Assume Nothing

... for something completely different: "pornography [of women] is anti-women." I could write entire essays on this; it's empowering when it's a choice, and to deny people the choice is, ironically, 'anti-women'.

Did I post this recently? I think I might've forgotten it. Nostalgia.

Banned for implying a sensual kiss.

Banned for the use of fridge-logic. EDIT: that's an interesting concept. What does vocabulary-men do? 'I shall attack you with verbosity!', correct?

It (to be a composition class) is not actually a requirement for the use of an occasional complex term. If it's in an article, I'd say it's fine - as long as it's used in a relevant, meaningful context. If we take the term 'mitigating', for example, it's not overly complex and it delivers a message in a more concise manner. It's nice to have a repository of words to use, especially if it expresses a more complex idea in a single term. I'm not speaking in defense of using what's effectively synonyms to more basic terms, but I'd say they do have merit in the relevant situation.

It depends on the objective of writing. If it's an argument, i.e. the purpose is to persuade a reader to accept/decline a position, then you've got a fair point. If it's an English assignment based on relevant use of course related terminology, I wouldn't say it's bad at all.

Banned for being such a naughty tease.

>taking it out of context. I mean fully veiled masks. It's worn when necessary, and not worn when not - could you provide an example of when burqas are necessary for anything other than religious justification *(i.e. unsound justification)?

It's a nice assumption, but you might be hyper-generalizing here. It may deliver a point better, but perhaps it's poorly used because of the nature of the audience. I know I've been personally criticized for this, which we've had a long dispute about on this very thread, but I don't see any point in getting frustrated over it. If it's superfluous, sure - but if it's simply a more complex word to express more thoughts once or twice, then what's the need with being upset over it?

It violates other people's rights to good health, and arguably right to security. It doesn't matter if it's religious or not, a full faced veil is still considered threatening regardless of its origins. I can't see why 'but they want to' would be a good reason, if you applied the same principle towards say, a mask. It's purpose may be different, but its effects are the same. As for the comments about irreligion: irreligion is a term that's indifferent to religion, anti-religion is actively opposed to religion. It can't be pinned towards irreligion if it provides no motivation for anti-religious sentiments anyway.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say, but that analogy isn't even close to what I was saying.

I don't think she'll become bisexual from this - it's simply appreciation of the female form. I don't see anything wrong with pornography in the first place.

If that was your point, you could have referenced the recent Torchwood episodes on 'Miracle day' and the potential implications of population booms.

Burqa bans are examples of what? The refusal to tolerate religious imposition of sharia's law? Religion flatly denies people rights, it doesn't give them more.

You can't base your predictions on a science fiction series. I don't think we have any idea of what might happen if we do bioengineer our bodies, but a reasonable prediction would be that there's some rather unsavory effects that old-age could have. We could only speculate, and it's pretty difficult if we don't even know what this wonderpill does.

I hate the 'suicide bombers are radicals' cop-out. They are/were religiously motivated to commit deeds of evil, and they act as though their deity existed - they're a believer, regardless of whether they're radicals. A good way to sum it up would be the Steven Weinburg's attributed quote: "Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion." ... as for the question posed, I'd say that's an interesting point to explore, actually. I'd say a good example of non-prevention of death could be as vague as 'generally taking more risks', like not wearing a seat belt when driving (it's not a thought-out example, feel free to pick out the flaws in that).

I'm not entirely sure how the logistics of it would work, but I'm thinking something to the effect of not preventing death (we choose to not-die every day, subconsciously).

It's been argued ad-nauseum on these threads already, and it's quite established that a lot of OTers have no interest in believing in God unless they were raised a Christian. I am curious to ask though - do religious people really believe in a literal heaven, or do they just really hope there is? If it's infinitely better than this world, I don't see why they shouldn't send themselves towards salvation pretty soon. One of the things I hate about religion is the additional baggage it contains, like the idea that you shouldn't like atheists, or how you should vote for certain political parties, or even... determining which hand to wipe one's buttocks. It's the additional baggage that makes religious belief dangerous, because by accepting the god-hypothesis as true, you're also susceptible to poor decision-making too.

Is it just me, or do you really not see what you're doing? ... that's proof of what, exactly? Try explaining, it helps. Mutually exclusive. Agnostics are as far from atheists as they are from theists. You're desperate attempt to group the two together is pathetic. It's like being given three choices: yes, no, i don't know. You're equally arguing no and i don't know to be not mutually exclusive. It's [bleep]ing hilarious. He's not a dictionary, nice appeal though - it's a quote that refers to gnostic atheism, please refine your understanding of these terms before trying to argue with me. It'll save us both time and effort that could be more productively spent. For your information, calling an argument pathetic doesn't make it pathetic - showing it is, does. I'd like to ask, what have you shown except for your lack of understanding for the terms we use in religious debate? If we accept your definition, we must abandon its association with everything we refer to as 'agnostic atheism', and therefore making it a moot argument since a majority of atheists aren't gnostic at all. It's why we must accept the definition I've used consistently throughout this thread, but it's apparently in your interest to argue against that for some odd reason. If you can't pull out a dictionary and show me you're right, then we can disregard your argument (see hitchen's razor). [hide=Here's another gnosticism definition since you seem so keen on proving me wrong]gnosticism Religious and philosophical movement from about the 1st century BCE through the 3rd century CE. Its name derives from the Greek word gnosis, "knowledge" because it claimed secret knowledge that ensured salvation. The documents found at Nag Hammadi are of great importance for the study of gnosticism.[/hide] EDIT - rewrote the entire post.

Banned for using pills. There's duct tape for a reason.

Banned for projecting internal truths as external ones.

Banned for making such an irresistible offer ;D

Banned because I didn't know that it's considered a desirable trait to be someone who acts crazy.

Banned for failing to interpret my post colloquially.

By no means does a limit on human intelligence show that there's an all-loving, all-powerful, all-knowing, creator deity who loves and expects reciprocity of said love from humans - it would be fallacious to argue this. Nor does the 'miraculous power of belief' prove the existence of a deity either, as it's too ambiguous to distinguish chance from a miracle. If we were to take the god-hypothesis as a scientifically verifiable claim, then it would require proof such as the healing of amputees, or statistical improvements of those who pray to deities. I don't think you can call yourself a theist unless you actually believe in the existence of a deity of any kind, and if the 'Universe' is what you're calling a god, then why not just call it the Universe? EDIT - I should clarify, champion. We should no longer tolerate religious intolerance from the religious, as their intolerance entails destructiveness towards our societal health. It would be equivocating to say the same about being intolerant of the religious.