FuBai

Lol good joke.

Spending your free time clicking on something over and over.. honorable... *cough. Can everyone please enlighten me as to how having a high skill total means one deserves respect? Seriously, the Runescape player mind is warped. For Christ's sake, we are congratulating a guy for sitting in his basement doing mindless tasks that take no skill, nor mental ability beyond the capacity of a 3 year old, and wasting his life away. I mean, I almost look down on higher skill levels :? . I'm sure some people have realistic drives for these levels other than addiction, but I still fail to see any aspect of having a high level that really deserves respect from others. Please, try and avoid the flames- I know it's tempting; heck, reading through that again I practically want to flame myself. I want an honest, truthful answer to this; my question(s) aren't rhetorical. Why do you respect people who have high levels? Is there anything beyond admiring patience there? some would argue that life is a pointless and repetetive enterprise, and that living and striving is not worthy of respect either, and, infact, that respect is a silly and meaningless concept. They would say the runescape is a microcosm of life, and that we do things to derive pleasure in this as much in anything else. Thus we admire the reckless persuit of some small pleasure such as a 99 skill. Note on the above. I've had the equivalent of 10 shots of vodka in the past hour, so I may not be coherent/happy.

self evidently some kind of forum catalogue or encylopedia. But I may be wrong. It has happened once before.

Deloriagod must end up being some kind of counsellor. Oy the Great...north korean labourer as part of the great communist machine...or just the next noam chompsky (hopefuly with less of the consipracy theories). Anasthesia...I gather he's already something to do with networking, although I'm sure he's destined for greater things...but I don't know what. I was surprised to find out he was working with computers. Caligula...member of either UKIP or the Conservatives, who gets backbenched for radical neo-con views. Or just the next star of "young grumpy old men". Issy...I don't know. Perhaps I writer. I wanted to be a writer when I was her age. I'd been interested to find out what people think I'm going to be as I have no idea anymore. I'm worried I'm going to hide in academia and end up as some poorley paid lecturer. That is something i want to avoid.

So says you. I think there is something inherently wrong with punching people in face for no reason other than wanting to. ok..let's play the "why game". You keep making statments and I keep saying why until you realise there is no inherent value without god.

Reading the bible will take you a bumper long time. Most christians haven't read the whole bible. I do old testament studies for a level and we don't need to know more than about 1/10th of it (infact, probably much less) I read it. You get alot better understanding for it when you read the whole thing. But I've also read the Koran, and it's up to you. Basically, Islam is pretty much a fundamentalist religion, whereas Christianity isn't really. Really? I found the bible ten times more abhorrent that the koran, and just as extreme. God is a complete [illegitimate child] in the Bible, the old testemant especialy, but some of the things Jesus says in the new testament are equaly scary. In the Koran you don't get as many specific stories of the length found in the bible, it's broken up into smaller blocks that don't follow the story from one part to the other. It's also shorter as a whole. I've read the Koran and the majority of the bible, even though you don't need to know it. It's easy to see why the Islamic nations refounded science and the intellectual persuits of the greeks and romans, whislt the christians just kept invading them. Most of the greek texts used in the middle ages were translated from greek into arabic then into latin. So I think that statment is totaly unfounded to be honest. At best they are both equal in thier extremeism. To avoid this becoming a religious debate, I rember when reading the Koran being far more able to accpet the key tenents than in the bible, but which ever religion you choose, to understand it you will have to study it, which takes an almost infinite time.

Reading the bible will take you a bumper long time. Most christians haven't read the whole bible. I do old testament studies for a level and we don't need to know more than about 1/10th of it (infact, probably much less)

Chose not to talk about religion for a while. It's a banned topic right now. Other than that I'd say post-theist or agnostic all the way. Keeps them slightly in suspense. If you have to choose between them (which you don't) then I'd probably say Muslim, for no other reason than I like the Koran better than the Bible, and I like arabic more than hebrew. On the negative side you don't get to drink or take any intoxicants.

What I asked for and a litte bit extra: Utopia by Thomas More Tramp in Flames by Paul Farley The Essential Nietzsche - Heinrich Mann Tyranosaurus rex veures the corduroy kid - simon armitage tractatus logic-philosophicus - wittgenstein 100 pounds cash Paul oakenfold - a livley mind iain ballamy - mirrormask ost muse - absolution some toiletries and choclates and 1kg of jelly bellies (they are damn near impossible to get in Britain. Happy happy happy)

Logic is a terrible thing.

while i admire you for spending your time formulating your agrument, i have to be honest and say i didnt catch 100% of it, kinda rushed it a little. i have an answer for your quote, though. Death and grief are intrinsically bad because we, biologically, want to avoid these things. Survival of the species and the like. So this would be the basis of morals (in my opinion) - if we do something which makes others feel bad (perform a morally wrong act) then they dont feel the fittest they can (according to thier emotions/consequent physical state) to mate and spread the species. In other words, what im tring to say is that morals are an evolutionary trait designed to furthur the efficency of reproduction and hence the hightened survival of the species. just my ideas... what do you think? Acording to your argument justification for moral value to be assigned to a situation is that it is a Darwinian evolutionary trait which impulses our actions? Thus if, due to darwinian inclinations, I saw that someone was a threat to me, and I had them killed in a way which would not result in any effects upon me other than beneficial ones, this can be moraly justified? Or are your talking in terms of a species? In species terms it is a Darwinian impulse to eat, as this keeps us at our fittest. Thus saying that a healthy, strong and intelegent man would be moraly wrong to give his food to a disabled person, thus making him weaker and perpetuating the life of a defected memeber of the species (acording to darwinism). Or our inclinations towards hatred and violence if we feel threatend can be justifed because it is for the benefit of the species that those weak members get weeded out, and only fitest may survive through the death of those too weak to do so without help? A form of social darwinism seems to be instated and justified. That's one apparent problem. On the other hand you havn't justified why it is moral to simply follow the inclination of the species. You simply said that it is benefical for the speices without demonstrating that something that is good for the speices must be moral. Another problem other people would have is that your justification is amoral, in that what you have said is that which is in our own interests, or the interests of the species is moraly justifiable simply because it is a primal urge. My primal urge may tell me to rape someone, but most people would say it is not moral to do so. I do not follow this line of reasonsing as it suposes that justifcation for morality need be moral in itself, and that it assumes morality as the basis of morality. However, prima facie, your argument may seem a good one to some people.

When we talk about morality, we talk about acts being inherently wrong, or acts being intrinsicaly better than others. This I will attempt to disprove. There is no reason to say anything is of inherent value if it is not assigned to be of inherent value by a superior being. How else may something attain inherent value? If I say something is of value, that value is not inherent but in relation to me. If I did not exist to assign that value, then it would cease to have that value. Not only is it relative to my existance, but it is relative to someone else who may dissagree with me. I may assign moral value to an act - murder for instance being assigned a negative moral value, how ever such a thing may be measured, yet someone else may equaly assign murder no value whatsoever. Where does my ability to say, no my value is the correct one, stem from? I would contend that it does not exist at all. Others would say that society has shared values, and the values held by the majority of the people must be the correct ones. This is a false assumption. If 10 people say I'm naked, but I say i'm not because I can see that i'm wearing clothes, is it true that I am infact naked, simply because they beleive me to be, and there are more of them than me? On what basis, therefore, do I say that murder is intrinsicaly wrong? Well I would look at the consequences, and say, these are not beneficial. But here I have already exposed two flaws. Firstly I assume it is possible to have a situation which is inherently moraly detrimental - that of grief and death in this instance, and secondly I have shifted the moral focus onto the consequences rather than the act. Thus the act is without inherent value, but consequential only. This being so, the value is relative to the consequenses, rather than intrinsic in the act itself. Perhaps the first flaw needs more examining. Well, you say, of course the situation of death and grief is not beneficial. Why is this? I would ask. Where does your assignment of value come from? Why are death and grief intrinsicaly bad? Utilitarians would argue that they promote pain, which is, for some utilitarians, inherently bad. But then I must ask, why is it inherently bad? Here we are stumped, and can go no further than "because it is unplesant". We haven't justfied pain having an inherent moral value, we have simply demonstrated one of its characteristics. We can keep redressing down other lines, to situations like the destruction of the human race - is this inherently bad? Why is it inherently bad? The only answer one can give is "because God says so and, being a superior being He knows more than can be derived from human logic alone" other than "There is no inherent moral value in that situation occuring". Morality is a myth without God. The second flaw of the aforementioned consequence analysis seems self explanatory. But some make attack it saying that if something has relative value then this means that the objects that form this relationship derive inherent value from being linked to the relationship. Let us say, in the previous example, the simplified relationship is between murder and grief. The value of murder is in relation to the grief. Without the murder this specific grief would not occur. So we say that the murder must have some moral value derived from this bond. This is a falacy. The value still lies in the bond itself. Because this requires us to assume that grief is of inherent moral value in itself, we have denied that value lies only in the relationship, which forms a paradox in the argument. It seems that finaly this second flaw is mereley a different expression of the first flaw, because we have once again assumed inherent value in the grief. So how do we justify inherent values of good and evil without God? We cannot. As a final note, the argument is not with a religious basis, it isn't and argument about God, it is an argument without God. If He doesn't exist, and I don't beleive that he does, then this argument is the logical one. If you wish to respond to this argument, please avoid turning it into anything to do with religion. I am not discusiong religion but the logic of morality. I do not want to contravene the new regulation, and nor do I want anyone else to (even if you disagree with me :))

If god does not exist, neither do morals. I do not beleive in god, and I do not beleive in intrinsic morality either.

smithing and agility.

live in Britain been to: malaysia Prague Berlin Wales Scotland America Australia italy Tunisia France (britany) and I'm planning to go to china for 6 months next year. I've been learning mandarin for the last 2 years.

I've asked my self a few times, because it seems pointless. But life is pointless so I don't see the contraqdiction anymore.

I said I wouldn't so I won't. BUT YOU DONT NEED MUCH HELP THERE DO YOU?

You're a backwards thinker that doesn't like change, perhaps if you diluted your thoughts with more logic you'd see things from my point of view. Then again your ignorance is the worst thing about you. clearly it's backwards to think that teenagers who are pregnant shouldn't be executed or abandoned by society. Neo-con's were 10-20 years ago. You're so far behind the times you don't know it. 100 years ago you would be slightly forward thinking. You might even vote Whigg. Now your not represented by any other parties than historical re-enactment groups. I don't like change? Obviously I'm frightened of change, which is why I always argue for the legalisation of all drugs, public transport and private enterprise, why I don't think that criminals should be executed or deported, why I don't think the way to stop teenage pregnancies is to kill thier children. Clearly I'm the one stuck in a 1960's rut. Even if I was, I could at least look back with nostalgia at a time when people like you were still debating wether or not property owners should have the vote. My ignorance is clearly the best thing about me. I know how massivley Ignorant I am. What I don't know fills several rather large libraries, and a good few computer bases at least. The more I find out, the more I realise how horribly ignorant I am. This leads, well I hope it does, to a certain degree of self-awareness. And finaly, by the way, I have often been critised for being too logical about things when I debate. I'm the secretary of the debating society at my school, in case you were wondering. If you are going to invent and live by a principle it must function reductio ad absurdum. I'm intrigued by what you think is illogical anout my posts and ideas. Because, for sure, you are no paragon of logic yourself. However, lets not turn this into a flame war. Saying that is rather like saying "your a fat ugly git...no offence meant of course", so you're gunna have your dig back at me, probably. Feel free to. I'm not going to respond as I don't want to perpetuate a flame war, but you should probably have the chance to try and attack me back. Only, after you've done that, poor and innacurate as it will be, lets leave it there or take it outside. By that I mean onto PM.

Elephant_man. I haven't actualy seen him in ages. I tend to agree with anasthesia also, with some minor disagreements. Insane makes some good points too. My personal views will never rally much support as I tend to take principles to thier logical extreems as a form of testing them. I have to say that people who I almost always disagree with are: Zubdeedoo Raichase Those two I hate almost pathologicaly. If I knew where they lived, they wouldn't live there any more. Well, perhaps not that strongly. They are probably nice people out side of these forums. But in the rants forum...there is something so terribly arrogant and hateful about them. Other than that I persistantly seem to disagree with deloria. She makes good points sometimes, but I tend to diverge in principal from her. And finaly caligula...I didn't know it was possible to transform the daily mail into one single person, but with caligula they managed it. I seem to have spent a lot of time attacking other people, which is unfair as they just have different views than I do, which is no reason to hate someone. If I really couldn't stand them, I wouldn't be posting here, so It's not that bad i suppose

Would you mind providing me with these "pro's"? It gives you a hit It relaxes you It doesn't make you incapable of doing good work/driving after having one, unlike alcohol. If you come into my school smelling of [bleep]s the teachers just look at you in a disaproving way, if you come into school smelling of weed/alcohol etc you get suspended. There are others, but these are the main ones. You must remember that these may not seem particularly good reasons to you. How good reasons they are is not under question - it is that there are reasons and I freeley made a choice based upon them. Feel free to choose the other way. It's your right to do so. Even if it was only one appalingly bad reason ("I like fish, and fish remind me of cigarettes" or something similar), then I could say "yep, that's good enough for me. I'll take a risk, neigh a certainty of ill effects to portray to the world my undying love of fish". And everyone would say "what a wierd guy. It takes all sorts." But the choice is there, and I had all the information at my fingertips. Few can help having at least a reasonably extensive knowledge of the ill effects of smoking, there is an unbeleivable amount of anti-smoking advertising out there. (This is, in fact, slightly odd on the behalf of the government, seeing as smokers are almost national benefactors. They pay billions and billions in taxes purley on thier cigarettes, and when they die early, the NHS has avoided having to pay for geriatric care etc which far outstrips the cost of a smoker dieing from a coronary or lung cancer at 60.) I welcome the fact that it's out there too. How can you make a free choice if you don't know the facts? So yes, I do beleive there are some benefits to smoking. You can disagree. You can tell me God exists and i'll tell you that your fooling yourself. You can tell me potatoes are pronounced pot-ahh-t-ahhs, and I'll guffauh knowingly. If anything I have less reason to beleive that potatoes are pronounced pot-ate-oes rather than pot-ahh-t-ahhs than I do to smoke a jumbo spliff every day. But that doesn't matter, because I made a free choice.

6'6" here

It seems sad and slightly amusing that so many people seem to hate smokers intriniscaly, complaining about the effects they have on others etc. But, there are quite a few non-smoking venues, there are non-smoking areas, in public and up and down the street you can walk for quite a way without seeing anyone actualy smoking. I only smoke when I drink or when i'm stressed. This means that I smoke about 3-5 a week, but all on the same night. Some of my friends smoke, some of them don't. If they don't want me to smoke, I don't. If I want to smoke I don't hang out with the people that don't. All it takes is a bit of consideration on behalf of the smoker and your problems are sorted out. As for lung cancer etc...I knew all the risks, I knew almost everything that it can do to you. My grandmother died of it, I have done loads of biology projects demonstrating how bad it can be, I have seen people who are addicted who shake until they can get thier fix, and the first thing they do in the morning is have a smoke. I've seen all this, I know all this. I had no, absolutley no peer pressure on me to start. if anything I had pressure against it. I made a free choice to do it. I exercised my free will to do it (in commonly accepted terms, as a side issue I have come to the view that free will is not extant). I made a free and, as much as possible, unbaised choice. Get used to the idea that I am able to do that, and say "hey I don't give a damn what it does to me. I want to do it, I like the hit, it relaxes me. I have made a choice based on all the options available to me. It is my right to make such a choice. I weighed up the pro's and con's and just because I didn't choose the path you wanted me to, doesn't mean I didn't listen to you. I just didn't agree with you, much like I can disagree with you about anything - the exitsance of god etc. So please, I'm not going to smoke in your face if you don't want me to, I'm not going to force you to get second hand smoke. If you want me to stop in your presence, I will, if you ask me. I don't see your problem. So get lost!"

Thats the worrying part... Not really. I never smoke anything harder than (the plant which contains THC that is legal in Holland). I know the health risks and I am able to decide that i want to smoke it or not. I would personaly legalise all drugs for many many reasons which I don't have the time to enumerate and argue properly.

when i go out to drink I smoke. Usualy tobacco.