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August 2001 - June 2017
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To everyone who joined these forums at some point, and got discouraged by the negativity and left after a while (or even got literally scared off): I'm sorry.
I wasn't good enough at encouraging people to be kinder, and removing people who refuse to be kind. Encouraging people is hard, and removing people creates conflict, and I hate conflict... so that's why I wasn't better at it.
I was a very, very sensitive teen. The atmosphere of this forum as it is now, if it had existed in 1996, would probably have upset me far more than it would have helped.
I can handle quite a lot of negativity and even abuse now, but that isn't the point. I want to help people. I want to help the people who need it the most, and I want to help people like the 1996 version of me.
I'm still figuring out the best way to do that, but as it is now, these forums are doing more harm than good, and I can't keep running them.
Thank you to the few people who have tried to understand my point of view so far. I really, really appreciate you guys. You are beautiful people.
Everyone else: If after everything I've said so far, you still don't understand my motivations, I think it's unlikely that you will. We're just too different. Maybe someday in the future it might make sense, but until then, there's no point in arguing about it. I don't have the time or the energy for arguing anymore. I will focus my time and energy on people who support me, and those who need help.
-SoulRiser
The forums are mostly read-only and are in a maintenance/testing phase, before being permanently archived. Please use this time to get the contact details of people you'd like to keep in touch with. My contact details are here.
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"Arguing with a religious person is like playing chess with a pigeon. You can a make the best move in the world but they just knock over all the pieces, take a shit in the middle of the board and stand there triumphantly."
"I never said half the shit people say i did." -Albert Einstein
"I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail, there is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers. That is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark."-Stephen Hawking
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
Quote:That if you cant prove nor disprove, why the hell are you arguing?
a comment i found on the internet "George Locke-
An unfalsifiable theory makes no predictions. There’s nothing you could ever observe that would be inconsistent with it. In other words, the world where the theory is true appears exactly identical to the world where the theory is false.
The theory tells you nothing about the world, and nothing in the world tells you about the theory. So, there is no reason to believe."
"I never said half the shit people say i did." -Albert Einstein
"I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail, there is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers. That is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark."-Stephen Hawking
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
(09-16-2012 09:55 AM)Miller0700 Wrote: Who can know for sure?
Well actually everything exists. If you do not know what I mean, it's just that there are multiple universes and multiple dimensions. Even Einstein said that imagination encircles the universe. He could've meant that every story we ever wrote is just a fragment of something that exists...
So, yeah, believe in whatever ya want, we all have the right to
08-16-2013 08:35 PM
Thanks given by:
thewake
Unconstructive
Posts: 5,917
Joined: Jun 2007
Quote:Well actually everything exists. If you do not know what I mean, it's just that there are multiple universes and multiple dimensions. Even Einstein said that imagination encircles the universe. He could've meant that every story we ever wrote is just a fragment of something that exists...
So, yeah, believe in whatever ya want, we all have the right to
no, you just don't understand the meaning of the word "exist." it means "Have objective reality or being." keyword objective. if the multiverse is not a part of our universe in the sense that it will never interact with us in any way, then it doesn't "exist."
"I never said half the shit people say i did." -Albert Einstein
"I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail, there is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers. That is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark."-Stephen Hawking
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
@Trekkie_Aspie: I'm an atheist myself, but claiming a god does not exist you are putting out a gnostic claim with no evidence to back it up; therefore it is not any better than what theists say.
Quote:However, I also can't prove that there isn't a hippo in the milky way singing "Daisy, Daisy" while riding a unicycle.
Yes, but that doesn't mean that said hippo is nonexistent. We should not believe in it either (unless you can properly acknowledge that your belief has no factual basis and it is not rational to hold it) because there is no evidence supporting it, just as we also disbelieve Russell's teacup, the FSM, and the IPU.
Hail the banana king!
(This post was last modified: 08-18-2013 11:43 AM by Lime.)
@Trekkie_Aspie: I'm an atheist myself, but claiming a god does not exist you are putting out a gnostic claim with no evidence to back it up; therefore it is not any better than what theists say.
I'm not quite sure what you're saying. If it's the 'absence of evidence does not equal evidence of absence' line of thought, then, that is true. All I'm saying is that ' just because someone thought it up does not make it evidence'. What I'm saying is that there's about as much proof that God exists as there is about said hippo or centaurs, if we're being generous. God of the gaps vs origin of centaur myths. Present me evidence about the said hippo (or God) and I'll gladly change my mind but I see no reason to start from presuming that the hippo's there - given the lack of evidence either way, doesn't it make more sense to think that there's no hippo there?
It's also a hippo. Space is not its natural environment. Nor do hippos generally ride any form of cycle. Or sing songs that humans can understand. Possible, but not logically likely. Same as good and powerful God existing, alongside evil, is possible but not logically likely.
If I seem rude to you, please call me on it gently.
One thing (among many others) school couldn't teach you.
The only thing is that this isn't black or white and nothing else. Considering the fact we aren't omniscient, there will be questions we can't answer, and just because we can't answer doesn't give us the right to assume that there is no answer.
(08-19-2013 12:56 AM)Trekkie_Aspie Wrote: I'm not quite sure what you're saying. If it's the 'absence of evidence does not equal evidence of absence' line of thought, then, that is true. All I'm saying is that ' just because someone thought it up does not make it evidence'. What I'm saying is that there's about as much proof that God exists as there is about said hippo or centaurs, if we're being generous. God of the gaps vs origin of centaur myths. Present me evidence about the said hippo (or God) and I'll gladly change my mind but I see no reason to start from presuming that the hippo's there - given the lack of evidence either way, doesn't it make more sense to think that there's no hippo there?
What I was taking away from this quote:
Quote:Umm ... I have an unwavering 'faith' in the non-existence of God.
Is that you believed a god does not exist. I don't think it is reasonable to commit to a belief when we have no evidence either way, thus the best thing we should do is not believe in it. Any extraordinary concepts without proof deserve the same treatment as unicorns, the loch ness monster, dragons, etc. We disbelieve it without claiming that it does not exist. After all, there are plenty of things at the moment that we have no evidence for, yet still do exist.
The best course is to hold this state of disbelief, rather than belief of its nonexistence, until some sort of evidence (for either side, really) comes up.
Quote:Considering the fact we aren't omniscient, there will be questions we can't answer, and just because we can't answer doesn't give us the right to assume that there is no answer.
Yes, but that doesn't mean we should just believe whatever that is without any evidence either. We can't answer the question of whether there is a flying spaghetti monster any more than we can the question of the Abrahamic god. Yet at the same time much of the world holds the latter as a sacred truth while scoffing at anyone who would even consider the former as an existing identity.
I really have to wonder if Kirk & Ray realized what idiots they were about the whole banana ordeal, or if they keep trucking on with the nonsense. Seems like this particular case benefits only evolutionists, if anyone.
(This post was last modified: 08-19-2013 03:40 AM by Lime.)
Right... except that we do claim that it doesn't exist. Take unicorns for example. Wikipedia has this to say on the unicorn: "The unicorn is a legendary animal that has been described since antiquity as a beast with a large, pointed, spiraling horn projecting from its forehead. The unicorn was depicted in ancient seals of the Indus Valley Civilization and was mentioned by the ancient Greeks in accounts of natural history by various writers, including Ctesias, Strabo, Pliny the Younger, and Aelian.[1] The Bible also describes an animal, the re'em, which some translations have rendered with the word unicorn." [1]
Dictionary.com calls a unicorn "a mythical creature resembling a horse, with a single horn in the center of its forehead: often symbolic of chastity or purity." Legend, myth. As in unverified or fiction.
If I seem rude to you, please call me on it gently.
One thing (among many others) school couldn't teach you.
That's probably a better example of rejecting its existence based on the excerpts it is located in than outright claiming "This doesn't exist." If you were to ask Wikipedia editors if they were 100% sure that the unicorn does not exist, I don't think many would say yes if they knew what the question actually meant (as in, you have absolutely no doubts whatsoever that a unicorn could not possibly exist or have existed in this universe).
(This post was last modified: 08-19-2013 06:13 AM by Lime.)
If it's 99.99%, you can't possibly "round" it up and preserve accuracy. I can't fill a cup of water with 12.5 ounces, and round it up to 13 if it's still only 12.5.
It's why I'm not a big fan of rounding values. I prefer precision(it bothered my math teachers a bit. They wanted it simple, but .49 is not 1/2)
(08-21-2013 07:54 AM)Trekkie_Aspie Wrote: The whole point of rounding things up is that it's 'good enough', not necessarily accurate.
Good enough is not precise enough. Plus, good enough tends to cause humans to get more and more relaxed in defining what is "good enough" to the point we start loading cracked torpedos into soviet submarines that end up blowing up and killing the whole damn crew under the sea
Must be why the general public can't be trusted >.>
"When will the world listen to reason? I have a feeling it'll be a long time." --Dexter Holland
"Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have. The course of history shows as government grows, liberty decreases. " --Thomas Jefferson
(08-13-2013 02:48 PM)Potato Wrote: "Arguing with a religious person is like playing chess with a pigeon. You can a make the best move in the world but they just knock over all the pieces, take a shit in the middle of the board and stand there triumphantly."
I feel like this quote depends on what religion that pigeon is, and what kind of person they are.
For instance, I'm a mormon. I fully believe in God for various reasons, but I will not however "take a shit in the middle of the board and stand triumphantly" because that's uncouth and rude. I feel like a lot of people get the wrong idea about those who believe in God. Not everyone in the world is going to try and force their beliefs on you.
If I meet someone, and they don't believe in God, then I'm not going to rage and judge them because I don't believe in the same thing. A person's life is their own, not anyone else's. In my personal opinion, everyone has a right to believe what they wanna believe.
" I never knew until that moment how bad it could hurt to lose something you never really had. " ~From the television show The Wonder Years
Eh, it's not a given that every ontological question is empirical and also I think that for the most part neo-atheists are sophomoric fucks.
"Do we treat straight public sex differently than we do gay public sex? Of course. Straight people are so proud of their public sex that they named a cocktail after it."
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