Comments by Mitchell Gilks

1051. Orangutan attempts to hunt fish with spear

Comment #173110 by Mitchell Gilks on April 30, 2008 at 11:14 am

You're a weird guy Ty_webb.

You clearly cannot read if you keep asking what I would accept as evidence. Since you don't know, nor do you care you look into it, I guess I will have to tell you what science accepts as evidence.

Empiricle, testable, reproducible, examinable. That is what something has to be to be evidence of the objective existence of something, or state of affairs of reality.

"Do people believe in unicorns" and "do unicorns exist" are too completely different questions, that require two completely different styles of investigation.

One is asking the state of people's minds toward a proposition, and it is regardless and irrevelent to the existence of unicorns. It is determined through a completely different style of investigation.

The other is about the state of affairs of a proported entity or creature, and is wholly unrelated and irrelevent to people's opinions of it, or their beliefs in it. It requires a completely different style of investigation, and completely different kind of evidence.

The first one can be determined by interrogation, observation, and analyses of people's behaviours.

The second one can be determined through investigation of the world, and an attempt to gather empiricle evidence that would varify the existence of such a proported creature. It would in no way involve asking people what they think, or counting up the amount of people that believe in them, or claim to have seen them, and then desiding it must be true when the count reaches a certain number.

I don't know how you think things about the objective world, the state of affairs of reality is determined, but I can tell you that it in no way involves asking people if they think it's true.

1052. Orangutan attempts to hunt fish with spear

Comment #172931 by Mitchell Gilks on April 30, 2008 at 7:23 am

Okay, evidence is anything which might sway the possibility of a claim's veracity.

Yes, and in no way does anecdote sway the possibility of a claim about reality's veracity. This was realised centeries, ago, and it is why they are excluded as evidence to science.

If you have a scientific claim, then there are various ways that you come up with evidence for it. Fine. When trying to look at whether something happened or not a long time ago, there isn't any scientific evidence of it. Historians deal with this all the time. As far as I know, all there is is the written word.

You can only determine whether the people or places were real, not the proported events, because absolutely no evidence can be established of an event that occured two thousand years ago. Well, Sam Harris has suggested that if they could somehow get from DNA from Jesus and prove that he had no father that would prove his virgin birth. Maybe some other means to gather evidence could be determined. I'm open to suggestions.

If someone asked you, from scratch, to determine whether or not the whole Jesus thing happened, would you or would you not include the bible in your investigation?

I couldn't, there would be nothing to investigate. What would I investigate? Would I just read the bible and decide if it sounded right to me? How could I possibly go about gathering any evidence? Or even begin to varify any of it's claims? If I were asked to do that, I'd ask them how am I suppose to do that exactly?

One last time, what would you accept as evidence of any of the things claimed to have happened in the bible?

What did I stutter? Was I not clear when I outlined twice what my criteria was, and gave explanations as to why, and outlined my reasoning as to why I think science has the best standard of evidence. Again, go read about science, that will answer your question.

Can't you read?

1053. Religion a figment of human imagination

Comment #172857 by Mitchell Gilks on April 30, 2008 at 6:12 am

Nothing is permanent Steve. Even the universe will not last forever, even we some long removed, hundreds of trillions of years in the future descendent somehow survives until the end state of the universe, they will die then. Though I'm not enough sure we will last as long as other successful species, let alone ride the universe all the way to the last stop.

1054. Religion a figment of human imagination

Comment #172845 by Mitchell Gilks on April 30, 2008 at 6:05 am

Andrew, I think people downplay language to a huge degree when talking about our acheivements. They seem to not release that what we have is a collective acheivement of the last 50 thousand years. Because of our ability to communicate, and record our thoughts and ideas, we can expand on them, and build a collective of millions of minds, and billions of bodies, to acheive what we have.

I am quite confident that without language, we would still be running around naked in the plains of africa.

I also think that an animal could be ten times more intelligent than we are, and never achieve anything but basic tools without being a social animal with complex communication.

Us individually are not all that far off from our chimp cousins, but because we can unify our minds as a group, and work collectively toward tasks, accumulate information, and take generations upon generation to solve a problem, we are capable of so much. We individually, achieve nothing. We as a species, could achieve almost anything given enough time.

A quote that has always inspired me was by Newton: "If I have seen farther than most men, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants."

1055. Religion a figment of human imagination

Comment #172831 by Mitchell Gilks on April 30, 2008 at 5:55 am

You have to be joking SavroD...I am as defensive of other animals and how they are underestimated as you can perhaps rationally be, but MPhil has made no controversial claims. If anything he has stated exactly what we can do that according to our current knowledge about the world no other animals can.

I thought he was specific, and quite accurate. I also read him as disagreeing with the article and agreeing with me.

Unless you can point me to another animal that possesses any of the things MPhil has outlined, I am inclined to think he is completely correct.

Also, lots of animals are special in some regard, that have unique qualities that no other animal possesses. Doesn't make them better, it just makes them different, and unique.

I see no reason to assume we will always be the only animals capable of those things. Surely there is a first for everything. There was a first animal capable of flight, and we are the first capable of the things MPhil outlined.

1056. Orangutan attempts to hunt fish with spear

Comment #172815 by Mitchell Gilks on April 30, 2008 at 5:43 am

(*sigh*) for the last time, I do not accept it for evidence fo anything other than the fact that claims were made. You can accept it as evidence all you like, but there is no objective standard of evidence. You cannot tell me what I accept and don't accept as evidence. I have outlined my reasoning, you can like it or dislike it, but you can't tell me what I am to accept or not accept as evidence. Especially by assertion alone. Saying "yes it is" "or but it is" and "it totally is" is in no way a productive way to have a discussion. If you think it is evidence, then first define evidence, and then explain why it necessarily qualifies.

Read the scientific method, and how science is proformed. I have already alluded to the fact that I attempt to subscribe to the same epistomological criteria of evidence that science does.

1057. Orangutan attempts to hunt fish with spear

Comment #172587 by Mitchell Gilks on April 29, 2008 at 6:51 pm

Courts don't decide what is true about reality. They settle disputes between people, and often hearsay is all there is. Though it would not be evidence of an event by itself. If someone claimed they wittnessed a murder but could produce zero phyical evidence then there would be no court case, and their claim would not be evidence of the proported crime in and of itself. The claim would be investigated, and independent physical evidence would be established, or the investigation would be dropped.

Socrates, maybe, but it is trivial and doesn't matter. Plato, absolutely, there are books authored by him. If that isn't his real name it is irrelevent, the guy we know as Plato existed.

Also you need to weigh the kind of claims. I don't need it proved to me that people can exist, and have names and do things. I know this to be true, that is all uncontroversial. All the important elements that would be scientific are established. I also think it is quite trivial if the people and places in the bible existed. That can be true of any fictional story, the events are what is controversial, and require evidence. If a guy named Zues existed it in no way suggests that any events surrounding the myths of Zues are true. That is independent and only trivially related to whether or not a person with that name existed.

The more controversial the claim, the more evidence would be required to accept it. Whether that people that proportedly made the claims are real or not is also trivial to whether they are true.

It doesn't defy any amount of scientific knowledge I possess to say that a guy named Jesus existed 2 thousand years ago. I don't require evidence for that, it is a trivial claim, likely several person named Jesus existed at that time. When you say a magic guy named Jesus existed two thousand years ago, then I want evidence for the magic part, not the guy part. It in no way follows that if the guy existed than the magic existed.

1058. Girl, 17, killed in Iraq for loving a British soldier

Comment #172570 by Mitchell Gilks on April 29, 2008 at 6:32 pm

I was saying that I didn't like the fact that it was edited and corrected so I didn't know what happened, not that you offered a correction.

Makes sense now. That is a funny mistake.

1059. Pat Condell: Anthology DVD available now!

Comment #172538 by Mitchell Gilks on April 29, 2008 at 5:22 pm

I like Condell enough to watch his videos, though I can't say I anticipate them or anything. I've considered ranting about stuff, but I don't know enough about anything to do that, I'd end up looking like an idiot to anyone who knew more about the subject than I do.

1060. Orangutan attempts to hunt fish with spear

Comment #172534 by Mitchell Gilks on April 29, 2008 at 5:11 pm

80. Comment #172356 by Ty_Webb

I think you are assuming a definition of evidence that I do not share. I do not count anecdotal evidence. You can all you like, but I prefer to make my epistomological criteria as closely as I can to a scientific one, because it has proven to be unquestionably, and uncomparably the best method for arriving at true beliefs. It excludes anecdotes as evidence, therefore, so do I.

You are of course free to count whatever you want as evidence, there is no objective standard of evidence, it depends on the person.

This person, however, doesn't count the bible as evidence in anyway of it's claims. I accept it as evidence that claims were made, that is all. The claims in themselves are not evidence for their truth, no more than any claim is evidence of the truth of its assertion by virtue of being uttered.

1061. Girl, 17, killed in Iraq for loving a British soldier

Comment #172523 by Mitchell Gilks on April 29, 2008 at 4:55 pm

255. Comment #172437 by Bonzai

I also edit my posts a lot, sometimes hours after I post them. I make tons of mistakes, and weird ones that I somehow don't notice while reading them over until awhile later. Like past page I somehow managed to mispell "pacifist" as "passivist", and didn't notice until I came back a couple hours later.

With my dyslexia I do stuff like that a lot. So my posts often get edited several times. I also add stuff or change wording once in awhile. Though I make a point to not change things that people have addressed, even spelling mistakes. I find it retards other readers abilities to keep track of what is being talked about. So if someone quotes something I said, or speaks directly to it, then I won't change anything, no matter how unintelligible it is without correction.

If necessarily I'll clarify or explain when asked about something, but won't correct it so other know what was talked about. For instance I was bothered when you pointed out a mistake to MPhil, and he fixed it. Now I have no idea what it was, or what you could have meant by your joke. I try to avoid that myself.

1062. Anti-Evolution Film Misappropriates the Holocaust

Comment #172519 by Mitchell Gilks on April 29, 2008 at 4:49 pm

Good. I completely agree that this shamelessly makes use of the holocaust to further it's political, religious and ideological agenda. I hope to countinue to see the systematic and constant denounciation of this propoganda by everyone who sees or hears about it.

1063. How to reconcile Richard Dawkins?

Comment #172354 by Mitchell Gilks on April 29, 2008 at 1:52 pm

To be fair religion doesn't have to involve unsupported or unjustified believes. It only must be a system of beliefs that involve dogmas and tenets, they could be completely uncontroversial dogmas and tenets.

You could say that I religiously adhere to rules of logic, or that I have some religious views on ethics. Though that doesn't mean I believe in magic, or that it is in anyway related to my atheism. Depending on how loosely you are defining "religion" we could all be correctly contrued as religious in some sense.

So I agree with Steve that it is an inaccurate generalisation.

I do however admit to intellectual laziness in often using words like "the religious" though if asked I would always clarify as meaning the three major religious. Or religions that involve unsupported and unjustified beliefs.

1064. How to reconcile Richard Dawkins?

Comment #172265 by Mitchell Gilks on April 29, 2008 at 12:12 pm

45. Comment #172242 by al-rawandi

Indeed! become a pirate, save the world. RAmen (which by the way is delicious. Oiishii.)

The second one is from Lisa on the simpsons right? The episode with the bear, that prompts all of the anti-bear measures. She ends up selling it to Homer if I remember correctly.

1065. How to reconcile Richard Dawkins?

Comment #172239 by Mitchell Gilks on April 29, 2008 at 11:25 am

It is the same idiotic mistake everytime. People have an inability to tell the difference between causation and correlation.

1066. How to reconcile Richard Dawkins?

Comment #172235 by Mitchell Gilks on April 29, 2008 at 11:22 am

Lol, did the guy ever consider that maybe his critics were just full of shit? Doesn't that seem the most parsimonious answer to his Dawkinses paradox?

This guy is just another idiot that clearly doesn't know what "logically follows" even means.

1067. Girl, 17, killed in Iraq for loving a British soldier

Comment #172225 by Mitchell Gilks on April 29, 2008 at 11:08 am

I agree MPhil, I am completely anti-war, and anti-violence of anykind really. I stop just short of pacifism. I think that in-action has it's consequences as well though. So I am for any other possible polution, and war as a complete last resort.

I also completely agree with your no winners opinion. I think if you are forced into war, then you have already lost the important battles.

1068. Orangutan attempts to hunt fish with spear

Comment #172209 by Mitchell Gilks on April 29, 2008 at 10:46 am

Anecdotal evidence doesn't count.

1069. Orangutan attempts to hunt fish with spear

Comment #172068 by Mitchell Gilks on April 29, 2008 at 7:49 am

If a god is responsible for evolution, then our current theory is wrong. Unless this god lets it go naturally and then usurps it on whims, in which case it would only be half wrong.

A god that used evolution as it's mechanism for creation is definitely not the proportedly omnipotent omniscience and omnibenevolent god of christianity.

Using a convoluted and round about process with a huge waste ratio, resulting in 99.8% Species extinctions. Relying on blind chance to stumble upon slight improvements, never able to built up toward improvment in a uniform manner. Lacking the ability to forsee future limitations created by the way in which something evolved. Making such a being either quite uninterested, or incapable of doing it a better way, in which case hardly omnipotent.

The huge amount of suffering, and death caused by this process. Where everything is in a constantly struggle to survive, and countless species survive by living off of other creatures. Resulting in predation, parasidic relationships, dieases, harmful bacteria, and viruses.

In no way a loving or merciful god. I couldn't think of a crueler or more moralless system. Even nature conspires to kill us. Natural disasters all over the world, every couple hundred thousand years we get hit by a massive meteorite, causing destruction and extinction for miles. Every couple hundred million years we get hit by one large enough to cause mass extinctions, and climate shifts.

Just face it. The idea of an omnixxx god has been long falsified by the evidence. The only remotely plausible argument I've heard in counter is that somehow evil is good, and this is the best of all possible worlds, and every single evil has it's purpose. This then of course makes good evil. If you prevent evil, you have prevented a necessarily evil that god was going to allow because it would result in greater good. So then, stoping a child from getting raped becomes an evil act.

I don't understand how anyone can cling unto such ideas at such a cost to their decensy, good sense, and moral compass.

Just let it go, things become a hell of a lot clearer.

1070. Religion a figment of human imagination

Comment #171924 by Mitchell Gilks on April 29, 2008 at 2:37 am

43. Comment #171892 by Christopher Davis

Of course there are "meaningful" ways in which humans are separate from (other) animals. They are simply differences in degree, not differences in kind.

Acknowledging this very observable truth does not make a person a theist.

You appear to be misunderstanding, there are meaningful ways in which ducks are different than (other) animals. That doesn't change the fact that they, like us, are 100% animal. Andrew was talking about people's inclination to talk about humans as if they are fundamentally different than animals, and are not animals at all.

1071. Religion a figment of human imagination

Comment #171919 by Mitchell Gilks on April 29, 2008 at 2:33 am

On that basis we can at least speculate that the fact that animals behave as if they understand and think about fairness and as if they have imagination and can speculate, and as if they have thought-through ethical codes doesn't mean that they do necessarily have these attributes.

I have to address this right away, because it is an eye-sore. This says absolutely nothing. Everything we know about the world is built upon induction, and induction only ever implies our conclusions, never necessitates them. Nothing we can say about the objective world is necessarily true. It isn't necessarily true that people other than yourself contain those facualties. We decide that they do by observing their behaviour, which is worth a hell of a lot more than words. So what you say above, I would say is not even wrong it holds zero information value, and makes no point.

I agree largely with the rest of what you said. I think that the cure for superstition is of course reason.

1072. Religion a figment of human imagination

Comment #171652 by Mitchell Gilks on April 28, 2008 at 4:47 pm

Lucas, we are animals, and I think you mean developed mentally differently. Not "less". Otherwise I would like to know what scale of mental developement you possess that I am not aware of.

Clearly human beings are smarter, and can do some mental tasks that other animals can't. That doesn't make us more developed, and them less developed. No more than are ducks more developed cause they can fly.

Surely every species has different brains, and are developed differently, and have different mental facualties. Since we are all related, we also undoubtably have many similar aspects.

I think they are plainly wrong saying that other animals have no imagination. I am fine with the claim that humans are capable of a level of abstract thought that other animals are not. Or our system of morality and ethics is far more involved, and entires a lot more. I don't think that is true of our sense of fairness, I've seen some other primates act with an extremely strong sense of fairness.

My disagreement was in their saying all other animals lacked those facualties completely, and that imagination was the most important. I think that complex language is more important.

1073. Religion a figment of human imagination

Comment #171645 by Mitchell Gilks on April 28, 2008 at 4:41 pm

I never said that other animals lack communication of anykind, or the ability to share ideas of all kinds. I was specifically talking about sharing ideas that do not have a referent in reality. That require complex communication skills to be able to explain my idea to you without the aid of the world in anyway. When conveying to you an idea of something that in no was exists, or can be demonstrated to you in an meaningful sense.

1074. Girl, 17, killed in Iraq for loving a British soldier

Comment #171611 by Mitchell Gilks on April 28, 2008 at 4:00 pm

I should clarify when I said "they", and "us" in my denounciation I was refering far more generally than was assumed. I was refering to the whole of humanity. That shit like this happens everywhere sickens me.

I used to hit my pets when I was a kid. I can't think back to my youth without cringing, and thinking about what a sick fuck I was to do something like that. When I was talking about there being a fundamental problem, I meant with the species. That we are capable of such cruelty and anger, and disgusting behaviour.

I completely admit that I was generalising, but not about a race, but about the species as a whole. Clearly that shit happens everywhere, yes, even in the secular free world. The major different though is that shit is illegal. No one defends it, at least no one sane.

I think that can be brought about in those countries given enough time and intellectual preasure.

My polemic was aimed toward people in general, for being capable of that kind of shit, and how I don't think it will ever stop, or can be stopped.

I didn't segway between the article and my denouciation of the species as clearly as I should have.

So, I admit fault for ambiguity. I still think that it is odd to even bring race into it. Nothing was further from my mind.

The human species is less genetically diverge than most other species, we almost appraoched extinction, widdling the species down to something like 2 thousand individuals. It has only been fifty thousand years since our species left africa. I don't consider race to be a thing at all, nothing worth talking about or mentioning. It is an invention of ignorance, and holds nothing other no information value beyond a slightly aethetic one.

Even if races were fundamentally different, that doesn't make any better than any other. There is no objective level of goodness, or betterment. That requires context, and a value judgement. Even if one group were better than others at something that in no way makes one objectively better. Such a value judgement could only ever be arbitrary.

I don't consider humans to be better than other species, let alone populations within the species to be better than any other. I think anyone who even begins to think talking about one group being better than another group, for whatever reason misunderstands the different between objective and subjective, and the requirement of a valuer. Only crazy people that believe in magic think that things hold intrinic or objective value.

So, on that note, I don't consider the concept of races to be an meaningful one at all. Something not worth talking about.

1075. Girl, 17, killed in Iraq for loving a British soldier

Comment #171591 by Mitchell Gilks on April 28, 2008 at 3:38 pm

I will take that as an apology to me, and will say that I shouldn't have called you an idiot, I was just taken aback but some seemingly completely uncalled for and out of the blue remarks.

I can also agree that the dishonesty is bad, and itself an admition of guilt. You don't change what you said and then lie about it unless what you were accused of saying was accurate.

1076. Girl, 17, killed in Iraq for loving a British soldier

Comment #171575 by Mitchell Gilks on April 28, 2008 at 3:23 pm

I think it's not very insulting to be called an animal. It is rather redundant. We are animals.

1077. Girl, 17, killed in Iraq for loving a British soldier

Comment #171573 by Mitchell Gilks on April 28, 2008 at 3:21 pm

Perhaps you didn't notice when I said I didn't support sanctions. Of coure you seem to be willing to not notice much. You seem to also being attempting to justify one evil by pointing at others. Why do I have to accept any? You keep forgetting that I'm talking about people not races. You are the one fixated on races.

If someone killed a man, and went to court, it would be an awefully poor defence to start naming people that killed more people than he did.

Unless you are saying that what he did was not wrong, or that the system that let him go was not at fault, or that women in their societies are just fine. Then I fail to see what point you are trying to make.

1078. Girl, 17, killed in Iraq for loving a British soldier

Comment #171562 by Mitchell Gilks on April 28, 2008 at 3:10 pm

I wanna say that I am in no way a lunatic that would call for violence towards anyone. I in no way have ever supported any of the Iraq stuff at all, being Canadian, that has of course been a majority opinion they entire time, nor do I think that enlightenment, freedom, or emancipation can be forced on anyone.

I think that the only reasonable way to do anything to attempt to win a war of ideas. It is even hard to suggest economic santions because these countries have their citizens held hostage, and it would result in starvation, and other related problems.

It is disgusting that this happens, and I think that there is clearly something wrong with us that we are capable of such things, so I am not optomistic about our ability to wipe such behaviour off the earth. I do hope that, and think it is possible as many countries around the world attest to, that if we can win a battle of ideas, we can win over the majority, then a change from within can occure, and such people will be forced to the fringe of their societies, like they are in ours, and will not get away with such blatant crimes against human rights, and murder.

The last thing we can do is give an inch in this war of ideas, and I think that allowing countries that do did not adhere to established basic human rights to join the organization was a huge mistake, and it has indeed caused it's distruction.

Pretending that we are on an equal moral ground with people that support such barbaric traditions and ideas for fear of sounding racist, is itself racist. Pretending that they can be excused for such actions, and don't require meeting the moral standards set by the free world, because they are another race, it itself racist. Bring race into it at all, when it is clearly a non-issue and was not alluded to by anyone, is itself racist.

It doesn't matter if your racism is in favor of the race, or against, it's still discriminating based on race.

1079. Girl, 17, killed in Iraq for loving a British soldier

Comment #171532 by Mitchell Gilks on April 28, 2008 at 2:38 pm

(*Sigh*) I almost don't want to dignify your idiocy with a reponse, but I will give you one, and only one, then you can call me whatever you like Al.

These people as in the ones that support soceities that allow things like that to happen.

"most muslims" so the generalisations are fine when you're doing it eh?

Please do compare these cities, and then tell me how many confessed murderers of their daughters they let go every year.

Well if you weren't such an idiot, you would have realised, that in context I was saying that there is something wrong with us all us for letting it happen. I think that everyone should not allow such things to happen, of course including arabs. Unlike you, I was not excluding them when I said "us".

Should being the important word, I was stressing how I feel there is something wrong with us, as a species that we would allow this to occure.

This will be my last response to you again. I'm not going to explain the obvious every time you take something to mean something it clearly did not.

1080. Girl, 17, killed in Iraq for loving a British soldier

Comment #171512 by Mitchell Gilks on April 28, 2008 at 2:28 pm

Well there wasn't even an affair, but that would still hardly be worthy of stomping her to death by her family.

Can you even think of a scenerio where someone's family would partake in stomping them to death in an enlightened secular country? IT didn't mention how many brothers, but presumably at least 2, that is 3 family members stomping another one to death.

1081. Girl, 17, killed in Iraq for loving a British soldier

Comment #171486 by Mitchell Gilks on April 28, 2008 at 2:16 pm

This is beyond disgusting. This needs to be stopped...it just needs to be stopped. Women are merely property and sex slaves to islam, who can be beaten, raped, and murdered legally. To say they are second class citizens would be a lie, they aren't citizens at all. They aren't considered people.

These are the people we let become members of a group dedicated to human rights, people that don't consider half the human species to qualify. What's going on? How can any of this be? Asking why this is done, and who would do it is one thing, you say that kind of thing because you expect it is rare...but to think of whole cultures where it is perfectly fine to do...it is not something I can even begin to make sense of...

It makes me wonder if there is something fundamentally wrong with people, that people can do those sorts of things, while the rest of us sit by...and do nothing.

1082. Religion a figment of human imagination

Comment #171460 by Mitchell Gilks on April 28, 2008 at 1:55 pm

I think that this is patantly, and demonstratably wrong. I think that zoologists would fervently disagree that we are the only animals with imaginations, ethical codes, or a sense of fairness.

I think that the obvious secret ingedient is language. The imagination is abstract, and conceptual, and has no referents in reality. It is impossible to communicate your abstract ideas to someone without language. Every creature on earth could believe in supernatural gods and afterlives but it wouldn't equal a group belief, like a religion, without the ability to communicate the abstract and conceptual.

To have specific words to describe your thoughts...and perhaps more importantly to the religious, have words of ambiguity and abfiscation.

Your imagination could be exceptionally prolific, but your ideas would all die with you without the ability to communicate them to others. I think that it is beyond obvious that although imagination is a necessary vactor of religion, it isn't sufficient by itself, you also need to be able to communicate your invented concepts to the members of your society to have a unifying and shared superstition.

1083. Orangutan attempts to hunt fish with spear

Comment #171347 by Mitchell Gilks on April 28, 2008 at 12:52 pm

I've heard that some birds have IQs comparable to Dolphins.

1084. Student's 'Be Happy, Not Gay' t-shirt ok

Comment #171090 by Mitchell Gilks on April 28, 2008 at 9:59 am

Thanks Bonzai, though you probably generally don't like poetry, right? I find people look for emotion in poetry, not as much ideas.

I've never felt anywhere near like Cartomancer describes either. I'm quite cold of a person, emotionally anyway. I think that I am far more empathetic in my actions than most people though. I've never had long lasting friends, I moved around constantly during my youth, so I got used to not forming long term relationships.

Now that I'm an adult I'm still the same. I don't have trouble getting along with people, but when I have no more reason to see them, then it doesn't bother me to not ever talk to them again.

I often feel alien to the world, not that I'm lonely, or saddened by this. I just feel that there is a degree of seperation between myself and everyone else.

I got sick of being told my poetry was desolete, and emotionless and sad. Even though it wasn't suppose to be. It wasn't as if I was some tool writing about death and how much life sucked. My poetry was about nature, or ideas. Clearly poetry is suppose to be emotional, and personal.

I think poetry is suppose to be somewhat hyperbolic though. If it isn't then there must be something wrong with me.

I've heard it said that if you have to ask "is this love?" then it's not. So, if that is the case, I've never been in love.

I know what you mean about the words, just wow. I used to have a list of words, when I was watching tv if I heard a word I didn't know I'd write it down and look it up later. I used the list to write a poem just for the hell of it one day. I don't watch TV anymore, so I don't keep such a list.

I used to be a member of a poetry site, I deleted my account a couple years ago, alone with my poems. I wrote that one from memory, I'm not sure if it is exactly the same, it was my favorite one. The objective of the poem is to strip away its personage, making it less and less a thing in every line, until it ends with what is left when you strip everything else away.

1085. Orangutan attempts to hunt fish with spear

Comment #171073 by Mitchell Gilks on April 28, 2008 at 9:42 am

Doctor zeius Doctor zeius
Doctor zeius Doctor zeius
Doctor zeius Doctor zeius -ooh - Doctor zeius

What's wrong with me? I think you're crazy.
Want a second opinion! You're also lazy.

Doctor zeius...

"Can I play the piano anymore?"

"Of course you can!"

"Well I couldn't before."

1086. Orangutan attempts to hunt fish with spear

Comment #171071 by Mitchell Gilks on April 28, 2008 at 9:41 am

15. Comment #171036 by Bruno

I was being facetious.

1087. Orangutan attempts to hunt fish with spear

Comment #171028 by Mitchell Gilks on April 28, 2008 at 8:50 am

10. Comment #171017 by Verylee

so why would one decide to go for such a slippery catch (High effort/low payoff)for protein when mice and voles would suffice?

Dunno. Maybe you should track him down and explain to him the illogic of his endevour. I'm sure he will be quite embarrassed when he finds out that he could have gotten equal protein with less effort.

1088. Science leads to killing people

Comment #170814 by Mitchell Gilks on April 28, 2008 at 3:55 am

I agree with PJG, when I first saw this yesterday, I commented there was nothing funny about it. I had no idea how insane the same was. I felt physically sick after listening to his lunacy.

This is not just ignorance, and stupidity, it is quickly becoming evil propaganda that will do the world harm.

1089. Student's 'Be Happy, Not Gay' t-shirt ok

Comment #170781 by Mitchell Gilks on April 28, 2008 at 1:56 am

They say that poetry makes for poor philosophy, but I also like to think that the reason my poetry was bad was because philosophy also makes poor poetry. Cartomancer gave us an excellent piece, which is personal, and full of emotion, and it is superbly written. All of which makes it fantastic poetry in my opinion. When something lacks all of that it is poor poetry, which is why I gave up.

This is one I wrote about god a few years ago, called "I am".

I am sent from dream
A person of no wants or desires
I go unseen
A creature of no emotional fires

I pass life by
A being with no life or age
I cannot cry
A force without love or rage

I have no race
A soul without home or relation
I cannot embrace
A ghost without touch or sensation

I have no face
A spirit without thought or imagination
I am empty space
A apparition void of wish or inspiration

I cannot resist
A thought of human creation
I do not exist
A personification of humanity's lack of perfection.

(*Edit*) I remembered another part.

1090. Student's 'Be Happy, Not Gay' t-shirt ok

Comment #170269 by Mitchell Gilks on April 27, 2008 at 2:35 pm

...folding a single piece of paper?

Rofl. Thanks, I needed something to lighten my mood after thinking about things I hate.

I think I will go watch yuri AMVs while I pet my cat to restore my mood completely.

1091. Student's 'Be Happy, Not Gay' t-shirt ok

Comment #170267 by Mitchell Gilks on April 27, 2008 at 2:32 pm

Well as long as he isn't dressing up naked pregnat women to look like whales, or trying to have sex with them. Perhaps living on an all-whale diet when trying to save them, then I don't think he is insane for being committed to saving the whales.

1092. Student's 'Be Happy, Not Gay' t-shirt ok

Comment #170257 by Mitchell Gilks on April 27, 2008 at 2:21 pm

PETA has been insane since the beginning. Green peace though used to be a an important and inspiring force in the world. The boat that they take the name from, which they called green peace because they stocked it with as much weed as they did food. They set it on the shore of an island that was scheduled for testing a nuclear device for something like 2 months until they agreed not to use it. That was what started Green Peace. The founders left though, because it was hi-jacked by people that now focuse their efforts fighting against "establishments", and scientific research in the ways of food production, and research to feed the impoverished.

They are run by, and followed by idiots that just like the idea of things like "mother earth" and are completely loopy.

On "Bullshit" they had a women go around with a patition to ban "dihydrogen monoxide" and hundreds of people signed before anyone even asked what it was. At one of those protests.

Oh the daily show they interviewed a girl raving about animal rights at that consert about that stuff last year, and she turned out to be on an all-meat diet. I can't express my loathing of these people.

1093. Student's 'Be Happy, Not Gay' t-shirt ok

Comment #170251 by Mitchell Gilks on April 27, 2008 at 2:08 pm

The people that have the most to gain from winning the campaign against animal rights and environmental concerns could not do a better job of discrediting the proponents with claims of being fringe insane weirdoes than they do themselves.

Supposing they had a direct line to Zues, and asked for his help, I highly doubt he could make them look more insane.

1094. Student's 'Be Happy, Not Gay' t-shirt ok

Comment #170244 by Mitchell Gilks on April 27, 2008 at 2:01 pm

Also, I think the biggest obsticle in the way of animal rights in PETA. They are fucking insane, and make us all look crazy.

With commericals of pregnat women in cages and shit. The average person doesn't share the opinion that we are just another animal...you can't persuade people by just presenting them with your conclusions without making a case. They just look completely insane. With little kids look at her and stuff. Nothing comes close to retarding the animal right campaign like PETA.

Green peace as also gone insane, and become anti-establishment and anti-science in the last couple decades. They are losing it for us all because their all insane lunatics.

They're all emotion, and not action. They don't even know what's bad anymore.

PETA even openly supports zoophila...animal rape. I hate them so much.

1095. Student's 'Be Happy, Not Gay' t-shirt ok

Comment #170230 by Mitchell Gilks on April 27, 2008 at 1:50 pm

Maybe you only read the accounts and don't live them inside your head. Perhaps it is a lack of imagination on your part.

If they are imagining dead people, and then crying over them then they are crying over imaginary dead people, not real ones. Without a referent you can only use your imagination to get there, and I really don't think that counts.

but if you can't brought to tears by human and animal suffering then, well...

No, it doesn't bring me to tears, it pisses me off, and does make me sad, but not bring me to tears. I am a vegan that consciously avoids killing bugs if I have the choice. I actively campaign for animal rights, and do as much as I can for the environment effort as well. If someone isn't matching my efforts, but is sheding tears, that doesn't cut it in my opinion. That just pissess me off, it's empty and does absolutely nothing to help. I prefer action to empty emotional displays.

1096. Student's 'Be Happy, Not Gay' t-shirt ok

Comment #170216 by Mitchell Gilks on April 27, 2008 at 1:43 pm

(because straight people think the word holds power over us, which it doesn't).

I'd prefer it if you said "homophobes" or something.

The only way anyone (not you) can claim it isn't natural is by demonstrating that there are no examples of it in nature -- however there is overwhelming evidence that it does occur (hence the term binary).

I think that is a complete non-issue. It wouldn't matter if it were natural or not, none of my favorite things are natural. I ain't given them up just because some idiot thinks "natural equals good".

1097. Student's 'Be Happy, Not Gay' t-shirt ok

Comment #170208 by Mitchell Gilks on April 27, 2008 at 1:35 pm

I don't know if it is pretending or genuinely clueless. I think I am quite clueless about certain emotional things, and genuinely feel uncomfortable in situations where there is too much touchy feely stuffs going on. I am a fairly "abstract" person in general.

Oh no, no you misunderstand. I am only talking about pretending you don't feel an emotion when you do. I am the same way, I get extremely uncomfortable around overt displays of emotion. Also, a lot of people I personally think must exagerate their emotional state, because I've never in my life acted the way some people do.

So I think the faking works both ways, pretending you are not feeling emotion, and pretending you are feeling more than you are. Perhaps I'm wrong, and they are just a lot more emotional than I am. I know that when people get really emotional I am dying to leave.

What bothers me the most is people that act far more emotional about things I hold dear than I do, and yet do absolutely nothing about it. Like meat eaters crying about animal rights pisses me off. Or people balling about the deaths of people they have never met, or even seen before. That I don't understand at all. I feel bad of course, but to cry about it? Just seems weird to me.

1098. Student's 'Be Happy, Not Gay' t-shirt ok

Comment #170168 by Mitchell Gilks on April 27, 2008 at 1:04 pm

I think men are/have been trained to not pay attention to feelings, or carry on as if they don't have them. Just my opinion mind you.

I think that makes them cowardly and intellectually dishonest. They might as well feign a number of other things while they're at playing pretend.

1099. Student's 'Be Happy, Not Gay' t-shirt ok

Comment #170157 by Mitchell Gilks on April 27, 2008 at 12:54 pm

Traditional Japanese love stories almost always have an unhappy ending, so my brother tells me. Rather like the Greek tragic theatre. Life imitates art here I suspect - in my case at least...

Well I wouldn't know about the traditional stuff, since I'm a big fan of anime and manga, which I'm sure many do draw from tradition, as any person would from their own tradition.

I know that plenty do end extremely poorly, the worst I can think of that I've see was "Blue Drop" which has been described as emotional rape. It is all seemingly set up for a happy ending, and then it all goes to shit in the end, and everything is lying in shattered pieces at your feet. Everything that could go bad goes bad, and no one has a happy ending.

Like I said, they generally go fifty-fifty whether they have a happy ending or not, but some of them just have extremely tragic endings that you don't expect.

One of the reasons why I like anime and manga is that it isn't a given that it will all turn out like it is with western stuff 99% of the time. You never know who is going to die, or will win out, or lose out until it's all over.

Some endings just make you scream "WTF!!" Though I somewhat like that, it at the very least means I didn't predict the ending.

I know a hell of a lot of fiction is drawn from Chinese mythology. As I understand it all that stuff about spiritual energy, that they love to make use of in the mega-famous anime like Dragon Ball Z is taken from Chinese mythology. On Naruto they use the Chinese zodiac made into hand signals to form zeals to use magic.

1100. Does science make belief in God obsolete?

Comment #170129 by Mitchell Gilks on April 27, 2008 at 12:25 pm

Dawkins also says that in order to be called God it needs to have created the universe. So clearly if an alien did that it would fit Dawkins idea of God. Perhaps you should go to page one and read that highlighted passage someone posted that says just that. You appear to be selectively reading.