Holy crap pinky, you've got an AWFUL lot of time on your hands! That's a lot of comments! (Still, that's the way of uni students... At least it was for me)

Ignoring whether you believe in a supernatural being or not, my issues with pretty much all religions, but especially the Christian ones:

* The belief that the bible is the word of god... even though it is:
a) A bunch of things written by a group of different people, all with their own points to get across and axes to grind.
b) Proven to have been altered and changed over time by whoever happened to be in power at the time (the Romans changed it, it's been changed during translations etc.)
c) That it's full of things written by the people of the day which reflects the beliefs of the time and includes things like slavery being ok, and so Christians pick and choose what they wish to believe from the book while still trying to say that it's all god's word.

* The attempted forcing of what they believe onto the rest of us:
This forceful pushing of Creationism and refuting of the proven facts of Evolution is damaging the countries where this is becoming mainstream (the US in particular). Creationism was a way for people who DID NOT UNDERSTAND how things worked to explain them, now that we do, it should be relegated to the history books as where we've come from.

* The heinous hypocrites that most of the organized Christian churches are:
Do unto others as you would have done unto you... except if you're gay, or of another faith, or believe in something we don't believe in, then we're going to treat you like dirt and try and pass laws to stop you being YOU.

* Believing that there are those that have 'authority from God':
Under what proof? That the existing ones who have authority from god give them that authority? Who gave them it? Those before... and so on until you get to someone who just said 'Yeah, you know, God spoke to me and kinda told me I speak for him...' It's an utter cop out in general life to hand over your entire moral code to someone who just says that they speak for some being that you believe in, and so anything they say goes. 'I don't like gays, they're unnatural'. 'Why is that then?' 'Well, because my pastor says so'... 'Riiiight'.

Issues with Mormon's in particular from this video:

* The excluding or including things in your life just because someone said so
With nothing to back it up other than that Joseph Smith said so, you're going to give up all alcohol, coffee and tea? Why? Tea has antioxidants, as does coffee. Red wine has been shown time and time again to have many positive health benefits. Sure you can overdo any of these, but that's MODERATION, not outright shunning of something with no rational reason behind it.

* Handing over of 1/10th of your income for the 'work of God'
So, really, you're handing over a HUGE amount of what you earn to those that have self proclaimed themselves to be in communication with god to do with as they please... wonderful

But most of all demonstrating their amazing gullibility in believing the charlatan that was Joseph Smith. Even from a LDS website itself, which is obviously PRO him, the story comes off as just plain ridiculous.

And it mentions the hat and if you read that, then watch South Park THEY TELL IT LIKE IT IS. That is truly the insanity of the beliefs.

But hey, if people want to believe that, good on them, just DON'T COME TO MY DOOR TRYING TO MAKE ME BELIEVE IT.

But the good thing about Mormons... because so many more people can see their beliefs as being pretty ridiculous, it allows us to say, "Really, so a guy who puts a hat over his head and rambles off things from 'sacred stones' is a pretty insane thing to follow? OK, what about people who believe that there really was a Garden of idyllic majesty with no sin, and a talking snake with a magic apple? What about believing that you can fit two of every single species of animal onto a wooden boat built by ONE GUY and then live on it without them all dying for 40 DAYS? That doesn't sound a bit loopy to you? Good luck with that."


Surely religion should be about passing on a GOOD moral code, to teach a 'right and wrong' way to treat people. As SDGundamX said he received from his Mormon church, teaching WHY things are not good to do to people from a humanistic point of view, not just because some book says so.

I think one should invest more time in organisations that aim to help their community with NO bias as to beliefs at all, but just aim to treat everyone fairly and equitably.

If you believe something that I don't, and if it doesn't mean that you treat myself or anyone else in a poor manner, then go for it. But when you try and force you beliefs on others, try to tell others that they are wrong, try to force people to change who they are (no, you've only CHOSEN to be Gay, repent now), THAT IS WRONG.

I like this. It's also why i bought my honda Jazz. It's relatively small, but load capacity is huge. great for country lanes and moving all my stuff back forth from uni which i was doing back then.

I listened to this track ALOT in Uni, and it still hits all the right notes! I don't know about the video because its one of those tracks where you start to think of visually, so its hard to meet ones own impressions of it. But it was a good effort nonetheless and good sift.

Check out this great clip from Scratch, a documentary which goes behind turntabalists and has a segment with DJ Shadow. There is a link to the full doc as well

Very nicely done, very convincing.

May I now relate a fine piece of 'metal in the microwave' story?

My friends and I were at our university cafe (this is years ago folks), and a guy came up with apparently their leftovers wrapped in aluminium foil... plonks it in the microwave and fires it up... there are some sparks... he pops the door open, we say "It's the aluminium!" He looks at us, looks at the wrapping, and then closes up the one hole in the metal, smiles at us with a 'thankyou' look (he couldn't speak english well) before putting it back in the microwave.

Well, we had to actually get up and stop it from going pear shaped right there...

Who gets into uni and doesn't know just the basic 'don't put metal in a microwave'? (Actually, you can put metal in a microwave, it's all about how much absorbent material and how much reflective material you do... as long as there's enough material to absorb the waves, and the metal is arranged such that whatever it reflects goes into the absorbent material, you're actually ok)

Ok, so I did an Engineering (and computer science) degree at uni, and I know I did all this stuff

Can I remember any of it now?

Nope, not a jot... haven't used it in 8 years, and it's completely left the building.

Have always wondered what it would be like to be in a similar field of endeavor-task-oriented, a single goal in mind, working day and night focused diligently on one project, one set of repeated actions.....the distractions and cares of the world non-existent while pushing forward into uncharted territory...surrounded by others with tasks similar to mine, all of us dedicated to reaching new horizons in our chosen disciplines.......But insects don't live that long, and DocM's here so folks like me can chase poontang and gamble.

Don't let the lack of action on yer moment here in the spotlight get ya down Doc, there are others here on the sift as uni-dimensional as yerself....It's hard to roast a cabbage y', gotta add so much flavor to it-like being on a desert island....("Will I eat fish and coconut, or fish and seaweed today???)

Speakin' a fish-glad to know you got yerself' a couple of fellas that you hang out with regularly that share similar interests and diversions...
Rob Roys and Starbucks eh??? Was it that girl you stalk that inspired you to be so......cosmopolitan???

" Sadly, you just can't do biology without animals."....Spoken like a true Onanist. If you took an ultraviolet light over to DocM's pad and dropped some good LSD, his bedroom would look like the stage backdrop at a Jefferson Airplane concert....

when he first got here, his first published post renewed my faith in cartoons being able to explain the obvious-I learned most of what I know from animated explanations of simple phenomenon as well-Now that we are clear on exactly what happened on 9-11...thanks for clearing that up for everyone.....

Yer a great sport DocM, man may the rest of your roast be good for you as well...Afterwards, you might ask Rosy Palm if it was good for her and her five sisters, too....

And thus completes our course on comparative mythology. *Quality work, HaricotVert! It truly is a hero with a thousand faces... and a uni-horn.

oh dear......what's come over you silvercord-do we really fucking' say fuck that fuckin' much???...Dern!
Is this some subtle request, or a friendly reminder to jump up on some wagon traveling in circles? Just what is uni-brow here ranting about, anyhow?
You are all invited to a 10k comments party, where at least two-thirds of all the rants I have ever posted will explode on contact.
btw....This guys a tweaker, or on some of that anti-X going around that all you punk kids think is real MDMA....looks like he's from some retrograde state like Cali, or Oregon.....

SIFTERS: DO NOT VOTE FOR THIS VIDEO!!

Some think
reft and light
can not be confused
what an ellol

(Original in German by Ernst Jandl)
http://www.staff.uni-mainz.de/pommeren/Buchstabendreher/lechts.html

If they had this at my uni, I may just come in for my 8am lectures ...

I saw this last week at Griffith Uni. It's excellent. Reminds me why I want to become a midwife.

I played football (US: Soccer) against The Mike Flowers Pops when they did a gig at our Uni Summer Ball back in 1996. Great bunch of guys that didn't take themselves too seriously, especially against a football team in tuxedos.

Foot & Ball == Football

"American Football" == rugby & armour & a comity to decide plays/tactics

I played it for awhile at Uni.

I liked it too-Gotta tell y'all though, I saw the biggest piece of shit from the likes of Hanks the other night on ABC, the film The Terminal-What a piece of absolute shit-Made Nazi's outtta U.S. Customs officers at an airport, and Hanks some lovable illegal, the airports fulla every race imaginable, all on Tom's side....Senor Spielbergo is a propaganda-spewin' motherfucker, ain't he? Some say the film was inspired by this guy, Mehran Karimi Nasseri, an Iranian who had to live in a terminal at the airport, like Hanks did in this craptacular film.........
... always kinna hated Tom Hanks anyhow, liked some of his films, but never endeared for his acting abilities, he's pretty uni-dimensional....

Did like Band of Brothers....mostly cause he wasn't innit....

Strangely I found the total reverse with my dealings with hot women back in Uni, they knew they were hot and thus would leverage that as an advantage, everything from trying to get free drinks at the bar to throwing their name on a research paper a group of us would spend weeks on. Talking to them was simply grating as they would also assume that because they are good looking that you were instantly interested in one thing one from the outset, basically getting into their knickers. I would see the change happening almost instantly if you tried to engage them in a meaningful conversation, the sudden stand off, the glaze in the eyes of "Ohh you want me?". If you failed to respond in the appropriate way i.e. submission to their desires, they would get all needy and annoying, eventually thinking I was weird, anti-social or basically an asshole. Of course this was not the case all the time, but close to 60% to 70% of the interactions I used to have. Oh my god the worst was girls trying to score weed off me.

Maybe I was a prude or it had something to do with growing up in an Islamic society, but basically I resented being treated in that way, I was expected to capitulated to their whims and desires, be at their beckoned call (usage of possible close contact, time alone, and or emotional blackmailing were always used). I saw this being used to great affect by my ex, who would playfully flirt with everyone as a way of being 'friendly', I told her early on that men don't read that as being friendly like they would back in our high school in Kuwait, it's different, being overly friendly with testosterone fueled men in college leads to one place in their minds. She told me I was being silly and they were all her friends, right up to the point that they started hitting her full force, asking her out on dates and basically assassinating my character behind my back as a way of winning her over.

Alot of what you mention seems to stem from being in such a environment in your life, but have you thought that your good looks were also intimidating to such a degree people would find it hard to communicate with you? I believe essentially both sexes are to blame, but I doubt you will find many good looking guys or girls really lamenting on the plight that their good looks have created. The prejudice goes both ways.

Needless to say I think being an adolescent is always a hard phase to go through in general, for everyone.