious market…always been. Having COTA “license” the apparel may impact it’s claim as a NPO and hint the authorities about it’s ulterior motives. I would not recommend it.
PM146- That’s the beauty of it, everything that I am suggesting is 100% legal, except maybe the COTA spending itself. The fact that a portion of the proceeds is required for COTA to license the material is actually common practice when it comes to the sales of apparel for many Religious organizations and other NPO’s. They don’t make the shirts and things themselves, you know, not all of them anyway.
O- You don’t even need it. It is enough to be identified as the brains behind COTA and customers will naturally flock to whatever is closer to the source of that which they admire. The activities of the COTA should be not for profit…“the pleasure of helping atheist express themselves…”, but those that admire the COTA will naturally want to have even more of it and would be willing to pay for it. A market is opened by the existence of the COTA…even if the COTA should continue to remain “indiferent” to this “by-product”. At that point, do not try to monopolize the market you’ve create, for you’ll tip your hand, but instead rely on the simple fact that people will try to purchase from the brand that is seen as closer to the “action”. The money will be there. At this point, I think that you should pay taxes on your profits, so that you can use your profits for your pleasure in full view. One of the values that you should maniufacture at the COTA is the praise of wealth, in the spirit of Voltaire.
PM146- I agree with most of your points, but remember that the licensing is necessary otherwise other manufacturers could create COTA apparel (just not using the patented designs of others) and all they would have to do is the 10% donation to use the name. Eventually all of the trendy teenage retailers would have some kind of COTA line and the margins had by our manufacturing company would no longer be even remotely worth it.
O- Or how about “What Would Nada Do?”, a jab at Christianity, couple with a refernce to Hemingway…what Atheist could resist that article of clothing?
PM146- Excellent. Hopefully the band called, Nada Surf, doesn’t take some kind of legal exception. I’m actually a fan of theirs, so judging from what I know of them, I don’t think they will.
O- Forcing a belief in God is counter-productive because it fosters covert rebellion. the ideal should always be to make it look like it is their choice at all times. If not, then a “folk” religion develops along the “official” religion, weakening it’s reach and power and making it’s conditioning counter-productive.
PM146- Poor conditioning is counter-productive, but that is because poor conditioning merely forces a desired result with adverse consequences as opposed to playing upon the psychology of generally wanting to be accepted AND forcing a desired result with adverse consequences. In other words, the restriction of other freedoms is not by itself enough to truly condition, but you must also play upon the natural tendency of a child not to want to disappoint their parents, from an early age.
Of course, I would never do that, not to satisfy any goal.
O- But then there are many others who simply reject the institution of the Church, the Pope, the Saints, the clergy, as false representatives of Jesus, as they recognize a dichotomy between what Jesus character was and the character of their priests. The pendolum of history swings to the left creating the momentum to a right-swing, which creates the momentum for a reverse swing and it goes on and on. The character of Jesus himself remains a mystery into which we project our own. It is very hard for people to become pure atheist and not just unbelievers in A specific RELIGION. The fall out of a specific religion often means not the fall into atheism but the fall into a more congenial spirituality.
PM146- I think that the fall into Athiesm, which we will call a regression for people who were born and raised to be of a Christian Religion (Though it is not actually a regression) generally leads to people re-building themselves into a more congenial spirituality. At least, I think that is the case if someone is merely disenfranchised with Christianity and has not put any actual thought into other Religions at that time.
In other words, one often goes from Christianity to Athiesm, at least temporarily, but it is certainly more rare to see someone convert from Christianity straight to Buddhism without a period (however temporary) of Athiesm. I could be wrong about that, though, I’m speculating.
O- Not at all. Growing up includes the development of original ideas. Many youths rebel against their parents and distance themselves from every value that is seen as supported by the parent. Often the process is not so original. As a youth walks into the world heor she is exposed to different point of view, different values from those he was taught, or conditioned. A second conditioning is the result of the attempt of the youth to belong to a new family, the world at large. Tell me who you hand with and I’ll tell you what you believe.
PM146- That just means that the individual in question was not simultaneously conditioned to value (or unquestionably believe) the beliefs of the immediate family and hold the immediate family in higher esteem than other people in the world. That also can be directly conditioned into an individual.
O- In a sense we are all atheist…most just go one god further. We don’t learn Christianity. Speak with most Christians and you will find that they lack a strong knowledge of that which they profess. There is no necessity for belief, but the simple disposition for belief…perhaps this is a default system of nature to ensure the nurture of the child by it’s care-takers. For that matter there is no necessity for disbelief or to learn what not to believe. The process probably works by the development of the brain, and by the lenght of the instruction and memory of a child. Initialy there is no need for a filter, nor the ability to filter. As memory develops, the minds possesses more items, more “facts”, once unquestioned, available for comparasion. Where in accord, a set of facts strenghten themselves. When in discord, a fact is questioned. Memory development is what I call learning, and so we learn what not to believe, we learn to reason and to judge.
PM146- I agree with everything that you have just said. In fact, it is that very disposition for belief and/or mental training that makes the concept of conditioning or being conditioned even possible. That is also one of the main qualities for conditioning to be successful, the ability to filter (regarding the item being conditioned) being totally eradicated.
O- Nope. What are some of the of the oldest built structures? What were their purpose?
PM146- A fire is one of the oldest built structures, its purpose was survival.
O- Humans have a strange relation to their dead, prior to their invention of written language. We have been building temples and tombs for quite a long time. When we invented language, much of it’s use was to speak about religion. Archeologically then, religion is ever present. Anthropologically, we find superstition to be far more prevalent than incredulity. Here again, observation dictates that religions are part of a normal human phenomenon.
Were humans ALWAYS religious or supertitious? We can infer, from what is observed, that they were.
PM146- I simply do not find that acceptable because we have no documentation (written or otherwise) that should lead us to believe that the literal first man, or men, were of any particular Religion. Granted, we do not have any evidence that should indicate otherwise, but I find it much easier to assume that something is/was not than to assume that something is/was.
O- How would you recognize the “first” man from just the “last” ancestor of man and chimp? I could tell you that, for me, I would look at whether that chimp-like creature was prone to bury it’s dead and adorn itself, it’s dead or it’s cave. But do you consider it just a massive coincidence that some form of superstition exists in just about every human community?
PM146- I do not consider that a coincidence per the natural tendency of the human brain to want to believe something as discussed in this post earlier. All that a superstition is though is something that is conditioned into people. For instance, the superstition about the black cat crossing your path was brought about by Middle-Age Christians who thought that they were look-outs for witches or other evil spirits. To this day the superstition holds, not quite to the extent that we kill them all, but it is so ingrained (conditioned) into us that black cats actually have a lower adoption rate at animal shelters!
Either way, much like superstitions, Religion is a human construct which requires language, at least, for it to be conveyed to a specific extent. It all derives from language and is little more than a way for early humans to pass the time when they are not hunting, building shelter, or cultivating. In my opinion, that is.