Off Topic Generalities

It's good that Areada is okay now. Nayab empathizes that friends can be difficult at times...

The next episode is a Western. It's awesome ^_^

xD I know the promo for next time looked great. I'll hopefully watch the episode sometime today, but I have class now...

I'm in class right now. In the front row too (actually the third row, but nobody's sitting in the first and second rows). My professor called me out implicitly called me out for doing non-academic things with a short anecdote about a previous student of hers who didn't pay attention in class. However, I've been taking detailed notes! I am totally capable of multi-tasking!

Oh dear. xD I couldn't get away with that in my classes *sigh* The classrooms are too small. Perhaps when I am moved to large lecture halls....

Zip wrote:Oh yes! I've always wanted to get into a conversation with God about you guys

Eh? I can't stop laughing! I know I'm reading it wrong, but really! lol!

Eh, religion and me. I don't know. I don't believe in the Christian/Catholic God... but I do believe there is some Higher Power. And I do think there was something equal to the Roman/Greek Gods.... I'm not overly religious. What little I learned about Catholicism (which I am) is that which we learned in Church at my Catholic school. But I didn't pay much attention. I've never been a big believer. I believe small tidbits from a variety of beliefs, like that we (read: maybe not everyone?) will be reincarnated (<-- that's the biggest thing I believe in) and/or that we will meet/see loved ones again.

But I don't like talking about Religion... it creeps me out a little bit, the death part...

Zip wrote:

Edit: Oh, another question for all of you. Do you guys need a God or a Higher Power to pray? Do you pray? For what? For whom? How?

As above, I pray to a Higher Power/God that is unknown to me, but that does, I firmly believe, exist. I do pray, but not overly much. For things I want happen (especially during those you-know-what years), for people who are sick (though that is more hopeful thinking/wishes than actual 'normal' praying). Just quietly thought out to myself... no hand clasping or kneeling or anything. If it's going to be heard, I think it'll be heard if done this way or that way; how I do it doesn't effect any outcome that would happen.

-------

Yes, lets do October if everyone agrees, for our NaNoWriMo thing!

Also, do you know I'm making more typos now? Soon I won't be able to spell or speak Enlgish properly....

If anyone cares what I think, I'm hereditarily Jewish, but I have become Agnostic. With so many different belief systems, I get the feeling that none of them are right, although I do believe in the possibility that one is. I think it is just best to live a moral life and it's better to not worship than to waste my time worshiping a false deity.

Sorry if that didn't flow very well or made no sense, I'm kind of tired.

Elfie wrote:

Zip wrote:Oh yes! I've always wanted to get into a conversation with God about you guys

Eh? I can't stop laughing! I know I'm reading it wrong, but really! lol!

Oh man!

Of course we care what you think, Red, why wouldn't we?

I think agnosticism has become rather popular in recent years. I've never particularly liked the term too much though. I feel it implies indifference. I've always respected atheism because it's a belief system. It asserts that there is no deity, and that the universe is a product of chance, but it is a belief system nonetheless. What I feel about agnosticism on the other hand is that it's intellectual laziness. I believe one ought to be on a single side of the fence. Sitting on the fence itself promises to be uncomfortable...

Edit: I am not comparing agnosticism to unaffiliated spirituality however. Just so you know.

Ooh! Theological discussions! I love theological discussions!

I consider myself an agnostic apatheist, who follows traditions for their own sake.
(I'll get to the second part later)
By "agnostic apatheist", I mean: I don't know if there is a god, and, more importantly, I don't care.

I'm definitely agnostic -- although, not in the "I don't know..." sense (Which is funny, because that's probably the one thing in my life that I'm not "I don't know..." about), but instead, I firmly believe that I have yet to see any convincing argument either way. I'm a "Russell's Teapot" sort of person.
(Aside: When we finally get a good space program going and start getting places, somebody should really take a teapot up into space, and put it in orbit, just because. Also/alternatively, the Doctor should put one there. Or just have tea there. With Bertrand Russell.)

That said, I tend to just ignore the whole god issue entirely, and just try and be a good person by my standards. I figure, if it turns out there is some god, and H/S/Tap takes offense to my not believing, then they really aren't the type of all-powerful being that I'd like to follow anyways.

So I don't really see myself as being on the fence, as much as sticking my fingers in my ears and saying "LAH LAH LAH WHAT FENCE I DON'T SEE ANY FENCE LAH LAH LAH!", and, if the metaphor holds, winding up walking into it and smashing my nose up a whole bunch.
My theology is that I want to be the type of person who'd run up and asks if I needed a bandage, no matter which side of the fence I was on.

The weirder (random: Whenever I misspell "weird", I correct myself by remembering that that was Sticky's pet peeve. Even though I never played Makewords) part of my belief system, though, is that even though I don't believe in any deity, I still go through all the motions and do all the traditions and stuff.

My thinking there, is that (a) any system of rituals which has survived and propagated itself for a long time (note: I'll be pulling ideas from Memetics for this. Memetics is basically applying the ideas of evolution to ideas themselves. It's cool)... Any idea which has survived and propagated itself for a long time must have picked up some useful practices, and it's basically impossible to tell which those are. To keep a larger pool of practices which are being actively used (as opposed to, must be thought up and actively tested), it's better for people to hand down practices.
And, (b) having a whole bunch of -- unless the belief system going along with it is correct -- irrational practices helps a whole lot when looking at someone else's irrational practices.

Okay, so I suppose I do act as if there's no god. I certainly don't believe that, though.

Aequus, you summed up my thoughts much better than I could 0_0

I like the quote thread, but no one will like my contributions. xD

Why do you say that?

Because the first one I thought of was a several-lines-long speech from a Shakespeare play that's kind of unsettling in terms of subject matter. xD

Oh, you're brilliant xD I don't know why I find that hilarious, but I do! Well, we wouldn't want to offend the virgin eyes of our younger forum-goers. That means you Zip! Stand in the corner while the grown-ups chat!

I'll admit I've been looser with what I post since we migrated here from Meteor Games.

I know it's fashionable in the geek community to think of the short and snappy and witty lines from all the popular cult shows, but honestly, the first things that come to mind for me when I think quotes tend to be lengthy, and from Tolkien or Shakespeare. And all the shorter, clever ones tend to be from The Queen's Thief series.
Or song lyrics. Those can be hilarious, but they just don't make sense out of context.

There: I compromised.

And it's not because I felt that anyone shouldn't read it just because it's unsettling subject matter, just because I felt uncomfortable posting something that would have been really long in the quote thread. Please, do look up the entire quote if anyone is interested. It's really quite something. Terribly vulgar, too. And while you're at it, read the whole play. *nods*

I'm drowning... arrrghllllbluuurglbluuuurghblub...

I forgot about my online course, of which there is a big assignment due of Friday...

O_O DOCTOR, GET ME A CAFFEINE DRIP STAT!

Okay, so, like, at my school it's Banned Books Week and stuff. And I had the bad luck to decide to sit in the cafeteria this morning, where they're doing readings of banned books. It would be okay, if they were reading actually good banned books. So far it's been some poorly-written book with a racy scene, and the hunger games. Where is Huck Finn?? To Kill A Mockingbird? Where are the books that genuinely challenge society in uncomfortable ways, rather than the books that just made some overprotective parents somewhere complain to the local library?

If I had my copy of To Kill A Mockingbird, I'd be up there in two seconds. Stand aside, Katniss, I've got commentary on humanity and racism and ignorance and what it means to be a good human being...

I suddenly feel compelled to read To Kill A Mockingbird. WHY AM I NOT AT HOME WITH MY BOOKS?

Wasn't there some movement to remove the n-word from To Kill a Mockingbird a little while ago? What a dumb idea... that would ruin the power of the book!

Nayaby wrote:Wasn't there some movement to remove the n-word from To Kill a Mockingbird a little while ago? What a dumb idea... that would ruin the power of the book!

Yes. And that is ridiculous. Some people are so sensitive, geez. It's a fictional book, and the characters are talking as... some/most? people did back then. It doesn't mean people who read it think like that, or that the writer did.

How can you write a book where one of the topics is racism without having people be racist? I ASK YOU, REALLY. You can't deal with these topics, and talk about the time (as Elfie said this was how a lot of people talked!) without showing it.

I think the controversy over the n word was in Tom Sawyer actually.

Anyways, TKAM is probably my favorite book I have ever read for school.

On a completely different note, there has been a string of burglaries in my neighborhood

I think they were both a target, Red.

Don't get burglarized Red! Electrify the door knob to your house with a car battery charger! (This has the added bonus of dealing with door-to-door salesmen!)

To Kill a Mockingbird is in my top 5 "school" books, although I'd have read it even if it wasn't assigned. My favourite school-assigned book however is 1984, without a doubt! I make Orwellian references all the time too xP