Thread "2015 Rant/Share/General Discussion thread" in forum "Comic Talk and General Discussion *"

Posted at 11:03AM, Mar. 15, 2015

@Hippie, yeah that would be annoying. I just had an argument abour morals. I said that there is no absolute moral law as it is a man made concept, there for cannot be objective. The response I got amusing.

Man made concept???? Are u serious??? So u mean that killing another human being is immoral because humans decided so? U mean that raping a child is immoral because humans decided so? U mean that the corruption in politics is immoral because humans decided so?? You mean that stealing from someone is immoral because humans decided so? Try stealing some food from an animal, it will bite you. Try taking away a cub from her mother(i hope u dont want to rape it lolllll) and see the reaction, the mother will kill you. No my friend, THERE ARE MORAL LAWS IN NATURE, and u, being part of mother nature, are SUBJECTED TO THEM NO MATTER WHAT U THINK IN YOUR SICK HEAD. You dont make any law, you can delude yourself into thinking you are god, but thats just fooling yourself. Now ill tell you THE only Truth you need to know, and that is that you are a created SOVEREIGN being and u are free to do whatever you like UNLESS you HURT SOMEONE ELSE. By hurting someone else i dont mean only physically(which btw its the easy one) but i also mean NOT STEALING ANYTHING FROM OTHERS, their body(through rape or slavery),their freewill(using various tricks to force them to do something they dont want to do, like threatening to fire them if they dont do what you demand). Because if u do that, the victims have the NATURAL, UNIVERSAL right to self defense and even to use force(which is different from violence) if u dont want to stop the violent behaviour against them.As u see my friend u are NOT god, but again, if you want you can play god, but do that at your own peril. Remember, what goes around comes around. And if all the people decide to play god(and thats happening as u can judge by the state of the world today), u will see what will come around, THE HELL. And im not being religious here, i hope u noticed that, im far from all religions, even the most subtle ones like the new age bullshit or your atheist religion, or even the science religion, better known as scientism(dont confuse real science with scientism pls)

To which I pointed out, those aren't morals merely consequnces of actions. The person is also convinced atheism is a religion because anyone stating they do not beleive in god is deitfying themself, therefore they are religious

Posted at 3:03PM, Mar. 15, 2015

I wonder if I'm "classed" as an "athiest". I do believe in an almighty omnipotent diety as there are many mysteries of the universe that have yet to be explained by science. I don't follow dogma, though. That's gotten us humans into a lot of trouble. Kinda like how "fanboy/girlism" does with us today when it comes to media.

Oh. And the cutest and weirdest Five Nights at Freddy's liveplayers I've seen yet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gTd9P_vvCc

Posted at 5:03PM, Mar. 15, 2015

Lonnehart wrote:
I wonder if I'm "classed" as an "athiest". I do believe in an almighty omnipotent diety

Not an atheist, then. Maybe a deist of some kind? Or just "spiritual but not religious." I see that fairly often.

Posted at 9:03PM, Mar. 15, 2015

Hippie, the attitude of those people doesn't really have anything to do with athiesim, it's just plain cultural chauvinisim and prejudice.
A lot of the more agressive, usually younger athiests share that attitude though. I WOULD say that it's because they're idiots, but that's not true… It's because they haven't really taken the time to examine and understand the things they're angry about. …They might not be idiots but their behaviour IS idiotic.

For me, athiesism is about seperating belief and ideology from culture.
I can apreciate the beauty of a mosque or a cathedral without panicing and pondering about what some diety might think of me being there. Similarly I don't worry about the fact that the culture that produced the architecture and artwork did so as part of a beleif system based on something that is objectively fanciful. It's irrelevant.

Those people are like the poor buggers who can't appreciate SciFi or fantasy because they can't handle the "suspension of disbeleif", never for a second realising they have to similarly "suspend disbeleif" for ALL genres of fiction AND most nonfiction too.
As with the individial beleifs, tenants and rules of any religious system, you have a similar situation with sports teams, military insititutions, nationalisim and patriotisim and a million other things large groups of people subscribe to, beleive in, and become initiated into the mistaries.
Just because WE don't share the beleifs of the fans of that sporting franchise or support a particular country does not invalidate the cultures that surround them.

Posted at 6:03AM, Mar. 16, 2015

Becoming an atheist doesn't free your mind from prejudice. For some people, lots of non-theistic thought modes even bolster it. Darwinian Evolution has been used to justify racism for many seemingly intelliegent people. Neitzschean philosophy has been by many to justify to rule and oppression of lesser 'herd' people by their 'Uber-Man' Betters!
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There's a tendency by many to think that Atheism comes with it a smarter, better way of thinking ('I'm too intelligent to believe in fairy tales'). I'll agree that a greater percentage of Atheists tend to be more educated. And they are often wiser and more moral - but the latter is not a given…

Posted at 8:03AM, Mar. 16, 2015

KimLuster wrote:
Darwinian Evolution has been used to justify racism for many seemingly intelliegent people. Neitzschean philosophy has been by many to justify to rule and oppression of lesser 'herd' people by their 'Uber-Man' Betters!

Social Darwinism was an embarrassment to Darwin and he did not hold with it. But then it was a sign of the times. The late 19th century saw some of the greatest amounts of wealth created ever and some of the greatest disparity in income and wealth until the early 21st Century.

Darwinian racism was classic pseudo science with data often creatively produced to fit pre-existing ideas. Then there was eugenics. That's very problematical because it really boiled down to morality and ethics. Sure it's good for the species survival to mass murder the sick and disabled but it isn't morally right. Hippocrates recognized that in ancient Greece but modern Germans lost sight of what it all meant in a haze of Nietzche double talk. One careful reading of Nietzche's private correspondence could produce the image that he was actually satirizing what he was espousing publically.

In other words poeple misinterpreted what he was saying, and grabbed one piece of his world view and blew it all out of proportion. People are inclined to do that with belief systems because most lack the tools to cricitally sift through the ideas and recognize what they mean all together as opposed to a few bits that they surround with a whole new edifice of gobblygook. So Niettzche was hooked up with Richard Wagner's version of German mythology and bits and pieces of Madame Blavatsky's Theosophy to become the core racial beleifs of Naitonal Socialism. None of it belonged together and the disparate sources were at fierce odds with one another. But fanatics can pretend to be deep thinkers by repeating the same meaningless garbage again and again and if lies are repeated loud enough they can drown out all truth.

And you can find yourself believing things you know are not true. Doublethink

H.L. Mencken had it right about this stuff when he said "one belly laugh is worth a thousand syllogisms."

Posted at 8:03AM, Mar. 16, 2015

ozoneocean wrote:
Just because WE don't share the beleifs of the fans of that sporting franchise or support a particular country does not invalidate the cultures that surround them.

Tsk, tsk, poor unbeleiver. There is only one truth. Only one universal truth of belief and dogma and if you do not share that the entire rest of your culture is fundamentally WRONG and must be erased from the planet.
So say the fanatics. It is very easy to yell and scream loud enough to get anyone fanatical about anything and willing to destroy all not in line with their soccer team let alone with their deity. Deities are All-powerful and all pervasive. The feeling is same but the magnitude and impact of that belief is on a totally different level. There's only ever been one war about a soccer game but there have been a whole bunch of them about deities (or using the exclusivity of truth inherent in religious belief to expand power over non-believers)

Posted at 10:03AM, Mar. 16, 2015

*sigh* Night before last was a headache. We had a tropical storm pass over us. Still got a fever for being in the rain at work, then having to stay out for some time after getting home to chop a tree to bits… it was on my power line. And now… I'll end this post before running off to… um… regurgitate…

Posted at 10:03AM, Mar. 16, 2015

Bravo, you're taking my comparison completely the wrong way. I was talking about culture only, not fanatisism or strength of belief etc. That's something else and pretty arguable, especially when it comes to patriotisism.

Please don't trot out the old "religious war" chestnut, it's strictly for the kids. You or I, or anyone that looks at the wars of history seriously, knows there's always multiple factors, but land and resources are usually the main ones no matter what the catch cry.

And BTW, I remembered something about the whole menstrual cycle thing: that didn't start when you said it did, it comes from much, much older Jewish tradition that still persists today in Hassidic culture, so it was indeed an old cultural remnant.

Let's stop with all the religion good/religion bad stuff. Dawkins can fight his own battles. Anime is a far more interesting subject for me.
Have you seen Welcome to NHK? Interesting show! I couldn't get into that newer version of sorcerer Negi though… No fan service and cheap crappy animation wtf?

Posted at 11:03AM, Mar. 16, 2015

Let's stop with all the religion good/religion bad stuff. Dawkins can fight his own battles. Anime is a far more interesting subject for me.Have you seen Welcome to NHK? Interesting show! I couldn't get into that newer version of sorcerer Negi though… No fan service and cheap crappy animation wtf?

But Ozone, it reated more activity than this forum has had in weeks ;-)
I like what you said about culture and religion. I lover churches, they are often amazing buildings, I'm sure the same can be said of mosques and such too. Religion and culture go hand in hand as religion is a major part of our history. As is war, sadly. And, to be honest, I have little to say about your religion of Manga, it's a load of made up bollocks designed to appeal to horny 12 year old boys. It promotes sexual assault of school girls and sex with octopi. BAN MANGA!!! Burn the MANGA!!!!

Posted at 12:03PM, Mar. 16, 2015

bravo1102 wrote:

KimLuster wrote:
Darwinian Evolution has been used to justify racism for many seemingly intelliegent people. Neitzschean philosophy has been by many to justify to rule and oppression of lesser 'herd' people by their 'Uber-Man' Betters!
Social Darwinism was an embarrassment to Darwin and he did not hold with it. But then it was a sign of the times. The late 19th century saw some of the greatest amounts of wealth created ever and some of the greatest disparity in income and wealth until the early 21st Century.

Darwinian racism was classic pseudo science with data often creatively produced to fit pre-existing ideas. Then there was eugenics. That's very problematical because it really boiled down to morality and ethics. Sure it's good for the species survival to mass murder the sick and disabled but it isn't morally right. Hippocrates recognized that in ancient Greece but modern Germans lost sight of what it all meant in a haze of Nietzche double talk. One careful reading of Nietzche's private correspondence could produce the image that he was actually satirizing what he was espousing publically.

In other words poeple misinterpreted what he was saying, and grabbed one piece of his world view and blew it all out of proportion. People are inclined to do that with belief systems because most lack the tools to cricitally sift through the ideas and recognize what they mean all together as opposed to a few bits that they surround with a whole new edifice of gobblygook. So Niettzche was hooked up with Richard Wagner's version of German mythology and bits and pieces of Madame Blavatsky's Theosophy to become the core racial beleifs of Naitonal Socialism. None of it belonged together and the disparate sources were at fierce odds with one another. But fanatics can pretend to be deep thinkers by repeating the same meaningless garbage again and again and if lies are repeated loud enough they can drown out all truth.

And you can find yourself believing things you know are not true. Doublethink

H.L. Mencken had it right about this stuff when he said "one belly laugh is worth a thousand syllogisms."

I never said that the people who used Darwin and Neitzsche to justify their prejudices were right. My point is that people with an inclination towards prejudice find it easy to use Religious and NON-Religious thought to justify themselves. Evolution (which I think is scientifically sound, so don't misintepret me) lends itself very easily to groups who believe in their own superiority…!
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Example: Theoretically, Evolution most certainly could produce an offshoot of humanity that, in fact, is 'superior' to other Branches. Please note that I do NOT believe Evolution has done any such thing - currently, there is only ONE human race, and just about all differences are cosmetic… BUT, it most certainly could happen at some future point, similar to how Humans diverged from the other Apes in the distant past, and it's not hard to argue, from an Evolutionary standpoint, which branch (Human vs Apes) is more successfull, and therefore, 'superior'. We can quibble over what 'superior' means but I think the point is clear.
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Hypothetical Application: Were I an Elitist with a smidgen of education, I could argue that some sort of evolutionary divergence has already happened (or has started) and that my branch is superior, and that for the 'good' of the whole race my branch shouldn't be diluted. Furthermore, that my branch should survive at all costs, and if other branches threaten my branch's survival, maybe they should be done away with…
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Frightenlingly easy to do…
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Anyway, I'm not saying anything else on this charged subject.

Posted at 4:03PM, Mar. 16, 2015

It's ok, we can do charged subjects here! Unlike some forums, you won't get banned, the thread won't be locked and we'll all be friends in the morning.

The only problem with this forum is, you have to be a super evolved meta being to post a quote.

Posted at 5:03PM, Mar. 16, 2015

Ironscarf wrote:
It's ok, we can do charged subjects here! Unlike some forums, you won't get banned, the thread won't be locked and we'll all be friends in the morning.

Ha, a little bitter still are we? :P

Ironscarf wrote:
The only problem with this forum is, you have to be a super evolved meta being to post a quote.

Use Hippie Van's patented quoting-technique-I-stole-from-someone-else-probably-ozoneocean! Forget about the "quote" button entirely, go into the html editor and just put in:

{quote}{b}someone{/b} wrote:
Blah blah blah Hippie Van is so pretty
{/quote}

But replace the squiggly brackets with square ones!

…Oh, but never ever try to go back and edit a comment with quotes or the universe will implode.

Posted at 8:03PM, Mar. 16, 2015

I apologise to Bravo for stating a counter point of view and then saying we should change the subject. That was a super DICK move on my part. It's basically demanding the last word.
I can be such an arsehole sometimes.

Ironscarf makes a good point.
Discuss religion as much as you like, or not, it's all cool. :D

————–

@Genejoke- Ironically Welcome to NHK Directly makes fun of EXACTLY the as[ect you mention!

Posted at 8:03PM, Mar. 16, 2015

HippieVan wrote:
Blah blah blah Hippie Van is so pretty

Had to try the system, see if I could quote!

Posted at 8:03PM, Mar. 16, 2015

Banes wrote:
Had to try the system, see if I could quote!

You did it!
I mean, I did it!

Posted at 9:03PM, Mar. 16, 2015

Banes wrote:
I like to smell my own farts.

Ewww…

I'm SUCH an arsehole. :(

Posted at 12:03AM, Mar. 17, 2015

Ozone, do not blaspheme!!! I have never red it, nor wud i want 2 poloot my brain!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
extra exclamation marks for dramatic effect.
Ah well, back to the grind for me now, time to deal with self important assholes for 12 hours.
"I am a project manager for a multi million pound firm, my time is money… blah blah blah!"

Posted at 3:03AM, Mar. 17, 2015

Banes wrote:
HippieVan wrote:
Blah blah blah Hippie Van is so pretty

A little bitter? Think subterranean ocean of bitter, where bitter, twisted life forms evolve beneath the kilometre thick, bitter ice crust. Then serve with a slice of lemon!

—

Plenty of work on, which is good, but making it increasingly unlikely I'll finish my Mary Sue One Pager by the 19th, which is bad, especially considering I suggested the contest.
On the up side, I got a little carried away with it end ended up visiting a 1930s library building for photrefs. I've been past it many times but never entered - turns out it's a lovely, well preserved example of suburban art deco, grade II listed. Sadly, they had to remove the original circular wooden reception desk to make way for the self service machines, but that's progress I s'pose. Who needs human interaction when you can have a swipecard?

Posted at 4:03AM, Mar. 17, 2015

hehe I've dallied around too long on my Mary Sue page as well - it's gonna have to be black/white line work at this point! But I will have it by 19th!

Posted at 6:03AM, Mar. 17, 2015

KimLuster wrote:
I never said that the people who used Darwin and Neitzsche to justify their prejudices were right. My point is that people with an inclination towards prejudice find it easy to use Religious and NON-Religious thought to justify themselves. Evolution (which I think is scientifically sound, so don't misintepret me) lends itself very easily to groups who believe in their own superiority…!

And my point was that elitist people often do that with silly leaps of pseudo science and philosophical gobblygook that doesn't lend itself to close scrutiny. They're not as smart as they think they are. The Third Reich was a ramshackle mess of improvisation and bad planning with some great imaginative engineers. Philosophically it was an empty shell.

As far as evolution goes the most superior life forms are viruses and beetles. There are so many of them and they haven't changed much in millions of years. Find a life form that hasn't needed to change in a long time and that form is superior as far as evolution is concerned. According to natural selection that is superior. But then the one life form that has adapted to the most different environments and spread across the whole planet is Homo Sapiens so that makes him successful but he's only been around for thousands of years unchanged. And that's a drop in the bucket as far as the evolutionary success goes. Let's see Homo Sapiens Sapiens survive a couple of mass extinctions as opposed to attempting to cause one.

Posted at 6:03AM, Mar. 17, 2015

Ironscarf wrote:
A little bitter? Think subterranean ocean of bitter, where bitter, twisted life forms evolve beneath the kilometre thick, bitter ice crust. Then serve with a slice of lemon!

That sounds like a Skreem comic. Or a gas giant's moon. Maybe both.

Posted at 6:03AM, Mar. 17, 2015

bravo1102 wrote:
And my point was that elitist people often do that with silly leaps of pseudo science and philosophical gobblygook that doesn't lend itself to close scrutiny. They're not as smart as they think they are…

That's what humans do - did Evolution make us this way…? *snicker*
.
I don't think you and I are at odds on this subject. I actually prefer debates on Freewill (do we have it or not?) ;)

Posted at 7:03AM, Mar. 17, 2015

I want to believe we have free will. I know we do not though. For free will to exist, every possible thought should be a possibility, this is not the case right now, because there are concepts that are too far beyond our understanding of the world to fully grasp. Also, since all of our thought processes are based on biological processes, we are limited in the amount of thought and memory we can have at the same time, thus limiting the amount of connections we are able to make at one time. Then there is also the shitload of evolutionary baggage (the need for food, procreation, and safety) we still have, that affects every decision we make. this makes it impossible to determine whether a thought was entirely free of the pollution of evolution. Also, I have studied the effects of commercials quite a bit, and none of us are fully free of the influence of big corporations, so nothing we do is fully our own decision.

Mankind is nothing but a slightly more intelligent ant. Free will is not possible, since all thought is done by a type of computer, and no computer will ever be able to think everything at the same time.

Posted at 7:03AM, Mar. 17, 2015

Kroatz is right. There is no macro great over-arching FREE WILL. But you as an individual are free to make your own choices. So it's not FREE WILL but it is free-enough will. Freedom of choice within certain recognized and mutually agreed upon boundaries if you will.

And you know what is really cool? You put the post into HTML mode and it has spell check!
If there was total FREE WILL I wuld B free to spel aneething the way I want to. But there R certin agreed upon boundirees and 1 uv doze iz speling.

If you are familiar with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy it goes over a lot of this. You can always make the conscious choice NOT to do something no matter how much corporate pressure is placed upon you. You are still a free agent within certain agreed upon boundaries. And several of those are respect of others especially their ability to make their own decisions and realizing you cannot change anyone. They have the free-enough will to make their own choices and they have to want to change. So it may not be FREE WILL but it is freedom of choice within certain agreed upon boundaries. Also there are certain things you have no power over. The choice has been removed by external conditions so your freedom is limited. So again no macro FREE WILL but freedom to make your own choices within the situation you find yourself in. Face it the universe is random and really doesn't care a whole lot about you. Make the best of it. Make your own decisions because you are free to do so. But be aware of your limitations. Physics teaches us that nothing is impossible but certain things are so highly improbable and you can only do so much that they're just not going to happen. I will never be an NBA superstar or an Air Force pilot. But I was a half-way decent soldier and good tank instructor.

FREE WILL in the end is a moot question. Live your life as you wish within the boundaries the universe has set up for you and exercise your freedom to be a healthy and happy individual.
And unlike so many other philosophies CBT has been proven to work in clinical study after clinical study. Empirical evidence saying that a life path works! You can't get anything better than that. Put that in a collider and you'll get the Higgs boson and that explains everything! Yippee.

But of course you can choose to disagree and you are free to do so. You're still wrong but you are free to make wrong choices. (wink)