The OFFICIAL Unofficial Achewood Message Board
Trivial Pursuits => Wild Card => Topic started by: misterqueue on May 05, 2006, 01:29:08 am
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but seriously... WTF IS THIS SHIT?! (http://www.devilducky.com/media/44860/)
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HAHAHAHAHAHAHA is about the only sequence of letters I can come up with.
I love their logic, "This thing is cool, therefore God made it." And yes, that is my worst nightare, that God made bananas really well.
What's worse is I know there's some poor fool being taken in by all this. <-- Okay lemme clarify, You can believe in ID/creationism all you want, but this is so not anything resembling proof of an intelligent designer. Anyone who buys this, whether or not they believe in ID is a fool.
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Oh man, I think he's convinced me. Sign me up for JESUS.
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"Now this is a real atheist's nightmare. This is a true creation from God, Heather. Now if you notice Heather has strong knees with tough skin and hard bone so to take the added pressure of kneeling down. Also, when Heather kneels her head, and more importantly her mouth, is conveniently at the level of my crotch. Notice how my erection enters so easily and with the slight curve acts as a bonus, this is truly Gods idea. The extra skin of me c*ck also acts to help 'er hand glide over me junk more easily...."
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Hobo, today you are a genius.
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Bananas are pretty awesome, though. You've got to give props to either the intelligent designer of your choice or the random vagaries of mutation and evolution for that one.
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Oh I won't deny the awesome power of a banana... it is full of potassium.
I'm just saying if Kirk Cameron wants to get into it with me, he should come correct.
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So if God made the bananas, I guess the Devil made the pineapples. Tough motherf*ckers.
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Oh man, I think he's convinced me. Sign me up for JESUS.
Me too, this is the proof i've been searching for. Thank you Kirk Cameron.
~Paul
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i don't like bananas.
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i don't like bananas.
Agreed. They taste awful, overpower any smoothie you put them in, and it's impossible to eat one without looking sensual and/or silly.
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This is not the first time Kirk Cameron has changed my life; Growing Pains helped me through some tough times. That boy just keeps on giving.
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(http://www.misterqueue.com/destro.bmp)
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I think the course from here is clear.
Life outside of any place that can grow bananas must be purged, specifically Washington State. Do you need more proof?
(http://raindog.net/ljimages/apple.jpg)
Within the "innocent" apple lies satanic images. An apple a day keeps GOD away.
It's time to apply the cleansing flame to the godless apple eaters.
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Within the "innocent" apple lies satanic images. An apple a day keeps GOD away.
Oh yeah? What about this devilish fruit?
(http://www.organicfarm.net/images/Carambola.jpg)
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An apple a day keeps G.O.D. away.
So that's all it takes, huh?
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If an intelligent designer made bananas, he or she shouldn't have made them go bad so damn fast. I mean, what the HELL.
Obviously, our primate ancestors evolved hands that held bananas well.
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Roger... even the heavens tremble at great war that shall take place in Sri Lanka, where they grow both the Starfruit AND the Banana.
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I'd like to see those smiling smug fucks talk to some parents whose kid just died of cancer.
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I'd like to see those smiling smug fucks talk to some parents whose kid just died of cancer.
Or vice versa (http://www.paulmcrae.com/images/Miscellany/Matt%20Veal/006_6-E-I_Matt_and_McKenna.jpg).
~Paul
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People have different beliefs. If they didn't, there would be no controversy about the war in the first place.
Between this and the thread Q started that seemed to be about religion, some (a few) of you are really starting to look like closed-minded, intellectually arrogant culture nazis who can't conceive the possibility that A) other points of view can have any possible worth and B) there might be something bigger than you out there. A value or an ideal or something-forbid, even a God.
(Attempting to untangle this thread with the Godsmack thread.)
In watching the video I'd have to say "intellectually arrogant" is exactly how Kirk and Mr. Mustache are coming off. The implication is that Athiests can have their worlds torn apart by a banana. It's as though they're saying "Seriously, how could athiests be so stupid? Have they not eaten a simple banana?"
There are some pretty glaring logical problems with what they're saying about the banana.
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Hey man, just go eat a banana, and then we'll talk. I'll bet you'll have come around by then.
Note: I am a Christian, but not a stupid Christian. (usually)
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What's worse is I know there's some poor fool being taken in by all this. <-- Okay lemme clarify, You can believe in ID/creationism all you want, but this is so not anything resembling proof of an intelligent designer. Anyone who buys this, whether or not they believe in ID is a fool.
Agreed. This is an aggressively stupid excuse for an example of irreducible complexity.
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HAHAHAHAHAHAHA is about the only sequence of letters I can come up with.
I love their logic, "This thing is cool, therefore God made it." And yes, that is my worst nightare, that God made bananas really well.
What's worse is I know there's some poor fool being taken in by all this. <-- Okay lemme clarify, You can believe in ID/creationism all you want, but this is so not anything resembling proof of an intelligent designer. Anyone who buys this, whether or not they believe in ID is a fool.
That's the arrogant part. You can make your argument for the other side, but you lose all credibility when you resort to ad hominem attacks.
Just state your case. Let the jury decide who the fool is.
Fool. :-)
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the jury is in: fools.
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That's the arrogant part. You can make your argument for the other side, but you lose all credibility when you resort to ad hominem attacks.
Just state your case. Let the jury decide who the fool is.
Fool. :-)
Mostly I like the phrase "aggressively stupid," and felt the need to use it. I am the victim of my own sense of humour.
I don't support the idea of intelligent design, but I have no problem admitting that I've heard much more convincing arguments for the concept of irreducible complexity than the one presented in this video. Bananas may be delicious, but they are not mind-boggling.
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That's the arrogant part. You can make your argument for the other side, but you lose all credibility when you resort to ad hominem attacks.
Just state your case. Let the jury decide who the fool is.
Fool. :-)
Okay yeah, I shouldn't have called people fools, that was inappropriate. But, the point stands, as hobot said, this is no proof, not even close to any proof, of irreducible complexity. But the problem with this thinking runs much more deeply. Believing in something that is contrary to the facts of the universe we live in is fine, I'll call you silly but whatever. The danger arises when people turn those beliefs into action and start saying that because of what they believe, that stupid, backwards, reactionary pseudo-science should be taught in our classrooms in lieu of actual science.
Relatedly, it is my personal opinion that no one should believe in anything so deeply that they are willing to ignore a few basic facts of the world and the evidence of their senses. This is soooo dangerous. It's ridiculous to say "Well I don't care about the fossil record, I don't care about the centuries and centuries of inquiry and brain wracking people have done to uncover these things. I believe in X and X is the one and only truth. And if X says that the world is 6000 years old, then it's 6000 years old" I'm not accusing anyone here of that kind of thinking, but Mr. Irreducible Banana is certainly guilty. I don't give two rat's asses about how comforting faith is or how meaningful it makes your life, if it contradicts with reality you need to revise your worldview. The way I look at life, simple things we take for granted like free will are looking less and less probable the more we find out about the universe. As uncomfortable as it is for me to think that I don't have free will, if it turns out that the universe is 100% deterministic and all our lives were set by the interactions of a few particles back in the days of the big bang, then I'll accept that, regardless of how much I really want to believe that what I do is my own choice.
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What is Mr. Banana really trying to prove? Shouldn't he be happy with the fact that he believes in God. Why does he need to make up Banana Theories to ruin the Atheists' day? We're already going to hell, don't rub it in.
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Dang, I just remembered I'm the moderator of this forum. Keep it civil, people, I have to work this weekend and can't be checking up on you every five minutes. OK?
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Hey man, you can hail Zeus or whatever, but as a Christian and one who believes God is behind everything, I have to take a little umbrage at being categorized along with people even I think are a little crazy.
For the record: a banana signifies God's presence in the world in equal measure to everything else that ever was or will be with exception of Christ. He counts more.
However, I don't think attempting to shove the Banana of God up an unbelieving minds ass is gonna make much headway with people already in active disbelief or predisposed to disbelief. Sharing compassion and love goes further and makes more sense.
The whole creation/ID vs evolution/physics thing is kind of a pointless argument anyway. It doesn't really help us get whereever it is we are going and no matter how far back you trace the steps you have to come to a place where you make something out of nothing - where a massive amount of matter and energy just <becomes> or just <is>. And people will theorize about that til the sun goes supernova or Jesus comes back or Ragnarokk begins or however you describe the end of it all.
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I have to take a little umbrage at being categorized along with people even I think are a little crazy.
Where did this happen? Are we not allowed to make fun of the radicals just because you're in the mainstream? Where did we say all Christians are crazy?
Maybe attacking the messenger isn't the right tactic to take here. The wackos are the ones saying the crazy stuff. We're just pointing it out and laughing. If they're exposing your faith to ridicule perhaps you should take it up with them.
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People need to talk to the Wackos for sure, be they Islamic or Christian or what have you.
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I'm just gonna say, if this guy was a Jew saying not only that the banana is evidence of God's intent, but calling it "atheists' worst nightmare" and acting like his revelations about the banana were going to demolish all atheism, he would be equally hilarious to me.
Without those assertions, it would just be kind of amusing in a "stoned guy has a revelation about the world" kind of way. "Hey, man, did you ever notice.. the banana fits your hand perfectly. 'Sgotta mean something, dude."
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I'm seconding Wombat here. Play nice, everyone.
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"Hey, man, did you ever notice.. the banana fits your hand perfectly. 'Sgotta mean something, dude."
Yeah, it means that early primates ate those bananas that fit into their hands, and did not eat the ones that didn't, and thus when they pooped seeds the ones they selected continued to live.
If anything, the banana's qualities make an argument for evolution and natural selection, not intelligent design.
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There's also the fact that, for every easy-to-eat ergonomic fruit like a banana, you've got twenty plants in nature with fruit that's poisonous, painful, or otherwise poorly designed for humans. Why would the same God who designed a banana design a pineapple? Sadism? Was it, in fact, Satan?
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It's tiered effort-based rewards like in an MMOG. You've got your basic tasty banana for n00bs or casual gamers who can only invest a small portion of their time in your game, but for those really willing to work at it and solve your puzzles, they get rewarded with delicious pineapple and coconut. Of course, eventually the spoiler gets out and everyone's eating pineapple, coconut, or delicious tropical cocktails thereof.
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It's tiered effort-based rewards like in an MMOG. You've got your basic tasty banana for n00bs or casual gamers who can only invest a small portion of their time in your game, but for those really willing to work at it and solve your puzzles, they get rewarded with delicious pineapple and coconut. Of course, eventually the spoiler gets out and everyone's eating pineapple, coconut, or delicious tropical cocktails thereof.
Nice theory, but bananas are delicious too.
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Nice theory, but bananas are delicious too.
Well, yes. You have delicious items at all levels of skill, and the advanced players get their choice.
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I DELETED THIS PART BECAUSE APPARENTLY THE DISCUSSION WAS GOING ON IN THE THREAD ABOUT THE GODSMACK INTERVIEW BULLSHIT STUFF.
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2nd edit-
also 'dawg is cool and i try not to be an asshole even though i fail.
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Nice theory, but bananas are delicious too.
no, they aren't. they are, they are the ANTITHESIS of delicious.
they are the very model of a modern major general in the army of ICKYFOODIA.
bananas fuck*ng suck in every way, shape or form and i can not comprehend a manner in which they do not.
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I got a little redassed along the way, and I think It's because of the thread title which hit me the wrong way after having a headache for two and half days and then taking medicine which was supposed to make me not dizzy but instead made me drowsy and gave me blurred vision.
I don't like bananas either. I think the line of reasoning that culminates in intelligent design and starts from the banana is predicated on the idea that everything in the world is geared specifically toward mankind succeeding - I don't think we have any direct proof that God's intent was that specific - and, that theory suffers from what V points out - that there are a million things that kill humans on this planet too.
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ok, so, speaking of things that kill people:
reading Heart of Darkness, the following occured to me: is it possible that the reason that Europe and parts of Asia were so much more advanced is that they're easier to live in? Africa is terrifying. There are so many natural predators for humans, diseases, etc. On the other hand, Europe, and countries like China and Japan are relatively free of things that eat people. The biggest problem in Europe was most likely climate-- which required innovation to overcome it.
does this make sense? am I explaining this enough?
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Theinevitable is not afraid of bears.
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ok, so, speaking of things that kill people:
reading Heart of Darkness, the following occured to me: is it possible that the reason that Europe and parts of Asia were so much more advanced is that they're easier to live in? Africa is terrifying. There are so many natural predators for humans, diseases, etc. On the other hand, Europe, and countries like China and Japan are relatively free of things that eat people. The biggest problem in Europe was most likely climate-- which required innovation to overcome it.
does this make sense? am I explaining this enough?
I think farming is a pretty big contributory factor to the 'advanced' state of an area. In Western Europe, by all standards an 'advanced' place, there is predominantly very good farming land. On the other hand, the Middle East and Asia Minor in general have very fertile farming land, but are not so advanced. But in history, these were affluent places which were certainly more advanced than the tribes of the West. Same goes for North Africa: while today that area may seem slightly backward despite the good farming land (on or near the coast, at least), in the past they were the crux of both the highly advanced Carthaginian and Egyptian states. (Though the Nile is a pretty big factor in Egypt's case, and let us not forget that the Romans sowed salt into the earth around the city of Carthage, rendering great swathes of land in North Africa unfarmable.)
And as for the USA (quite advanced I guess), another interesting factor comes in. The plains in the U.S were once almost impossible to farm and live on; I'm sure most are familiar with the stories of pioneers with no wood, poor soil, very harsh weather, and so forth. But because of things such as the government encouragement and the 'Manifest Destiny' people persevered and 'tamed' the plains for farming, and in turn the newly-fertile soils of America helped feed its people and propel it to the forefront of the world's nations.
As for places like Japan, as far as I know it is a hard place to farm: very mountainous and so forth. But rice is pretty much a great thing to grow if you can, so maybe farming does play a part there. Hmmmm.
And then we have Africa: not an easy place to farm, or hunt for that matter. It is not hard to see why they have had a hard time being as 'advanced' as us. Though of course, 'advanced' can mean a lot of things.
If you read all of that, thankyou. If you can correct me on some of the unfounded statements I have made, thankyou further.
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yeah, also, native americans didn't have any beasts of burden.
and yeah, I thought about bears. but... they're just bears.
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Religion also played a major role, because that influenced the values of the society. Christianity teaches that God gave human-folk dominion over the animals and sundry beasts, which could lead societies in which Christianity is the religion de rigeur (primarily Europe) to take matters into their own hands and cultivate the earth, leading to agricultural practises, as Judy mentioned. This may not have been the case in cultures that had more naturalistic, communal, earth-friendly religious beliefs, for better or for worse.
However, I am no anthropologist, so this post could easily be full of lies.
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Africa had some pretty kickin' empires and well-entrenched agriculture in its day. It's pretty hard to find African history sources that aren't basically a thin front for some modern American's political agenda, but this much does seem to be the case.
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oh, hm.
now I want to write a long paragraph explaining why those empires were the best, and were wiped out by freak accidents of history. saying things like "obviously their empires were more advanced, because of the pressure put on them to advance by Lions and Tigers."
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oh, hm.
now I want to write a long paragraph explaining why those empires were the best, and were wiped out by freak accidents of history. saying things like "obviously their empires were more advanced, because of the pressure put on them to advance by Lions and Tigers."
AND BEARS OH MY.
Sorry I couldn't help myself.
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Read Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. It addresses many of these questions, and is pretty entertaining, too. He talks about all kinds of factors - domesticatable animals (or lack thereof), east-west vs. north-south orientation of the continents, all kinds of stuff.
His arguments are talking largely about the fertile crescent and very early development of civilization (I think - it's been awhile). His thesis is that a lot of these advancements were already predestined, more or less, long before even things like monotheism rolled onto the scene. Religion might have some answers for the way the west colonized the rest of the world, but not really why we colonized them instead of the other way around.
Also, though he does tend to go overboard with the evolutionary biology, his Why is Sex Fun is a good read. He's got a new one out on the collapse of complex civilizations that I want to read eventually.
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oh man, yeah! I have that book, but only read the very beginning.
I so need to read it now.
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Generally, I tend to believe that there may well be a spiritual reality beyond our own... but any and every system that rises up wherein someone else says they have authority over your interaction with the spiritual reality is either trying to get your money, money indirectly through your labour as a volunteer, money indirectly though your labour as a soldier or trying to have sex with you.
This is not to say that all people into that stuff are looking for those things for you, on the contrary, the vast majority of the people involved have been tricked into thinking that this set-up is beneficial to them in this life or the (possible) next and believe that they are helping you by offering you their set-up... even though they also believe they're helping themselves by pleasing a deity or their priest/etc.
But the people at the top tend to either be cynically rolling around in piles of money or completely crazy. More likely both.
And religion was my minor in college. Woulda been my double-major, if the freshman requirements weren't so radically different in the Newhouse School (the communications wing of SU) and the College of Arts and Sciences (the liberal arts wing of SU)... pretty much, I had more credits in Religion than in TV/Radio/Film but I would've needed to have taken harder foreign language classes and another math class to have qualified.
But when you're taking religion classes and you're of the stripe to believe that there may well be a God or gods but anyone claiming to speak for them/speak to you for them is either a thief or insane... well... it makes for some fun classroom participation.
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I don't know about the rest of this, but someone ought to warn theinevitable about the bears.
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ok, so, speaking of things that kill people:
reading Heart of Darkness, the following occured to me: is it possible that the reason that Europe and parts of Asia were so much more advanced is that they're easier to live in? Africa is terrifying. There are so many natural predators for humans, diseases, etc. On the other hand, Europe, and countries like China and Japan are relatively free of things that eat people. The biggest problem in Europe was most likely climate-- which required innovation to overcome it.
does this make sense? am I explaining this enough?
My husband was reading A Thousand Years of Nonlinear History (I did not read it), and he said that it claimed that only recently (200 years or so) have European cities had non-negative population growth. They used to pull people in from surrounding rural areas, only to die in relatively large numbers. Part of this was supposedly due to WOLVES busting into town during lean winters. Apparently Paris had fairly bad wolf problems. I cannot back this up very strongly, not having read the book myself.
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I am extremely annoyed at the tendancy of every even slightly religious conversation on this board to turn into a polarized and somewhat circular arguement. When I came on tonight and read that not one but two threads had turned into said arguement, I have to admit that I've now come to the point of considering no longer spending time here.
"It is better to remain silent and appear a fool than to speak and remove all doubt."
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Well folks, I think these threads have been civil compare to the rest of the internet, as has been pointed out previously, if rather time-wasting. But when it gets to the point that you're driving Smells away, you get locked.
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Screw that. I'll say it here -- if things get to the point that Smells is considering leaving the board, locking will only be the start.
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Sorry you feel that way, Smells. Not sure what we can do about your finding religious discussions offputting except to advise against reading them (although the religious stuff seems to have slipped over into other non-religious threads - oh moderators...).
Anyway, I'd hate to ban discussion of religion and politics, which are of course the two biggest tinderboxes for flaming, but maybe we should start advising people to keep it in its own thread, with a leading tag, like "RELIGIOUS: Subject line" or "POLITICAL: Subject line..." That way people could read if they were interested, but not stumble into discussions that seem to come out of nowhere.