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Community > Posts By > intelligenceissexy
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Subjective relativity (eyes of the beholder) is not a mathmatically exact formula. I don't think we're ever going to get a mathematically exact formula for evolution. Lots of true things don't have mathematical formulae. For instance, if you feed a cow some grass, eventually it will poop. This is true, but there's no real way to express that mathematically. It's not a "law", but it's 100% true. You can describe every chemical and physical change as it occurs inside the cow mathematically, if you like, but that's not relevant to the central truth that if you feed a cow some grass, it will poop. It's not subjective either. We need something else to describe evolution, though, because if I hear one more Christian who knows nothing about it using the term "just a theory", Imma cut someone. How would you suggest dealing with that problem? |
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Topic:
The Love Of Ignorance
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The oracle told Socrates that he was the wisest man in Greece. He refused to accept that, and spent the rest of his life seeking out those who claimed to be experts in their field: priests, government officials, etc. Soon, he discovered that they knew nothing about their disciplines, at least nothing useful. But he kept going, asking sensitive questions and making important people feel awkward. Eventually he came to the conclusion that the reason the oracle said he was wise was because Socrates understood something that no one else did - that he knew nothing.
He developed something of a following, and he soon had a gang of young people cheering on his balloon-pricking question attacks. Eventually the local establishment got sick of his antics and set him up for blasphemy and corruption of the youth. He was sentenced to death by his own people shortly afterwards. He had ample opportunity to avoid his fate, but chose death willingly as a consequence of the life he chose to lead. Some of his followers set up institutions to honour his life and work, and they are still with us, in the form of universities. The Christians among you will notice some similarities. |
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Topic:
I'm not a fan of Obama
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but before you start slamming him too hard, conservatives need to read this: http://tinyurl.com/y9xpcuu
I imagine it's quite frustrating. Now imagine how frustrating it would be for people who aren't conservatives. The good news is that none of that counts as wild accusation or unreasonable gibberish or crazy talk - everything's sourced and everything's factual. |
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Topic:
Justin Bieber
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sorry.................ya asked 
Yes, but why HIM in particular? There are lots of people pushing crappy R&B / pop music that seems to be on a mission to find the exact dead centre of the middle of the road. There is all sorts of generic awfulness in the world. I drove to Hollywood yesterday and the only three songs being repeated on every goddamn station were that Katy Perry thing, the Eminem song with the girl singing about being on fire, and Like a G6. Is it because he's so young? He seems to be a nice enough young man. Is that the problem? Would it be better for him if he were an *******? |
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Topic:
Justin Bieber
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i don't listen to what i call "Band-Wagon Artists" and he's one of those Well I can understand not listening to his stuff. It's obviously rubbish. But I don't get HATING him. It's so much effort. |
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"Survival of our race"? Unlikely. The damage has already been huge and the "benefits" seem to focus completely on Monsanto's and a few others' profit margins. Spores have contaminated large areas of cropland from Canada to Mexico and Africa to India. Scientifically, monoculture is a really bad idea. The introduction of unknown proteins can produce allergic responses which may benefit mankind by greatly reducing it's numbers. I'm not talking about what individual corporations are doing. I'm not too impressed with Monsanto at all. I have no faith in corporations to ever do the right thing as long as they are motivated by short term profits. However, the basic idea behind GM crops could save our entire species, or at least avert all sorts of unpleasantness. Maybe, as with cars, we will happily accept a certain amount of collateral damage as long as it works out in the big picture. Cars, as you know, kill many, many people every year, but no one ever even thinks to say "Maybe we should not use cars," because we're prepared to accept that cost/benefit analysis. Or maybe you're right and it's just a stupid thing to even try and we're all doomed. Time will tell. |
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Topic:
Justin Bieber
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I listened to two of his songs for the first time last night. It sounds like middle-of-the-road R & B. It's not "good" music, but it's nothing worse than what bunches of other people are doing.
Why does everyone hate him? |
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AH! etc. DAN_CORDOVA, I have to be honest and say I didn't read all of that, as much for your sake as my own. I have no idea what you're talking about. You don't seem to have addressed anything I've said in your post, preferring to insult me personally. There's not really a lot I can do with that, is there? The original topic was about "science today", and that science is "the government-sponsored religion". The post I made was directly relevant to the topic. If you don't like my posts, well, fair enough, but there's not a lot I can do about that, either, is there? In other news, GM crops certainly do pose certain challenges, but they may also represent the survival of our race. It depends on how the cost/benefit analysis ends up. |
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i would try to offer my opinion to him that reality is subjective because it is ever changing, ever evolving due to the actions and choices of man. reality is what you make it. But this is someone who is so deeply convinced of his own words, that to correct him or argue with him just seems a moot point to me. And on that note i think i'll find another topic. have fun everyone! You're not convinced of your own words? Well, then I guess we can ignore everything you post! The preceding sentence was a facetious comment designed to make you think about the logical flaw in your reasoning, not to smack you down for being stupid. I'd prefer not to have to type a disclaimer after everything I type. It makes for really boring posts. I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything, DON_CORDOVA, I'm just sharing my opinions. Try not to be too sensitive about that. If you have something to say, just say it directly. I never know how to respond to the sort of passive-aggressive thing you just posted. I could be passive-aggressive in return, but that might lead to in infinite loop of increasingly petty and decreasingly intellectually valid comments. Or I could make a joke (done), or I could point out some obvious flaws in a direct way (also done). Let's see what happens next. |
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Topic:
Bad Dates
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Instead of just sitting around whining about them, I wrote fiction based on my experiences in screwing up with women.
Here is one: I used to work in the jewellery section of a department store in a mall - not for long, but I liked it, and I was good at it. One day, I saw the most perfect pair of breasts walk right up to me and ask me some question. They had a girl attached. She was called Fabiola and her parents were both Mexican - although she was very eager for me to understand that she was "full American". I wasn't really listening to her racial self-hatred, though. She had long flowing black hair which fell in gentle curls all around her. She was carrying a little extra weight, but in the right places. However, I couldn't redirect my attention away from that amazing chest. It wasn't that they were especially big; they just suited her perfectly. I don't think I could stop playing with them if I ever started. She wasn't afraid of them, either. They were thrown up in front of her for all to see, highlighted by a light, flowery summer dress. I became aware that I was staring, and the conversation drifted back into focus. I tried my usual save. "That's a nice dress." "Thank you." "Very summery." "Yeah. I've been waiting for the right time to wear it." "I guess today's my lucky day!" "...yeah. So can you help me?" I had no interest in helping her, but I managed to use the time I could have spent doing my job hitting on her. She made some comment to the effect that guys never hit on her, which I find highly unlikely, and we arranged a date. I wanted to impress her, and I got the impression that she was no stranger to money, so I picked what I judged to be an upmarket restaurant. I could tell it was upmarket because it was very dark and the menus weren't laminated. When she showed up, she looked amazing. She wore a short black dress with knee-high black leather boots. This is the way people dress in high-class porn movies. There is no way I was going to screw this up. It's hard to isolate a particular incident, but all through the meal, I got very unromantic vibes from her. Any light-hearted references to sex were brushed off, and she resisted all attempts to get into a romantic sort of conversation. She was also looking around her all the time, like I was a hassle to be with. Now, I may be a hassle to be with, but she seemed very keen to do this the last time we met, and I'm pretty sure there was no tectonic shift in my personality within those two days. After some reluctance, she finally told me this whole episode was a "crazy time in her life". Her previous boyfriend apparently dumped her from someone (referred to only as "that skanky *****") skinnier and blonder. So she entertained my advances to make herself feel better. As a normal man, I have no objections to being a hot chick's rebound fling. However, the previous night, her ex-boyfriend called her and told her he had made a big mistake with blondie, he now agreed that she was a "skanky *****", and he wanted Fabiola back, and so on. As he was the first guy she ever really loved, she was willing to give him another chance. However, having made the commitment to go out with me, and knowing how difficult it was for "nice guys like you" to ask girls out, she felt she had to honor it. We didn't order dessert. |
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Topic:
Books...too many
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I don't like seeing "too many" and "books" in the same sentence.
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Again, replacing the word "science" with the word "reality" in the above posts will illustrate the flaws in the arguments.
Our interpretation of reality is of course subjective. The actual reality itself is not. This is why we can say the the universe did not pop into existence 6,000 years ago. It's ridiculous even as an opinion, which is fine. The problem arises when beliefs like that are allowed to drive public policy that affect the rest of us (who live in reality). Science is the process of discovering how reality works. Religion is a a series of dogmatic myths designed to answer unanswerable questions, like "Why do bad things happen to good people?" and "What happens after I die?" |
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Unfortunately, many facts in science are debatable. Math and physics are more well defined than medicine but medicine is science too. The egg example is excellent. One day they are "proven" to be bad for you and the next day they are "proven" to be good for you. That's not "unfortunate", that's amazing! That's exactly the strength of science - that it can build and adapt to new information, the way religion simply can't. No one says that "eggs are proven" to be good or bad for you, but various studies come to various conclusions. Sometimes these conclusions are sensationalised by media outlets, or misunderstood by the public, but you can't blame science for that. Yes, the source of funding can influence findings, but the great thing about science is that any biased, incorrect findings will eventually be discovered and corrected. Science is how we find out about reality, and grow as human beings. You are typing on a computer. Right now, you are proving that science works, and is useful to you on a daily basis. |
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Yeah, but lets be honest, one persons reality is totally different from another persons. 
No, it's not. That's the point. Reality is not subjective. Science is not an opinion. Religion is an opinion. This is easy enough to demonstrate, but here's one example: creationists are all Christians. You will never meet a creationist who isn't a Christian. However, people from all different backgrounds and religions accept evolution as the most reasonable explanation for the origin of species. It's important to make the distinction between things that are opinions and things that are facts. To confuse the two is highly illiterate. Another example: Every so often, someone will do a year of philosophy in college and do some weed and come out with the most stupid things. For instance, you may hear someone suggest that all reality is subjective. Throw a rock at his head. Tell him to 'subjective' his way out of that. Suddenly, he accepts that gravity, mass, acceleration, etc. all exist outside his perception. |
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After many years of watching religious people confuse facts with opinions, I have hit upon a possible solution. The problem may be with the word 'science'. When someone talks about 'science', it's almost an abstract quality, like 'freedom' or 'values' or 'terrorism'. These are things people talk about all the time, but no one really understands what they mean, in the sense that they resist any attempts to define them. This means that religious people can say "science requires as much faith as religion" and it sounds like a sensible English sentence.
Instead, I propose we use the word 'reality' instead of 'science'. This will benefit us all in more ways than one. Firstly, it would save scientists having to explain to ignorant people what science is. If you had to boil it down to one word, that word would be 'reality'. A longer form might be 'the process of discovering how reality works', but even that might confuse some: better to keep it simple. Secondly, it would rob religious people of the ability to use sentences like the above, which now become "reality requires as much faith as religion", which, despite meaning EXACTLY the same thing, now makes no sense at all. Thirdly, it will help scientists (or any citizens) who are essentially atheists, but who feel like they can't quite let go due to misguided ideas about intellectual honesty. Albert Einstein was one of these. Who's with me? |
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Topic:
Are all athiests male?
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Every person who answered this thread is male. Let's see if any female atheists post.
There's not a lot I can do with TBear1970's wife (and what the hell are you doing on a dating site, married person!) or Abracadabra's sister (although...). I didn't want to start a whole thing about atheism and agnosticism, but if you want my opinion, I follow the Richard Dawkins logic - it seems odd to be agnostic about gods and not agnostic about other things that are obviously ******** but essentially undisprovable like unicorns or fairies. Thank you, massagetrade, for your helpful suggestion. |
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Topic:
Are all athiests male?
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I'm just flicking through a few topics here and it seems that all the posters are men. Have I just not clicked enough to qualify as a representative sample? Or do the male atheists on this site really outnumber the female athiests a bunch to one? Or is it that the female atheists on this site just don't feel like posting? Or is it something else?
Don't get me wrong, I don't believe in god as much as the next atheist, but this is a dating site. |
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Topic:
Capatilism versus socialism
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Hm.
Well, all righty then. Socialism: left-wing politics, high taxation, organised labor, free public services (such as healthcare and education). Ultimate expression: communism. Capitalism: right-wing politics, low taxation, privatised education and healthcare, active suppression of labor. Ultimate expression: fascism. Sometimes I wonder if the people arguing about these things know what these words mean. It seems odd, to me, that anyone would insist on having a strong opinion about something he doesn't understand. |
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Topic:
What do men want?
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good sex and no drama I think many women would want that, too. In my experience, people who specifically make a point to say they hate drama, create plenty of their own. Kind of like the way people who always complain that they're bored are generally boring people. |
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I was just being facetious, but yeah. I think if this zombie apocalypse ever actually happens, the farmers are going to be laughing at people like me.
"Here, buddy, translate this cabbage into Latin!" |
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