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The best way to quit smoking is not to start in the first place(you probably heard that a million times but it's true). Yeah, I never smoked and never intend to and I can't stand when people are smoking near me.

Good job, keep going.

2 or 3 hours(o'clock)

GMT?

On topic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YSXKlO7qjA

3d pixel house!

inside

       


and outside

       

Ok, to be more specific, in my example i assumed that the "smart" group are potential mensa members while the "dumb" group are people who would poke a land mine to see if it works. A very simplified and exagarated example for the sake of argument.

Btw: we went pretty offtopic. that's an interesting discussion but shouldn't we start a new topic for discussing evolution?

Yay, someone brought up nazis! The topic is complete!

I personally think that no other human could criticize someone's else's turn-ons. Even not law.

If there wasn't porn, thousands of passive rapists, paedophiles, etc-you-name-it would be ACTIVE ones.
World if full of sick people. Most of them simply don't cross the line.

But who do --
-- should be punished as harshly as humanly possible.

Like vince said, people who buy child porn create a market for it. Owning child porn is illegal for a good reason.
I don't know if the absence of porn in general would increase the number of sex crimes(any statistics?) but that's no excuse for producing and owning child porn.

A big population is helpful but not enough. The circumstances and genes still play a big role. Let's say you have a population of 1000 people with 50 of them being exceptionally smarter than the rest. Now let's say this population is affected by an earth quake. You might think that since there are far more dumb people they have a higher chance of survival. But the 50 smart people might work out better ways to survive the catastrophe while the rest has no clue what to do. The smarter minority reduces casualties using their intelligence while the dumb people might actually kill themselves by accident. Generally I think that being smarter is more helpful in a survival situation, rather than relying on numbers and chance alone.

Let's start with saying that the "chain of evolution" never was broken in the first place. Evolution is constantly happening in tiny steps. Also I don't see why the ugliest, dumbest and poorest people would be more likely to survive... it depends on the conditions of course, but i can't really imagine that being dumb and ugly would be more beneficial than being intelligent and attractive.

The principle of evolution doesnt change. The criteria for survival do.

Those people may never actually go out and rape a child but masturbating to child porn is definitely crossing the line.

[child porn]

But you seem to be claiming that watching a video of a crime happen makes you as guilty as doing the crime yourself. Does this mean that if you watch a video of someone being beaten up, then you should also be jailed for assault?

Of course not. I wasnt saying that merely watching those videos makes you a criminal. My point is that there are people who draw sick pleasure from those videos while not caring that what they are watching most likely happened against the childs will. They masturbate to children having sex. Watching jenna jameson do it is a different thing. It's adults who know what they are doing. No big deal. But we are talking about child porn and people who are turned on by children. Duh, do i really have to explain why this is wrong?

I was talking about CHILD porn.

This is where I usually bring in the difference between stating ones believes/unbelieves and not doing so, or perhaps doing so, but not making a point out of it. I'm basically arguing about atheism as it exists both as a word and then as an idea. Whereas I do find myself as an atheist by my ideology, I do not feel comfortable including myself within the boundaries the word sets. It pretty much depends how you define it in your own mind. If it's strictly lingual, you're basically saying, that you don't believe in God. Then if you think of it as promoting your non-believes, that's completely different. I don't see anything worth expressing in my view, that would be like promoting nothing. Whereas if you take the road of spreading atheism, you're promoting or expressing something that means something to you. And I believe that these two things are completely different in their deepest meanings. So my point is, how you feel about not believing. Should you consider it not believing, or just being as it is. And then how you feel about being an atheist. Do you feel like an atheist, or do you just not feel and be like me. I like the way Hannah Arendt puts it. As in, if there is a belief, there must be something opposite to it. Just as the only thing to define the colour blue is the other colour one uses to tell it from. So there must be something that's opposite to believing, and that, in my opinion would be atheism. But as I don't believe in religions, I can't see myself believing in atheism either.

I get what you mean. We can only define an idea if we have an opposite to compare it to. If there was no concept as "religion" there would be no concept as "secular". The thing is, religion is real and it does influence our lives in one way or the other. I would probably not care if religion was that pesky little thing that annoys you sometimes but otherwise does no harm. Then i would see no point in explicitly stating that I'm an atheist. But religion does do harm. From "why give a shit, god will sort out everything"(refer to my post with the starving child) to "you drew a picture! i must burn a building!". I see absolutely no benefits in religion, except the "personal comfort" bullshit. but if you have to draw comfort from a delusion then something is seriously wrong. There are so many real and natural things that give you mental and emotional comfort, you don't have to make up stuff. So that's not really an excuse for me. All the other things religion is good for are basically of political or commercial nature. The more i debate with believers and the more i look whats going on in the world the more i become anti-religious rather than just "neutral". Considering what religion does to people you just cant be neutral towards it. So yeah, call me a militant atheist but i get seriously pissed off at people who say that the flood in new orleans is gods punishment for sinners. If someone said that right in front of me they would earn a good smack in the face.

Earlier I would have been all over the place telling how bad religion is for you. But in the end, I don't really care. I would never believe in God, never did, and never will, and I don't care if people believe in something I think is utter bullsh*t, as long as they don't come preaching to me. I don't consider myself as atheist, I don't like the idea of including myself in a group of enthusiasts, one way or another. So having said this, I'll just restrain.

It seems to be a popular opinion that calling yourself an atheist means counting yourself to a radical movement of people who "share a goal" or something(about the enthusiasm part. enthusiasm varies. saying that all atheists are equally enthusiastic about their views is not really true). Atheism is not a movement or ideology. It's an opinion. "I don't believe in god" = atheism, and that's all there is to it. Everything else atheism is sometimes associated with(materialism, anarchism, nihilism) is artificially tacked on and distorts the essential meaning of "atheism". Because of all the negative associations and misunderstandings in some areas people, who are actually atheists, refuse to call themselves atheist. So, saying that you don't believe in god but don't want to be called an atheist is a contradiction and further enforces the view that it's "not good" to call yourself that, even for people who lack belief in a god.

Thanks eric. I've heard of julia sweeney and "letting go of god" but havent taken a look at it yet.

jetxl: thanks for that vid. it's incredibly satisfying to listen to words that make sense, as opposed to the stuff you have to endure from believers. just some more examples of what ive been told by christians yesterday and today:

- the flood in new orleans was gods punishment for the debauchery that was going on there
- satan is responsible for the holocaust
- the reason why jesus' suffering is more important than the suffering of people in concentration camps is faith and purpose(sic)... if someone knows what that means please tell me.

and just to be fair i actually talked to a christian who said that she didnt know what "jesus died for our sins" means, since people still sin(and can go to hell for it) despite jesus dying on the cross. also she said that the suffering of many people over years is worth more than the suffering of one person over days(with an aditional resurection and eternity in paradise). so yeah, a believer who questions parts of her own belief. a geniune rarity.

i found a video in youtube where a guy films a ufo thingie.
Looks realistic.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtKuBKIaVvs

A discussion i just had with a christian:

christian: why do you think there is no god?
me: why do innocent children have to suffer for years and die eventually of starvation and sickness?
christian: god wants to have them with him in heaven.
me: so why does he make them suffer on earth in the first place?
christian: jesus suffered for us on the cross. why can't we suffer a bit for him?

bottom line: the following is no big deal

Thanks evenwolf! That guy is awesome!

Gods big test
http://youtube.com/watch?v=UwnONuP2Arc

The rational response squad takes on christians on ABC(pay attention to what's happening from 6:02 to about 6:30)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=D-rKiGJrcNw

Soldier in Gods army!
http://youtube.com/user/SoldierInGodsArmy

The internet knows everything o_o

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/images/0440508428/ref=dp_image_0/104-8263355-2973530?ie=UTF8&n=283155&s=books