BlueLancer

Welcome to reality.. :lol: I went to a business college, not quite the prestige level of UCA/Berkeley, and even people aged 18-22 were acting like immature preteens and brats all the time. I have nothing against humor or having fun while in school (or even cool pranks), but some of the stuff they did was plain dumb. Like starting paper airplane fights during a lecture, or playing obnoxious, loud-sound flash games in computer classes, coming to class drunk, concentrating on mobile phone texting rather than learning... Yeah, those are the "men" and "women" that will work in companies and be 'managers' of something.

Yeah, that's the one I linked to. Not quite 130 years but very close.

Don't think that's quite true... It is, I kindly provided you a link, or if you don't trust the sources listed there, search her name by yourself. She is the oldest documented person to have ever lived on Earth and she was a smoker all her life, only quitting at age 117 (merely 5 years before her death) Mythological characters, such as chinese emperors 2800 B.C. claimed to have lived for 300+ years, or some of the biblical characters claimed to live for 900+ years, or some characters in the hinduist Treta Yuga claimed to have lived for 10,000+ years.. Don't count.

Just before someone complains "Great, now tip.it is advising mercenary as a career option :roll:", these are merely suggestions. :lol: The world also needs other kinds of people than engineers, programmers, athletes, customer support and salesmen..

The Bible was written by 40 different authors over multiple centuries, naturally it will have some variations and/or contradictions by translation and other issues. But as a whole, the Bible has stayed very largely intact from the original documents and scrolls, as you said. There are so many copies and old documents, it would be very easy to spot a forgery or fake which has been edited for political agendas, etc. What got accepted in the bible as Canon and what got discarded, though, was the decision of bishops, kings, priests, and different councils, not God or Jesus. For example like darkmage said, the Council of Nicaea (if you are not familiar, click link for details) was the first council to effectively gather all representatives of christendom and decide what's "holy" and what's not, what viewpoints are right and which are correct, 325 years after Jesus' death. In that sense, it can't be fully said the Bible is inspired by God (even if a God supposedly exists). Bishops and cardinals were often corrupt or rich people who bought their political power with silver and gold, not because they were "inspired by God". Those people, however, got to decide which viewpoints and scrolls should be included and which ones excluded as not being Canon.

Many games are already realizing that, and moving towards that direction. Runescape, too, has long passed the stage where it was just a game where you kill a monster, repeat, and eat a fish, ad infinitum.. But it's pretty hard to develop a level-based MMORPG with no repetition whatsoever. It would take huge financial investments to have a team ready to develop new maps, quests, and tasks for every level and skill, (and add fresh content every few weeks) rather than taking the easy way and slapping a few demons here and there to kill for strength, cook a fish 600,000 times to achieve level 99 cooking etc. Because after all, companies are in it for the money, not the enjoyable gameplay their business presents.

True, while tip.it doesn't allow drug discussion... We already have 1 thread open about a certain lethal plant which is smoked just as 'pot', so mentioning that term barely warrants a report. Nothing wrong with reporting, actually you should report anything questionable. But asking to lock a topic due to the word 'pot'.. :(

Even though smoking does cause 400,000 deaths every year in the US [source]), you're right that 'every worst case scenario' definitely doesn't happen to everyone. The 'propaganda' isn't unreasonable though, it's true. But... Look at Jeanne Calment. She smoked all her life, and only quit her habit at 117 years old. She is the oldest person ever to live. I don't smoke, and never have, but smoking alone isn't a cause of death. If you have horrible life habits, eat unhealthy food, have no physical hobbies like swimming, jogging, football/soccer etc... It just contributes to an early death, or a cancer (though, admittedly, cigarettes are nearly the sole cause of lung cancer in society). Difficult issue personally.. Because 2 of my close relatives died because of cigarette-caused cancer, one at age 36, one at 40, my uncle and my aunt. But I know dozens of smokers personally, a couple even related to my family age 70+ who smoke and they're totally healthy, whatnot with the coughs :P Did you start smoking due to peer pressure, or did you just want to experiment? Just wondering. :) My father, for example, only smokes when his friends smoke... Doesn't seem addicted though.

Smart of her to say that too. She wouldn't want to instigate those fanatics to hunt her down and kill her. Well, she seemed pretty genuine in her opinions (to me). Besides, nearly all of the muslim community has condemned the Sudanese actions. Even some quite radical web forums said it gives a bad name to Islam, because she really asked the children to vote a name for the teddy-bear. Watching Al-jazeera, didn't seem like they are calling for her further punishment. Reading the Sudan tribune and comments from muslims and ordinary Sudanese people, doesn't seem like they want to "hunt her down".

I'll just take it as you don't have the capacity to read earlier posts. I was replying to wildernessfreelancer, not you, who said "7 billion people believing in a God can't be wrong". Not only the fact that there aren't even 7 billion people in the world, not even nearly "all" people in the world believe in a God. Christianity is a monotheistic religion. Christians don't believe in "gods". Hindus are polytheistic: "The belief in and worship of multiple gods or deities." If you are "non-religious", you don't follow any fixed religion, but you can believe in a God/Gods. It doesn't mean "theists have the same belief as christians". A theist could be anyone from a person believing in a single God, to a person believing in a thousand Gods. Furthermore, I'm sure you'll be disappointed to hear your christian websites and forum sources are wrong. Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world and is expected to gain more followers than any other religion. Sure, it wont be the biggest religion in a decade, but by the current growth rates, in 2200 Islam has most likely surpassed Christianity in popularity: Not that popularity has anything to do with how credible a religion is though.. I'm just playing "your" game now, with the statistics of adherents and followers per religion... :lol: (Since you and wildernessfreelancer apparently think that the more people believe in any given story, the more true it becomes)

Probably Wii because it also caters to even kids who can barely read. I just can't see that many parents buying 1st graders a 360 or PS3 which cost double the price, when a Wii has easier usability plus has games exclusively for 'all audiences' (like the default Wii Sports). Not flaming on any console, just thinking rationally which console will sell the most during christmas sales season.

Taking your entire post in consideration, your likes & dislikes, and your qualifications... You seem like an ideal rebel commander to bring justice to a country like Sudan where innocent people's villages get raped, murdered, looted, etc... And you'd get a sense of achievement. :) Alternatively, a travel guide. You get to not stay in 1 place, you get to move, you get to use your voice, you can gain recognition, etc.

Well.. Not really. In todays world everything is possible, even if the mall bombing a few years ago and the latest school shooting in Finland were done by depressed teenagers.. It just shows there are people even out there, with nothing to live for. They will give their lives to kill others in a massive scale.

Even though this clearly wasn't an act of terrorism, this should clearly demonstrate that even an accident can poison large water supplies, let alone intentional planting of dangerous chemicals into the pipelines and main water feed. The US is pretty lucky this hasn't happened yet, nearly every human in the US uses tap water in one way or another (if not for drinking, at least for cooking/washing dishes/showering etc)... And there are quite a lot of motives for some people in the world to contaminate americans...

There are more non-religious/atheist folks then there are people in the world? :wall: :wall: :wall: No wonder I can't debate with you, you don't even try to understand the facts I present. How can you have this intellectually "elitist" attitude if you can't even find meanings in neutral expressions? Any reasonable person would see I didn't mean the world has "7 billion atheists".. Or do I need to add emphasis on every second word? I thought I clearly typed, "16% of the world's population has no religion", the "7 billion" figure being the indefinite amount of people who all don't believe in a single God. The 1 billion hindus, though, aren't going to all convert to christianity or islam. Most of those people will live their lives with their "learned" religion (which they got from their parents), just as you'll most likely be a christian. Yeah, there are also muslims converting to christianity. In America there are many christians converting to islam as well. Take a look at this man or this woman (Angela Collins). Or the few million christians every year who convert to islam. (Click links for video, those people are totally ordinary white american people with families and jobs, last link is from CNN) That still doesn't mean most people are willing to change their faith. The hindus believe in multiple divine Gods, and I'm still waiting for wildernessfreelancer's opinion on that.

Tell that on national TV to the 1 billion hindus (about 1/6th of the world's population) who do believe so. Also, according to your logic, so many people can't just believe in a human creation, therefore it must be true. Let me remind what you said a few pages earlier: (If you don't believe me, search it yourself, I'd especially like you to read this 3rd quote by you) Ok, besides the fact that 7 billion people don't believe in God (click link to see the number of adherents per each religion) and the fact 16% of the world's population has no religion whatsoever... Your opinions don't really match. By your logic, the 1 billion+ hindus are right in believing there are many gods, because that many people can't just be stupid enough to believe in creatures made up by the human minds. Thus, the gods they believe in are real. But, also by your logic, the 1 billion+ muslims who believe there is only ONE god and a divine messenger called Muhammad, are also right, because that many people surely couldn't just believe in a creation of human mind. Which one is wrong and which one is right then?

That's a good and practical idea. :) But sadly, most of the people working on farms that provide the goods to BK aren't landowners. They're hired by the farmer, and they can take home any extra vegetables they want (within reasonable quantity) for personal consumption... The land it's farmed on, stays with his/her employer though.

First, I'd like to finally say this: What's wrong with news topics if it's something significant? :? It's not like we're full of fresh topics on OT... World events can be discussed just like any other subject. Just because it's "news", doesn't automatically make it not worth discussing. I'm surprised the politicians don't see (or don't want to see) the correlation... Nearly every single person doing this stuff has been extremely depressed, and without exception, on heavy anti-depressant drugs. Something is seriously wrong with either psychological healthcare, or the side-effects of those drugs. Remember the video diaries of "SturmGeist89"? (Google that username if you don't) About how he complained his anti-depressants just make him more angry and violent? Guess what happened a few days later...

Do you think that Fred Phelps should teach his kids his idea of morality? Mate, if you had a dad like that, you'd be brainwashed by the time you could even walk. School, moral lessons or not wouldn't teach you any differently. ... Is there something that man doesn't hate? :lol:

You can't blame all the early civilizations for worshipping the Sun as a god though. Life can be sustained in many forms.. But without the sun's light, nothing would exist or live for long. And the Sun has been around for quite a few billion years now, before modern humans, let alone religion existed. Seems like an interesting theory, because the sun indeed is a life-giver on Earth.

Thought all the other styles are trash... But BlackSoul is actually a very professional and neat-looking style :shock:

What I find even further sad, is the fact this person is exceptionally compassionate and forgiving. She said she doesn't hold any grudges against the country, and still loves it's people (despite 3,000 of them openly demanding her execution by shooting in the capital city Khartoum last week). Heck, this woman isn't possibly even a christian, or muslim, but she has a better understanding of human value and the meaning of forgiving errors, than a "council" of old men claiming to represent an entire religion in their country.

Not really, but as you know, it's just stupid if the staff closed/deleted every single post and thread with the slightest 'misconduct' according to the rules. A lot of minor stuff can be overlooked. A 'debate' is only flaming if the people in it get offensive and start throwing insults, not because some person reports the post. A post isn't "old" just because it was bumped from 5 days ago. We're all here for fun and to have something interesting to read, not because we enjoy spending time in forum-naziland where a missing punctuation mark gets you a 2 week ban and five lashes. :) It's very important users are allowed to be themselves and post without dumb fears of being punished (geez, it's only a forum we're talking about here anyways..)

You're a scientologist? Cool! :mrgreen: Really, I overlooked a few reports (actually quite a few) towards you (less) and wildernessfreelancer (more) for making spammy posts instead of contributing to the debate. Everyone should have a right to say their stance when a thing like religion is discussed. But comments like that don't really make it seem like you care about other people's views much, other than trying to flame them. (Not that there's anything wrong with scientology though, just a religion amongst others, except a bit newer)

Upon staff investigation, it was found best for the common good to have Bubsa banned. He was proven to be a Chinese nuclear spy 'Wu Xiao' instead of his cover, a friendly, British charity fundraiser with interest in video games (nice try with the story though :lol: ) But since a lot of people are really interested in the causes, feel free to browse some of his posts before his ban. That could shed some light on it. While being a great person, sadly he broke the rules a bit too much to be overlooked. You wont find the more serious stuff because it has been deleted from public sight