Flyingjj

Wrong. While it may not seem logical, everything is determined by a reaction of events. Even the most illogical thing is triggered by something, and based on the way your brain acts, you happen to make that choice. And the way your brain is is determined by genetics, which eventually, if you believe that, all leads back to adam and eve. You calling something wrong doesn't make it so, just like my calling something right doesn't make it so. A direct line of causation does not exist in either genetics or environment. There is more to it than that. At least, I believe it to be so, and I challenge you to prove me wrong. Don't go all burden-of-proof on me here, we're both arguing positive assertions that neither of us can really prove. Either way, what does free will have to do with God really? What we really seem to be arguing at the moment is whether everything is predetermined and is just playing itself out with no oppurtunity for change. If we want to follow that path, I'll bring up something that actually has support. Psychologists have tried finding the source of our so-called "free will" and have so far only produced evidence that it does not exist. What they have found is something called "free won't." The way it is described is that though our actions are determined before they reach the level of consciousness, there is a sort of executive control that can act to stop something from carrying through.

Those last couple lines provide my opening. This is going to sound like complete bull to all you steadfast logic people, but follow me for a second. You are considering everything that goes into a choice. Everything follows a logical process, one thing flows from one to another, this builds on that. This is entirely logical. But it does not account for those rare instances outside logic. Those rare impulses that happen completely contrary to what anyone would expect based on "logic." Not everything can be or is built upon logic.

But god made her. Everything about her. So, naturally, any choice she made could be lead back to how she was created. One, that's a rational argument for something not based entirely on reason. Two, it's not even a very good logical argument. There's no "naturally" here. I have a child. I raise that child. Said child disobeys me and does something wrong. Is it my fault? The Bible is sexist primarily because it was written by males primarily for males. On rare occasions original sin is blamed on the weakness of Eve(though in my opinion any argument to that effect is BS), but in most cases you here of Adam as the origin of original sin. We are all "children of Adam" and obtain original sin that way. And the Bible may not equalize men and women, but to my knowledge it says nothing about treating women poorly. They are, for the most part, ignored. Put that in your pipe and smoke it for a while, I'm sure nothing I just said will be taken seriously anyway.

We have 565. I win! Year 9? I'd say my class had 700+. Course, by the time graduation came around, we were down to ~450. No comment on my situation? Oh well, I guess that's what I get for saying I didn't want advice, but I might've been looking for a sympathetic ear.

Wait a minute... This thing was built by my father, and he didn't tell me? :twss:

The fact that anyone still allows this thread to live blows mine... I certainly could see it if I chose to believe it. I define atheism as a religion mainly because there exists agnosticism, which makes no claims on either side. You have a belief on one side of an issue, I have a belief on the other. As to the last three, they contain qualifiers for a reason. Okay, how about this: atheism is a religion because it has varying levels of beliefs (or disbeliefs, not that it makes a difference) or devotion. I can't believe we're even arguing this again. It's completely irrelevant whether or not you call atheism a religion.

That's precisely it. It's a position on spirituality. You've taken a side on the issue of spirituality, therefore, it's a religion. I would not, for example, call agnosticism a religion. Except there's no spirituality. It's all you people who believe in whatever that see it as "taking a side" or something to the like. We simply don't believe. Period. There's no God, there's no spirituality, there's nothing but science (to me, anyways). Do NOT group me in with religions. Atheism is NOT a religion. It's a LACK of belief. It all depends on whether you consider not believing something a belief in itself. Personally, I do. At TheTrueNoob, I can throw up my own definitions as to what religion and atheism mean, and we'll just have a difference in opinion on the definition of religion. In fact: re?li?gion noun 1. a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, esp. when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs. a?the?ism noun 1. the doctrine or belief that there is no God. 2. disbelief in the existence of a supreme being or beings. (Courtesy of Dictionary.com) Both based on the Random House Dictionary. Definitions, my friend, are key. I define religion differently than you. As to our side discussion, as I said, there is a subtle difference between potential and chance. Chance occurs through natural events and occurences. You have no control on the outcome. Potential, however, must be acted upon. Hence, the rapist is acting, and I have no reservations about acting to stop him from acting. And I do not consider whether something will be a person or not irrelevant. That's a dangerous path to follow if you do. If a someone will be a person in the future but isn't currently, it opens the door to what defines personhood. I could argue, for example, that since anyone under five cannot make a logical argument, they are not a person and I could therefore kill them without penalty because they have no right. I could branch off into the philosophy of human rights, but I'll contain myself.

That's precisely it. It's a position on spirituality. You've taken a side on the issue of spirituality, therefore, it's a religion. I would not, for example, call agnosticism a religion. edit- [bleep], I've been dragged back into this thread. Anyone want to take up my position so I can stop arguing it?

You know very well what I meant by that example. A rapist is not a chance for life, it's as you say a potential. There is a difference, if subtle. If a woman does not have an abortion, things will go naturally. In a rape situation, the rapist must act for something to happen. I could then interfere with my own action because an action is taking place by the will of someone else. And I just won't go into the debate about what defines a person, because your position is already clear, and me arguing with that solves nothing. Aside from all that, my point on topic still stands. People want the scripture to be the law of the land because they believe in it, not because God says so. Of course, that is a major factor for some people, and those are the people you call religious extremists. Every religion has them, even atheists.

I'm not going to drag myself back into this thread, but the only problem with that is that people aren't trying to drag religion into politics, they are trying to drag their beliefs into politics. Everyone does, even those who aren't religious. Those who are just happed to have different beliefs than those who do. Obviously, justifying by saying "God says so" isn't a good reason in real life, but, for example, I would argue that I am pro-life not because I am religious, but because I believe that a chance of life is worth more than 9 months of an individual's life.

You think a love triangle is bad, let me tell you... Not really asking for advice on this one, as it's far too complicated to explain everything that goes on between me and her, and I know what everyone would say, and that's tell her, but in her own words she thinks it best if someone is fairly sure they know how the other feels before they confront someone, so I'm taking a slow and steady approach. Anyway, here goes: So I have feelings for someone, and she's my close friend(not long term, but very close. I met her when I started college 7 months ago). So we've been having a big online discussion about love and dating, and it eventually led to her discussing her current situation with me. She was fairly sure that she could tell when someone liked her, but recently she found out that one of her friends had a crush on her that was so bad it was affecting his grades, and she had no idea. She doesn't return those feelings, and he decided that he needed to see her less so he could concentrate on school. On top of that, she told me that after having a nice, drama-free first semester, she now has three guys she thinks likes her, the obsessed one, one to whom she doesn't return feelings for, and a third to whom she does. It's a self-described "love-tripod." So, like I said, I have feelings for her, and I have no idea if she knows and I am one of the two remaining legs of her "love-tripod," or if I would turn the situation into a love cross, so to speak. As one would expect, I get all sorts of mixed signals to complicate the matter further, as I can't get a good read on her because it seems to change every couple of days. So, like I said, not really looking for advice, but you can offer it if you want, or just feel free to comment on my absurd situation.

If you really want, I can post a pic of my 32 from the ACT website. Not that that helps his case, but it does show that tip.iters at least CAN be smart. I'd post my 34, but that one isn't posted online. I think I took the last test before they started posting online and so only my second score is posted.

First off, a 32 isn't bad. In fact, it's quite great. Second, doing a bit of research, the University of Illinois at Chicago has a mean freshman ACT of just under 24, meaning that with a 32 you're pretty much guaranteed a spot with your record. I have no idea why you'd be worried. Third, you're taking the ACT a second time. Most people do better the second go around. Don't get too confident however, as that's not always true. I got a 34 my first time and a 32 my second time. Somehow, my science score dropped 6 points, as well as my English going down a couple too. My one point of Math gain wasn't going to save that. My problem was that I was taking my time too much the second go around. I took it easy, and it bit me. Watch yourself, and you can get your score up. Like you really need to though. EDIT: Taking a second look, you probably meant University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Still, you're looking pretty good. The middle 50% of the incoming freshman class had ACTs of 26-31, meaning you're likely in the top 25% of normal admitted students.

Wrong. Evolution is a fact and it has demonstrated how man evolved. Stop posting these ridiculous statements on a subject you quite clearly know nothing about. Really people? Quite clearly pureprayer is just posting to have fun with you guys and doesn't really believe any of the stuff he's been posting.

I had several dreams last night, but in the one I remember best I was a black superhero(I would generally be considered white in real life.). There was nothing particular about me being black, I didn't act differently or anything, I just was black. I think it might have something to do with that topic about racism and the conversations I've been having in real life about race not being important in my identity and how I view others. Anyway back to the dream... So I was a black superhero. And for once I realized I was in a dream. I also didn't know what my superpower was until later. But there was this villain and he shot these awesome looking energy shapes that were like fancy chain circle swirly things. I happened to find out what my superpower was because he told me about how he would stop me from using it in his evil plan speech that all villains are like required by law to make. Anyway, so my power was manipulation of gravity, its direction and magnitude. So, an epic battle ensues. He shoots his energy at me, and I manipulate gravity to send it back at him, and we play ping pong the cool looking energy thing for a while. Then one of my real life friends shows up who also has superpowers and we chat and everyone seems to just be having a ton of fun(like nothing was even serious, we were just fighting for the fun of it). And then I woke up. Yay superhero dreams!

I heard this story once, not one of those fabricated "stories" about what could happen, but an actual experience someone had. I can't remember who I was talking to, but they talked about working with homeless people and how sometimes it was difficult to not talk down to them. He once found himself talking to this person and explaining to this person some fairly basic concept, because he thought the person might not understand. The person just smiled at him and said, "Yes, I know that, I learned all about it at Yale." Turns out the person had a doctorate, and unforseen circumstances left him homeless, jobless, and pennyless. I don't, however, "feel bad" for hobos. Feeling bad doesn't do anything to solve the problem, or help anyone, unless you consider emotional support from someone any particular hobo would probably never meet helping. And to the original poster, I don't know where you get your ideas from, but the majority of "hobos" are not hobos because they use drugs.

Agility: 50 Not the best runner, but I've got great balance and decent climbing skills Attack: 65 When I attack, I tend to be accurate Strength: 75 I gotz teh mad skillz when I is angry. Defence: 83 Can't touch this. Construction: 35 Tell me what to do, and I do it Cooking: 65 Again, instructions are my friend, but I suppose I could whip something up from scratch if I had to. Crafting: 65 I've got me some sewing skills, and am quite good working with my hands. Farming: 25 I can grow stuff. Firemaking: 73 I'm a pyro. Fire is fun. Fishing: 75 I've fished since I was like 3. Literally. Fletching: 15 I could make a bow and arrows if I had to. Herblore: 5 Hunter: 85 I've hunted since I was like 6. And as everyone knows, hunter is easy to train. Magic: 45 I playz teh Magic Gathering Stoof. Mining: 10 I've panned for gold and been to various mines. Prayer: 90 I am extremely religious Ranged: 60 I'm quite a decent marksman. If this counts guns, I pwn, probably 93 Runecrafting: 3 I've had a magic rock collection before. Slayer: 36 I got 5th out of 10 in a game of assassins... Smithing: 14 I made a pretty mean plant hanger in 7th grade... Summoning: 2 o_0 Thieving: 82 I see every oppurtunity to steal people's stuff. I see stuff poking out of their pockets and am like "I could totally snag that without them noticing. I also notice and take not of all sorts of stuff about the security of the area I'm in(emergency exits, gaurd positions, security cameras, etc.) Woodcutting: 8

I don't understand how you can dream 3 things at once and absorb it all in. I dreamt that I was being attacked by a black panther in my front lawn. He shot out these "fairies" (dandelion seeds I think) and they exploded, it was kind of like a pokemon battle. I remember holding onto a cup of icecream and I had a lighter. I flicked on the lighter and it shot out chocolate sauce for the icecream (this was my attack). He's the one with the photographic memory, remember? But still, three dreams at once... that'd be like living three lives at the same time.

Or just Freudian. Means you're aggressive and sexual. Yep. :? (To be clear, cuz its teh internetz, I'm joking)

I don't have a dream to post right now, but I can guarantee that since I read this topic tonight that I will have one when I go to bed. Funny how that works for me. I'll mention to someone casually that I haven't had a good dream in a while, and BAM that night I have a really good dream. I'll edit in my dream tomorrow. EDIT: Yep, works everytime. I dreamed a very unexciting but detailed dream about me and a bunch of my college friends waiting to go somewhere, but we were all being herded about high school style in a hallway waiting. I was talking with the girl I like's mother, who was apparently a singer who sang at prisons and whose husband had died(neither of which are true.), and the girl, and we were talking about who she(the girl I like) likes, only she was talking about a person in another state whom my other friend is friend's with, and her mother ended up thinking she was talking about me. There was also a scene with a young boy trying to clean a mirror, but just making it more smeared. I have no idea what was up with that. Then there was a storyline that had to do with Twilight, you know the vampire book. I'm not sure what was going on there, but I think I was a female character and I was running around trying to stop the vampires from victimizing my family, who were their next door neighbors. There was something about an ice shaft, which Nathan Petrelli from heroes fell down... yea, a bunch of stuff.

The problem is less so that I need to know the metric system(which I do), and more so that I can't pull how much CO2 a truck produces driving 20000 miles off the top of my head. Plus, I was saying your source was unclear in that its language makes it difficult to distinguish whether it is talking about all cows producing that much methane in a day or a single cow producing that much methane.

No Child Left Behind a highlight of the Bush administration? You could say that, if you say everything else failed utterly, miserably and beyond repair. As a person who lived through all 8 of the Bush years as a student and child of a teacher, I must say that No Child Left Behind was one of the worst points of the Bush administration, and that might be saying something. What No Child Left Behind did was force teachers to waste time administering tests to every child in America, hold back academically gifted students, force children with learning and other disabilities to meet impossible standards, and fail to fund its own initiatives. Besides that, NCLB was founded upon a Texas study that was found to be inaccurate and faulty. Find me a teacher who thinks NCLB was a good idea, then we'll talk. And raven_gaurd, you're cow emissions source wasn't exactly clear, and didn't mention trucks at all. Want to know an actual waste of government money? Government money has actually been spent to study cow emissions.

Can I say it yet?

Let's see... You ignored the fact that he mentioned much more than carbon emissions in his argument about hybrid vehicles. Besides that, you're quoting a fact that uses all the cows in the world and compares it to about what 20 trucks can do in a day. How many trucks drive every day? More than 20, I assure you. Spending money stimulates the economy in that that money is then used to PAY the people. For a direct example, spending money on infrastructure pays the salaries of the workers who mine the raw materials, those who process them into useable products, and then those who work to put those products to work in, say, bridges. And the money is not coming from the pockets of taxpayers, at least not immediately. It's basically being pulled from nowhere(which I don't exactly approve of) and then being immediately spent. Sure, the money has to be paid back eventually, but the United States hasn't been debt free since, what, the Civil War? The money will be paid back, but it will be paid back when the economy is back in order by those who can afford it, not out of the pockets of the common man who is now struggling to pay bills. It really is just Congress drawing party lines, not Obama. The parties won't agree, simply because they don't want to. The Republicans won't agree with the Democrats not because of the bill itself, but because they don't want the Democratic party and Obama to just take over.

[hide=Rebdragon's post] Uh, Jesus CHRIST.. N-... no, I can't even bring myself to respond to that. Words wouldn't cut it. This is all I can say: Stop being a pansy who obsesses over one chick. There you go. If you get rejected, you know what? F**k her. She's missing out, her loss, not yours. Get over it. Get over her. [/hide] You know, Rebdragon, sometimes I can't help but just blink and smile at your posts sometimes. They are extremely blunt, but always with at least a hint of truth in them. Because of this, I'm taking a moment to pause and reevaluate my own current situation. I haven't been confined to the "friend zone," but wow, just wow... Hmm... As to this actual situation, don't play it out like Reb's nice little comic there, cause as blunt as it is, there is a heck of a lot of truth there. You have to take a chance you're given, and if it doesn't work, you have to move on. As to when you actually take that chance, that's up to you. As for this last bit, I agree with it all except the pansy bit(And I probably wouldn't have stated it as bluntly, but like I said, that's Reb's specialty.). I personally prefer being select in choosing who to date rather than going with the "plenty of fish in the sea" argument.