401. US Treaty with Tripoli

Comment #137715 by annabanana on March 3, 2008 at 11:34 am

Jay,

I never made the assertion that you weren't intelligent or rational. I simply insinuated that you weren't presenting yourself that way. These are two very different things. It is also untrue to say that grammar has never been mentioned before on this site. Several people besides myself have commented on the grammar of others.

You cannot say that I can't know whether or not you are trying when you just admitted that you weren't.

I treat this as a casual forum not as if I was submitting a paper for peer review

This obviously suggests that you are not trying.

Anyway, the point is, your trolling for my grammatical errors are making your arguments carry a lot less weight than they would had you tried even one smidgeon to understand them instead of insult them

This sentence doesn't even make sense. I didn't misunderstand my own arguments or insult them. Even more to the point, if I had (which would be strange), what does me trolling your posts for grammatical errors have to do with my arguments holding water or not?

If you had simply refuted al-rawandi rather than just thrown around "f you" several times, I never would have said a word about your grammar. So since you never made any sort of a real argument, I critiqued your grammar as that was the only choice I had.

402. US Treaty with Tripoli

Comment #137695 by annabanana on March 3, 2008 at 11:03 am

Jay,

Part of the point of grammar is to delineate language in a way that it is easily interpreted by the reader. If I am continually having to try and figure out what you mean when you leave out simple things like commas and question marks, it tends to make me (and probably others) not want to read your posts. Also, part of presenting yourself as an intelligent, rational person is using good grammar. If you notice, most of the posters here actually do type grammatically correct posts and even if they make an error or two, most of them are at least trying. Anyway, the point is, your grammatical errors are making your arguments carry a lot less weight than they would had you tried even one smidgeon to correctly punctuate them.

403. US Treaty with Tripoli

Comment #137684 by annabanana on March 3, 2008 at 10:45 am

So can you stop posting:

1) Fabrications
2) False information.

3) Egregious grammatical errors.

404. Fleabytes

Comment #137681 by annabanana on March 3, 2008 at 10:42 am

Hmm...the problem with correcting others is that I almost always make some error in the process myself.

*head desk*

Anyway, I was only kidding.

405. US Treaty with Tripoli

Comment #137675 by annabanana on March 3, 2008 at 10:35 am

Jay, could I suggest writing your comments in a word processing program such as MS Word before posting them? If you do that, it can help you fix your grammatical errors.

Also, if you look at the comment posting guidelines, it tells you how to put quotations in a block.

406. Fleabytes

Comment #137635 by annabanana on March 3, 2008 at 9:27 am

Not to be total pedant, SRWB, but isn't that technically a simile?

Edit: Although, I suppose that a simile is considered a type of metaphor...

407. US Treaty with Tripoli

Comment #137629 by annabanana on March 3, 2008 at 9:18 am

jayalenik,

Here, let me help you.

I hope I have stated my opinion clearly and thanks for the charity your a real christian Jay

I hope I have stated my opinion clearly and thanks for the charity. You're a real Christian.

Jay

408. Fleabytes

Comment #136179 by annabanana on February 29, 2008 at 1:54 pm

Hey, no one declared you the victor! I'll be back another day! But for now, I'm off of work...

409. US Treaty with Tripoli

Comment #136166 by annabanana on February 29, 2008 at 1:48 pm

Cecil=sex slave?

410. Fleabytes

Comment #136163 by annabanana on February 29, 2008 at 1:46 pm

No, no, no! You're supposed to be helping me, not him!!!!

*storms off in a huff*

411. Fleabytes

Comment #136158 by annabanana on February 29, 2008 at 1:40 pm

Yay! Reaganicon!

412. Fleabytes

Comment #136151 by annabanana on February 29, 2008 at 1:36 pm

In that case your multiverse sarcasm doesn't work either!

[regular-old-sarcasm]Ahahahahaha![/regular-old-sarcasm]

413. Fleabytes

Comment #136149 by annabanana on February 29, 2008 at 1:32 pm

Oh yes, I love that game, epeeist!

414. Fleabytes

Comment #136148 by annabanana on February 29, 2008 at 1:31 pm

quetzcoatl,

[infinite sarcasm]Oh, you should be scared![/infinite sarcasm]

Hmmm...it's not infinite if I ended it, is it?

415. US Treaty with Tripoli

Comment #136139 by annabanana on February 29, 2008 at 1:28 pm

every brothel and erect

Nice wording. Especially in this thread.

416. Fleabytes

Comment #136128 by annabanana on February 29, 2008 at 1:20 pm

Simply breaking down the words etymologically does not change the fact that we do not assert that there is no god(s). We generally simply assert that there isn't any proof for god(s).

417. Fleabytes

Comment #136119 by annabanana on February 29, 2008 at 1:17 pm

[super-duper sarcasm]Quetzcoatl, don't worry. I'll get you my pretty![/super-duper sarcasm]

I'll be across the pond in a couple months or so.

418. Fleabytes

Comment #136107 by annabanana on February 29, 2008 at 1:13 pm

Paula, when you first said Dan Barker, I immediately thought of Bob Barker. Anyway, there was no real point in me telling you that other than that I thought it was funny.

419. Fleabytes

Comment #136095 by annabanana on February 29, 2008 at 1:10 pm

And on that note, Quetzcoatl, I'll raise you a seahorse.

420. Fleabytes

Comment #136091 by annabanana on February 29, 2008 at 1:09 pm

[sarcasm]I don't know how you'll carry on with your life. I would be very worried if I were you. I'm a formidable woman[/sarcasm]

421. US Treaty with Tripoli

Comment #136089 by annabanana on February 29, 2008 at 1:07 pm

Klaatu,

rotfl!

Speaking of hot pants, ok, nevermind...

422. Fleabytes

Comment #136080 by annabanana on February 29, 2008 at 1:03 pm

Actually, the Stalinicon was al-rawandi's invention. I was borrowing it for yesterday's prize.

Mine was the Neanderthalicon.

423. Fleabytes

Comment #136070 by annabanana on February 29, 2008 at 12:59 pm

[sarcasm]Don't you worry about that. You'll never even see it coming! muhahahaha[/sarcasm]

424. Fleabytes

Comment #136058 by annabanana on February 29, 2008 at 12:50 pm

[sarcasm]Quetzcoatl, how dare you steal something of mine![/sarcasm]

425. US Treaty with Tripoli

Comment #136018 by annabanana on February 29, 2008 at 12:23 pm

I generally hunt attractive young men with all the wit, charm and good looks available to me.

How interesting, me too!

426. US Treaty with Tripoli

Comment #136007 by annabanana on February 29, 2008 at 12:15 pm

I'm confused. I'm mostly in agreement with you, al-rawandi.

427. US Treaty with Tripoli

Comment #136000 by annabanana on February 29, 2008 at 12:09 pm

Are you willing to pay 50% more for meat?

Would I be willing to? Sure. Can I honestly afford it? I don't know. I would potentially become a vegetarian, but I'm have more food allergies than you can count, soooooo...the only significant source of protein I'm NOT allergic to is animal meat. And I would prefer it if the animals I ate were treated humanely before I consumed them.

428. US Treaty with Tripoli

Comment #135993 by annabanana on February 29, 2008 at 12:00 pm

I am not comfortable allowing the govt. to abridge our consitutional rights

I have to say that I agree. This is how we get things like the PATRIOT Act put permanently in place.

I suppose it's possible that this is somewhat of a pessimistic mindset which I tend not to have, but it seems that it's a slippery slope. Once we start losing constitutional rights...

429. US Treaty with Tripoli

Comment #135980 by annabanana on February 29, 2008 at 11:51 am

al-rawandi,

Hunted animals, by law, are allowed to mature in a natural and wild environment. Some of them are then harvested by hunters, who then eat them.

This is true, but then one runs the risk of ingesting some strange parasite, prion, or viriod that now pervade the populations of deer in the U.S.

So in terms of procurring food the hunting option is much more humane.

I think whether you consider it humane or not depends on how you look at it. While some of the practices of animal farmers have been recently shown to be VERY inhumane, it doesn't have to be this way. If we are providing the animals a safe place to live with free range of motion (or not as limited as the massive chicken houses and such), with little worry of starvation and disease and then killed them in a swift and humane fashion, then I think this is the more humane option.

430. US Treaty with Tripoli

Comment #135968 by annabanana on February 29, 2008 at 11:37 am

As an anecdote...

I grew up in a very small city in South Carolina. We had the lowest crime rate in the state. It's composed of a lot of farm land and I would estimate that a good 90% of the population owned guns.

I'm going to have to agree with al-rawandi here. Although, I can completely see where cartomancer is coming from. If there were some way to rid all of the criminals of guns, I would be all for it, but there isn't, so we must allow the general population the right to protect themselves.

Oh, and

Yeah, I'm beginning to find him very sexy.

I would second (third?) that, but seeing as how I'm female, I don't think it matters. ;-)

431. Fleabytes

Comment #135807 by annabanana on February 29, 2008 at 9:25 am

Once again, gravity (not being visible) is easily tested using vision. You cannot see God. You cannot see any effects of God. Therefore your statement means nothing.

432. Fleabytes

Comment #135793 by annabanana on February 29, 2008 at 9:14 am

That would be an interesting statistic actually. Number of convicts who considered themselves affiliated with some religion prior to being incarcerated as opposed to the number of convicts who consider themselves affiliated with some religion during their incarceration. Of course, this number could be deceiving because if the person had new found faith in prison, they most likely would have considered themselves to have been un-(insert religion here) before they went to prison.

433. Fleabytes

Comment #135761 by annabanana on February 29, 2008 at 8:58 am

I take his words to mean that when they care, when they empathise they do so in spite of and not because of their materialistic world view. The point is that humanism is not rooted in materialism but, in fact, in theism.

This is simply not true. I recommend that you study evolutionary psychology a bit. Empathy is an evolved emotion that serves the purpose of humans being social animals. It was beneficial for humans to be social, therefore it was beneficial for them to have empathy.

We can discuss it as much as you would like. I would like to understand how it is that you have come to believe that humans have an absolute morality (as this seems to be what you are positing) based on God. And I will also be happy to explain in more detail than the above why it is that I accept that humans have the relativistic morals that we do if that's what you would like.

434. Fleabytes

Comment #135738 by annabanana on February 29, 2008 at 8:39 am

Does parodying Dawkins' conception of humans resulting from natural selection as "meat machines" really constitute "nastiness" as one poster seemed to think?

Yes it does, artful dodger. Do you think that simply because many atheists hold a materialist world view that we are somehow less empathetic than the general theist? How would you feel if someone said that you lot of theists were the most unempathetic creatures on earth? Many atheists take pride in being humanists and offering their many and varied services to helping others, so to be told that simply because we accept darwinian natural selection that we are somehow uncaring is not only unfair, it's simply not true.

Secondly, while David may be more subtle about his insults than others on this site, that doesn't mean that they are any less insulting and reviling. The use of direct profanity has seemed appropriate to many on this site simply because many theists come here and continually use the same arguments time and again and people's patience wears thin. I aspire to be patient (probably to a fault) with everyone and explain everything as many times as is needed.

I imagine people's lack of patience here in your particular case spawns from the fact that you were unwilling to go back through the threads and do the research yourself to see what might be construed as particularly nasty. You came here and expected people to hand things to you on a platter. If we came, uninvited, to you table and suddenly demanded food, I think you might be a little bit angry to say the least, but we have submitted and several people here obliged and dug back through the threads for you. Please do not be so unappreciative.

435. Fleabytes

Comment #135642 by annabanana on February 29, 2008 at 7:10 am

artful dodger,

You have asked for examples of where David has been particularly nasty. Some of the previous posters have provided examples, but I would like to add that you are viewing David from a theistic perspective, whereas we are viewing him from our own individual atheistic perspectives. If you notice in David's book, he takes particular offense to many of the things Richard says in TGD that people who are atheists find most mild mannered. Anyway, my point is that our perceptions of connotations are colored by our personal perspectives.

436. Richard Dawkins on five of his favorite books

Comment #135016 by annabanana on February 28, 2008 at 12:51 pm

ratio,

Me too! I had to read it for a random Russian Lit. class. It's so wonderful, though.

437. Feb 12th: Happy Darwin Day!

Comment #134987 by annabanana on February 28, 2008 at 12:29 pm

Epinephrine,

Do you know if the inclusion/exclusion criteria for the clinical trial would have prevented the participation of someone already predisposed to such autoimmune diseases or whose lifestyle may have an effect on the development of the disease? Or is this possibility accounted for in the statistical analysis? I don't know very much about the statistical analyses or clinical trials process (except in the most general terms), I will admit, so my questions are genuine.

438. Fleabytes

Comment #134897 by annabanana on February 28, 2008 at 9:50 am

<|:-(

Wicked witch of the west? "I'll get you my pretty!"

Ok, I'm having a very hard time being serious today.

439. Fleabytes

Comment #134885 by annabanana on February 28, 2008 at 9:36 am

Oh come on al-rawandi, Pleeeeaaaaaase!

I'll give you something in return...what would you like?

(:-| (a Neanderthal perhaps?)

440. Fleabytes

Comment #134880 by annabanana on February 28, 2008 at 9:31 am

Steve,

I suspect that you're right, but I suppose my optimism has gotten a hold of me and I keep hoping that he'll post something meaningful somewhere in all the rubbish.

441. Fleabytes

Comment #134873 by annabanana on February 28, 2008 at 9:26 am

Oh, on to crustaceans now are we? In that case, I'll raise you a spiny lobster and a hermit crab.

442. Fleabytes

Comment #134871 by annabanana on February 28, 2008 at 9:23 am

Sorry, Steve, I seem to have gotten a bit carried away. Perhaps I had too much red bull this morning.

It is strange that clearthinker only responded to Paula after the slew of well-thought-out responses he received from all of us this morning.

443. Fleabytes

Comment #134864 by annabanana on February 28, 2008 at 9:18 am

The prize is this:

[:-{) (the Stalinicon)

444. Fleabytes

Comment #134863 by annabanana on February 28, 2008 at 9:17 am

Incidentally, there is evidence that the big-eyed thrasher shark uses a structure called the rete mirabile located directly behind its eyes to regulate its body temperature. Therefore, I also trump you because my parthogenetically capable shark is also warm-blooded.

445. Fleabytes

Comment #134859 by annabanana on February 28, 2008 at 9:12 am

My shark trumps you all since it is capable of parthenogenesis!!

446. Fleabytes

Comment #134849 by annabanana on February 28, 2008 at 9:05 am

Steveroot,

Cryptozoological animals don't count!

Ok...sorry, I'm shutting up now.

447. Fleabytes

Comment #134843 by annabanana on February 28, 2008 at 9:02 am

Quetzcoatl,

Well, I've got a special trick up my sleeve for you, a two-toothed narwhal! Aaaannnndd...a big-eyed thrasher shark!

448. Fleabytes

Comment #134837 by annabanana on February 28, 2008 at 8:55 am

Quetzcoatl,

Oh! You didn't pull the disgruntled manatee!

In that case, I'll just have to bring out my narwhal!

449. Feb 12th: Happy Darwin Day!

Comment #134835 by annabanana on February 28, 2008 at 8:52 am

Well, I have a tendency to type a ridiculous amount of words into the google search box, but here are some links:

http://www.petsunlimited.org/med/dev.htm#Vaccination
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8572826/ (this article, my vet actually had posted in his office)

450. Fleabytes

Comment #134831 by annabanana on February 28, 2008 at 8:42 am

Damnit, Epeeist! I'm not a Brit, I don't know that game!

Quetzcoatl,

I'll see your manta ray and raise you a cuttlefish