Barihawk

I'm not a fan of the editor's comments. Jagex is not Blizzard, and they have the right to do whatever they wish in their game. We may not always agree with it, but we have two choices. Stay and adapt, or quit. I'm not saying you don't have a point, but the article really makes you sound self-righteous and "holier than Jagex." Especially with that summoning bit. Yeah, that's funny for the summoner, but do you have any idea how frustrating and annoying that would be to the summonee? You would be costing them time, effort, and money just for a few laughs. Which is an egotistical and self-centered view. I give a thumbs up to the original article, thumbs down to the editor this time around.

It's also a time period when the Muslims were establishing the first ever Universities in the West. Not just for religious work, but for science as well. And anyone could go to them. And I am sure that science still isn't advanced enough to contradict "almost everything" in either book.

I'd actually go as far to say that the leaders of Radical Islam like Bin Laden are extremely intelligent. He knows exactly what buttons to push to lead a psychological war.

No, we don't. Texas for one has the best public education system in the Union. And on average southerners score higher on tests such as the SAT and ACT tests. Uhm, the southern states are the most religious, what does that have to do with SAT or ACT scores? And I highly doubt Texas has the best public education, though when you live in Oklahoma you get a skewed view of any thing Texan. (for example we had a new student that came from Texas she said that AP classes and concurrent enrollment were not offered at her high school[though of course thats just one high school]) I live in the buckle of the bible belt, and there are quite a few crazies here. I really hate it when they come to your door and ask to come to there church... -.- He was implying with the "we all know the stereotypes of the South" that Southerners have a reputation for being stupid. Which is untrue, as many Southern states have very high testing scores across the board. So I was saying that we are both very religious and intelligent on average. As for your student, she might have gone to some school out in the middle of nowhere. Most 3A and up schools in Texas (approximately 85% of them) offer AP programs, and 4A/5A schools are required to have IB programs as well, along with concurrent enrollment in community colleges. And as for your "crazies" I've generally found that when someone offering religious reading comes door to door, it's often polite to say "I'm sorry, I am not interested." They usually get the point and leave. Unless they are the Mormon Bike Squad in which case you may have to be a little more terse.

Really? The ones here just hand out little bulletins for the Church that are essentially invitations.

Lubbock can be considered the capital of the Bible Belt and I've never heard of people doing that. Aside from handing out pamphlets once a week at the Universities (one church does it, too), there's not like old preachers standing on boxes on streetcorners shouting "YOU ARE GOING TO HELL!" I don't see how someone who doesn't want to hear about religion can't hear them here. It's a very secular community, with churches as a backbone. Most of the major cities in the Belt are that way, too. As for Hickville, USA in the middle of the random nowhere, you might find attitudes like that. But then again you should expect that in most small towns.

The bible belt.. oh god. In this thread I would defend religion naturally, In any other thread however. I would attack religion in the bible belt. too much faith can be a bad thing. Especially if misguided. Sad isnt it? Err, what's wrong in the Bible Belt? People believe the same things as anywhere in the nation, there's just more conservative worship. And since most of these communities are founded by people active in the church, there are old blue laws that aren't even enforced anymore. I've been living in the Bible Belt for five years now and I don't see people having "too much faith" with the exception of a few neo-contemporary Baptists who act a little silly in church. Emphasis on "in church" because while in church they may have their hands high in the air singing terrible music (I hate praise and worship, I grew up with hymns), outside of church they are just going back to their daily lives and not caring (with exceptions, of course). And that's just one church. The Catholics and Methodists and Southern Baptists here are tame and just normal Christians. It's not like we go on Sunday witch hunts or go protest outside of strip clubs or something. There's an alarming trend in these threads of making blanket statements, and it's coming from both sides of the table. Please stop. Saying that you are more intelligent then someone and then making blanket statements about a large group based solely on their religion is not...very intelligent.

No, we don't. Texas for one has the best public education system in the Union. And on average southerners score higher on tests such as the SAT and ACT tests. Good luck with that. If it was that simple then Christianity or any other religion would not exist. I have faith, it's just not blind. I've done a lot of research into my beliefs. It's not just something I blindly accept, it's something I believe. And I have firsthand accounts from people who were there. Whoo. Why'd you direct this at me, Goddess? I show no disrespect to those who have beliefs. I only show it to those who try to push theirs on others.

You act like an omnipotent God can not make a bush talk? And the cannibalism had a point. You obviously have only read a few sentences of the Old Testament, without putting any thought into it's meaning or context. I personally have read through the Bible three times now, two of those for study. Just because you do not respect someone else's philosopy does not give you the right to disrespect it. I would hardly call it blind faith. I've done both, heaven forbid! As a certain band put it, "faith without works is like a screen door on a submarine."

Which part of the bible tells us the bible is a metaphor, because I'm pretty sure if god exists he'd want us to take it literally like it was written Or perhaps he'd want us to put it into context. You know, like you don't do. The Bible is easy to understand if you can put it into the context of it's times (which constantly changes from book to book). In fact, understanding the Bible requires a lot of thought, question, and research. Something someone without intelligence could not accomplish.

You could hardly call it research with what he is drawing from. He is noted by the scientific community for ignoring the scientific method in several of his statements. I personally just think he's an attention hound.

No offense but that makes you sound like the bigotist idiot. While there are a few naive posts some of the more intelligent posts trying to disprove the theory actually support the theory lol There's also a lot of disfact and stereotyping. Praise to the people attempting to be smart. Bain to the ones trying to be dumb.

Hooray for blanket satements. Radioactive waste is harmful. Nice ovservation there; way to take something completely out of context. You know I'm starting to think you don't really know what you're talking about. You cite no sources but your own personal knowledge, and you just make outlandish accusations that have already been proven false by tested research. You're correct, it isn't harmful. AT ALL. ...Are you just an idiot? What do you think the sarcastic smiley face is for. Unless you think that it is indeed not harmful, in which I ask that you have a nice tall glass of radioactive waste. I was thinking the same thing.

The amount of raw disfact and stereotyping in this thread seems to suggest the professor's results otherwise. It's one random man making a stupid claim. Religion, race, sex, whatever is NO indicator of intelligence. To claim that it is makes you sound like a bigotist idiot. Period. And to the statement that religion excludes science, you are mistaken. End of story. Name me ONE mainstream religion in the present day that denies science. You probably can't, because they would be out worshipping trees or something. This very elitist attitude I am getting sick of.

See I don't mind debating with you whatsoever, it's just the people that really have not done any research or have not been educated formally on this topic at all that REALLY anger me. So I apologize if I seem caustic at times. I posted the Wikipedia article earlier, and in it had a type of radioative waste that they dumped. Now this was very low-grade radioactive material; the type that normally comes from an average size nuclear power plant. This type of waste is not harmful even when exposed (such as your barrel exploding reference) to the water table. The amounts of hazardous material in this "radioactive waste" is actually very small. Check out the article if you haven't already. I do mind arguing against you, because it's one sided. Here's the wiki article on radioactive waste: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_waste Yeah, it's not harmful. :roll:

Range, you are as educated in the subject as one of my students would be, absorbing any source. They bury those barrels in special bunkers, which are not very special as much as they are a concrete hole in the ground. Of course they don't dispose of waste near the factories, they take it out into the middle of nowhere. While people don't live near the waste, water tables do, and they spread the poison. Sure, no incident has happened yet, but government reports have shown pictures of these bunkers where heat and pressure have blown the lids off of containers while others have melted from the toxicity of their contents. The threat is very real. And I am against launching this material in space, because we can not guarantee it's safety up there, either.

Both cholera and dysentary give you the same expectation of death on the toilet.

It seeps through the barrels (which is a given), through the concrete, and gets into the water tables.

... So you are saying that first we should just build better materials in order to do the same thing, burying it in the ground en masse. And second, who cares about a little radiation poisoning? If I remember my estimates from high school science, one pound of plutonium would be enough to kill every human on earth from raw exposure. Also, radiation loves to stick to living tissue in animals and plants. Sure, humans might not get much exposure, but what about the wildlife we give that water to that drinks it daily and accumulates that radiation in time to be served as a juicy steak. Or the plants we water that end up in our salads? Your reasoning in this entire thread has been entirely self-centered on American humans, with no thoughts to other dimensions of thinking or to those who do not live like we do. Love Canal shut down because of a few microbes got into the soil. The poison that is in those barrels (of which the danger is much worse than radiation) would make Love Canal look like the Love Boat.

You are smart, because you are a person. A person is smart. People, on the other hand, are paranoid idiots.

Or we are worried about the nuclear waste, which IS a problem. To which the only current solution is to bury it. Claiming that your opinion is right and everyone else is wrong is nothing short of blind arrogance. Yes, we get that the actual process is safe. But the aftereffect is deady. The reactors in America alone produce 20,000+ barrels of toxic waste that will be a danger for 25,000 years. Not to mention places like France which have more reactors. What the hell do you plan to do with this waste when we have hundreds of reactors in the United States? The world? What will the 3rd World nations who don't have the money to use neutralization technology (that has not even been invented) do with their waste?

That is the point, three mile island was a well designed reactor with a containment building that was adequately designed, unlike Chernobyl. A meltdown there did occurred and yet no radioactive or otherwise dangerous materials leaked into the environment. Despite scaring some people, the only damage that happened because of the three mile island incident was within the reactor core. A correctly engineered reactor is very, very safe. And also puts out the most toxic waste on the planet. With NO systems in place to destroy it. It's one thing that Carbon Monoxide dissipates in the atmosphere and gets filtered by the planet. It's another to bury millions of barrels from a handful of plants (keyword handful) in some concrete bunker and expect it to be someone else's problem (kind of sounds like Global Warming arguments, no?) As for safety, you are trusting the lives of hundreds of thousands of people on some concrete.

It's actually called the Wormwood Forest, but is commonly called the Red Forest. The thing is, it doesn't exist anymore. There is no Red Forest. When the Soviets noticed that the trees were growing red (hence the name) at night, they chopped down the trees, mulched them and buried them. It's basically an open field right now. But you are right, it is the most radioactive place on Earth. Humans will die within three minutes of standing there. Going anywhere in Pripyat without a Geiger counter is suicide. And there are no "mutated" wildlife. The 3-headed goats all died within days, the only game you are going to find are normal deer and horses. Albeit they will be unsafe to eat because they eat radioactive grass. If you want amazing pictures of Cherynobl and Pripyat, go to http://www.kiddofspeed.com/ Elena has done many pictures and videos of the Pripyat of today. It's stunning to see how even our great civilization can break down and be overrun by nature in just twenty years.

For those saying it's safe, 3 Mile Island was a "safe" facility with excellent design and competent employees. Not to mention the waste that nuclear reactors put out. Wind Power is the future. West Texas is almost nearing 50% power from generators and they are absolutely gorgeous to look at. Convenience is what got us into the coal situation in the first place.

I prefer late 80's childrens cartoons like "The Real Ghostbusters" and "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles." Both amazing. As for mid-90's, anything by Stephen Spielburg which would have been Animaniacs, Freakazoid (so freaking hilarious watching it today), Pinky and the Brain, and other WB shows like Batman.