fastortoise

This was fun. Can't wait to see what you come up with after reading all this garbage : [hide=] Forum Username: Fastortoise Age: 19 State (US only, do not give a city): NA Nation (do not give a city): Canada, QC Educational level: -If at a university/college, what level and what is your major/minor course of study? I'm one semester away from completing a Natural Science college course. I will be majoring in Biology at university in winter. 1. Have you ever attended a worship of any religion? -by choice? Yes -What kind of worship? Midnight Mass on X-mas eve mostly -Did you regularly attend this worship, by choice or parental guidance? Not since I was around 10, when my grandmother stopped visiting and forcing us to go. 2. Do you consider yourself religious? No -Please explain in two or three sentences. The most time I've spent in a church was 1 hour, and everything related to religion bores the death out of me. Whenever a family member wants to engage me in a religion talk I cringe, and I don't preach to any superior being. I made it clear to myself that I would detach myself from religion ever since I was little, since to me, it is just another way for controlling masses. 3. Is there a god, gods, or a supreme deity? No -Did said god, gods, or supreme being create the Universe, according to your belief? Even though physicists annoy me, I have come to terms with the Big Bang theory. 4. Is there an afterlife? No, just nothingness. 5. How do you believe that existence came about? (in a nutshell) Abiogenesis, RNA/DNA creating life by coding for proteins/cell members ect ect. We are essentially machines built by our genes that provide them with protection and continuous propagation and interaction with other genes (or gene machines) and the environment. 6. Have you ever attended a worship of any religion that you do not consider yourself a part of? -What? : Since I do not consider myself a Christian anymore, I guess church sorta counts. -Your thoughts on the experience : I always feel detached from worships. I don't feel anything other than complete awe over how much time and resources people waste on preaching a god. 7. What are your thoughts on non Judeo-Christian Western religions? Remember that religion is a broad term so please be specific. All religions are the same in my books, so I will answer questions 7-13 here. Although they have different beliefs, practices, ethic codes, lifestyles, ect., they are all fundamentally the same. As I said before, I decided not to get lost in the details that separate one religion from the other because, fundamentally, I think the idea is bogus. The fact that so many religions control how so many different cultures live is against my moral code - that of which every individual should have their own set of morals and ethic codes. 14. What are your thoughts on atheism, the belief that there is no supreme being(s)? Please remember that there are degrees to this belief, and that not all share the same thoughts. It's the proper way of thinking. I mean, you can't explain the complexity of life by believing in an even more complex deity that created it all. There may be different degrees in Atheism but to me, all that matters is not believing in a deity, whether or not you sympathize or 'understand' religion. Some are atheist but still associate themselves with certain religions because they can draw parallels with them - I'd rather completely dissociate myself with any belief of a deity. 15. What are your thoughts on agnosticism, the belief that a supreme being(s) exists, but the individual chooses not to worship it/them (or if one is unsure if a supreme being exists, but does not outright deny its existence)? Many people choose not to have an opinion about politics or economic standpoints, but even more people do not want to have an opinion about religion because it is considered sacred in our society - and that is a bit spineless. (unsure) agnostics are just atheists that do not want to offend faithfuls. Agnostics that believe in a higher being but do not worship them just need a little education on the matter. 16. Have you ever publicly chastised someone who believes in a religion/school of thought different than yours? No -elaborate : I like when people like me. I'm not going to start annoying them by imposing my beliefs on them. Although I'm one of those people who'd like to see religion eradicated from our planet, I understand how I'd lose many friends if I started lecturing them about my beliefs. -what group were they? what group were you? NA 17. If you belong to a religion or non-religion, please identify. Atheism -Did you consciously choose to follow this belief? Yes -Did you belong to another belief, by choice or force, before following this belief? Christianity or more precisely, Anglican (by force) -Did you personally research (as in personally in the first person) options before coming to this belief? Atheism? Yes. 18. Is intelligence (not IQ, but actual intelligence) correlated to one's belief in a religion or non-religion? Keep in mind that intelligence can not be measured by any science, this is simply your judgment call. Not really - it's more about how people are raised. If I was homeschooled by my parents with many visits from my grandmother, I would probably believe in god. However, my parents raised me with the option of choosing a faith, strongly imposing open-mindedness, so now I'm atheist. I would have been just as intelligent in either case. 19. Does religion, in your observation, do good in the world? Please cite specific groups or denominations. No. It's a complete waste of time and resources, and is used as a scapegoat by pretty much every powerful person in the world. It COULD be used for good, but mostly it's abused by powerful people who understand how society works. If people built hospitals or schools instead of cathedrals, our world would be a better place. 20. Does non-religion, in your observation, do good in the world? Please cite specific groups or denominations. No. Sadly, religion is something held up high by society and is considered sacred by the majority. People preaching non-religion are just pissing off religious folk, which is equally just a waste of time. The really important advancements in the world had nothing to do with religion. 21. Does religion, in your observation, do bad in the world? Please cite specific groups or denominations. Religion itself - no. People controlling masses with a religious vector - yes. 22. Does non-religion, in your observation, do bad in the world? Please cite specific groups or denominations. Other than a few groans, no. 23. Please list your experience with sexual education, including but not limited to: lectures by parents, schools, religion, or non-education. Please do not list your sexual experiences. I had a sex-ed course back in high school, but the only information I retained from it was the traumatizing video about people with STDs (with plenty of pictures and puss). My father and I never really had 'the talk' because when he finally decided to come around to it, I knew everything that needed to be known from first hand experience. I faintly recall a religious person holding a seminar back in high school telling us to save ourselves for marriage (or was that my English teacher?). It was laughable. 24. Have you engaged in sexual intercourse of any kind? Please do not list your sexual experiences. A yes or no will suffice. Yes 25. What, in your opinion, defines "love?" A fun word that has the potential to mess things up really badly. 26. Have you ever been in, or are now in, a relationship? A few fun flings here and there, never anything serious. I wish I could find somebody I can be serious with. -Is sex involved? Was, yes. 27. Are you single/committed relationship/married? Single, but the future is looking bright! 28. What, in your opinion, is sex's place in a relationship (or lack of relationship)? It's what proves both individuals have complete trust in each other in order to completely let go of all their inhibitions. It keeps relationships alive, not because of the pleasure (it's a definite bonus) but because it is the final step in complete connectedness between both partners. You don't have to be religious to put sex up on a pedestal - it's pretty much all I live for, and I'm far from religious. My friend has sex with his girlfriend to pass the time - I don't think I'd want to live anymore if that was my case. 29. Have you ever partaken in an illicit substance (excluding alcohol or marijuana)? -if so, what? LSD, acid and mushrooms -Have you ever lost control of your actions while under the influence of an illicit substance? Yes, acid is not fun. Seriously. 30. Have you ever partaken in marijuana? -Do you habitually use this substance? No, but it's very tempting to smoke up occasionally. I do these things socially. -Have you ever been "stoned?" Out of my freaking mind, yes. -Have you ever lost control of your actions while under the influence of marijuana? No, I control my actions, they're just more stupid than average. 31. Have you ever partaken in the consumption of alcohol? Yes -Do you drink socially or alone? Or both? socially, never alone. -Have you ever been drunk? Last night actually. -Have you ever lost control of your actions while under the influence of alcohol? No, I enjoy being in control come to think of it. Whenever I feel myself losing it I just sit down with my sitting friends and come up with crackpot theories that are always appreciated. 32. Have you ever regretted a sexual encounter? Hahahah yes, I'm just glad I can laugh about it now. Everyone's first time is always regretted, though. 33. Have you ever regretted using an illicit substance? (excluding hangovers) No, they may not have all had fun consenquences, but they were memorable experiences nonetheless. 34. Have you ever regretted using alcohol? (excluding hangovers) I manage to stay out of trouble when drinking, so nothing is ever regretted. I'm a nice drunk, I don't let my tongue loose either. 35. Have you ever given serious thought (longer than 30 minutes in a year) to the existence of a supreme being(s)? Definitely. [/hide]

Wow thanks for all the nice replies everyone (and i'm glad the M didn't turn out to be floppy :lol: ). I think Pirate Felix has saved my life by suggesting I should spell Music instead of MUSIC, which will definitely cut this project time atleast in half. At first I assumed this topic would die before I completed the poster, but now I think I could get this thing done pretty quickly now that I have motivation : . As for aesthetics... I never really considered any since I started this, I'll see what I can do when it's done. Maybe I could add some music symbols or instruments here and there... you guys suggest something :)

The Saw movies pretty much cover every worst way of dying I believe. Drowning in a tub of slowly accumulating pig guts would be the very worst in my books.

Today my friends invited me to the pub, but the Drinking thread convinced me I've been drinking too much lately so I turned them down. 'Obviously this was a bad move' I thought to myself at 8PM alone on a Friday night. Out of sheer boredom, I started up my huge poster project again (as seen in The Gallery) and I've been working on it for 7 hours straight. My [wagon] and back hurt, my eyes are watering and my ears are ringing from my loud music, but I am so impressed by this giant M I created that I feel like crying. Tomorrow night I'm going to a house party, so my social life won't be too damaged from tonight :

I have recently gone insane, which led me to create this poster project. The plan is to spell the word MUSIC using tiny band names from my music library and from my friends' libraries as well. I started this thing in September, gave up, and started again just last week. Tell me what you think of it - try being a bit positive or else i'm dumping this thing the recycling bin so it can stop consuming so much of my time. I've only managed to spell M, but over time it will eventually spell MUSIC, which will then be printed as posters for my friends and I. The strange image size is just a precaution - if I saw somebody steal this thing from me I would trip balls so hard I'd explode. ^^ Pretty much all these bands are my personal favourites. Notice how I tried to match each band name with an appropriate font (that's the time-consuming part). The band names that will make up USIC will mostly be random.

People have a very stupid obsession with children that share their bloodline. That's a tad unhealthy. If someone can't have kids, then they can adopt. We actually need more infertile people who can fulfil this role, not less. If you're going to point fingers, why not frown at those who are giving up kids for adoption in the first place? If people would stop being irresponsible and giving up their children, honest couples who want a child (just like all our parents) can have a baby without being scowled at for picking up some of societies' slack. There's a lot the human body can do that still baffles scientists even today. Saying "NATURE DID IT FIRST!" is pretty crazy. For example, our 'heart cells' are important in research because we know they duplicate and replace old heart cells just like any other cell in our body, except it does so very slowly (about half are renewed in our lifetime). So if researchers found a way to speed up this process without creating some form of cardiovascular cancer, we could cure all cardiovascular known diseases. I'd call that a breakthrough even though we already know it happens.

The idea of no longer needing men is flawed. Sure, we wouldn't need to be around to impregnate women and continue producing humans.. science can do that now. However, if you base the entire future generation of humans on a single male parent, there will be serious consenquences. Even if we select the most perfect male human to supply his stem cells, the next generation would all have the same DNA, nobody would survive even the simplest environmental change which would wipe out the entire human species. Scientists obviously will never do this, since they have foresight. What bothers me is that we don't really need this technology. We have developed methods of injecting sperm cells directly into a female egg - men can be incompetantly infertile and they can still safely have children. This new study will help men that don't produce sperm (which I'm not even sure exists) have babies. I don't want to sound pessimistic, but it probably doesn't even work, and if it does, the rate of success will be less than 5%. So even though this technology will probably never be used with us humans, I suspect we still gained some knowledge about stem cells, which is always a good thing.

Us atheists will just carry out the plan Richard Dawkins forwarded us.

They're pretty sweet for spring/fall [hide=][/hide]

Scare videos fixed me straight. Looking at pictures with people that have all sorts of STDs convinced me that condoms were a Godsend. I don't recall ever having a real sex-talk with a teacher or my parents, the closest thing I came to talking about sex with my father was him asking me if I knew how to do things properly, and that Trojan Ultra-Thins feel like you're wearing nothing at all. Best advice ever.

Are you talking about an interplanetary "indians vs. Americans" war? Improbable hypothetical situations are always possible, but that's kind of ridiculous. And unless they planned on inhabiting our planet, which their physiology would probably not allow, our planet is no more exploitable than Venus. People don't necessarily want extraterrestrial life to exist, but it is the job of science to figure out whether or not it does or would. You were supposed to make a deeper allusion to Columbus' discovery. Let me elaborate: back in the 15th century, the Old World believed they were the unique inhabitants of Earth. After years of exploring uncharted waters, he discovers a new society on another continent. He brings in Western Europeans and pretty much steamrolls his culture over the new-found continent. But what if the Americans, who were less technologically advanced than the Europeans, were infact those with superior weapons? Perhaps they simply accepted that they were alone on the planet and gave up looking for other humans, even though they had the means to discover Europe. In that case, Columbus' visit would have completely reversed consequences, where the Americans take over Europe. So, according to history, sending out signals every which way into space is suicidal. Even if they didn't need our planet for resources or enlightening conversations, history also taught us that xenophobia is a common irrational excuse to wipe out cultures, or in our case the planet.

Since the Universe is so big, even if there were more lifeforms on other planets out there, these 'islands of life' in the Universe would be SO far apart that they will never be able to know each other exist and share the same Universe. Also, as you said, the time frame for radio emitters and receivers are so infinitesimal that even if they did establish contact by chance, that intelligent race would be wiped out soon after. Furthermore, I don't understand why people hope or want extraterrestrial life to exist/co-exist with us. Take the decimations of American Indian and Australian Aboriginal cultures when a technologically superior 'species' decided they were unfit, for example. Aliens would see our planet as exploitable, and we'd be goners in no-time. Also, I'm pretty sure the Fermi story is as follows: Him and three of his co-workers go out for lunch, and when they are all seated, Fermi asks: "Where is everybody?" when clearly everyone invited were sitting right there with him. What makes the anecdote interesting is that all his physicist friends knew exactly what he meant, and the theory went on to become well renowned.

21 is too old, and the government hardly punishes people who drink and drive.. I don't see the logic in cracking down on underage drinking (which is harmless) and cutting slack for those who drink and drive, which is really the only important menace caused by drinking. There is no point in causing an uproar because I said underage drinking is harmless. Unless you've done it yourself, you probably wouldn't understand my point of view in the first place and secondly, most of you actually believe everything adults say.

Picture #2 is just brown bread.. not the crust of the end of a white loaf. I save my ends to make (toasted) garlic bread with spaghetti :thumbup:

The horseflies on my grandmother's farm bite chunks out of me, it's really disgusting. Ever since I learned the potential threat behind sun burns and skin cancer, I made sure I wore sunscreen when I knew I'd be outside all day. 2/4 of my uncles have skin cancer, so I'm definitely prone to it. The only downside to healthy skin is that I cannot peel off layers of it and toss them at my friends anymore :cry:

Since my commute involves public busses, I can't drag my bike around town. That's why I skate : To add to the conversation: why do so many city kids have bikes with around 2-3 shock absorbers? There's no point to having them unless you're going on a mud trail or something, and I know they never leave the city with their bikes.

Same here! Woohoo for shedding another layer of ignorance \ Who cares, it's canada. \ Eh, I think America's Hat wants to have a word with you :lol: Yes. There's a reason why the US is on the bottom

And before you thought that they were not awesome, because ? There's a pretty lush history on why English and French Canadians despise each other, but it's too boring. The point is, our lives are so awesome compared to any other country's lifestyle that we needed to worsen it up in order for people in other countries not to get jealous - so we started this prejudice. Of course we are all exactly the same, which I came to realize very early in my life since I live in Montreal, where you have both English and French people. On Canada day we set aside our pretend prejudices and band together in amazing hockey teams, which is what I'm going off to do right now. HAPPY CANADA DAY!!

Quit it with the Canada-bashing, we are a large and powerful nation and everybody loves our hockey :lol: Living in the French province of Canada, Quebec, our celebrations are pretty low-key compared to our parties for "Quebec Day" (La St-Jean). We're still planning on playing street hockey all morning and drinking Labatt Blue or Moosehead all day, because that's what everyone else in the world expects us to do. And I won't let you guys down.

I was going to make a long post on the differences between humans and the other primates, since I'm currently reading a thick book about it, but then I realized it had absolutely nothing to do with the topic. As for the idea of consciousness being preserved even after death - meh. I stand behind the view that we are just machines built by our genes in order to replicate, and that everything we are hardwired to do is coded in our genes. Obviously as humans, our actions are more influenced on our culture, but you can still imagine the most basic lifeform as a capsule of protected genes deep inside your body attached to miles of webs in order to communicate (through our bodies) with other genes. The brain and consciousness are just other ways for genes to efficiently interact with their environment and survive/replicate. Whenever our body is useless (cannot replicate and is draining resources from brothers/sisters, who share 50% of the genes in our body), we die and everything shuts down forever, no more consciousness.

You're an abomination to our species. I take off my socks whenever possible, and I'm known to walk around in flip-flops all summer long. :arrow: i LOVE flip-flops

Beds, conversations, contentment.

I keep my Internet and 'real' lives apart, so I don't mind shifting my morals around when downloading movies or doing other bad things on the internet. However, I never troll since I believe it's always painfully obvious to spot out a troll and ignore him, while the troll himself thinks he's fooling everyone and lols all over the place like a moron.

I've been landscaping all morning and afternoon... now i'm just taking a break, having some icecream to cool me off. Physical exercise feels so good, but when it's this hot, I just feel like killing myself.

Next time they call, answer in a panic. Pretend you're either being held hostage inside your house or that it's on fire, and that you can't call 911 from where you are. Scream & hang up. If you're lucky the police will come knocking at your door. Act outraged and blame it on the veterans who do not stop harselling you and ask them if you can press charges against them for wasting the cops time.