@JustSaying

Looks like I have some time on my hands....
Blergh, get that off me!
Look, Shiny, that post was not meant for you in the first place. It was *about* you, not *for* you.

I'm not sure how you could say that. It was both about me and for me. You obviously wanted me to read it ("@"shinyblurry), and you asked me a direct question at the bottom of it.

What I was trying to say, to tell others, was that you already made up your mind. And then you put it in a box, put that box in a safe, put that safe in a big ass wooden crate, poured concrete over it and threw it into the deepest pit of the ocean. Unless somebody's got a big red "S" on their shirt, the Hammer rule applies: Can't touch this!

Yes, I've made up my mind about God, and so would you, or anyone, if you were to receive personal revelation that He exists. You seem to think that isn't possible, but have you considered that it is impossible for you to know that? Why is it a virtue to you that one cannot come to any definite conclusions about truth? Is it an intellectually superior position to not know anything for certain?

You and me both know very much that my post is actually easy to reply to and contains a very definite core message concerning you and I know why you won't reply to it. Your way of arguing, from what I've seen, consists of very well known (at least to me) tactics like qouting small excerpts and single sentences, bogging down the discussion in details until your opponents grows tired and gives up. I used to do this all the time.

You asserted many things in your post which would require detailed refutations and it would be fairly time consuming to respond to all of it. That is why I asked you to narrow the field. I also don't have any tactics. I attempt to engage in an intellectually honest discussion and I wouldn't bother writing if it was for the purpose of winning an argument. I honestly don't care about winning the argument; I only hope to share something of value.

I also know that what I wrote about you (baseless assumption or not) isn't very nice. I realise how offensive it must be to you but I assure you, my intention is not to hurt your feelings, religious or otherwise. I may disagree greatly but I am not here to piss on your leg. I apologize for that even if I will continue to stand by my point.

That's okay; it's nothing I haven't heard before. I understand that posting on a website populated by atheists people are going to unload on me.

Actually your response to my rather innocent question regarding musical taste proves it. "I don't listen to secular music anymore" is what you wrote. You divide music into secular and non-secular. That's your worldview right there. Non-secular vs. secular.
Not listening to secular music means you don't listen to The Beatles, John Williams, Jimi Hendrix, The Prodigy, Beastie Boys, Ennio Morricone, Queen, Cypress Hill, Deep Purple or Jesper Kyd. All great musicians. It may even include people like Mozart or Beethoven. Why? Because it's not religious enough?
Your worldview is seperates everything into two categories: secular and non-secular.
I pity you for that. You miss out on so many wonderful things.

I haven't missed out on them; I wasn't always a Christian. I grew up in a secular home without religion and was saved later in life. I've tried what the world has to offer and I've rejected it. Or as the scripture explains, I am in the world but not of it. Jesus said you are either for Him or against Him; he who does not gather with Him, scatters abroad.

Having said that, I must also tell you this: I am glad you're here.
There is this discussion going on in this thread about the rightness of the ignore function. I see no problem with that. @shinyblurry certainly posts many things that aren't popular here but as far as I can tell he always stays civil and quite cool, given the nature of responses he gets. I understand why some people don't want to discuss anything with him. I advise against discussing certain topics altogether, this is why I posted in this thread at all, however I must say I never saw him behaving in troublesome ways.
Assuming that this site is a place for open discussion about pretty much any topic, I think shiny's input has its place here. Putting him on ignore is not an act of ignorance or cowardice or however you want to characterise it, it is simply unwillingness to to argue with him. It is the realisation that this crate of his ist way beyond our reach, our touch.
I don't like people to tell me what I want to hear, I want people to tell me what they think. I belive shiny does.

Thanks, I appreciate that. If people want to ignore me that is their choice, but this isn't anything new. The talk of banning and ignoring me started almost immediately after I arrived here. While this site is based on democratic ideals, some people only want that in a limited sense. By that I mean that some want to be free, for instance, to post anti-christian videos and express anti-christian opinions yet they are bitterly opposed to anyone posting about the contrary.

Looks like I have some time on my hands....
Blergh, get that off me!
Look, Shiny, that post was not meant for you in the first place. It was *about* you, not *for* you. What I was trying to say, to tell others, was that you already made up your mind. And then you put it in a box, put that box in a safe, put that safe in a big ass wooden crate, poured concrete over it and threw it into the deepest pit of the ocean. Unless somebody's got a big red "S" on their shirt, the Hammer rule applies: Can't touch this!
You and me both know very much that my post is actually easy to reply to and contains a very definite core message concerning you and I know why you won't reply to it. Your way of arguing, from what I've seen, consists of very well known (at least to me) tactics like qouting small excerpts and single sentences, bogging down the discussion in details until your opponents grows tired and gives up. I used to do this all the time.
I also know that what I wrote about you (baseless assumption or not) isn't very nice. I realise how offensive it must be to you but I assure you, my intention is not to hurt your feelings, religious or otherwise. I may disagree greatly but I am not here to piss on your leg. I apologize for that even if I will continue to stand by my point.
Actually your response to my rather innocent question regarding musical taste proves it. "I don't listen to secular music anymore" is what you wrote. You divide music into secular and non-secular. That's your worldview right there. Non-secular vs. secular.
Not listening to secular music means you don't listen to The Beatles, John Williams, Jimi Hendrix, The Prodigy, Beastie Boys, Ennio Morricone, Queen, Cypress Hill, Deep Purple or Jesper Kyd. All great musicians. It may even include people like Mozart or Beethoven. Why? Because it's not religious enough?
Your worldview is seperates everything into two categories: secular and non-secular.
I pity you for that. You miss out on so many wonderful things.
Having said that, I must also tell you this: I am glad you're here.
There is this discussion going on in this thread about the rightness of the ignore function. I see no problem with that. @shinyblurry certainly posts many things that aren't popular here but as far as I can tell he always stays civil and quite cool, given the nature of responses he gets. I understand why some people don't want to discuss anything with him. I advise against discussing certain topics altogether, this is why I posted in this thread at all, however I must say I never saw him behaving in troublesome ways.
Assuming that this site is a place for open discussion about pretty much any topic, I think shiny's input has its place here. Putting him on ignore is not an act of ignorance or cowardice or however you want to characterise it, it is simply unwillingness to to argue with him. It is the realisation that this crate of his ist way beyond our reach, our touch.
I don't like people to tell me what I want to hear, I want people to tell me what they think. I belive shiny does.

he's usually the angry, petulant teenage voice of Atheism

I hate to go all Dawkinsy on you here, but where exactly is the evidence for that? I always hear people left and right going "Dawkins is shrill" "Dawkins is angry" etc, usually followed by "well maybe not in this video/book/qoute then, but usually he is.." Well, WHERE? WHEN was Dawkins "angry,petulant, shrill, simplistic, childish, or whatever?

This character seems to me to be entirely fictional, a strawman Dawkins (Strawkins?) invented by his opponents, who always seem to know what Dawkins has said and what he stands for without hearing a single word he's ever actually said or written . If you actually listen to Dawkins himself, and not "Strawkins", I think you'll get an entirely different opinion about him.

In reference to what i am getting from this thread is there is no God and this is all just one big cosmic coincidence? Now how much belief does that take?

2 points here, firstly, How much belief it takes? well, to me, its not really a matter of belief or "faith", its a matter of evidence. Scientists have studied the universe for a long time and concluded, based on EVIDENCE, that the universe is expanding at an exponential rate. By comparing stars at various distances, we can look back in time, literally, and see how the early universe looked and behaved. Which brings me to point number 2: "cosmic accident" is a gross oversimplification of our current understanding of the universe.

We have deduced, based on evidence that the early universe was much denser and hotter and simpler than it is now. Brian Cox used a snowflake as a metaphor, this old, "frozen" universe is complex and interesting, where as the early universe, like a melted snowflake, would just be a dense , hot gass of sorts, ultimately with only hydrogen in it. As Carl Sagan said: This (meaning us humans, earth and every living creature on it) is what you get when you give Hydrogen atoms 14 billion years to evolve.

Right now, our Sun with its immense gravitational pressure fuses 700 million tons of hydrogen into 695 million tons of helium, EVERY SECOND. 5 Million tons of pure energy is released, equaling something like 200 million Hiroshima bombs EVERY SECOND. Yet these extreme numbers are peanuts compared to the events that shaped our universe. Our sun simply isnt powerful enough to fuse helium and create heavier elements. For that, we need bigger "Weapons of Cosmic Destruction Creation" Supernovae, red giants, galactic collisions and supermassive black holes, nebulae and gas clouds beyond all imaginations. From cosmic events like this, all the ingredients we take for granted here on earth, (like carbon etc) were originally created. Again when talking about grand stuff like this that I know little about, it is best to qoute Carl Sagan again:

We are the Stuff Of Stars.

I love that quote because it is literally true.

So thats the "accident" before life arose. The exact chemical reactions that gave rise to the first self-replicating molecule is not fully understood, but once that first barrier was crossed (achieving high-fidelity replication) Evolution by natural selection is INEVITABLE.It still took a good 2 billion years before cells start grouping into multi-cellular organisms, but when that revolution happened, we went from flatworm to primates in a measly 700 million years.

That account of the Cosmic accident is a far to brief, incomplete and rough draft of what happened, of course, I only mean to point out that this isnt some mad scientists guesswork. The processes and events above have been predicted, discovered, tested and examined and calculated and peer-reviewed and-- you get the point. They are our current best shot at understanding the universe, based on the available evidence. Naturally, much is left to discover, and thats what makes science interesting.

I should have phrased that differently. It's more like "I had fun shooting shit."
But the game is terrible because it's 1) VERY linear, 2) has NO story 3) weapons are LAME 4)play time is criminally short and a few other small nuances. I never said that my opinion was fact, though.

In reply to this comment by Napalm:
In reply to this comment by MarineGunrock:
>> ^Napalm:
Wrong.


Wow, that was such a mind-blowingly articulate argument you posted there! You sure took me down a peg! Remind me to never have a debate with you!

Well if you can state your highly subjective opinion as fact then I can too. I just did it with fewer words.

I'm just kind of baffled someone can call Gears of War a "monumental pile of shit" with a straight face. Especially considering you yourself actually admitted the game was fun.
I qoute: "Yes, it was a fun game, if you like the constant non-stop shoot-em up types. The cover system is awesome, though. The camera work in the game is superb, the graphics are great, and yet didn't tax my system at all. The sound was awesome and the combat was very different with the cover system. You will die if you don't use it."

So basically you are complaining about a high price and non stop action.
I still don't see how that makes this game so terrible.

In reply to this comment by MarineGunrock:
>> ^Napalm:
Wrong.


Wow, that was such a mind-blowingly articulate argument you posted there! You sure took me down a peg! Remind me to never have a debate with you!

Well if you can state your highly subjective opinion as fact then I can too. I just did it with fewer words.

I'm just kind of baffled someone can call Gears of War a "monumental pile of shit" with a straight face. Especially considering you yourself actually admitted the game was fun.
I qoute: "Yes, it was a fun game, if you like the constant non-stop shoot-em up types. The cover system is awesome, though. The camera work in the game is superb, the graphics are great, and yet didn't tax my system at all. The sound was awesome and the combat was very different with the cover system. You will die if you don't use it."

So basically you are complaining about a high price and non stop action.
I still don't see how that makes this game so terrible.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'titan, robot, movie qoutes, singing' to 'titan, robot, movie quotes, singing' - edited by MarineGunrock

Uh swampy, jonny, did you read the articles that we linked to? From what it sounds like, students are getting examined by professionals. Again, I qoute to you, this time with key things in bold:


"At King Middle School, birth control prescriptions will be given after a student undergoes a physical exam by a physician or nurse practitioner, said Lisa Belanger, who oversees Portland’s student health centers.

Students treated at the centers must first get written parental permission, but under state law such treatment is confidential, and students decide for themselves whether to tell their parents about the services they receive."


And from an article @SunHerald.com

"School officials said five of the school's 510 students would have qualified for the birth control under the program last year.

O'Brien, whose district includes King Middle School, said the notion that young children can now easily get birth-control pills is flat wrong.

"They don't just have a giant punch bowl full of pills," he said,

The birth control will be given out only after extensive counseling, and no prepubescent children will get it, O'Brien said.

But Coyne said a physically mature, savvy 11-year-old could get the birth control once the permission slip to use the center is signed.

"I think she could navigate the system," he said.

Portland's three middle schools had seven pregnancies in the last five years, said Douglas Gardner, director of Portland's Health and Human Services Department. He said early reports of 17 pregnancies during the last four years were erroneous."


So, not only are the students getting examined by a trained professional (these are not being handed out like vitamins), but to even undergo the exam in the first place or use the medical center itself, the child needs to have parental permission. I'm guessing this would be in the form of a release waiver that is filled out at the beginning of each school year, similar to the normal safety/contact info/release waiver that is then kept on file in student records.

So, Swampy, in your case, you could always choose to not give that permission, and your daughter would not even be allowed to access the health center and instead rely upon the doctors you designate outside of school. And likely, there will be many parents in Maine who will follow that route, not just because of the access to birth control, but because I'm sure some parents can afford better health care for their kids or have children with special medical issues that they need to monitor. For everyone else though, especially kids from low income families, this health center sounds like a very good thing, not just because of the access to birth control, but also immunizations, examinations, and basic treatments... and might be way more than some of these kids would normally get, and in the case of the Portland school district, it sounds like they need this kind of setup.

Again from the article @SunHerald.com

"The King Middle School is among Portland's most diverse schools, with 31 languages spoken there and 28 percent of its students foreign-born. The school, located on the same peninsula as downtown Portland, draws from the islands in Casco Bay, wealthier neighborhoods overlooking the bay, and low-income triple deckers.

Fifty-four percent of the students are part of the federal free lunch program, which is an indicator of poverty.

Principal Michael McCarthy said the school had just one pregnancy last year, but students were reporting they were sexually active. The center has dispensed condoms since 2000, but because it could not prescribe birth-control pills, nurses referred the students to Planned Parenthood or Maine Medical Center.

"When they followed up, they found that in many cases, the kids weren't doing that," McCarthy said."

It sounds like an environment that would be tough enough for a young girl to grow and mature in, and having an early teenage pregnancy would likely be an extreme burden and only help to perpetuate the cycle of poverty in the area. Coupled with that is the high immigrant population, which means there are probably a lot of parents in the area that are not equipped to deal with the new 'American' environment (i.e.- probably considerably more sexualized in content than the culture of their homelands) that their children need the support to deal with. In light of these considerations, I think that the Portland school system is taking appropriate measures to ensure that their students get the fairest start on life possible, and don't end up at an early age 'stuck' in the environment they are now living in.

Also, as none of us can say for sure what the exact procedures are there, we can't really argue on sticking points like whether or not they are gathering medical history... although, given my own experiences with student health services on a collegiate level, I would like to think that if this place in Maine is being run by health care professionals of a similar caliber, that they would probably contact your child's primary physician for medical records/history... at least, that is what they do here.

I do like jonny's idea that parents should be subjected to the same sex-ed classes as their children, if only because, in a lot of cases anyway, parents might finally realize just how lacking the sex ed programs are in a good number of school systems, and take it upon themselves to either demand a change in curriculum, or better yet, open up a dialogue on the matter with their children.

lol even more, I watched that too! and ended up creating a playlist just for dear ol' zapp: And Which One Rocked Your World?

A save and a promote to whoever can find a clip with that qoute in it!

[quote]does the scrolling widget slow down VS in any way, shape or form? [/qoute]

Yes, in the sense that if I pick a top15 video it replaces the list, thus making it a pain in the ass to pick the next top 15, as opposed to earlier when the list stayed.

EDIT; But all is good again now! Thanks alot dag!