I’m pretty sick of the religious/non-religious stuff here and overall.
What happened to personal beliefs? Key word being “personal?”
I really wish we could find a way to discuss differences in cultures without it getting debased into silly, over the top discussions.
[QUOTE=Shodan]
Oh yeah?
Well, Clinton was impeached for a blow job, so that refutes you right there.
[/QUOTE]
Oh, come on. You know better than that.
He was impeached because he lied under oath. Perjury is a felony, and indictment was exactly the correct thing to do. And if the Senate had shown some honor and integrity by voting on the law instead of playing politics, he would have been removed from office.
[QUOTE=Sarahfeena]
I am a believer in God, and I don’t buy into that idea, either. Around here, it seems to be mainly used by some religious people to refute the claim atheists make that religion is irrational. To me, it makes believers seem defensive and willing to make very weak arguments in order to justify their belief.
[/QUOTE]
When we atheists overthrow the government and install our true leader, Lucifer, as dictator for life, you will be remembered as one who spoke on our behalf.
We’ll still need to burn your Bible, of course. No hard feelings.
That’s not an atheist, that’s a Satanist. C’mon.
[QUOTE=Mangetout]
Needless, knee-jerk skepticism gets me down sometimes. You know - those threads where someone asks “is there such a thing as an albino crow?” and someone answers “It’s certainly possible - because I’ve seen one in my garden quite often - in fact, i just looked out the window and it’s on my lawn right now”, then someone else has to whine about anecdotes not being data, or screech “Cite!?”.
[/QUOTE]
Well, it might have been a crow that someone captured, painted white and released for a joke. 
There are many areas in which “knee-jerk skepticism” is entirely warranted - a major one being alleged response to alternative medical treatments. If someone believes they feel better after taking a supplement or getting their feng shuied, that is an anecdote, and a very low order of evidence.
By the way, the meme about science being a form of religion has gotten very stale - not just in relation to atheism, but in reference to evolution as well.
Evidence-based reasoning is not religion.
[QUOTE=Mangetout]
Needless, knee-jerk skepticism gets me down sometimes. You know - those threads where someone asks “is there such a thing as an albino crow?” and someone answers “It’s certainly possible - because I’ve seen one in my garden quite often - in fact, i just looked out the window and it’s on my lawn right now”, then someone else has to whine about anecdotes not being data, or screech “Cite!?”. Doesn’t matter how many people chime in after that saying they’ve seen albino crows, or that they keep a tame one as a pet, nothing short of a published, peer-reviewed paper on the subject of hypomelanism statistics in corvids would satisfy the knee-jerk skeptic, and maybe not even that.
There are actually some questions that can be legitimately answered “yes, there’s one in front of me right now”, without needing to resort to ridiculous levels of proof.
[/QUOTE]
Do you like Star Trek? Those guys spend a lot of time looking at something and saying “But that’s impossible!”
Anyways, my unfave SDMB vice, how every thread turns into a religious or a political debate. Witness this one.
[QUOTE=bigbabysweets2000]
The mime is in the house! I repeat, call is coming from inside!
[/QUOTE]
From inside an invisible box! Turn on the wind machine, save yourself!
Someone should remake Night of the Living Dead but with mimes. I’d watch that.
I’m sick of the expectation that there should be pitch-perfect continuity in every work of fiction. And not just continuity within the fictional world, but continuity with the real one (remember that?) as well. I would count the repeated insistence that the Simpson’s hometown has to be in a particular state as the most obvious symptom of this. Sitcom writers should keep characters’ behavior reasonably consistent, but I don’t expect them to be tracking people’s movements with a stopwatch like they’re writing the “Wandering Rocks” episode of Ulysses. If a minor character in some crappy sitcom says they have an only sisters and dislike seafood in season 2, and in season 7 they’re seen going into a Sushi place with their brother, I don’t require a special episode where they retcon (oh, fucking look it up) a reason for this lapse. The reason for this lapse is that nobody cares and nobody should.
I’m sick of people dragging what seems to be long-term personal animosities into discussions here. Seriously, I have never gotten angry at something someone has written on an Internet message board. I don’t feel the need to read additional message boards and keep an Excel file tracking the written behavior of people I’ve never met so that I had roll my little green-faced eyes at them when they bring up some pet topic one too many times. It kind of creeps me out, actually. Although you can tell by my post count I’m not paying that close attention, I guess.
[QUOTE=LonesomePolecat]
To hell with that. Atheism is no less metaphysical than theism. All you sophistry will not change that.
[/QUOTE]
Actually, atheism is EXACTLY less metaphysical than theism, given that atheism is “person minus theism.” You can torture the concepts of religion and metaphysics and what have you until they apply to any human being walking around doing anything, I guess, but in doing so you’ve actually robbed those terms of any meaning or force they might have had to criticize in the ways you seem to want to. You seem to want to strip words of the parts of their meaning that have certain connotations, but then still employ those connotations against people you feel you can now apply those words to. That’s sort of silly.
Calling people’s arguments sophistry is not the same thing as demonstrating that they are.
[QUOTE=Quiddity Glomfuster]
Fascinating. Did you not notice that in the bolded (by me) sentence, you directly contradicted the second bolded (bye me) sentence after? :rolleyes:
[/quote]
You keep using this word “contradiction”: I do not think you know what it means.
The poster you quote didn’t contradict himself in the slightest.
What he basically said was: just because you can’t measure it, doesn’t mean it isn’t real.
Then he said: just because you believe it, doesn’t mean it is real.
Explain how those statements are in any way in contradiction. You seem to be laboring under the odd belief that saying you can’t get from point A to point B via X is the same as the claim that point B doesn’t exist.
[QUOTE=Li’l Pluck]
I certainly can’t speak for Ogre, so for myself, thank you for this.
[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Ogre]
Yep, you nailed it. Thanks!
[/QUOTE]
You are welcome to both of you! I just calls it as I sees it. 
[QUOTE=Clothahump]
Oh, come on. You know better than that.
He was impeached because he lied under oath. Perjury is a felony, and indictment was exactly the correct thing to do. And if the Senate had shown some honor and integrity by voting on the law instead of playing politics, he would have been removed from office.
[/QUOTE]
So, Clothahump, I assume you would say the same about George W, right? That if the Congress had any sense of honor they would impeach him for the same reason?
[QUOTE=Ogre]
The idea that atheism is religious is pure idiocy.
[/QUOTE]
To swipe a phrase, atheism is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby.
[QUOTE=Quiddity Glomfuster]
But people don’t dispute things like that.
[/QUOTE]
That’s the point - they do. I don’t have any problems at all with people demanding citations for extraordinary claims such as miracle cures, conspiracies - stuff like that - in those cases, citations are absolutely required, but it happens with perfectly mundane things too - mundane things that aren’t at all impossible - at least no more so than, say, an albino crow, and when first-hand experience is cited, the word ‘anecdotal’ starts being thrown around very pointedly.
There’s just no need for it.
I collect stamps. Does this mean my cat has to take its shoes off when it comes inside?
For the record here is pretty much the archetype of what I described above.
[QUOTE=Kokopilau]
To swipe a phrase, atheism is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby.
[/QUOTE]
Really? Hey, cool! I do have a hobby!
I figure religion is a belief in something on the basis of faith, rather than on rational evidence. For example, the holiness and power of Og. For another example, the stunning talent of Britney Spears. (Male believers pray to be Britney’s boyfriend. Female believers pray to be Britney.) 
[QUOTE=Clothahump]
Oh, come on. You know better than that.
He was impeached because he lied under oath. Perjury is a felony, and indictment was exactly the correct thing to do. And if the Senate had shown some honor and integrity by voting on the law instead of playing politics, he would have been removed from office.
[/QUOTE]
:rolleyes: Somebody’s stuck in 1998. :rolleyes:
[QUOTE=Dr. Rieux]
:rolleyes: Somebody’s stuck in 1998. :rolleyes:
[/QUOTE]
I guess one meme I’ll never get tired of is the sound of someone getting wooshed, no?
[QUOTE=Ryan_Liam]
Some memes I hate.
Me: I support the Coalition in Iraq, I support Iraqi Government efforts to secure it’s country.
Some other posters: 'You Republican Hack etc etc, you’re racist, you hate brown people, how can you justify deaths etc etc, you support rapists etc etc, Troops out! Here’s some cites from MoveOn.org, we’ll lose because we’re occupiers, Saddam was a Middle Eastern Tito, if you support the war why don’t you go over there and join the action? (one of the most ridiculous arguments ever, dumb shits, yeah I’m looking at you Merijeek.)
The internet message version of a pile on if I ever saw one.
[/QUOTE]
So, how’s basic training going, sweetheart? Making the world safer, yet?
You’re a lil bitch. That makes you feel bad? Stop volunteering other people for the meat grinder if you’re so afraid of the terrorists. As for your being a ‘Republican Hack’, if you’ve ever actually posted anything that wasn’t from the “Things are getting brighter I swear” Blogs, I sure as shit haven’t seen it.
-Joe
[QUOTE=AskNott]
(Male believers pray to be Britney’s boyfriend. Female believers pray to be Britney.)
[/QUOTE]
That’s not entirely accurate…
