>> ^ant:

Wait, were the two people stuck after the incident in this video?


She had a cast, and the car took her crutch with it

A dog is a perfect crutch, if you will, for a veteran trying to reintegrate because they are not emotionally demanding but are deeply loving and loyal. They'll listen without complaining or judging, which makes them better than most of the humans on the planet. That they are rescued animals is even better.

There's a great interview of him by Marc Maron, which explains where he comes from. From memorry, he had a pretty deprived childhood, and his mother never wanted to work or something - it was pretty rough. I think he sees welfare as a crutch and that's all this is to it.

Doesn't make me agree with him in any way. The suggestion that the problems facing the US derive from a generation of people who were told they're too important is just silly.

As a great person once said: for every problem, there is a solution that is simple, elegant and wrong.

Adam's views are a great reflection of this.

My comments are all original with occassional quotes and videos. They were all in response to people who had directly addressed me. They are all at the same time because when I get on the site I answer all the people who have addressed me at the same time. If you don't genertally want me to talk about Christianity, don't post anti-christian videos. I would probably be less involved in other peoples videos if the sift didn't downvote nearly everything I have ever submitted. Feel free to single me out all you like..doesn't bother me at all.


>> ^kceaton1:
@shinyblurry I really don't want to single you out too much (ol'@siftbot rules and such--I highly agree with them), as I already did once above, so this will be the last response or comment in direction to your comments.
Did you even notice that above you posted a quick fire, five posts amongst even the many other posts you still are posting; then, again, four more in rapid succession? I know you do your best to have your viewpoint and to try to describe it. But, the shear scale of material--which I assume is a mix-mash of text from elsewhere, perhaps even previous thoughts--is enormous. It's the same for every comment section you've ever been a part of. It's always the same subject.
To me, it's a bit ridiculous and seems like spam. But, the community is keeping you. I would just like to see that ability to comment spread out into further areas in the community (comedy, music, etc...; void of the necessary religious crutch). My two cents, but it is your experience of course.

@shinyblurry I really don't want to single you out too much (ol'@siftbot rules and such--I highly agree with them), as I already did once above, so this will be the last response or comment in direction to your comments.

Did you even notice that above you posted a quick fire, five posts amongst even the many other posts you still are posting; then, again, four more in rapid succession? I know you do your best to have your viewpoint and to try to describe it. But, the shear scale of material--which I assume is a mix-mash of text from elsewhere, perhaps even previous thoughts--is enormous. It's the same for every comment section you've ever been a part of. It's always the same subject.



To me, it's a bit ridiculous and seems like spam. But, the community is keeping you. I would just like to see that ability to comment spread out into further areas in the community (comedy, music, etc...; void of the necessary religious crutch). My two cents, but it is your experience of course.

@Sagemind

Greater differences in physical size and athleticism mean greater potential injuries, which gets rated as a more serious transgression. There are similarly greater injuries at risk if the receiver is e.g. using crutches or is a pregnant woman.

Christ on a crutch.

I believe the Big Bang Theory because I have faith in the scientific community.

There is a faith aspect to "science". I have faith that E=MC^2. I've never checked, but I have faith that the scientific community have checked. However, this is not blind faith. I could, if I was sufficiently motivated, read up on the science and prove this to myself.

Well, this is only half the story. There is a certain amount of faith in science as a whole. This is because science doesn't actually prove anything:

http://www.digipac.ca/chemical/proof/index.htm

To believe in science you must have faith in empiricism, which says that all knowledge comes from sensory experience. Yet there are many truths empiricism cannot account for. Science itself is predicated on a series of unprovable assumptions called "brute givens" which presume the operations of the Universe have remained constant in the past and will continue to do so. Here is a good dialog on the matter:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkBD20edOco

Please ignore the title, it was just the best clip I could find. Also, check out this conversation between a physics major and a bunch of physicists and mathematicians about him losing faith in empiricism:

http://www.physicsforums.com/archive/index.php/t-184699.html

Another reason why "science" isn't a religion is that if something is shown to wrong, it gets corrected. If those neutrinos sent from CERN disprove E=MC^2, then my mind is open to change. If something is shown to be wrong in religion, the people who show it up get in trouble.

This isn't always true. For instance, the scientific community at large consider evolution to be "proven" and won't tolerate any dissent on the issue. A scientist who even breathes the words "intelligent design" will be totally ostracized, have their reputations ruined, be unable to publish scientific papers and lose their ability to get grants. It is nearly impossible to do any work on intelligent design for that reason. Evolutionary theories are the sacred cow of science, and they religiously defend it, even to the point of suppressing any debate on it, and also by propagating this view into our political and education system. They also file lawsuits to keep intelligent design from being mentioned in classrooms. This has clearly gone beyond the bounds of mere scientific inquiry. If scientists had taken this same attitude on classical mechanics, quantum mechanics may never have been discovered.

The key is that I don't "believe this nonsense without question". I believe this with question and with the readiness to believe something else if something else is proven. I believe in facts because they are self-evident, and I believe in doubt because I believe we don't know everything and that we should strive to know more and to prove more. Denying proven without offering an alternative which can be backed up at all* just isn't reality. Do I feel I have a claim to rationality and logic? Well, that is what my beliefs are based on. There is proof for Earth being 4.5 billion years old, rational and logical proof.

Well, you have to realize that some of things you seem to consider facts, aren't. The Big Bang theory is not a fact, it is totally unprovable. Not only that, but the theory itself doesn't even really work..it has a number of problems, from how stars and planets form, to the lack of observable matter and energy to make it work, to what they call the smoothness problem:

"These structures must have arisen from tiny variations in the energy density in the early universe. Where the densities were greatest is, presumably, where gravity caused matter to collapse into the structures we see today.

The problem is that to explain these structures seems to require a universe that was created in an incredibly smooth non-chaotic manner. This seems extremely unlikely."''

I like the last bit. It isn't unlikely if you consider the Universe was created by an omniopotent being. The basic problem with big bang cosmology and evoltuion is that they are not real science. You can't observe and test them, they are speculation and assumption about things that happened in the past. It is mere interpretation of data, and there are many ways to interpret it. We are both looking at the same facts, but interpreting them in different ways.

Of course, you presumably do believe that Christianity can be backed up, which is where we've even less chance of agreeing on anything. Every argument I've heard for religion is ultimately circular or illogical.(I don't understand the crutches thing, from either side.)

I don't preumse I can prove to you that Christianity is true. I can show you that there are good reasons to believe there is a God, and that there is good evidence for Christianity, but I cannot prove my experience. I can however tell you this is something you can prove to yourself. If you ask God for the evidence, He will provide it to you. You can do this by praying something like this: "Jesus, if you're real, I want to know about it. If you're God please come into my life and I will give it over to you" If you can pray those words and mean them, you will get an answer. He promised to reveal Himself to those who seek Him dilligently.

As far as the crutch thing goes, what I am speaking about is sin. Those who don't know God are in a servitude to their passions and desires. Meaning, the first priority is a fulfillment of these desires, which the intellect first assents to, and then seeks out a worldview that justifies this fulfillment. Meaning, the atheist naturally doesn't want to believe that which contradicts the fulfillment of his natural desires, and will resist believing it. Admitting that God exists also means that you have a responsibility to obey Him, which further means that you can no longer live according to fleshly desires. So, an atheist will resist the knowledge of God so they can continue to live as they please, doing that which they know by their conscience is wrong, but being unable to resist these things. It has virtually nothing to do with evidence; our sinful nature is just naturally inclined to be in rebellion against Gods authority and will continue to operate this way on any pretense that seems even remotely plausible.

>> ^Quboid:
I believe the Big Bang Theory because I have faith in the scientific community.
There is a faith aspect to "science". I have faith that E=MC^2. I've never checked, but I have faith that the scientific community have checked. However, this is not blind faith. I could, if I was sufficiently motivated, read up on the science and prove this to myself.
Another reason why "science" isn't a religion is that if something is shown to wrong, it gets corrected. If those neutrinos sent from CERN disprove E=MC^2, then my mind is open to change. If something is shown to be wrong in religion, the people who show it up get in trouble.
The key is that I don't "believe this nonsense without question". I believe this with question and with the readiness to believe something else if something else is proven. I believe in facts because they are self-evident, and I believe in doubt because I believe we don't know everything and that we should strive to know more and to prove more. Denying proven without offering an alternative which can be backed up at all just isn't reality. Do I feel I have a claim to rationality and logic? Well, that is what my beliefs are based on. There is proof for Earth being 4.5 billion years old, rational and logical proof.
Of course, you presumably do believe that Christianity can be backed up, which is where we've even less chance of agreeing on anything. Every argument I've heard for religion is ultimately circular or illogical.
(I don't understand the crutches thing, from either side.)
>> ^shinyblurry:
The problem with Bill Maher and his cackling hyenas, and most atheists in general, is that they seem to think that they have some sort of claim to rationality and logic above theists. Yet, as you pointed out, they are no less dogmatic about their faith than anyone else. Though you seem to think that they are in the superior position. I would say that you shouldn't forget about the religion of scientism which teaches that nothing exploded, and that this explosion magically produced order and complexity, and from this rocks became alive and turned into soup which turned into monkeys and then into you. These are metaphysical beliefs taken on faith. I find it amusing that people actually believe this nonsense without question and then have the nerve to call me irrational.
The fact is, everyone worships something. Every person has something which they bow down and kiss. Whether it is money, or celebrity, or power, or nature, or themselves, atheists are no different than anyone else. I also find it funny that you talk about crutches, as if atheists don't have crutches? What about drugs, alcohol, pornography, cigarettes, food, sex, etc? How many atheists do you know who use those crutches to get through life? Knowing Christ removes crutches from people, and being a Christian is freedom from crutches, not enslavement to one. Anyone who sins is a slave to sin, but anyone who knows Christ has been set free from that bondage.
So, I appreciate your attempted voice of reason, though you couldn't seem to manage it without condescension towards me, and Christians in general. Perhaps you feel you have to denigrate us in order to be socially accepted here. I think though that you see the futility of anti-theism, and the blind ignorance and hatred it produces in people. You know a tree by its fruit, and that fruit is rotten to its core.

I believe the Big Bang Theory because I have faith in the scientific community.

There is a faith aspect to "science". I have faith that E=MC^2. I've never checked, but I have faith that the scientific community have checked. However, this is not blind faith. I could, if I was sufficiently motivated, read up on the science and prove this to myself.

Another reason why "science" isn't a religion is that if something is shown to wrong, it gets corrected. If those neutrinos sent from CERN disprove E=MC^2, then my mind is open to change. If something is shown to be wrong in religion, the people who show it up get in trouble.

The key is that I don't "believe this nonsense without question". I believe this with question and with the readiness to believe something else if something else is proven. I believe in facts because they are self-evident, and I believe in doubt because I believe we don't know everything and that we should strive to know more and to prove more. Denying proven without offering an alternative which can be backed up at all* just isn't reality. Do I feel I have a claim to rationality and logic? Well, that is what my beliefs are based on. There is proof for Earth being 4.5 billion years old, rational and logical proof.

* Of course, you presumably do believe that Christianity can be backed up, which is where we've even less chance of agreeing on anything. Every argument I've heard for religion is ultimately circular or illogical.

(I don't understand the crutches thing, from either side.)

>> ^shinyblurry:

The problem with Bill Maher and his cackling hyenas, and most atheists in general, is that they seem to think that they have some sort of claim to rationality and logic above theists. Yet, as you pointed out, they are no less dogmatic about their faith than anyone else. Though you seem to think that they are in the superior position. I would say that you shouldn't forget about the religion of scientism which teaches that nothing exploded, and that this explosion magically produced order and complexity, and from this rocks became alive and turned into soup which turned into monkeys and then into you. These are metaphysical beliefs taken on faith. I find it amusing that people actually believe this nonsense without question and then have the nerve to call me irrational.
The fact is, everyone worships something. Every person has something which they bow down and kiss. Whether it is money, or celebrity, or power, or nature, or themselves, atheists are no different than anyone else. I also find it funny that you talk about crutches, as if atheists don't have crutches? What about drugs, alcohol, pornography, cigarettes, food, sex, etc? How many atheists do you know who use those crutches to get through life? Knowing Christ removes crutches from people, and being a Christian is freedom from crutches, not enslavement to one. Anyone who sins is a slave to sin, but anyone who knows Christ has been set free from that bondage.
So, I appreciate your attempted voice of reason, though you couldn't seem to manage it without condescension towards me, and Christians in general. Perhaps you feel you have to denigrate us in order to be socially accepted here. I think though that you see the futility of anti-theism, and the blind ignorance and hatred it produces in people. You know a tree by its fruit, and that fruit is rotten to its core.

The problem with Bill Maher and his cackling hyenas, and most atheists in general, is that they seem to think that they have some sort of claim to rationality and logic above theists. Yet, as you pointed out, they are no less dogmatic about their faith than anyone else. Though you seem to think that they are in the superior position. I would say that you shouldn't forget about the religion of scientism which teaches that nothing exploded, and that this explosion magically produced order and complexity, and from this rocks became alive and turned into soup which turned into monkeys and then into you. These are metaphysical beliefs taken on faith. I find it amusing that people actually believe this nonsense without question and then have the nerve to call me irrational.

The fact is, everyone worships something. Every person has something which they bow down and kiss. Whether it is money, or celebrity, or power, or nature, or themselves, atheists are no different than anyone else. I also find it funny that you talk about crutches, as if atheists don't have crutches? What about drugs, alcohol, pornography, cigarettes, food, sex, etc? How many atheists do you know who use those crutches to get through life? Knowing Christ removes crutches from people, and being a Christian is freedom from crutches, not enslavement to one. Anyone who sins is a slave to sin, but anyone who knows Christ has been set free from that bondage.

So, I appreciate your attempted voice of reason, though you couldn't seem to manage it without condescension towards me, and Christians in general. Perhaps you feel you have to denigrate us in order to be socially accepted here. I think though that you see the futility of anti-theism, and the blind ignorance and hatred it produces in people. You know a tree by its fruit, and that fruit is rotten to its core.

>> ^bareboards2:
This is a demonstrably false statement:
@EMPIRE said Religion is NOTHING BUT bullshit, deception and complete ignorance.
I have often thought that atheists can be just as dogmatic and rigid and intellectually bankrupt as any religious person. Here is the proof of it. You have your belief and no facts are going to get in your way.
You are the holder of the One Truth. There can be no Other Truth. If someone believes otherwise, they are a Heretic and an abomination.
The world isn't perfect. It is full of flawed human beings just trying to get by, trapped by their meat puppet bodies and brains. Some need a crutch to make it through life. You would deprive them of their crutch? THEY WILL FALL DOWN.
I keep saying the same thing over and over here on the Sift. You'd think I'd learn to back out of these pissing matches. I don't though, because I know that atheists ultimately are intelligent people, open to rational thought. I wouldn't try to talk shinyblurry out of his beliefs. That is a complete waste of effort. I am enough of a Pollyanna to think a rationalist will eventually get it -- that humans are flawed, that humans have had gods since the very beginning of human consciousness, that thinking that ALL HUMANS will leave behind an evolutionary trait is a fools game.
The best we can hope for is to keep religion out of the laws as much as possible. That is where someone's evolutionary crutch needs to keep to itself and out of my life. And keep educating about rational thought, throwing a life line to people who are born into a religion and don't hear anything but their family's brand of dogma.

I said religion is nothing but bullshit, deception and complete ignorance.
I never once said I want to deny people the right to be stupid. I know very well, that religion is a crutch for many people. It's unfortunate that they have to lean on something as frail, demonstrably wrong, and more times than not a cancer on human societies such as religion, but it's their choice.

Now, just because I don't want to deny people their rights, doesn't mean I won't call them out on their bullshit when I see it. And that's what I think should be happening more often.
It's not funny or productive to make fun of someone who is merely ignorant of something, but doesn't have a problem with trying to learn some more (ignorance can be easily fixed with education). Unfortunately, as we all know, the vast portion of the population of this planet has no access to proper education. However, in the case of people brought up in a developed nation, with all the access to information and education, who..... oh, I dunno, think Joseph Smith is a prophet, need to be ridicularized for the stupidity of their belief system.

There has to be a line (although fuzzy I'm sure) that separates faith from mental insanity. Believing in something like Lord Xenu, I'm sorry, but it's the case of mental insanity. Should they be allowed to believe in it? Sure. But they should also be categorized as lunatics who should have absolutely no way to interfere with the normal proceedings of a civilized society.


>> ^bareboards2:

This is a demonstrably false statement:
@EMPIRE said Religion is NOTHING BUT bullshit, deception and complete ignorance.
I have often thought that atheists can be just as dogmatic and rigid and intellectually bankrupt as any religious person. Here is the proof of it. You have your belief and no facts are going to get in your way.
You are the holder of the One Truth. There can be no Other Truth. If someone believes otherwise, they are a Heretic and an abomination.
The world isn't perfect. It is full of flawed human beings just trying to get by, trapped by their meat puppet bodies and brains. Some need a crutch to make it through life. You would deprive them of their crutch? THEY WILL FALL DOWN.
I keep saying the same thing over and over here on the Sift. You'd think I'd learn to back out of these pissing matches. I don't though, because I know that atheists ultimately are intelligent people, open to rational thought. I wouldn't try to talk shinyblurry out of his beliefs. That is a complete waste of effort. I am enough of a Pollyanna to think a rationalist will eventually get it -- that humans are flawed, that humans have had gods since the very beginning of human consciousness, that thinking that ALL HUMANS will leave behind an evolutionary trait is a fools game.
The best we can hope for is to keep religion out of the laws as much as possible. That is where someone's evolutionary crutch needs to keep to itself and out of my life. And keep educating about rational thought, throwing a life line to people who are born into a religion and don't hear anything but their family's brand of dogma.

This is a demonstrably false statement:

@EMPIRE said Religion is NOTHING BUT bullshit, deception and complete ignorance.

I have often thought that atheists can be just as dogmatic and rigid and intellectually bankrupt as any religious person. Here is the proof of it. You have your belief and no facts are going to get in your way.

You are the holder of the One Truth. There can be no Other Truth. If someone believes otherwise, they are a Heretic and an abomination.

The world isn't perfect. It is full of flawed human beings just trying to get by, trapped by their meat puppet bodies and brains. Some need a crutch to make it through life. You would deprive them of their crutch? THEY WILL FALL DOWN.

I keep saying the same thing over and over here on the Sift. You'd think I'd learn to back out of these pissing matches. I don't though, because I know that atheists ultimately are intelligent people, open to rational thought. I wouldn't try to talk shinyblurry out of his beliefs. That is a complete waste of effort. I am enough of a Pollyanna to think a rationalist will eventually get it -- that humans are flawed, that humans have had gods since the very beginning of human consciousness, that thinking that ALL HUMANS will leave behind an evolutionary trait is a fools game.

The best we can hope for is to keep religion out of the laws as much as possible. That is where someone's evolutionary crutch needs to keep to itself and out of my life. And keep educating about rational thought, throwing a life line to people who are born into a religion and don't hear anything but their family's brand of dogma.

http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/4189/cqpyw.jpg
>> ^Hive13:

If a show has a laugh track, I simply cannot enjoy it. It feels so forced and fake. I really want to like The Big Bang Theory, but that annoying laugh track absolutely ruins it for me. The old, tired sitcom formula of "line, line, joke, laugh track" needs to go away.
Shows like Flight of the Conchords, The Office, Louie, Wilfred, and Modern Family, to name a few, have proven that you don't need to rely on a shitty laugh track to get your jokes across. I think that a laugh track is actually a crutch for average writing and delivery.

If a show has a laugh track, I simply cannot enjoy it. It feels so forced and fake. I really want to like The Big Bang Theory, but that annoying laugh track absolutely ruins it for me. The old, tired sitcom formula of "line, line, joke, laugh track" needs to go away.

Shows like Flight of the Conchords, The Office, Louie, Wilfred, and Modern Family, to name a few, have proven that you don't need to rely on a shitty laugh track to get your jokes across. I think that a laugh track is actually a crutch for average writing and delivery.

>> ^NetRunner:

I'm starting to feel like Yahtzee is a bad reviewer of games. I haven't played Resistance 3 yet, but all I got from this was that he loves it because its mechanics are old-fashioned.
Maybe all of us gamers are starting to get a bit long in the tooth, but I've not become particularly nostalgic for "the good old days" of gaming. I mean, do most gamers spend a lot of time wishing old game mechanics would come back from the dead? I've played enough remakes of "classic" games I loved to realize that most of them don't hold up in comparison to modern games. Gaming has largely moved on.
I for one love the addition of cover and regenerating health to shooters, and don't really like the idea of going back to health pickups and strafing in and out of cover.
Oh, and maybe I just don't play a lot of shooters, but are any of the top-tier series really still all/mostly brown? The only ones I know of are Gears and Resistance...in their first iteration only. From hearing Yahtzee, you'd think this was some mistake developers are still making, but I can't recall the last game I played that didn't make use of a healthy portion of the color wheel.


I'd like to experience some of the good old days of shooters again not because games were better back then, much of the design has moved on, but now days there is just a flood of games all using the same mechanics as each other with no variety or substance.

Resistance 3 was a breath of fresh air, old school style gameplay mixed with modern mechanics. The health system, however was imbalanced. They could've done more to make it work better, but overall though, i really enjoyed Resistance dispite a few questionable design decisions. The fact that you can carry all the weapons at once nearly made me tear up.

DNF is a good example of totally cocking up the "old school" approach by implementing the WRONG modern features. Firstly the regenerating health. This right away causes a problem; you can regenerate your health, so for some challenge we need to make the enemies do a lot more damage to keep the player from abusing the system. What happens? You are almost always sitting back behind cover while waiting for your health to regen before firing again. That's not Duke Nukem! I heard other ideas were that you needed to kill an enemy to regain health, THAT is Duke.
Then there's the 2 weapon limit. George Broussard in all his game design incompetence said they couldn't find a way to implement a weapon wheel effectively on consoles... Resistance 3 seemed to do it fine. So did HL2 years back. Moron.

Regen health and 2 weapon limit can and do work for some games like Call of Duty, Halo and Gears of War, but FFS let's try something a little different once in a while. But some developers use them as a development crutch; less testing, balancing and design required. Less effort in other words. Or they use it to make the game less complex, which is a bad thing. Ninja Gaiden is a good example. It seems to be going down a path of less and less substance, there's only the combat. This is terrible. The original game's store, upgrades, potions, rewards for exploration, non-linear main world all helped to pace the game better rather than an exhausting trudge through constant unrelenting combat seen in Ninja Gaiden 2 and from the sounds, even more so for the third game.