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thread closed for the good of mankind

Raise your hand if you're in there somewhere

:hello2:

Sorry for the fake "quotes", Ace844 and Ridryder, but I didn't know how else to do it. :wink:

First of all, I'm curious as to what NNDB stands for. It's quite entertaining to see what kind of new things people can make out of my online tag. I don't say this in a sarcastic manner, someday i'll make a list and get good laugh out of it.

now for the non-friendly part:

This is honestly the first time using the "quote" things, so I'm hoping this will work.

NNDB, I was particularly amused by the fact that

1.) it made your head hurt, and

2.) "I am going to call you an idiot and a jerk in a pretentious manner, ignoring the fact that this will get me nowhere in a manner still practiced only by third-graders and congressmen. I will now use a cliche but rather cool method to make my next argument seem more valid." Ahhh, yeah. Have you read any of your pretentious e-mails? You're going to assume that persons of faith are nothing more than morons yourself?

The part about this thread that I don't like is those people such as NNDB and Ace who talk down to people of faith and treat them as idiots for believing in something they can't see or comprehend. There is no way to prove to an atheist that God exists just as there is no way for an atheist to prove that God doesn't exist.

Please tell me where I have directed hate towards people in faith in general, instead of just at you, and also where I attempted to prove to you that god does not exist. As I said before, I make a concious effort to treat everyone as equals and intelligent people, though I failed to mention when people say things that I don't like, I tend to flame them with angry mocking posts. Such as when you and your pretentious little "e-mails" (because they are obviously e-mails) display a combination of overt arrogance and hypocriticism. I'm talking down on a group of people and generalizing things on them? Then you must help me flame the person who said this:

I also agree with the person (forgive me I can't remember who - and I'm paraphrasing here) said that evolution can be part of God's work. The average human height alone has increased by what? Six inches over a hundred years? Why can't other things change?

If you know anything about evolution you'd know that it happens very slow. The human height change is not an example of evolution but evidence of the changing understanding and availability of nutrition. (note: I say this without researching it because I'm halfway between "pretty sure" and "sure" and I'm too lazy to look it up.) Very little if any of it can be attributed to evolution.

Also, please enlighten me as to the difference between atheists and agnostics. I forget.

Although this issue is complicated, google and wikipedia are still your friends.

I do not believe there is a god, therefore I am an atheist (a(non)-theism(root for theist, theology)). Agnostics (not related to gnosticism) open up a whole 'nother jar of confusion. In short, they are people who say that the existence or non-existence of god is unknowable by man. This includes Agnostic Theists and Agnostic Atheists. I will agree that the existence of god cannot be proven or unproven, though in such situations I will assume they don't. (Assume as in "since you will not understand the necessary calculations for another few years of school, assume for now that molecules do not have volume") Whether or not I am agnostic is iffy. I've also heard the word used to describe people who are "searching" for a belief system, but that was just hearsay.

I will agree with others that I'd like to see you after a few hundred thousand miles on them tires to see if you have the same cynical opinions you have now. Puppy.

Well sure, but I am definitely much more cynical than all of my peers, and what, I'm going to be more optimistic as life gets harder? Plus it was a self-deprecating comic-relief-intended statement. (I was under the impression that the word "cynical" carried a bad connotation.) Geezer.

Lastly, and I've said it before, the only ca-ca that will be stirred is from people treating other people like idiots.

ditto to that.

Oh, and yes, God is in a rose. Let's put it another way, I just can't see something like glycogenesis just happening. Let alone all the other mysterious and wonderful things that exist in our world.

Did you take biology? It happens because that's the way molecules react. If you took more advanced biology glycogenesis would seem very simple. But this is a topic for an evolution/ID thread, and I REALLY do not want to get into one of those. If you want to discuss this further make a separate thread.

BTW, a lesson in internet user convention, when you write something and push the submit button, and it gets posted on here, that's called a "post". When you send a message to another user that only s/he can see from a non-e-mail website such as a forum, that is called a "pm" (private message) or just "message", or something else depending on the situation. This topic that everyone posts posts in is called a "thread". When you send a message from one e-mail account to another, that is called an "e-mail".

It is obvious you are still living under the umbrella of your parents . Why do I say this? Why would anyone have to illegally download or buy the DVD's of South Park? South Park is on every night on multiple stations, so I am guessing your parents do not allow you to watch it or they have all those channels locked out of your TV. Or maybe you don't have television instead you just sit around reading books from Al Gore or Cindy Sheehan. My point is you are in a very controlled environment, what you see, hear and just plain experience has not challenged you to think beyond your own doorstep.

Uuuuuhhhh you're correct but on incorrect assumptions. I guess I misstated, but I meant to watch that exact episode without waiting for it to happen to be on tv you would have to download it or buy the dvd. I watch whatever I want to whenever I want to. My parents are very liberal in that they don't put many restrictions on me at all, I don't know what kind of crazy environment you grew up in. My political views are not the subject of this thread, though I will say I am less liberal than those two mentioned.

You are correct that I live under the umbrella of my parents, it's a month before my college starts and I don't see a point in renting an apartment for such a short time.

Finding your own strength at your age is easy, you haven't been challenged yet.

Does that mean I'm later going to suddenly have a revelation when life becomes too hard and then find comfort in religion? BAH HUMBUG :twisted: .

Take this advice from someone who thought just like you (sigh) 20 years ago. You don't live in a community you live in an agenda, just like I grew up in. Do yourself a favor, move away. Live life outside of the bay area, then and only then can you truly understand what community and life is all about.

I.... can't imagine this agenda you're talking about... but moving out of this area won't be possible any time soon since my college is only 2 hours from home, unless I can transfer into that other college that I was hoping to get into. But won't moving away put me in another "agenda", just so I can conform to their beliefs too?

P.S. Have some fun, print off what you posted above. Save it and in twenty years read it again, I guarentee you'll get a good laugh out of it.

This one I can actually agree with. It's something we should all do. We don't realize how stupid we are until we grow a little bit older. (or a lot.)

Lot of rambling for one that has not studied theology, or one that appears to misunderstand of what "faith" is. For every argument against, there is an argument for. For simplistic measures this thread should die.

R/r 911

Yes I know I ramble terribly and I apologize for it. Some would think I'm a crazyman by the way I try to explain things.

Can you tell me what kind of information I would learn if I were to take theology, or an example of something that I should know? As I said before I fail to see a good reason for taking a theology class and my max unit limit is ridiculously low, limiting me to only 3 classes and a 1-unit "class". Or maybe I'm misinterpreting the word "studied". Either way I never did because I didn't see why I should, or how that would make me more qualified in these types of discussions.

and I noticed that statement of arguments for and against has come up before in this thread and while this is true, there are better arguments and worse arguments. It's not like all statements hold exactly the same value, or like you can come up with equally good arguments for and against the holocaust. In fact I thought one of the purposes of a forum was to read and write these arguments.

DwayneEMTB, I give your post an atheist equivalent to an Amen. (would that be a ditto?)

I realize this is going to stir up some ca-ca, but some things were said that I wanted to respond to, and I also wanted to add in my own voice to this "discussion".

First, the introduction. I am a liberal atheist from the Bay Area in California, the heart of liberal country. I was not brought up in a christian environment, and most of my friends are not christian. I have not read the bible, gone to church, or taken a class in theology as some people here seem to think I should, because I did not see any reason to. I have a few christian friends, but we never talk about that stuff.

Now that that you know where I'm coming from, lets get the painful part over with. There are some things that made my brain hurt and I wanted to respond to it. Please note that any hate is directed towards the authors and not people of faith in general. I make a conscious effort to consider everyone as intelligent equals, although it's hard to judge if it really works. (what I mean by this is, for example, a man may claim not to be homophobic and wholeheartedly believe it, but when coming into contact with a homosexual certainly drops the facade.)

You realize that if you don't belive in God, then you don't believe in yourself, and PRPG as we know it DOES NOT EXIST!!!!

I believe and seriously hope this is a joke.

Wow vs-eh, you're a very bitter negative person. It tends to p*ss me off when pseudo-intellectuals talk down to people who believe in God, a higher power, an omnipotent being or what have you. These people rant and rave about God not existing and the several thousand ways to say that He (yes, God is a man) doesn't exist. Even though they tend to be more annoying than Jehovah's Witnesses on a early Saturday morning.

For every argument against, there are at least one for. It all ties down to one word:

Faith

There are those who believe if they can't see it, then it can't exist. These are usually the same people trying to make their lives happier by buying stuff to fill any empty voids in their lives because of faithlessness, parents didn't show them enough love, etc. They will have children who will only know love by what people buy them.

The nonsensical babble about keys being God is a circular way of "The Wookie Defense" used in a particularly good episode of South Park. If you don't know what I mean, expand your mind and watch it. If you're not above it that is.

Does God exist? Yes. Am I a model Christian? Absolutely not. I am the farthest thing from it.

If you can look at a rose, a child being born, or a beautiful naked woman and think that there is no God that's fine, you must have no soul. Or you're a woman or gay.

ugly

This is one of the ones that really make my head hurt. The whole first paragraph translates in my head to: "I am going to call you an idiot and a jerk in a pretentious manner, ignoring the fact that this will get me nowhere in a manner still practiced only by third-graders and congressmen. I will now use a cliche but rather cool method to make my next argument seem more valid."

Then he says "Atheists are stupid materialistic bastards. I will now reference a episode of the rather awesome show, "South Park", claiming it to make me more knowledgeable than you, while offering no information on what it was about or things learned from it. And watching this episode will somehow make you greatly more intelligent, nevermind that in order to watch it without watching the show every day, and waiting for it to be shown on tv as a re-run by chance, you would have to either illegally download it or buy a dvd of an entire season, making it rather impractical. Now please listen to my poetry while ignoring all of the bad things of the world. Isn't this so blissful?"

A rose proves to you that god exists? Are you freaking kidding me?

Just curious but how do they determine that the earth is billions of years old? Are they accurate? Because for us bible believing people..the earth should only be maybe 6000 or so years old. And you would think that dinosaur bones from billions or millions of years ago would be nothing but specks of dust.

I don't particularly dislike this person but she is grossly misinformed, although to her credit I will admit that what she said is not necessarily incorrect. Yes, bones from several million years ago couldn't possibly survive intact. What's left is not bone but fossil. The method for determining the age of the earth shall be discussed below. MedicDude has already answered the bone question so I will not continue.

And now we arrive at the man who I know I shouldn't hate but really kind of annoys me. I have a couple good friends that type like this. They don't talk about this stuff in the RL but are greatly religious and for some reason not only capitalize everything related to christianity, but put every letter in caps. This is rather confusing to me as I am used to the rule: CAPSLOCK MEANS SHOUTING, DAMNIT! So as I'm reading it, the "capslocked" words jump out as shouts. I don't hate them for it but it's confusing and annoying. You get the picture.

I for one, believe in GOD- I mean - I work for the GUY. I agree with mike - "I would rather believe and be wrong than not believe and be wrong" - well put mike . Thank You.

huh. For some reason, my brain fixated on on the words "I mean - I work for the GUY" and wouldn't let go. This statement works on several assumptions, including:

1. You know the will of GOD.

2. This fact that you believe in GOD is made inherently obvious by the fact that you work for the GUY, because you know the will of GOD

There have been many people that have passed on-( died and came back to life )-( believers and non-believers ),that have shared their stories about their experiences in heaven or hell. They've shared what they saw, heard, felt, and smelled. It was all very real to them.The experience changed their lives for ever.

It depends on your definition of death, but this statement that people have died, come back to life, and experienced heaven or hell gets a hesitant nnnnnnnnnnnnnnno. I haven't heard of these experiences, and if you're referring to a near-death experience than these experiences are of definitely questionable validity, are uncommon, accompanying effects such as out-of-body experiences which could be easily verified in attempted studies, weren't.

As far as how old the earth is - no one really knows." One day is with the LORD as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. "-2 PETER 3:8.

The heat in the earth's core makes everything age really fast just like something that is hanging from your rear view mirror ages really fast from the sun's rays comming through the window.

what? Scientists determined the age of the earth by radiometrically dating (carbon dating but on elements with much longer half-lives) meteorites from other places in the solar system and came up with a best-guess estimate of 4.54 billion years, with an uncertainty of 1 percent, which probably means a p-value of .01 if you've taken statistics, and if you've taken statistics you'll know that if by chance the number is off, it's not going to be very far off.

I choose to believe the bible. That it ( the bible ), is GOD'S written word - written by men that were inspired by GOD's HOLY SPIRIT.

Some day, everyone will believe in GOD - whether in heaven or in hell. " That at the name of JESUS every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess thst JESUS CHRIST is LORD to the glory of GOD the FATHER. " philippians 2:10 - 11.

You believe in the bible. That's good for you. I believe religion does good for some people. But the expectation, hope, and belief that all people will become christian is wildly unreasonable.

Now if you're still here after all that ca-ca stirring, I'll add in my own beliefs.

I don't believe in god, nor souls, nor heaven or hell. That's right, I'm a hardcore cynical bastard atheist. I don't believe in divine retribution, I believe we must make our own justice. I don't believe in fate besides the kind that we make ourselves. I don't believe in a meaning of life, I believe we have the opportunity to give our lives meaning and we should, so in essence the meaning of life is to give life meaning. And I don't believe in the afterlife, I believe we have a short time here and we have a responsibility to make sure that that time is not shortened further and to give quality to not only our lives but the lives of others, and health care is the way I want to fulfill that responsibility. So no, I don't believe in god. But that doesn't make me weak or immoral or depressed. It just means I have to find my strength in myself.

EDIT:

"And watching this show will somehow make you greatly more intelligent, nevermind that in order to watch it you would have to..."

CHANGED TO:

"And watching this episode will somehow make you greatly more intelligent, nevermind that in order to watch it without watching the show every day, and waiting for it to be shown on tv by chance, you would have to..."

Can a butter knife cut?

What are you cutting?

Do you not think that family members of victims and coworkers going online and can find this kind of s***

Actually, it might not have made the news in canada but there's a 9/11 movie coming out soon and Nicholas Cage is plastered all over the newspapers and other advertising mediums in fire gear.

and what's with the people always yelling at us to either "never forget" or "don't remind me". Will they make up their minds? It seems everything is inappropriate these days.

For all of you who don't know, Eric Bauman does not make his own material but instead finds something remotely popular, slaps an ebaumsworld.com sticker onto it, and posts it on his own website with no credit given to the original author or website. Bauman should be hated not for the things he makes, but the fact that everything he posts is actually someone else's stolen work. (This is no excuse for having such material on his site because he chooses what he does and does not steal.) Any complaints or efforts to control content on his website will be promptly ignored. In addition to that, Bauman's strategy of stealing content has won him a freaking cowload of money, some of which he spends on snooty moraless lawyers. He is untouchable to the common man.

In regards to the flash, some 12-year old kids probably made this as a genuine attempt at making people feel better by giving them a way to fight back, however badly it fails and however inappropriate it is. I can see no attempt at humor.

In my EMT class were were told not to touch the patient during the seizure, not even to place an OPA or an NPA, NRB, or to bag, because the violence of the movement may mean risk of c-spine damage when the body moves violently while the head is held still. So my question would be, in the case of long, violent seizures, when and how would it be appropriate to step in and start bagging when ALS is not available?

It sounds like a liberal fairytale because it's satirical of the liberals as well as the conservatives, i.e. it says at the end "and they all lived happily ever after" because we all already know how the story ends. It does have a definite liberal lean, though.

Then click the "Register Now" button. It's free. :-P

Bug Me Not

The path of least resistance!

I actually have an extension for firefox that lets me just right click a login form and bugmenot's in the list of things you can do (whatever you call it).

I just took the test on 4/20 and I thought it wasn't hard at all, even though I thought my class was way too easy on its students. I was unsure of 17 questions, which I round up to 20 just to be sure, so I'm guessing I missed between 15-30 questions which is safely below the 45 wrong-answer limit. The questions that I found were hard were excellent questions, exept for the fact that since the class is over you can't go over them and learn from them.

I personally did not like this story at all. So the good samaritan got downgraded to the good christian non-church-going hand-holder? What's next? The good christian priest who accidentally farted at dinner but was the only one kind-willed enough to get a tissue for his daughter?

*prepares tomato shield*

I was looking around for boots and someone mentioned that you need steel toed boots for EMS.

So my question is, how many of you guys are required to have steel-toed boots and how many of you actually have them?

Estrogen induced stupidity, huh? You wanna hear about the injuries I've treated in my male friends? From sheer stupidity? Guess they must have excess estrogen!

Wendy

NREMT-B

Actually, I skimmed an article a while back that said it wasn't testosterone that causes violent behavior, it's low levels of testosterone (and maybe high levels of estrogen I can't remember).

*slow inches back towards the corner*

Okay..... :roll:

Or you can handle your problems in an honest and mature manner, without degrading anyone (including yourself) in the process.

I do believe there was a high level of sarcasm in asysin2leads's post.

It's top secret. Hush hush. I wouldn't expect mere civilians to know about it. :wink:

Too late. Your secret's already been revealed on Grey's Anatomy.

I've always wondered why I've never heard about an EMT or medic union, with the way they're treated. I mean, cmon here. It's financially better for you to work at safeway or starbucks than as a paramedic.

Then again with the supply/demand thing, I guess a union wouldn't be able to survive.

More news today:

1. Cheney's "medical people" weren't the secret service. He actually has a medical team travel with him, since he had 4 heart attacks in the past. The ones doing the spinning were the people who said it was the secret service tending to whittington.

2. "Behind" apparently was a relative term. Whittington was to the right of Cheney, and Cheney thought he was the one furthest to the right, which would have meant he had a clear shot.

A search for "secret service paramedics" or similar queries yielded very few results. There apparently are secret service paramedics, but they seem to stick around federal buildings only. I apologize for my lack of knowledge.

Btw, SSG G-man, if you want to use that logic, why don't they train teachers, soldiers, security guards, bus drivers, and police officers to be paramedics too? They certainly could. You would think after school shootings, wars, robberies, and other random emergencies that they might have learned something.

I read this earlier today and two things bothered me.

1. Some articles said the secret service tended to the man who was shot, and some say it was "emergency personnel". Lea Anne McBride, Cheney's spokesperson, says "Fortunately, the vice president has got a lot of medical people around him and so they were right there and probably more cautious than we would have been". I wasn't aware secret service qualified as "medical people". Now, who's doing the spinning?

2. The man who was shot "came up behind the vice president and the other hunter". When I say some one "came up" behind me, he's right behind me. Yet, he seems to have been pretty far away, judging by the description of his injuries. The quail Cheney was aiming for, which was too far away to notice him, flew from in front of him to behind him, flying low enough for him to accidentally shoot his companion. How high was the quail flying and how was Cheney able to track a small(?) quail but not see an adult man? And how frickin long does it take for him to take a shot?

I was listening to a podcast of an interview of a member of MSF, and he said we should not be charging by act, we should be charging through tax, because usually, the ones who need emergency care are the poorer ones, and they cannot pay or paying that amount would devastate them. They need the money more than the richer ones. (Keep in mind he's talking about people in africa going to an MSF malnutrition clinic.)

Does that same logic apply here? Any thoughts?

I'm pretty sure the vehicle had the right of way, the dog should have used a designated crosswalk .

But in all seriousness, I doubt someone could be charged with assault (or assault on an officer) with a vehicle if he/she was obeying all traffic laws.

However there definitely is a valid case for hit and run.