p.3 of WHO POSTED THIS?

Man, I was easy!

littlek wrote:

Man, I was easy!

i believe slappy made a reference to that once....

:wink:

This is indeed the best site on the internet. Where else would one find stimulating conversation that involved capybaras, pot-smoking prairie dogs, devious beer selling tactics by desperate Canadians, avatar suggestions, and gentle kidding about the obligatory extraction of a dictionary. I'm telling you.... this place has got it all.

I had to quit wearing thongs around the farm. The animals were becoming agitated. I do have some rather seductive thongs hidden in the closet of my shack. If you would like me to take a snapshot of me posing in some of them, well, I guess I would be willing to do that.

Here are some more stinkers that haven't drawn any attention yet. At least, I think they were stinkers, and I am restricting myself to the big studio stuff, and mostly movies that at least some people liked:

The Haunting- a travesty of overblown computer-generated special effects, particularly when compared to the original, much scarier version that relied on almost no gimmickry of any kind.

Field of Dreams-A stupid concept wrapped in a calculated, emotionally manipulative package. I actually liked Waterworld and The Postman better, but probably only because, after this lemon and Dances With Wolves, I went in with such low expectations.

What Dreams May Come-A Robin Williams three hanky weeper which sets up a ridiculous version of the afterlife and then betrays its own vision. Patch Adams would probably make my list but I have never had the stomach to watch it. Most Robin Williams movies would make my list.

South Pacific-I'm sorry. It's a classic Broadway musical, but the screen version is stilted, if not completely lifeless.

Bird on a Wire-This Goldie Hawn-Mel Gibson adventure comedy is forced, unnatural, and an embarrassment to watch. Plus there is little adventure, and no comedy.

The First Wives Club- A grab bag of strident feminist grievances disguised as entertainment which is neither entertaining nor thought provoking.

The Big Sleep-Its Bogart. Its Bacall. Its Blasphemy to criticize...but the darn thing has a murky, confusing plot, and I've fallen asleep in the middle every time I sat down to watch it.

Planet of the Apes (the remake)- Technically superior to the original, but fatally flawed by an ending that just doesn't make a lick of sense. And the original was a classic anyway, like The Haunting, would have been better left alone.

The Patriot-Mel Gibson's overwrought, histrionic Classics Illustrated version of how we won the war against all odds against the sub-human British. Cheap patriotic drivel.

There are a lot more out there, of course, but it's late, I'm tired, and its time to let someone else take a few swings....

Having read the thread up to this point (without necessarily retaining or even understanding every point) I feel compelled to add my observations.

I am an atheist. I don't believe it is possible to prove the superiority of my position, but nothing that has been written here persuades me that the agnostic position has a leg up on the truth. Or that the theistic position is necessarily weak either.

The crux of the matter is the definition of God as something or someone "supernatural (beyond the natural, material world, and thus beyond human senses)". It is on the basis of this definition that we diverge, not logically, but as a matter of choice.

The agnostic is principally responsible for the advocacy of this definition, which is a significant departure from the dictionary definition first put forth by Portal Star. If one accepts this definition, then agnosticism is of course a valid response.

However, the theist may conclude that if, by definition, God cannot be discovered through our senses, the use of logic, is, in fact, not logical.

And the atheist may find the whole issue a chimera. If there actually was an omnipotent God, even He could not disprove the existence of a God fitting this definition, who could exist in some realm or dimension above Him of which, by definition, He could not be aware.

For most atheists, who share with agnostics the conviction that there is no evidence for Gods who are asserted to exist, the step of proving the non-existence of Gods who, by definition, cannot be detected, is an exercise in futility rather than logic.

I am an atheist because I believe the burden of proof for the theist, to prove that a God or God interacts with humanity, has not been met. And the burden of proof for the agnostic, to prove that a God who does not interact with humanity can still be called a God, has also not been met and probably cannot be.

As I see it, all three positions are potentially valid given the state of human knowledge. But, of course, as Gods either exist or they don't, agnosticism is the only one of the three that has no chance of actually being correct.

A rousing second vote for Vernor's. At one time that was a regional midwestern drink, but is now available all over. I read an article once that proclaimed you had to be raised on it to tolerate it, and that the same was true of Dr. Pepper in the south. This is obviously not quite true, as I never tasted Dr. P until young adulthood, and liked it, and I know quite a few Vernor's converts with similar experiences.

The beauty of Vernor's is that it is so strongly carbonated you can leave a bottle open for days in the fridge and still get that fizz.

Although, frankly, all sodas are a little too sweet for me these days. And I have a caffeine problem too. Fortunately, we still have beer.

...Maybe the purpose and attraction of art from the artist's point of view is being able to create something coherent and unified out of an activity dependent on our sole direction, control and imagination....This is in counterpoint to the lack of coherence and the juggling of multiple variables that most of us deal with in real life.

Gee whiz Jackie...............

…could you elaborate on what you mean by our "true nature," where you think it comes from, whether some people are evil by nature or if not, why they choose to act against their nature?

Certainly people invent causes for things that they do not understand (storms caused by angry gods, illness due to possession by demons, health brought about by prayer or wearing an amulet) but it seems that there ARE actually causes for these things.

I don’t mean that everything is inevitable or that we live in a clockwork universe, but that events are the result of a particular set of conditions. If you put your hand on a hot stove you will suffer a painful burn. An accident may be the result of driving too fast on an icy road, driver error, or some chance set of events that put you in the path of a runaway truck. Maybe it was your fate to have that accident, and nothing you did could have changed it. I prefer to think that we can have some control over our lives by learning what effects certain actions will have, and choosing to do whatever is most likely to produce the results desired (hopefully we desire the greatest good for all, rather than just

Science education in this country is certainly inadequate if people have to be warned that coffee made from boiling water is hot enough to burn them.

It seems that they also need to be warned that liquids can spill, sharp edges can cut, gasoline can ignite, plastic bags can suffocate, loud music can deafen, looking at the sun through binoculars can blind, cords can strangle, electricity can shock and guns can kill.

I think that elementary kids need hands-on experiments with ordinary things to learn basic science. Reading textbooks and learning equations is not sufficient for most kids. They need to learn how to critically observe the world and apply the scientific method to understand how and why it works. They need to know what a theory is, how it is validated and what to do when new data does not fit. They need to be able to distinguish factual theories from pseudoscience.

But critical thinking skills would put a lot of snake oil companies - and lawyers - out of business.