I'm not going to get into all this luck hubbub, but I will respond to the initial comment Scott made to the story. And that comment is that you pretty much missed the entire point of the story. I know all that all of those situations would be unfair and unfounded; I too think it's extremely annoying and disrespectful to, say, praise the lord after a successful life-saving operation and mostly ignoring the talented surgeons who actually made it happen.
The point of the story is not to appease us who believe that, though. The point of the story is two-fold. On the one hand, this story is often told in the form of a joke, between more casual religious people who are more intelligent than the fundamentalists and their ilk, and the joke is supposed to be "ha ha, we would never be that stupid about our faith!" (ignoring the fact that the religious faith itself is just stupid period, regardless of the degree it's taken to). On the other, more important hand, this story acts as a kick-in-the-pants fable to provide something that makes sense to the people who actually do believe in God, and won't listen to perfect or near-perfect logic like, say, the sort that was in tonight's episode. They're used to forming their core beliefs around stories and parables such as this one; the emotional and "the moral of the story is..." aspects are more important than cold-sounding logic, even though the cold-sounding logic is more correct.
Thus, the main point I wanted to make by bringing up that story was that it can be used as a tool against people like the parents of the little girl - turn the tables and show them that even their own beliefs do not support their actions.
It's really hard for me to not believe that things aren't going the way that the wealthy people want in the Democratic Primary. That belief is highly predicated on the fact that, as Rym said in the show, the people whining to Nancy are telling her that they'll take their money away. Also, Obama makes most of his money from small donors. So it's hard not to see the primary as an old school, bought-and-paid-for corporate tool versus a real man of the people.
This really is a historic time. This election might give us results that will enable us to do something to undo the GWB years. On the other hand, It might give us someone who'll be just as bad as GWB. We should all be paying attention because this will affect us all.
If you don't think you've been affected by the GWB years, have you checked to see if your name is on the Terror Watch List? It's gonna be a lot harder to get to PAX if your name is on that list. What's that? You can't check because the list is secret? Well, I guess you'll have to wait until right before you get on the plane to see whether they let you on or not.
Besides, you should admit that you were wrong you your calculated probability.
When did you mention that? Oh, previous page I see, after your edit. I have not seen that entire edit, but I knew something was still off with my numbers when I was doing them. I suck at math and said fuck it, I want this post out and the chance is 1/36th with 2 sixes after each other.
Also, rolling THREE dice and getting FOUR sixes? Only with rerolling yes! Stop fucking around for the sake of fucking around.
We should all be paying attention because this will affect us all.
This is the only point I disagree on. I know it's shitty. How is paying attention going to help make it better? You do what you can do, and that's that.
Besides, you should admit that you were wrong you your calculated probability.
When did you mention that? Oh, previous page I see, after your edit. I have not seen that entire edit, but I knew something was still off with my numbers when I was doing them. I suck at math and said fuck it, I want this post out and the chance is 1/36th with 2 sixes after each other.
Fair enough, but if you suck at math, why are you arguing about it?
Also, rolling THREE dice and getting FOUR sixes? Only with rerolling yes! Stop fucking around for the sake of fucking around.
Quantum theory tells us that it's possible. For example, if the particles of one of the dice rearranged themselves to make two smaller dice, both of which ended up with sixes.
As for the original point, I still hold that I was correct in a mathematical sense, but the way I said it was too subject to misinterpretation such as yours.
How do you know the superdelegates aren't just voting for someone based on haircut?
We don't. However, politicians are usually more resistant to the tricks of their own trade than the general public is. That isn't to say they don't have their own weaknesses, but you're less likely to see a candidate squeeze through on pure hair.
If for no other reason than because it's interesting. If you had been around during the missile crisis, would you have paid attention?
Only to the sirens.
Of course you would have paid attention. It had the potential to greatly affect your daily life. As in end it. Could you have personally done anything about it? No.
Why do people care about anything? Why do I care about whether there's life on Enceladus? I can't do anything about it, can I? It doesn't personally affect me, does it? Yet somehow I still care.
Why do you care about those Bible people? You can't do anything about them. They don't really affect you. So why do you care?
The only thing I've ever heard you really express a care about are those gaming achievements. They don't affect you personally. You can't do anything about them. So why do you care?
Why do you care about those Bible people? You can't do anything about them. They don't really affect you.
As I said before, I find it entertaining. I don't pay attention to politics and such because I find it to be upsetting, not entertaining. You paying attention to politics is really no different than me paying attention to sports. We both have about the same potential level of influence on the turnout of events. We just are entertained by different things. It's a matter of taste.
Why do you find politics to be upsetting? Was your mother frightened by a state senator?
I'll keep using sports as my example. No matter what happens in sports, someone is happy. Someone is always a winner, even if it is rarely me. With politics, everyone always loses.
Fair enough, but if you suck at math, why are you arguing about it?
Because it's pathetic when even I can see one is talking bullshit with math! It annoys me to great lengths when I can see someone fucking up in subjects I am not good in. Like English spelling and grammar, and this mathematical bastardization you've committed here.
Quantum theory tells us that it's possible. For example, if the particles of one of the dice rearranged themselves to make two smaller dice, both of which ended up with sixes.
*shoots one hole in your forehead*
Addition: I asked three people, one Dutch classmate (who I know is good in mathematics), a UK'er and an American. Is asked them if the answer statement 1, the rolling of 3 6's in succession was indeed 1/216. They all said yes. I then asked by exactly quoting your original question, then is "One of your rolls had something other than a 6" 215/216? The Dutch classmate said no, the UK'er said no, and the American found it to be a dumb question and agreed that it was wrong. So who the fuck taught you mathematics like that?
I'm completely ignoring the luck thing. I don't either care or completely understand it.
As to everyone's arguments: The main thing I was trying to get across is that you're being rather harsh. Back in the day, people only could pray! It was how they held hope for their young ones. Same with washing and such. Oftentimes, it was simply a "How to Live" guide. It's very true nowadays that we don't need to follow this - do I make every chair unclean after sitting in it during my period? No, because we have pads, a modern invention. Do we pray and hope for our children to recover? No, we don't because we have doctors.
Religion & faith is not all that bad. They just fucking suck at updating their shit. Some people use the 'Love of God' to motivate them, to keep themselves moving forward and being kind and not killing themselves. Religions created the "Don't fucking hurt others" rules, as I call them, and we as a society live by them for good reasons, all of which I'm sure you can think of - one being, in my mind, keeping away from anarchy.
You're all Bible-bashing, but you don't realize that other things that are much worse have happened by both people of spiritual beliefs and people who don't have any. Yes, this is a tragedy, a horrible horrible happening, but you seem to want to shut down all of faith and religion. It enables some people to act retardedly, but there'll always be many more who live in the service of God, for God, who'll be kind and generous people.
And to the "not everything is God's work" - faithful people have a surprising way of finding little things that point things their way. With the guy who drowned story: What if the person who created the helicopter, and the one who created the radio, wanted to better humanity using 'God's gift', their talent of being an inventor which came since they were small? Or maybe the guy who drowned could never have been seen, and he only heard the radio but never saw the boat or helicopter, if not for God 'pointing' both towards him as second and third chances? Maybe God inspired both with his "Do unto others" blah blah stuff.
(Side note: I'm kinda creeping myself out with the whole Pro-faith. I'm defending it because I think it's a good thing to have, if you can, but it's not me - besides, no one is giving it a fair chance at all!)
(Side note: I'm kinda creeping myself out with the whole Pro-faith. I'm defending it because I think it's a good thing to have, if you can, but it's not me - besides, no one is giving it a fair chance at all!)
Don't be creeped out. Peer pressure should never dictate what directions a person is allowed to think in. To genuinely defend both sides of an argument is the best way to understand what's being argued.
They were never right. If they "updated," they would just be called "science."
Some people use the 'Love of God' to motivate them, to keep themselves moving forward and being kind and not killing themselves.
I think those people are sad and delusional.
Religions created the "Don't fucking hurt others" rules, as I call them
While I doubt that's even true, who cares? Why not keep the rules and ignore the mystic made-up BS?
You're all Bible-bashing
Yes.
but you don't realize that other things that are much worse have happened by both people of spiritual beliefs and people who don't have any.
So?
you seem to want to shut down all of faith and religion.
Most definitely.
there'll always be many more who live in the service of God, for God, who'll be kind and generous people.
Kind and generous as they may be, they're still sad and delusional in my book. I can't respect them or their intelligence.
faithful people have a surprising way of finding little things that point things their way.
If you're ignorant, unintelligent, or delusional, it's easy to lie to yourself or make things up.
What if the person who created the helicopter, and the one who created the radio, wanted to better humanity using 'God's gift', their talent of being an inventor which came since they were small?
But we know those things come from a combination of socialization and genetics. Why call it "god" if there's no evidence of said god? Why not Zeus? Why not FSM? They're all equally possible.
I'm defending it because I think it's a good thing to have
I'm decrying because I think it's an intellectually dishonest, patently untrue crutch for the weak-minded and ignorant.
no one is giving it a fair chance at all!
I certainly gave it a fair chance. I was told that "god" existed, along with "Jesus" and other things. I looked at the world, and the evidence was clear that there were no such things, that christianity had a secular origin as a splinter cult from another smallish cult that needed a martyr a long, long time ago.
Never in the history of man has there ever been a single shred of verifiable evidence for the veracity of any of the world's major religions. Furthermore, there is evidence of the secular origins of all of them. To believe, despite this, is insane.
I got into this discussion with my mom, who is a raised catholic atheist and my father, who is the son of a methodist minister and still trying to figure out how he feels about religion. I have little problem with belief, but the argument that belief makes people kinder and better at treating others is frustrating to me. I feel like in many cases the threat of eternal punishment or reward is what drives this so-called altruism. Like in communist East Germany, the fact that people always did "volunteer" work was used as an example of how good and wonderful the system was. However, once the wall fell people suddenly stopped doing the voluntary work. So were they volunteering for the sake of helping people, or so they would not be frowned upon? I feel like a Christian who feels the threat of hell over their head is less kind than a secular humanist, who helps without expecting any sort of reward. I suppose if they both do good, then it doesn't matter the reason, but organized religion also causes a lot of hatred and fighting as well. I know many good people who are faithful, and even religious, and thus I feel that these forum threads a little reactionary, but at the same time the fanatics inherent in all major religions are troubling to me.
And @ kage_rod - Your argument about recognizing when good things happening and attributing (or not attributing) them to God or Luck is what started the whole statistics battle up there.
Anyway, Ben Franklin said that "God helps those who help themselves," his way of saying, "If you want something done, you gots to do it yourself."
I don't know enough nor care enough about religion to continue this shit. I just wish you'd see it at a possibly good thing and stop shutting it down. I hope you never have children though: you'll be just like those religious fanatics, just anti-religion.
Fair enough, but if you suck at math, why are you arguing about it?
Because it's pathetic when even I can see one is talking bullshit with math! It annoys me to great lengths when I can see someone fucking up in subjects I am not good in. Like English spelling and grammar, and this mathematical bastardization you've committed here.
Quantum theory tells us that it's possible. For example, if the particles of one of the dice rearranged themselves to make two smaller dice, both of which ended up with sixes.
*shoots one hole in your forehead*
Addition: I asked three people, one Dutch classmate (who I know is good in mathematics), a UK'er and an American. Is asked them if the answer statement 1, the rolling of 3 6's in succession was indeed 1/216. They all said yes. I then asked by exactly quoting your original question, then is "One of your rolls had something other than a 6" 215/216? The Dutch classmate said no, the UK'er said no, and the American found it to be a dumb question and agreed that it was wrong. So who the fuck taught you mathematics like that?
Do you not agree that if I have two apples, I also have one apple? The link I gave before stated this was true in mathematics. I can't see the difference between that and my case.
Sure, I should have said "at least one" to begin with, but if I bastardized anything, it was common sense, not mathematics.
I will say that I bastardized mathematics in a different part of that post of mine though - I never said in the first place that you were rolling a die exactly three times (which could well have meant that you're allowed to keep rolling the die indefinitely :S)
Okay, I throw in the towel.
I don't know enough nor care enough about religion to continue this shit. I just wish you'd see it at a possibly good thing and stop shutting it down. I hope you never have children though: you'll be just like those religious fanatics, just anti-religion.
Oh please, there's no need to be anti-religious with children. If in the first place no-one teaches them a religion, it's not like one will appear in their heads that will need to be shut down. All you need to do for children to grow up atheist is give them the tools for logical reasoning (which they should learn well enough in school), and let them decide for themselves.
Sure, when they ask why doing something is wrong, it will be a lot harder to explain it than those who simply say "God said so", but it's for the better if they learn morality on a humanist basis.
Okay, I throw in the towel.I don't know enough nor care enough about religion to continue this shit. I just wish you'd see it at a possibly good thing and stop shutting it down. I hope you never have children though: you'll be just like those religious fanatics, just anti-religion.
You have a choice. If you go down one path, you can be nice and never hurt people's feelings. On the other path you can approach truth, but you risk making other people upset. Which path do you walk?
Okay, I throw in the towel.I don't know enough nor care enough about religion to continue this shit. I just wish you'd see it at a possibly good thing and stop shutting it down. I hope you never have children though: you'll be just like those religious fanatics, just anti-religion.
You have a choice. If you go down one path, you can be nice and never hurt people's feelings. On the other path you can approach truth, but you risk making other people upset. Which path do you walk?
I think thats very "black and white".
I agree with kage_rod to an extent. It's easy to say that religion is BS and the world is better with out it if you aren't confronted with the problems some people have. For example during and after the 2nd World War Germany was (as were many other places) a hell hole. A person I know had 12 kids and the father was "lost in the war". The only way she managed to survive was by believing in god. The only thing that kept her going, as sad as it maybe, was her belief. Now try to walk up to a person like that and say "Religion is stupid because of A, B, and C."
Though I am a atheist, I have no idea what to do with such people. What should one do?
Mmmmm, Scrymbabies. That'd probably be a good topic for an art attack, although perhaps edging into 4chan territory. Expectant Rym, all bubbly smiles holding his (her?) rounded belly while Scott paces around nervously... That'd be desktop wallpaper material.
Mmmmm, Scrymbabies. That'd probably be a good topic for an art attack, although perhaps edging into 4chan territory. Expectant Rym, all bubbly smiles holding his (her?) rounded belly while Scott paces around nervously..
Why does Rym have to be MPREG? Scott is sooo the uke.
Also. To address this thread, I feel like you dudes are being cranky. I'm getting a little sick of these unending atheist griping threads. Suppose it is none of my business, but really you jump from "Organized Religion is Problematic" to "If you believe in anything magical you suck you suck you suck as a human being" Irrational, maybe, but a horrible evil person? Not necessarily.
Also. To address this thread, I feel like you dudes are being cranky. I'm getting a little sick of these unending atheist griping threads. Suppose it is none of my business, but really you jump from "Organized Religion is Problematic" to "If you believe in anything magical you suck you suck you suck as a human being"
Sorry you don't, but I rather think a lot of us enjoy these threads.
I don't think we're too emphatic on the "you suck" part of it, but we do hold that belief in such things is a negative trait in a human being.
Okay, I throw in the towel.I don't know enough nor care enough about religion to continue this shit. I just wish you'd see it at a possibly good thing and stop shutting it down. I hope you never have children though: you'll be just like those religious fanatics, just anti-religion.
You have a choice. If you go down one path, you can be nice and never hurt people's feelings. On the other path you can approach truth, but you risk making other people upset. Which path do you walk?
They can see the bloody truth! If they want to believe in God, then it's their choice. You guys are trying to do exactly what religions have tried to do in the past: force everyone around them to follow their beliefs.
Why does Rym have to be MPREG? Scott is sooo the uke.
Working hypothesis of The Other Thread. Random points here and here. However, you are a source of information closer to the center than we are. Scott as uke, eh? That would change everything. Are you holding out on us?
They can see the bloody truth! If they want to believe in God, then it's their choice. You guys are trying to do exactly what religions have tried to do in the past: force everyone around them to follow their beliefs.
You guys are just as bad as them!
We're not forcing anyone into anything. We absolutely respect people's freedom to believe whatever they want. We just don't respect them. We're not forcing anyone to do anything. We're not denying them their right to choose in any way. We're simply looking at what choices they have made, and judging them based on those choices they make.
Comments
The point of the story is not to appease us who believe that, though. The point of the story is two-fold. On the one hand, this story is often told in the form of a joke, between more casual religious people who are more intelligent than the fundamentalists and their ilk, and the joke is supposed to be "ha ha, we would never be that stupid about our faith!" (ignoring the fact that the religious faith itself is just stupid period, regardless of the degree it's taken to). On the other, more important hand, this story acts as a kick-in-the-pants fable to provide something that makes sense to the people who actually do believe in God, and won't listen to perfect or near-perfect logic like, say, the sort that was in tonight's episode. They're used to forming their core beliefs around stories and parables such as this one; the emotional and "the moral of the story is..." aspects are more important than cold-sounding logic, even though the cold-sounding logic is more correct.
Thus, the main point I wanted to make by bringing up that story was that it can be used as a tool against people like the parents of the little girl - turn the tables and show them that even their own beliefs do not support their actions.
This really is a historic time. This election might give us results that will enable us to do something to undo the GWB years. On the other hand, It might give us someone who'll be just as bad as GWB. We should all be paying attention because this will affect us all.
If you don't think you've been affected by the GWB years, have you checked to see if your name is on the Terror Watch List? It's gonna be a lot harder to get to PAX if your name is on that list. What's that? You can't check because the list is secret? Well, I guess you'll have to wait until right before you get on the plane to see whether they let you on or not.
Also, rolling THREE dice and getting FOUR sixes? Only with rerolling yes! Stop fucking around for the sake of fucking around.
As for the original point, I still hold that I was correct in a mathematical sense, but the way I said it was too subject to misinterpretation such as yours.
Why do people care about anything? Why do I care about whether there's life on Enceladus? I can't do anything about it, can I? It doesn't personally affect me, does it? Yet somehow I still care.
Why do you care about those Bible people? You can't do anything about them. They don't really affect you. So why do you care?
The only thing I've ever heard you really express a care about are those gaming achievements. They don't affect you personally. You can't do anything about them. So why do you care?
Addition: I asked three people, one Dutch classmate (who I know is good in mathematics), a UK'er and an American. Is asked them if the answer statement 1, the rolling of 3 6's in succession was indeed 1/216. They all said yes. I then asked by exactly quoting your original question, then is "One of your rolls had something other than a 6" 215/216? The Dutch classmate said no, the UK'er said no, and the American found it to be a dumb question and agreed that it was wrong. So who the fuck taught you mathematics like that?
As to everyone's arguments: The main thing I was trying to get across is that you're being rather harsh. Back in the day, people only could pray! It was how they held hope for their young ones. Same with washing and such. Oftentimes, it was simply a "How to Live" guide. It's very true nowadays that we don't need to follow this - do I make every chair unclean after sitting in it during my period? No, because we have pads, a modern invention. Do we pray and hope for our children to recover? No, we don't because we have doctors.
Religion & faith is not all that bad. They just fucking suck at updating their shit. Some people use the 'Love of God' to motivate them, to keep themselves moving forward and being kind and not killing themselves. Religions created the "Don't fucking hurt others" rules, as I call them, and we as a society live by them for good reasons, all of which I'm sure you can think of - one being, in my mind, keeping away from anarchy.
You're all Bible-bashing, but you don't realize that other things that are much worse have happened by both people of spiritual beliefs and people who don't have any. Yes, this is a tragedy, a horrible horrible happening, but you seem to want to shut down all of faith and religion. It enables some people to act retardedly, but there'll always be many more who live in the service of God, for God, who'll be kind and generous people.
And to the "not everything is God's work" - faithful people have a surprising way of finding little things that point things their way. With the guy who drowned story: What if the person who created the helicopter, and the one who created the radio, wanted to better humanity using 'God's gift', their talent of being an inventor which came since they were small? Or maybe the guy who drowned could never have been seen, and he only heard the radio but never saw the boat or helicopter, if not for God 'pointing' both towards him as second and third chances? Maybe God inspired both with his "Do unto others" blah blah stuff.
(Side note: I'm kinda creeping myself out with the whole Pro-faith. I'm defending it because I think it's a good thing to have, if you can, but it's not me - besides, no one is giving it a fair chance at all!)
Never in the history of man has there ever been a single shred of verifiable evidence for the veracity of any of the world's major religions. Furthermore, there is evidence of the secular origins of all of them. To believe, despite this, is insane.
And @ kage_rod - Your argument about recognizing when good things happening and attributing (or not attributing) them to God or Luck is what started the whole statistics battle up there.
Anyway, Ben Franklin said that "God helps those who help themselves," his way of saying, "If you want something done, you gots to do it yourself."
I don't know enough nor care enough about religion to continue this shit. I just wish you'd see it at a possibly good thing and stop shutting it down. I hope you never have children though: you'll be just like those religious fanatics, just anti-religion.
I can't see the difference between that and my case.
Sure, I should have said "at least one" to begin with, but if I bastardized anything, it was common sense, not mathematics.
I will say that I bastardized mathematics in a different part of that post of mine though -
I never said in the first place that you were rolling a die exactly three times (which could well have meant that you're allowed to keep rolling the die indefinitely :S) Oh please, there's no need to be anti-religious with children. If in the first place no-one teaches them a religion, it's not like one will appear in their heads that will need to be shut down.
All you need to do for children to grow up atheist is give them the tools for logical reasoning (which they should learn well enough in school), and let them decide for themselves.
Sure, when they ask why doing something is wrong, it will be a lot harder to explain it than those who simply say "God said so", but it's for the better if they learn morality on a humanist basis.
I agree with kage_rod to an extent.
It's easy to say that religion is BS and the world is better with out it if you aren't confronted with the problems some people have. For example during and after the 2nd World War Germany was (as were many other places) a hell hole. A person I know had 12 kids and the father was "lost in the war". The only way she managed to survive was by believing in god. The only thing that kept her going, as sad as it maybe, was her belief. Now try to walk up to a person like that and say "Religion is stupid because of A, B, and C."
Though I am a atheist, I have no idea what to do with such people. What should one do?
That'd be desktop wallpaper material.
Also. To address this thread, I feel like you dudes are being cranky. I'm getting a little sick of these unending atheist griping threads. Suppose it is none of my business, but really you jump from "Organized Religion is Problematic" to "If you believe in anything magical you suck you suck you suck as a human being" Irrational, maybe, but a horrible evil person? Not necessarily.
I don't think we're too emphatic on the "you suck" part of it, but we do hold that belief in such things is a negative trait in a human being.
You guys are just as bad as them!