1961

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: Atheism vs. religion

« on: January 08, 2014, 01:29:45 AM »

Lol at Roundy. You're going to quote people who spent a lot of time fighting religion if a theist starts at you, spewing bullshit from a book written 2000 or so years ago.

Yes, that's what atheists tend to do, although it seems they're usually the ones starting the arguments.    I just don't agree that religion is something that ought to be fought, if it's something that on an otherwise level playing field is of such benefit.  Admittedly, people like Dawkins represent something of an extreme, but their (and his in particular) influence in shaping the way the modern intellectual thinks is a little scary, given their vicious anti-religious stance.

I know, by the way, that there are people out there who are extremely annoying in pushing their religions.  But if they're that far gone do you really think there will be any benefit in getting into an argument with them and trying to convince them rationally that they're wrong (except perhaps your own smug self-satisfaction, something else Dawkins oozies... I really hate Richard Dawkins)?  We all remember Wardogg.  And apparently, if you do manage to convince them they're wrong, you will personally be shortening their lifespan.  Congratulations for your victory.

1962

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Atheism vs. religion

« on: January 07, 2014, 05:49:48 AM »

Thork is right about modern atheists.  You can claim that you aren't part of the movement all you want, but when you start quoting Dawkins and Hitchens and (a new favorite, it seems) Krauss in your support of the evils of religion, you are a new atheist like it or not.  And most modern atheists get a hard-on at the mere mention of any one of those names.

Here's something to chew on: statistically, your religious friends who go to church and pay blind allegiance to a God you don't think they should believe exists are going to live several years  longer than you.  So right about the existence of God or not they must be doing something right that you aren't.

1963

Flat Earth Community / Re: The Zetetic Council

« on: January 07, 2014, 05:32:01 AM »

Me too.

1964

Arts & Entertainment / Re: Official Sports Thread

« on: January 07, 2014, 01:45:34 AM »

The Flyers have been really hot lately.  Maybe they'll make yet another failed run at the Stanley Cup this year.

1965

Arts & Entertainment / Re: Community

« on: January 05, 2014, 09:08:29 PM »

Also Magnitude is still dumb...which actually reminds me, his "mention" in the first episode was actually hilarious

I loved how it looked like they were just ignoring the existence of Pierce, until Pierce actually showed up (more or less).

It feels good to be able to say I love this show again.   

1966

Arts & Entertainment / Re: Official Sports Thread

« on: January 05, 2014, 05:33:44 PM »

Both of the games were great yesterday. Colts had an amazing 28-point comeback, and now I just need to find Roundy and laugh at him.

Fuck you, it was a rebuilding year.

1967

Arts & Entertainment / Re: Just Watched

« on: January 03, 2014, 02:59:14 AM »

Watched season one of American Horror Story. I watched season 2 (Asylum) a while back, i thought that was definitely better. The first season was a jumbled incoherent mess, and was dumb. However, Jessica Lange is a great actress, imo.

It was dumb, but it was fun dumb.  Season 2 was definitely much better.  I feel like Season 3, at least so far, is more on par with the first than the second.  And Jessica Lange is always awesome.

1968

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Is it possible to prove a negative?

« on: December 31, 2013, 02:08:38 AM »

Way to back pedal on your claim that negative claims are automatically true.  Because if that were the case, the evidence shows that the window is both not open and not closed.

Negative claims are automatically true. The lack of evidence factually shows that the window is both not open and not closed.

Both statements are true. Since there is a lack of evidence, the window is not anything.

But they both CANNOT be true.

Sure they can.  It's Schrodinger's Window; the window is in a superimposed state of open and closed until it is observed to be one or the other.

1969

Flat Earth Community / Re: The Zetetic Council

« on: December 30, 2013, 06:23:52 AM »

To begin with, I suggest that you all give yourselves pompous titles in your personal texts.  Something like "Noble Member of the Zetetic Council," "Most Exalted Member of the Zetetic Council," or in Thork's case, "Terrible Member of the Zetetic Council."  It should get you into the right mindset to run this society.

Okay, done.  Now what?

1970

Flat Earth Community / Re: The Zetetic Council

« on: December 30, 2013, 04:54:49 AM »

I've been wondering this as well.  If you all ever figure out what it is that you elected me to do, please let me know.

1971

Arts & Entertainment / Re: Official Sports Thread

« on: December 30, 2013, 04:47:11 AM »

Ugh, that was way too exciting.

1972

Arts & Entertainment / Re: Duck Dynasty Controversy

« on: December 28, 2013, 06:34:10 PM »

It wasn't because of the controversy that they caved? 

1973

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: What Religion are you?

« on: December 28, 2013, 09:12:53 AM »

Actually, the NT was written by 9 different people, the Torah by 1. The 9 all wrote between 36 CE (the crucifixion of Jesus) & 98 CE (the death of John). I don't dispute whether Jesus rose again or not. Its irrelevant. The Jewish Messiah will be a human born in the usual way & will re-establish the Temple & the Davidic Kingdom, & usher in an era of eternal peace. Jesus didn't do this. Ergo, he is not the Messiah. All this virgin birth business & dying & rising saving god figure is pure paganism. I don't care how many lepers Jesus healed, or blind & deaf he made see & hear. He didn't do what the Messiah must do. Ergo, he isn't. If someone wants to worship a Jewish Rabbi & call him God, that's their perogative, but don't tell me its as valid as Torah Observant Judaism. As far as Moses never existing, Jesus the Rabbi would have disagreed w/ you. & assuming Torah to have been written by 1 person, it can't be part right & part wrong. Either Moses told the truth or he didn't.

Interesting.  Now you are invalidating the New Testament using the New Testament.  And presenting no less a subjective, biased viewpoint than before.

1974

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: What Religion are you?

« on: December 28, 2013, 06:37:43 AM »

Roundy, your argument only holds true IF you believe that the Torah was written, edited, redacted, & so-forth, the way modern liberal biblical scholarship says it was. I reject that whole theory. If, as Traditional Judaism teaches, Moses wrote the Torah, aside from the last 8 verses of Deuteronomy (written by Joshua), then either Moses was truthful or he was a liar. He can't be partly right & partly wrong. If you believe in modern liberal biblical scholarship, then this whole conversation is pointless, as we are proceeding from 2 different premisses that cannot possibly bring us to the same conclusion. I think you understand my point well. I disagree w/ you, but I'm not such a fool as to question your intellect. The NT was written by 9 authors, the Torah by 1. Each of those 9 had different purposes for writing. How are we to know they were complimentary purposes? Moses would hardly have wanted to be uncomplimentary to himself. He does repeat himself. He does emphasise different points while doing so. But I

haven't yet seen him outright contradict himself. I'm sure some raging liberal is going to try & prove me wrong there. Well, feel free. But the Sages & Rabbis of Blessed Memory have been dealing w/ issues like this for somewhat over 4000 yrs. I don't think its a problem, even if I don't have all the answers, & I admit, I don't. I would recommend before confronting me on any supposed contradictions in Torah, you look in a topical guide to the Talmud & other texts of Jewish wisdom first. If that doesn't work, consult a knowledgeable Rabbi or Cantor.

None of this invalidates my point.  It may be your point of view that the Torah is 100% written by a man who may not have even existed and therefore must be 100% true or 100% false (which you haven't really supported with anything approaching logic... but whatever) but your statement was that Rama Set (and I assume everyone who argues with you on this) had only two choices (quote "Your choice is a bit binary, really") and obviously that is not the case, as you seem to have just acknowledged.  And to boot, you are continuing to validate the truth of the Torah with the Torah, which is what Rama ultimately accused you of doing.  The New Testament is just as valid a work as the Torah is using any objective criteria you wish to apply.  It is the affirmed testimony of four individuals whose trustworthiness we have no more reason to deny than that of Moses, recounting events that were witnessed by thousands of people.  As long as you continue simply being subjective on the matter you are doing nothing but affirming your own biased opinion on the matter with your own biased opinions on the matter, and there's really no point in attempting to debate with someone who does nothing but metaphorically put his fingers in his ears and make a raspberry sound.

1975

Arts & Entertainment / Re: Just Watched

« on: December 28, 2013, 06:27:05 AM »

Okay, I'll allow that the excruciating detail of the LOTR series makes a difference, but I can't imagine it makes that much of a difference.

1976

Arts & Entertainment / Re: Just Watched

« on: December 28, 2013, 04:24:47 AM »

It should have been one movie, but they recognized the opportunity to sucker loads of fanboys who can't wait to spend their money on anything LOTR, and stretched it out to the point where it's just ridiculous.  I mean, seriously.  It was a simple, short book with some entertaining vignettes and a spectacular climactic battle.  They could have done it so easily in one movie and it could have been great.

So much of the first movie was filler.  I imagine this one is the same. I mean stretching 300 pages into 8 hours.  Give me a fucking break.

I don't see how they could turn it into a single movie. 2 movies maybe, but not 1. Too much crap happens, you would have to jump directly from event to event in order to fit it all in, leaving no time for anything else.

I'd prefer 3 bloated movies to 1 awful one.

So I imagine you must have really hated the original LOTR trilogy since they crammed so much into a single trilogy.  I mean, given that it's five fucking times as long as The Hobbit in print but about the same length on screen.

1977

Arts & Entertainment / Re: Just Watched

« on: December 28, 2013, 04:17:21 AM »

It should have been one movie, but they recognized the opportunity to sucker loads of fanboys who can't wait to spend their money on anything LOTR, and stretched it out to the point where it's just ridiculous.  I mean, seriously.  It was a simple, short book with some entertaining vignettes and a spectacular climactic battle.  They could have done it so easily in one movie and it could have been great.

So much of the first movie was filler.  I imagine this one is the same. I mean stretching 300 pages into 8 hours.  Give me a fucking break.

1978

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: What Religion are you?

« on: December 28, 2013, 03:35:31 AM »

The Torah is either true or it is not . Your choice is a bit binary, really.

Um... no, that's not the case at all.  It is not in any way outside the realm of reason or logic that parts of the Torah are true and parts aren't.  Otherwise we can apply that exact same reasoning to the New Testament as well, which I'm sure you recognize is pretty problematic to your argument.  In fact it is the norm for folk stories (which is all the Torah is really) to contain a kernel of truth.

1979

Flat Earth Community / Re: Questions for the FAQ

« on: December 25, 2013, 05:35:06 PM »

Might I suggest a slightly different format?

The FAQ is a bunch of one-liner questions. And the answer is a direct hyperlink from that question to where we store the answers which may have diagrams etc.

Then it's easy to scan down the questions to see if yours is there. You don't need to wade down 6 pages of tl;dr + we can swap questions in and out easily as we get bored of them. We'd only need to upload an answer into the wiki or wherever and then make a one-line question to it when done. The wiki lends itself to giving that info better that a forum post can.

I like Thork's idea, since it was my idea a few years ago.  It was ignored then, of course.

1980

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Re: What Religion are you?

« on: December 25, 2013, 04:57:30 PM »

I'm certain the Exodus story is 100%, literally true.  So certain that I'm sure Yaakov can point to some source outside of the Old Testament confirming that the Egyptians ever kept the Israelis as slaves.  I'm sure loads of archaeological evidence has been dug up supporting that scenario.

Right Yaakov?  Do you have anything?