I hope you know I was joking Yeah and I was too, don' t worry. ^^ I didn' t realize immediately that my answer might give you the wrong idea.
Sorry, I wasn' t very clear, I wasn' t asking you to prove my thinking better or worse than anyone else' s. I should have said something like "why don' t you explain how the pros of religion outrace its cons", or just to list the pros or something. Thinking of the pros and the cons, as subjective as it might be, is our only way to define our morality (well, that or cherry-picking what feels good rather than what could be argued to be good). You said you wished atheists to be more open and understanding of other people's thoughts and belief, but "other people's thoughts and belief" is awfully large and vague. You know there' s awful stuff in there, right ? If we were to list the pros and cons of racism or homophobia the cons would outrace the pros, but I don' t suppose you' d interpret it as me lacking openness or understanding. You can' t explain the unexplainable. You can' t agree with something that can' t be demonstrated either. Basically it' s a blind bet, you just picked an assumption that feels good to you. Which brings me back to my initial point : I' m all for hope, but you don' t need to assume anything or take anything on faith to be able to have hope. Are the kids who believe in Santa happier than those who don' t and never did ? It' s not worth proving a belief (ultimately it' s impossible), but it is worth thinking about the consequences your belief has for others. There' s no such thing as certainty, true, that' s exactly why I call for a practical approach. Ultimately I don' t care if some people chose to take things on faith. No really, I don' t, freedom of thought yaddi yaddi yadda. All I care about is whether their beliefs have bad consequences for me/society or not. That' s a case by case issue, there are many beliefs/believers I don' t have a problem with, and too many beliefs for me to have an opinion on them all.
Well, strong atheism certainly qualifies as a belief. => Stars = light. => Where there is light there are people, they' d have turned it off otherwise. => Therefore extraterrestrials exist.
Ah ok, lol. How about proving me wrong instead of wishing ? It works better with atheists. I think I am open, at least I hope, you just didn' t ... err ... insert ? If it makes you feel better I agree that religious beliefs can be fairly innocuous, it all depends on how and how much they affect the believer' s decisions. Also, what I gathered with reason and evidence could be so far from the truth that I' m a walking joke myself. I don' t think it' s likely though (the part about reason and evidence being as misleading as beliefs or more, not the part about me being a walking joke), but the catch is that I' d still ask you to prove it with reason and evidence. ^^ Says the one who doesn' t appreciate seeing all religious people being put in the same bag ? Here' s an idea : I' ll try my best not to assume things about you and you' ll do the same for me, deal ? As for the bullshit thing, well, you missed the part where I don' t see it as insulting. I don' t go around willingly insulting people unless they really asked for it (and even then I' m not sure I would).
Depends on the delivery. As I said I usually don' t mean to be mean about it, and that person is perfectly free to explain to me how and why what he said wasn' t ridicule. If he succeeds I' ll never ridicule his point again (unless I find a new good reason to). Better yet, I may agree with him. If anything by speaking my mind I' m being honest, which is my own way to respect others. If I see that I offended him/her I' ll certainly explain that it wasn' t my goal (admittedly those things gets blurrier to perceive on a text-based forum). And in case I wasn' t clear before I wouldn' t use their religious beliefs to label them as a whole as stupid, that' d be stupid. I might enjoy it actually. If they' re just bullying me now that' s an entirely different matter. Here' s a quote that I love (which may or may not be from Voltaire) : Je ne suis pas d’accord avec ce que vous dites, mais je me battrai pour que vous ayez le droit de le dire. (I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it.) And btw here' s another from Jules Renard : Cherchez le ridicule en tout, vous le trouverez. (Search for ridiculousness in everything, you' ll find it). Actually you' re the one who insulted me by insinuating TLOTR isn' t holy, how dare you ! :p Sorry but I' ll never let anyone use the "hey, it' s what I believe" card to stamp my statements as offensive. They took it as an offense, or acted as if, that' s not quite the same. If they can back up their point with reason and evidence I' ll throw around too many awkward apologies to count. If they can' t but seem genuinely offended I' ll drop it. BTW, did I offend you ? If I had to bet I' d say you were just playing devil' s advocate, but maybe I' d better ask. Hmm ... I suppose ? I know you don' t have to believe in a god to be religious but ... it' s hard to say if you don' t specify your beliefs (I' m no expert anyway).
Well, the thing is, what exactly are the good things that religion provides that couldn' t be achieved by entirely secular means ? For instance Ienzo said that to her religion explains the why. Last time I checked philosophy could ponder on the why, without adding any divine extra ingredient. Besides, from what little I read of it, the Bible seems to assume the why rather than ponder on it. One could argue that most christians just use the Bible as a starting place, a tool to ponder on the why themselves, but then the Lord Of The Ring could be used the same way, amongst many books, and I don' t see how actually believing in hobbits would help me to better decipher the hidden wisdom of TLOTR, nor what makes the Bible so much better as a support. I could go on and on about the list of bad things that religion could bring (and does bring, here and now), but when I try to think of the good things it can give then all I can come up with is "a lie can have positive results". Personally the less I' m lied to the better, but on the other hand I can picture myself in many positions where I' d chose to tell a lie rather than the truth in order to reach a more positive outcome. However lies are a double edged sword because our beliefs impact the decisions we make : if you start going around spending money like crazy, believing that you won the lottery when in fact you really didn' t ... yeah. Ironically, the road to hell is supposedly paved with lies. As for atheists systematically putting down believers, well, if I do it means you royally pissed me off. Otherwise I could get a little ironic, sure, but it would all be in good fun. Why wouldn' t I ridicule a belief that cannot be backed up with reason and evidence, isn' t it exactly what ridicule is for ? I' m pretty sure I say ridiculous things myself regularly, as does anyone really. As long as I don' t sense hostility from the one who underlines my stupidity I' m quite happy he did underline it, otherwise I might do it again, and in public. It' s basically the equivalent of a "dude, your fly' s open", delivered with a little smile you couldn' t quite suppress. But hey, if walking around with your fly open is your thing I' ll shut up about it eventually. Unless of course it has bad consequences for me. Atheism is the lack of belief, it' s the rejection of the claim "at least one god exists". Some atheists go a step further (they deny that claim instead of just rejecting it), but this is a position about what they think is knowable whereas atheism is merely a belief position. Basically all it takes to be an atheist is to not believe in any god, which isn' t incompatible with admitting that the claim that a god exists could be valid. Let me illustrate : for all I know there could be invisible people walking around. I don' t deny that it is possible. However I never had any evidence that could support that claim so I reject it, meaning I don' t let that possibility color my actions. I don' t fear bumping into invisible stuff whenever I take a walk, I don' t talk to them just in case they' re real, etc ... The more extravagant the claim is, the more elaborate the evidence backing it up needs to be. If you neighbor told you he bought a dog you' d probably believe him, even without seeing the dog, but if he was to tell you that he bought a dragon you' d probably ask for a lot more than his word to believe him. It' s a practical approach, most people act that way towards any claim, but for some reason a lot of them give religious claims a free pass (well, the religious claims they happen to like), which puzzles me.
If they can pay someone to execute tremendously crucial tasks, such as distributing coffee and peanuts, then surely they could afford paying someone to, idk, watch those kids ? I did travel alone by plane or train when I was 10 or something, my memory is a bit fuzzy but I think I was indeed being constantly watched. Asking that man to move wasn' t just stupid, it was lazy and careless.
That doesn' t mean everything David did was Weiland' s orders, but at least it shows his agenda coincided with Weiland' s to some degree. BTW, I think Scott' s insistence not to include subtitles illustrates marvelously how obnoxiously cryptic he wants to be.
I know I spat copiously on this movie in my own thread, but I' ll play devil' s advocate (a little). It' s probably Weiland' s, not Vickers', he' s the one who needs permanent intensive medical care. One of the major themes of this movie is birthing, surely having a sterile heroin there was deliberate. I found this a while ago : http://cavalorn.livejournal.com/584135.html#cutid1 Now to me this analysis shows the movie could have been interesting, however it failed completely at conveying its own themes. Not just the metaphors, the plot itself remained needlessly cryptic from beginning to end, instead it focused on its nonsensical character decisions. Maybe seeing the whole trilogy will make the themes clearer, maybe the characters will start acting like they actually have a brain (given the decision that leads to the second movie it' s doubtful), but that wouldn' t make Prometheus any less feeble on its own. Now to be fair I watched the four Aliens recently, just to clear the nostalgia fog that obscured my memories. Turns out they all are as badly written as Prometheus except the first one (stupid character decisions everywhere, but at least the plots aren' t cryptic so they' re much easier to forgive). Maybe that' s why I expected so much more from Ridley Scott.
I think people expected their "tartine" to be completely covered with "marmalade" rather than having a few marmalade spots here, there and ... oh, you missed a tiny one here. Not to mention that SE used the exact same bread as ten and eight years ago, no wonder some people complain it has grown moldy the third time around. Personally I would label it as a spin-off without a shadow of hesitation. I' ve seen some Naruto fillers that felt more relevant than Re:Coded' s plot, which is stunning but not in a good way. I don' t play games for their story (although a good plot cannot hurt ), however playing the exact same worlds for a third or fourth time did annoy me (even when their gameplay was vastly tweaked like Hercule' s), especially when I heard their musics so often that they just make my brain drip from my ears by now.
Well I do, but they allow me to see just as fine as someone who doesn' t need them, if not better. I just happen to have a small screen and I don' t necessarily stick close to it. Anyway, Misty' s advice worked wonders for me : I chose a permanent minimal font size in my browser settings. Problem solved, good riddance.
I just stumbled upon this article about the Olympic games, it left me speechless : http://owni.eu/2012/08/02/the-2012-olympics-©-a-cyberpunk-dystopia/
You' d be surprised. Atheists R on ze devilz sidz lulz ! ^^ I don' t know how things are in your country, but in mine school as a whole is nudging students towards atheism (by teaching science and skepticism, not by talking about religion). Anyway, don' t tell her anything unless you' re completely prepared to lose everything you might lose. If you still live on her money you' d better wait to be financially self-reliant and pretend in the meantime, otherwise she could turn your life into a living hell. If you are independent but afraid that you might lose her - or at least that it might severely poison your relationship, more than it already does - then pretending might be your best option. It all depends on what' s more important for you. Oh, and if you do decide to tell her then be prepared to defend your position intellectually, she' ll probably drown you under an endless stream of fallacies to try and bring you back. There' s a show called "The Atheist Experience", it' s all over you-tube, it could give you ideas on that area : [video=youtube;DAuFJKQh83Y]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAuFJKQh83Y[/video]
I know TV series would like us to believe otherwise, but in reality an exploitable fingerprint is a very rare find. Besides, the killer could just wear gloves. Otherwise I agree with you, if he was still handcuffed their explanation seem very far-fetched, suspicious even. Also, I could understand that they' d miss a concealed razor blade, but a gun ? Really ?
I don' t, and you' re right, I don' t loose any sleep over it. However I might if I were to witness that kind of scene irl.
That' s not what I meant, I meant how would you know for sure you haven' t been hacked ? See the 2 first minutes here : Spoiler [video=youtube;XHfs7OQ_Cwk]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHfs7OQ_Cwk[/video] Last time I checked it was a mammal. I get where you' re going with this, but we don' t know yet how "human" their digital ersatz would actually be.
You' re reffering to the fact that what they call "you" is actually a clone ? Yeah, I wonder what they intend to do with your actual brain once it' s been digitalized, they weren' t clear on that. If the deal is to kill you in order to create an approximative robotic clone then they have a funny definition of immortality. Besides, Seifer was spot on when he mentioned Ghost In The Shell, there would be several catch, for instance : - A cyborg is not immortal, just more resistant. His body wouldn' t come cheap and it would also need a pricey maintenance (somehow I doubt planned obsolescence won' t be around anymore). What would become of those who can' t keep up with the bills ? - Cyborgs are not humans, so ... what are their rights exactly ? Who would want to hire them ? - If you know your consciousness can be tampered with or plain made up then you cannot tell for sure if you are indeed you or just a creation that fits someone else' s agenda. Hello mental breakdown.
This interdiction is about to be lifted in France too. I just found an article about it : 12 to 18% of homosexuals males have HIV whereas 0,35% of heterosexuals males have it. Doctors do systematically test blood for HIV, but that test is unreliable if the donor got the HIV less than 10 days ago. That' s donors are asked a few questions, but as House said once or twice everybody lies. Point is, as much as they' d like to not give the impression that they' re discriminating they don' t want to do it regardless of the risk factor. They estimated that if they allowed homosexual males who declared a single partner in the last 12 months to donate blood the residual risk (the less than 10 days risk) would be multiplied by 3,6 in the worst case scenario. Apparently those who were born in the UK between 1980 and 1996 can' t give their blood in France, too much risk for a Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, and here around 10% of the people who want to give their blood are rejected.
I love too many of their songs to have a favorite, so I just picked one that I listen often : Spoiler [video=youtube;Q22oGInO-uo]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q22oGInO-uo[/video]
Well, they could have orchestrated the hoax just to see our speculations : the digital era allows them to control the information we' re given and watch our every reaction to it in real-time, which helps them taking the decisions that would suit their agenda the most. [/PARANOIA]
