champion

Is AP Stats easy? I'm taking it next year because I'm terrible at Calculus.

I took it 2 years ago, before they changed how the multiple choice worked, and it wasn't that bad. They give you a lot of leniency in the FRQs, and they give you points for anything they possibly can. Like, even if you just wrote down a formula but used it incorrectly, they might give you points. Yeah I'm lucky that I'm taking AP tests now where there aren't guessing penalties. Sucks for one of my friends though, he didn't answer the last 20 multiple choice questions since he ran out of time. He thought there was a guessing penalty so he didn't just bubble in anything he could to get free points.

Aren't you a freshman in college?

If that gets analyzed any more it's just going to get more and more weird and confusing. In summary I'd say that if someone believes in God and follows a religion that helps others, then good for them, that should be encouraged. We can't prove there isn't a god so you may as well leave them alone so they can be good people. Extremism where society is harmed is a problem; that's more a problem of the individual not being able to separate right from wrong. Although the literal text of the Bible may say dumb things, religion as a whole should not be scrutinized for that; extremists who literally interpret the entire Bible are the minority anyhow. Religion can be good. All that said I still don't believe in God. I don't need religion, but some people very well may. I'd like to hear Russet answer that lol, pretty sure she's the only real fundamentalist here though.

Yes, that is my reasoning. Moot in the sense that God himself would be irrelevant from this issue? No not really. Christianity wouldn't really be anything without God. If you're talking about how you could still argue God's existence, yeah that's a whole other separate topic.

http://www.adherents.com/misc/adh_prison.html That's just the total number. There are obviously a lot more religious people in America than not. It should be no surprise that more end up in jail. Something accurate would be "number imprisoned per 10,000 of [belief]" @assume i'll reply in a minute

I'm not saying irreligion is harmful, I'm saying that a moderate religious life would probably be more beneficial to society than irreligion if that religion's core values include helping the less fortunate, supporting others, etc.

I'm confident in saying that the world would probably be a better place with a lot of moderate non-extremist religious people than a world where no one followed a religion. The problem isn't really with religion as a whole, it's with people who interpret it in a way that's overall going to be detrimental to society.

No, I wasn't vouching for the Church's ability to persuade its members to donate to the best charities. I was saying how one could be inspired by religious texts and a religious lifestyle to do better things. Don't you agree that that can be the case? That's all I'm saying. You're not even refuting that point, you're just slightly changing the argument every time.

That would be by the effort of the individual to find a good charity. If one were to follow Jesus' teachings well, like helping the poor and all that, one would strive to donate to the most efficient charity, regardless of who endorses it, right? I know my parents, for example, attend Catholic masses, but they donate to charities not specifically affiliated with the Church. And it's not like the Church actually forces you to help them/donate to their organizations.

Uh, a good charity that helps people efficiently.

I'll just make a very simple example. Say someone has been an atheist for years and years, but they decide to start attending mass. That person is then inspired by the teachings of Jesus in the Bible, and is motivated to do some volunteer work, or donate to charity. Could this person have learned that it's "good" to donate to charity without religion? Sure. But it might take that leap for someone to get involved in a moderately religious lifestyle before they start becoming a "good" person. There is an example of religion being a positive motivating factor in someone's life. I'm not saying anything about religion being more true because of this, I'm just saying that moderate religious belief isn't as harmful as you seem to think it is.

Because non-extremist belief in religion can be good. Doesn't have to really harm anyone.

Took the AP Chemistry exam today... hardest test I've probably ever taken in my life. But the curve is ridiculous so I still might pass.

This topic was a lot more interesting before it turned into a "are Christians worse people than atheists" thread.

welp nevermind then, do whatever the [bleep] you want unless it's really really dumb. everyone is stupid in middle school. part of the learning experience.

Normally my advice for something like this would be to do what makes you happy, and that you shouldn't care what other people think. But if you're repeatedly liking photos of girls that you don't talk to/know, well, your reputation wouldn't improve any. Considering your actions and second-guessing yourself aren't always bad things. But hey it's just Facebook, do whatever.

Generally if she likes you/thinks you're good looking she'll probably think it's nice that you liked her picture. If she doesn't know who you are or thinks you're a creep it's weird. It's also weird if it's a picture from an album titled "~Spring Break 2007!!~"

If you go by the logic of "but a God wouldn't be detected/understood/analyzed by scientists because of X," which I guess makes sense, things just get unnecessarily vague. Scientific analysis is, currently on the planet Earth, our best way to prove what is false and what is true and to discover new ideas.

I'd just like to add that no reasonable person actually believes this or argues this to be the case. But it sounds a lot more similar to your idea of God individually designing and creating things than evolution anyways.

I think you should be angrier with your ex-girlfriend than that guy, she didn't have to accept his advances. She could have told him to [bleep] off, that she was in a relationship. I understand it sucks and they're douchebags, but now you're just being obnoxious about it.

You're talking about fundementalists here, not normal christians. You can disprove fundamentals(regardless of which religion) so easily it's quite boring (Plus it doesn't achieve anything as they just ignore you). Besides, the bible never claimed the earth is 6000 years old. You arrive at that number by adding together all the years of the genealogy since Adam and Eve - While completely ignoring that the description of Genesis was never intended to be taken literally, not even at the time of writing. We even know when those passages were written, and why. Yet, it says that there was literally nothing no light, no land, no water. If we are to take it as it is written we would believe that Earth was 6000 years old and these fossils are weird fakes. Yes, if we take it literally. You are not supposed to though. It doesn't make any sense and you were never supposed to. Yet, if we do not take it literally we lose a lot of the power held with god. Without taking that he created the earth at the very least we have a figure of power who speaks to people without being there, does really cool magic tricks, and gives people the ability to heal... You can believe God created the universe without the literal Adam and Eve seven-day interpretation. It doesn't really make a God as a whole an invalid theory.

I'm curious whether you actually think that's a justifiable cost for that degree when you could most likely go to an in-state school and get the same degree for much less (assuming that that cost is out-of-state).

Somewhere between "I am unsure" and "There are no Gods/God," but I may as well go with the latter.

I guess I missed past posts, but I hope there's a decent reason for you acting like a dick to him.