Ivan

You're seriously trying to argue that a reflex is something somebody THINKS about and does by their own will? That is one of the dumbest things anyone has ever said on MFG, and you're topping a pretty powerful list. There are children who understand what reflexes are, though they couldn't give you a text book answer to it. At least they understand that a reflex happens without thought, unwillingly.

By definition, being selfish would mean to do EVERYTHING for yourself without consideration for others. Simply because you may get the most minute amount of satisfaction out of something does not mean that it is being done for selfish reasons. Clinging to the actual definition of selfish (read: concerned chiefly or only with oneself [chiefly being almost absolutely, which would mean no big favors, no advice, just small shit]) then most things human beings do in public wouldn't be considered selfish. A person who doesn't brush their hair because they don't care about their appearances but wipes their ass because nobody should have to deal with that wouldn't be considered selfish for doing what they do.

Lisa

Are you seriously referring to the bible when you say that there's a major difference between humans and animals? Then certainly you believe in Adam and Eva too, as well as in bloody revenge and that women are inferior to men.
The bible is a book written by HUMANS, that's right buddy. Humans who believed that the earth is the center of the universe and flat. The only thing which we might learn from the New Testament is to love each other and treat the creatures on this planet decently, but not any biological or scientifical facts. I don't mean to offend anybody who is religious but seriously, you can't take the bible by word, it's an archaic book with archaic concepts. And of course it says that humans should rule the world as they are superior to animals, after all it wasn't written by a horse.

But putting the bible aside: it is a famn fact that we are nothing but animals, if aliens would come to this planet they'd put us into the category naked apes for sure. Our DNA is, as stated before, very very similar to the one of monkeys, we breed as animals do, eat, drink, sleep, digest, etc.pp.
We're animals called humans and this isn't bad but natural. And while I do understand why most humans desperatly try to deny that fact, it still remains ignorant and irrational as there is hard cold evidence that eventually we are animals.

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Ivan

This is probably the only time I'll agree with Lisa. Using the Bible as a base for your reasoning is just .. retarded. As time progresses, people either continue to believe everything in the Bible despite blatant contradictions by REALITY or start labeling shit as being metaphorical which kind of defeats the purpose of even making it a religion to begin with.

If you were making a book of metaphors (if they can even considered that) to help people better themselves and be decent people, why not just come right out and say it? Why make up Disney stories to deliver the advice?

Island of 1,000 Condiments

@Idiots: Stop spamming, and remarks such as Stalin Wins is for the Gas Chamber, not here.

@Sloth: When the Bible was written, man thought Earth was the center of the universe. Do you believe that too?

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Kurushimi

Do you think before responding. That entire post was rather condescending. You refer to us as "ignorant" because you are right and we are wrong, no?


That's not what you're doing, though. Any act we would define as unselfish you simply push off as selfish because in the end it benefits us. But the fact is, people don't do unselfish things because it benefits them.

Damn, I;ve got go now.

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The worst part is when sidewalk cracks are out-of-sync with your natural stride.
~ xkcd

GENERATION 4: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation. Social experiment.

Masked_Felix

Yes, I believe in Adam and Eve and the creation. It certainly takes a lot more faith to believe that some random thing happening that suddenly exploded with the creation of new things (despite the laws of conservation of energy and mass. You can argue that the laws could have changed due to something or another when it happened, but at that point, it's just listing whatever possible excuse comes to mind to try and further explained such a far fetched ideal) which, conveniently for us, gives us just the right planet at just the right distance from our sun to survive comfortably than in the creation story. Just because people then thought that the Earth was in the center of everything doesn't void anything the bible says because nothing in the bible is based on that conception. It's like saying that anything people did a two hundred years ago is absolutely worthless because they didn't have common knowledge of the inner workings of the atom.

On that note, just because the Bible is archaic means nothing. If age had to do with truth, then half of literature and political ideas would need to be scrapped for being archaic garbage.



It's not metaphorical. It's a history of what happened.

As for the contradictions, if it's within itself, then I'd like to see some of these that everyone so commonly refers to. If it's with the world as we see it today, perhaps the contradiction comes from the 'reality' that most people see as flawed.

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apocalypse1280

As far as I know nowhere in the Bible does it say the Earth is flat or that the Earth is the center of the universe. Trying to figure out why that was brought up.

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90% of DragonBall fans detest DragonBall GT. If you're one of the 10% of fans who actually like GT, post this in your signature.

A direct quote from Akira Toriyama himself on DragonBall GT: "I enjoyed the show, felt it captured the "Dragonball soul", and was pleased with the conclusion." - Haha, bitches!

Ivan

People back then believed things like that, apocalypse. Also, I said the contradictions come from reality (ie: not fairy tales) and that does void a lot of what people say because these people would get ANGRY to think that things such as "the world is flat and you'll drop off the edge of it into eternal nothingness if you sail to far" weren't true. If we just blindly believed in everything the Bible said, we'd be some pretty deluded people. This is no different than people believing in Greek gods and goddesses, which most people consider to just be works of fiction and part of Disney's Hercules.

So you are a Creationist, Felix? I never would have guessed, but this is extremely funny. What are the chances of living creatures popping up on the one hunk of rock that is suitable for life? Probably pretty slim, unless .. life tried to start on every hunk of rock and this was the only one that survived.

Here's a video series for you. Enjoy.
YouTube - Why do people laugh at creationists? (part 1)

Lisa

It's just as Halycon said (I feel dirty now), believing in what is written in the bible is about as rational as believing that Odin is sitting in Walhalla. The bible was made by people who thought that a thunderstorm means that god is angry and that if a child dies the midwife is a witch. They had absolutely no clue what was going on, so they tried to make sense of it.

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Masked_Felix

I don't know whether to lol that you previously didn't consider me a loony, or to be a little embarrassed that my conduct didn't give that implication in the first place.

Perhaps, but if life truly evolves and adapts to it's surroundings, I should think that that more would survive.

As for the videos, just because one person says something that isn't up to snuff doesn't knock the whole thing. There are many instances where people in various fields have made utter fools of themselves, however it doesn't suddenly disprove the whole field because of one person making statements that were ridiculed for stupidity. The deal is that Creationism and the Christian belief isn't based on scientists coming in before hand and giving them the green light for concrete proof. It's based on faith, so I'm not concerned about trying to scientifically prove it like some of those guys.

@Lisa: I could say the same thing of many of the beliefs you're presenting.

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Lisa

Which beliefs are you referring to? I didn't realize I presented any beliefs and if so that I based them on concepts made by people who are long dead. I've just stated the obvious relation between humans and animals.

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Masked_Felix

/\ /\ /\

That's a belief(s).

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Manic

Quote:

Perhaps, but if life truly evolves and adapts to it's surroundings, I should think that that more would survive.

We have no scope of how large the universe truly is. For all we know, the nearest planet with actual, verifiable life on it could be twelve billion times the distance of the furthest visible star from Earth to the twelve billionth power. Everything is chemical on an atomic level, including hunks of rock. Just as birth defects occur and scramble people's genetics, it's quite possible atoms are capable of similiar hybridization that would result in new chemicals being 'born' from this. If all this rang true, we'd be nothing but chemicals reacting to other chemicals. The mind itself could just be another classification of matter that we haven't gained an understanding of.

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ANB

Island, first I hear "4 million Jews" then "6 million" (on this thread) now you want to say 11 million...

Of course I'm gonna be skeptical of the most exaggerated event in history. Facts are facts. And so are numbers, as you like to point out. Regardless of how LONG it took Stalin and Mao still killed nearly twice as many as Hitler. Clearly, the holocaust is not "THE worst" and that's only for recent history. There were plenty of devastating events in the past and some that we might not even know about.

As for the primary arguement, I've pretty much said all I want on this issue. Everything we do is a choice. Humans are capable of rational thought and unconditional love. You can't actually be arrogant enough to generalize humanity and even go so far as to claim knowledge of what's in the heart. Kaio, scientists are not gods. The very fact we call people who don't realize what they're doing "insane" is evidence that not everything we do has malicious purposes.