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Must you be so holier-than-thou just because you DONT?

It is unnecessarily demonised, and no you don't need it to have spiritual experiences, however it puts the experiences into a larger context. Need I remind you, I choose not to drink alcohol (only occasionally) and don't take cocaine or ecstasy or any other 'fools gold' substance.

It shouldn't be illegal anyway, what did all the kids in the 60's do? Oh yeah, quit the military, protest against Vietnam, defend womens and civil rights, encourage the message of peace and love, does that sound like a bad thing?. The government got scared, made it illegal and spread disinformation such as it destroying chromosomes or making you go blind in later life...

with the right intention, hallucinogens can be insightful, with the wrong intention, you would lack a real mystical experience. It's good you appreciate nature, but if you look around there is a serious vaccuum in todays worlds, a real disillusionment. There isn't room for spiritual freedom amongst intolerance and people are confined to the streets and homes, of course they're going to do drugs, if not mostly out of boredom. All I'm saying is that LSD really does 'open your mind' if I dare use such a cliche, and for me to describe how it does that is pointless. It's like trying to explain what zero gravity is like, you can talk about the actions of zero gravity but you can never know the experience. And there is more then one path to spirituality, Shamans love their drugs, buddhists love their ascetism, but they all lead to similar conclusion no?

might I also point out that you're being terribly presumptious. not only have you assumed that atheists don't have as great an appreciation for life as you, but you're also assuming that I'm demonising hallucinagenic drugs and that I'm taking a holier-than-thou stance because I don't "do" them.

You seem to be immediately jumping to the conclusion that everybody who disagrees with you obviously hasn't experienced being in that frame of mind before.

My point is simply that trying to prove there is a god simply because you were told so during an hallucination, is really not a good idea.

I'm not taking a holier-than-thou attitude because I don't take drugs. Because I have taken drugs before and I know the immense feeling of contentment and "open-mindedness" they can give you (depending on what drug you take).

But to take those hallucinations seriously is ridiculous.

LSD is a mind altering drug by the way. It doesn't simply "allow you to see the world as it really is".

Arguing that there is a god because you were told so by a voice in a drug-induced hallucination is pretty poor. My friend once met a pigeon in her LSD-induced hallucinations, the pigeon started sizing her up and then asked her if she wanted a fight. She said she didn't, because it was so much smaller than her. The pigeon then said it had very many rows of razor sharp teeth with which to bite her, so she should be very afraid indeed.

Pigeons, of course, do not have teeth. No matter how convincingly the pigeon may have told her so in her hallucination, pigeons just don't have teeth. The reason it said it did was because a) it was a liar and b) it was a drug-induced hallucination and they're not real.

So its your choice if you want to be atheist, but I will tell you this... I am 5 times happier a pantheist then I was an atheist, I'm not saying atheists are unhappy, but I'm saying they will miss out on the simple joy of acknowledging the existence of the 'well I'm here'. You don't have to pray, just act loving in every action you do, realise that the world needs more love, and that love can set you free. I don't really care for an afterlife, why should I be afraid of death when I should be afraid of not living?

Why do you assume that an atheist can't appreciate reality? I don't believe in god, but that doesn't mean that I don't value nature. Quite the opposite. I worship reality as it were. I don't think you value existence anymore than I do(and vice versa). The only significant difference between our views seems to be that you just decided to call everything "god". If that's your view, fine. I could easily do just the same, I would have a god which would be testable and all. But I don't think tacking the word "god" on everything around solves the question of whether a god exists. Reality is reality. Based on laws that let us predict and control it in some degree. When I think "god" I think of all the deities humanity has ever created. I think all of them were sentient, unpredictable and uncontrolable by humans. That's my image of a god.

An atheist can appreciate reality, but not in the same conviction. Call it like you will, if you wittle everything down to the firing of neurons and into material realms and lie your thoughts of rationality I'm afraid your algebra will be caused to fail. None the less, I think an atheist is much more meaningful then those who blindly submit to a human-God (the guy in the sky with a stick).

In Quantum mechanics there really isn't so much of a law, research in the psychical has demonstrated there is phenomena which we can influence. And anyway, if you say everything is predictable and can be verified, I disagree. Just because there is material explainations for lets say falling in love does not deny the reality on another level, or if there is a material process of death does not deny that the spiritual interacts with the mental.

I had a remarkable experience whilst under acid once... While many people are confused about LSD (and largely ignorant) its not a case of seeing the world in a hallucinatory delusion, but rather, you see the world for what it REALLY is. The brain has a funny way of filtering information, and when a few key molecules fit into a few neurotransmittors (hallucinogens are in the same family of conciousness, very similar and sometimes identical to seretonin etc) you see the world as it REALLY IS in holographic splendor.

And there is no way I will convince you on this point, but on that day I was telepathic, and talking to plants, I had picked up a stone (everything had a living consciousness I could witness) and asked it 'So if you are God? show me a vision I won't attribute to hallucination'. At that very moment, I had a vision of a very old friend who I hadn't seen in 6 years knock on my door, and I then immediately write it down in my trip journal what I had seen in the future... The very next 2 days, the same old friend knocked round offering a business card as a landscape gardener. Needless to say, I was completely gobsmacked. I don't care if such an anecdote doesn't bode well with scientists, who will dismiss the journal page and will come up with explainations like I am self deceiving myself or wrote it after the event in question, or that it was a 'coincedence'... It's not their validity I seek because 'reality' made itself known that day, and this is partly why I lost my faith in science, I still love science, but the paradigm needs a serious change. Just like laws and politics are ruled by the ignorant, so are some of the academic foundations in the world... Especially Psychology that seeks to impose order where there should be none.

And I've experienced Ego-death whilst on the throws of a very powerful Ayahuasca experience, yes its a 'trip' its a 'hallucinogen' surely I am just setting myself up to believe in a delusion? I don't know? It was the most REAL experience, I felt psychological dead and then reborn, pain and then unimaginable bliss (afterwards... it wasn't an MDMA bliss but spiritually loving bliss),strong ayahuasca has been compared to a pseudo-near death experience.

And read the evidence for the near death experience, there is no material explainations for why the completely blind (destroyed ocular vision due to womb conditions) are able to see colour, shapes and movement in amazingly clear detail (often describing objects they shouldn't see unconciously in hospital). My dwelling into science now confirms my suspicions.

Of course, I still hold my skepticism, but ego-death is such a powerful, powerful experience. To feel as if you died you experience unimaginable love of the infinite, ever since those few experiences I have made it a priority to volunteer in my community every week and I would never have considered it if I was an atheist. The sad thing is my experiences are only subjective, but then Its ok for it to be so because 'being in the dark' really makes you appreciate every moment of the human condition.

And oh yeah, to you people debating about Jesus... havent you seen Zeitgeist yet? The bible is based on astrological myths, and so is most abrahamic religions (which were just a bastardisation of Egyptology). Early religion was sun and nature worship.

Dear me, dear me... can we not use our experiences of being on hallucinogenic drugs try and prove points or convince people that atheists can't appreciate the world the same as you do? Possibly I appreciate the world more than you, in fact, because I don't need drugs to "see things for what they really are".

Once, though, I was really stoned and thought that the fourth teenage mutant ninja turtle was called "russell harvey" and was pink.

http://www.blacklooks.org/2007/07/resident_evil_5.html

Stupid stupid woman.

[Stupot]

Stupot - you do of course realize that the religious people could make the exact same argument about athiests right?  That you have a logic hole in your brain if you think there is no God?

Are you saying that you truely believe there is no power greater than the human being?  What about the weather?  What about the sun?  What about the "power" that drives the universe?

I don't have a problem at all with your beliefs, it's just that when you state them like they're the end-all be-all explanation it comes across as confrontational.

Religious people can't prove God exists.

You can't prove God doesn't exist.

Stalemate.

But we can certainly prove that the god of the christian bible does not exist.

I hate when people say Richard Dawkins is rude or whatever... How can one be rude when the majority of the world believes that you will go to another dimension and burn in a lake of fire FOR ETERNITY? What can I possibly say to someone that is more rude or condescending than that? When entering a debate with someone and you feel that this person is mistaken and carries awkward beliefs brought about by history, fear of the unknown and ignorance towards natural science and they believe that you deserve to be punished in FLAMES for an eternity...

They're not being rude, they're just giving you the facts!

(I got told this to my face once after I asked a girl why she thought she had the right to tell me I was going to burn in hell for eternity... "I'm not telling you, I'm just giving you the facts")

additionally, I would say it's probably not true that you can lose 40lbs a month on that cleaveland diet... might be a bit exaggerated... but still, it works well.

I'm not asking for advice for once. I'm actually posting this up in case any of you guys are interested in losing weight.

I've put on a bit of weight the past few years. I'm not overweight (far from it at 5''9 and 130lbs), but I don't like the way what fat I do have is distributed across my body (some people are lucky and get weight gain in their hips and breasts, I get it in my face, arms etc…). I also want to make sure I keep my weight in check, and that it doesn't slowly creep into fatness as I get older...

I didn't really know how to diet correctly and healthily, and when I did attempt to diet, my lack of knowledge would ultimately end in failure. My ‘diets' would last a week, then I'd give up because there was no sign of weight loss, and the weight would go back on… and then some.

I finally buckled down and did a little bit of research and it's all paid off. It's not even hard, it just required a little knowledge of how the human body works, and a couple of really useful internet tools.

I know that there are probably many AGSers out there who want to lose weight, so I thought I'd share this knowledge with you. So, here goes.



The first thing you should do is check out you BMI or Body Mass Index.

http://www.nhlbisupport.com/bmi/

Input your weight and height and the calculator will tell you your BMI. Hopefully it should be in the healthy range. You can use this to help you assess your goal weight.

Once you've assessed you goal weight, go to this website:

www.calorie-count.com

It's free to sign up and use, and very, very useful! You can record what food you've eaten for each day. It has the nutritional information of pretty much every food available, so when you record what foods you've eaten, it will total up the amount of fat and calories you've had for the day. It will also give you an overall nutritional grade.

It's more useful than that though. It helps you to set a goal weight within a realistic time, for a start! It also shows you your weight loss using a graph, which is very, very encouraging. It's not always easy to see the weight as you are slowly losing it day by day, so it's very reassuring to see a steady loss on your graph.

As for a diet, I've found one that is easy to stick by, fairly healthy, and works. It's called the Cleaveland Clinic Diet:

http://diet-plans.featherish.com/diet-plans/cleveland-clinic-diet/cleveland-clinic-diet.html

The idea of the diet is that for three/four days a week you follow the diet, and then eat normally for the other days (although obviously don't overdo it with loads of junk food and soda). It works (apparently) using a chemical breakdown thingy... who knows, or cares. The point is, it worked for me, and for my two friends. The best bit is that it's only three days a week, which makes it managable even for people who usually can't take a diet for more than a week!

With this combination of tools, dieting couldn't really be much easier... all the tools you need to help you stay inspired to lose weight are right there. Obviously, there's the usual basic advice... take some exercise, drink lots of water and stay healthy. Try and do that too. I've lost 30lbs since May, and I haven't been trying hard at all...

If anyone wants more info, feel free message me or something. Hopefully some of you will find these resources useful.


Other useful link: http://www.med.umich.edu/1libr/primry/life15.htm

radiowaves, I just came to browse these forums and that's the second amazingly silly thing I've read from you in the space of about a minute.

Mods: What are you doing at the moment, and what's this business eh? Have you considered not working for a soulless corporation, but applying at new media companies or entertainment companies where the hours are good, the work fun and the benefits aplenty?

I don't know how much money you have coming in, but the rent in my two-bedroomed house was £216 per month (because a couple was living in one bedroom so the rent was divided between three people).

From your yahoo answers page:

Answerer 2

   

it happend to me, i saved infront of the palpark took both games out blew on them and tried again. after that the option to transfer came up. I hope this helps it worked for me.
1 week ago - Report Abuse

From Gamespot:

http://uk.gamespot.com/gba/rpg/pokemondungeonred/news.html?sid=6140485

Enemies? Me?!??

No, surely not!

Hmm, hacker then proceeded to hack my Myspace...

I don't have anything important tied to my hotmail account, but I should probably still take better care of it...

Hotmail is truly fucking rubbish.

Inti Helway- You (directed to female) are sweet.

What prize do I get? And who changed your password?

Your prize is my love! And I'll draw you some kind of picture or something, like roses maybe.

Er, I don't know who changed my password but I'm a bit freaked out now... an email was sent to my gmail address informing me of the password change before I even knew it had been changed... I'm a bit freaked out now ¬¬

I'm pretty sure that's not what it translates to, but thanks for trying!

No idea what language it's in or anything, but my myspace password was changed to intahela and it looks like some kind of arabic, and I'm curious as to what it means....

Yes but she hasn't played BC yet, so that's as high as she can get. Besides which, have you tried getting a level 60 in wow? It's not easy. My boyfriend never has.

Hehehe Disco,

No, she's not

By the way, a "chav" in my eyes isn't somebody of a certain social status or from a certain background, the word "chav" to me implies somebody who behaves in a certain way. People who cause trouble and get involved in petty crime, are rude, ignorant troublemakers, violent, very promiscuous people, etc... that, to me, is a chav. I know far more wealthy, influential "chavs" than I do poor ones...

Anyway, we haven't met, we're going to take things nice and slow (especially after I found my half-brother a few months ago and he turned out to be a violent and horrible ... well, a chav). She has two children who are very sweet-looking, and is married to a nice-sounding guy, and she has a dog called BAXTER

She plays World of Warcraft and has a level 60 undead warlock, which made my boyfriend gasp in awe.

Her and her son also love Guild Wars, which is lucky since my boyfriend works at the publishing company. So he put together a massive goodybag for them and posted it... should be arriving today!

It's all gone pretty well, I'm glad I'm in contact now and hopefully at some point in the near future we'll meet and not be too disenchanted with each other... she broke off contact before because, as I guessed, my Dad scared her... Apparently he tried to get her to change her surname to HIS surname within a week of speaking online to her?! Erm... so now we both understand how you build up romantic images of what your long-lost family it like, and how those images can easily be shattered... which is why we're just taking things slow this time and making no assumptions about each other

It's really cool that they like videogames though, the whole family... my nephew is in awe of me because I am a junior game designer... hehehe....



Genes Reunited FTW!

Yeah? Well...

http://youtube.com/watch?v=EwTZ2xpQwpA&mode=related&search=

**I move away from the mic to breath in
**I move away from the mic to breath in
**I move away from the mic to breath in
**I move away from the mic to breath in

That's really weird that you just said that, because my friend just sent me a text message saying she had a present for me, and I sent one back saying "Is it... candy?!?"

And then literally the next thing I did was open this thread and read your post.

I'm a bit freaked out now...

WELL DO YOU?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6264230.stm

I understand that, despite there being no good excuse to take the lives of innocent people... there is a reason behind terrorist attacks.

However small or silly the reason may sound to you or I, anybody who gives up their life and intends to hurt and destroy the lives of others, has a reason. Even if it's a bloody rubbish one.

Now here's what I don't get.

Why would middle-class, well-educated, well-paid doctors choose to do this?

It's arrogant to assume that just because someone is well-educated or middle-class etc., that they would be less likely to be insane or to hurt someone.

But they certainly see a slightly better side of the UK than some of us who have to scrimp and save to get by and pull our hair out at the end of every month when the bills come through.

And you become a doctor to help people, to save people.

Not to blow up innocent men, women and children.

Why would they bother going through medical training, going through student doctor years (which are extremely hard years and require a lot of attention and study), just to throw it all away by trying to kill people that have never done you any harm?

What's going on here, eh?

After reading a lot of those cases on the link I gave, I find it hard to believe that most of those people mentioned are terrorists. Their lives are clean, and good, and happy. They have young children, loving families, good careers. I'm almost inclined to believe that the police have it wrong and that most of these men are innocent... but of course, that's unlikely...