Lola, I must revisit this...

Me: Feelings have much to do with the joys and sorrows of life. Yet to let them run amok leads to gullibility and unwise decisions.

You: This two sentences are so simple-minded that, for you, I hope you're not trying to display your EI....'cuz I'd be embarrassed 4u.

                                               ********************

   This week, my oldest daughter turned 47. My wife and I took her out to lunch. It was a very pleasant occasion. Though, at one point, she said: "Dad, I should have listened to you."

   I get this from my other grown kids, too. But, then, they've never listened to me. So, Lola, you can speak nasty words to me and not honor my views, I'm used to it. I've gotten far worse from my kids. I could tell you stories.

   I never started this thread to convince anyone of anything. I know from life that that is not possible. Besides, my opinion is that when anyone becomes an adult they make their own decisions. They also get to live with the consequences.

   Anyway, it looks to me that there isn't anything more that can possibly be said on this thread.

   Therefore...

                                                             The End

I wasn't sure what you meant.  Do you mean the below or something of your own invention?

From:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_intelligence

Emotional intelligence (EI) is the ability to monitor one's own and other people's emotions, to discriminate between different emotions and label them appropriately, and to use emotional information to guide thinking and behavior.^[1] There are three models of EI. The ability model, developed by Peter Salovey and John Mayer, focuses on the individual's ability to process emotional information and use it to navigate the social environment.^[2] The trait model as developed by Konstantin Vasily Petrides, "encompasses behavioral dispositions and self perceived abilities and is measured through self report".^[3] The final model, the mixed model is a combination of both ability and trait EI. It defines EI as an array of skills and characteristics that drive leadership performance, as proposed by Daniel Goleman.^[4]

Studies have shown that people with high EI have greater mental health, exemplary job performance, and more potent leadership skills. Markers of EI and methods of developing it have become more widely coveted in the past few decades. In addition, studies have begun to provide evidence to help characterize the neural mechanisms of emotional intelligence.^[5][6][7]

Criticisms have centered on whether EI is a real intelligence and whether it has incremental validity over IQ and the Big Five personality traits.^[8]

   I suspect that Lola goes by gut feelings, intuition, esp, body language, empathy, Vulcan mind melds, and all things marijuana related.

While it is clear that emotional intelligence has a role to play in the living of life, it's not at all clear how emotional intelligence has a role to play in the formation of beliefs about what is and is not so--except, of course, when it comes to assessing how people feel.

It never ceases to amaze me how much theists seem to care about what atheists believe or feel.  Or even better, actually think they know what atheists believe.  Honestly I just don't go around everyday thinking up ways to become a better atheist.  There is not much to it actually.  And by not much, I do mean nothing at all. 

Years ago I listened to an interview where Douglas Adam's said he would consider himself an atheist if he gave it any thought.  I do wish I could find an exact quote.  I did find this interview, which is as good a starting point on the atheist mind as any if anyone cares.  Which, again.  I don't see why they would.  It is Douglas Adams though.  If he wrote the phone book it would have been funny:

http://www.nichirenbuddhist.org/Religion/Atheists/DouglasAdams/Interview-American-Atheists.html

The other possibility answer is the younger will miss the interesting philosophical question.And this should be balanced,if we belief in reasoning.No ?. Is this determination ?

And then we have the emotional intelligence of The_Ghostess_Lola, who calls me a liar because she apparently can't believe I would like for there to be an afterlife.

Now, *that* was emotionally intelligent, wasn't it?

“I believe in Spinoza's God, who reveals Himself in the lawful harmony of the world, not in a God who concerns Himself with the fate and the doings of mankind... 

Einstein to Rabbi Herbert Goldstein (1929)

He believed in Something....the bible is not the Ultimate Truth. The Ultimate answers has to be searched for....(However if you believe in the bible, that is your choice, and it is fine by me).

“And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” 

― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

I think when Lola talks about EQ, she is talking about the heart. The modern understanding of the heart has been more or less lost. But we still understand the meaning of such phrases as, "You don't have a heart."

Or, "You live inside your head."  http://www.amazon.com/Get-Your-Mind-Into-Life/dp/1572244259

Psychoanalyst know all too well about how we can become too much of a head case, how we can become mentally rigid and neurotic. (It is only once it is formulated, named in the presence of the other, that desire appears in the full sense of the term - Lacan )

The idea of a heart is not so explicit in our Media nowadays. Not as much as it was in the Wizard of Oz, when the Tin Man was looking for a heart. This was back in 1939, but after WW2, I think the modern era took the idea of the heart as a means of promoting morality, a christian morality. It became a preachy thing, along with Idealism and all the other isms, to be swept away, which had caused so much pain and suffering.

But I take de Antoine-Exupury's take on the heart to be the closest to what we might call Insight.

We also know that the physical heart and the gut has neurons that operate in distinct separateness from the brain. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/gut-second-brain/

So discounting the inflections of the heart, (and the gut), and placing the judgements of the brain as the only source of knowledge, is discounting your self.

This is what I think Lola is alluding to, to oppressing your own inklings of any wonder and perception of the Spiritual as spurious.

Of course we have to use our reason to temper our thoughts, so that we do not take every passing whim and fatulence as the 'spirit talking to us'.

In both cases we do not want to go the extremes. We don't want to be the victims of a Hyper-rationality nor do we want to succumb to believing anything.

(an excellent article here on hyperrationality: http://bigthink.com/articles/hyper-rationality)

I think only when we are fully human, our heart and head working in balance that we can speak meanignfully about life and god.

My favourite  quote by the great man.    

“Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.” 
Albert Einstein.

It's easy to be misled by that out of context. Einstein's religion was the search for scientific truth, a belief that the Universe made sense at a fundamental level. See  Einstein's Famous Quote About Science and Religion Didn't Mean What You Were Taught: The scientist actually offers no solace to believers

The article reads like the author doesn't want theists to be taking solace in what Einstein said; but clearly einstein said what he said.

The last paragraph is pretty telling.

How exactly does it matter what Einstein believed?  None of his theories requires a God constant.

His quotes are not witness statements and the logic doesn't follow in both directions:

Einstein was smart. Einstein was spiritual.  Therefore if I'm spiritual, I'll be smrt too.

Einstein was smart. Einstein had a moustache. Therefore moustaches should be made compulsory to improve education standards.

“I believe in Spinoza's God, who reveals Himself in the lawful harmony of the world, not in a God who concerns Himself with the fate and the doings of mankind... 

to Rabbi Herbert Goldstein (1929)”

― Albert Einstein

Read Spinoza it should give you some insight.

An interesting new book:

Extraterrestrial life, which should be widespread, has remained, tediously, outside our detection despite considerable efforts to pick up signals from aliens or to note even a trace of a chemical – methane or oxygen, for example – they might have left in their home planet’s atmosphere.

Astronomers have come up with a wide range of explanations to account for this absence. Some say intelligent creatures may be common but will quickly destroy their worlds when they develop technology that will inevitably run out of control. Hence we never spot them. Others say complex life is actually extraordinarily rare because our planet is just about the only one in the galaxy that could support it. Only our special orbit round a special star with a special single moon above our heads has created the incredibly unlikely circumstances for the appearance of life.

Scharf – director of astrobiology at Columbia University, New York – is not so sure. “If life is rare, it is rather striking that the universe is nonetheless so good at setting the right stage for it,” he notes. Consider carbon, a key element upon which life on Earth depends. The element was seeded through the cosmos many billions of years ago and has since formed complex organic chemicals throughout the galaxy. “The universe is full of carbon chemistry,” he states.

Thus Scharf argues for the steering of a middle course between those who think life is non-existent out there and those who believe it is universal. Earth may be a fairly average planet but it is not that typical, he states.

Review from the Guardian.

Caleb Scharf is a British-born astronomer and the director of the multidisciplinary Columbia Astrobiology Center at Columbia University, New York.

Defending Science - within Reason: Between Scientism And Cynicism

Six Signs of Scientism -- Susan Haack

http://www.uta.edu/philosophy/faculty/burgess-jackson/Haack,%20Six%20Signs%20of%20Scientism.pdf

(#3314) I never started this thread to convince anyone of anything.

No, I don't feel u did either. What ur trying 2do is find a meaning 2ur life as you approach death....and ur secretly seeking someone to help you in your search. I'll help you out on this one....it's on you....like the little girl's slippers........

I know from life that that is not possible.

Oh It's possible....but you're such a poor salesman 'cuz your EI seems so underdeveloped. (....alcohol holds down development is so many different wayz)  

Besides, my opinion is that when anyone becomes an adult they make their own decisions. 

Here's a very shallow-minded, very common adult thought: "I don't believe in God, but if there is one ?....well, I've lived a good life." I wish everyone the very best of luck with this 5,000+ yo hope - you will be needing it. And do you remember what you said ?....was it hope is not a plan ?

They also get to live with the consequences.

....and they get to die with the consequences....interesting isn't it ?

(#3314) Lola, I must revist this...

I'm sure you are sir. I'd revisit it too, like over & over & over ! - if I were you........

   more rubbish

(#3315) I wasn't sure what you meant.

And that's exactly what I'm talking about. Of course, you don't know what I meant. It's 'cuz you probably don't have much. IOW's, it sounds like you can't relate....you know, you just don't get it ?